Chortle.

This gave me a good laugh to pull me out of my morning slump. (Thanks Samantha!)

Mondays.

Sometimes sitting in my cubicle at the beginning of the week makes me feel like a trained monkey.

(Sketch by me.)

Fancy girl.

I have a dog named Arlo. She has a raincoat. Arlo is an 18 lb Manchester Terrier. She has long spindly legs and enormous pivoting, telescoping ears that clap behind her head when she yawns. She is not, in fact, a vicious miniature pinscher thankyouverymuchconcernedBrooklynparents.

But she has a raincoat. It's navy with yellow piping and if it didn't mean that we'd match, I'd wish that I had one like it. I swore that I would never be one of those people that dressed their pets in cutesy little outfits, but she won't go out in the rain without it. My dog, fierce appearance and butch name aside, is kind-of a wuss. And I have become that lady, walking past the hipsters smoking outside the bar at 8:30 on a Sunday, with a dog in a jacket.

Saddle up.

I've had a case of writer's block for over a year now. I think the only way to get rid of it is to just start with something, anything to get back in the habit, and to remember that the worst circumstances make for the best songs.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program with the following musical interlude...

If I were good

I'd post every day, or at least every other. Instead I get sick, move out of and then back into my apartment, have surgery and take weeks to recover, all while neglecting this little vanity project of mine. Oops. I suppose if I were good I'd feel worse about it too.

Housekeeping.

Eloise can keep the Plaza. After living in a hotel (albeit one of New York's swankier establishments) for over a week all I wanted was the familiarity of home. Room service is effing tiring after a while, you know?

Now we're moved back in. And though everything smells like paint and polyurethane, it's good to be back where I belong.