This morning, as I was attempting to leave the house and come to work, I spilled a full travel mug of coffee down the side of my coat, over the counter, into a drawer, and across the floor.

You have no idea how much coffee your travel mug can hold until the flood almost swallows your kitchen, you know?

I (very uncharacteristically for me) shouted a curse word, then mopped up enough of the mess to tide the kitchen over until this evening.

I also fought the lining out of my coat (it zips out, but it was stuck, and more cursing ensued) and threw it on the floor in a snit. It wasn't wet, only the outside part of the coat was drenched, but I didn't want it to get wet. I wore the wet part of the coat to work in some kind of masochistic fury.

I gassed up, at the cheap station that's on my way to work. $2.17/gallon.

I got stuck in traffic behind some kind of landscaping truck-and-trailer combination and I think they neglected to put the cap on a gas can in the trailer or something. They were certainly leaving a trail of gasoline as they went.

I'm telling myself that the gallon or two of liquid that splashed out of the trailer as they took out a curb rounding one corner was probably just water and not some kind of pesticide pollution, in spite of the smell.

I'm just saying. When Monday morning starts out like that, it doesn't inspire confidence for the week.

Believe it or not, I rather regret having accepted the offer of having Good Friday off. I'm not religious and beyond Christmas (which celebrates the religion of consumption, so I'm okay with it), I generally disregard all religious holidays. And the weather sucked, so I didn't get to do any of the things I'd planned.

On the other hand, the truth is that I like having a spring break holiday even though I'm no longer in school, so most of the weekend I just told myself I was on spring break. (As I understand it, a number of people also have today off as a holiday to "recompense" them for having "missed" getting a day off for Easter, which fell on Sunday, much like one gets when Christmas or New Years' falls on a weekend, but Easter always falls on Sunday, so somehow that seems very wrong to me.)

This weekend's excitement: Drugstore.

This may not sound thrilling to most of you but a couple of times a year I get to feeling all girly and I want to stock up on makeup and fancy lipsticks and useless concealers (I never have zits or circles under my eyes.) and eye liner and whatnot. This weekend was one of those times.

I bought three kinds of base, two concealers, two eyeliners, three lipsticks, and some powder. I bought a handful of other things, enough to bring the grant total up to just of $100. (Ouch.)

So...Saturday, after I got home, I gave myself a facial in preparation for playing with my new toys. Unfortunately I forgot the wash off, do not rub rule of exfoliation, and wound up causing a bit of skin damage I can still see today.

Two of the foundations were okay, but the third one was fabbo. Light, like I can't even feel it there, but with just enough coverage to smooth out some of those sun-damage and age-related imperfections that so liberally sprinkle my face any more.

The concealers were both fun but pointless.

The fancy new lipstick was too much trouble. It was a "twelve-hour" lipstick. "Put on the base coat. Do not rub or blot lips while you wait for it to dry. Then apply top coat." I might not have minded had I not noticed, on the package, the instructions to re-apply the top coat throughout the day "as needed." So, I guess the invisible base coat was the 12-hour part. Can't really see the point.

I don't read labels the way I should.

The second new lipstick was sticky and shiny and amused me all out of proportion to any improvement in my appearance. The third was my old stand-by, so I didn't even play with it. I know it looks fine.

The eyeliners were tricky. I know there are secrets. No matter what I do, eyeliner just doesn't make that much of an impact on how I look, you know? You can see it in the "before-and-after" makeover pictures in women's magazines at the hairdressers, women look dramatically different. But not me. I think it's trick photography.

Strangest of all...every, single thing I bought was the right color. I don't think that's ever happened to me before. (Okay, two of the foundations were a tad too light, but I don't ever "match" any of the standard foundation categories, so I'm used to that. If you're German-English-American Indian-African American, you don't shop "off the rack" for foundation. I've spent most of my foundation-time in my life carefully blending different colors.)

Other than that...I took the weekend "off" for the diet as well and consumed easily three times the calories I burned. Today, I am back on the diet and actually glad to be here.

And I worked on the SEN. I wrote. (Well...deleted. But I did some writing, too.) Then, of course, I couldn't resist sitting down last night to re-read and see what the latest slash-and-burn attack had done for or to that monster.

I'm sitting there...reading along...and then, I had the oddest experience.

I found myself nodding! For the first 17 pages, it seems to almost, sort of, very nearly work.

It's was the most astonishing sensation.