Duchess Jane

Tomorrow is February 29th. An extra day. “Here,” says the calendar, “do something with these leftover hours, I don’t need them.”

I can’t think of anything that I’d rather do with my extra day this year than what I have planned. I have taken the day off of work – inspiring ire in Duke, who has to work tomorrow and believes that because he’s salaried, he’s working for free. I will wake up bright and early and do some last minute sprucing up of my house. Then I will drive to the airport and home again and spend the rest of the day with my favorite person in the world.

She is stunningly beautiful and the brightest, perkiest person you’ll ever meet. Lurking right underneath that sparkle in her eye is the sharpest wit that you’ll ever encounter. I’ve really tried hard to hate her, because she’s definitely the kind of person that just has too much going for her, it’s not fair. I’ve tried irrational jealousy, petty fault-finding, and I’ve put a few minutes into thinking about downright sabotage. Last year, another friend and I made a list of things we hate about her, but we only came up with one item – that she flexes her biceps too much. Do you see how hard it is to be friends with a person like this? I want to dump her just because she can’t satisfy my need to dislike her. But then my phone rings and I hear “Hi, Pumpkin!” and then I love her all over again.

We have simple things planned. I will show her my house and my town and things about my life that she has only seen photos of so far. We will eat sushi at Marc’s and have a beer at my bar and trudge through the snow and ice so that I can point out my park and say “There, remember when I said . . . that’s where it happened.” We will drive to the Wisconsin border for no reason other than to say “I’ve been to Wisconsin” and we will go to Beer Wonderland and skip, hand in hand, down its many beerlicious aisles. And every minute of every hour, we will laugh.

On Saturday, I will have other things to worry about, planning and parties and stress. But tomorrow is my extra day, and I will spend it laughing. Thank you, dear Universe, for my extra day and my best friend and for the opportunity to enjoy them together.

Tonight is Part 1 of a 2-part season finale. Join us for Project Runway live chat by clicking the Chat Room link above. Transcript will be posted!

I am at home today, my 2nd day this week of part-time work. Because I worked all weekend, I’m off at 11 am on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I’m supposed to be using my time to get my house in order for my company this weekend, and I find myself catching up on episodes of Friends on the DVR and moping because the snowstorm has made my electricity, cable and internet fairly unreliable today.

I received three new books from Amazon today. Under the Influence and Beyond the Influence (a story I will get to another day) and Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure.

I am obsessed with this book, and have only put it down long enough to turn on my computer and type this out before I forget it. These “memoirs” are making me laugh, making me cry, making me think. To be able to sum up your whole life in six words? Brilliant. I will come up with my own six words eventually.

But here are my six borrowed words for the day:

“All night phone calls complete me.” – Harry Manning

I never thought about how much I miss all night phone calls until I read this and felt the air rush out of my lungs. Yes. Oh, all night phone calls. How many of you have had a phone call with me that lasted until dawn in at least one of our time zones? Tell the truth now.

One of the episodes of Friends that I watched today had Joey and Monica having a conversation about Joey’s relationship with an actress, wherein Monica proclaimed “You had THE NIGHT!” She was referring to that one night in the beginning stages of a relationship where you spend the whole night talking. In Joey’s case, it was in person, but I think that almost every single one of my THE NIGHT!s – whether a romantic relationship or purely friendship - have taken place via telephone.

Duke and I do not have a land line, we only use our cell phones and I hate talking on a cell phone, and I’m so unbelievably tempted to call Verizon right now and say “I want my all night phone calls back!”

Perhaps while I’m at it, I can get a price on DSL, because Comcast is pissing me off today.

1.) I had a home show (trade show for the construction industry) this weekend, hence my absence since Friday. Just too much to do! For once, I ignored the computer for an entire weekend. The home show went well for my company. I spent a lot of time standing and smiling and being polite with stupid people, which is exhausting.

2.) The roller derby bout on Saturday night was freakin' awesome. I had a fantastic time and (as far as I know) didn't totally screw up my job as Penalty Mistress. I don't have photos but I imagine some will surface eventually and I haven't looked for any yet, but I'll keep you posted.

3.) The house. Oh dear lord I don't know what to say. We are in a very awkward stage with the kitchen right now, and unfortunately we have a huge party this weekend and everyone we know will be here to see it. The kitchen cabinets. What can I even say about them? They are half-stripped, so half wood grain and half orange. The walls are partially painted, so part is the new blue I picked out to match the new floor, part is the old green, and part is still covered with red z-brick. The floor looks fantastic. But the combination of all of these mid-point projects is that it looks like somebody ate some Easter eggs, ate some wood, ate some brick, and vomited all over my kitchen. I look around and I feel like I'm on acid. I will post photos this afternoon.

We put up the bleachers in the living room. Wrecks is not happy. Even when there's cheese.

Wrecks and the Bleachers from Duchess Jane on Vimeo.