You may have heard from Melissa that my dad was recently hospitalized to remove a cancerous tumor from his colon. That means that during my daily hospital visits this week, I have learned more about my dad's digestive tract than I ever wanted to know. I've also witnessed an remarkable demonstration of resillience by both my parents. My mother has been at his side every day for 12 hours a day, performing acts of heroism (like emptying his colostomy bag!!) without even batting an eyelash. My father is somehow managing to smile through the pain, joking with nurses to try to get them to smuggle extra doses of Vikodin. I know I hardly ever admit this to them, but my parents are awesome.

I feel sad right now. I kind of enjoy the sadness, though.

Muffin, my zippy little dwarf hamster, died tonight. Two days ago she was fine, happily carrying along with her daily hamster life (running in wheel, being enthusiastic about things, pouching food obsessively). Yesterday she seemed groggy. Today I found her curled up in her nest in a coma. A few hours later she died. She was a spritely little thing.



Muffin, May 2003 - Jan 2005.

Three weeks and two Hawaii trips later, my hair is starting to go brown again. What the...? This is supposed to be permanent hair color. *cries*

OooOOooOOOoOOO... last night I dyed my hair "Blue Black." This is a vast enhancement over my natural color, "Just Black." I'm only half-kidding. My hair actually accepted the dye this time, so now I've got shiny-black Wonder Woman locks! My bathroom surfaces are splattered with blue, as if some terrible Smurf massacre had just occurred there. Also, my head smells like a salon.

Hi. The holiday season is officially over, but the Christmas tree will probably stay up for another few weeks at least. Stephen gets all romantic about Christmas trees. I spent New Year's weekend doing a whole lot of nothing, just staying up late surfing the Internet then waking up the next day at noon. My life isn't as exciting as it used to be. Last night I went to a Sebastian show, which I haven't done in months, maybe even a year. It made me feel interesting again.

So I guess when my mind gets restless like this, it starts to think of its own ways to amuse itself. I've been trying to think of a way to describe the "language" of vulgar insults using context-free grammars. Even though Ben says it's too hard to describe natural language this way, I think it's possible to do it with a small subset of language. So far, my definition would be able to generate the phrase "ass-guzzling bastard-eater," so as you can see, I still have some work to do...!

P.S.--Harold and Kumar came out on DVD yesterday. I advise you all to watch it!