I told Sage that if her mom and dad capitulated, I would take her. They did, and I did (Rick came too, since she is under 18 and needed parental consent and I am not legally a parent). We went to the same place where I got my navel and rook piercings, and where we took Amelia to get her helix piercing almost three years ago (damn, time flies!). I went into the back room with Sage for moral support. I asked her if she wanted to hold my hand while it was done. “There’s no shame in it. I held someone’s hand when I got my piercings done, Amelia held my hand when she got hers done,” I told her. “Amelia is a wuss,” Sage proclaimed. She graciously forbore to say the same thing about me. “Okay, then,” I said, and just stood back.

She got marked for the piercing, okayed its position, and then she got pierced. No problem, the kid didn’t turn white, she didn’t look faint, she was a real trooper as the piercing artist put the ring in. She looked in the mirror and gushed, “It’s so cool!” Since she was taking it so well, I asked if we could stick around a few more minutes so I could get another hoop for my own helix piercing. She agreed and gleefully went off to show her dad, who was waiting in the main shop area.

I was paying for my new hoop when I heard a tremendous thud. I looked over my shoulder and saw Sage on the floor, with Rick crouched beside her. Five minutes after she was pierced, the shock of it had caught up with her, and she hit the decorative steel plating on the floor like a ton of bricks. I ran over in time to have her look at me and say in wonder, “Did I just pass out?” Why yes, grasshopper, yes you did. The piercing artists were awesome about the whole thing, sat her down in front of the airconditioner and gave her a lollipop to raise her blood sugar while I ran downstairs to get Gatorade from the bodega. When I got back, Rick went out to get the car, and pretty soon we were on our way to her apartment, not much the worse for wear except for a bump on her head.

Turns out this was the first time she had ever passed out and she while she didn’t like the whole process, she did like being able to say she had passed out. It made the story, so to speak. I told her it probably would have been better if she hadn’t told me that Amelia was a wuss, since Amelia had not passed out after her piercing, but I was informed that was not the point. The official story is that for Sage’s 15th birthday she got a helix piercing, and she passed out. And it was LEGEN-wait-for-it-DARY.

I guess I’m at a loss. I hope it passes soon.

I have had my air-conditioner on a fair amount this summer, actually. But because Con-Ed charges more than any electric company in the Continental United States, and because I don’t want them to own me any more than they already do, I have tried to…oh, how do I put this? I’ve tried to be a cheap bastard. We’ve kept the damned air conditioners on the highest temperature we could stand and always left them on the Energy Saver setting. I can count the hours where those air conditioners were set to less than 78* on two hands and one foot, and we didn’t leave them on around the clock. Oh, no, since we have no geriatric cats anymore, we let Freddie and Charlie soak up a bit of heat during the day (Animal Planet’s Cats 101 assured us that cats like heat, people, we did this with Animal Planet’s guidance), and then set the a/c timers to come on an hour before we got home. We were really trying just to cut the humidity in the house and make do by wearing as few clothes as possible. And the bill for the two room apartment that I share with one man and two cats from June 8-August 6? It was $292, even with those remedial steps. I shudder to think what it would have been if the a/c had been set to 76*. And we will not discuss the night Con Ed gave me a robocall telling me to turn off all non-essential electric devices, such as my television and air conditioner because of the potential for rolling blackouts (mostly because the irony of that, as Rick and I sat in our underwear in the dark with just the TV and a/c on still makes me laugh).

You can imagine that 78* doesn’t really make you want to spin, knit, or weave wool, so I haven’t been. I’ve been reading fiction like a fiend, giving my brain the candy that it wants after two semesters of graduate school. The money I didn’t give to Con Ed went to Amazon so that I could read the Southern Vampire Mysteries on my Kindle. I have exactly two weeks before classes start, and I am going to finish the last two books in that series, the last book in the Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, and the most recent Elizabeth Peters novel before I have to start reading about Vietnam if it kills me. Think I won’t? Well if the temperatures stay like they have all summer, it’s not like I’m going to be playing with wool any time soon, even with the a/c on.

Tomorrow is another Friday off from work, since we’re on four-day workweeks right now, and I’ll be spending it at Governor’s Island out in New York Harbor. Hoping to do a mini-photo safari with the little camera (Nikon Coolpix), but we’ll see how long it takes me to upload those – I’ve got pictures on that camera from the beginning of June and haven’t done a photo dump yet. So, enjoy what I’ve got here, it might be a bit before the next ones go up!

Happy birthday, Mr. Obama. I think this is one hell of a birthday present.

Miss you, Joe-Joe.

Me: I think you should call me that from now on when you introduce me. “This is my lady, Julie.”

Rick: Um, no. I could call you my old lady.

Me: I’m younger than you.

Rick: Well, yeah, but if we were bikers, you would be my old lady.

Me: We’re not bikers, so you can see how that wouldn’t work.

Rick: …

Me: Exactly.

I hope so, because right now I’m feeling more harassed than anything else. I want to enjoy being on summer vacation, dammit!

One of my favorite methods of procrastinating with papers is to think, “Hm, I need some new music to write to,” and then I’m off for an hour on iTunes . Today, as I’m downloading three albums, I thought back to the first time I ever bought three albums at once (actually, they were tapes, it was the 90s). I had really fallen under Queen’s spell after Freddie Mercury’s death because of “Wayne’s World,” and remembered that I liked their song “Another One Bites the Dust” even though it got me in trouble with nuns when I was in kindergarten, so I bought their Classic Queen album. I listened to that thing constantly, and was very glad that it listed which album each of the songs on it came from, because it was very obvious to me that I would have to own all of Queen’s albums.

My allowance was like $40 a month at the time, so it was no small thing when I decided that I would be getting three of their albums at once. I was going to be broke for the rest of the month, but by God, I would have new music to listen to! So I persuaded mom to take me to the mall, and we walked into the Sam Goody shop, where I picked out A Kind of Magic, The Miracle, and Innuendo, all snug in their giant plastic anti-theft devices (I really hope those were recyclable, because there must have been millions of those chunky things, remember them)? Mom asked was I sure I wanted to spend that much money all at once, didn’t I want to wait and get one later? Of course I didn’t want to wait! I wanted them all, right now. And I bought them, plunking my $30 down and then walking out of the store, sublimely happy with my purchases.

The three albums I bought today don’t have a lot in common with Queen–they’re all alternative acts, for starters, because I’m finally going over to that dark side–but they made me think of that day, the first day that I bought three albums at once because they were all brilliant and I had to have them. My first experience with impetuous consumerism, which has become a theme in my life: “I Want It All” has been my theme song for years, people. I’m lucky I didn’t get a credit card until college and that my credit card debts are all paid off. Well, except for what I charged on my Gap card yesterday, which I will pay off sensibly when I get the bill.

And now that these new albums have downloaded, I guess I’m going to work on this paper. Maybe I’ll listen to those three Queen albums today while I work…

In reality, it was a very lazy day. Rick hit golf balls in the morning, I…didn’t do homework. (Spring Break mentality is killing me, people. I am so behind on the homework, but there I sat watching Project Runway.) In the afternoon, he came home and cooked us beef tenderloin for dinner, and then we flipped back and forth between the Sox game and The Sound of Music. He’s a good boy, letting me not only watch musicals but sing along with them. Although I wonder how much of it he was actually paying attention to and how much he was making up scenes in his head. Like this one, which flew out of his mouth because he has no internal censor:

Maria (on TV): “Which brings me to another transgression, Reverend Mother. I was singing out there today.”

Reverend Mother (on TV): “Only in the abbey do we have rules about postulants singing.”

Maria (on TV): “I can’t stop wherever I am.” (Rick cuts in, as Maria) “In fact, I made up a new song today! Would you like to hear it? ‘Dominique-nique-nique….’”

Rick as Reverend Mother (severely annoyed): Maria! That’s enough!”

I almost pissed myself because I was laughing so hard.

Other than that, we had a very lazy day, as shown in this photo montage.

“Dude, what? I’m sleepin’ here.”

“See? I has a tired.”

“What the hell is the other one up to? Is he going to jump on me again?”

“No, I’m just stretchin’!”

“But I could kick your ass. I have thumbs, you know.”

“I hate my life.”

Actually, that shows that three of us had a lazy afternoon. Freddie looks harassed. Somewhere in cat heaven, Joe is looking down and laughing because now Freddie knows what it’s like. Karma exists, even on the feline level.