Yeah I texted a vote for Sanjaya. What of it?

Old Procrasty McCrasterson is rearing her ugly head again. It's been a while since I've seen her. Since I came back from New Zealand and started working again, I haven't done so much freelancing, so these Sunday afternoon procrastination sessions have been much less frequent. .

After getting back from NZ, I totally stopped doing theater reviews, which is a huge burden off my shoulders. For me, the only good thing about being a theater critic was that I could tell people I was a theater critic. I started in New York writing for Backstage.com, and when I moved to LA, I started writing for Backstage West. That had a lot of prestige, so I did it very happily, but then there was a changeover in management. The result was that the two editors who really championed for me were fired and/or forced to resign. The person left was this crotchety middle aged woman who didn't like me very much. From what I heard, she brought back her writer friends who had formerly been banned from writing for the publication, which meant there was no room for an inexperienced young writer with little background in theater.

Luckily I got a regular theater writing gig for a gay men's magazine, which made me feel legit again. I did it for a few years, and got a lot out of it, but it required going to see what was usually not very good theater at least once a week, and every other week I would sit at my computer, paralyzed by the fear that I had absolutely nothing to say about the play. Also, between my former life as a theater publicist and years of writing about plays, I have an enormous basket filled with hundreds of programs, and yet I can count on one hand the number of really good shows I saw.

It was clear that I wasn't cut out to be a theater writer, because I'm really not that into it. I haven't studied it very much, haven't read a lot, and get bored very easily. So it's really been for the best that I stopped being involved. The irony is that now my present life involves travel writing...and I don't travel!

At the moment, I'm heavily researching travel books for two different writers, and I'm about to take on a full-time jobs as managing editor for one of the writer's production companies. This is all good, and I'm thrilled to having finally found a niche, but I still feel like somewhat of a fraud. Yes, I've traveled much more than the average American, and I totally get the importance of experiential travel, to really get a feel of local cultures, flavors and people. So perhaps I'm in a perfectly good place for this role. And I'm a darned good researcher and interviewer, so that's probably what's most important.

But, still, I'm running into the age-old problem, of sitting in front of the computer and feeling like I have nothing of value to say about this topic. It's a frustrating feeling, especially as the clock ticks away and the pile of work doesn't diminish. Fortunately, I've never failed myself in producing something, even it it requires sitting in front of the computer for eight hours straight, checking my email, reading about American Idol and learning recipes for spinach pie. Okay, there was one or two plays where a play sucked so bad that I couldn't even talk about it, and many interviews that were so long that I just couldn't figure out where to begin.

But that's what blogging is for, so perhaps with this I've uncorked the creative flow, and I can start writing for real now. That, or find another cup of coffee and track down Blake Lewis's performance on AI last week on YouTube. Sure, he was singing about a dirty old man wanting to know who's your daddy (seriously, ew) but you have to admit it's kind of a hot song, and coupled with beatboxing that's all "ntz ntz ahhhh" at the end, you get a pretty fantastic performance.

Our new sofa finally came! It arrived yesterday, and today we spent all morning cleaning various parts of the apartment, dismantling Aaron's old futon and throwing it away (okay he did that part), dismantling my old futon and remantling it in Aaron's office (okay, he did those things too), installing a shelf above my desk (him again) and, um, I scrubbed dog piddle off the carpet and artfully arranged blankets and throw pillows on the new sofa.

It's not quite as comfy and deep as I thought it was- I would blame Jennifer Convertibles for false store displaying, but I also tend to be an impulsive shopper and a wishful thinker. Plus I think it looks awesome in our living room, and that's what's really important. The storage cubes/ottomans are SO cheaply made- the bottoms are nothing more than cardboard. But they look so cute that I don't care.

Otto likes it too:

A lot... (he's sitting on the back, if it's not clear)

On a separate, but Otto-related note, I've created a monster. Sometimes he wanders into the bathroom with one of us, and puts his little front paws on the toilet seat to look inside. So to freak him out one day, I flushed it while he was looking. He went nuts! Barking, staring into the toilet, running around the apartment, barking some more, running back to the toilet to stare into it. It's so adorably funny that I indulged whenever I could. Now, whenever I open the bathroom door, he runs in and looks into the bowl, then looks at me expectantly. If he hears the toilet flush and he's not in the bathroom, he barks wildly and runs around the apartment.

I made it black and white to avoid offending those who don't like to look at other people's piddle:

He looks calm here, but trust me, he's not.

I'd like to point out that a) those two pictures of shredded coaster were two different piles. When I tried to take a picture of him chewing it up, surrounded by bits of coaster, he looked very guilty and ran away with it in his mouth. He does that a lot, and usually I spritz him with water yelling "Drop it!" It usually works, but only after he's mildly soaked.

b)I just texted a vote for Antonella Barba. I know. That says a lot about my own state of mind right now, although I don't know what it's saying. I've only ever voted on AI once before. That was Ruben Studdard singing "A Whole New World." I didn't get through and never tried again. But honestly, the amount of bashing that girl has taken and yet she still manages to smile through it all.

Otto is sitting very quietly in his crate and I'm not letting him out until bedtime. Call me a mean mommy, but I just gave a sympathy vote to Antonella Barba.

I swear my dog is crazy. Aaron has been out of town for a couple of days, which means Otto has been home alone during the day. Yesterday the poor pup was alone for 10 hours when I got stuck in traffic coming home.

Unfortunately, the result of him being home alone is that he gets bored. And has pent up energy. So when mommy comes home, it's all "look at me, look at me." I tried yesterday, I really did. I sat on the floor and played tug of war, we had lovely walks, more tug of war. But then I had to do work, and he made sure that I didn't sit down for more than 30 seconds at a time. He nosed into every piece of paper within reach. He barked. He ran around. He nosed more. He chewed up paper. He barked.

I finally stuck him in his crate, where he sat quietly. And then started whining. And whining. And whining. Then the yips started. Then a few barks for good measure.

Tonight it was even worse. He seemed happy when I came home, and we went for a nice walk. I fed him his very expensive, gourmet dog food. Then I had to get on the phone and Aaron's computer for a while, and unbeknownst to me, Otto was sneaking in and stealthily grabbing CD after CD. I went into the living room and found the discs scattered all around, one of which was completely broken and chewed up. A Star Trek video game, which made Aaron moan "Oooohhh nooooo!" when I called and told him.

btw, that freaking Dominoes' commercial? A doorbell rings at the end. Every. Single. Time. Do they not know what doorbells do to dogs?

He was being so naughty and irritating that I decided we needed to go back out for a Dog Whisperer style walk. That means no sniffing, no piddling, short leash, just force him to keep walking in a straight line and focus only the exercise.

That would have been awesome, except that I ordered vegan Thai food for delivery. That's how you know Aaron isn't in town. Vegan Thai. After several minutes of walking, I peeked back in the apartment building and sure enough the delivery guy was inside. I should add that I had a bag of poop in my hand.

So we go inside, Otto still hyper, and he freaks out at the sight of a woman in the hallway and the delivery guy by the door. I had to wrestle his 10 pound body into the apartment, barking all the way (him, not me). I shut him up in a room so I could deal with the delivery guy, and I swear the dog was slamming his body against the door, howling like someone was pulling out his toenails.

Let's keep in mind, that I'm dealing with the delivery guy (who was very young and cool) with a bag of poop in my hands. I did manage to put it down on the table, which was even more unpleasant in theory.

So I took him out for another brisk Dog Whisperer walk. I don't think it worked. When we got back he ate my checkbook and he's currently eating a coaster. Fortunately it's not a coaster that I like.

Something to sit on

I'm going to buy a sofa. I've been planning this for years, even going so far as to walk through Ikea once about two years ago. I was sort of horrified to see that even Ikea sofas cost about $700, and couldn't really justify spending that sort of money when I had a perfectly good futon at home. It's really quite a nice futon, not one with bars pressing against your butt. Actually, we have one of those too, but it's in Aaron's office.

More recently, I've had the idea of waiting until we buy a place before getting a sofa. Like one big sweeping move into adulthood. But that was when we were planning to move to Texas, where houses are in the realm of possibility. Once we wound up not moving, all those grown up things got put on hold. It was only when we decided to get Otto that we we realized that we were putting things off until later, when there's no reason not to do it now.

Of course it had to go back to Otto. He's just so darned cute though! Once we got him, I learned that you just deal with lifestyle changes, and even at his most annoying, we haven't regretted a moment of it.

So then I saw photos of my friend's new baby (hint: it's chicmommyfinds' baby). She's soooo adorable! Just a perfect little faced baby with a cute little tushie. And the baby was on a sofa. So I figure that even though we're not quite ready to start having babies, the sofa is a good step into grownup-hood, so I'll start with that.

I found what looks like the perfect one on the Pier 1 website. AND I have a gift card that would just cover it. Yay! Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it's available in my zip code for some reason- sneaky bastards- but I'll go there today and check it out.

And random thought here. Has anyone else noticed that the phrase, "I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit" showing up everywhere? It's an awesome line, but didn't it come from the Ben Stiller classic, "Dodgeball"? I just want people to remember where it came from in generations to come.