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Here's how I feel after day one of Chicago's (insert high-pitched, nearly hysterical voice) BLIZZARD 2000:

Oh God, and now "I Will Always Love You" is on my favorite nighttime radio station. I mean, really. The crosses I bear.

I am a lazy slacking slob for not having updated for nearly a month. I accept that, and I feel the requisite guilt. But I've been busy acclimating myself to the working world. Yes, it's true. I have found gainful employment in my chosen field. I have a job working for a trade magazine and it is truly very fun. I'm not busy 100 percent of the time, which isn't fun, but I'm learning a lot and the people are nicer, nicer, nicer than pie.

And the best part? I have a cubicle! Yes! My own little apartment of my own!

Besides learning a lot about the magazine trade, I'm also making great advances in my personal life. I think it's safe to announce it at this date: I'm off naps. Yep. I'm about two months off the naps. At 3:00, instead of watching the opening of Rosie and then crawling into bed to sleep until Andy gets home and clucks at me until I get up, I am alert and sprightly. I am working. Type-type-typing away on my powerful computer.

I didn't go to work today because of (insert high-pitched, nearly hysterical voice) BLIZZARD 2000 and I feel horribly guilty. Not guilty enough to put my booty on the snowy, icy, drift-covered roads and to allow myself to get whacked by some tough-drivin' thug who can't turn onto the street I'm driving down at a safe rate and has to fishtail all over the damn place, giving me heart failure and causing me to jam on my brakes which makes my car start spinning crazily, flying in and out of the oncoming traffic lane until I land in a ditch and die a lonely, demented death because we don't have a cell phone.

It was probably better for everyone that I just stayed home and watched "The View".

But for the holiday season, we'll be calling him Snowface, Dog Who Runs Like A Ferret Through Snow and Fighter of the Snowblower.

About my renewed love for John Ritter.

About my continued love for David Letterman and all he stands for.

About my horror, disgust, disbelief and nausea that George W. Bush is probably going to be our next president. I can understand being a Republican and wanting certain things done your way in our country. But this guy is your man? I don't get it.

About how Andy and I had the stomach flu and I threw up NesQuik cereal and strangely enough, continue to enjoy it (the cereal, that is).

About how I sprained two of Baxter's toes when I dropped a folding chair on his paw. And he bled. And insisted on hopping around on three legs, just to make me feel guilty.

About the hideously large project I'm working on for someone for Christmas. The project that ate my house. No more details now. Ssssh. Secret.

But I must toddle off to bed. I have to be up early to listen for the traffic report.

Because I may come and go sporadically, but (insert high-pitched, nearly hysterical voice) BLIZZARD 2000 marches on.