A couple of months of painting your eyebrows on will do that for you.
2005-10-04...8:53 a.m.

Because the last two times Christine and I went to coffee left me with the shakes and a nasty headache the next day, I decided to keep my caffeine-consumption down to one cup, and to drink decaf thereafter. Only once did I get half a cup of regular, and that was only because our waitress wasn't there and the new waitress didn't know. I didn't hold it against her.

However, last night I couldn't sleep worth a damn, and still had the shakes. I woke up this morning to another headache, though not nearly as severe as the last time. I may have to just stick with Sprite or whatever clear, non-caffeinated beverage is available.

My son's class is having "career month" during October. I'm going to call his teacher to see how best I can describe my career without freaking out the kids. I probably shouldn't take needles to school. I also probably shouldn't tell them that it would take approximately 200 of the largest tubes I use to drain an adult human body. I'm sure it would be best to leave out descriptions of drawing blood from a corpse, too. I kinda don't want Alex to get picked on because his mom is a vampire - I don't care HOW seasonally appropriate it is.

One-day weekends suck. They go by very fast, especially when they're sandwiched between two 3-day runs. At least I managed to enjoy it for all it was worth. I took the kids to the library (it being my Monday off and officially Library Day). Afterwards, we stopped to get buns for our brats, which turned into"Oh, I need new pens and a zip cord for them for work," and "Hey, you guys wanna put up some Hallowe'en decorations?" and a $35 trip instead of a $1.50 trip. Heh. Hee hee. The kids each picked out a sheet of window-clings. Mercedes picked the black kitty and Jack-o-Lantern - which incidentally is not something to brighten the day of a certain pop-star - and Alex chose the ghosties with candy. We also picked out a net light set, a pumpkin-picture doormat (which will serve just fine all through the Autumn season) two packages of window-clingy rubbery drippy blood, spider webbing, and a package of spider rings to decorate it. I let the kids put their clings on the window, help me stretch out the spider webbing, and attach spiders to the spider webs. One web is on the mailbox, and the other one stretches across the archway that faces the road. It's really quite festive, and has me thinking thoughts of Marilyn Monroe costumes. Or maybe early Madonna. I don't know HOW I'm going to get my hair that blonde though - I might have to invest in a wig.

Mercedes wants to be a black cat, and Alex wants to be Spiderman. Super-easy costumes. Alex's can be picked up at pretty much any major chain, and Mercedes can be fixed up in about a billion different ways, depending on how elaborate she wants to get. I'm pretty confident in my (thank you, mom-on-roof MAD FACE-PAINTING SKILZ.

the last trail...the next path