Here I am in Michigan, not updating DR:

Can you believe it? The sun is setting.

My hand reminds me of medieval Christian paintings, when baby Jesus or whoever the hell else was in those scenes would hold up certain fingers to boast their holiness. That wasn’t really what I was going for here.

Right now I’m in Chicago, frolicking joyfully in a wavepool of WiFi signals. I’ll mostly be staying in New Buffalo, MI for the next few weeks. Yes! Vacation!

I originally envisioned updating my blog from the beach a la Sandra Bullock in The Net, except she was conducting some sort of official business and I’d be attempting to better describe how it feels to eat a particularly sandy potato chip. (Great!)

Anyway, I thought Internet wouldn’t be a problem up there, but for this specific DR-based computer, it is. Sandra could explain why. I can’t.

Meanwhile, I’m heading up to the non-Internet area again, for two weeks. I’ll try to figure it out and update with important reports on chili con queso and the Michigan City, Indiana Steak n Shake, but can’t make any promises.

I’m aware that I suck. I should be Auf’d!

Oh, Heidi Klum. Tonight she said one of her designers’ Barbie outfits was “selling like bagels” on eBay or something. She’s so cute! I’ve been meaning to do an official DR expose on why I love Heidi so much more than Tyra, but this mistake is a prime example of why this is true. After Tim Gunn corrected her and said the word in that saying was “hotcakes,” she was all unapologetic and said “How would I know that? I’m German!”

Just realized after typing that at 12:30 a.m. that I seem to be “accidentally” watching the Project Runway reunion special for the second time tonight. I’m supposed to be working on other stuff. Damn you, Bravo! Get some more shows so you don’t have to play them all two hours apart. And damn you, Annie for continuing to not bother to change the channel. Or turn the freaking TV off! Who am I kidding.

Quick rundown of things I love about Heidi:

–The way she says “HELLO!” whenever she walks into the room on her show. At first I wondred how many takes they had to do of her saying this at a time, but now I think she’s just naturally that wacky. My partner-in-Heidi-loving and I have been trying to imitate her “HELLO!” for weeks now (we greet each other on the phone with it. we’re cool.) and we still can’t get it quite right, wtih that special German-accent staccato. She’s an original!

–The way she says “Byeee” to the designers when she’s done talking to them. Again, it’s inimitable. (Are we sensing a trend here? Here’s a shortcut to this post: Annie Barrett loves the way Heidi Klum talks.

Okay, I’m already sick of my list. Next season maybe I’ll live blog the shows so I can just point out various things Heidi says that are funny. You’re so excited.

No O.C. tomorrow night so Friday’s wrap-up will cover the women’s figure skating long program instead. That should be fun. Still… can the Olympics be over already? I’ve been wasting so much time lately sitting there watching late-night coverage and wondering why I suddenly care so much about people I’ll never see again. I guess it’s the equivalent of me going out to a cool club or party and finding it generally useless to talk to new people. Watching the Olympics at 4 a.m. is just the ultra-Anntisocial way to go about it.

Now get back to work.

My Text Twist obsession has lasted only a few days, but it became dangerous to the point at which I had to quit. TT is a word puzzle on Yahoo! Games that eats up time at a rate I can’t even believe. This can be both good and horrible. But it’s over. I have to stop.

Usually, at work, I’d play with one or two people hovering over the screen, collaborating with me (the typist) to get the six-letter word that guarantees advancement to the next round. I always felt kind of impure doing this, as if I was cheating myself and Yahoo! by getting outside help. But as long as they were there at the beginning of the game and stuck around until the end, they were cool. If we got a high score, it would be all of our high scores and not something each of us could lord over others as reasons why we were individually awesome.

So it really pissed me off when yet other people would walk by and nonchalantly say the six-letter word as if it was really obvious. “Footed. Duh, you guys.” I’d whirl around and literally yell at whoever did this, even if we weren’t friends (and with even more venom if we were friends). I’d be all “How could you do that? This is our game.” What?

In hindsight, this made me look mean, and somewhat deranged.

Late last night, I completed my final round of TT while alone in my apartment. It took about an hour and I was just totally in the zone. I felt unstoppable. My fingers seemed to move independently of my brain, but that’s just because my brain was operating at super-warp word speeds not connectable to lowly things like hands. This game is a lot like Snood in addictive qualities. Unlike Snood, it’s not completely mindless so you don’t feel like a total negative when you play it for two hours straight, fighting off the urge to use the bathroom, eat or drink (quite a feat for me), or even look away from the screen.

My score was 111,250 — a higher score than I even thought was possible for just one person. Even with a three-person tag team, we’d only be racking up 50 or 60,000. As I sat there alone, dominating, I actually wondered if I could turn this talent into a career. Upon emerging from ‘’the zone'’ and remembering this, I decided to give up the game altogether. It’s simply not worth its delusional effects. I’m through.

It’s been 22 hours since I quit. And like a crack addict, I am sitting here with random letters floating through my numbskull, combining to make beautiful words like “tag,” “rage,” and “greater.” But I am greater than this game. I will beat this addiction. You’ll never see me play again. Because I will do it in the privacy of the Pink Palace.

Just realized I made up the word “connectable.” I like that. I also like how up in the first paragraph, the word “eats” is hanging out right next to the large “FOOD” in the graphic/screen capture. How unintentionally excellent.

This morning I received a playful e-mail from Friendster with the subject “Friendster misses you!” Right. It can’t stand life without the cackling girl with a tambourine in one hand and Stoli Raz in the other. I particularly got a kick out of this portion of the e-mail:

Oh, really? I can “blog it up” at Friendster? That’s awesome!

Wow. Each time I read the above blurb, I get a little more pissed off, and I don’t know why. I guess it’s Friendster’s flippant attitude towards the concept of the blog. As if I’d really want to “write an ode to sausage.” God! Anyone knows the best bloggers only write their longest, most memorable missives about nachos and cupcake icing.

The Real World actually seemed kind of real last night, and it only took the death of a loved one. Yay.

Hey, you know what I hate? When people don’t step aside on escalators! I mean, what’s with those people? Seriously!

Not updating this website is addictive. I bet you didn’t know that the absence of something, literally a non-activity, could have addictive qualities. But it can. It’s not the same as being addicted to a substance or activity, like drugs or doing drugs. I don’t go around thinking about my next “fix” of “doing anything else except writing in this space” but I do sit there motionlessly (”going around” sounds a little too active for me) and think to myself “You know what I feel like doing right now? Not updating my website.” Which at least means something — that I’m thinking about the website instead of thinking about nothing — but what ends up happening has nothing to do with the website at all. Namely, that I end up doing nothing that has to do with the website and nothing that doesn’t, either. I just got lost myself too, don’t worry. You see, not updating the website means that it’s that many more days until I can remember how to form coherent sentences again. And realize when it’s time to end an atrocity of a paragraph.

Here is proof that I had a reason to keep basking in the not updating:

See? I was at the lake (Michigan, where they don’t even have computers yet), looking nasty and acting smug in front of the camera for no reason. Who am I kidding with my hand on my hip and the no-teeth smile here? It’s like I’m saying “Yeah dude, check out my lake. Made it all by myself. Whoosh! Lake.” Gross.

Yes, my shirt does say “Western Springs Recreation Girls Youth Basketball.” It’s making my chest look disfigured, but that’s probably due to the bathing suit underneath. Bet I could sell that tee to a downtown thrift store for $16, which I would promptly carry to and deposit at Chipotle.

I’ve been getting 2-3 Slurpees per day at NYC’s first-ever 7-Eleven. I now excrete sugary syrup from my pores without even trying. Whoosh! It’s lovely.