You see, Shawn and I are having a party. It�s Saturday. If you�ll recall, we were smack dab in the middle of painting the place as recently as one week ago. We also had window sills to mosaic, clutter to purge (and purge and purge), Neal crap (yes, more � will it ever end?) to pack up, and general, all-around cleaning to do. Shawn is freaking out. She got a little snippy with me at lunch, as a matter of fact. Wait, it was me that was snippy. She was lecturey. Yeah, that�s it.

Shawn is also starting to feel like she�s coming down with something, so that�s not helping.

Her birthday is tomorrow. We�re supposed to go out and all, but it�s kind of contingent upon what we�re able to get done tonight. I feel bad for her, because she was looking forward to the Special Shawn�s Birthday Edition of Ladies� Night.

Last night, we tried to get most of it done. Silly fools are we. She was a mosaic-ing fool, until Dogkicker showed up to be angsty and weepy. Gotta love that.

My friend Ry came over to set up my new computer desk. Shawn and I were in the living room, and he made so damn much noise constructing this tiny, little desk, we figured he�d said, �Screw it,� and just begun chucking pieces against the wall. When I went back to check, he was sitting on the floor, surrounded by metal parts and wood slabs and screws.

�I think I made a mistake.�

�Oh, yeah?�

�Yeah. You know how I took all the parts out of the box at once, then took them out of the plastic wrapping?�

�Yep.�

�Well, I just discovered that wrapping had little letters and numbers on it, that match up with the directions.�

�Think of it as less of a �desk,� and more of a �puzzle,� okay?�

Of the three of us (four, if you count deadweight Dogkicker), I probably accomplished the most. I took outside four large trash bags of junk, clutter, and things I forced Shawn to let go.

When I looked around after working for an hour and a half, I could barely tell I had done anything.

That�s when I sat down with a glass of wine and a cigarette, and gave it up for the night.

Today, I frantically ran home from work right after I arrived, because neither of us remembered to set all those stuffed trash bags out on the curb. I made it.

At lunchtime, I bought 700 different types of hooks, because every time I tried to picture where I�d planned to hang the pots, it looked like a blur. Shawn will probably hate all of them, but I need to hang some things, damn it!

During lunch, I was also responsible for pickup up fake ivy, white sheets, and dry ice. It�s the Halloween edition of my talk show tonight, and Co-Host Kim and I are going toga. Because things just can�t be simple, can they?

(And if one more person told me not to touch the stupid dry ice, I was going to force them to lick it. I know! I took fourth grade science too, okay?)

And of course, I�m testing for my next Tae Kwon Do belt tomorrow, too.

One funny thing did happen yesterday, though. Shawn was faxing me the invite to our place, so I could proofread. I gave her the number, and several minutes later she called.

�Did you get a chance to look at the flyer?�

�I didn�t even get the flyer.�

�You didn�t? What�s your fax number again?�

�5586.�

�Not 5596?�

�No.�

�Hmm.�

�You just invited a bunch of strangers to our party!�

I can�t wait to see who she invited.