I wrote this entry once today, just at the time that Blogger went down. It was, as so many of my posts are, well written, and heart-tugging. It moved effortlessly from pathos to wit and back to scathing sarcasm.

Too bad it went the way of the dodo, into pixel oblivion. Or o-BLIV-ion, as Riff-Raff would say.

So here's the thing. Tonight I will be in a safe place, far away from any windows when the midnight shooting-guns-into-the-air festivities begin in Miami. We seem to have the third world aloha* down. I will be indoors, my pets will be indoors, and the windows will be covered. The laws of physics still apply, friends, even if you are drunk. Goes up: comes down.

The only resolution I will make this year is to help regime change begin at home, in America, where I hope and pray with my whole Yellow-Dog Democrat soul that anyone other than Bush gets elected this fall. Really elected, as opposed to selected, if you know what I mean. And if you don't, then you deserve what you got.

I will drink myself silly tonight and toast friends missing, absent or dead. I will revel in maudlin emotions. I will not let anyone other than my husband see or experience that, however. And I'm not going to detail it here, tomorrow.

I'll end this by paraphrasing another pop-culture hero of mine, Ford Fairlane (aka Andrew Dice Clay) and say: 2003? I fucked it.

* the third world aloha: shooting guns into the air as an expression of a) satisfaction b) dissatisfaction c) violent disagreement d) violent agreement or e) any and/or all of the above.

I went to Disney World. Yes. I did. And I loved it. I love the sight of hundreds and hundreds of people in Santa Hats with Mickey Ears. I love the sight of many of those same hundreds in bright red sweat suits. In public.

On the other hand, I did not see a single instance of public personal grooming.

On still another hand, the husband and I got to engage in one of our favorite pastimes: being in other peoples photo shoots. On purpose. We wait until someone is about to snap a shot, and as we walk through the frame we turn and smile, or wave. We've been doing this for years, it started on our honeymoon, when we saw the same Japanese tourists day after day, with their video cams. We just started waving, and saying "Still married! Still honeymooning!"

This time we even got to toast the people at the table in front of us, as the waiter took the shot of the table from one end, thereby including us at the other end. What fun!

But seriously, I do love Disney. My girlfriend tells me that there is a special spot in hell for us stockholders, where we will be forced to wear the Mickey/Santa hats all year long... while we ride for all eternity through "It's a Small World." I say, as long as it keeps my portfolio from being in the red, I don't care what Michael Eisner does.

In fact, I have a couple of suggestions on how to increase the bottom line, if Mr. Eisner would like them, he can just drop me a line here at Girlyshoes.

The food at the park hotels is phenomenal, and when I get the chance, I will tell you about the 12 grain vegetarian dish I had at Jiko, in the Animal Kingdom Lodge. But tell me this: when was the last time you had a meal so good that you wrote a little love poem to it on the Styrofoam box in which you took the leftovers home? Yeah. Didn't think so. But this dish was so damn good, I did. And the two people I let see the leftovers ended up sticking forks in it and moaning in ecstasy as they ate.

I took lots of photos, which I may or may not post. I shopped at both the high and low end outlet malls. We indulged our audio/visual habit with trips to some obscure CD stores, and bought a box set of Rough Guide to Indian Music, a box set of Kurasawa's Samurai films, another box set of garage/psychedelic bands from England (Rubble) and the soundtrack to Our Man Flint and In Like Flint.

We bought books, and Legos and fabric for my quilting habit. We ate like starving stoats and all in all had a marvelous time, thank you for asking.

And you? Did you all have nice holidays? Or did they send you back to therapy for another ten years? Oh, well.

I guess that there are things more horrifying than watching a woman pluck her eyebrows down to fine lines during a morning public transit ride. Special thanks to the skank sitting next to me, who was using those tweezers that have handles like scissors, and who was quite ferocious in their application.

1. Pajamas as day wear

2. Milk containers as urinals (thanks to LaDiDa for the heads up on this one)

3. Tongue splitting as a fashion statement (Note: a google search for tongue "slitting" finds you all kinds of information on medieval torture. Tongue "splitting" which, as far as I can tell, is the exact same thing, takes you to news and body modification sites.... semantics)

4. Cosmetic foot surgery

On that last topic, I really must say something. My great-uncle was a cobbler: a man who made shoes. For three generations, my family made and/or sold clothing. Here's the sum of that collective clothing knowledge (ahem, clears throat for this pronouncement)

MAKE THE SHOE FIT THE FOOT, NOT THE FOOT FIT THE SHOE.

This is really a no-brainer, folks. If you have a big ole fat foot, buy big ole wide shoes. You don't need surgery to fit your size 9s into a size 7, just buy bigger fucking shoes. Shoe size is not a big deal. In fact, unless you are swapping them with your friends, nobody needs to know what size you wear. What is the big freaking deal?

Hey! I wear a size 9 shoe. Or an 8 1/2. Depends on the manufacturer and the cut. But you know what? Wearing a size 9 doesn't stop me from buying really pointy-toed shoes. So what if they look like something from the Florentine Renaissance? They are pointy shoes, you don't really think I'm cramming my toes all the way to the ends in them do you? No. My feet end somewhere around two inches in back of the point.

Here's a tip from someone who knows how to fit shoes. Put the shoe on. Stand up in it and put your weight on that foot. Then take your thumb and put it on the widest part of the front of the shoe. Press against your foot through the shoe. The widest part of your foot, the ball below the big toe, should be aligned with your thumb and the wide part of the shoe. If it isn't, then the shoe doesn't fit. If the wide part of your foot is forward of the wide part of the shoe, get a bigger size. It's that simple.

If you can't put your thumb between the end of your toe, and the end of the shoe (from the outside, of course, by pressing down gently on the toe of the shoe), then you need a larger size. Again, it is just that simple.

But carving off toes, in order to get a better fit? I'm sorry, but that is just fucking insane, and any doctor who would perform that surgery is immoral.

Back in the dawn of time, when I was a little curmudgeon, one of my aunties used to bring me a present from Germany, whenever she went to visit. It was the coolest thing, and I loved it to death. What was this marvel?

Soap. (Insert your own lame jokes here about growing up in a small southern town, laugh at will and get back to the point.) But not just any old soap. It was soap in the shape of a teddy bear. Once it was out of its wrapper, it grew fuzz. (On purpose. Jeez, guys, get over it already.) It became a fuzzy bear. Once you used it , the fuzz didn't grow back. Something else cool happened. When you used the bar up, there was a tiny Cracker Jack-type toy inside the soap. Usually, as I recall, another tiny little plastic bear.

Well, Aunt Helga long ago passed into family legend, and I have never seen that soap ever again.

But I want to. I believe in the power of the Internet. I believe that if I put this request out there, someone will remember the soap. Someone will know what it was called (other than soap, duh.) Someone will be able to tell me if it is still produced, where and how to get it.

I believe.

P.S. I found it myself. Fuzzy Wuzzy Soap is the name, and some guy has a single, mint-in-box bar for a mere $125. See?

"The United States Coast Guard has a rule of thumb its members call the "rule of gross tonnage." It basically states that the bigger boat gets the right-of-way."

Yep. The bigger the boat, the more right of way. Maybe that's why people in SUVs drive like they own the road. Maybe they all drive citing the Rule of Gross Tonnage. It's my theory, anyway.

Today, I was forced to drive to work, something that I just dread. But it was a magnificent morning, the air was cool, traffic wasn't too obnoxious, and the sun was shining in spangles through the trees, as I took the back roads to the hospital.

I was cut off in the middle of a traffic circle by some a-hole in a Lincoln Navigator, who felt that he could merge into my lane despite the fact that I, in my little VW, already occupied that space.

Maybe he couldn't see me way down there, so close to the ground, or maybe he was driving according to the Rule of Gross Tonnage. But the fact that he was in a Lincoln SUV gave rise to this new take on the old gross tonnage law: in an auto, gross tonnage refers to the amount of money you spent on the thing you are driving. The more you spent, the more right of way you have. That would explain a lot about the kind of cars that cut me off in traffic, merge into my lane even when there is no room to do so, why someone will think it's ok to whip in to a parking space I'm clearly waiting for (complete with indicator light blinking) and like that. I drive a cheap car, there for I have less right of way.

And let me rant a little about the fact that Lincoln makes an SUV. (Aside: doesn't everyone?) What ever happened to playing to your strengths? Lincolns have been the gold standard for American luxury autos since they were being built on carriage frames. So why, why, why, would you try to make that leap to station wagon on steroids? Why not just continue with what made you famous? And another thing: why would anyone on this planet need an SUV with a turbo engine, manufactured by Porsche? If you wanted a Porsche, why would you want anything other than its flagship car, the 911? And why does Porsche manufacture any of its vehicles with an automatic transmission? If you are driving what I consider to be one of the finest sports cars in the world, why would you have an automatic? Must I remind you that the stick is to driving what bareback is to horses? Ultimate oneness with the beast.

Well, anyway... The Rule of Gross Tonnage. The more gross tonnage, the more right of way, or the modern version, the more you gross, the more right of way you have.

There was a little accident on the train today. Someone in a wheelchair fell on the tracks, thereby bringing mass transit to a mass stand still. Before you ask, no report yet on the guy who fell.

I was on the first train behind the accident, and so had first crack at the bus brought in to take us commuters on north. I got in the line, and watched in amazement as people streamed in from both sides, so that the woman in the purple leather jacket who started out directly in front of me, drifted further and further away, even though neither of us moved. While we had been in proximity, she commented to me about the man who pushed in front of her. The guy who pushed between us as she spoke was in a striped shirt and a beard. I last saw him getting on the bus.

By the time I managed to get to the bus doors, the driver shut them on me, saying this bus is full. The woman in the purple jacket was on board and seated. I backed out of the door well, and as I did, another five people pressed past me and on board.

That's when I lost it and said to the bus driver "If the bus was full, where did those five people fit?" Well, he asked, where are you going? To the hospital, I replied. OK, he said, where do you think you can ride?

As we have this conversation, another two people push past and cram their fat asses into the door well. The driver closed the doors and the bus left.

Now, I ask you, how did I end up missing the bus, when I was at the front of the line for so long? Because I refused to push, shove, cut, or otherwise exhibit rude behavior to my fellow humans during an inconvenience such as a transit failure.

I crossed the highway and flagged a cab. I also shared the cab with two other employees. We had a nice ride, thanks.

*read an earlier rant about the nano-second people.