Everybody's working for the weekend.

Today, I finished a super great excellent wonderful book: The Collection. It's a novel about a seamstress working for Chanel in 1919. There's intrigue and where-is-my-life-going confusion and clothes and parties ... but all told from the point of view of a woman who doesn't buy into it all. She's in love with the art of her craft. She is a seamstress.

In the novel, the main character works freakish hours, even sleeping in the workroom at times. And that, my friends, is something I can relate to at the moment. I worked from home today and just put my computer away about 20 minutes ago - a few minutes after 9. I didn't even get as much done as I had hoped, but I gave a valiant effort.

Like the seamstress, I'm in love with my craft. I love editing. I love the patterns the words make, and the cadence of well-constructed text. I take pride in my ability to see when one of my editors has used a zero instead of a capital O. I believe perfection is possible.

But like the Chanel portrayed in The Collection, I have moments of ... well, blind rage. In the novel, Chanel runs her mouth off and pretty much makes everyone around her upset at one point or another. At Corporate Behemoth, I strive to be supportive and help my editors learn. I keep the rage inside.

But, umm? At about 8:30 tonight, into my 12th hour of editing today? At my third look in 24 hours of the same document from an editor who just isn't quite getting it? I became deliriously happy at the thought of channeling my inner Chanel.

So, courtesy of the lovely author Gioia Diliberto, here are some of Chanel's quotes from The Collection. And, courtesy of my own sick and twisted mind, here are the corresponding things I would say if I had no filter, was really, really drunk all the time and didn't mind having no friends.

Chanel, blowing off a dancer friend: You don't know what you're talking about. You've being doing too many headstands.
Cha Cha, blowing off editorial suggestions from non-editors who may or may not speak English as a second language: You don't know what you're talking about. You've been writing too much html.

Chanel, chastising an employee for her side millinery business: Since you like hats so much, you can stay with them until you die!
Cha Cha, chastising an employee for her repeated use of passive voice: You've been fired.

Chanel, plain old being mean: You're an imbecile ... I can't believe I hired someone so stupid.
Cha Cha: Actually, this one works for both of us. I can't really improve on this. After all, Chanel had style.

Chanel, screaming at a seamstress: What kind of work do you call this? ... At your age, I would have got this skirt right with my eyes closed!
Cha Cha, screaming at an editor: What kind of work do you call this? I haven't taken grammar since eighth grade and even I recognize that "days is" just might be grammatically incorrect! Do you really need to review it a fourth time to catch that? Seriously? And while you're at it, put a space between those sentences. Strangely enough, that's considered standard in written English. Or so I've been told. But don't mind me - and I know you don't, since you skip about every third direction I provide.

Ahh. And that would be my inner monologue, the one that never, ever, ever passes my lips or runs through my fingertips ... until now. Don't tell.

I feel so much better. And like any good afterglow, I think I need a cigarette.

Don't mind me.

About 99.97% of the photos featuring Foxie Doxie feature not a dog, but a brown, possibly furry blur.

Foxie? Not a sedentary sort of dog.

This used to really annoy me - mostly because I felt like I totally had favorites. I had a gazillion photos of the Geriatric Poodle and maybe 2 of Foxie Doxie.

But now that I have joined the modern world and own a digital camera, my photographic outlook has changed. Because of the sheer volume of photos that I take of Foxie and Lil' Frankfurter, I think some of the blurry ones are just marvelous.

Now, this is real hot dog action.

Lil' Frank has the ball ... he's at the 40! He's at the 30! Twenty! Ten ...

Sometimes? I'm too slow and I miss all the action. I have a lot of photos of the floor or the yard.

But other times I end up with something like a graceful watercolor. I just love this photo, so in the tradition of overbearing mothers everywhere, I must implore you: Look at my baby!

Ok, I'm done now. Return to your regularly scheduled programming.

How I spent my Fourth of July vacation.

Basically, I sat on my ass. For two days.

And then, on the third day? I got the home decorating / home improvement / I-am-insane bug.

It wasn't entirely surprising. Last weekend, I cleaned out my closet. And, like, organized my clothes. It looked like this.

That thud you hear is the sound of my mom's unconscious body hitting the floor. I have traditionally not been an organized closet sort of gal.

Also, I'd like to just state for the record that I've worn the same shoe size since fifth grade, my mom and I wear the same size, I always always buy on sale, and included in the pictured collection are treasures such as the shoes my grandma wore to my parents' wedding.

Anyway.

But on the third day of the holiday weekend? I decided I should paint my closet! Because "dirty" isn't a wall color that's terribly fashionable nowadays.

So, I used some paint on hand. Believe it or not, I painted my kitchen - yes, my kitschy kitchen - this shade of pink Fiestaware when I first bought my house. I loved it. And I think it's a lovely background to my armoire.

And the light in the closet?

Yes, that is athletic tape holding it to the ceiling. It was there when I bought the house. Don't judge me.

Well, Mr. Guy With Two Dogs replaced it in exchange for sloppy joes. Now - behold the glory!

The closet wasn't the only bit of craziness. I also got a wild hare about painting the inside of my front door.

See? The white was nice.
But the pop of color? Well, it's better.

Kindly avert your eyes away from the dead leaves on the plant. Sure, I'm a design superstar? But I'm human.

Funny thing about all these quirky little projects. They reflect stuff that I've dreamed of doing for a while, but always figured that they were just the sort of thing you'd have to undo to stage a house for sale. And for about a year, I figured that day was just around the corner, seeing as how The Ex-Boyfriend Formerly Known as Mr. Wonderful and I were on the verge of getting engaged.

Only now do I realize how much of my life I put on hold for that. I didn't paint my closet because I figured I would be moving soon anyway? Seriously?

On one hand, that's really sad. But on the other, it's honest. And by painting my closet the color of Pepto, in some ways I acknowledged that this is my house. It can be whatever I want it to be. And I'm not going anywhere anytime soon, and that's just fine.

Welcome to Monday.

It's been a long day. Everybody seems to have a bit of the long-weekend hangover. I know that I was ready to go to bed at 7 tonight. And yet? Yet, it's after 10 and I'm not really sure what I've been doing.

Well, two things, actually.

1. I watched helplessly as Lil' Frankfurter took a dump in my living room. And yes, I did just let it sit there for about 20 minutes.

But why, Cha Cha?

I was busy. I was reading Entertainment Weekly and eating a cupcake with chocolate frosting. Obviously, puppy poo did not fit into this equation. And I was tired.

2. I spoke with my mom about lots of things, including Creepy Stalker Guy. We decided that I should continue to monitor the situation without responding. But then? Then we determined my road to fame and fortune.

It all started out with an off-hand (and, let's be honest, not entirely true ... but not entirely false) comment about Creepy Stalker Guy getting hit by a bus. But, I don't know any bus drivers. So, I'm going to have to start taking public transportation, get to know some bus drivers, and pick an easily influenced driver to seduce. Then, I'm going to have to do some stalking of my own to figure out Creepy Stalker Guy's routine so that my bus driver can run him down and make it look like an accident. And then my driver will probably be investigated for the accident, and maybe under pressure he'll rat me out, and then I'll be all, "I don't even ride the bus. I have a Honda." And there will be a big uproar that will become a rallying cry for the value of public transportation and it will then become a Lifetime Made for TV Movie: Catch the Bus: The Cha Cha Story, starring Kellie Martin as yours truly and Steve Buscemi as Creepy Stalker Guy. And maybe in a total casting coup, Tori Spelling and her husband, Dean Whats-His-Name would play my dating gurus Alice and Jake - which would be a nice tie-in to Tori's creepy dating Lifetime classic, Mother May I Sleep With Danger.

So, I guess I have been really busy tonight.

Are you effing kidding me?

I received this voicemail tonight.

Cha Cha. Creepy Stalker Guy. You have such a pleasant voice on voicemail - not that you have an unpleasant voice in person. I didn't mean that. But you said if I ever called, you'd answer (1). Umm. So I'm calling. I know you didn't answer, but I'm hoping you'll call me back.

I need match.com advice. It's awful. It's horrible. I got an e-mail from somebody I was supposed to meet and it's meaner than the one that you sent me, that's pretty mean - and crappy (2). It's like the crappiest one ever. I don't know what to do with her.

So, anyway, I'm just a guy looking for guidance. That's it. It's that simple. Umm. And I thought perhaps you could help me and offer some guidance. So, that's the reason I'm calling. If you would like, please give me a call back - 555-1212 - and I look forward to talking to you and just picking your brain, if you don't mind. I'd appreciate that. So. I hope you had a great holiday weekend and like I said I look forward to hearing back from you (3). Bye.

1. I said I'd call him back, yes - but this was before he offered to pay me to go out with him and showed such an utter lack of respect for me and my wishes. Oh, and this was before two months - TWO MONTHS - of annoying texts and e-mails that I haven't responded to.

2. My "mean" e-mail was in response to one he sent me before we met - an e-mail in which he berated me for taking five days to respond to his e-mail. This should have been a red, red flag to me, but, alas.

3. Hold your breath, buddy. Hold your breath.

Happy birthday, America!

To celebrate the fourth, I went to a barbecue at the home of my friend L. There were just four of us, chowing on burgers, drinking lemonade with a little something something in it, and listening to various stories about L.'s relatives blowing shit up.

Now, I grew up in Iowa. Fireworks were (are?) illegal in the great Hawkeye State. There were always folks who drove to Missouri to stock up on bottle rockets and grain alcohol (couldn't get that, either). But I did not come from an illegal fireworks sort of people. Therefore, fireworks make me nervous. I like organized shows, but would never think to buy fireworks to set off myself and hopefully not set my neighbor's house on fire.

In my fair city, it's illegal to shoot off fireworks. So, of course, everyone up and down L.'s street was setting off all variety of explosives. I enjoyed watching the little kid across the street dance and do cartwheels every time he set off a firework. He was so ecstatic that he literally could not hold still. Right on.

L. and our other two friends proceeded to work their way through two big boxes of fireworks in the street while I sat on the porch, feeling rather ... middle-aged. They deemed the bottle rockets boring unless tied together in bunches of three - and even then, they were a bit of a disappointment. The smokebomb thingy? Lame. As these three women discussed the specifics about how they were going to set off a 1/3 stick of dynamite, I realized that I was amongst a bunch of lesbian pyros. I was straight in more ways than one.

Down the street, a colorful cacophony of fireworks went off, and L. proclaimed, "You see? Those are those balls! Balls are the best! Next year, we need to just spend a couple hundred bucks on balls!"

"Totally. It's all about the balls," one of the other pyros agreed. "They are so great!"

The third woman conceded. "Yeah, I'll give you that. Who knew that balls were so important?"

At this point, I raised my hand.

Today's lesson.

First, God created Woman. And it was good.

But then Woman realized she needed companionship. So God created dogs. The dogs and Woman walked every day and cuddled together at night. And it was good.

But then the dogs started killing stuff in the yard and cornering possums. And Woman realized that she could use some assistance with varmint removal. Also, Woman's back was really dry, and she needed someone with opposable thumbs to put lotion on her scaly skin.

Woman needed a man. But not really needed. Just sorta, recreationally needed.

So God brought her Mr. Interwebnets. And while that was fun for a bit, Mr. Interwebnets got all Jesusy, and when Woman told him to hit the road, he e-mailed her an article about finding safe people and using the Bible as a dating guide.

This annoyed even God. So God brought Woman comic relief in the form of Mr. I Want You To Want Me.

Mr. I Want You To Want Me e-mailed and texted Woman every day. Funny, light messages, links to silly videos. And it was good.

Except that Mr. I Want You To Want Me never asked Woman to do anything. He would send a series of messages asking about her plans, noting that he didn't have any himself ... and then would leave it at that. This, after two dates. Two good dates.

This angered God. And because He is a vengeful God, He bestowed upon Woman the realization that Mr. I Want You To Want Me is a twit. And it was good.

But dark forces, much like the possum, entered Woman's world. Creepy Stalker Guy sent her a text that read, "Will you go out with me tomorrow night so that I don't have to go on another match.com first date?"

Woman wanted to hurl. But instead, she vowed that good would triumph over evil.

For further study:
What should Woman do about Creepy Stalker Guy?
Should Woman tell Mr. I Want You To Want Me to move along? Or would God want her to continue to enjoy the electronic comic relief?

Extra credit:
Why are Woman's dogs so gasy? How does evil work through the gastric systems of dachshunds?