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Microsoft Word, along with most everything else, is misbehaving today. What on god’s green earth does “The semaphore timeout period has expired” mean, and why is it coming up as an error message? It’s not as if I’m trying to signal the contents of the hard drive using flags — although, at this rate, I’d probably have more luck with that than with actually trying to open a file.

Computers suck.

I don’t know about you, but when I order a chicken salad, the one thing I expect to find is chicken. But I was given the “spring mix” salad, which is basically just a lot of lettuce with pieces of cheese and carrot piled on top of it.

That I’m even bothering to post this should give you a sense of just how boring my average day is.

I had it all planned out. I was going to get up at 6, take a shower and get dressed, wander out to the balcony, maybe with a bowl of cereal in one hand, and read a book for an hour before work. Not, of course, the book that I say I’m reading in the sidebar here — it’s been about a month since I made any significant headway on that — but a book nonetheless.

And what time do you think I actually got up? About 7:15. Shower, yes. Book, no. I still haven’t had breakfast. Oh well, it was probably too hot to sit out on the balcony anyway.

Once more, from the top, the Friday Five:

1. Do you have a car? If so, what kind of car is it? I own a ’02 Honda Civic Ex. It’s blue.

2. Do you drive very often? I drive every day, mostly to and from work. Sometimes, in the summer, in the evenings, I feel a little guilty about it. It’s not great for the environment, and I’m not getting enough exercise. But since I moved, walking home isn’t really an option anymore, and the bus adds at least half an hour and a fifteen-minute walk to my commute.

When I was younger, the idea of learning to drive terrified me for some reason. Maybe the idea of trying to control something as big as a car seemed impossible to me, I don’t know. I put off getting my learner’s permit as long as I could. I was happy to take a week off from driving lessons to go to summer camp. I just didn’t want to drive. Now that I know how, I love to drive. I absolutely love it. I try to remember that whenever something new — like some untried experience that terrifies me — comes my way. I was wrong about driving, maybe I’m wrong about this. It doesn’t always work (as anyone who really knows me could probably attest), but I try.

3. What’s your dream car? I have no dream car. I like the one I’m driving. It looks nice, it’s comfortable, and so far it’s been reliable. That’s enough for me.

4. Have you ever received a ticket? Parking tickets only, although I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been known to speed on occasion. Both times I was ticketed, it was because the meter next to which I was parked had expired. The first time, the minutes left on the meter didn’t change when I stuffed it with my last handful of dimes, and since I was in a hurry, had no more money, and it was after five, I thought I’d take the risk and leave my car there. That’s probably when the University police pounced on it. The second ticket I received downtown. Attack of the Clones was longer than I had expected it to be.

It also wasn’t half as good as it should have been, but that’s another story altogether.

5. Have you ever been in an accident? Yes. I was in junior high, and my father had picked me up from school one Friday afternoon, since we were going on a canoe trip with the Boy Scouts maybe an hour from then. A car at a cross-street in front of us didn’t stop at the stop sign, and we crashed into it at maybe twenty-five or thirty miles an hour. I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt, and while I didn’t go through the windshield, I did crack it with the top my head. We found hair in the splintered glass later that evening. I missed the first night of the campout, missed the canoeing (which I didn’t think was any big loss), but managed to get there by late Saturday afternoon. I was a little shaken, but I felt fine. I have always worn my seatbelt since.