From the administration that brought us, "If you're not for us, you're against us," along with countless other jingoistic references to "patriotism" comes this shining example of goodwill:

Apparently pissed off by an ex-diplomat's criticism of the intel Bush used to justify his bogus war, the White House is suspected of blowing the cover of a CIA operative who happened to be married to the guy who criticized them.

Whispers have been circulating for months, but until this past week, none of the mainstream media gave the story much coverage. Now that the Justice Department is investigating the perfidious, retaliatory actions of BushCo, the Democrats who all along have been pushing for an independent investigation are finally being heard. After all, who heads the Justice Department? None other than Bush buddy and fellow war-hawk John Ashcroft.

And why shouldn't there be an independent counsel? Compromising national security and endangering the life of an American operative for no reason at all is certainly a more compelling crime (and is punishable with up to 10 years in prison, by the way) than being involved in bad real-estate investments or having oral sex with an intern.

I've said it before and I'll say it until the pus-laden, cancerous sore that is the Bush presidency is excised from the Oval Office in November 2004 -- do not be fooled by the flag-waving and the invocations of 9/11.

Nobody who purposefully endangers a U.S. intelligence worker (who, unlike those who served as ghost employees of the Texas Air National Guard, continually puts her life on the line for her country) deserves to use the term "patriot."

Unless, of course, he is saying something to the effect of, "I am sincerely sorry that I risked the death of a patriot in order to send a message to someone who criticized my unjust war. I have committed a federal crime, and must regretfully step down from the presidency."

Of course, with John Ashcroft heading the department investigating the administration's disgraceful crime against one of America's own, my hunch is that Bush will get away scot-free, as always. After all, he's got the voting-machine companies on his side. He who has the gold makes the rules.

Next: Republicans push bill through House and Senate changing official language of U.S. from English to Doublespeak.

Friday night marked the exciting convergence of two Wastrel favorites: "The Brak Show" and The Sugar Candy Band. "The Brak Show" is a most delightful cartoon featuring a singing, dancing, partially-lobotomized sabertoothed space alien, whose tone-deaf hits include "I'm a Pickled Beet," "Lookin' Lookin'" and "Three Hams Will Kill Him." The Sugar Candy Band is a seven-piece ensemble featuring Wastrel Friend Clint and former Wastrel Classmate Bart, and whose hits include covers of songs by artists as varied as 10,000 Maniacs, The Dave Matthews Band, and the Beach Boys. There is also the original piece (and my old favorite), Batman Wipeout, which the band flatly refuses to play despite my best puppy-eyed wheedling. But I digress.

The two were joined in glorious, if discordant (thanks to Brak, of course, not the band!) union last weekend at the Brak To School event at Othello's in Norman.

We only went because the band was playing, so it was a delightful surprise when we entered the bar and found the staff tastefully attired in Brak shirts. Which, by the way, were offered for free. Too bad I am not an extra-large man. But I did get a spiffy Brak radio, and the mouth moves along with whatever's playing. And the drinks were hella cheap.

Then we enjoyed several hours of tunes courtesy of the hard-working and talented members of The Sugar Candy Band, whose gig continued in acoustic form after they blew a breaker around 1 a.m.

You, too, can enjoy the musical stylings of Clint on drums and Bart on guitar, violin and vocals when the band plays the Brewery on Nov. 5. If you're more of an instant-gratification type, or if you don't live in the Oklahoma City metro, you can watch the equally amusing Brak on Adult Swim starting this coming Sunday. But only if you like your vocals overly enthusiastic and off-key.

Normally I'm not a big proponent of facial hair. It's scratchy and doesn't really work for everyone. It also gets a lot of bad PR, thanks to the aesthetic tragedies offered up by pro wrestlers, NASCAR and Osama bin Laden. But when you turn it into a work of art, well, that's a whole 'nother ball of mustache wax.

Oddly, although nearly all of the previous winners are from Germany and its neighbors, the World Beard and Moustache Championships are held in Nevada. I've seen some really elaborate facial hair on old ranchers, don't get me wrong. But I bet you won't see a villous approximation of a flying insect's compound eyes anywhere in the U.S.

Thanks to a very naughty motherboard, the Wastrel Blog will soon be getting a new home and a new name.

It all started with Mr. Wastrel's old ASUS A7V, which for the last year or so has spent its retirement powering our very own server. Naturally, since we had recently issued invitations to a network-gaming party, the motherboard picked last week to leave this uncaring, un-understanding world and rub noses with Jesus.

Rather than buying an expensive replacement for his dear deceased server, Mr. Wastrel has decided to let someone else host his stuff. And, while he was at it, he bought me a domain name.

So, just as soon as the pace of my schoolwork slows down (read: in December), this blog will make like a contestant on "Extreme Makeover" and get a facelift.

And in the spirit of my no longer having time to watch reality television and visit cool bars, this blog will no longer be the Wastrel Blog. After all, there's nothing profligate about a life that consists almost solely of working, going to school and volunteering.

Therefore, I am the proud new mama of www.whatsyourdamage.com. And since I'm the No. 1 Heather around here, I get to wear the red bow.

The hilarity never ends. From the zoology class that brought us "CSI: Complete Stupid Idiot" comes another hit. I'll call him Mister Hygeine.

Last night we were studying acoelomates; more specifically, we were discussing Taenia solium. The professor was expounding upon the threat posed by ingesting tapeworm eggs. He pointed out a photo of a boy's brain, riddled with cysts from tapeworm larvae. "This is why people should always wash their hands," he told the class.

Mister Hygeine, in his infinite wisdom, decided to pipe up.

"That's ridiculous," he proclaimed. "If I've just taken a shower and washed my goods, and then I go to the bathroom, I'm already cleaner than the faucet on the sink, so there's no logical reason to wash my hands."

He and the professor argued this point for a good 10 minutes, with Mister Hygeine erroneously stating that society only expects us to wash our hands because it's always been done that way.

"It's not like I go on my hands," he wisely stated.

But it gets better.

Later, the professor was telling the class that it's important to examine stools for worms, encasement and other ills.

Mister Hygeine had a question.

"Awhile back, my dog went to the bathroom and I noticed his stool was encased, so I picked it up ..."

"You picked it up??!!" the professor exclaimed. "I hope you didn't do this with your bare hand."

"No, I used a spatula," Mister Hygeine said.

The professor responded: "What did you do with the spatula afterward?"

"Oh, I put it in the dishwasher," was Mister Hygeine's reassuring reply.

Future patients of Mister Hygeine, be ye warned.

NOTE: I talked to him later and he insisted he was just playing devil's advocate and always washes his hands. But that still doesn't explain the spatula.

In other news, a rare and deadly trouser snake is apprehended by customs agents.

Parental watchdog groups are whining again about how much profanity is on prime-time television. They claimed that objectionable content has increased in general, and during the arbitrarily-dictated 8 o'clock "family hour" rose nearly 95 percent between 1998 and 2002.

If parents are so upset about what their kids are watching, here's a novel concept. Why don't you monitor what your children are viewing? Just because it's on doesn't mean it's aimed at children.

Television is not just for kids. (Set aside, for a moment, the fact that, after preschool, even educational TV provides marginal benefit, and that kids who watch a lot of TV as preschoolers later have more trouble in school than do other kids.) There are millions of childless adults who enjoy watching shows that explore grown-up topics and that don't talk down to us by having the mafia don say "Gee whillikers, Tony, I'd darn-tootin' sure like for you to take a nappy-wappy with the cute widdle fishies -- but Jesus says killing is WRONG!" And since most of us work during the day, it's not really fair to expect us to stay up past 12 to watch the shows we enjoy.

It is up to the parents, not the media, to decide what content is suitable for their children to view. If they're not providing supervision and guidance, they have no right to complain when little Johnny says "crap" after watching "Friends," or when they find little Johnny and Susie simulating the sex scene they watched on NYPD Blue.

Sure, children are our future and whatever. But these whiners are the dumbasses who had them, not us. It's up to parents and parents alone to monitor their youngsters' media intake. Every TV made in the past nearly four years has a V-chip in it, per their request, that allows or blocks TV shows based on a rating scale, which they also requested. The television industry and the adult viewers have made enough concessions. It's time for these killjoys to actually use the technology they lobbied so hard to make everyone install, and stop raining on everyone's parade.

In the 141st Psalm, King David wrote, "Let the wicked fall into their own nets, while I pass by safely." While I'm agnostic at best, I find this passage particularly fitting these days.

As more of our men and women in uniform die pointlessly to put money in the pockets of Halliburton executives, the tide is turning against Bush.

With a widely admired retired general throwing his hat in the ring to run against the election-stealing, legacy-riding failed businessman, Bush and his closest advisers, all of whom mysteriously evaded the action in Vietnam, can no longer accuse their detractors of being unpatriotic. (Now we're just being uncivil. As if Ari Fleischer's creepy warning to critics to "watch what they say" was civil ...)

The administration has also had to do a lot of backpedaling on its lies about the war lately. Best to get it out of the way before election, I suppose, but somehow I just don't think Americans are going to forget Yellowcakegate, and the promise that our troops would be in and out, and that the Iraqis would throw us a big, fat tickertape parade.

And the Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently published this scathing editorial by Max Cleland outlining the many parallels between the Vietnam War and Bush's incursion into Iraq.

The most beautiful part is conservatives' whining about the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' citation of Bush v. Gore in its decision to delay the California recall election, with SCOTUS pointing out in essence that it was a special, one-time deal. Yeah. Keep whining about that some more. Maybe the Supreme Court can reverse the appeals court's decision and bring more publicity to its own hypocrisy.

Americans have had it up to here with Bush's lies and greed. Call it Karma, call it divine retribution. People who hold themselves to be above the law will eventually find that their own misdeeds come back to bite them in the ass, either here or in the history books.

Bush is falling into his own nets. And those with a budget plan and better diplomatic skills than a 2-year-old will walk by safely.

My ADD medication sucks. Not only does it make me sleepy all the time after the initial adrenaline rush, it also makes my ADD worse.

For instance:

I'm in Wal-Mart on Friday night after getting off Job No. 2. Because Job. No. 2 involves working on a rigid deadline, I have to had to pee for a few hours.

Blinded by the urgent need to take a tinkle, I head straight for the bathrooms and head in to take care of business.

"Damn," I think to myself. "For such a big bathroom, this doesn't have many stalls." Only two, and one was a handicapped stall.

I open the door to the first stall, but before I can proceed into it, I hear Mr. Wastrel calling my name in The Voice of Panic.

"What could be so important that he would call me out of the bathroom when I need to pee so badly?" I grumbled to myself.

Then it hit me.

Flashback to 1994. Driving through Wyoming, stop at a McDonald's to pee. McDonalds' ladies room are almost always on the right, so that's exactly where I head. It's the lunch rush. The bathroom is packed. With men. Standing at urinals. With their goods out.

Worse yet, I have not eaten lunch. My family cannot be persuaded to save me from deathly mortification by going to the Mickey D's in the next town instead. So I stand in line with all the guys from the restroom. Since I am wearing a cute little hat to cover my slept-on hair, they all recognize me. And are smirking.

Cut to the DFW airport, circa 1996. I'm heading back to school, and the novelty of airplane toilets has worn off. Instead, I decide to use the airport restroom between flights. Jetlagged from setting my clock ahead for a week to readjust to Central time, I wander into the nearest bathroom. A guy walks out before I make it through the little hallway entrance thingie. Thank you, Jeebus!

AMC Quail Springs, 2002. Mr. Wastrel asks me where the heck I'm going and points me away from the men's room.

This very Wal-Mart. This past spring. Mr. Wastrel is in Japan and I'm shopping for groceries and garden stuff. But first, a pit stop. I walk into this very bathroom, and note the conspicuous absence of stalls. Then some old dude walks out of the handicapped toilet. Oops. I notice that the wall where the stalls should be is lined not with sinks, but with urinals. To compound my embarrassment, as I make my hasty retreat, a guy walks in and quickly does a double-take. "Oops! Guess I didn't read the sign," he says, turning red as a beet. "No, you're fine," I reassure him, giggling with suicidal self-hatred. "I'm just a big dumbass." I vow to always read the sign very carefully before entering a restroom.

Back to the present. I quickly step out of the stall and speed-walk toward the doorway. Sure enough, there are those stupid urinals. Again. Dammit, I'm an idiot.

It's bad enough walking repeatedly into men's rooms across the country. Now I try to use the same one twice. Thank you, Strattera, for curing my ADD.

My favorite order of animals is Rodentia -- in my lifetime, I've played house mother to upwards of 100 gerbils. If only I had lived eight million years ago, when buffalo-size rodents roamed the marshes of South America! I wonder if the Phoberomys pattersoni was a social animal like gerbils are? I can just imagine a huge herd of 9-foot rodents chewing away at the cattails!

On the other hand, rodents may be like shoes in that the tinier they are, the more adorable they seem. Just as a men's size-14 sneaker is never as fetching as the same sneaker in an infant size, a real-life Rodent Of Unusual Size might not be quite so cuddly and irresistable as a vole or a bunny or a rat. At any rate, it would have been cool to see the biggest rodents by far that ever walked the earth.

So I took my first Strattera pill last night. (Normally, once-a-day ADD medications are taken in the morning, but Strattera takes weeks to accumulate in your bloodstream and a lot of patients have found that if they take it in the morning, they are tired all day and have insomnia at night.)

My M.D. said it is supposed to take three or four weeks to work, but it seems to be working some already. After taking the pill, I drifted off into peaceful slumber. I awoke this morning in a panic, because the alarm hadn't gone off. Then I looked at the clock to survey the damage. It was 5 a.m. Having another hour and 45 minutes to sleep, I lay back and closed my eyes.

"Wouldn't it be nice to go to the gym and run for 45 minutes?" asked a little voice in my head. Well. That's a new one.

"No," I told it. "You are going to regret this when it's time to actually wake up. Go to sleep, you little bastard!"

The little voice continued. "You're awake and there's no going back, and you know it. Why don't you work on memorizing the characteristics of the phyla Cnidera and Ctenophora? Or perhaps get a head start on your math homework?"

I rolled over on my stomach, scrunched up my eyes resolutely, and tried to think calming, dreamlike thoughts.

"Don't forget to invite everyone to the Xbox party," the voice continued. Then it proceeded to plan a guest list and itemize things that needed to be bought. "Are you sure you don't want to go for a run, Heather? You could just go around the block a few times."

This is the crap I had to put up with for nearly two hours. When the alarm clock went off (at long last!), I jumped out of bed and got to work an hour early, because I usually hit snooze for at least an hour before I stumble out of bed and lurch groggily into the shower.

When I got to work, I felt hyper and productive. The little voice that tells me to surf the Internet and entreats me to goof off "for just a little bit more" before I knuckle down was completely absent. I had to remind myself to take breaks. I remembered, out of the blue, a neat UltraEdit trick someone showed me a few weeks ago. I even went and chatted up the big boss in an unusual spurt of non-apathy (and I didn't even interrupt him while he was talking!).

For a nonstimulant, Strattera is surprisingly stimulating. Even with a good lunch in my stomach, I still feel alert and, dare I say, like someone who has her shit together. And on the first day, no less.

Perhaps it's the placebo effect. Perhaps it's my extremely low tolerance for pharmaceuticals. Perhaps in a few weeks the good symptoms will be replaced by constipation, nausea and a bad case of the cramps.

Whatever it is, I hope it lasts. I really don't believe that pills can make people "normal," just alleviate the symptoms while creating new ones that may or may not be worse. But this one seems to be, at least a little bit, fixing the crippling fogginess that usually pervades my head. If it's going to help me at work and in school, I think that I can put up with a little voice telling me to go work out at ungodly hours of the a.m.

On the weird-search-engine-referral front, apparently the Wastrel Blog is the only site that comes up when you search Yahoo! for "18th-century French whore." Unfortunately for the person who found me via that search, the post in question was about shoes. A sexy subject to be sure, but likely not what he was looking for.

But on to business! Mr. Wastrel and our friend Eric have recently developed an obsession with PC-game mechs. I am OK with that obsession because I am a pretty cool chick, and also because their fixation has not progressed to the point where they are creating artfully-designed mech suits to wear around the neighborhood. Go ahead. Click on the link. Note that the guy not only spent five months and a ton of money creating a mech costume for himself, but even made a tiny little cockpit manned by a wee faux cockroach "controlling" the mech. Now that, my friends, is the point at which I might suggest to Mr. Wastrel that he walk 15 paces behind me when we're out.

Today is an officially-declared Wastrel Holiday, as it marks the anniversary of the most joyous event in this blogger's life -- the birth of her beloved Mr. Wastrel. Let the parade begin!

After five long years of procrastination and forgetfulness, it has finally happened.

Yes, dear readers, Wastrel is finally getting her ADD medication.

Tomorrow, I make the long journey to my doctor's office to talk to her about starting Strattera.

Beside possibly experiencing the joys of nausea, decreased appetite, constipation, dry mouth, vomiting, problems urinating, menstrual cramps, tiredness, upset stomach, sleep problems, dizziness and sexual problems, I will be able to remember where I put stuff (and, hopefully, will not put the remote in the refrigerator to begin with), to follow a conversation, and, much to Mr. Wastrel's delight, to carry out my daily activities in an efficient manner. Perhaps I will even be able to memorize how to write the equation of a circle in general form! Or perhaps I will be a cranky, constipated, vomitous insomniac who has sexual problems and still sucks at memorizing boring mathematical formulae.

Think you did well in biology? Test your medical knowledge here. Compare your biological trivia aptitude to other people with similar education levels. I actually did a lot better than I thought I would. Then I compared my scores to those of Real Live Medical Students and I still looked pretty good. Medical residents did better than I did on almost everything, though. All the same, this little quiz was quite a confidence booster after the Big Bad Algebra Exam. It's a fun way to kill a few minutes, and won't rot your brain like "Fear Factor" reruns will.

Don't forget to take a moment today to remember those who perished on 9/11, doubly victimized by al Quaida terrorists and Bush's war machine.

While the U.S. underfunds the Afghanistan effort and ignores the Saudi connection, sending our service members to an irrelevant and messy war in Iraq, we must not forget that the real threat, Osama bin Laden, is still at large. Has anyone heard his name recently? I sure haven't. Nor am I very impressed with Bush's "independent" investigation of the terrorist attacks, which took more than a year to get under way (as opposed to the inquiry into the Columbia shuttle disaster, which began almost immediately), and only happened after constant and vigilant petitioning by the victims' families.

Don't forget the victims of 9/11. Don't forget who the real terrorists are. And don't forget at the polls next November that our esteemed president couldn't be bothered to make it to New York until Sept. 14, and was cowering somewhere over Middle America in Air Force One the day of the tragedy.

The GOP think they can win the next election by waving their 'Murican flags as they climb on the dead bodies of those who were slain in New York. Let's not forget that those unfortunate thousands were killed by a terrorist whom Bill Clinton targeted in 1998 only to receive snide criticism from some Republican senators. Let's not forget that Bush received a briefing about a possible plane attack the month before the tragedy while taking a leisurely vacation on his ranch (of all past presidents, he's already taken the most vacation days in a single term).

The GOP propoganda machine likes to invoke 9/11 whenever the government takes away our civil rights, squanders our international goodwill and destroys our national economy. In "remembering 9/11," our nation has become caught up in anger and hatred and forgotten 9/11 altogether.

Instead of remembering what they want us to remember -- our feelings of fear, helplessness and a need for someone to blame -- we must try to simply remember the victims. And do right by them. Misdirecting our anger and frustration is no way to honor our dead.

For the idiots who come on my Zonkboard and tell me that ADD is a made-up disease (never mind that nobody is calling it a "disease," but rather a disorder), I would just like to direct your attention to this. And this. And this.

If our brains have a "signature" and operate significantly and verifiably differently from those of "normal" individuals, how on earth can someone say there's not a logical argument for the existence of ADD as a brain disorder?

People love to think that individuals with learning disabilities are simply lazy and inattentive. They don't want to believe that I can spend 28 hours over a weekend intensively studying something for hours on end, concentrating as hard as I can, only to forget it by Monday morning. I have had one meal this week during which I did not have a textbook open. I take detailed notes in all my classes. I defy anyone to say I have a "short attention span."

Attention Deficit Disorder isn't just inattentiveness. People who don't want to understand ADD just latch onto that one term, even though it's not representative of everyone's symptoms. I, for one, went 21 years before being diagnosed because I am extremely good at focusing my attention on things, and for long periods of time to boot. It's just remembering them five minutes later that I have a problem with. I will look at the method, figure out its inner workings, work several problems successfully. I'll work a different kind of problem, come back to the old ones, and draw a blank. I'll forget that I've laid out clothes, and go pick more out. I'll forget that I just decided to go to Bennigans, and ask Mr. Wastrel where he wants to eat. I'll forget to put the groceries in the fridge (but somehow the remote control winds up there). And for whatever reason, I will remember the oddest things. I can tell you what I was wearing on any given past occasion. I can tell you the names of all of our tour guides in Jamaica last December. I can remember all kinds of arcane scientific information.

ADD is a huge inconvenience in my life, and while it may be overdiagnosed, it certainly does exist. Now, to get back to studying, which is all I ever do anymore outside of work and school. Wouldn't want anyone to accuse me of being lazy and having a short attention span.

It has cost me my mental well-being, but I have finally (almost) finished my algebra homework. Haven't studied for either test. Maybe I should have done more homework instead of going to Oktoberfest and traveling to Toronto. Granted I would have no life, but at least I would have good grades. I have a solid A in algebra where the homework is concerned, but I don't expect that to carry over onto the test because a) I freeze when confronted with a math problem in a class setting and b) Mr. Wastrel will not be there to ask me "Are you sure that's your answer?" Oh, and also I still can't remember the formulae even though I've been doing them all weekend for 18 hours at a stretch. The good news is, I managed to absorb most of my zoology material just by attending class and reading the material (not to mention most of it is identical to stuff I learned in General Biology, and having taken Greek and Latin in high school helps a lot with the nomenclature). I am taking a day off this week to study just in case, because God knows I'll need to counteract whatever shit grade I get in algebra.

Anyway, did I mention I've lost my sanity? I had math dreams last night. I was trying to solve an equation but whatever I did to simplify it would make it even more of a mess on the other side of the equal sign. It doesn't help that when you are in dreamland, normal rules don't apply. I'd be looking at the one side and there would be, say, 2x, and then I'd do something on the other side and come back and my 2x would now be a 17y - 4xy cubed over x radical 2. Which is pretty much how I feel about math anyway.

I would say I'll be glad when I'm done with algebra, but I also have to take trig, calculus and a year of physics. And at some point, I suspect, intensive psychotherapy.

Having ADD means I can test really well or beyond awful, depending on my interest in the subject, my level of fatigue and/or hunger, the presence of distractions in the classroom, etc. If I enjoy the subject, I will use my magical ADD "hyperfocusing" superpower and absorb everything like a member of the phylum Porifera and ace the test. If I dislike the subject, or spend all my time studying the interesting part of the material when I'm really supposed to be memorizing the boring part of the material, then I will get a B or, once, a C on the exam, to my undying shame. (Ultimately I dropped that class and took it the next year and made an A on every quiz and test. So there, Dr. Gaither!) Fortunately I like most subjects, and have been able to steer clear of business courses.

However, this brings us to my current dilemma -- algebra. While I understand most of the material and can easily do the problem along with the instructor in class, I have not memorized all the formulae, and I have finished only about a fifth of the homework that is due at Wednesday's exam. Not to mention that I loathe mathematics with every fiber of my being. I also have to memorize 10 bazillion things for my zoology test, which I find much more interesting but which I am much less likely to bomb if I don't study.

Because the weekend is the only spare time I have -- period -- I have but a mere 36 grrl-hours (if you factor out 16 hours for well-needed beauty rest) to study for both tests and do three weeks' worth of algebra homework. I figure I can eat while studying, and Mr. Wastrel has agreed to quiz me on taxonomy and algebraic formulae.

Working two jobs, taking 9 hours, and still being emotionally there for Mr. Wastrel is a huge challenge. I'm years away from med school, and already it seems I'm working triage.

So let's hope that this weekend, I magically develop an interest in mathematics and the "hyperfocus" superpower kicks in. And let's hope I have time to squeeze in a bit of zoology as well. Otherwise, come test time, I will freeze like a member of the family Cervidae in the headlights.

Today, as I was in the breakroom of the Primary Wastrel Workplace, I asked a co-worker what she was cooking.

"Oh, I'm not actually cooking this," she said. "I'm just heating it up."

Well.

If we're gonna be all fancy ...

Until my poor deluded friend told me that microwaving did not qualify as cooking, I never realized how much the Evil Patriarchal Cooking Mafia's dogma had trampled the spirits of America's cooks. Since when has peanut butter become a spread rather than a liquid meal? Who decided that nuking is less noble than sauteeing? And what does it matter if your cake comes from a box?

To clear up these common cooking misconceptions, I am releasing the Official Wastrel Cookbook Glossary. Follow it carefully and one day, you too will have the skill and creativity to invent such culinary art as the Peanut Butter and Hershey's Syrup Microwave Cereal Jumble.

Official Wastrel Cookbook Glossary

Food -- Anything edible. Meal -- Enough food to satiate hunger. Can include a formal assortment of cooked foods, but usually comprised of multiple helpings of raw ingredients. Foraging -- the preferred method for meal preparation. Simply stand in front of refrigerator with doors flung open. Find loose ready-to-eat finger food. Devour. Go to pantry. Repeat. Ingredients -- can be used to make an actual entree, but why not just snack on them? Kitchen -- that useless room in your house that holds cold drinks, salsa and ingredients Cook -- to microwave, or burn in a saucepan, or order delivery, or get the crackers out of the pantry Bake -- an archaic term, from back in the days when people would stick things in an "oven" for 40 minutes or so. Still done at restaurants, which are great places to partake of "baked" delicacies such as bread, salmon, beans and apple pie. Baked goods -- an excellent aisle found in your better grocery stores. Will come in handy when your future spawn desire bake-sale wares such as "cookies" and "carrot cake." Stir-fry -- To throw random things from the fridge in a pan with soy sauce. Good for when there's nothing microwaveable and Pizza Hut's closed. Do sparingly, as it will soil your pristine, unused stovetop. Crock-pot -- Excellent if your dish requires more than one ingredient. Pasta -- The only staple you'll ever need. Ramen -- Like pasta, only faster. Chips and salsa -- Like ramen, only faster. Cheez-its -- Like chips and salsa, only faster. Serving bowl -- Where you put the Cheez-its when company's over Mixing bowl -- Where you put the Cheez-its when the serving bowls are already filled with several varieties of chips, crackers and candy. Platter -- Where you put the cookies (see baked goods) when company comes over. Plates -- What to use if you don't have a platter. In some cultures, they are also used to hold food. Haute cuisine -- A meal prepared using a real recipe from a real cookbook. Home cookin' -- Slang for favorite restaurant. Example: "Let's go to Othello's for some good home cookin'!" The usual -- see home cookin'

One of the things I looked forward to most about going to Toronto was the bars and clubs. This may come as a shock, but Oklahoma City doesn't have the greatest club scene. Even the artfully designed bar LiT, which I adore, has some surly staff and can be entered by greasy-maned individuals wearing acid-washed relaxed-fit jeans and punny T-shirts issued by their university's electrical engineering club. The bars that do have dress codes are all heavily advertised on the radio, serve watered-down drinks, and are lame, lame, lame. The now-defunct Bricktown 54 being a prime example of a club that was a cliche after its first week. The club scene in OKC is so pathetic that when one nightspot that opened last year actually had a line and didn't let everyone in, people here were flustered.

So Mr. Wastrel and I were looking forward to checking out Toronto's scene. We checked into our hotel at 10 p.m. Saturday, threw on our club clothes and strolled a few blocks to Richmond Street West. The day before, your very own Wastrel had visited Toronto.com and looked up every single club within walking distance of Queen Street West.

Our plan? To go to Seven, which looked to be a cool club with a good atmosphere, much like LiT if it had a dance floor and was a little more sleek/mod and a little less loft/warehouse. (Decor, breathing room and a well-tended bar are very important to the Wastrel Duo.) We had located Seven's approximate address on the map in the Marriott, and figured it to be second from the corner on Richmond after Simcoe.

When we passed Simcoe, we saw a pretty long line outside the club. It looked like some people were getting turned away. When we got to the front of the line, the girl asked us if we were on the list. "Um, no," we said. She directed us to another, longer line where we spent 30 minutes behind some extremely drunk boys before paying the $15 cover and walking into -- o, horror! -- the shittiest club we had ever seen. (Well, OK, the second-shittiest, next to Starview in Midwest City.) Its decor was uninspired. Water was dripping sporadically from the ceiling onto the dance floor. No, it wasn't a mister. Think more along the lines of broken plumbing. The place was asses-to-elbows with people who were Trying Too Hard. The dance-floor dynamic was similar to a junior-high social. The dress was poseur-casual. The music was NMSAA. The drinks were watered-down.

"This place sucks!" we both groaned.

Totally disappointed and $30 Canadian poorer, we left the world's second-shittiest club and went down the street to look for other, less sucky bars.

Lo and behold, the very next club we walked past is emblazoned with a sign that said "Seven."

Stupid us! We had mistaken Inside, whose big selling point is apparently that it's better than dancing in an empty parking lot, for Seven, a genuinely nice club.

The people at Seven were extremely cool, and actually gave us $5 apiece off on our cover because we had mistakenly spent nearly all our precious Canadian dollars to go into the shithole next door and only had $20 cash.

Seven was all we had hoped it would be. The stairs were not creaky and dangerous, but black granite. The club was decorated in sleek modern (and included my very own beloved Eileen Grey adjustable tables!) and had a really cool, unique lighting scheme. There were comfy leather couches upstairs, much like the back room at LiT, along with a small bar. Downstairs were a large, decently stocked bar and a sizable dance floor. The clientele were not badly-dressed social Neanderthals. The music was decent. There were no suspicious leaks. The staff were friendly, cute and helpful. As you can see, it is not a shithole.

We also hit Vinnie's, which was a fun, informal "barcade" and had nice staff; Left Bank, which did not have food like it was supposed to, had a weird crowd, and had tango lessons going on; and The Big Bop/Kathedral, which was like Wreck Room with alcohol, and overall OK, but nothing cool was going on that night and it just didn't live up to expectations .

If you are planning to go to Toronto anytime soon, I would definitely recommend Seven. It was hands-down the best bar we visited.

Just remember to look for the sign.

On an interesting note, LiT still has the best-stocked bar we have encountered outside Las Vegas, and their bartenders seriously know their shit! Big ups to LiT for single-handedly raising OKC's bar scene to a non-embarrassing level!

The 2003 Wastrel Labor Day Trip was a roaring success. Mainly because it was the first-ever Labor Day trip that did not involve long spells in a small car and even longer spells waiting for parental units to doodle around the house preparing to go to the grocery store, which takes at least an hour when one is a Wastrel Parental Unit, and involves wandering about looking for car keys, if one is particularly organized and motivated, or otherwise just wandering about doing nothing perceivably on-task.

(This is not just an old-age dementia thing, either. When I was little, it was the same way. Only they would blame me for making them late. Even though I was standing around waiting for them to do whatever the heck it is that makes them consistently 30 minutes late everywhere.)

This year, to my superlative joy, Mr. Wastrel, with help from CheapTickets.com and the recent SARS epidemic, was able to guarantee us a parental-dawdling-free Labor Day vacation.

The secret to such a vacation is (a) removing oneself at least 750 miles from both sets of parents and (b) traveling only with other individuals who are capable of deciding to go somewhere and actually leaving for that destination within 10 minutes.

Toronto is a little more than 1,000 miles from Mr. Wastrel's family and just over 750 from mine. Check. Mr. Wastrel and I are propelled through life by a mysterious (and apparently hyperactive) inner force, and are unhindered in our quest for fun by pesky things such as jetlag and sore feet. Check.

During the 36 hours of laggard-free fun, Mr. Wastrel managed to take advantage of the clean, friendly subway system; visit all the clubs and bars on our list; enjoy pan-Asian cuisine, a sushi bar, a few coffee shops, and Canadian-style Chicago-style dining; visit the Queen Street West shopping district; explore downtown; watch a film shoot; dodge people dressed as aliens; and savor the view from the observation deck of the world's tallest structure.

I managed to conquer my fear of heights and bravely step on the CN Tower's glass floor, 1,122 feet (or 113 stories) above street level. I even sat down on it, flirting with horrific death, as shown below. Gleeful smile or death grimace -- you decide!

Excuse me while I piss the sky

Of course, if Mr. Wastrel were allowed to post his video of me actually getting on the glass floor and posing for what I thought was a picture (but which, in reality, was a most cruel videographic account of my very real terror ... I mean, sheer joy), you wouldn't need to guess. But that video will never be made public while I am alive!

However, even while I was hyperventilating and keeping one hand on the non-glass part of the floor in the event that the glass crumbled beneath my size-six bootie, I was immensely glad that I was not at home waiting for someone to wander about the house for an hour, put a shoe on, decide to give the floor a good scrubbing before putting on her other shoe, and then start the hourlong hunt for the car keys.

Coming tomorrow: How We Almost Missed The Coolest Bar in Toronto.