Fairly exciting race on Sunday, even with the Weekly Webber Blowup. David Coulthard's Superman cape on the podium might have been a bit over the top, but hell. It's Monaco. I'm looking forward to the rebroadcast this weekend.

Revisions are coming along. No adverb attached. Tomorrow morning, I have posts installed in the Tooth That Refuses To Be Fixed. This is what passes for excitment around these parts.

OT shift for the holiday, and the wire editor wanders over with a question about art for story. "It's about Coney Island," he says which prompts a rousing chorus of "Red Dragon Tattoo" in my head, and what do you mean you don't know Fountains of Wayne?

Go on, hit up iTunes. I'll wait.

Anyway. Yes. Saturday at the office. OT and holiday pay in the same check, it's going to be fabulous.

And, okay, we were horrible race fans and totally glitched on qualifying this morning, but the Tivo's got the rebroadcast, and we're raring to go for tomorrow's soul-killing CBS suckathon of the Monaco Gran Prix, which brings us to the race-tailored drinking game (hat tip to reader ICELOON).

The Monaco Gran Prix as Presented by CBS Drinking Game

The regular CBS rules still apply.

Drink for the must-have, bullet-time cars go from fast-forward to slow-mo 'round the Lowes hairpin shot producers love.
Drink for every mention of the diamond-encrusted steering wheel.
Drink for every playback of Kimi climbing into the F1 car ice sculpture.
Drink for every C-list celebrity in the crowd.
Drink twice for every D-list celebrity or worse "that dude's still alive?"
Drink for every sepia-toned flashback to races of yore.
Drink for every scene stolen from a John Frakenheimer film.
Drink for every camera pan to Tom Cruise.
Drink for every mention of Princess Grace.
Drink for every explaination of a principality vs. kingdom
Drink every time Skippy explains they're driving on the actual. streets. of Monaco.
Drink for every on-track pass.
Drink for every time any one of the commentators (CBS or Speed) tries to pronounce "Monegasque."
Drink again if they get it right.
Drink for every mention of Prince Albert's alma mater
Shotgun when they call it the "crown jewel of motor racing, along with the Indianapolis 500."
Pass out by lap six.
Wake up for the German national anthem.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Tah.

This is prime roadster time in Albuquerque. The mornings are warm, the evenings are cool, and a girl can't help but shun the ragtop for open sky, and it is just as romantic as it sounds.

Miatas have been in my life since 1994 when my dad bought his in a very muted mid-life crisis, so I've had a dozen years to fine-tune the rules of roadster ownership. Until recently, I thought they were instinctual, but with the release of the Pontiac Solstice and the reworked MX5, I've found this just isn't true.

And really, what's to know? There are only three rules.

Roadster Rule Number 1: The small blondes in the big SUVs are actively trying to kill you. So are the big dudes in the even bigger trucks. Small cars trigger the murderous instinct of anyone getting less than 15 m.p.g.

It's a tough rule, but eventually, everyone gets it. And usually the story ends, "and then he flipped me off." Unless you're Adam, and I can't post how his stories end, because this is a public forum, and there might be ladies present.

Roadster Rule Number 2: The weather's nice? The top's down.

You'd think this would be the easiest rule to follow, but as of this writing, I've seen more Solstices with their tops up than down. Like, it's running 14:1, which causes Adam to smirk and mutter about "trunk issues." But it's spreading to new MX5 drivers, which boggles. What is the point of buying a convertable if you're not going to put the top down?

So the rule is, if it's nice (which is, granted, a flexible term, but for now let's define it as 68-84 degrees F, and sunny to partly cloudy, and not use Adam's definition which means above 50 degrees, period), the top should be in the down position.

But I will make concession for hair issues. Sometimes a girl is sporting a fragile, pre-guillotine French updo and the top needs to be up. Other times? Top down, dear. Which means the dudes? The dudes have no excuse.

Roadster Rule Number 3: When you come upon another roadster, smile and wave.

This is standard operating proceedure. See a roadster? Wave.

So that's what I did last night. I was tooling down Paseo after work and came up on a blonde in her thirties driving a red Honda S2000. As I passed, I gave her the wave and continued on.

But funny thing, we were going the same direction, and ended up as pole and P2 at the Eagle Ranch/Paradise intersection. And that's when she yelled at me, "Do I know you?"

I turned down the Fountains of Wayne and made the "huh?" face and she yelled her question again. "Do I know you?"

I yelled back, "Nope!"

"Then why'd you wave at me?"

"You're in a converatble! It's the friendly thing to do!"

"Oh." And she looked a touch confused, or maybe she was looking at me like I was a crazy person, but the light changed and I zipped around the corner and continued on my way.

I know. Remiss.

I'm ankle-deep in revisions and the tide's starting to rise. I think the summer's going to be spent pulling apart 400 pages of novel, salvaging the awesome and cutting the fat. Actually, strike that. I know the summer is going to be spent revising.

Adam is already so over the revision. "Revising is so 2005," he grumbled yesterday. Revising for him means less Sarah-going-everywhere-and-playing and more of Sarah-sitting-on-her-increasingly-massive-butt-with-a-computer-on-her-lap-not-paying-attention.

He's so over revisions, he just kind of glowers whenever they come up, my poor, long-suffering spouse.

You better believe he's getting a big ol' shout-out.

BUT! Unlike the last long revision, I can see life after this one. I am planning to enroll at TVI in the fall and take a welding class. Yeah, y'know, nothing hotter than a girl with a face mask. I mean, you saw Flashdance, right?

And I'm trying to not increase my butt this go-round. No vanilla lattes, no triple ginger cookies during marathon sessions at Satellite. No carbs, for now. And because I'm going to be putting a large chunk of the new and improved narrative will be set in a gym, well, hellooooooo Defined Fitness. The idea is, by the time I finish, I will have so earned a cookie. Or a new pair of jeans. Which ever.

Yeah, this'll last.

Anyway, I hope this explains to you, my darlings, my increasingly sporadic posting and why, in mid-June, I might go completely AWOL. I'll try to be in touch. I mean, the Monaco Gran Prix is this weekend. The Indianapolis 500 (with Towsen Bell!) is this weekend. How can I not come back here to post new drinking game rules? Eh? Eh?

So think of me, y'all. And if you're in the Alameda Satellite and you see a familiar fivehead looming over an iBook, please stop by and say hello. We'll get through this together.

When we decided to tie the knot six years ago, it was a different time. I worked nights. We didn't have Tivo. I didn't care about sweeps. I didn't care about prime time television at all. The Buffy addiction would come later.

But things change, we're now in posession of Tivo and I work days for the most part, and wow, I love t.v.

So when I tell you that we spent our very special day together, catching up on season finales, you won't judge us, right? There were just so many to watch since . . . Sunday. We had two hours of Grey's Anatomy and a half-hour of How I Met Your Mother an hour of Scrubs and, well, it wasn't the romantic sixth anniversary evening every bride fantasized about, but we get bonus points for opening a bottle of wine, which counts as making a night of it in these parts.

And now, in 30 minutes, I'll begin the Root Canal, Part II. Ugh.

It's our wedding anniversary.

Did you hear about the movie that's opening this weekend? The one staring Tom Hanks and Tom Hanks' weird-ass hair?

Yeah, that movie.

(And speaking of hair, still hoping for mail on an Albuquerque stylist...)

So part of the promotion for that movie staring Tom Hanks and Tom Hanks' weird-ass hair was an online scavenger hunt/code breaking contest sponsored by Google -- the Google Da Vinci Code Quest -- and Adam, being the huge nerd he is, got sucked into it.

In the begining, he says it was more of a mid-morning filler, a fun little break between meetings and the goings-ons of his fast-paced rock-n-roll nerd lifestyle. But as the competition drew on, he got into it. I mean, into it. So much so that one day last week, I was forbidden to call him between 11:00 and 11:05 so that he'd have the chance to solve the final puzzle in peace.

"The first 10,000 finishers get cryptexes like the one in the movie," he told me. "And I think it'd be seriously cool to have one. Like, okay, nerd-cool, but I'm down with that."

He finished the final puzzle at 11:01.

His prize showed up today.



That's right. He's got his very own Da Vinci Code Cryptex. Oh, and a cat who turns her nose up at any movie tie-in, including Lego Star Wars video games, so what does she know?

So, congratulations, Adam! And thanks, Google!

I have a thing about my hair. I hate wearing it down, because it's hot and cumbersome and it obscures my field of vision, and I'm usually 45% convinced that the zombies will start their lumbering invasion and I'll miss it because my hair's in my face.

At the same time, we've discussed the fivehead.

So it becomes a dilema as to what to do with my massive amounts of hair.

This comes to a head (heh) about twice a year, when I throw up my hands and dial my stylist. And that's when I find out my stylist moved to Vegas. Seriously. This has happened to me three times now. I get one fabulous hair cut, Adam starts going on about the seck-say hair, and then, when I'm ready to touch up, she's moved. To Vegas.

So, all you Albuquerque people, I need stylist names. And not just someone who has a pair of sheers and will frown at my skull for forty minutes. I need someone who will take my lank locks and transform them into Super Cute Hair.

This is important. I need to rock the Super Cute Hair so hard right now, it's not even funny.

You know these stylists, and you wanna e-mail them to me. I'm hoping for someone on the West Side or in the north valley, but I will go as far as Paseo and Wyoming or downtown if it means I'll look good. E-mail me at drivinginheels at gmail.com, and we'll be the bestest friends ever.

And if you're not in Albuquerque, but you feel like helping, and you know of a Super Cute Hair that would look super and cute on me, would you please e-mail me a photo? Prettiest please ever?

Your country thanks you.

It's a Girl -- Women Writers on Raising Daughters
Andrea J. Buchanan (Editor)
200 pages
Seal Press, 2006

Today is the last in the occasional book tour series. And wouldn't you know, like the girl I was in college, I had two fabulous runs through the midterms, but I didn't study for the final.

Actually, good analogy, but not quite true. When I got the book in the mail, I asked my mom if she'd like to read it and write a guest entry about the collected essays, or being a mother to a grown daughter, or a synopsis of the reign of Elizabeth I. Really, anything. I just wanted to get my mom involved here. Because my mom? Is awesome.

But Mom got sick. Pneumonia in the middle of April, an opportunistic infection on top of the worst mulberry allergy season in recent memory. She's fine now -- a trooper, my mother -- but not in a position to come here and fawn all over her life as a mother to a daughter.

However, if you were to push, she would say one of the best times in her life was when she was pregnant with me. Oh, she loved being pregnant with me. When she talks about the pregnancy that resulted in the me, she gets this far-off look and her eye and her smile widens to show off all of her teeth.

I was apparently the best pregnancy in the history of pregnancies.

Post-pregnancy, I don't know. If you ask her what I was like as a kid, she talks about the sweet three-year-old who dragged around the green blanket and sucked her thumb and loved her mommy. And between you and me, I think this means post age three, I was a holy terror. Which would be par for the course, come to think on it.

Sorry, Ma.

But this week is huge for Andrea! She's on the Today show! She's being profiled in USAToday! She's everywhere! I'm so proud of her, and congratulate her on all she's accomplished with her project. She is the mother of five: two children, three books, and I couldn't imagine her being prouder.

So, if you know someone who is a mother to a daughter, or you're a daughter, or you're looking for a Mother's Day gift, or you just want to have John Mayer's "Daughter" loop in your head endlessly, pick up the collection. Make your mama proud.

And really, I have to take a moment and tell you how awesome Adam was through my little ordeal. When I called him at three and whimpered, he said, "So, does this mean I need to leave immediately for emergency Frosty administering?"

Oh, and you'd better believe that within half an hour, I had a Frosty balanced on my forehead and a happy (but concerned) Adam looking over me, and I don't even think he was using my discomfort as an excuse for ditching the last couple of hours of work and/or getting his own tasty frozen chocolate thingy. He sat with me and didn't object to the mini Pixar marathon I had, he didn't mind it when I finally fell asleep and drooled, and he made me soup and offered more Frosty applications.

I mean, really, that's the love.

AND! He fixed the errant J-key.

He kicks ass.

Oh, god.

Adam: Don't stay up too late with your intarweb.
Sarah: I'll be just a minute.

And then I opened the update window.

Intarweb: 1
Sarah: 0

To whit: I am a big baby when it comes to my teeth, but we all knew that, right? The first two hours post-canal, I sat on the upstairs couch, staring at the telly and waiting for the lidocane to wear off and the Advil to kick in.

By two, I was ready to call uncle. The Advil never did take, and the pain in my jaw decided it was Napolean and my sinus cavities were Russia and by god, it was going to storm.

(Holy crap, my j key just fell off...)

(Interweb: 2
Sarah: Big fat zero)

So, long story short, called in, took a Vicodin and slept. Now I'm clutching the Advil bottle like a holy relic and dosing every four hours on the hours.

I swear, between now and next Wednesday, I will man up. It'll happen. Just you watch.

Root Canal, Part One: finished.

Root Canal, Part Two: scheduled for next Wednesday.

Crowning: The Tooth's Revenge (where we run this franchise into the ground) to come later.

Two e-mails from John in my inbox, one about the Star Wars re-release, the other about Lucas as a Stormtrooper action figure. The CC: list could have been the same one from a decade ago: Jason, Pedro, Lora, Chris, Adam and me. The college friends. Five computer nerds and an English major, all sporting serious Coca-Cola addictions.

Except now we're scattered and I'm drinking Diet Coke.

John's somewhere in the wilds of Maryland and we assume Jason's somewhere nearby, because they were roommates at one point, what with their assorted dealings and careers in different branches of the federal government. The last I heard, Chris was in San Diego with his new wife, and we haven't seen or heard from Lora and Pedro since the first Christmas John was in town, which was right after we bought the house, so three and a half years now, and as far as I know they could be living on the other side of town or the other side of the planet and we'd never know. And Jason got married to some girl we've never met, and I only know this because I heard about it from John who is just as sporadic with his e-mailings as I am with mine, but I know he reads here religiously, and when I think of it like that, for a moment, he's only across the quad from me, a five-digit-dial away.

Those were my best friends in the days when I was trying to figure out who I was. They were the first friends I made because they enjoyed my company and not because, y'know, we'd been in Mrs. Clarke's kindergarten class. They were my first exposure to high-functioning nerdom.

Oh, c'mon, I started this post referencing two Star Wars geektastic announcements. We're so nerds, dude.

And wow, inseperable doesn't begin to describe it. I sometimes think that for about 18 months, where there was one of us, you'd find another. Adam, Jason and Pedro shared the house on Pitt Street that Alex would later buy, John and I were the dorm rats, and there were couples. Now, if we had our own little reunion, I'm sure we'd laugh about the minor weed burning incident, lunches on campus and late nights at the Frontier and the standing Friday night dinner-and-a-movie routine.

But you know, time moves on, people grow up. Lora and Pedro tied the knot in '99. Jason hightailed it out of Albuquerque in 2000. John followed in 2001. Chris drifted. We drifted.

Now our friends (our friends, not my friends, because hellooooooooooo, marriage) are Tom and Mikey and Sam and Ben and Gwyneth and Alex and Tracy. Car guys and the women who humor them. And when we see them, it's not for Star Wars followed by Garduños, where we tell the waitress to just bring us a pitcher, we all want Coke, don't worry, we'll tip ya good. Now it's hot days in the garage and Guinness and Mountain Dew and slabs of meat out on the grill and the HBO Sunday night line up and discussions about ferrets and Ferraris. "Our grown up friends," I like to say to Adam, which makes him snort and shake his head.

I know in another ten years, there will be another, different list of names for you to read and be like "boooooooooooring!" and while I'd like to kid myself into thinking there'll be a bunch of overlap from the college friends and the current couch crashers, well, that's up to time and fate.

And oh, god. I just pictured a bunch of the current crowd reproducing and, in ten years, the garage overrun with the next generation of high-functioning nerdom, and I think on that note, I'm going to sign off, because scary, y'know?

Good way to shake off this maudlin mood. Damn you, John. This is all your fault.

Tomorrow, I'll come back and tell you all about installing the new suspension on the car, and we'll all just forget this little sentimental journey, what say, eh?

I thought so.

Everyone, listen up! We've invented a new game.

For the past couple of months, Adam's been Tivoing episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation off of Spike and inflicting them on me, including one last night featuring Ken Jenkins as a cranky astronomer.

It took about three seconds to recognize him as Dr. Bob Kelso, but when we did? Game on.

The rules were simple. Whenever Dr. Bob was on screen, insert Kelso quotes in place of the pseudoscientific babble.

"Guess what has two thumbs and doesn't give a crap? Bob Kelso!"

"Paging Dr. Backbone to the bajingo ward."

"The real question is: how can I make love to her when she's not at fat camp?"

" I've let this whole new look thing slide the last few months, but now that your colleagues are beginning to complain I'm going to give you the same advice I give my son every morning. Lose the makeup! Get a haircut! And stop using my razor to shave your fun zone!"

"Forty Million, Son. You have any idea how many patients I had to ignore to get that high-score? People died."

"Oh what the hell. Back in '68 I don't like you. The end. "

"Ketchup is for winners, Ted."

Ted was, of course, played by Captin Jean Luc Piccard.

Scrubberizing is appropriate for any cast member. Johnny C. in "Platoon?" Rants. Neil Flynn in "Mean Girls?" "She only has pointer and thumb pinky."

"Garden State" has suddenly become way less angsty.

"Gawwwwoooooah!"

Waiting for Scrubs to download off iTunes, lah-de-da. Waiting for Scrubs to download, lah-de-dah.

I broke a tooth.

The tooth in question did not have the common courtesy to have a dainty chip that is easily repaired. Oh, hell no. The fucker collapsed from the inside, turing my mouth into a tiny replica of Carlsbad Caverns. And knowning my luck, I probably cracked the bastard a month ago and it slowly mined itself until one of the stalagtites glommed onto the soft pink flesh of my mouth and held on for dear life this afternoon.

This all happened after the dentist's office closed, natch.

Irony of ironies, I had decided this morning -- in passing -- to schedule a teeth cleaning when I A) remembered B) was near a telephone and C) not in the middle of a meeting, say.

Adam is doing his part in prepping me for the inevitable root canal by using the scary, drill-sounding attachment on the new vacuum cleaner, the idea being to clean the stairs AND desensitize me to the noise at the same time. And in a minute, I will open iTunes and build a soothing (but not too quiet) soundtrack for any and all dental work in my immediate future.

Y'all floss now.

Peanut went and got herself a diaper rash.

Let's back it up a bit. I know I said I was past posting post-op updates on the Nutter, but c'mon. Ferretdiaper rash.

See, the vet shaved her tummy for her surgery and decided that while he was down there, he'd take the fur from around her delicates, and apparently fur is nature's Charmin two-ply and I just realized I made it sound like the middle woozle got a Brazillian, and ew.

As best I can figure, Peanut would get up, do her litter box business and then go back to bed, and, well, eventually there was the angry red diaper rash. Or, as Adam termed it, chaffing issues, which makes it sound like a leather pants debacle, and now I'm really disturbed. I know ferrets are the offical pet of the alternative lifestyle and mainstream eschewers, but c'mon, I'm drawing the line at ferret Brazillians and little leather pants.

The rash showed up on Sunday morning, angry and red. I endulged in a minute's worth of panic; Adam was out of town until later that evening and he sometimes has a hard time trusting me with the care and feeding of the ferrets and now the sickie was presenting a rash.

He wasn't fazed by it. Just went to Walgreens and came back with Bordeaux's Butt Balm, which is the Most Awesome Product Name Ever.

So now, before we drug her, we wipe the rash down with a little Butt Balm and hope the subsequent antibiotics-and-chickening provides enough distraction to give the paste time to set in and do a little good before she wriggles out of our grasp and licks it off.

God knows what sort of comical setback tomorrow will bring.