I'm still here. Just not ... well, not HERE

I know. Bad blogger.

Ever just look at everything around you and feel no inspiration to even try to convey it to someone else?

Well, there you go.

Anyway ...

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I couldn't figure out what bothered me about L'Oreal's new facial cleanser - the one with the "scrublet" - until a few days ago.

It's the word "scrublet."

It sounds like an affliction. Like something you catch.

You go to the doctor, you tell him what your symptoms are, and after an exam, he takes a deep breath, looks you dead in the eye and says: "Well, you have a scrublet." It sounds like something that should be surgically removed and kept in a jar, not something that should be rubbed across your face ...

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Every time I've told someone I got to keep time for a couple fights in Gillette over the weekend, they ask: "So you were a ring girl, right? In a bikini? Holding the cards that say what round's coming up next?"

No. NO!

I despise ring girls (some more than others). They're so ... skanky. They're pretty, but they're also pretty dumb, pretty slutty and pretty fresh from the pool of illegality as far as the men drooling over them are concerned. They're strippers in training. So I can totally see their appeal to men, but a lot of them are just too skeezy to be described or tolerated.

I was the timekeeper - I held a stopwatch, rang the bell at the start and end of the rounds and sounded the 10-second warning for each round. That's all I did, and it was the most fun I've had at a fight yet. I'm totally ready to go pro as a timekeeper. There's power in ringing that bell.

Dad went to the fights with me - or at least the first part, before I was recruited to hang out at the judges' table - and it was great to be able to share that with him. I got to introduce him to my coach and some of the guys from my gym, and he got to see something that I enjoy doing/watching (his only plea was that I never get into the ring myself ...).

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I've never been so happy to see Bob in all my life.

Here's how this week has gone (bear in mind that R from sports quit about a week ago)

Monday D (sports) on vacation, B (copy editor) on vacation, Bob (sports) sick, A (writer) sick, S's (copy editor) day off. There's no one in the sports department, and that leaves me coordinating - via a third party - with a different paper's sports editor who assumes that I know a) everything to do with every sport on earth and b) how to format hundreds of inches of stuff I've never had to deal with. Monday was a disaster.

Tuesday D (sports) on vacation, Bob (sports) sick, A (writer) sick, A (photog) sick, S (copy editor) sick. Same scenario with the sports section, except that with B (copy editor) back, I had a little more time to try to figure out those hundreds of inches of stuff I'd never dealt with. I did it wrong - I know I did - but at least it got done.

Today D (sports) on vacation, A (writer) sick, A (photog) sick. Bob (sports) is back! Halelujia!

This leads us to the Word of the Week: FRICK! It's become a mantra. I couldn't say it enough Monday and Tuesday (today's turning out better).

I've also eaten my weight in sugar this week. I stress, I eat. It's a bad quid pro quo. And the brownies and mini Reese's cups and little Kit-Kat bars seemed to be endless.