Jamauri J., my new grandnephew (!) joined us last night at about 7:30. Mom (c-section) and child (on oxygen) doing well enough, both expected to stay in the hospital another day or so. Photos will, I'm sure, follow.
I made a conscious decision to not finish Nanowrimo; family kerfluffle pre-thanksgiving and much work, which really needs to be finished, made the last 4 days of the month precious. Which is almost too bad - I liked my story for once. It was a story, for once, maybe even a novelette. Perhaps I'll rejoin Novel in 90 and keep working on it.
Now to chili and back on my head!
- Location:office
- Music:Possession, McLachlan
Dualities of modern life:
On the one hand, Esmerelda, I am pleased that my hard work to quell my road rage seems to be taking root. I'm trying hard not to be late for anything, and quite frankly, if I am, too bad. I don't need to get there that fast. And those a**holes on the road? The ones that blow past me, and take my lane and theirs too, and go too fast, or can't get within 20 MPH of the speed limit in their laboring beater? They don't have anything to do with me! [I admit that people who cut me off often get the 'let me keel you!' reaction, highbeams and tailgating and all. I'ma workin on that.]
On the other, George, working out of the house just seems to foster a conviction that really, one doesn't need to leave the house. Absent court dates or client appointments, I find it very hard to bother to go elsewhere. Yes, they will find me buried in a pile of cat hair . . .
I don't seem to be very productive here in my home office. That's counterintuitive. I don't waste time on a commute most days, or have to go somewhere to buy lunch. There are multiple distractions here, not limited to LJ, and shelves of books I love. At least I don't watch (or haven't, so far) TV during the day.
I am on the Nanowagon, but two days into it fell off when I had my mother over to dinner. My newly discovered cooking skillz (cough, cough) haven't poisoned her yet. I might if she keeps inviting herself to stay for the evening after dinner. She hates being alone, which wouldn't be a problem if she could just not have to have constant input and/or be right on top of me. Is it sad that 2 hours of my mom one on one is about all I can stand?
Random observation of (inner ring sub)urban living:
Some woman outside screaming at the rapid transit driver, "Stop! Stop! I dropped my keys! Stop!" I didn't hear the rapid transit car even slow. Luckily for her, the end of the line is only two blocks away, but boy, that sucks. It's raining-trying-to-start-snowing; one of the most unpleasant precipitations, next to hail.
But speaking of water, I am adjusting, every so slowly, to the little, tiny water pitcher.
Aren't you glad I share with you?
Pre-"divorce" we had bottled water, and I always had it at my office, too. Money being what it was, I went to an 18-cup PUR filter water dispenser. It fit in the fridge at the incompetent landlord's, but was too tall for the fridge shelf here. So it's been sitting next to the faucet of the sink. I didn't even need to lift it to fill it (the faucet's one of those handy-dandy pull out deals, plus, a gallon seems to be just at the limit my hands can - handle). And while I like my water really cold, filtered ice cubes did the trick.
The cats had never shown the slightest interest in it. (You know what's coming next, don't you?)
Night before last, CRASH! At least it was just water. The dispenser landed in the sink, but much of the water landed elsewhere - walls, floors, counter . . . Cursing fe-lions forever, I mopped and cleaned. When I went to reassemble the dispenser, though, new 'spare' parts were in sad evidence.
Hmm. By yesterday afternoon it was clear that the dispenser had been compromised, leaking from both the bottom and the dispenser toggle. (And Amazon tells me I've had it just under a year and a half! Boo!) After dinner with my dad and his wife, my sister and I stopped by Wal-Mart (GAAH!) and I picked up a 7 cup Pur pitcher. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be keeping up with me, although it does fit in my fridge AND - bonus! I can lift it.
Now I get to decide whether to spend another $32 on a new dispenser, and run the risk that it will, like the prior one, somehow offend the cats who own me, or limp along with this little pitcher.
- Mood:
amused
The fe-lions curl contented, fulfilling their quota of sleep for today. Loosefur first gorged himself on dry cat food and then vomited. More reliable than old faithful. There isn't anything wrong with him that the vet could find, and pilling him didn't work out. When I moved here, I bought a spotbot carpet cleaner. I've been getting my money's worth out of it. . .
I was chipping away at the pile of work when I suddenly realize that I have all the end of the month stuff too. No TV for moi tonight, I think. And I'm getting up at crack o'dawn to take my friend's cat to the vet. Friday is a CLE and a trip to probate court for a copy of an order that never got delivered to me.
I'm going to my dad's late tomorrow afternoon, to show him and not my stepmother how to "get on" Amazon. ? They call me constantly for web research and the like. (Usually when I'm neck deep in something.)
Of course, it is a standing joke that I can sit in my office for hours and the phone won't ring. But if I go to the restroom, or for coffee, or start shutting down to go home? The universe reaches out and touches.
Books in progress: Reread of Cherryh's Fortress in the Eye of Time. So many big ideas crammed into one multi-layered story.
- Music:cat snores, hard drive, tires on wet pavement
2 loads washed and in dryer; 2 loads in washer. Now I'm out of quarters for the (really hate these) two loads of hang-to-dry relatively delicate clothes. (I try really hard not to buy dry clean only.)
Tomorrow is our local Nanowrimo kickoff meeting. It's across town in Parma - couldn't be any further and still be in "the Cleveland area" as far as I'm concerned. (Also known as East side parochialism.) But even with the expected rain, the trees are so colorful! and last year's meeting was worth the ride, so I'm going. Now I need to figure out what goodies to take.
I'm still sleeping ten hours a night, which I'm really hoping doesn't mean something really bad. Where's that universal health care when you need it?
- Location:Home office
- Music:When a man loves a woman, Bette Midler/The Rose version
- 19:14 Didn't my apartment lease specify they'd provide a houseboy? #
Far more common is the fire nightmare. Last night / this morning I had an entire series of dreams in which first my house and then my office burned. Unlike an actual fire, we had plenty of time to load out important equipment and files (fire and moving at once! how wonderful. And of course, it wasn't - quite - the actual office building; much taller). We kept getting reports about where the fire was above and beside us, but I knew we could get down the stairs. My assistant (I don't have one now in rl; she got a real job) helped carry down computers and printers and boxes of files until my poor little Scion Betty, wedged into an alley, fairly bulged.
Somehow I ended up trapped in a bathroom in a floor without elevators, and had to fly down flights and flights of stairs to get out. But the tenants were all corralled into an area in front of the building and couldn't leave. We spent the night there, and in the morning I found an unburnt room where someone had stashed glass beads. They were warm, but I gathered handfuls of them thinking I'd make jewelry. Another woman came in, and wanted her beads back. in return, she showed me a huge stash of food. [dream scene break here] When I got back to the front of the building, someone had installed a huge screen on the front, and a talking-head newstype was reporting that the building had burned because there were gay people and organizations in it. I was furious.
And from that, I think I have the bones of my Nano for this year, which may or may not not have anything to do with burning buildings, glass beads, and gay organizations.
*Yeah, okay, I stress all the time. Your point?
- Music:Turn This Car Around, Tom Petty
It's not as though I'm particularly social in rl.
(Waves hi, anyway.)
Oh, and Birthday? Great!
It's my pre-birthday weekend, and I a) don't have a long weekend and b) will be working on my birthday.
Tomorrow I have my mom over for crock-pot pot roast and wine.
Today?
Poll #1469088 Pre-Birthday Weekend
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 4
What should I do on my pre-birthday weekend?
View Answers
Read
1 (25.0%)
TV Party! Watch the shows on your DVR and your DVDs! 3 (75.0%)
Work 0 (0.0%)
Make a plan for your next year 0 (0.0%)
All of the above 0 (0.0%)
If I decide to TV Party!, which DVDs should I watch?
View Answers
all of last season's Dollhouse 0 (0.0%)
last season's Torchwood 1 (25.0%)
you know, you haven't seen the Buffy musical number in a while 0 (0.0%)
Dr. Horrible 0 (0.0%)
All of the above 3 (75.0%)
The writer(s) did that lazy writer thing:
- set up an A story wherein Mr. Shu's wife Terry is hired as a school nurse without a nursing license. Um, No;
- She then gives the Glee Club students pseudoephedrine and they all act like they're on happy uppers: Um, No;
- Pseudoephedrine is not "over the counter" in Ohio, in that you have to show id and are restricted from buying more than maximium on the box dose; (The writers had a character buy 36 boxes; not gonna happen)
- confused homosexuality with gender dysphoria; (Even us Ohio hicks know the difference, people)
- no love - and I mean NO LOVE - on the music
Off to Target for a shower mat. And carpet cleaner (don't ask).
- Mood:
disappointed - Music:tires on wet pavement
A large part of my personality (not to mention my LJ handle) explained: I am baby 19! http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/magazi
Mostly I like working at home, but Loosefur just knocked a BIG pile of files to the floor. GRRRR.
My landlord installed the wrong valves in the heating system, so it'll be a few more days before we get heat. The cats are far unhappier than I am, and I. am. not. happy. (Now, watch: when the heat's actually on I bet I'll be too hot!)
I've also had three people, including my landlord, tell me that landlords don't have to turn the heat on until October 15th. I can't find any statutory support for that, and the state law and local ordinances are tied into the outside temperature, not a specific date. Another urban myth, like the one that children in Ohio can choose which parent they want to live with when they turn 14. (Untrue; a child's wishes are just one in a large number of custody factors in Ohio, but I've had untold numbers of people tell me that as if it's gospel.)
One's tags appear on almost every screen of LJ EXCEPT THIS ONE, WHEN YOU NEED them.
I'm really broke, so I want to buy food, and clothing, and music, and (no kidding) books.
Finally, (I think) I'm going to have to reread Shadow Unit. Wha Huh?
What a show. If you're not watching it, you're missing something.
I watched this week's episode last night, and ended up replaying the phenomenal arrangement of Queen's Somebody to Love three times.
High school was not the best time of my life. I was the fat geek in the chorus; never part of the pretty people soloists (although not above self-consciously forming a 'clique' of those kids on the outs). Choir was an endless challenge, with a martinet director (who taught me much of what I think I know about succeeding, thank you Ed Battaglia, [but who was also not above punching you in the abdomen when he thought you weren't breathing right]), Regionals, State (oh yeah, we were winners), tour (Natalie and I, the two fattest girls in choir, shared one of those horrible bench seats all the way to Kennedy Center! and then we sang! in Kennedy Center!), Holiday Concert rehearsal, Gilbert and Sullivan, and a version of Verdi's 'Ave Maria' that still makes the hair stand up on the back on my neck when I hear it, it was so ethereal.
But choir was special. Performing - magical. Glee manages to catch that, along with all of the angst of being a teenager. It reminds me of the best parts of giving the most of yourself in performance, with all the love and enthusiasm that one has.
And behind that - keep one ear open for the a) background music. Really. I'm going to have to buy this on DVD just to listen through for the subtly effective layers of sound behind the dialogue; and b) the pop song arrangements. I don't even have the language to praise the artistry of the arrangements, which manage to simultaneously foreground the thematic elements of the songs while maximizing the harmonies; which showcase the vocal strengths of the leads while allowing their occasional bobbles to show, too. (Not to mention the dancing, which ranges from the incredibly fluid to the believably awkward.)
eta: Oh, how could I forget - the last episode included the wonderfully gifted Kristen Chenoweth! Not to miss.
Puff the Magic Dragon was one of the very first songs I ever learned to play.
How sad is it that when I call my dad (whom I think of as a musical mentor) to tell him the news, his response is to tell me how fat Mary Travers had gotten the last time he saw her on tv.
Where to even start?
Maybe I'll send him this: http://carriefisher.com/?p=462
- Mood:Boggled
- Music:somber silence
Rnt you glad?
- Mood:
okay
a) make me money or b) clean my house. Boo.
It is so disappointing when a client is unhappy with a hard earned result that I feel is at least equitable, if not wonderful. Some people are never happy, and I shouldn't pwn that, should I?
My body has settled into a 9 hour sleep pattern, which seems totally unfair to me. And no Jay-Lake-like springing out of repose with a mere 6 hours of rest minus so much as an alarm clock for me. Even at 9 hours I have to cajole the meat off the mattress with promises of !!coffee!!
Now I've read all the social media, instead of writing the first draft of that last, pesky brief.
If I could figure out where to put the Biorb fishbowl, I'd bring Bob the fish home. How odd is it to miss a fish? Is it the fish, the random movement of the fish, or the burble of the bowl, or the bubbles? Something else?
I haven't had any candy corn yet. It won't be fall until I do. (Brach's mix, with the white-tipped corn, and brown-tipped corn, and pumpkins.)
Off to feed the felions.
- Location:back from the west side
- Music:the downtown train
Is it wasting time if wasting time is exactly what you want to be doing?
My "done" list for the last two days:
poked around the internet
finished![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
sartorias Sherwood Smith's Inda series (but didn't write a review)
startedpapersky Jo Walton's Tooth and Claw
watched hours of old "Criminal Minds" (I had never seen this before. Now I get how much www.shadowunit.org/ is actually sff-ied Criminal Minds fanfic.) (And reading the new entry is the next thing I'm doing, before I actually go to work.
Yesterday I did do the research for a brief I have due. (But I haven't actually read all of it, I just found it and downloaded it.)
Petted the cats. And played hours of "catch the laser" and "feather on a stick".
- Music:One more try, George Michael
- 17:47 Curiousity kills the Cat is eating - no, not the trash - the trash bag. #
- So much for thinking.
In other news, I'm also suffering from not being able to find another world. I mean that in a reading kind of way. I'm almost finished with Sherwood Smith's (
sartorias) Inda quadrology; I have really enjoyed it. I liked the characters, in a detached reading about them way, but they didn't hit my - for lack of better words - kinks. They never sparked me right into the story. So now I need a new world. Maybe I need to do a massive C.J. Cherryh re-read. I also get tugged at, weirdly, by Jo Walton's (
papersky ) Farthing universe. (Weirdly because if you asked me I would have said I didn't like mannered English procedurals, and am not a fan of anything to do with Hitler or WWII, although I do like alternate histories.) I used to be able to lose myself in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover, but the last time I picked one up I got so snobbish about the bad writing and worse editing that I couldn't make myself finish it. Others - Jacqueline Carey, Sarah Monette (
truepenny) , Sheri Tepper, Kelley Armstrong - I've overread or I'm just not in the mood for. It's not that I don't have new books - I do. Some of them I'm really really looking forward to. Before I ran out of money I treated myself to Elizabeth Bear's (
matociquala ) Seven for a Secret w/ the Bonus! novelette; I have Karen Miller's Innocent Mage Duology; and lots more. Two shelves of them. But it's like wanting to go back to the family cabin by the lake for the long weekend - and finding out that your brother in law sold it. There are other cabins, and other lakes, but the frogs never sound quite the same.
- Mood: discontent
- Music:What the fuck was I thinking? Jenny Owen Youngs
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