A foolish return to blogging for its own sake

Point the first: I haven't forgotten this blog. Obviously; as I'm writing in it at present. Nor have I forgotten the story I was working on. I just need to set out some ideas and get that sorted before I carry on. Although upon reflection and a desire to rewrite (made more severe by the fact that it's already been made public in all its awkwardness) it may become another Abortive Piece of Florid Prose - I have innumerable quantities of those, shed at the wayside like so many colourless papery snake-skins.

Point the second: I am utterly bewildered by the fact that there are still visits to this blog, even though I have not added new material in .... many months. Like, who wants to see my old stuff, really? My most popular posts to date are still the one about pretty actors and the one about things I smelled in one day. I really don't understand people. At least most of them are not foolish enough to actually read the (similarly multitudinous to the Prose) Florid Poetry I have been so silly as to share here. The idiotic phrases one puts together in the gut-wrenching years of 18 and 19 - well, there's no harm in them, but why, oh, why, did I have to share them on the Internet? Foolish child I was, and still am, I'll admit.

Point the third: Pursuant to that last statement, let me explain, if you care to read, why I think I'm still foolish: I seem to frequently put myself into a state of maudlin melancholy, and what's worse is that I seem to do it on purpose.
I can't think why I do it, but the how is easy. Let's just say I have a partiality for certain types of love stories. Pride and Prejudice, Gaudy Night & Busman's Honeymoon, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Taming of the Shrew, for a start.
I've lately been home sick from work, so yesterday (as is traditional when a Klassen is ill) I watched the entirety of the A&E version of P&P. I know nearly the whole of it by heart by now, and can imitate Lady Catherine as she's telling off Lizzy about Darcy quite creditably. But the moment in Pemberley as Lizzy rushes back to Georgiana, ostensibly to turn pages for her but really to distract from silly Miss Bingleys and their references to certain Wickhams - and she and Darcy have an entire conversation with their eyes. Just kills me every time.
Then today I re-read Gaudy Night. Dorothy Sayers. I love that woman. And it occurred to me, on this re-reading, that I owe a fair number of my feminist opinions to her, because really, Gaudy is full of them*. But there are two moments in that book that just kill me too. The first, and actually more murderous of the two, as far as I'm concerned, is the scene when they've been punting on the river, and Wimsey's reading Harriet's notes on the crime and catches her perusing his face. The second, of course, is the bit at the end when he proposes for the umpteenth time and she finally accepts.
Now, I'm not entirely certain, but I have a good strong suspicion that my maudlin mood upon re-reading and re-watching these gems is solidly based in the fact that none of the so-called love stories I have embarked upon in my own life has ended well.
I do have an inner Mr Bennet (probably due to watching P&P so many times), who thoroughly laughs at the whole deal, with a hearty, "Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed a little in love now and then," though contrary to what he thinks, taken all together, I rather dislike than like the experience. But then I read these stories and I have a little hope for a time, and then I remember that I've been living vicariously through Lizzy and Harriet for the last few hours and that reality is not often like books, and my hope bursts like little bubbles and I'm left with this sort of bittersweet melancholy.

Point the fourth: I'm sort of a little bit sorry that my first post back since January is full of emotional dreck, but it was what was on my mind that caused me to write at all, so, in Internet-speak, sorry not sorry. 

Point the fifth: Goddamn loneliness. It's shitty.


*Also I came across some excerpts from essays by her on the subject a little time ago. Cast your eyes across these, if you will: http://hardheads.blogspot.ca/2010_10_01_archive.html - I particularly liked the section out of The Human Not-Quite Human.

tl;dr: skunking, mondayism, talk geeky to me, haggis, and reddit.

Well. Stuff happened.

Sunday I had a picnic in the park with all my dear family. It was picnicky - and much too warm. I skunked my uncle and my dad at cribbage - almost didn't cos my dad was one point away from getting across the line, but then I pegged out. Made me feel good, cos I've never skunked anyone before, and they've been playing much longer than I have - but I got a whole string of double-runs one after another, and most of them had fifteens too, so that's why. Plus my uncle had a series of really terrible hands. Sorry, Uncle.

Monday was mondayish; I actually fell asleep on my desk partway through the day and I'm really glad no-one noticed. It was only for a few minutes anyways. But then after work I got to hang out with my good friend Jessi and another friend, Jazzy - I made paleo apple fritters (I keep getting asked for the recipe. One of these days I'll publish it here, all formatted and with pretty pictures to go with it) and Jazzy made Earl Grey Tea and Lavender cookies. OH MY GOSH those were amazing. Then we sat on the floor and did crafty stuff for a while. I got some chain-mail done, as well as part of my "uniform" for the dodgeball team I'm in...
And I laughed at us because for a full half hour none of us said anything to anyone else. Introverts, much?

Yesterday I got to hang out with a friend whom I didn't really know very well beforehand - she's been more my sister's friend up til now - and it was nice to get to know her a bit better.

Yesterday I also got a new laptop and a monitor, YAY! And just in time, too - my old lappy was becoming more and more decrepit. For the last few weeks, if it ever tried to do anything, it had to access the harddrive fifty bajillion times first, during, AND after. I thought maybe it was using the swap space too much - which says bad RAM to me - but dad thinks maybe it's just retries because it has bad sectors on the harddrive as it is, so maybe the harddrive is finally giving up the ghost. I'm hoping for the latter; as long as the RAM is still good, I'm happy, cos my old one has 3 gigs (a stick of 1, and a stick of 2), so if the new one also comes with 3 (cos I haven't checked yet - I'll do that tonight probably), I'll swap out the 1 for the old one's 2, making 4 in the new one. Mmmm hardware. And the RAM should be compatible - they're both Lenovos, one's the T61 and the other's the T61p - so I see no reason why it shouldn't work. *Crosses fingers*
Which brings me to the question of what OS I should put on it. I was considering Linux Mint for a while, cos Ubuntu's pissing me off, just a little; but I may just bite the bullet and give it Ubuntu 13.04 Raring. I stuck with 11.04 (Natty) for quite a long time, and now they've "stopped supporting it", of course - but on the other hand, 12 and up are Steam-compatible. I mean... I'm not interested in starting gaming... at all... no... um. All I know for sure is that I refuse to have Windows anywhere near it.

Anyways, my plan for today is to go to the butcher's and buy a haggis (because I want haggis for no apparent reason, and I know it's not paleo, but I refuse to make an excuse for this; haggis is its own excuse, in my opinion) and have that for dinner while cleaning my house and possibly putting some OS or other (meaning probably Ubuntu Raring) on my new laptop... and I may even make this Goth-Upkeep Day and recolour my hair. Maybe. I could probably last a couple weeks more if I wanted to, so it's not imperative that I recolour it this week, I just feel like it's almost that time again.

Final thoughts: you know you're on Reddit too much when you find that people ask the same questions and make the same comments over and over - and you know you've been on Reddit too long when people start nostalgically referencing stuff that you saw when it was first posted. Yeah.

So. Back to work.
Toodles, all.

In which Lizzi goes on a feminist rant. [long ranty post warning]

I had an exchange with someone this morning after I heard him complaining about the lady who had made him pasta for lunch. Please bear in mind, this is an adult male, forty-plus if he's a day.

"She's a real Italian," he said, "got a moustache and hairy armpits and hairy legs... disgusting."

At which point, I piped up and said that I have hairy armpits and hairy legs - so what? And then I explained that it's cold out still (oh, BC how I love thee), I'm covered up, so why am I going to care about something no-one can see when it takes an extra ten minutes in the shower and I could be doing useful things in those ten minutes like making a lunch or whatnot?

His response was that I disgusted him. That it's gross. That sure, I can do what I want to, but it's revolting.

I chose not to answer aloud. This is my answer.

I don't shave my legs or my armpits when I don't have to, but I don't know a single man who shaves his legs if he's going to be wearing shorts, or going swimming. There is no earthly reason why I am therefore more disgusting than my imaginary example man. I shower regularly, I wear clean clothes. I am not gross.
So why am I disgusting if I choose, for practicality, to abstain from an optional step in the hygiene procedure? And why is a man who chooses not to shave his face (oh, another optional step!) not equally disgusting?
Is it perhaps, then, that I am disgusting to you because you feel that I should conform to your ideals of what a woman should be like? Well, let me go back to an earlier post to remind you that no-one should come from a cookie-cutter. Just as we're different sizes, we're different people. My sister wants to be a homemaker, and doesn't want a career. I am not my sister. I'm actively pursuing a career. Neither opinion is wrong, even though they're nearly polar opposites, and I have to say, I don't always understand my sister's opinion, but I can allow for a difference. In the same way, just because you have a certain idea of what womanhood and femininity should be, doesn't mean you get to invalidate my understanding of what womanhood and femininity are for me.

Actually, if you think about it, men should have less opportunity to criticise these things, because they are not women. Let's put it in very ridiculous terms, overstating the concept for clarity.
Take, for example, an orange and a fish.
The orange could say to the fish, "You are not swimming properly. Don't they teach you these things in school?"*
Or the fish could say to the orange, "You're not juicy enough. Try harder."
Neither of these things make sense, because the orange is not the fish, and therefore cannot determine between proper swimming and useless flapping about in the water; but neither is the fish the orange, and therefore cannot see what difficulty it would be to change its very nature and makeup.

I use the analogy both ways, because women equally ought not to tell a man what manhood and masculinity are made up of, but the issue under scrutiny right now is chiefly men specifying womanhood and femininity. Because to be honest with you, I see the latter much more than the former.

And one of the things that really tweaks me the wrong way is the act of womanhood being defined on my behalf. I am a woman and therefore I have womanhood; I am a female and therefore I am feminine. My understanding of that cannot be thrown out as being outlying data. Doing so would negate the fact that I have a gender, whether or not my femininity is different from your perception of what it ought to be. And this holds true for every other woman you will ever meet, even if we all approach womanhood from our own angles and viewpoints, it's still womanhood because we are women. So even though my sister and I are very different in what we want from life, I cannot say she's more or less feminine than I, or that she's more or less of a woman than I.

Anyway. Wasn't intending to make this a full-on rant, but it sort of turned into one. My apologies. And semi-congratulations, if you read the whole thing. I won't judge if you didn't, though. Also, I didn't realise I was this emphatic of a feminist. Heh.

Oh, and for the non-redditors, yesterday's post title beginning with TL;DR - it's shorthand for Too Long; Didn't Read. You're welcome.

Toodles.

*pun very much fully intended.

short and sweet

Well, my wonderful father fixed my computer - apparently my /tmp/ permissions got fubar'd royally, and he did stuff and put it back the way it was supposed to be. Thanks daddy!

It's also Friday and I don't want to be at work today, even though this was already a short week, but the day will be over soon.
I think I might also drop in on my parental residence to use the maternal carbon unit's sewing machine, because mine is without a presser foot, and sewing by hand is impossibly tedious. I know you'll be reading this, so may I, mother?

And on Monday, I'm going to see Sigur Ros with my friend, so I'm leaving work early by two hours. It'll be good.

Short blog today, but I don't have much to say.
Toodles.

Batman, crying, metal show.

Last night I was forced by my friend to watch the worst and cheesiest Batman movie in existence. It featured George Clooney as Batman, and while he did his best with the role, he should never have been cast in it. It also had the Governator as the bad guy - and overwhelming numbers of terrible puns in an Austrian accent about freezing and cold. And the Batsuits had nipples. I facepalmed so hard.

After my friend left, I decided to try the "No Cry Challenge"; it's a playlist on youtube and the challenge is to watch through the playlist - without crying, oddly enough. And I can't resist a challenge. I made it through the first seven videos (admittedly, two of those had been removed from youtube; thanks copyright stick-up-the-ass people - so it was really the first five) - but the eighth, the ten-minute compilation of soldiers coming home, finally broke me and I bawled like a baby.
It was oddly refreshing, though. I don't cry often - there's not much in my life to actually cry over. I get teary if I get stressed, but I don't really full-on weep, ever. Mostly because I don't have much reason to. But it was somewhat nice to let go and cry for once, sort of run my emotions through the laundry or something.
Call me crazy, I won't argue with you on that point. But if anybody wants to take the challenge and see if they can get farther than I did, go to this link. I dare you.

Anyways, that's all I got. It's been a slow couple of days. Tomorrow night, though, I'm going to a metal show. It'll be fantastic and I'm super excited. One of the bands that I was actually going specifically to see dropped out though, their drummer apparently quit the band. So that's slightly disappointing. But the other band that I'm going for is still on, so that's alright.

So, yeah. Toodles.

Happy Monday

So I haven't written a post yet today; I suppose I ought to do that. For SCIENCE .... or something.

It won't be nearly as clever as a sonnet, nor nearly as full of content as the one I did when I came back to this blog, but that's mostly because I had no new revolutionary ideas over the weekend.

I did have a Nerf-gun fight with some friends on Saturday, it was my friend's birthday and he likes to throw Nerf-day parties. Basically we ran around in a park with lots of brightly coloured guns and foam swords, and lost a metric ton of little Nerf darts. It was fairly entertaining.
On Saturday, also, I watched the most recent Doctor Who episode. Besides the bratty kid and her brother, it was a damn good episode - I love Matt Smith's schizophrenic Doctor so very much! I am seriously looking forward to the next episode. Oh man. The one thing I am not looking forward to about next week is that it's the fricken season finale. *sadface* (Note to self: look up "He Said, She Said", the prequel to next week's ep, on youtube.)

I also had a rather wee, somewhat banal, but slightly euphoric epiphany this evening; I live in my own damn house.
I realise that's obvious to most of you, but one of the implications of that concept is that because it's my own damn house, if I feel like moving my pillows and my blanket to the couch and camping in the living room with a movie (or reddit) on my computer on my lap, I can do that. I could even sleep on the freaking couch if I want to. The only reason I haven't, is that old habits die hard (thanks, Mom).
So I'm happily camped under my blanket with a cup of chai tea poured from my charming TARDIS teapot. Because I can. Wheeee!

And that's all for now, folks.

(Did I really just say that? Oh dear. Next thing you know, I'll be saying YOLO...)

Anyhow -

Toodles!

Friday. Thank goodness.

Well, it's Friday. I can go home in twenty minutes, after the slowest eight hours of my life.
My supervisor has been at some kind of training for two days, so she wasn't in today, and my other co-worker stayed home sick, apparently he had some bad curry yesterday or something. So I've been sitting alone in the office all day without more than ten minutes' human interaction. I did have a phone call about a laptop (that I don't have the capability of fixing) and another about a printer (ditto) - but fortunately I was told that anything I couldn't do, I ought to refer to the IT guy at another location. So I did that. I did scan in some documents for someone, and sent some emails, so I wasn't entirely without duties...
When I get home, I think I might make some kind of paleo something-or-other and then take it with me to the young adults barbecue tonight. We'll see.

It's funny, cos I'm only out-of-my-mind bored because I haven't had anything to do. I could care less about human interaction; welcome to the world of introverts :)

Ah yes, and tomorrow, I believe, someone is having a Nerf-day party that I think I may attend. Replete with Nerf swords. Yes. I hope it stays sunny.

Another Thursday.

Good morning.

I have nothing to say today. Nothing exciting or new happened between this time yesterday and now, but I'll give a short summary just because I can.

Yesterday I was at work at 8 am. I opened and closed three tickets, and I sat at a desk. I ate my lunch and went for a walk with my co-workers after lunch. At four, I went home.
At home I watched Monday's episode of Castle, and Tuesday's episode of NCIS (on which topic, by the way: WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY DOING?!?), and I may have eaten some dinner. I actually legitimately don't remember. That's odd.
At 7.30, I left my house and did some quickie grocery shopping. Got home by 9, and spent another forty-five minutes or so wandering the series of tubes. Then I went to bed.
My alarm went off at 6.15, and I got up and did stuff and then went to work. At about 8 I submitted my timesheet for my first week of work, and since then I've been sitting at my desk browsing reddit. It's very exciting.

Oh, I guess one thing did happen: Hyperbole and a Half has returned to her blog this morning after about eighteen months away. It's good to read her stuff again. If you've never heard of her, she's the brilliant originator of "ALL THE THINGS".

In other "news", I'm completely obsessed with my Vibram FiveFinger shoes - I wear them everywhere I can get away with wearing them. Also, I require tea. Also, welcome to near-stream-of-consciousness writing, because I'm bored and I wish to write, but have no clue what to write about specifically. Hence the very short and uninteresting summary of Yesterday through to Today.

I suppose I could post this and go do something else, but frankly, Something Else will probably consist of Reddit or Minesweeper, both of whose depths I have plumbed enough for one week, so I'd honestly rather be inflicting Relentless and Unceasing Blog upon you all. Ergh, that sounds like a disease...

So. Relentless and Unceasing.
Ironically, I have now run out of things to say.

Signing off.
Toodles!

Blogging on purpose...

Sometimes I feel like I talk too much or too loudly, and sometimes I feel like I can’t open my mouth.

Today is one of the days where my mouth won’t open, and I have to work doubly hard to even make my fingers move on the keyboard. I feel like I have nothing to say that could possibly be worthwhile, and why would anyone listen to me anyways?

So today I’m blogging on purpose. Maybe it’ll help. It’s better than not saying anything at all, by far. Because there are a lot of days where I don’t say anything. I sit in my house and I don’t interact with people. Which, admittedly, I find quite pleasant on occasion; I even talk to myself, because, of course, one ought always to speak to the person present with the most intelligence, and usually, that happens to be me.

But not interacting can be isolating. I frequently have to explain to people (extroverts, mostly) that there is a difference between being alone, and being lonely. I like being alone; I like being left alone. It’s a pleasant break to not have to deal with people sometimes. But sometimes I get lonely. There’s a difference. I don’t know how best to describe that difference, I just know it’s there. And when I’m legitimately lonely, my head noise breaks in and makes me want to talk to people even less, while I’m still craving human interaction.

Goddamnit, head noise. Leave me alone.

Toodles, all.

Bombardments

It's been a while.

I could make excuses. I could say how busy I've been. I could, and I could, and I could...

But I think mostly it's because I'm unsure about how best to come back. Is it awkward, after eight months, to just jump back in and say, "Hey guys, it's me again, let me bombard you with my life and thoughts and stuff and things, same as I did ... a whole year ago!"?

Let's pretend, for the sake of argument, that people leaving and coming back without warning is normal and not awkward in the slightest.
So therefore, if that's the case, you may, if you wish, sit back with a nice cup of Tea Earl Grey Hot, and prepare yourself for a nice, calming, chilled-out:

"HEY GUYS, IT'S ME AGAIN, LET ME BOMBARD YOU WITH MY LIFE AND THOUGHTS AND STUFF AND THINGS, SAME AS I DID A WHOLE YEAR AGO."

Following that theme, in recent news (so that I don't alarm you unduly with references to things that happened that you didn't previously know about):

• I sang backing vocals with a symphonic metal band for two live shows (one in December, one in April) and it was fantastic: http://www.leahthemusic.com/
• I started playing Pathfinder, the D&D-like role-playing game. I play in two campaigns: one, as a skill-monkey half-elf rogue/ranger who speaks in a Scottish accent - and the other, as a dumb-as-a-post half-orc barbarian named Thump whose two obsessions are things that are Shiny, and things that can be thumped, such as goblins.
• (I'm surprised it took me this long to discover role-playing games - SO MUCH FUN.)
• I just finished my second year at university studying Computer Information Systems, and I've just started my second term as President of the Computer Information Systems Student Association. I've also just started my first Co-op work term: I get school credit for it, and work experience in my field, AND I get paid for it, all of which make me reasonably happy.
• I got a new tattoo in April, bringing my total tattoos up to four, if you count the teensy stick-and-poke I did on my own hip four years ago. The new one is on the inside of my bicep, is in Latin, and says: "Sed et si monti huic dixeritis: Tolle et jacta te in mare, fiet." Translated: "But if you say to this mountain: Get up and cast yourself into the sea, it will be done." Found in Matthew 21:21, for the curious.
• I'm still at my wonderful little basement suite, and I couldn't be happier with where I'm living. Even the occasional noise of the tenants upstairs doesn't bother me.
• I've completely caught up on Doctor Who, at last, and I've been watching the current episodes as they come out, which has been great fun. I do love Clara with the Doctor. They have such great chemistry.
• Speaking of TV shows, I've been watching NCIS and Castle as per usual, but on my dad's recommendation I've just started a new one, it's called Continuum. A cop from 2077 accidentally gets dumped into Vancouver in 2012 along with a terrorist group called Liber8. It's pretty good so far, but I'm only about halfway through the first season still.

 So there; I have accomplished my bombardments and my return. It wasn't too painful, was it?

But don't worry, you'll be hearing from me again, hopefully in reasonably short order.

Toodles!

cranky day.

today is cranky day.
today, i rebel and i refuse.
today, i don't want to do things the way i know i ought to.

fuck doing something new. fuck taking action. i have a friend who insists that action is greater than inaction. but i'll tell you right now that taking action SUCKS. inaction is easier. inaction means you don't get hurt as quickly.
taking action, well - it hurts sometimes. and you feel like an ass sometimes. and then you wanna sit in a corner with your stash of guilty-pleasure snacks and/or a nice bottle of something and not move til everyone around you has forgotten that you even existed in the first place, never mind forgetting what you did.
and there's no one you can apologise to, because really you're the only one that hurts and you did it to yourself anyhow, and then when you're curled up in the corner you say things to to yourself like, well, i guess i'm just a fucking idiot, why the fuck did i do that, that was so dumb, stupid, stupid, stupid, now don't ever do anything that retarded ever again, no, actually, NEVER do anything again EVER.
and then you feel like crap.
and the next time you throw inaction out the window, and oh, look! it backfired on you AGAIN! well, now you're just all kinds of idiot for not listening to yourself when you said not to do anything again ever. serves you right, dumb-butt, why the hell didn't you listen to your own advice, why the fuck would you do a thing like that when you knew what happened last time.
inaction is so much easier. inaction means you don't impale yourself on a stupid decision and end up bleeding all over the place.
doing something. bah.

maybe tomorrow i'll be back to my normal masochistic impale-myself-on-my-own-decisions self.
today, i don't wanna.

shards on the tile, shards of my mind

is the glass half empty, or is it half full? because i find my glass has shattered on the tile, and i can see myself reflected in every tiny piece. here lies my eye, here my lip. here an ear and there an arm. no piece reflecting all, but each taking some small portion and throwing it back disconnected from the whole. do i mend it? or do i discard it? is it even worth thinking about, or should i just walk away and leave the shards lying where they fell, reflecting pieces of what they see? if i step forward or if i step back, my blood smears the tiles as the broken glass mercilessly jabs my feet; but if i stand unmoving, my reflection mocks me without remorse, all the tiny pieces jumbled together into a crude representation, not truly myself.

outside i see the trees. all the leaves are gone, vanished into some cruel fancy of the wind, or clustered on the ground in pathetic heaps. the sky hints of snow. the air is icy, and i shiver at the thought of going out.

if i had my way, i would isolate myself from everything and everyone, to go hide in some dark secluded hole, where no-one can find me. i would have no reminders of things left undone, of words left unsaid, of changes left unmade. i would see no shadows of things i could have done, should have done, ought to have done differently. and for once the snide and ruthless audience that resides in my head, and lives to tell me what i did wrong, will have silence instead of critiques. oh, to hear a void in my mind, rather than the opera-house full of mockery and ridicule, that would be glorious indeed.

my eyes sting with half-conceived tears, and a dull ache has settled in my heart. my emotions have tied themselves in a knot in the middle of my chest and will not come undone, no matter how or which way i tug, and the end will not show itself.

so is the glass half empty? or is it half full? or perhaps it is shattered.

day 6- favorite super hero and why

oh dear. this one will be a little harder, i think. cos when i was a kid, we didn't really watch any superhero movies or read any superhero comics. so everyone knows the story of superman, or batman, or all these other superheroes, but that wasn't really part of my growing-up experience. the most i think we watched, superhero-wise, was larry-boy. larry-boy and the fib from outer space. larry-boy and the rumour weed.
good times.
but.

i recently was able to watch Batman Begins, and i find myself intrigued by him - a superhero ... who's not super.
he wasn't bit by some weird spider like Peter Parker, he didn't come from a different planet like Superman, he didn't have whatever the Hulk had (radioactivity? help me out here.), he's not a mutant like the X-Men. he's a regular human who just happens to want to fix the world - but has awesome gadgets for doing so.
yes, i admit, the black and the bats kind of make me happy too.
but that's not the only thing.
my sense of justice is also liking the vigilante persona, where people get what they deserve.
and he conquers his fear of bats by becoming one, in a way, which is awesome. people are by nature fearful, and they tend to avoid their fears, rather than facing them dead-on and saying, "i'm going to identify with this".
so yeah.
regular guy who pushes himself to the limit. and comes out on top.

so i'd have to say, my favourite superhero is Batman.

some saturday musings

so i figure i ought to chuckle at the irony of this - i start to get annoyed when blogs i follow don't post for a while .... and then i sit and don't post either.
so i guess i'll subject you all to another blurb about me!

i think i must be a real vampire. night shift (also known, appropriately enough, as the "graveyard" shift), i have discovered, suits me down to the ground. my sleeping pattern adjusted just fine, i like the flexibility of having my mornings open, and yeah. it works for me.
i've actually found myself wondering why people are out so early in the morning - and then realising it's nine o'clock pm.


speaking of vampirishness - i am kind of sort of leaning towards the possibility of maybe, just maybe ... building myself a coffin-shaped bed? cos it would be epic win and it would make me happy to the bottom of my little black gothy heart. so there.
as it is, i am most definitely putting black fabricky curtainy drapeyness in my new room (that i'm moving into on the 29th - YEAH) - especially if i stay on graveyards, imma need something to block light so i can sleep. particularly in summer.

and speaking of people who sleep in coffins, i decided i needed to watch all the old NCIS seasons that i hadn't watched before (because i think i started with season 5 or 6, i'm not quite sure which) so i have a lot to catch up on. and Abby Sciuto is still my favourite character ever.
... she sleeps in a coffin.
in case you hadn't made the connection.

oh and i acquired a brown coat.... thrift stores ftw. now i too can be a Space Pirate.
... now i just need to get my Jayne hat back. have you fixed it yet, mom?

and i'm also rapidly approaching my 200th post - and in a couple months' time, two years on this blog.

anyhow. think that's about it for now.
toodles, all.

house, job, money....

so. many changes for the new year.

first. one you should know about already if you read my blog. new apartment, new roomie with two cats, own kitchen. OWHN KITCHING. [side note: i've decided that the first thing i'm going to do, when we're all moved in and my pantry is all PROPERLY STOCKED, is i'm going to make bread. homemade bread. none of this machine business for me. mmmmm...] and actually, speaking of new place, i'm going to need to buy a bed.

second. again, you should know about this one. i'm on graveyards. which is completely oddball. and i come home from work at about the hour that i used to START. so weird.

third. there comes a time in every girl's life when she makes a very important step. and that is getting a credit card. no, i will NOT go spending crazy. it's just for building credit with. because if i make purchases on it and then pay it off IMMEDIATELY, it's all good. no interest. and i plan to always make sure i have the money in my regular bank account before i use the credit card. i'm thinking ahead here. also, set up a savings account today that automatically takes a certain amount of money out of my account on payday and saves it. so that's cool.

aaaanyways. life with me. again.

too late for lemonade.

life threw me a lemon but i don't know whether to make lemonade with it or throw it across the room and hope it goes through a window on its way out the door, so i sit here and watch it moulder on the table and i wonder what to do with it, because in all honesty the mold is making quite a pretty blue-green-and-white garden on my poor little lemon, but on the other hand i'm afraid the spores'll make me sick and then i'll catch pneumonia and die, and then where will i be? so i really ought to throw the poor lemon away, i think, but i really have grown quite atttached to it. maybe i'll freeze it in carbonite, then i'll have it forever - or maybe i can paint a portrait of it sitting there, and THEN i'll throw it out. i'll decide later. for now, i'll just watch it moulder.

oh, i'm the type of girl that likes to roam around ... ?

so way back a couple of weeks ago i had an interview/tryout at a little inn as housekeeping staff. basically the head housekeeper took me around a room and showed me how they clean it, then had me do a room by myself. so i found out the other day that i get paid for that, cos i was kind of technically working for them. so i got my check this afternoon. only 12.75, but heck, any money's good right now. in the bank it went, and then i was going to use it to go pick up some stuff that i needed. so i'm waiting to cross a street, and this guy with wonky teeth comes up to me.

guy: are you going this way?
me: yes i am.
guy: i'm going to tim horton's. [waves a fistful of coinage at me] where are you going?
me: i don't really know where i'm going. [meaning, "i haven't made up my mind where i'm going to pick up the stuff i need."]
guy: you mean like you're a wanderer?
me: [chuckling to myself] i guess you could say that.
guy: it's funny how people don't know where they're going. wanderer is my word for people who don't know where they're going.
me: it's a good word. [cycles off as the light changes]

it seems to be my luck, to have oddball conversations with guys with odd teeth. see "apparently i'm ... impressive." "and .... viciously gorgeous." for previous examples. now not only am i impressive, i'm a wanderer. an impressive wanderer? um... okay. [insert expressive shrug here]

humpty dumpty sat on the wall

i feel like an ant, trying to carry the world on my back, but it's getting all tangled up and i keep tripping over it, and all the eggs that i'm not allowed to count just keep cracking into pieces like glass bottles, and there's no use crying over spilt milk when the bottles break, cos you can't put it back in, it's like humpty dumpty, all the men in the king's service couldn't fix him, well, you can't fix me either, cos i'm shattered to bits and i'm lost in a tunnel that i can't see the light at the end of.
it's dark, dark, dark, and i can hear a train coming, i can feel the vibration in the tracks, and there's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, i can't get away, it's coming, and i'll be smashed into pieces, squished like an ant on the sidewalk, poor little ant, it's just trying to do what it knows best and then it gets squished by some careless person's foot, stomping around like an enormous elephant.
and here i am, all in pieces just like that, and i'm still trying to carry the world, but it keeps slipping and falling and rolling down the hill, and i have to run all the way back and pick it up and try to drag it all the way up the hill again, like pails of water, but they keep spilling, and so i have to go all the way back to the well to fill them up first, it's way too much effort for this one task, but i can't help it if they decide to run off and make things difficult for me, it's the dish and the spoon all over again, and what do i do?
i'm trying to paint but it keeps going everywhere but on the canvas, my brushes are falling apart, my paint's drying up, my canvas is torn, everything's old and useless here, and i have no reason to keep trying, cos i know humpty's just going to break again, and the ant's just going to get squished again, and i keep tripping over the tangled-up world on my back.

thought for the day:

who am i?
and has anyone seen my sanity recently? i think i mislaid it.

laptop piano? no.

so i've been wondering how to follow up on my last post.
but this'll do...
... dad fixed my laptop!! woot!
my dear brother sat on it one day about a year ago and cracked the screen right across. i used it for a while after, cos the crack only impeded me a very little - but then the black area started to grow somehow. so it became a big problem. so i tucked the laptop away somewhere in the hope that i'd either manage to buy a new screen, or buy a new and better laptop.
but recently, i found a new screen for about 30 bucks, i think, including shipping, off ebay.
and today, dad put it on the laptop for me. so i'm pretty excited. the silly thing is as slow as you please, and the screen resolution is frustratingly small - but heck, at least it works, right?
and then i spent a bit of the evening trying to put a piano together - i put in a whole bunch of ... bridle straps? ... i think that's what they're called. anyway, i have long skinny fingers, so i can do fiddly bridle strap stuff really easily. so that's why i was helping.
and it'll be brilliant to finally have a piano again.
but i should head for bed, i'm yawning my face off. so goodnight, all.
♥