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 I do stuff, I receive stuff, and I break stuff. Well, Dad broke it first.

Well this should be interesting. I'm running the show at work at my secondary site this afternoon after setting up a projector for a slideshow. Then next week I'm doing the same at the primary site on Monday and Wednesday both. Oy vey. I don't know if I'm up to being the boss all by myself yet. But gotta do what gotta do, neh?

Oh, and my co-workers know me rather well already.
I got to work this morning and there was a book on my desk, which I got told was for me. It's a True Blood cookbook. Apparently I appear to be one of those people who appreciates vampires. Hah. My one co-worker gets books like that from HBO for being a good customer. I dunno. All I know is that I'm taking this thing home with great pleasure.
Ironically, I don't even watch the show. I've seen bits of episodes, and read bits of the books it's based on, but I haven't really gotten into it the same way I got into Doctor Who for example.
I just love that my co-workers know me that well. I even tone my clothing down for work on purpose - but I guess once a goth, always a goth...

Something else that happened the other day: I used to have a cute little blue-plastic-cased typewriter. It wasn't working properly, so on Wednesday I opened it up and fixed it. But then I found another problem with it, and while I was poring over it, my dad turned up at my house; he was waiting for someone and my house was close so he dropped in. I showed him the problem, and he said, oh, here, let me look. And accidentally broke it altogether. Whoops. So yesterday I pulled it to bits with a screwdriver, because I was in a mood and needed something to destroy, and since it was already broken, it didn't matter so much. So that worked out, and now I have typewriter keys and letter hammers and all those good things. Plus I felt better after.

So that's it. Toodles.

day 9- something you're proud of in the past few days

1. making bread all by myself
2. getting [somewhat] unpacked
3. biking to work - 1/2 an hour one way, and that's if i'm going fast.
4. getting through a shift at work while training someone - and it was just me and her the whole night - and we didn't do too badly either! go Zoa!
5. making good [&healthy] food - seems i'm following in my mom's footsteps :)

 those are things i'm proud of right now.

oh and i have a story from work.
i got to work on monday night, and one of my coworkers noticed that the roots of my hair are ... well ... not black! and this is the conversation that followed.

She: are you blonde under that? [it should be noted for the sake of accuracy that i am not exactly blonde. more of a light brown. but in comparison with the black, it does look more like a dirty blonde.]
Me: sort of, yes.
She: you shouldn't dye your hair. the blonde looks good.
Me: but i like the black better than i like the blonde.
She: i don't; it makes you look gothic.
Me: ... that's ... kind of ... the point.
She: but it makes you look dead. do you really want to look dead?
Me: [lols] i guess if you want to look at it that way...
She: don't gothic people want to look dead? and act dead?
Me: i suppose some of them do, but not all ...
She: [isn't really listening to me] so if you want to look dead, and act dead, then maybe you should just BE dead. i mean it. go kill yourself.
Me: [trying to laugh at it like she's joking - but she's so not] i don't want to be dead.
She: well, you're trying to look dead, so maybe you should just finish the job.

.... i'm trying to decide whether this should come under the category of harassment, or whether i should just leave it - she has a kid, so once he achieves teenagerhood, i suspect she'll be changing her tune just a little - but this was the first sort of anti-goth perspective i've heard from anyone since i discovered Goth.

and for the record, i don't intend to follow through on her suggestion at all :) i believe it was spoken from a position of bias, prejudice, and a lack of understanding, and as such, has no merit in my situation. actually, let me rephrase that: suicide has NO merit in ANY situation. there is always some other way to deal with problems.

so there.

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.

ponderings.

so i was thinking.

sometimes, in the morning when i'm getting dressed, i goth out. black eyeliner, black outfit, etc., et al., so on, and the like.

and then i go places during the day and people go, "oh you're goth? i remember when ________ [friend/i/daughter/son/husband/wife/niece/nephew/sister/brother] was a goth. don't worry, you'll grow out of it."

now hang on just one minute, sir/madam/thing!

a.) i'm not worried.

b.) who says i want to grow out of it?

c.) i already grew out of preppiness. i think i'm good on the "growing-out-of" front.

d.) i have fun being goth. i'm not all depressed all the time (though sometimes i am, but hell, i'm human. everyone's depressed sometimes. you really can't be "up" all the time. something's going to make you sad at some point in your life. call me cynical, but that's life on our planet.)

e.) plus, really, what's so wrong about being goth? i'm not a satanist, i'm not a witch, i don't do self-harm (that's emos) - why would i need to grow out of it? honestly?

f.) http://www.fehq.org/whatgoth.htm

and that's all i have to say about that, for now.

♥