A Mighty Fine Life

So I guess sometimes I don't actually post for a couple of weeks at a time. Whoops? But fun and exciting things have been happening lately. By which I mean...

+ VACATION, WOO! I treated myself to one! On Thursday I flew down to Georgia to visit second_batgirl and spent a long weekend with her. It was, as you can imagine, awesome. Mostly we just hung out, but we did also go visit the World of Coke. It was ridicumazing. I bought an adorable tiny keychain with a smiling Coke bottle on it. (This should surprise no one. COKE MAKES ME SMILE, OKAY?)

+ BASEBALL! So how 'bout them Yankees, huh?

+ FANDOM! hsmbigbang began posting today, hooray! And a few days ago, I received the mix for my fic and it is brilliant. ♥

+ WRITING! I've been doing some. It's pretty cool. Hopefully I will have a revised manuscript by the end of the year. We shall see, anyway.

+ READING! Been doing that, too! Justine Larbalestier's "Liar" is fantastic, you guys. It is a psychological thriller, which in this case mostly means "total mindfuck."

+ HEAT! They turned it on in my building last night. This is exciting, because I haaaaaaate being cold. Even if the radiator is ungodly loud and rattly; I'll take that over being cold any day. (It also makes the air very, very dry; I have a bowl of water sitting right next to it tonight to hopefully help combat that until I can get a proper humidifier.)

+ FANDOM AGAIN! So, uh, I think I'm going to the premier of I Kissed a Vampire tomorrow, because it's free, and, y'know, Lucas Grabeel will be there. So it seems like the sort of thing I should go to. (I missed the premier of Free Style with Corbin while I was in Georgia, alas. But hey, HSM boys, if you want to keep hosting free events in NY, be my guest!)

idk what's going on but there's a fast & furios marathion in my apartment and I'm pretty drunk. It's kind of aewesome. &dk; &blanca; &rachel;

I WISH YOU WER ALL HERE!

First: GIP! By which I mean

Take no pictures, trick, I'm on a strike, bitch
We eatin' old unsold papes 'cause they so crisp
I got my slingshot and my pimping cane
I'm on a bridge; you in Manhattan actin' all insane

And so on.

Second: Tonight was a really fun night that was also mildly disappointing. But I did get to see Seth Green on roller skates, so we'll give it an A+ regardless.

Third: As some of you may be aware, my sister is a completely and totally kick-ass teacher in the Bronx. You may not be aware that in the last school she worked at, she raised the passing rate on the state history exam from 30% up to 75% singlehandedly. NO JOKE. Well, her current school has essentially no textbooks -- what they do have are out of date and the kids aren't allowed to take them home -- so she is raising money to buy them at donorschoose.org. Should you happen to have a few bucks to spare, they would go a long way.

Fourth: As I am randomly bolding phrases, it is time to go to bed. <3

Fifth: Oh yeah, while still slightly stuffy, I basically feel better.

First, thank you all for the birthday wishes. ♥ It was a delightful day! In fact, it was a delightful run of days, as it turned out.

Tuesday: Blana picked me up from work, which meant I got to leave at a reasonable hour, heh. We picked up Chipotle, because Chipotle = ♥, and spend the evening hanging out and watching the All Star game. Which was lovely!

Wednesday: Was my birthday! Basically, I consumed nothing but sugar and caffeine all day, and it was AWEOSME.

I had braced myself for a long day at work, because Wednesdays always are, and it was. But during the course of the very long work day, there was an hour-long break for cupcakes and coffee to celebrate my birthday, so that was lovely. (And it wasn't a bad day at work, just lengthy.) When everything there was finally done, two of my coworkers and I headed up to Lalo for food, by which I mean pie. DK came out to join us, and so did my friend Erika a little later. And basically, I drank an entire quart of coffee, got home a bit after midnight, and did not fall asleep until dawn.

Thursday: I woke up feeling like poo, because I'd only had a couple of hours of sleep. After three hours of week I gave up and came home, and took an AMAZING four-hour nap. Thumbs up for napping. After that, I finally actually got to see my sister, who had returned from Paris the previous day, but was dead to the world well before I got home. We went out for a slightly belated birthday dinner of delicious Indian food, and at some point she asked what I actually wanted for my birthday. I believe my answer was along the lines of, "IDK, a Corbin Bleu picspam or something?"

So then this happened, and I cried. ♥♥♥♥

Friday/Saturday: I managed a complete day of work, heh. But then Jen came into the city to play! We had dinner and chilled out all night, and possibly I forced her to watch the first episode of Band of Brothers. Saturday we had delicious brunch and spent some time wandering a bookstore (as you do), and it was lovely.

And now I am off to do some cleaning, and then head down to Brooklyn to see Jess, so the awesome JUST KEEPS COMING. :D

HI WHO CAN FIND ME A SCREENCAP OF PRESIDENT OBAMA SHAKING HANDS WITH DEREK JETER BECAUSE I WILL GIVE YOU A PRIZE AND IT WILL BE MY ETERNAL LOVE *FLAIL*

What's awesome is that I'm watching with munkykiss and she had the exact same reaction. &Blanca;

Incidentally, it totally pays to be friends with a librarian; I posted yesterday about that short story in Ranger Rick that I vaguely recalled, and today second_batgirl hacked into a government database or something and with nothing but my incoherent description to go on, found it! It was "Trash Trek" from the September 1990, volume 24, issue 9, page 18-26. DUDE.

Man, for some reason work today felt like a marathon and I am so freaking exhausteed. IDEK. *collapses*

#1: Saturday was DK's birthday. There was bowling and ping pong and general shenanigating, and needless to say, it was awesome. ♥

#2: I watched WALL-E last night and it reminded me of a story I read in Ranger Rick in the early 90s sometime, but I haven't been able to figure out anything useful like the issue, or title, or author, or anything. Grrrrr. It was a creepy future where some space explorers landed on a planet that was nothing but trash, and met the weird mutants who lived there and asked about how it got to be that way, and basically the planet never learned to recycle and completely junked itself generations ago, and no one even remembered the what the planet was called before the junkenating. (Hence thinking of it while watching WALL-E.) And of course the twist at the end was -- gasp -- as they were taking off to go back to the spaceship, the weird mutant thing yelled after them, "Wait! I remember the name of the planet! It was Earth! The name of the planet was Earth!"

GASP!

Shut up, I was, like, 8.

Anyway, on the very offchance that anyone else was a) a nature geek; and b) read that issue, anything? Any clues? Anyone?

#3: So I watched Disney's awful Princess Protection Program, yeah? But I just want to put out there, mockery aside (it was really pretty bad) that I actually love that it's a story about two girls who become BFFs. And that's it. No awkwardly shoehorned in romance, just two girls, making friends, and girlfriendship being good as the moral of the (completely incoherent) story.

(Basically, I was reading this meta and sort of did a doubletake; because it's a DCOM, they aren't really "awesome likable hot active fleshed out female characters," but they were basically likable, almost-but-not-quite-fleshed out, female characters who were definitely the most important protagonists AND not attached to love interests. DUDE, that is RARE.)

#4: My birthday is Wednesday. :D

Gabriella: You'd better step away from the mirror for long enough to check the damage that will always be right behind you!

Melanie: What? That didn't mean anything! It was like a Sarah Palin speech!


(The moral of the story? Yes, I do make every single person who comes to visit watch these movies. It's the price of staying on our couch.)

You tell me: is it 2000, or 2009? I spent the afternoon and evening sitting around Sarah's house, chilling with her, Nelly, Kat, and Tim. AKA, the high school gang (minus Jared, sadly). Kat, Tim, and Sarah still live around these parts (or live around here again), but somehow Noelle and I had awesome timing because she's in from Oregon.

So it was a lovely, nostalgic evening. I think I've known Sarah since... 3rd grade? 4th? I became friends with Noelle in 6th, and Kat and Tim in high school. I'm absolute shit at keeping in touch with people, as 99% of people who knew me in college have since learned, but it's nice to be able to come how and still find friends.

In related news, I drove! I haven't done that in three and a half years, and never liked it much to begin with. But out in the country, there isn't much to hit. Heh. But I managed to stay on the road, and even in a single lane. (In fact, I prefer it when there are lines on the road, so I can better judge where the car is.) But for some reason, the one thing I'm not intimidated by is driving at night, so the way home was surprisingly fine. (There are no such thing as street lights on 99% of Newfield roads. This town, for the record, does not have a single stoplight. It really is that small.)

So: nice evening. Drove! Home safe. The end.

Clearly, yesterday morning when I said "sporadic updates" or whatever, what I meant was "several times daily flist spam."

Both our hall and living room lights blew out; we need to go find the super because we have no ladder that will get us high enough to change them ourselves. And also we need to go buy lightbulbs.

But them I am off for a day of Muppet awesomeness!

$3 margaritas are my favorite!!!!!!!!

I just fell on the kitchen floor while trying to giv ethe cat water...whoops. luckily Cristinia, w hose name does NOT have an h, picked me up. now I ned some sginger ale and water and then maybe bed but it's only 10:00!!! ahahah exclaimation points. anyway I went out with frieneds tonight and it was goo times. I accidentally gave a laptdance to someone while trying to put my coat on, not literally, which was fun.ny I got my coat on and Cristina dragged me home luckily, because she is reponsible (and not drunk).

anyway mostly I think this was fun and also Erin, why are you not in NY?! we miss you. that is all.
peace out mofos.

As we are wont to do, we had New Years kareoke downtown. (We, in this case, is me, second_batgirl, poisonivory, harriet_vane, mizzmarvel, and Jess's roommate who, if she has an LJ, I don't know it.)

Let's just say that when the mediocre pop song you use to break the kareoke ice when you're not drunk yet is Corbin Bleu's "To the Limit", obviously AWESOME things are in store.

Also, two and a half kamikazes will get me wicked drunk. (I have no idea what's in them. Yes, I know google could tell me, but they're sort of magical. I don't think I WANT to know.)

Happy New Year, y'all.

You guys!! I now own a light-up, quacking, rubber ducky key chain! And it goes on the same keychain where I already had my heart-shaped Chad charm, which means it is now a keychain OTP. ZOMG. *loves elvensorceress SO MUCH*

Yesterday was supposed to be my family's Chanukah party, but due to weather, it was canceled. I was both bummed and relieved by that; I wanted to see the fam, of course, but I was drop-dead exhausted and spent yesterday basically dead to the world, sitting on the couch staring at the wall. (The most productive I was all day was alphabetizing all the DVDs in our apartment. It was bugging me like whoa that they weren't.)

Today, however, was poisonivory's family Chanukah party! And she invited friends as well, so I met up with second_batgirl and we headed out to Jersey (and met up with harmonyangel there, of course). It was a nice, chill afternoon, full of delicious latkes and lots and lots of chocolate-covered pretzels. Which are, of course, DELICIOUS.

Aaaaand presents! I am such a flake that I forgot to bring anything with me, but Margot got me the new Mercedes Lackey book (!), and Jess combined my birthday and Chaunkah gifts and gave me a raccoon stuffed animal that she knitted herself (I just about cried -- long story), the first HSM on DVD (I know it seems odd that I didn't own it, but I didn't!) and Jump In!, which clearly I NEEDED.

And speaking of things I needed? Jen got me HSM candy canes. Chad is yellow (tropical fruit), Troy is blue (blue raspberry), Gabi is pink (strawberry or cherry, I forget) and Sharpay is green (green apple -- and why is Shar not pink?!). Sadly no Ryan or Taylor. But this is especially awesome because a) apparently, Jen is just fantastic at finding delicious HSM candy (she's also the one who gave me Ryan- and Chad-flavored bubble gum!), and b) you can imagine the dirty, dirty jokes about sucking Chad. *cough* *blush*

Work for the next three days is going to be killer. But then: VACATION. :D :D I'm not going anywhere (except Jersey, for the rescheduled family party, and Long Island, to visit Margot), or doing anything (except the afore mentioned visiting), but DAMN I am looking forward to spending a week and a half chilling on my couch with no stress. HUZZAH.

poisonivory: Mainstream is one word :-P

queenitsy: At least I didn't hyphenate it.

poisonivory: Even though you looooove hypens. Why don't you just marry them?

queenitsy: Please, everyone knows my one true punctation love is the semicolon.

poisonivory: Bitch, step OFFA MA MAN!

Like you don't have conversations like this with YOUR writing partner.

So I hosted a party tonight! I've never done such a thing before (no, I don't count cast parties in mod 10 -- they were neither planned nor financed by me). Mostly it was folks I work with, though Jess and a few of Rachel's friends also came. We had dinner, drinks, and played pop culture trivial pursuit. A good time was had by all (at least to the best of my knowledge).

Employee review went well, I think.

Night.

Today was a very odd, kind of stupid day for me, but it is a GREAT day overall, because not just one, but TWO awesome people have birthdays today: happy birthday, imntsaying and munkykiss. You are both completely awesome. ♥

So in the time I was basically computerless:

1) I (finally) went to the dentist. I have four cavities, which will be filled over the next month or so. On the one hand, this sucks. On the other hand, considering I've had no dental care at all for two and a half years and I thought I was going to need a root canal or something, it's not that bad. I didn't especially like the dentist I saw, but the convenience of his office being in the same building where I work can't really be beat.

2) Tuesday evening was feminist SF book club! We read an Ursula LeGuin collection, which I thought was very good, even if it isn't what I, personally, would pick up for fun. Last time I went, the discussion was kind of meh; this time it was great and smart and full of people thinking about things and disagreeing politely and generally being awesome. I'm so pleased, let me tell you. (And afterwords, a coworker [who also is part of the club] and I went out for ice cream. Well, sorbet on my part. But it was fun times.)

3) Yesterday, harriet_vane and I finally went and saw some apartments with our realtor, who is a very nice guy. Knock on wood, we found one we loooooove, and so began the process of nabbing it. Such things can always fall through, so I'm trying not to have my hopes up too high, but it would be so fantastic.

4) Work has been work. To make up for the time I've been off getting my teeth cleaned and trying to find a place to live, I stayed crazy late a couple nights and came in early, too. Which sucked and was pretty exhausting. Ah, well. Sadly, it's just going to get crazier; between the big-ass conference at the beginning of August and the week I'm taking off for the move, it is going to be super stressful and annoying. Groan.

5) July 4th! Pretty much my favorite non-present-giving holiday, because I looooove fireworks. poisonivory is coming out to play, and she and harriet_vane and I are hopefully going to go see the giant show. Hooray! Also: long weekend! Double hooray!

6) I read Suzanne Brockmann's Hot Target, and you should too! You know, if you like WWII (or WWII movies), trashy romance, trashy gay romance, hot Navy SEALs, and -- especially -- dreamy gay-in-denial actors with substance abuse problems and daddy issues. (And who doesn't?)

7) I have a Twitter, if you are a person who likes to follow those. It's mostly mundane stuff and complaining about work, though.

8) I have written jack shit. I know I should just get back to work, but I had such momentum built up in my projects that now that Teh Novel has been wiped I'm just exhausted and having trouble forcing myself to get started. Maybe this weekend. We'll see.

I got a random invite to a comedy show tonight...and attended, because among the performers were (gasp!) JLS and Klasko from BK!* Aaaaand in the audience were none other than Hillman, Boyo, and Efram, all of whom I've only seen once since graduation almost -- jesus -- four three years go. (Errr...I forgot how time works there, for a minute.)

I'm pretty sure Efram and I spoke more this evening than we had, oh, through all of the time we were in the troupe together combined. Fun times!



* For those of you newish to my LJ, BK = Boris' Kitchen = the sketch comedy troupe of which I was a hardcore member through most of college.

"It's not that I find him hot as a duck, it's that I think that if I were a duck, I'd totally hit that!"

-poisonivory on Scrooge McDuck

The very fast rundown: we arrived at Margot's on Monday, as planned. Tuesday we hit Six Flags for day of fun in the sun. Twas awesome. Wednesday we slept in late, wore pajamas all day, watched movies, and had a grand time. Thursday we poked around Margot's town and mostly just hung out and had a nice time.

Today I woke up with what seems to be a sinus infection. Which made the drive homewards awesome, ad I'm sure you can guess. (Not that I'm driving at all, but I feel bad for passing out on Jen and Jess.) Also tonight we wanted to stop a couple hours ago--basically when we hit the Virginia border--but every motel was either full or only had smoking rooms, so we figured we'd just look for the next place. The next two places were basically Bates Motels, out in the middle of the woods with burnt-out neon signs and no one around. So we kept going and finally found a Holiday Inn Express about 45 minutes out of Richmond. Which means we did, as close as I can tell, 2/3 of the trip today instead of half.

And now I think it's bedtime, as I'm both exhausted and still ill. Alas.