A Mighty Fine Life

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.

Jen, Jess and I left at about 6:30 this morning. After a day of driving--or rather, Jess and Jen drove, and I pumped gas, as they're from Jersey and apparently don't know how (quoi?)--we found a motel in NC. With free wireless! 'Cause we're nerds who bring laptops on vacation.

So yep: safe and sound.

I'm leaving in a few hours to head off to harmonyangel's house for the night. Tomorrow, she, poisonivory, and I are heading to visit second_batgirl for a week-ish. Unemployment be damned! This was supposed to be paid vacation. Grumble. So yeah, I'll be out of town; probably with minimal email access for awhile. But i will have my phone if you need me.

Speaking of job stuff, the interview/test I mentioned thinking I did quite well on on Thursday I apparently did (knock on wood), because Friday they called to schedule a third (hopefully final!) interview. So that'll be the Monday after I get home.

In non-job, non-vacation news, I've been reading links and links about the LJ account deletions and their implications. I, personally, have no interest in leaving LJ; I didn't come here for fannish reasons, and despite the fact that there's been a lot of fannish stuff mixed in here in the last few months, I don't primarily use LJ for fandom. I'm quite attached to this place, so I'll likely be staying here.

That said, I do get why other people are deciding to leave. And I don't want to lose track of anyone on my flist! So if you're heading off, please tell me where. I'm queenitsy on IJ and GJ, and have an ancient, never-used account as temira on JF. Feel free to friend away. (My initial impressions, incidentally, are that I like IJ a lot more than GJ or JF, but I probably won't be using any of them much.)

This has been a long week and I feel like I've been emotionally slammed against a wall a few times. I keep thinking I'd like to write something meaningful, but there's very little I can say that hasn't been said elsewhere and more eloquently, and the more I think the more I just spiral downwards into unhappiness.

Wow, that was melodramatic. Whoops, sorry.

Anyway.

Concentrating on the good: I saw Phil today! Only for, like, five minutes, but still. Glint was playing in Central Park and he texted me to let me know; I snuck out of work early to see if I could get there in time. I might well have, had I not gotten lost in the park (seriously, given the size and ramblyness of Central Park, and my lack of internal sense of direction, it's not somewhere I should wander unsupervised...). By the time I arrived, they were packing up. But I got to chat for a few minutes, and it was a lovely day to get lost in the park.

And if the Yankees can hold together for two more innings, I will be happy about that, at least.

There have been other good things, too; small moments. But the bad stuff feels really huge and overwhelming, and like there's nothing I can do but wait it out until I'm used to it. But who wants to get used to bad things? So...yeah.

Someday I will post the rest of my 5 things meme. Today is not that day.

Off to Jersey to see family tomorrow. Toodles.

ETA: So much for that. Damn it.

Okay, I did say I might post more about Halloween eventually. The short, relatively non-gross version, is that I went out to the parade with Jess and a bunch of her friends. We were never able to get close enough to actually see anything, and ended up almost getting crushed and lost in the crowd; but in the end, we came through okay. They all went off to dinner, and I went to meet Josh and his friends at Borders and go out for an evening of drinking. we hit a couple of different bars looking for something exciting; I don't know that we found anything, but we did get fairly trashed. Me more so than anyone else. There was some unfortunately puking in the middle of the night, and I've been on a hiatus from drinking ever since. The end.

( Pictures! (Not of puking.) )

I'm having a lovely weekend, mostly; Rachel was out of town, but Josh came over and then Margot came over and it's been lovely. And then Jill called me! Out of the blue! She and I are going to play tomorrow, and yay! I *heart* Jill likewhoa. So loveliness, all around!

I am pretty fucking exchausted right now, and off to bed in just a few minutes.

But before I do, I'd like to send major *hugs* out to everyone on the flist who needs them. The ones who spring to mind are, in no particular order, gruyere, dialogue, lynstraine, and poisonivory. Y'all are among the coolest, most talented, most creative people I'm lucky enough to know. And you all rule.