I have a long and highly personal relationship with Gravity. It mostly consists of Gravity throwing things at me and me telling it sweetly, "Fuck you, Gravity."

I just had a different sort of pear with my dinner tonight that I picked up at the store on a whim. It was the most boring fruit I have ever tasted. I didn't know fruit could taste boring. So it was disappointing on multiple levels.

This was also a very stupid day at work. Not finding the paperwork I needed; collections popping up in places they shouldn't or not being where they should; hauling boxes down from the fifth shelf and scraping my arms and fingers on the cardboard and the metal; the ladder catching on boxes as I shoved it down the too-narrow aisle; the stupid laptop running slowly or not at all; nothing new or unusual in all this but I just was not in the mood for it today. And then to top it all off I lost my key card. Which somebody promptly found and returned, thank goodness, but at that point I just sort of wanted to call it quits, go home, and crawl under the covers.

Actually, that still sounds like a good idea.

There was a time, back in my early teenage years, when I never left the house except to go to school. I didn't want to go out in the world because everyone was looking at me.

Tonight I'm going to a play, by myself, that is sold out, and I'm going to be one out of a couple hundred people there--it's a small theatre--and I'm looking forward to being that stranger that nobody cares about. Just another face in the crowd. I've learned to love the anonymity.

Hmmm.

*

The play I'm going to see, by the way, is Evil Dead: The Musical. And last night I saw Zombieland, which was really quite good and involved the classic Road Trip trope that I probably should have expected but didn't and hey, I can get behind most any road tripping.

I really, really like running away.

I talked to four people on the phone today. No, wait, five. I never talk to that many people on the phone. Granted, they were all friends & family, but I actually called three of them, of my own volition, and that almost never happens. Of course, the last conversation lasted exactly one minute and thirteen seconds and the majority of it consisted of

Me: *picking up phone* Yeeees?
J: Playtpuses!
Me: Playtpi?
J: Think of something else!
Me: Uh...
J: Platypee?
Me: Mooshee mooshee?

I have no idea what I'm going to do at work tomorrow. NONE. I have a single task that will probably last me at most ten minutes. Perhaps I shall wander outside and pick the wild flowers. Speaking of wild flowers

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Oh gods, it's true, it's all true, you can't change your patterns. I went to a thing after work that the division director was holding at her house, a TGIF little get-together for staff, and I know for a fact I was the youngest person there because the third project archivist on our grant didn't show. So I sat down in one of the dining room chairs with my Fat Tire beer, and then I noticed that some of my co-workers were sitting down on the carpet, including a couple very definitely at least twenty years older than me, and I felt horrifically guilty. So then when one of my co-workers was saying she needed more crackers to go with her leftover cheese, and another one asked for more chips to go with her salsa, I sprang up to fetch it for them. Because that's what I *always* do at family get-togethers because I'm always Young Legs (as my dear Aunt June used to call me).

Actually, the thing I finally realized a couple weeks ago when I held the Family Extravaganza, and maybe it's something I would not have been old enough to realize or appreciate any earlier than now--I come from a family of know-it-alls. This explains a lot. Including why I feel like I'll never catch up.

***

I don't remember Hyvee being a particularly high-end or classy grocery store, but the one here in town--well, I think this one's run and staffed by pod people. Seriously, they're all constantly bright and cheery and enthusiastically helpful. I was wandering past the deli looking for veggie dip when I heard the man behind the counter pontificating, "If you're looking for something low in salt, than you should try this." I was in the health food section picking up veggie burgers when I found somebody restocking and talking to another customer. "We just ran a promotional thing to find out what people really wanted, so we'll be making some changes here shortly." It was unnatural. And yet, I can't stop going, it's all so shiny.

***

Pushing Daisies is over. :( I finally got around to watching the last episode last night, not really having had time before now. It was such an awesome, awesome show. I want my characters back.

I'm still alive. Barely. I was at a conference for, er, 2.5 days and then I was wandering across the state visiting friends and I waited till my wanderings to actually drink alcohol (vodka, WHY IS IT ALWAYS VODKA) and did not get home till the wee small's and now today I mostly want to die temporarily in a corner so I can really wake up refreshed and human again tomorrow. Just in time for work.

It probably is a good thing I made it home last night instead of this morning. Probably.

I'd never noticed my travel curse until I started flying regularly a few years ago. But no, I have always had a travel curse. It's just that when I'm driving instead of flying, the travel curse manifests itself in rainstorms that make it impossible to see two feet in front of the car when driving through major city traffic. I have come far in accepting my travel curse though because I handled it this time with barely any ruffling to my dignity and good humor. (Which probably means on my next road trip there will be an earthquake in an area where no faultlines had previously been detected. I'm sorry, future road trip destination, whatever you are, I DON'T MEAN IT.)

But, oh yes, it was awesome. Caught up with a bunch of friends in and out of the profession, attended good sessions, met new people, and only occasionally acted like an incompetent un-social ass. I call that a win. (Considering how I usually behave at conferences? Definite win. It helped that I had a friend from grad school there.) I also got to wander around one of my favorite cities (if only for the intense nostalgia) in neighborhoods I hadn't seen for probably ten years and bits I'd never seen before, so it was all very yay.

Also, I went WHOLE DAYS WITHOUT THE INTERNET. It was an experiment to see how bad my addiction was. It would have been useful to have access a few times, and I was a bit twitchy without it, but I survived. So there, internets addiction. SO THERE.

Now I'm going to go watch telly. Online. Ho hum.

The past couple weeks have been...strange. And tomorrow I'm still going to be running around not so much like a headless chicken as like one with her head effing screwed on, but tonight? Tonight I can make my chicken fajitas and peel my orange and drink my amaretto sour and listen to my Ben Harper station on Pandora and write fic and watch telly and enjoy myself. Slowly. Quietly. It's nice.

I glanced out the window a half-hour ago, and the grass was the lush green you get after a lot of rain, and there was a red car parked on the street outside my apartment building, and a red car parked in the driveway of the duplex across the street, both that candy-apple-fire-engine red at right angles to each other, and there was a purple-blossom tree across the street in the duplex's yard, and the sky was the slate-grey-blue color you sometimes get at dusk/twilight, and everything looked so solid, grounded, real that attempting to describe it or take a picture doesn't nearly do it justice.

I love spring.

Sometimes I stand very still in the middle of my kitchen, outside on the sidewalk, upstairs in my bedroom, and think I am here. And it's a little bit amazing.

I've been meaning to post this for, um, a while now, but I am slow and get distracted easily. I don't know why I would care if newspapers as a physical thing disappeared--I rarely read them, they're a pain to preserve long term due to the high acid content of newsprint, most places I've worked have had conflicted relationships with the press, blah blah blah--but that cartoon still made me sad. I should probably just be glad my dad's retired and not still working at the paper back home if even the RMN can't keep the presses going.

ETA: My mother refuses to be a Red Hat lady. My mother's a little bit wonderful.

1. I have now joined the ranks of individuals who have changed their clothes in the car. Including my bra, and holy Hannah, that was awful. (I wouldn't have done it if I could have worn the other bra with this shirt, but no, the straps would have shown.) I can now check undressing-and-dressing-in-a-car off my list. My unexpected and unknown list, on which items only seem to get added after I've already done them.

2. This week has been, to put it mildly, insane. I haven't had this insane of a week since, er, beginning of last year, I think. At least this week is officially over and I made it out relatively intact. (Note to self: things really do usually work out. So don't freak out so much next time.)

3. I also managed, in the midst of the insanity, to watch the first episode of The Unusuals. It sort of felt like Life on Mars doing "Barney Miller." Complete with the 'taches.

4. I went to Phantom of the Opera tonight--first time I've ever seen it live--and it has been so long since I've been to a theatre big enough and expensive enough that I was practically in the nosebleeds. I would have enjoyed it more I'm sure if my HEAD HADN'T BEEN KILLING ME--dehydration, lack of sleep, and a week's worth of major stress FTW!--but I managed to enjoy it quite a lot anyway. Aaaaand it felt like it was 1990 all over again, particularly with the crashing chords we all know and love at the beginning. (My sister's high school graduation! She got them to use it for the slideshow. Oh gods, it is 1990 all over again!)

5. The three rules of the road that Cam teaches Teal'c in their Epic Bromance Road Trip (it's a thing, don't ask): a) Nebraska sucks, b) there's always visitor centers at state lines except when you really need them (hence CHANGING IN THE CAR, but Cam doesn't know about that bit) and c) singing, no matter how shit your voice is, is perfectly acceptable on a road trip. Even with the windows rolled down.

6. I'm in a directing class at the local civic theatre. I haven't done any sort of stage work in, like, five years, and I have never directed before in my life. But those of us in the class were being actors last week so one of us could take a stab at directing, and then *I* was the one doing the directing, and holy crap, it's both the same and completely different from acting. Actually, it's kinda like writing. You are my puppets! Let me pull on your strings and make you dance to my mad tune! Muahahahahaha. Etc.

7. It's a good thing my vices are multitudinous, or I would be so screwed.

8. I have not seen the new Doctor Who yet, I'm saving it for tomorrow. That said, happy birthday to me. Boo-yah. (ETA: okay, it's a day or two early, but since my birthday is on a Monday this year, I appear to have made it a birthday weekend. Why not, huh?)

9. I really ought to go to bed now. Before my head falls off.

10. There is no ten, but nine felt lonely.

I bought a little black dress the other day. Never before have I bought a little black dress because, really, most dresses look awful on me. Hideously awful. But this one rocks like a rocking thing, and I remain pleasantly surprised. Now I just need to come up with a good excuse to wear it somewhere.

*

I was driving home the other day on Gage and I saw the group with their signs stating such enlightening thoughts as "God hates your tears - God hates fags - God hates Obama" and other scintillating, pithy phrases, and I wanted to roll down the window and scream at them "Throw yourselves into the road, darlings, you haven't got a chance!" but they were on the wrong side of the road and I don't have electric windows. So I just screamed.

That said, too bad for you. Things are changing. Suck it.

*

And now for the Doctor Who portion of the evening:

I think when I was just a few years younger either I instantly forgot all pleasure reading I did, or I had absolutely no discernment whatsoever. (Discernment might not be the right word.) Anyway, I just finished rereading Wolfsbane and it was fabulous, and why did I not remember this? Fabulous, I tell you! Harry and Eight! Sarah and Four! Crazy nutters in the 1930s English countryside! And Jacqueline Rayner is always good at the dialogue. But for the life of me I couldn't remember much of anything about the story when I reread it, even whether I liked it or not (I assumed not, since I couldn't remember anything). Silly, silly me.

Meme: Open up your "Manage Stories" page on Teaspoon and unfold all the chapters. For the purposes of this meme, disregard first chapters of multichapter fics. [Teaspoon counts any hits on the TOC as a hit on the first chapter.]

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What I have learned from this exercise: either my writing really sucks, I don't pimp myself out enough, or I need to stop writing Middle Skool and start writing Jack/Ten and Nine/Rose if I want to up my reading and review counts.

OTOH, I really need to say thank you to the calufrax reccers because otherwise my reading and review counts would be even more in the hole. And I never say thank you, and I really bloody well ought to because, um, I have been recced far more than I deserve. So, thank you. Y'all rock and I don't actually deserve it.

You know your addiction is bad when despite the fact that you're starving you still can't tear yourself away from the Internet, even though your soup is coming ever close to getting burned.

I've spent every weekend for about the past month out and about and running around and often out of town. (I kinda fail at social interaction. OMG SO LONELY IN TOWN, so I shall go out of town or have out-of-town friends visit me. And then back to OMG SO LONELY IN TOWN. Blargh.) I am looking forward this weekend to doing some desperately-needed laundry and holing up in my apartment. And sleeping. SLEEPING. I drove home last night from my friend's with a blistering almost-migraine (by the end of the drive, I was telling myself "Just wait till you get home to puke, just wait," though thankfully I didn't even then). I got home at 8.30 and promptly passed out for ten hours. I wish I could do that every night.

I've got too much to do. I just want to crash.

I bought a new sweater. It's got a hood and one of those marsupial-pockets (shutup) in front to shove your hands in when they're cold and it's AWESOME. I might not take it off again for the rest of the winter. Certainly not when I'm in my house since I'm too cheap to actually turn up the heat.

And when I went to the library, I only meant to get a couple CDs. At most. I'm reading a couple other books right now, including Team of Rivals (or I would be, if it hadn't been keeping me awake at night thinking about Lincoln's political wrangling; I've taken to reading Garfield before going to bed this week). But I ended up getting Breen's Marketplace Revolution (I *swear* I've read something by him for some class sometime, nsempress, and maybe reading this will jog my memory!), The Shakespreare Riots and a book on spy television (no, not Citizen Spy, severa, though I meant to ILL that and forgot). Whoops. Apparently I have been out of school long enough that reading history/any non-fiction books for pleasure is fun again.

The spy television book is really for fic research, anyway. And OMG I'm working on three fics right now--sort of four--and I had an idea for another fic while I was reading an EDA and I haven't wanted to work on this many projects all at once in years. Probably four years at least. This is weird. And sort of frustrating, because two--three--of these things have deadlines and I need to get cracking, and this other stuff's distracting me too and I have ideas but not enough time, it feels like, and GOOD GRIEF, FOCUS. But still. Non-Fitz fic! Non-DW fic! It's so terribly, terribly exciting.

I am shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover that the Donald Lam books had never been nominated for yuletide before. I probably shouldn't be shocked since, uh, I'm not sure they're read a whole lot anymore, but still. Obscure, not that obscure!

This weekend was almost perfect (which is good, since the rain's moved in for the long haul, apparently). Gorgeous weather, and I spent most of the weekend outside either reading or traipsing around my neighborhood, and when bits of my neighborhood look like this,

( one picture only, I swear! )

it's not hard to go traipsing. Actually, it's a *lot* easier to get exercise when I can just walk out my front door and wander around in areas like this.

(That said, the area is the perfect place for a murder mystery. I can see the police detectives and their subordinates loitering, looking for clues, talking to witnesses. I have read and watched waaaaaay too many mysteries and procedural dramas in the past ten years.)

Things about my job that are weird:
1. Running water.
2. I have a cubicle rather than an office.
3. People. So many people that I have not met them all and do not remember most names yet.
3. There are IT people. To fix things for me. (They also have to give me passwords. Which can be frustrating when I have to wait.)
4. Internet in the stacks. Sure, it's hard-wired and means 100 foot extension cords and ethernet cables, but I can still access the Internet. (Kinda have to in order to access the database I'm working with.)
5. Working with a collections management database that is still in development even as we use it. (Things change! Within minutes! That wasn't there five seconds ago when I opened that other record!)
6. MARC tags and subject headings. I DID NOT GO TO LIBRARY SCHOOL. Yet.

Things that are not weird about my job:
1. Box monkey.
2. Weird interpersonal dynamics among the staff.
3. Did I mention the box schlepping? Working in tight and awkward corners? SO FAMILIAR.

After living month-to-month, pretty much literally, for eight months, thinking a little more long-term is...odd, again. I can bake again (most of my baking stuff I left in storage). I have SPACE again, to run around and dance and be stupid in my apartment. I shall be able to decorate again, at least in the half-assed way that I usually do, whenever I get around to that sort of thing. This week is crazy due to overwhelming newness on all kinds of levels, and I'm just waiting for my brain to reset, I think.

Things that I have discovered about Texan drivers in the past 24 hours:
1. Half of them drive five miles below the speed limit.
2. Half of them drive ten miles above the speed limit.
(That's assuming the speed limit is even posted at all, of course.)
3. The people driving five miles below the speed limit are in the left lane.
4. The people driving ten miles above the speed limit are wherever they feel like, whether you're there or not.
5. There are way too many semis on the interstate.
5a. Often in the left lane.

I have cursed the occasional Kansan driver. Colorado drivers bring me rage. I never want to drive in Texas again.

And if there are screaming babies on my flights next week, I...might have to invest in earplugs.

Illya Kuryakin: Napoleon? I hate to trouble you with trivia, but, uh, I think I’m about to get killed and it struck me that perhaps you might want to say good-bye.

Have I mentioned lately that I love Illya? He's the best thing since the wheel. Because sliced bread just doesn't cut it.

***

I walked to work today, thereby faking everyone out. "What are you doing here? I didn't see your car," they said. Which makes me feel bad because I really should just walk it more often. I'll get on that. Right in time to be leaving again. Sigh.

People in airports are fucking selfish. I mean, yeah, people are generally pretty self-centered, but by god. We were getting onto a flight--which had been delayed a little bit by weather, and it was still raining, and it was a little prop plane so we had to run out in the rain to get to it, and people kept getting held up because the people in front were putting their bags away, the usual thing--and some woman behind me was like, "This is absurd, can't we just get moving?" And the flight attendant said, "We're all in this together, ma'am," and the woman was like, "And that's supposed to make me feel better?" and was generally incredibly rude. (Yes, dear, it's her fault that it's RAINING. She'll get right on making sure that stops so everything goes your way from now on.) And then the plane was delayed even longer due to various things, not all of them weather-related, and a great majority of people continued to be bitchy, unhelpful, whiny, and a general emotional drain to the flight attendants and other passengers.

Earlier, on my first flight of the day, the crew told us we were grounded due to the weather at our destination, and the lady sitting next to me was like "What's the problem? I mean, I know they take off in snow." I said something about there might be lightning, but that didn't seem to hold any sway with her. So, yeah, sorry, safety doesn't count when you're in a hurry to get somewhere, apparently.

Fuck off, people.

Of course, if I hear one more toddler wailing, I might have to fucking kill something. My first flight I was surrounded by five babies--like six to twenty-four months old, probably in that range--and four of them spent most of their time on the plane screaming, kicking, and wriggling. [ETA: The fifth one spent the entire time sleeping on his father's chest and was actually rather adorable, as sleeping babies WHO ARE NOT SCREAMING tend to be.] Don't get me wrong, I've spent a lot of the past year wishing I could get away with that kind of behavior myself, and I really do understand that when you're that young and things aren't going your way for whatever reason, that's about the only response you know, but when it grates along my entire nervous system to hear that screaming, it's not particularly pleasant. Note to self: if you ever have children, NEVER LET THEM OUT OF THE HOUSE IN PUBLIC TO DESTROY OTHER PEOPLE'S SOULS.

Wait. That doesn't seem quite right.

Also, my cell fake-suicided after I dropped it on the ground in the rain, so this day is made of complete and utter win. I think I managed to resuscitate it, but its days are even more numbered than my car's.

My Time Lord Name is Mosdrashytonytanmorenoldacheengoldilden.
Take The Time Lord Name Generator today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

Yes, my Time Lord name has more letters in it than some alphabets. Can you imagine trying to spell that over the phone when setting up doctor's appointments?

I am cranky because LIFE IS INSANE AND HAS EXPLODED ON ME. Again. And because internet servers everywhere apparently crash the instant I come near them, considering neither my work network connection nor my home internet were working for a while there. Also, I fear that my travel curse has started to spread itself across entire states in order to screw up flight arrangements not even made by me. I hope I'm wrong about that. I really, really do. I HATE YOU, TRAVEL CURSE.

Anyway.

Me: 4 flights. Travel curse: eh, about one. Couple delays, one outgoing, one incoming, nothing too serious. SO THERE, TRAVEL CURSE.

Flying out of Seattle last night, the sunset and twilight sky was smudged and smeared into an impressionist painting.

Driving past the rest area right outside my current town around three this morning, all the semis were tucked in for the night, huddled together in the parking lot. You know you're exhausted when you're anthropomorphizing--and making cute--very large trucks.

Having seen Wall-E this weekend, I can tell you that the songs and clips used connected directly into the childhood happy-making centers of my brain. YAAAAAAAAAY. *finds a straw boater and starts dancing*

And now I need to go run around town with a half-dozen errands. Woo.

lon_dubh tagged me, so:

1. Go to your desktop and press the Print Scrn key (located on the right side of the F12 key).
2. Open a graphics program (like Picture Manager, Paint, or Photoshop) and do a Paste (CTRL + V).
3. Post the picture on your blog. You can also give a short explanation on the look of your desktop if you want. You can explain why you prefer such a look or why it is full of icons. Things like that.
4. Tag five of your friends and ask them to give you a Free View of their desktops as well.

( To spare the flist )

And in other news, I have officially been driving for ten years since yesterday. Yes, I know, it's incredibly geeky that I remember what day I got my driver's license, but what's even more horrific is that this means, finally, that I have averaged one car every two years.

I have had five cars in ten years. My current car has lasted me just over four years so far (I got him in early June) and I'd prefer that the next time I get a new car it is not because of a wreck or because my current car dies.

I swear I'm a very good driver. Usually.

Remember this old meme?

Reply, I ask you five questions. You respond in your journal, copy this and all that jazz.

Five questions from bexplant:

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My sleeping patterns are becoming as jacked up as they were in undergrad/grad school. Then again, it kinda feels like I'm back on summer vacation. (If that were truly the case, I'd be in at least one internship and reading a lot more history books instead of half-a-dozen novels, about three of which are Albert Campion books.)

I should probably go do something useful now.

Today was shit. Yesterday was shit. So here is random pic spammage.

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