Due to lack of writing lately, I am going through a phase where every word I put down seems to completely lack in meaning or style or anything good. But at least it's not Twilight, right? All this is stuff I wrote while reading, hence the page numbers.

( Do spoilers even matter anymore? )

And now, at 11:30 AM, it is time to start the day!

Note to self: stop losing things.

Seriously.

In other news, I didn't have to work today and had a fabulous afternoon. Hooray!

...more later.

A very very brief note:

Extremely busy this weekend and this week. I put on Stage Beauty and worked on stage managery stuff for the duration of the movie after getting home from work, and then worked on it more after the movie. (That movie has been haunting me--the perfect moment when she cries, "A woman would fight!" and the horrible and wonderful final Desdemona death scene. So good.)

So: work, show, some other stuff, and reading. (Twilight is losing its minimal ability to keep me focused on the book.) I want badly to get back to writing, having forced myself to hack out 1600 words over the weekend and having it turn out forced and bland and unpleasant and me realizing that I have NOT been keeping up with the once-very-strict writing schedule I was using, and...yeah.

But now I'm very tired, so into bed with Twilight, and tomorrow will be another day. Maybe it will be the day I manage to squish writing in; I don't know.

I have been meaning to post. Really I have. I even attempted to post something Wednesday night, only to be thwarted by severe wrist pain. This is what I have been up to, in brief:

1) Rehearsals in the mornings! At this point I am not doing much but sitting around and attempting crowd control and trying to keep the masses of communication and information under control, but that will change! I love all of our kids and their hilarious ways, but I particularly as of late laugh at Emmalee (one of two Olivers), who prances like a horse when bored, and Paul (Fagin), who twirls when bored. I love every one of them.

2) Work. Nothing much to say there, though the kids have been setting me on edge this week. Two in particular--one of mine and one of the other class. Friday was a rough day (well, afternoon) because for like two hours there was always at least one kid crying, and one child (a favorite of mine, but a terror) gets into everything and is uncontrollable.

3) Saw Easy Virtue Thursday night and enjoyed it. I love Kristen Scott Thomas, I LOVE Colin Firth (I have been known to watch awful movies *coughwhatagirlwantscough* repeatedly just because I love him), I love the 20s, and yeah, it was like Gosford Park if it had been funny.

4) Went out last night for Kasey's birthday--to Outback (blueberry martini that I knocked back since it tasted all syrupy and not alcoholy, like soda, except that I think the alcohol was just hidden, plus for the first time I had one of those blooming onion things and it was delicious, and I filled up on the blooming onion and bread and then couldn't finish the steak portion of my grilled-shrimp-and-steak dinner.), and then to Metropolis, which is a club, where I danced for four and a half hours and then there was the long drive back home, and dragging into bed at a bit before four AM. Whee! The group consisted of Kasey and me, Kasey's two sisters, and four women from work.

5) Draaaaaagged myself to my dad's house to see the annual street sale, drinking some ginger tea. Some interesting things, but nothing I was quite willing to spend money on. And then we went to Lowe's and picked out some paint for my old bedroom (we want to get it relatively fixed up by the time Rob comes to visit, should he use the room) and by that time, between my sore, sore wrist and my exhaustion from getting roughly five hours of sleep, I was ready to go home despite vague plans of clothes shopping.

6) About the wrist--I have strained my right thumb. Yesterday it felt better, but today it has felt awful. I think being at the club made it worse. (You know, dancing for a long time, moving my arms/hands around instead of resting them quietly.) And I missed a couple of Advil times. I tried to rest more after getting home today--reading, a small nap, and computer, having not done much on the computer for the last two days.

7) I am now reading three books, as follows:

-Little, Big, which, again, is slow but thoroughly enjoyable. I hesitate to say that I love George Mouse, because I fear he will be shady, and I have secret, secret hopes that somehow someone will rescue long-lost August (did something like that happen in Jonathan Strange...?), and for some reason I love Auberon (old Auberon). I am nearing the halfway point, I think.

-Pride and Prejudice, which is definitely good, but which I am having trouble focusing on, it being my work book, and either A) having to keep children under control at work during nap, or B) struggling to stay awake during nap.

-Twilight. An easy read. My brother (MY BROTHER) really likes it, so I thought that I would give it a try, that I might give a good argument as to why it isn't good (when I tried in Baltimore, he just went, "Have you read it?"). It seemed like the kind of book I should work on today, when I was shuffling exhaustedly around my apartment and clutching my sore wrist to my stomach. I shall write more on it later, but for now let me say that I was hoping it would be hilariously bad, but so far (less than halfway through), I just find it fairly bland, except for Edward, the strongest personality in the book. And a bit of a shadester.

I am convinced that tomorrow I will feel better, and I am going to shop and possibly visit a bakery and probably pay a visit to GoettaFest. Just now I am watching Emma, being in the mood for something light and fun and squishy.

Kind of a hasty entry, like many/most of my entries nowadays...

Yesterday was Father's Day and we didn't do anything particularly special, but we had fun. Elyse and I went to the Party Source and stocked up on special foods--cheese, crackers, various salsas and jellies and chocolates--and then we made a pizza and set up a spread, and then the three of us played three games of Settlers of Catan. Elyse won twice and I won once, rather guiltily because if not for the fateful roll of seven that halved my dad's cards, he would have won in the turn before mine. ("I'm sorry, Daddy!" I said. "You're not even!" he said.)

One thing I requested for my birthday, out of interest and attempting to find cool cheap stuff people could give me and thinking of a kind of art projecty thing to do, was black-and-white pictures of as many of my relatives as possible at around the age of twenty-three. My mom delivered with a nice selection of her parents, brother and sisters, and herself; Rob sent a gorgeous one of Val and a couple of him and Val, and my dad...promised me some pictures. Which he never delivered on.

So yesterday I asked if I could look at some old pictures, and then we somehow ended up spending an hour sitting on the couch looking at old, old family photos, and I gathered up quite a collection of people, not just at the age of twenty-three. My personal favorite turned out to be my great-uncle Malcolm, younger brother of my grandmother by six years. I don't know if I've even met him, but I quickly learned to identify him in pictures because he was always making a face (usually a smirk), which led to me referring to him as "Uncle Smarmo". I have two excellent pictures of him, a few of my grandmother as a young woman (one gorgeous off-center one of her a few years shy of thirty, holding my father just over a year old), also one--one of my favorite pictures ever--of her as a young girl of three or five with a delightful smarmy smirk on her face, and many of my father at varying ages--as a baby, as a child, as a teenager, college graduate. I laughed at his frizzy hair and what I eventually referred to as "monkey ears" (it's okay, I have both features too--Rob also has the ears but Elyse managed to escape that), both very evident in his school pictures.

Now I have an extremely beautiful selection of pictures that I have to take to Staples to copy. Soon. Then they can join the small collection on the wall above my bed, which I have decided will be nothing but black-and-white pictures or artwork.

Anyway, I figure it was time well spent: I always enjoy Settlers of Catan, I enjoy good spreads, and I enjoy old family photos in black-and-white. I was pleased with the day.

Today was our first rehearsal and it went well, except that it (or something) depleted me of energy. Tomorrow will be better.

Lately I have been feeling pretty bummed, not much like myself. Possibly for months? I hate to angst all over the place, but the past couple of weeks it has really been bothering me, and I kept wondering what was wrong with me and why I kept feeling like this (a variety of reasons which I shall not go into here). Lately I have decided to peg "stress" as the biggest reason, but tonight I breezed home after the parent meeting and an extremely long (about twelve hours, though that includes driving time) day feeling better and lighter somehow, without knowing why.

It occurs to me, too, that I could very easily link this dissatisfaction with the lack of writing (putting words down into sentences) in my life. I finished the first draft of AEFB in March. I could start the second draft anytime, were it not for more pressing matters. I am determined to squish writing into my life somehow, but... not tonight. Hacking away at notes is important, but it's not writing. It's not expressive, it's not me making a point of sitting at my desk every night to work and going to bed feeling as though I'd accomplished something and maybe let something out of myself.

...I need another project to work on while I'm fine-tuning AEFB, I think.

And now for my summertime nightly ritual of cold shower, ice pack (my mom calls it a Cozee, but I think that is a stupid name, so I've always called it--a bag filled with rice and flaxseed or something, with a flannel cover--a heat pack because that's how I've always used it, zapping it in the microwave in the winter for something to help keep my feet warm, but I've discovered that when stashed in the freezer, it's also excellent for cooling down), and book. I'm kind of loving Little, Big and its comfortable rambling and ambling and slow build to something. Now that I've thought of Jonathan Strange, it reminds me of it strongly all the time.

So I've been busy.

( Read more... )

A crappy day to cap off a crappy week, followed by a busy weekend, probably. Super. And this is just another small and hasty post because I am thinking of going to my mom's house tomorrow to do some laundry, and while I am there, I might as well use the Internet to do things like show stuff (caught up for now, I think) and post entries and download music.

So, so tired. So many things to think about. Tired, and HOT, and today when the thermostat read 90 degrees (as high as it goes, sigh), the FURNACE CAME ON. AGAIN. After waiting for several minutes (at least two) for it to turn off, it didn't, so I just turned the whole furnace off because A) it wastes energy and heat, and B) I do not need my 90+ degree apartment to be even hotter. NO.

That is the latest problem.

(I was actually feeling relatively okay earlier, having just gotten out of the shower and settled down in my reading chair to read Little, Big with a cup of iced tea I watered down a little to cut the bitterness. But then my mom called and I told her all my troubles and just started feeling grumpy and warm again. Super!)

On the bright side--to inject some positiveness in here--yesterday I finished typing up my AEFB notes and now I think it's okay if I start on the second draft. Which is very good news!

Now it isn't even eleven yet and I can barely keep my eyes open, and I think I will work on some financial stuff for a little while and then read Little, Big for a little while, and then sleep as long as I want. And start fresh tomorrow, with laundry, possible going out with people, getting work done, and other things. (I don't want to make a to-do list here. I already have a to-do list. And writing it down again just clutters up my mind more. NO.)

Good night.

I have a real post. Really I do. I even started writing it. It just isn't finished yet. And so, because it's been a few days, and I am too tired just now (cramps + tired + long long week of working in the kitchen) to write a real post or to finish the one I started writing, here are a few random things:

-It is 81 degrees in my apartment and I do not feel overly uncomfortable. I consider this a complete and total win.

-I successfully made meatballs on my own for the first time ever!

-I ate way too much candy today, thinking it would fix my grumpy cramp problem. (It helped a little. Then there was another problem that comes about when one eats too much candy. Ah well.)

-I am reading Little, Big by John Crowley, which I have owned for so long that I don't even remember how I got it (....from that pile of SFBC books my dad gave me that I got Moving Pictures out of?) and heard good things about and tried reading at least twice only to give up. This time around, I am certainly finding it slow, but it's a good kind of slow. It just means that I'll read it slowly, but I've decided to be okay with that. It's a good book, but just now I can't figure out how to sum it up. So far it involves a house and a family (envious!) and it's a young man who meets a girl of this family and decides to marry her and treks to her house and it's weird. Reminds me of... Dangerous Angels if it were written in 1982 (? I think?) by a man? Or that, crossed with something else very familiar that I just can't place? (Neil Gaiman? A lengthier Diana Wynne Jones? Someone British and famous who didn't write fantasy? Or that one British guy who is very very famous for writing fantasy?) Anyway, it is very slow, but I like it.

And I was going to start The Bloody Chamber (one of my summer reading books!), but Pride and Prejudice just came in for me at the library, and library books take preference. So I am going to start that one tonight out of interest, and it will be my work book (it probably being slightly easier to read than LB), and the other being my home book.

-I might be coming down with something. This is my second day with a mild sore throat. Another toddler teacher was out for two days with something (chills and something) and another toddler teacher was out today with a sore throat. Super.

And now for working on AEFB (I have not in a couple of days, being busy working on other things), and then hopefully going to bed early/on time. Debating peppermint tea--it will make my throat feel better, but will it make me hotter in my already warm apartment? Decisions.

I cannot wait until next week. I will have to get up earlier, but at least I won't be changing truly disgusting diapers (ordinarily I do not mind changing diapers, but I had a nasty one today), corralling loud toddlers, wiping food off of faces, doing dishes, or being challenged by my superiors (...probably). At least, in the mornings I won't.

I love my little apartment, I really do. It's true that it has no central air, it's so beige that sometimes I want to rip my eyes out, it's very small, and it's in a neighborhood where cool arty people are mixed up with shady shadesters, but I do love it. Some things I love about it:

-Ten-foot ceilings
-Arches in my hallway
-Hardwood floors (at least, they look hardwood...) in my hallway and bathroom
-The view out the bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen windows are of a brick wall, crumbling in places. There are at least two of those metal stars on the wall, positioned so that I'm pretty much the only person who can see them.
-Being able to see the Radisson out my windows, lit up every night in a different color (last night it was green)
-All the shops etc. nearby. Within easy reach I have a coffee house, a school supply store, a bakery, a consignment shop, something that might be an art gallery, and a little grocery store that so far looks too shady for me to try out. And that's not even mentioning the generous handful of bars and restaurants.
-Hearing distant live music on weekends, and sometimes weeknights.
-Festivals right at my doorstep. I wish I hadn’t been burnt out when Maifest was here, else I'd have gone.
-There are train tracks about a block from my house, and for some reason I like to hear them pass by, even though sometimes they shake the building gently.
-There's a church a couple blocks from here (it’s a cool church too) and often I can hear its bells ringing
-Being on the third floor and waking up surrounded by views of sky and rooftops
-Birds landing on my windowsill

I wrote that yesterday morning, and just now I am not quite as happy with my apartment. The apartment itself, sure, but the appliances? And the occasional weekend insanity of people having screaming matches in the street at 2:45 AM? No. No. (So tired...)

I woke up yesterday morning at about 7:15 to a strange scrabbling sound, which at the time reminded me of someone typing on a keyboard. Finally, I looked around--and there were birds on my windowsill. They flew away, and I excitedly went to the kitchen and grabbed a few crackers, and crumbled them on the windowsill. (They keep coming back periodically. I put out more crackers much later in the day. This morning there was what I think was a mockingbird on the sill. Aw.)

It was one of those mornings where I was tired, but was thinking of too many things to fall back asleep. Which is sad, because I really wanted to fall back asleep. I read, I used the computer, I ate breakfast.

Actually, it's probably for the best that I woke up so early, because I needed to go to the CU, which closes at noon. So yesterday morning I cleaned my kitchen and hallway floors (and a little bit of the bathroom floor) and cleaned up my mail. And then I went to the CU, and after that, to Goodwill to drop off a garbage bag of stuff (and I sneaked into the store too and bought a drawing or something for $2), to the library to drop off my paper recycling and to check out some stuff, and to my mom's house to borrow something.

I'm in the market for a small bookcase to replace my nightstand. I had my eye on the Expedit bookcase from IKEA, but I just don't want to drop $80 on a bookcase. That, and it's probably not worth it. I need less IKEA stuff, not more. So after a stop at 7th Street for some tea tree oil (and some free hibiscus lemonade!), I ambled down to Sin City.

It's such a beautiful store, with so many lovely things. The foul temptress that most people would recognize as a pink satin dressing gown from the 40s was no longer there, but the printing blocks were, and other nice things too. (Since I was just taking a quick stroll through to look for a bookcase, I looked at everything but purposely didn’t linger.) But there was no bookcase.

And then I went to the Millenium Center. I went in there once before, and it's kind of an antique mall (I think the lady who runs the place gets everything from estate sales, so there's a lot of vintage stuff, but it's not quite as random and eclectic as an antique mall), but I don't like it. Something about the arrangement of the stuff, like a department store full of old stuff, kind of weirds me out. Anyway, every Saturday they have a "garage sale" and today I decided to check it out. There wasn't a lot of furniture, but there was some weird and interesting stuff. (Beautiful lanterns!) I bought a little print or something for $5. And then I took a peek into the actual store and was tempted by the West Elm pillows they had the last time I was there (lime green satin with piratey ships screen-printed in blue), but decided I didn't want one enough to spend $15 on it. (I want to go to the Salvation Army.)

Home. Lunch. Called father. Spent some time painting a picture frame with TV on in the background. And then came the nailing. A lot of nailing. I nailed up five things today. And while nailing up like the second or third thing, I was standing on my couch and holding a nail and nailing and then I very cleverly hammered my own thumb and it hurt LIKE THE DICKENS, I TELL YOU. For some time I was incapacitated as I swore and held a bag of frozen peas against my thumb and swore some more. It was so, so painful. And kind of embarrassing. I now have a tiny purple mark on the edge of my thumbnail (it looks like I slipped with a marker) and a weird bruise ring, barely visible, around the whole top edge. It continues to hurt.

My fridge leaks. On the inside. (It sucks. The water gets all over everything in the fridge and sometimes it freezes so I have to crack or shake ice off of stuff before I can open it, and then it forms a big puddle on the bottom of the fridge, often with ice floating in it…) I asked my landlord about it once and he told me to check something-or-other and because I didn't know what he was talking about, I asked my dad to come and help me look. So he did. We investigated, he tried to unscrew something in the freezer, and nothing worked. Finally, we moved the fridge, and I'm not sure what happened (our theory is that the puddle inside the fridge leaked out with the movement of the fridge), but suddenly there was water all over the floor and I was scrambling to find enough rags to mop it up. I've been living on my own for seven months--I don't have enough rags. I finally had to sadly use my spare good towel to soak up the water, lacking anything else big and absorbent enough. (The floor was clean, though I don't know how clean the water was, and I can wash the towel...sometime...)

(I regard calling my landlord kind of the way I regard calling the doctor when I am sick. Well, in the case of the doctor, it seems silly to call over trifles like a cold, and sometimes they tell me to just take x cold medicine or ibuprofin and then I am SO glad I paid them $30 to tell me something I could have figured out on my own. In the case of my landlord, I hate to bother him with stupid stuff that I sense I could fix on my own if I just knew how (the fridge is not this problem). In most cases, I would rather someone show me how to fix a problem on my own rather than take it away from me and have them fix it for me.)

So the fridge was a bust, though my dad did help me put my wayward storm window back in. I called my landlord right away, but got a voicemail. Alas. (Later he called me back but repeatedly we lost the connection as soon as I answered the phone, and I haven't heard from him since then. Great! I hope my fridge keeps spewing water on my floor!)

So: kitchen mildly flooded, thumb pounded with a hard metal thing. Not a great afternoon.

I spent some time later working on the AEFB notes and tackled one of the bigger parts I'd been hesitating over, and took out maybe five or ten pages of it. Sweet.

Later I went to see The Wedding Singer at Highlands, and it was funny, and Margie was the very funniest of all in the song "A Note from Linda" (I think that's what it was called).

...I also finished Bloodhound today, and generally liked it better than Terrier, but was still not much impressed by it. I was really hoping that Beka's romantic interest would turn out to be a bad guy, just for some general interest. Hoping so much.

Hearing the live music in Mainstrasse this weekend makes me want to go out and find it. If only it weren't dark and the weekend in Mainstrasse! (Also, after last night's screaming match in the street, I never want to venture into dark weekend Mainstrasse. Well, I'll probably feel differently in a week or so.)

Also. A couple of months ago, I posted about a solar system quilt I thought was really cool. Friday I tried to find the quilt again and found that my link had died, so I looked it up again. And then I discovered that this quilt--which I have been admiring and coveting and replicating in my mind--is on display at the National Museum of American History. The Smithsonian. In DC. You know, the one I really wanted to go to and only saw Kermit the Frog and Dorothy's ruby slippers and some presidential displays and the Star-Spangled Banner (...okay, that part was supremely cool, and something I forgot to mention. I adore the song and the actual flag is the size of a house. Beautiful!), and I could have seen the most awesome quilt of all time. *hangs head*

Something else: a month or two ago, Anton and I accidentally visited Robin at a Barnes & Noble regarding her book on gangster-era Newport, using mostly photos from the KCPL's vast collection. We chatted for a while, and she mentioned something about historic Newport bike tours, and I pounced on the idea. I LOVE walking tours, especially historic ones. I remember fondly the walking tours of the French Quarter and Garden District we went on both times we went to New Orleans, and I also love the historic homes tour in Newport. So yesterday I was about to go into Sin City, and there in the window was an enormous sign proclaiming gangster walking tours of Newport Memorial Day weekend. I wilted, and went inside. Later, I looked it up online, and discovered that they are still doing them! (I actually caught sight of one yesterday and thought it looked like a walking tour led by two gangster-types, but figured it was something else.) I CANNOT wait to go!

...I have twelve billion sneak peek links, so I shall link them in small handfuls, as I remember to. One, two, three, four, five, six.

Today: groceries, working on housework (I meant to do some massive cleaning yesterday but only did my floors), ItalianFest with friends, and possibly entertaining, I don't know. And in the evening (depending on how long the afternoon runs), show stuff and e-mails and even more incredibly boring hacking away at AEFB notes. (I just want to keep track of the information I wrote into the story itself. One character got two or three different names because I forgot I had given him one already, and several other characters got shuffled around repeatedly. It's necessary. Just boring.)

Good evening, my friends. It's occurred to me that it's been several days since I posted, and though I don't have much to comment on, I want to check in periodically. You know, if I can't be bothered to actually think through and write out an interesting entry.

-Currently reading Tamora Pierce's Bloodhound, which I have comparatively little issue with (it's obviously written for a younger crowd and the semi-constant animal sidekicks annoy me). Since it is a library book, it has temporarily replaced the other two books I was reading (A Swiftly Tilting Planet, accidentally read out of order, and Princess Ben).

Question: Does anyone else ever read books that were gifts and feel guilty for not liking them? Or--and I'm not sure if this is worse or not--reading them, thinking them mediocre, and keeping them for years just because they were gifts?

-I lifted the important information out of the draft of AEFB and now am working on compiling it into a semi-legible set of notes. It's not terribly interesting, but it's something I can do every day and listen to music or something while I do it (something I can't do while actually writing).

-Music of the Week: "Little Sister" by Rufus Wainwright and "Take This Waltz" by Leonard Cohen, with a side of "Wild Geese" by a band with a long and complicated name I can't remember. (It is Flowers From the Man Who Shot Your Cousin. I think.) I can't get enough of these two songs, though I admit it's "Little Sister" that gets stuck in my head all day.

-My apartment building has a smell this week, especially on the main floor area in the stairwell, but the smell drifts up to my floor sometimes. It's like a painty or gassy smell or something else unpleasant. Possibly from the first-floor renovations?

-I finally got around to doing the dishes and doing some gentle apartment cleaning--yay! I'm going to do more thorough cleaning this weekend and I'm psyched to have a weekend at home.

This has been an exhausting week, and on top of it all my hair's been frizzed out nearly every day (et tu, MoroccanOil?), but whatever, it's nearly over, and I'm starting to find a rhythm. The next time I post, I will also post a generous handful of Design*Sponge links.

And now it's a very pleasant and rainy evening, with sweet cool air drifting through the windows, not nearly hot enough to need to take a shower before going to bed, so I think I shall make some tea (possibly peppermint, which I like enough to save for special occasions, at least until I use up the like two boxes and two tins I have otherwise of tea) and lie in bed reading, though currently Bloodhound is waning in my interest.

(...not so much that I dislike Bloodhound, but rather Pierce's writing patterns. I can't possibly deny that I don't adore the Song of the Lioness and Immortals quartets--though possibly out of nostalgia--but the more stuff she wrote, the more I noticed it. Kind of like Joss Whedon! There are several major factors I get annoyed by, and these factors show up in all of her novels (I like her short stories a lot--they are so fresh and different, most of the time!). 1) Characters are warriors 2) Oftentimes, characters are mages in addition to warriors. In my opinion, this puts way too much power in the character's hands to make the character interesting, but whatever. 3) There are ALWAYS animals around, which puts me very uncomfortably in mind of Disney movies, especially in the more modern era (starting with, oh, The Little Mermaid) when suddenly every single movie had some form of animalesque friends, intended for comedy but often just being annoying... I suppose I feel like Pierce goes out of her way to write SUPER SPECIAL characters, and I would really like for her to write about someone who isn't super special, someone who's just ordinary. (I think that's what she was trying to do with the Protector of the Small quartet, but...it didn't work for me? Possibly because it was just like the Song of the Lioness except less interesting.) Someone who isn't a warrior, someone who doesn't get pretty gifts from her friends, someone who doesn't know any kind of magic at all, someone who can be an interesting person and have interesting things happen to him/her without having some kind of unique and awesomely badass skill.

Honestly, it's not just Pierce, but I see this a lot in fantasy in general, and it's the kind of thing I strove to avoid in AEFB, only to look back and realize I'd done the exact opposite. I hope to tone that down in rewriting. Pierce just annoys me because otherwise I mostly like her work, but she's been essentially writing the same thing for twenty years and I really love some of her books and I just want her to do something new that I could love just like the really old books.

Anyway...)

That was a much longer ramble than intended. There is something vaguely interesting for you to read. (I assure you, it's much more interesting than the other thoughts in my head, a mix of the show and AEFB and the hilarious episode of Lois & Clark I watched tonight.) So now for tea and reading, I suppose.

Let me just tell you about all the great things that have happened to me today.

-Stayed up late casting the show with Mary Ann and Caroline, nursing a headache and somewhat of a temper or angst. It was soothed by sitting on Mary Ann's pleasant patio with peppermint tea, talking auditions and listening to their duck occasionally quacking or splashing. Anyway, I got home around 12:30, but I knew I had to eat something, so I had a muffin, and despite being about to fall asleep, I forced myself to draw half a page in my sketchbook, knowing I feel better in the morning if I give myself time to wind down before going to sleep but also knowing a book wouldn't cut it.

-Felt like a zombie upon waking. (Also, dreamt vividly of something involving water and a giant tank and waves and possibly saving someone from the water? Does that sound significant?)

-Further discussed casting with Caroline.

-Went to mom's house before work (and after library, where I got the newest Tamora Pierce book, finally!) to retrieve my laundry, only to find it wasn't finished. Resolved to come back later.

-Was hounded by obnoxiously slow traffic almost the whole way to work when I was already a bit late.

-Was--well, I wouldn't really say questioned--maybe challenged?--anyway, kind of in a very mild way had my integrity (or something) questioned by a person whom I shall refer to as my supervisor almost as soon as I walked in the door. That's great.

-Had more kids than expected, including a new kid, and was offered my room or the preschoolers. I opted for my room, and I think overall it was fine, but it was six kids and it was a bit hectic.

-Was informed that Co-Teacher will not be there tomorrow, leaving me stuck with what will possibly be seven kids alone all day--just enough to make things hectic, but not enough to warrant another teacher. Sad.

-Slogged through a somehow long and exhausting afternoon involving several injuries, which I barely had the time to write the reports for.

-Was told/asked to leave early (fifteen minutes, peh) today.

-Was then asked to come in at EIGHT AM tomorrow. (Meaning that if I have to leave the house at 7:30, and if I want to give myself the same amount of time as a normal day, I have to get up at 6:00 AM. Gross. And I'm still exhausted from the weekend!) (If it were a normal length of time I would not be quite so concerned, but I'm wondering if they're going to try to finagle a way for me to stay from 8:00 until 6:30 which just makes me want to die. It might be worth it for the overtime cash, but knowing them, they'd just ask me to come in later the next day. But I don't actually know what their plans are, so all this bitching is probably for nothing.)

-Back to mom's house for laundry, DVDs, and a book. Decided against going to the grocery store even though I am out of cheese.

-Home, dealt with some show stuff, made dinner.

-Wrestled with crap lack of Internet.

-Wrestled with fan which lives in window--wouldn't stay perched there as it did yesterday, and eventually fell over. Now it is in my reading chair, which I don't think I've used since before I went to Baltimore.

-Sat on the couch eating and attempting to use the computer and watching TV--AND THEN THE FURNACE CAME ON. THE FURNACE. WHAT. My apartment is eighty degrees and the thermostat is set for like fifty-five or something. I don't understand how this happened! Unless I have central air in the furnace and didn't know it (which is clearly something I just made up)? Tired and confused, I just switched off the furnace, resolving to look at it/think of it later.

-Rinsed almost all of my dishes and ugh there are so many of them and I so so don't want to wash them but I am out of so many things. I think I will wash enough to get me through a couple of days tonight and then do the rest on Wednesday.

Still to do:

-Dishes, as mentioned

-Put away clean laundry and then return dirty laundry to proper place

-E-mail JW

I think I will go and do a handful of dishes, forgo the tea and the writing (alas, but I so need my rest right now), and just go to bed with Bloodhound until I fall asleep. And hopefully do e-mail in the morning.

(On the other hand, the show is cast--hooray!)

A bit grumpy and a lot broke tonight. Hooray!

I have a confession to make: I am addicted to Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. It's pretty awful. I adored that show in fourth grade. Fourth grade. So recently I was all, hey, I need a show to put on in the background because I'm tired of everything I have, so I checked L&C out from the library and was astonished to LOVE it. It's so stupid and cheesy...... but it reminds me very much of due South, except that the hot obnoxiously do-gooding-type-guy has superpowers! Clark is smarmy and uses his superpowers whenever possible (except not in an obvious way) and I love it. It's lame, but I love it. I'm okay with that.

So my original intention tonight was to watch a couple of episodes and get some stuff done and do the dishes, but...that didn't happen. Well, the two episodes did. (I've just started season two.) And I did my finances and before going to bed I will diligently get some writing done (more below) and probably get some other work done relating to an audition I'm holding tomorrow, but other than that? Nothing. My mail is a mess, the clean clothes leftover from Baltimore are all over the bedroom floor (infringing on the workspace), and my shoes are not organized at all. And I haven't gotten around to taking a look at my fridge, and on top of it all, while I was at work yesterday, one of the storm windows in the kitchen fell out and I couldn't get it back in. I figured it was fine until I could get someone (let's be honest, probably my mom) here to help me, but then it poured last night. Super.

In conclusion: I am lazy. Maybe tomorrow will be better?

Also, I have spent a lot of time at work lately working in the kitchen, which is extremely hot and slightly tiring work. I wish I could get away with listening to my iPod in there, but I probably wouldn't be able to hear it over the dishwasher and if someone called for something on the intercom I might not hear and that would be bad. Sigh.

Writing is the one thing I am staying on top of, pretty much clinging to, because I know that if I let that go, it's very easy to just keep letting it go and not write at all, and also it's obviously important to me. Yesterday I finished working my way through the AEFB manuscript and now I'm anxious to start revising but it occurred to me that I should finish writing my helpful notes first--a boring process.

Ugh. I feel gross. Going to work on notetaking now, with tea.

...on the plus side, all the rain has brought the temperature down considerably--when I left home this morning the thermostat said 80 degrees, and now it says 70. Very nice!

Determined to try to post more often. DETERMINED.

One: I banged out a semi-satisfactory (would have been better if I hadn't been watching The Simpsons at the same time...writing after TV is okay, especially after things that make me all fuzzy like Emma and The Fall and Penelope and some other things that shall remain nameless, but writing during TV is miss more than hit, unless the TV is just insignificant enough to provide background noise while writing) 2100 words last night, in some randomness related to AEFB. Sat writing notes by hand later in one of many blank books I have lying around. (I love blank books so much. Why do I never use them?)

Two: Read a post (this one) about what kinds of things are going on in a writer's life when they write books. Thought about AEFB and when I started it and what kinds of things went on in my life while writing it. (Two things: stress and changes. An interesting notion.) Noting that I started AEFB on March 30 of last year, I browed through my archives to see what I'd been doing and thinking about then, wondering if I'd see any sparks of it. About ten days (give or take, and I'm too lazy now to go and look it up) beforehand, Phantom started exhibiting the disease or whatever he had that led to his death. This has nothing whatsoever to do with AEFB. (Interestingly, AEFB and the Charal story--a story I so far love too much to try to tear it apart and fix it; also, I have lost interest in it and inspiration for it--were started right at the same time--the Charal story on March 31 of 2003, shortly after I started blogging. My very first novel was started in late February of 2000. The second (and by a very great amount the worst) novel was started in late August of 2001--possibly why it was so bad--and POH was started in mid-October of 2005, but I figure that doesn't count because it was in the midst of a nasty writing dry spell. I can't figure out when the novel-to-be-that-tanked in 2005 was begun, but the Still novels were both begun in late spring.

Apparently, early spring and late winter is the time not only to read Sherlock Holmes, but for me to start a novel.

Three: My brother tempts me with things to buy. It was he who called to my attention that I could get a free iPod Touch with a slightly cheaper new white MacBook (ironically, I discovered the white computer on the very same day) (also, I am certain that I will never have an iPhone because I don't trust any one thing with so many tasks, but the iPod Touch is just cool enough--and owned by enough members of my family--that I just want one even though I know I don't need one and might rarely use it for anything more than music. I figure, it's okay to want, but acting on the want, not so much). Last week he was boasting about the iTunes $30 gift cards he got at Best Buy on sale for $25--meaning a free $5 of stuff at the store. I thought it a good idea and envied him aloud; he responded by yesterday tempting me with a text mentioning $50 iTunes cards on sale for $40 at OfficeMax or someplace. Clearly, I should stop corresponding with my brother before something awful happens.

Four: Good things today: small and pleasantly-behaved class, bagels at the grocery store, a bigger paycheck than I've gotten in like a month, buying the perfect amount of groceries, and the nice cool breezes coming in through my windows.

Five: Not so good thing: an extremely frustrating afternoon involving hunting down insurance policies without my dad to help me, and he getting frustrated with me for asking for his help when he is five hundred miles away. (I eventually gave up. Rargh.)

Six: Music of the day: Flogging Molly. I only have Swagger, but it has served me well these many years, for I love almost every single song on it (the slower ones I usually skip over unless I'm in a particular mood for them). Though I did pause for a brief listen to My Chemical Romance's "Teenagers" (their song "Blood" became my personal theme song for Fallout 3, which my siblings very much enjoyed playing), and now have the children's/folk (?) song "There's a Hole in My Bucket" stuck in my head.

...I wish I had a legitimate reason to use a BSG quote for my subject title (for instance, rain), but mostly, I just think it's cool, and it was in the finale.

And now for cold water (bleh I am so hot and the computer on my lap helps not at all), making tea, and working on AEFB notes at my desk, and then reading while drinking said tea, and sleep. Tomorrow and Thursday look to be busy days too, but I shall press on cheerfully.

I meant to update in Baltimore and never really did and suddenly it's been four days since I last updated. What?

( Read more... )

I was saving a couple of Design*Sponge sneak peeks and kept forgetting to post them and then of course last week, when I had no Internet on my computer, was sneak peek week. Here are the ones I liked: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen. Whoo.

My plans to read all day on the porch swing were ruined by soggy weather which is unfortunately supposed to continue today. Uncool.

I am pretty sure I was going to post links or something, but not actually having links in front of me, since I am sitting on the fold-out couch that's serving as my dad's bed and using his spare computer for the Internet (decision: I need a new computer. I am 90% sure I am going to ask for a MacBook for Christmas because I am sick of my computer crapping out on me in random ways. And also it not really being my computer. I can get a 13" white MacBook for about $1000! I prefer the aluminum kind, but... $1000!), I have none of my saved links. Alas.

Highlights of the trip so far include playing Settlers of Catan last night and ruthlessly winning (if it were Civ or a computer game I would not win, but it being a board game and being able to see what's going on makes me able to win! And delight in the winning!), coloring a story for Rowan with markers (took a couple of hours to make a very simple roughly eight-panel story for her), and giggling with Elyse at the dinner table last night over use of the phrase, "Call the lawyers" and the word "admiral". Oh, and the little bit of time I had on the porch swing the other day--relaxing in the sunshine (under a shade in the sunshine) reading Beyond Heaving Bosoms and AEFB.

The worst part? Hearing that the Rainforest Cafe has closed. I...I don't know what to do.

The game plan for the rest of the week:

Today: hopefully a minimal amount of TV, accented by more reading and writing and drawing and working. Eating dinner at the Cheesecake Factory and possibly having a wander around the mall, very possibly pausing to take a peek into their local H&M.

Tomorrow: Hopefully convincing my dad and sister to go with me into Baltimore to see the American Visionary Art Museum. I did not know such a thing existed and I want to see it, plus I want to get out of the house. Also, Rowan has a violin something (recital?) tomorrow night.

Friday: Mexican night. Going to see Up. When Rob told me the other day that the porch swing could lay flat like a bed, I got excited and told Rowan we should have a sleepover out there. She got excited too and she's been talking about it. Since she has school this week, I said we should do it Friday night. As long as the weather holds.

Saturday: We're going to DC. The last time I went was when Val was still alive, so it's been quite a while. I'm not sure where we're going to go, but Rob wants to see the other Air & Space Museum, Elyse expressed an interest in the main Smithsonian, and I have a vague interest in seeing the (Smithsonian?) American History Museum. We may or may not go to the Hard Rock Cafe, home of my Sixth Grade Memories, as well.

We're also probably going to get in the hot tub sometime (maybe tonight? If Cheesecake Factory doesn't take too long?), and I told Rob I would love to help him catalogue his stuff and then take it to Goodwill. I never say no to a trip to a thrift store. However, an ideal day to do that would have been yesterday...

Sunday: Home. :-( I have a very early flight and plan to sleep when I get home. Also, I have some errands to do later in the afternoon, like obtaining food.

And now for breakfast and reading (Sara Snow's Fresh Living), and suchlike. Soon I will make my brother clear a spot on his router so I can use the Internet on my computer.

FYI: I arrived safely in Baltimore and today have been wrangling with what seems to be a belated hangover. Ha! However, I have discovered a terrible truth, which is that my computer (which is my dad's old old computer) hates password-protected networks as well as me in general, so I can't use the Internet on my computer here. My dad made vague promises to look into it; I'm frustrated by my computer and want a new one. (It won't play DVDs and won't let me onto password-protected networks to which I know the password. WTF, computer?)

So I'm borrowing my dad's old computer just now, for e-mail and LJ and Google Reader and such, and at this very moment am playing Simpsons Life with Elyse and Rowan, and have sworn to spend most of the day tomorrow on Rob's very comfy porch swing, reading.

More later, hopefully/probably--assuming that my dad can fix my computer. Tonight, more BSG (getting Rob caught up) and board games. We haven't played Settlers of Catan yet, but I hope to soon. Also, I brought like seven books (one of them is Crown Duel, which I started rereading out of boredom, and which I thought would be nice to read on the plane when I was all anxious, and I'm not terribly concerned about finishing it), so I'm really looking forward to chilling on the porch swing and reading tomorrow.

I made the hasty and terrified decision to fly to Baltimore only to learn that baggage costs money nowadays. However, my dad said he was willing to take most of my stuff with him when he goes. He's driving out there on Thursday, so I have to be packed by Wednesday. I'm probably going to leave my computer with him, so I figure I should take advantage of the computer while I have it.

Yet I'm pretty boring tonight--lovely weather, middling-well day, lazy evening spent worrying and watching Lois & Clark and debating whether to go see Laurie R. King tomorrow (decided against it--can't afford it in terms of time or money, though the "money" part is assuming I'd buy a hardcover book which duh of course). Wrestling on and off with my hair, thinking about working and writing and reading......but still sitting on the couch instead of doing any of those things.

Got lots of stuff going on tomorrow. Will probably be a busy day at work, plus after work I'll probably walk with Anton, plus I've got to get everything packed tomorrow night to avoid making multiple trips on Wednesday. WHOO.

I briefly debated getting out my big sketchbook and doing reference drawings tonight, but I've decided against it. I think instead I will make tea and put on my PJs and lie in bed and read for a while.

I am so, so psyched for Baltimore. I just wish I knew what happened to my swimsuit...

(PS: Everyone complimented my hair today. One child who used to be in my class said, "Your hair is curly! You look funny!" XD I love that kid. I think Rowan said something along those lines to me once... Anyway, it got poofier and lost a bit of its curl over the course of the day, but remained gloriously frizz-free. Refrained from buying mousse at the store today, but am thinking about it. Currently using hair clips to keep hair out of eyes. Overall: hair is successful.)

Tired. Pretty tired. But happy, which is always a plus.

After work on Friday (and after a brief stop at my dad's house to buy my plane tickets for Baltimore next weekend), I drove to Indianapolis to visit Caroline. I always love to visit her and leave feeling pretty happy and mellow, and I like being in her apartment.

Anyway. She had to work on Saturday, so I was at her place alone for most of the day. I spent a lot of time reading (reading my own work, reading Crown Duel--having attempted to decide what "work book" I wanted to read, and, unable to decide, chose this since it's been a couple years since I read it and I like it--and reading Beyond Heaving Bosoms, which is the Smart Bitches book), but I also walked around Broad Ripple a bit and shopped a lot. I went to the beautiful and excellent Monon (I wish Bean Haus was just a wee bit more like Monon!) and the guy there was very friendly and helped me choose an extremely delicious (and expensive by the pound but cheap by the cup) green tea. I did not really know that tea could taste that good--and I LOVE tea. I only wish I could remember what it was called--it started with an S, maybe, but it was also spider legs. Or something. I also bought food there.

Then a walk down to Caroline's bookstore, to visit her and explain that I was unable to use the Internet, and to explore the store. (It is a very beautiful and light and friendly store.) She told me to try Starbucks, so I went there and bought basically an Egg McMuffin (after having tasted the Greatest Green Tea Of All Time, I was pretty sure that to buy Starbucks tea would make me a harlot and a sellout, and also, none of the things in their food case appealed to me) and sat by their giant fireplace and used their Internet.

Then back to Caroline's for more reading. Later in the afternoon, I had a hair appointment, which turned out fabulously. It was expensive, but totally worth it. I had my hair thinned, and for the first time in my life I had it layered. For the first time in thirteen years, I have a new hairstyle! It was a very cool salon and they also sold me some amazing product (expensive but, I suspect, worth it--MoroccanOil. I would link it but the Internet is being a little persnickety with me right now). Oh yeah, and she straightened my hair, which looked pretty cool, but since I'm not sure when or if I will invest in a straightener, it probably won't look like that much...

Very pleased, I went to visit Caroline again so she could see my haircut, and also, I bought books. After poking around the store and asking Caroline's opinion and agonizing for a while, I chose three: Freckleface Strawberry and the Dodgeball Bully, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, and Sara Snow's Fresh Living. Oh yes. Again, expensive, but worth it--beautiful books, and supporting an independent bookstore!

Back to Caroline's, where I read for the rest of the day. (I love her library/office, a beautiful little sunny room with white curtains for a door, and white paneling on the walls, and books and words everywhere, and I just camped out in her turquoise armchair with my books and work and read and read and read.)

Later, Georgeanna, Caroline, and I went to dinner and then to see Angels & Demons (a perfectly enjoyable movie--moreso than The Da Vinci Code, I think, but then, that's true of the book/s too. This one has Ewan McGregor with an adorable accent in it!).

This morning, I read more. (Apparently when I have no Internet access nor any of my own DVDs all I do is read...) When Caroline got back from church, we went to H&M. I LOVE H&M. Everything was lovely and I found an extremely cool like calico jacket on the sale rack and it's a little tight but it fits and then I picked out a cheap tank top to go with it (there was also a very nice minty tunic that I liked but decided against since it was more expensive). At the counter, I discovered that the awesome jacket was not on sale after a very lengthy wait while the cashier waited to hear from someone else as to whether it was on sale or not. I declined to buy it, but he was basically like, "No, screw it, it's my department, I don't care, it's the only one left," and he let me have it on sale. YAY FOR HIM. I LOVE HIM.

In the afternoon, we went to the Broad Ripple Art Fair, which was crowded and smelled like funnel cakes and cinnamon almonds and was wonderful. I love festivals! I love walking around looking at artwork in the sun and sometimes buying artwork. We made a circuit of the fair and got Indian food (I pretty much inhaled mine--I don't know if I have ever tasted anything so good in my life) and stood eating it hoping for naan but eventually had to give up. One of the earlier booths we went to featured photography, very vivid and colorful, by a very nice man from Nashville, and I bought a small print of a red door with a crystal doorknob. The only other thing I bought was a little wind chime made out of silverware (so cool!), but I very much admired the "Platform 9 ¾" print by Kyle Spears. It's classy.

Anyway. We spent a very long time at the art fair and enjoyed walking and looking at artwork and Indian food and some drinks (I had mint lemonade, which I pretty much obsessed over the second I saw it). On the way out, we stopped at the clothing sale of a woman who hadn’t been allowed to be in the art fair since her clothes were ones she designed but didn't make herself, and there I bought a cool pair of sandals for $5.

After that, we went on to Pitaya. An interesting thing I just discovered--Pitaya stores are pretty much in an hour-to-two-hour radius around Cincinnati, but there are NONE in Cincinnati. There are stores in Indy, Colombus, and Lexington--but not Cincinnati. Uncool. Anyway, I found some lovely things there (I believe they were all by Love Stitch), but didn't buy anything.

And then back to Monon for more of that amazing tea, to drink on the way home. And then I drove back home, listening to Colonial Williamsburg podcasts on the way (OMG there are SO MANY OF THEM). I stopped at my dad's house (somewhat reluctantly, as it would be faster to take 75 straight home) to get my suitcase and a couple of other things and was invited to stay for dinner. It was a pretty simple dinner--baked chicken, raw broccoli, and crunchy potato things--but it was delicious, and far more complicated than the dinner I'd been planning (croissant sandwich and possibly corn muffins from a mix) and I pretty much wolfed it down.

Then I drove home and found that Maifest (which I'd cleverly avoided by going to Indy) was still going on and Mainstrasse was still blocked off. I magically found a pretty good parking spot, considering, and lugged all my stuff upstairs and then spent The Simpsons and what I guess was two episodes of Angel (it felt like much more) unpacking and cleaning. And then I collapsed here on the couch.

And that was my weekend.

ALSO. My garbage can keeps disappearing. I checked this time--it was NOWHERE. Someone TOOK my garbage can the night before garbage day. I am sure they are just borrowing it (as this has happened before, and the people on the first floor are renovating or repairing or something else that results in throwing out lots of lumber and making banging noises), and, you know, I don't mind if people borrow my garbage can, but REALLY, can I have it back for garbage day? I didn't want to swipe someone else's can so I just didn't put my garbage out, and I really needed to! It had better be back next week!

There are two things I have to do this week, aside from packing, and they are pay my rent and get my license plate changed. It would also be nice to arrange something with the garage, but currently it's not high on my priority list.

So: I'm tired but happy, and looking pretty stylin' with my new haircut (and my awesome hipster calico jacket). I'm psyched about going to Baltimore, I'm anticipating a nice week at work, and I'm going to get into bed and read Sweetness for a while before going to sleep.

Hectic couple of days, and to top it all off, today was a gross, gray day accented with lots of disgusting rain. Feeling like I have lately (seriously, Tiara Time, come ON already, because I can't figure out why else I feel so hungry and exhausted lately), and with this kind of weather, it's hard to make myself do anything, though I'm glad to say that I've managed to work writing (in this case, revising) back into my ordinary schedule. Trying to find a rhythm to get everything done that I want to.

Something has come up. I took my car to the garage early yesterday morning for an almost-on-schedule oil change, and asked them to take a peek at the hoses and all since I'm taking two road trips soon. In short, there are a lot of things wrong with my car. Two tires need to be replaced, there is an oil-leak-thing that needs to be replaced, two belts, and some other things I don't remember. They said Indianapolis would be fine, but winced when I mentioned taking poor Sheila to Baltimore. (They were supposed to call me back later in the morning to give me some price quotings, but I haven't heard from them yet. I will try to remember to call them tomorrow.)

These are my choices:

1) Pay for the repairs for Sheila (I'm estimating $400, even though I don't even remember what-all needs to be done. It just seems like a good guess.) and drive my own car to Baltimore. This is iffy. On the one hand, if I'm going to be paying $400 for repairs anyway, I might as well not spend any extra money (see below) and just drive myself. And I was really loving the idea of the road trip and listening to audio books (it occurred to me that a book I've meant to read for nigh-on four years now but have been deterred by length and the fact that I hated the previous book, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, is on unabridged audio CD at the library, and this would be the perfect opportunity to listen to it) and packing a lunch. This lunch would probably include poppy seed muffins.

On the other hand, I am worried about driving Sheila that far, worried because I have never driven so far on my own before, and also, even taking into account the $400 and even if I brought my own food to eat somewhere where I could stretch my legs, I'd still spend like $100 in gas.

2) Rent a car. My dad called Enterprise for me and said that a compact car would be $300. Yuck. Not planning to do that at all.

3) Borrow my mom's car. Basically, like 2, I'm not really even considering this, but it is an option. I know it would make her uneasy to know that I was driving her car five hundred miles across the eastern side of the country, and I have not even asked her.

4) Fly. My dad investigated, and found Delta tickets for the dates I want for $200. Which is an amazing price.

Here is the thing: I don't fly often. I think I have flown three times in my life (I am not positive on this): once to go to Washington, D.C. in 6th grade (...right? We flew there, right? I'm pretty sure we did.) (actually, now I remember that we did, because we all chewed gum on takeoff to keep our ears from popping or...something.), once to go to New York with Caroline and Fritz to see Michael Crawford, taking six planes over the course of forty-eight hours (oh man that was awful), I believe this was November of 2001, and once to go to Baltimore with my dad and sister. (I don't know exactly when this was, but I think it was soon after they'd moved there, before we'd settled on the best method of transportation, and I think they moved there in 1998 or 1999--Rowan was born in 1999 and they were already in Baltimore--and it was probably before 2003 when Val died. But I don't know when it was. Probably after the hideous New York flight.)

As such, I am afraid of flying. Not really flying--crashing, more like. Those are amazing tickets and part of me is going, "But...muffins! Audio books!" and part of me is going, "$200! You will NEVER have a deal like this ever AGAIN IN YOUR LIFE DO IT NOW," and another part of me is going, "But...crashing! Remember Mary Russell in The Language of Bees flying in a crappy aeroplane talking about how awful it would be to crash?"

On top of all that, flying is so complicated and OMG what if I lose my suitcase? And what if they confiscate something of mine?

I...do not know. I was waiting to hear from the garage to see how much the repairs (or at least the most important repairs) would cost and then make an informed decision, but so far I haven't heard from them and if I am going to fly (which I am leaning toward, with terror) then I need to buy the tickets soon.

I work at 1:30 tomorrow (OH THANK YOU GOD); the plan for the morning is to do my finances and see just how much money I have to spare, make sure I actually have the time off, call the garage and see if they ever planned on calling me back, do some corresponding, ask some tentative questions at work about an unrelated matter, and, if I have time, pick up the show scripts from Ft. Thomas.

And now I am a bit off schedule (I find that it's easier to make myself do important things like showering and writing if I allot them to specific times), but that's okay, since I work later tomorrow, so I shall go pour myself some cereal and go and do some work. And, as always, more thinking.

Strangely, Mondays are my favorite day of the week (after glorious Friday, of course, and the weekend doesn't even count). Less hectic. Today was chilly but sunny. And pretty much uneventful. (Well, that's a lie. Two children were injured and I spent my morning frantically scrubbing chairs in the kitchen. But I didn't feel stressed about it.)

I got to go home a wee bit early and thought about going to the library but decided that I would rather just go straight home, and I did, and made a pizza for dinner and crocheted and watched TV (Simpsons and a properly amazing House. WOW.). And then I talked on the phone with Caroline for a while and I feel pretty good about myself.

Tomorrow, I am sure, will be another story.

The weekend was good, but a bit busy. In a lazy way. Spent all day Saturday with my mom, and then yesterday spent more time with my mom, going to the Fairy (Faerie?) Festival at 7th St. Gifts and there were so many beautiful things there, and then going to the Museum Center, one of my very favorite places ever, and we got in for free thanks to my museum pass and a voucher I found/remembered my dad had. In particular, I enjoyed ogling the historical photographs (like the photos that the mosaics--mostly the ones at the airport--were based off of, and some of the flood in 1937), and smirking at the fake Sherlock Holmes in the ice age (I'm just saying. When you're reading things with Sherlock Holmes, especially in the spring, he manages to pop up everywhere. No, The Language of Bees, thank you.), and spending a long, long time studying the Cincinnati in Motion thingie. (Exhibit?) I remember being annoyed when they first installed it because IT CHANGED THINGS OMG but it's fantastically crafted and pretty fascinating to look at.

So after that--and a trip to what I think was Spring Grove Cemetery--I went to Chez Nora with Anton and it was DELICIOUS. We both had crab cakes, and with mine I had a salad and saffron rice and two glasses of Riesling (I think?) wine, and the food was good and we ate on the rooftop terrace, which doesn't have a spectacular view (in this part of Covington, you'd have to be in like a five-story or higher building to have a spectacular view), but which is fun and the turquoise-painted metalwork like the banisters makes me smile. It was all very delicious and lovely. Unfortunately, we couldn't stay and listen to the live music, but sometime we will.

In the evening, after I'd worked on some sewing projects for a while, I decided I didn't feel like doing "real" writing, so I sat down at my desk with the manuscript of AEFB and worked on revisions for a little while. And that is also real writing but it doesn't quite feel like it. Anyway. So I accomplished something there too.

Also, this morning I got up a bit early and retrieved our shoes, at long last, from Highlands. Yay!

Tomorrow, I have some work stuff going on and I have to get up even earlier to take my car to the garage, plus I think I might go on a walk after work. Even if I'm exhausted. And I've been wanting to bake--poppy seed muffins (again; I just love them so much...) and cookies. It occurred to me that A) I'd like to have something to eat in the car on the way to Baltimore that I don't have to buy, and B) if I'm going to crash at my brother's house, the least I could do is bring cookies.

I feel like I have a lot of stuff going on right now (well, I have a lot on my mind, at least), and I just really can't wait for my various vacations, and also for May to be over. May is a crazy month. I'm about ready for June. (I only wish it was as exciting as last year's June, though admittedly I was mostly excited about House of Many Ways.)

But soon I will go to Indianapolis, where I have not been in ages (possibly a year), and get a real haircut, and chill (I always feel wonderfully relaxed when I visit Caroline), and soon after that, to Baltimore, where I will listen to audiobooks and eat Baja Fresh and it will all be very fabulous. Hooray!