Corner of Bourbon & Division

I don't get it. Twelve hours of sleep later, and I'm still tired. No, it's not the ick-I-slept-too-much kind of tired, either.

Is LJ going to keep the Valentine's Day banner up all week, or what?

I am entirely caught up on Bluebook. Yay!

Now, if only I could wrap my mind around writing fiction. One step at a time, I suppose. I really hate the last 2,000-odd words of Crisse, des zombies!, and that's proving to be a major stumbling block to getting the thing finished.

This is the Post Of A Thousand Paragraphs, because I honestly don't remember what I was going to say. Poor joane was talking to me yesterday on Y!M about conversations we had around New Year's, and I had NO idea what she was talking about. Once she reminded me (with explanations and examples and flow charts) then I finally got a vague notion that yes, maybe we might have discussed that at some point.

On the plus side, this whole memory thing seems to be restricted to short-term memory only. Anything that happened before September is okay. Otherwise, though, I'm sunk.

What I need, I suspect, is a month's vacation somewhere sunny and warm which includes a beach. I actually wouldn't mind going back to PEI for a week or two in the summer. That's obviously not going to happen this year, but maybe next year.

...

I forgot what I was going to say again. *sigh*

Now that I'm sort of used to getting up at 5am, I'm a little appalled at how quickly today went. I awoke at 9:30 and stayed in bed until 10:00, but now it's nearly 1:00 and where the hell did my day go?

So starting tomorrow I'm going to start getting up earlier again. Maybe not 5:00, but 7:00 seems reasonable as long as I don't go to bed too late.

Today I am determined to be Productive!Phnee. I am working on the principle that I have very few free days left before November, and if I get a job before then (hey, you never know), then I'll have even less free time. So far I have done a cursory de-cluttering of the kitchen and emptied out most of the refrigerator. I am mildly appalled by some of what was around the kitchen, but now it's being dealt with.

This will be of little interest to anyone but me, but for my own purposes I'm going to make a to-do list for the next few days:

( There is nothing to see here. We are a bush. Move along. )

I'm probably forgetting any number of things. They'll be added as I remember them.

Bah. Tired but not sleeping. This sucks like a sucking thing.

I'm too tired to write anything coherent, on top of that. Insult to injury and so forth.

I went to my first ever superbowl party on Saturday. I am still vaguely perplexed by the whole phenomenon, but I had fun and met new people (luvenditti's school people, as it happens, as well as their friends), and was instructed in some of the basics of one of America's favourite passtimes. The team I was "rooting" for (I hesitate to call it that because I'd pretty much never heard of them before Saturday) lost in a big way, and even I could tell they were playing poorly. The number of times the man with the number 86 jersey just plain old dropped the ball was truly astounding. According to one of the guys there, he was having an off day, since he usually catches everything. Also, I am far more amused than I should be by the name Hasselbeck.

On the plus side, I can now write with a little bit more authority for my character in Bluebook who's a big football fan.

There was dancing and music this weekend. I keep meaning to post some long and insightful thing about that, but I'm too busy at work to formulate non-fiction ideas in an organised way, and when I get home I'm too damned tired. Like a sucking thing, as I said before. Maybe next weekend, but I doubt it. It's all I can do to keep up with my friends page when I get home.

Okay. Going to try for sleep again now.

Well, L is back from her vacation in the States, and so now the office is returning to its usual hum of activity.

Part of me is glad she's back, as that means I have someone else to help me handle the crises. Part of me really liked having the office to myself. Heh. Win some, lose some.

It turns out that she's leaving for a whole other week at the very beginning of February, so I guess I'll have more of the same to look forward to.

Dance class tonight. It'll be fun, except for the fact that the blister I got on Sunday is not even close to being healed. So I'm not looking forward to shoving cowboy boots over it and dancing for two and a half hours. Oh well. One must suffer for one's art.

( Just me bitching about minor medical stuff that's not all that important to anyone except me )

Bluebook proceeds apace. I've posted for both SG4 and SG15, which leaves CS1 as the next priority, followed by my two base staff characters. I also need to ping a bunch of people for JPs. SG4's mission is slowly drawing to a close, wherein we will defeat the nefarious Mackayhotep and escape to fight another day. Last loop in the time-loop scenario, in other words. I'm looking forward to seeing how that will pan out.

Thoughts about 24 will go in another post soonish.

Pay will be corrected on my next paycheque. I'll believe it when I see it. Let it be known that I do NOT enjoy arguing with bitchy French women perched on their high self-righteous horses at 8:30 in the morning. Especially when I haven't had any coffee.

Anyway. Squeaky wheel. Grease. So forth.

Have yet to check bank balance. Will likely do so at lunch.


Lots of posting to do for Bluebook.

( Of interest only to people in Bluebook, and even then, not so much. Just a grocery list-type thing. )


( Nattering about other non-roleplaying writing projects )

I think that, financially speaking, I may have to wait until the autumn session to take that dispatcher course. That way I can actually put money aside for it, as opposed to bankrupting myself this month. Actually, I wouldn't bankrupt myself, because I have no credit to speak of, but it's money I can't actually produce, so it amounts to the same thing.

I figure if I start putting money aside now, by the time registration rolls around I'll have enough put by to take both courses (and possibly more, if I want to see what some of the courses are like). As much as I hate putting this on hold for something like nine months, I think it may be the only viable solution.

Being broke sucks.

Delaney is dead. Don't you love time loops? I'm looking forward to getting my computer back so that I can work on this mission properly instead of in furtive spurts at work.

In other news, Grimshackle is actually sticking around these days. He was his usual reaction of "Fire! Fear! Foes! Flee! Aieee!" when I open the door, but he comes back pretty quickly (he's figured out that my coming heralds food) and makes nice with me.

Saash continues to be unimpressed with the fact that I am not, in fact, ai731. In fact, the visits usually go like this.

Me: *opens door* "Hello, felines! I have come to feed you."

Grimshackle: "Fire! Fear! Foes! Flee! Aieee!" *flees to the basement*

Saash: "Hello! You're a human! You must have food. Hi. Will you feed me?"

Me: *puts food in bowls* "How are you, Saash? Grimmy! Food!"

Saash: *eats* "Thank you, nice human. Oh, wait. Now that I've had food, I realise that you're not Mummy and that, in fact, I really hate you. Fuck off." *stalks off to sulk under the table*

Grimshackle: *reappears* "Hey, food! You're a nice human. Hi. You've fed me. Hi again. Will you pet me? Will you lavish affection on me and never leave me ever again?" *rubs against my ankles*

Me: "You guys get weirder every time I come."

Grimshackle: "Aieeee! Something that can't possibly hurt me! Aieeee! Fly for the hills!" *runs away to the basement*

Saash: *from under table* "You're not Mummy. Fuck off."

Me: "Fine. I'm going to work. You guys have a nice day."

Both cats: *ominous silence*

Yes, I have kidded myself for a while now that I won't stress out about NaNoWriMo. However, the fact that I wanted to have an hour's nap before the official start of NaNo, combined with the obvious fact that I am too psyched to sleep even though I'm really tired, pretty much puts the lie to any claims of zenification on my part.

Okay, so I was never really calm about this, I'll admit. However, I refuse to make an Issue out of it. I will do my best, and hopefully that will be enough. If not, well, I'll chalk it up to experience (again) and move on.

I am very, very tired. I want to just write my opening scene (hopefully 1,666 words' worth of opening scene, anyway) and go to bed. The rest of the wordcount will come tomorrow.

Right. So, I have music, I have my computer, and the NaNo forums are actually up and running. I'm debating moving the computer into the bedroom, thus avoiding the distraction of the internet during writing. However, the forums are also a source of motivation, so I haven't made up my mind yet.

I am contemplating tea, but I think I may skip that tonight, as I eventually want to get some sleep. :P

I did a bunch of writing for Bluebook with joane this evening, so my writing muscles are all nice and warmed up. Hopefully the scene that has been trying to unfold in my mind will work more or less the way I want it to. I have the beginning and a few possible "ends" to the scene, but the middle is nebulous at best. I guess I'll find out in forty minutes. Thirty-five, if my computer clock is to be believed (which it isn't: it's five minutes fast).


:::ETA:::

Okay, I'm going to brush my teeth a second time. Maybe the mundanity of that will calm me down. I haven't been this wired since... okay, since the gig, so it hasn't been that long. Still! Ack!

:::wibble:::

I have "I Got You, Babe" stuck in my head. On endless loop. Complete with crappy synthesizer.

Oy.

So my first free Sunday was spent with the fabulous luvenditti, cooking up a storm. Lots and lots of cooking. Industrial amounts of cooking. Lots of food.

Everything turned out beautifully. I made chili, she made stuffed peppers and cabbage rolls, and spaghetti sauce. It was all very yummy, and I now have enough food for a few weeks. Yikes!

Then, we made banana bread. That was the original purpose of my visit. Only, the banana bread had, well, a misadventure. We're not quite sure what happened, but it turned out... odd. Not bad, just odd. For one, we ran out of white sugar, so we used a bit of brown sugar (about 1/r of the total amount of sugar), so that may have contributed to the, umm, interesting texture and the longer cooking time. Also, we added vanilla, and perhaps a smidgen too much salt.

The result was a bread that took almost three times as long to cook (two and a half hours instead of forty-five minutes to an hour), and that tasted, well, a little salty and not really like banana bread. It's still good, just, well, different.

I'm chalking it up to experience.


The rest of the day was lovely. Spent it chatting with luvenditti about all sorts of things, and since we were both tired we quickly got to the point where just about everything was funny. So that was fun. We watched the end of the premiere of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and segued into Desperate Housewives, also the premiere, which I hadn't expected to be able to watch, but was pleased to do anyway. Then we watched Crossing Jordan, where I snarked a great deal at the music telling us how to feel in a really not-subtle way, and the very obvious ending. Still, it was pretty good. I hope poor luvenditti wasn't too appalled at my chatty television-watching habits. Unless the show is really good, I will habitually snark at it, or at the commercials in-between.

I got home at 11:30, then made the mistake of trying to catch up on LJ and my email. I'd already waded through all 500+ emails (that I'd neglected for about ten days straight) in the morning, while catching up on Bluebook with joane and shenlo. We have lots of posting to do. Last night I caught up a bit on arcanum_, and this week I shall read everything in Ardaea and actually, you know, post something. Sheesh.

I eventually kicked myself into bed around 1:30, which meant that I got very little sleep. I am a bad, bad Phnee. Sleep-deprivation is bad. Also, in the TMI department, my stomach does not like me today. Actually, my stomach never likes me when I don't get enough sleep, so there's another very good reason right there not to go to bed too late.

So here I am on this rainy morning, doing metric assloads of filing. Whee.

I have had Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World" stuck in my head since yesterday. Something about the rainstorms that signalled the end of Hurricane Katrina and plunged the city into darkness made me think it was oddly appropriate. That, and it was quoted in a book I'm reading.

I'm detecting a new desire for escapism in myself. Well, not new, but perhaps renewed. I've been escaping into books (sometimes it's movies, sometimes it's roleplay, but most of the time it's books). I've been reading a bit of science fiction, but mostly murder mysteries. I've always had a taste for those, and I've discovered a really good author, Michael Connelly. I bought the first book maybe a year or two ago on a whim, because the title appealed to me. The Concrete Blonde has nothing to do with the band, but I was intrigued, and the book hooked me right away. Then I forgot to look for more books by the author after. It occurred to me about three weeks ago that I should look for them while I was at Chapters, and now I'm the proud owner of six or seven of his books. I still have one and half more to read.

The same thing happened with Charles Todd, whom I disovered thanks to curtana. She sent me a book for my birthday last year (actually, twice in a row), which I absolutely loved. It combined a mystery along with the First World War (well, the years right after), which is one of my favourite historical periods, so naturally it was a success with me. I wasn't able to afford too many more books since I kind of went overboard with Michael Connelly, and anyway Chapters is being stupid about not stocking the books I want, so I have four books of his, with one left to read. I am very excited about this.

Of course, non-stop reading and the occasional Bluebook post, combined with much icon-making, is probably a red flag in my case. It reeks of escapism, but I'm not sure why. I'm not particularly depressed, unlike most of this past summer (and my apologies to my friends for not being very good company most of the time), so I don't know why I'm retreating into myself this way. I read at work (on my breaks!) to escape the tedium of my job, but the rest of the time? I don't know.

I refuse to worry about it overmuch. If two years of therapy has taught me anything, it's that too much introspection makes me go crazy. I overanalyze everything, and then that paralyzes me into inaction. As my marvellous psychiatrist told me: "Don't pathologize every single mood you have. Sometimes you just feel like shit, and that's the end of the story." Well, that's paraphrasing somewhat, but you know what I mean. ;) He's very good for me: he keeps me from blowing things all out of proportion, for the most part.

I'm looking forward to going to Alexandria this weekend. After that, though, I'll have to come back to reality and get some cleaning done, and maybe some cooking as well. I really wish that, like a lot of other people I know, I would clean as a way of dealing with stress. I don't, though. I read instead.