Mixed feelings. There were some classes that did a great job of prepping me for what I do today. There were others that were a complete waste of time. I don't regret anything I took though because I like trivia, and all those classes helped develop my critical thinking skills. And, I don't regret the path I took, because it gave me all the great real world customer service experience that I still use.

I don't want to get another degree, but I do want to take continuing education courses to keep up with technology and to work on my photography and writing skills.

...lots of random choreographed group dance moves as you walk around. Also, non-vampire sparkles.

The annual watching of Love, Actually has just wound up a bit ago and now I have Xmas music playing and one of those "Fireplace" television "screensaver" things going. It is actually kind of cheerful and relaxing. The house I lived in for ~12 of my most formative years had a real fireplace and we'd always have real fires in it all winter long. Winter and home seem to need real fireplaces. My parents subsequent houses have had gas fireplaces which are not nearly the same.

So, P is at work. And as I've been commenting all over the place (so sorry if you've heard this bitchery before) I wish I had some dessert to munch on just now. I am marrying a pastry chef, you would think this would be less of a problem. I think I will eat some fruit and pretend like it is a fruit tart.

I know that there are a lot of problems with Xmas and commercialism and all of that. I'm aware. I'm also aware that these problems are complex and unlikely to be solved or even clearly articulated in my lifetime. That being said, I will be very sad in the long cold coming months when it is dark for so long and there are no cheery lights to brighten my way home or anywhere else for that matter.

And I miss all of you.

I'm obsessed with Lady Gaga

Mainly because less than five years ago she looked and acted like every East Coast bitchy soristitute I ever had to deal with at IUB.(This is a very special breed of person that annoyed me, it doesn't mean that I include all East Coasters or all sorority girls in my disdain.)


To top it off around then she was writing songs about that same time that sounded like Norah Jones. I like Norah Jones as background music. Ms. Gaga didn't seem to be destined for anything but background work and a background life; interesting and fabulous maybe only in her own head.

But, now? Now she does this:



And I think it is an amazing transformation, I have a theory that her current career is based mostly on a bet or a dare, or she had some sort of near death experience that triggered her transformation. I love how uncomfortable she looks when she's "Lady Gaga" but she's not performing. I like the fact that early on in her career they were billed as burlesque, and I think her performances of sexuality are amazing. So impersonal and weapon-like. My NaNoWriMo project (which I will finish today) has an Italian Deli called "Germanotta's" just in honor of how many times I'm going to play The Fame while writing the last of it....and how many times I'll watch that Bad Romance Video.

This post is brought to you by:
notpiecebypiece and I went to our favorite dancing spot Friday night to jitterbug and cut a rug. Also good talks and good times were had by all. I decided that someone needs to write a YA novel about kids who go to all-ages clubs and do all those damn line dances. How do they all learn them? Are there classes earlier in the evening that we're missing? I think the culture at that bar is so interesting and one that you could only ever find in Indiana.

I'm just writing to report that things are nice and lovely and fairly exhausting. I bought a new dress today. I hope it ships tomorrow.

I also hope you are all doing well and I am wondering why Her Fearful Symmetry is a book. Also, am I going to write a book? Possibly next month? All signs point to: maybe! You know, if I can actually get some damn sleep that month.


Goodnight!

Words have not been easy for me lately. Though, since Saturday I've finished 5 books and started/am in the middle of 3 or 4 more and have a pile on the floor next to the bed-almost reaches my pillow- waiting. But I keep starting to say something, anything, and stopping. Pause, start, stop, breathe. I have vague ideas of things that I want to write down but when I try it doesn't work. I can't type it, and I can't write it down with a pen on a piece of paper.

And because I tend towards the melodramatic and because I fixate on songs and obsess over them and think that they mean the world to me and when I hear certain songs I am instantly transported to whenever and wherever I first fixated and played it over and over and this, this is the way I attach memories to myself and why I forget so much, because it only works sometimes and with certain songs and the conditions are rarely ever right.

But, let's call it getting older, let's call it feeling guilty and being alone too much in my head despite talking to more familiar people in the past month than I had in a year, let's say that this stupid crazy weird video with high production values but costumes and effects that remind me of high school theater, let us say that this song the smell of cinders and rain, is what I will remember when I think back on turning 28 and how this whole week I have had the hardest time letting P wander more than 2 feet from my side, even though, of course, he has to go to work and school and things. After tomorrow so do I.

I do not know what is up with me, but I do know that if I had to put it to music/video it would kind of look like this:




And I just finished "Catching Fire" if you haven't read "The Hunger Games" and begun this journey than might I suggest you do so. Also, Generation Dead is not what I thought it was, but it was better.

+Oxygen is always, always playing the Hot Pride and Prejudice with Kiera Knightley and Matthew Macfayden (alliterative names FTW.)
-Pride and Prejudice is always better w/Zombies.

+We're mostly moved in and set up in the New Awesome Place.
-Some stuff is still over at the old bad place. Ugh, and cleaning. Blarg.

+Internets!
-Comcast.

+P might have an awesome new job in a place he'd prefer to work.
-Then again maybe not? Also, same damn awful hours and maybe even moreso?

+Holy crap the deserts P brings home from Pastry School. Delicious!
-Holy crap I've gained so much weight in such a short amount of time. Where did my will power go?

+I'm off of work for a full week starting next Tuesday!
-I have to make it through Friday, Saturday, and Monday...and I'm not really sure if I can. I still love my job, but I really need a recuperation period from Summer and Programs.

I almost forgot to mention...

RIP Vid Tuesday. We lived well during your 4 years, and you will be missed.

August 15th.


Someone should really save me from myself and Shark Week. You know what is worse than nightmares about zombies? Nightmares about sharks. Or nightmares about this scene right here:



Life is getting a little weary for both of us. Not bad, we're both just tired, and busy.

P shaved his head, with the longest setting on the clippers, because he's outside so much and hot. He thinks he looks silly, but actually, I think it is kind of sexy.

Dilemma, I've reached a point where I've overcome writers block on a story that I was previously working on instead of just abandoning the story full stop and starting something new later. This has never happened before and all I want to do is sit around and write. Unfortunately, until Friday this week my life is sucked into Twilight Prom and all I can think about is Twilight Trivia and Twilight Food and Twilight Prizes and Twilight Creepiness. And I don't want this story to reflect any of the brain drain.

In better news, Friday is totally free and that night I get to stay home with P (or do Pride-type things with P depending on our moods.) Saturday I get to sleep in/work on story/get my haircut/drive to Indy. Sunday I get to have a big celebratory birthday/father's day feast with my family (Z!) and then I need to work out with Bloomingtonians about seeing you kids Sunday evening/Monday morning/afternoon? How we gonna work this thing!?!




superpoop.com

( I'm your density. I mean... your destiny.  )
This post in lieu of that damn desktop wallpaper meme. Mine is boring and has no story at all.

I mean yeay for Chaz. He looks great and I like the name choice, but fuck the douche who wrote this article and the comments agreeing
"Opposing Viewpoints" my ass. Fuck you Illinois Family Institute. IFI=iffy?

Why am I awake? Why am I awake and blogging?

Killing a bunch of scum sucking Nazi Shamblers.

I hate when I'm awake before P gets home and I hear the someone come in and up the stairs of the building and I get all excited, thinking it is him coming home. Of course, it usually turns out to be our horrible upstairs neighbor coming home from last night's bad decision. August. We move in August.

In other news did I totally just set up a "The Knot" site? Yes I did. Ugh. I'm terrified of what it tells me to be doing a year and a half from the wedding and the "budget feature." We will not ever be spending that much on boutonnières thanks. Fuck this machine. Must stop watching Style Network. Unfortunately "Whose wedding" and then HGTV's "House Hunters/Property Virgins" shows are the only things on tv I want to watch and haven't seen every episode of...the Maddow/Daily Show/Colbert Report trifecta not counting in this equation. I need to start reading more at night. I've been so tired when I get home that it is hard for me to get off the couch to pick up a book.

P actually did just get home. Maybe I'll be able to fall back to sleep for another 3 hours. Today is my 1-9 day at work and I don't mind at all.

It is perfect and we found it!

No more awful neighbors. It meets all our criteria and is $105 dollars cheaper a month than where we live now. HOORAY!

"So, when do you want to get married?"

It turns out the answer is probably September of 2010.

ETA: I am unsure of the difference between knowing when you are going to get married and actually being engaged. I'm going to believe it has to do with when we get around to having my grandmother's ring reset/resized.

I decided to start using my Flickr account and to make newly added photos public. Today I wandered around taking photos of...stuff...in a very small geographic area. I took a roll of film that I haven't developed so I'll show those later. It has been a while since I've just wandered and shot photos. I've been thinking recently that I'd like to upgrade my digital camera, but all I've used it for is to take pictures of houses we aren't going to buy and library furniture my library isn't going to purchase.

This one I love because it seems like this building is just coming apart at the seams. Cracking and breaking and trying so hard to hold it together with the painted plywood windows. It reminds me of a diva at the end of a long performance, make-up dripping and racing off the face, but the idea of what the face looked like at the beginning of the night is still there, warped and garish.

Some new neighbors moved in across the street and when they shut their blinds (only on the side that faces our building) I wonder if they are doing it because they think I'm spying on them. I wonder if they blog or tweet about the creepy girl who never wears pants and seems to love annoying her cats to a disturbing degree. Probably they haven't even noticed us.

I found my bracelet. Evidently I had the thought that maybe I should put it in my purse, take it inside, before the botched robbery occurred. Sometimes I manage to be somewhat smarter than I think I am.

At least there is one nice thing I can still have.

my car was broken into sometime between 3:30pm yesterday and 9:30am today. They seem to have taken my pandora bracelet that my mom had been building with me and my sister for years now. I'd taken it off and left it in the change holder so that it wouldn't get stolen out of my locker at the gym. They tried to get my stereo but failed miserably, screwing up the console and my turn signals no longer work.

This is why we can't have nice things, again.

Dear Mr. Shake
Happy Birthday. Belated.