Tuesday Has No Phones

Spring is here!

...

We bounce around now to celebrate, right? 'cause... springs? Bouncy? Yes?

My boss? Still makes me regret not having savings enough to quit. Let this be a lesson to you to never get into debt.

Anybody know what I should have for dinner?

I love how not long after being forbidden from taking my migraine meds ever again, I get hit with two migraines. Today I'm now migraine hangover-y which is all kinds of fun. (waves to theusual in sympathy).

Today it is possible my mother might hide out at my apartment while work is being done on hers and dad's. Yes, I did forget to turn off my porny screen saver. I am nothing if not predictable.

Bones needs to stop being on opposite Veronica Mars.

Last night I actually watched some of Dancing With the Stars. I alert you to this fact so you know who to blame for the downfall of Western civilization.

I want to talk to Kita about Angel. Because frankly we don't do that enough.

Is it time to go home yet?

Headache seems to be gone. Got in a good chunk of sleep so here's hoping that totally reset the system.

Today I have to finish the errands I was going to run yesterday, try to catch up on the various tasks that I didn't get done during the week, bake a birthday cake for my mom, and attempt to do a long and drawn out calculation by hand because my computer doesn't have Excel. You can see why at the very least I didn't do that last one yesterday.

It's not that I mind math per se. I actually kind of enjoy it. It's just that, much like writing, my brain works faster when I don't have to bog myself down with a slow recording of the information. I can't write stories by hand because my brain is paragraphs ahead of my fingers. I can type stories like nobody's business, though, because my brain and my typing speed work at about the same rate.

So ditto with the math thing, at least in this particular situation. I need to keep on top of some patterns and I can't do pattern analysis if I'm busy making sure I wrote everything down properly, and did I save enough room on the page for more calculations and... bleh. And bah! Bah I say!

Speaking of math, I watched Numb3rs last night. This is the only ep I've seen and I found it kind of odd. I know most of the actors and have liked their work, but all of their performances in this ep were oddly flat and unemotional. Which seems like a directing problem but without having seen other eps I can't tell if that's just the schtick of the series as a whole, just as snappy banter used to be the schtick for West Wing. I've heard enough about Numb3rs that I could be tempted to watch the first two eps just to see if they're any better (or if it helps to have seen the setup explaining who does what and why) so if anybody wants to pimp me some downloads go nuts.

And, of course, with everything I need to do, the one thing I want to do is write a story that's not on today's To Do list. I think the sneak attack plot bunny that only comes when you have other things more pressing is pretty much a universal truth.

You know, if you need something to zap up all your free time, then you really can't do better than running a virtual season. I swear there's not a moment where you're not busy doing something.

Which is not so much a whine for sympathy as it is an apology for any lags in email replies, or in posting a story which, for example, may or may not contain porn. Believe me, I'd rather be doing that last one too. ;)

In about 3 hours I leave for my tribal belly dance class. I've got a bit of a conundrum here because I hold in my hand two sets of directions. Set one is from Mapquest. Set two is from the teacher.

The Mapquest directions are very precise, but involve using highways. This is good in that if I make a wrong turn it'll be easy to right myself. This is bad in that I have a 100% guarantee of the highways being jam-packed with traffic to the point where it's highly likely it could take at least an hour to get to the class (which is about a half-hour away, give or take), if not more. Also Mapquest always fucks me up in the final set of directions. Whatever the final 20% is, it always steers me wrong somehow. I don't know why that is.

The teacher's set avoids the highways entirely and relies on local streets, or more specifically Routes (ie Take Route X to here, turn onto Route XY). This is good in that it will probably avoid a lot of the traffic, and I believe it's the drive done by a friend of hers who swears it takes no more than 30-40 min tops. Also she points out landmarks to keep an eye out for, and I'm very much a landmark kind of girl. However, this is bad in that it uses Routes and not highways, and it's all through towns I'm unfamiliar with, so if I take a wrong turn it's entirely possible that I'll get lost forever, die, and then be eaten by a bear.

So it's Definite traffic plus possible chance of getting lost, vs No traffic but a slightly higher possible chance of getting lost (and then eaten by a bear).

[fretfretfretfret]

I don't know what to do! WAH!

Live my life for me, would ya?

Want to write? Check.

Have time to write? Check.... ish. Ahem.

Have energy to write? Ahh, not so much.

Yup. Engine's revving, I'm up on blocks. Hate when that happens. So I tell all of you, because I know you'll find that fascinating.

If I were to write I'd be on AIM or IRC at this moment, and possibly even multi-tasking a new part of Pet out of the bargain. As it is I sit here and paw at the computer screen mournfully. Or at least metaphorically as obviously right now I'm typing.

In other news....

ros_fod is a dirty little liar because not only does she not, to all reports, look like Vinnie but neither is she currently stalking me. I would not normally complain about that second bit but she said she was stalking me and yet when I look out into the bushes by my back door I don't see her. Clearly she is a liar, or simply not putting forth the work effort.

mpoetess is an italic fetishest. I leave it to you to decide if that makes her worthy of remaining on your friends list. I swear if it wasn't for all the elf vodka I'd never be able to stand her m'self.

Finally, when oh when (heh - see what I did there? with the italics?) will somebody write a fic in which Wes is forced to marry Lindsey while he (Wes) is secretly in love/lust with Angel, and of course Angel is just as much in love/lust for him in return? Judges would also allow Lindsey to be in lust with Angel as well, as this would be pretty, and also Lindsey is not blind. Double bonus points for secret meetings between Wes and Angel where their desire nearly overcomes them but they're kept from fully acting on it, and for Angel having to fight to win Wes in the end. Or possibly an angsty ending where Wes is trapped with Linds forever and always, but he still tries to sneak out and be with Angel.

I have a thing about people being tapped and/or in cages, have you noticed that? Yeah, probably not. I'm... whaddyacallit... subtle.

Speaking of which, I'm off to be wet, soapy, and naked while thinking about porn. As Ted Alexandro says, you do the math.

Yarg. I hate packing anxiety. You'd think I haven't done this a billion times before.

On the plus side I've got the major stuff out of the way, by which I mean necessary cleaning, getting the cats mostly ready (just have to put out extra food and water tomorrow morning) and making a pasta salad to bring with tomorrow for lunch. All that's left is showering and, um, packing. You know, the little details ;)

I keep wanting to do another post of Pet before I go but I don't know if I'll have the time/energy to do it right. I'm also tempted to do one of those phone posts of me reading any bit of my writing y'all chose (as this was actually something I'd promised some people I would do months ago and then I never got around to it) but I have no idea if it would work or not since I hear tell the phone posts can be wonky.

Shower, then pack, then we'll see. And I have *got* to stop wibbling about which purse to take with me. It's an accessory, not a cure for cancer.

Right, right, showering.

ETA: Oh yeah, mega thanks to all Book of Days authors, both summer and fall, who I've currently loaded up into my PDA for reading on the plane =)

Okay people, live my life for me.

After work, should TBQ go to:

A) Borders books
B) Bed, Bath & Beyond

Bearing in mind that finances do not allow for C) all of the above.

YOU make the call.

The phone lines are open.

I have belatedly remembered that in theory I also need a new CD burner. I say "in theory" because while it currently does not work, that may be due to it needing a software update as much as anything else. I really need to stop being lazy and check that out. I'm scarily far too apt to plunk down a couple of hundred on something new rather than nothing or even a lesser amount to fix something. Ironically, I'm also far too apt to never buy a new version of something I already have if the thing I have works well enough to manage, even if it's mostly broken. I don't know why this is.

Picked up a magazine the other day that's all about Italian cooking and I am seriously in love. Will def. be getting a subscription, esp since there's only 6 issues in a year so it only comes out to about 20 bucks give or take. Of course this is a dangerous thing to encourage when I'm trying to eat lighter, but I suppose smaller portions are your friend ;)

I become more and more convinced that I'll make the potluck this Friday. I found a recipe that's good for potlucks that I can make in my crockpot, so that can be cooking while I'm at work and running errands and be all done in time for the dinner. In theory anyway.

I've also got a veggie soup going at home. Should be insanely good.

In other news, I'm feeling a need to do a spring cleaning on icons. It's not that I don't love my current crop, it's just that I've had some for so long I feel like I want new ones, even though there's nothing wrong with them. I'm wondering if cleaning out one or two that I'm not using as much and bringing in fresh ones would help.

Of course this presupposes I've got new icon ideas to replace them with, which I don't.

Eyes are always bigger than my stomach, I tell ya.

So after wrestling with this for a while now, I'm starting to come to the realization that the mega story I was writing for Epiphany may, in fact, be 3 smaller ones. Last night I tried to map out how the various plot points would go in smaller stories and immediately felt like they had more impact.

Which is appropriate enough, I guess, since from the start I've felt like this was a similar concept to the Wes in an alt dimension storyline, and that too was one big story that got broken into parts.

Which means that it's possible that part 1 may get posted tonight, at least. We'll see - I have to reread to make sure everything in that part is at least complete in and of itself (or as complete as something mid-arc can be) first. Will probably try that tonight.

Other plans for the day include attempts to bake, a tiny bit of Xmas decorating (very tiny, don't have the budget for more - ah well, maybe next year I'll have my own tree), and possibly attempts to tackle Windows Movie Maker and beat it into submission so that it allows me to record stuff as wav files. Currently I have NO idea why I can record wmv files with no problem, but wav files either don't start recording at all or they record very choppily.

This would be the cue for anyone with more knowledge about WMM than me to step to the plate and offer suggestions, by the way.

Oh - and I might do some RPGing. But you know me, that's such a rare thing.

Tired. Wacky weather is giving me a headache.

On the plus side I have the day off. On the downside I'm torn on the computer issue. I really need to switch it out for the new one and today would be an ideal day to do it, but I'm headachy and therefore skittish about having enough brainpower to handle the various glitches that will undoubtedly come up as I reinstall keyboard, scanner, mouse, printer, CD burner, PDA hookup, etc. etc. etc.

I also sort of kind of want to try writing some fic. And hey - day off and I'm going to the gym, so ideal day to get those fic juices going. But OTOH do I want to do that on this computer? Hate to be mid-story when the HD finally gives up the ghost.

Bleh. Can't I just magic the new computer into place?

/me goes to backup her bookmarks and ICQ contact list.