Tuesday Has No Phones

Just found out about London. Can all my UK peeps let me know if you're okay?

There don't seem to be words adequate enough to deal with it. My thoughts and prayers are with everybody over there.

As some of you know, while visiting the V&A I found a wash basin that I utterly fell in love with and wanted to take home with me. For some odd reason the museum wouldn't let me do that, but I think I've at least found a picture of it.

Here, on the V&A's website. It's mostly hidden by the monitor, but I think that's it on the right. Sadly you can't see detail enough to notice the mice, and the fish, and the goat that spews water. But still, there it quite possibly is and I can sit here and stare at it wistfully.

ETA: EEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!! there it is! There it is!!!!! That's my wash basin!!

Sigh.

In today's installment of the Amazing Adventures of Bitterwoman, we find that absolutely nobody has called in all the time I've been sitting here at work. For those of you who missed yesterday's installment, I'm here at work instead of having all of today off so I could be at home, in my bed, and ideally sleeping off my Oxford cold because the blackout that hit last week screwed up our answering machine at the office so apparently at least half a week went by with people calling and not knowing that we were out on vacation. Understandably annoying, but I'm not really sure what putting me here today was going to do about it. I'm ironically less happy now that fate has chosen to prove me right about how useless this action was.

I would've argued the point more yesterday when the boss suggested it (Or at least tried a few rounds of "Let's understand how it affects my morale to A) lose a day off I was promised weeks ago and B) do it when I'm not jetting off to England again but sick and therefore very much needing the ability to sleep in and recover.") but I was so exhausted from coughing the night before I didn't have the brain power to do it. Sigh. Grr. Grumble. Growl. And all that sort of stuff.

But at least I'm out of here in five minutes.

In other news I tried to use this very important work time to catch up on LiveJournal. I made it to skip 9hundredsomething (skimming, I assure you) and realized that I hadn't even gotten back more than 3 days. So... I give up. If there's anything going on that you need me to know about I humbly ask that you give me a heads-up here in the comments. Thank you kindly in advance.

In still other news I'm dying to write about a billion things and have the brainpower for possibly only one of them. I suspect that trying to do the recap of the London trip is going to win out, since I want to get that done while I can still remember most of the details.

Other things that are on the waiting list include commentary on Shells, more commentary about A Hole in the World (which may get folded into Shells), my continuing adventures as Bitterwoman with regards to what those two eps do to Fred and Wes (which may also get folded into Shells), the Fred/Wes essay that I've been sitting on for a while and may not make it to the end of the series (ie, I was originally thinking I'd let this season play out and write about the story as a whole, but now I don't know if I can be that patient), random insane fic snippets that I either need to keep locked up until they die or write them just to scratch the itch, and more Pet.

Pet, btw, is also driving me insane b/c I had an epiphany (heh) about a plot point for that (yes, sometimes it has plot) and I really want to write it now now NOW but even for my admittedly low standards for what makes plausible narrative structure for that fic I couldn't possibly do that plot point without first laying some groundwork. So I sit here twitching in my seat and wondering when I'll get the brainpower back to put the groundwork in, or if I should give up hope and write the plot point now anyway, possibly by cheating and going "So then some exposition happened". Though I don't think I will because there were a few minor things that I actually did want to write out.

I think what we're finding here is that a week and a half of me being away from a keyboard slowly drives me out of my mind. I offer this tidbit of trivia to those of you wondering how to torture me without making it obvious.

Okay, time's up. I'm out of here. More later, possibly with London recap if I can get enough brainpower going to do it. Stupid work. Stupid cold. Stupid need to breathe.

Thanks to everybody who replied with offers for copies of the Oscars and Angel. I've got a downloaded copy of Angel so I'm okay there. All I'm missing is my anal-retentive backup VCR tape copy of it. So depending on how things go I may still beg for someone to loan me that. Cin says she may know someone back home who's got the Oscars so we'll wait to see if she does and if not I'll take advantage of those of you who were offering for copies of that as well.

In the meanwhile, again thanks to all for the offers. I still haven't gotten to the point where I can check email and reply to LJ regularly yet b/c I'm recovering from the trip plus the fact that I got the plague or martian death flu or something while I was stupidly walking in the rain in Oxford by sheer random chance, so right now I'm all kinds of loopy and not coherent enough to be a good conversationalist or to organize email. I will get to it though. Possibly by tomorrow.

In the meanwhile Cin and I are vegetating in front of the TV. Yay TV.

Later!

So the last day of life in the UK draws to a close. Cin and I have gotten closure on a few last-minute things (such as the 3rd floor of the V&A, which for years has hidden itself from Cin and mocked her from afar) and I have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that "Soothers" are the most inaccurately named things you can possibly think of.

Tomorrow we jet off for home, where I predict we shall collapse, order in food, be pounced upon by kitties, and watch the 12 hours of Oscar coverage I Tivoed. In no particular order, of course.

Will do full on trip report when I get home. Not sure when, but I will.

In the meanwhile in the back of my head Angel's in a cage and Wes is feeding him blood from his cut wrist.

Just because I enjoy tormenting you people ;)

See you Stateside!

(PS - you guys did take care of that pesky president while I was away, right? I'm coming home and somebody else is in charge now? Besides Rove, I mean.)

(PPS - Lie if you have to.)

After spending a week in London and annoying Cin to no end by whining over and/or clawing at all the things I want but can't have I've decided that clearly there are only two options left for me so that I can have enough money to buy a place over here and fill it with all the goodies that I want to have:

1) Get a patron who will pay me to write them porn, political rants, or both.

2) Go on the game.

Frankly at this point I'm open for either.

So... any takers? ;)

Hey gang,

Just a quick post from a handy internet cafe to say that all is well in London. cin1607 and I are doing fine, my boobs have only gotten us into trouble twice, I've set all new records for things one can do in Portabello Road, Cin and I are apparently able to make entire parts of this city disappear merely using our will and whatever hampden might have told you about yesterday is false.

Anyway, no clue when I'll be netcafeing again but wanted to do a quick post to alert as many people at once that I'm aok since, well, I didn't think to bring email addresses with me. Ahem.

Later!

'tis Monday, which means that it's only a few days until I'm jetting my way 'cross the pond to once more snuggle down in London, one of my many homes away from home.

I'm leaving Thursday morning at oh my god don't ask me what time it is, and I'll be getting back mid-afternoon on March 7, assuming all goes well with the planes.

Tomorrow night I pick up my lovely traveling companion, cin1607, from LaGuardia. Wednesday I actually still have to work (sucketh to be me. eth.)

So what this all boils down to is that my online time will slowly be tightening up until Thurs, then obviously is going to be down to nothing until I get back.

(Yes, I do realize that this means I'm going to miss commenting on 2 eps of Angel when they air. Grr. OTOH, thank god for Tivo).

I'm still around right now, though. I'm just posting the schedule now to give people the heads-up that I might not be able to reply to email or comments in a timely manner. Not ignoring you, just busy =)

In other news, C? Gonna need your contact info if we're going to hook up while Cin and I are in London. ;)

Also, by tomorrow night Cin will be seeing My West Hollywood Lifestyle Whatever for the first time. You know I hear you never forget your first.

Now to get my bank to answer the stupid phone ;)

Productive day. Finally took down the Christmas tree and am now marveling at all the free space my living room now has. Also shoved a few other things into storage to slowly bring my dining room back to a place where people could eat in it. Not that I ever do that myself, mind you.

Baked bread, made BLT pasta, cleaned house, talked with cin1607 about various travel plans for the next few months, made plans to see RotK with my dad tomorrow, and generally enjoyed the use of my Tivo while I did it.

I find myself feeling vaguely disappointed, because I'd planned on trying to take a dance class courtesy of the cheap ones that the local adult ed offers, but then I realized that I'd have to miss a session while in England, and that I'd only have a day to recover from jet lag before hitting the one after it, and that alone was enough to make me wonder if it was going to be worthwhile to try. Then today cin1607 wisely pointed out that her travel plans should include some leeway time for any plane or weather snafus which would snatch out yet another class. So that's 3 out of 8. So I'm kinda thinking I won't be doing this. And on the one hand I'd been kind of nervous/stressed about it anyway considering that I'm still trying to find out the limits of my health and I didn't even know if I could do the classes in the first place, but on the other hand I was kind of looking forward to trying. And to my knowledge the next round of these won't be until fall, so if I miss this window it's about a half a year. So phooey. Kinda. Ish. Sorta.

To paraphrase a not really at all wise man, I'm ambivilant but I'm also not.

Anyway....

There's a new part of Pet percolating in my brain. No idea if I'll get it out by the end of the night though. And tomorrow is The L Word, right? I've got that ready to be Tivoed. Might try watching it tomorrow night anyway, see what it's like.

And to round out my post of productive apathy, I tried to watch Margaret Cho's special on Showtime because I know a lot of people like her and apparently she's very cool politically and such (she was one of the judges for Moveon.org's Bush in 30 seconds contest) and I have to say... I don't think I'm her target audience. I watched about a half hour and didn't laugh once. Which I say not so much to put down those who find her funny but to open the door to anyone who does to be able to let me know if The Notorious CHO is possibly not her best material. I mean I loved Dennis Miller back in the day but lord knows I wouldn't recommend anybody listen to the crud he puts out now. So if her earlier stuff is actually good I'll be open to giving it a try. If this was exemplary... well there we are.

[ETA: Caught some of "I'm the one that I want" not long after. I think what it is is that she's not so much funny as she's a somewhat good storyteller. Like I found her whole discussion of what went on with her sitcom and her personal reactions to it to be interesting and I watched the whole thing - even pausing it on Tivo when I had to do something so I wouldn't miss it - but I didn't laugh once. So as a comediene she's not that hot but as a storyteller she's not bad.]

Oh! On the other hand, speaking of stuff which was actually cool, I totally by accident caught this show on the History Channel where Terry Gilliam talks about how things were during Medeval times. The ep I caught was about minstrels and was just fascinating to watch. I put that one on a season pass, and I recommend it for anybody else who might care.

With that I'm back to taking care of my kitchen, and grabbing a shower, and possibly writing but we'll see. Later!