Veronica came over from Albany (yay!) and we had a little mini St. Lawrence '03 reunion at a party in Beacon Hill... or at least, our alter egos "Slutty Dorothy," "Belly Dancer", "Cyndi Lauper," and "Naughty Schoolgirl" did. I had purchased a seashell bikini for the occasion, but unfortunately it snowed all day and I had to fall back on the old standard of Catholic schoolgirl. Such is the nature of the Northeast. 
Hours since I started KOTOR: 48.
Hours logged on KOTOR, according to the game: 19.
Hours spent sleeping: 16.
Reason to be frightened for the state of Sarah's sanity: Yes.
We loves it, precious. But we hates it. It is our precious. Someone please pry this game out of my hands. But I warn you, if you try, Duru Antilles will whip out her double lightsabers and go to town.
And now for something completely different: Cats in Sinks.
So Mike got us Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, for some entertainment in our exile. I'm not usually into computer games, but he is an expert at role-playing so he let me create my character first and gave me advice about what abilities to give her. Um, yeah, that was at 9:30 last night. Should I admit that, according to the game, I have logged 10.5 hours since? No, we'll keep that bit of pathetic obsessiveness a secret-- oh wait-- Seriously. I have never done this before. But I can't stoooooooppp! And then! Imagine my excitement to discover ... that my character, Duru Antilles, gets a male soldier partner who is HOT! Which led to an evening of conversation that went roughly like this:
Me: Wait, can I hook up with him?
Mike: I don't know if the game works that way.
Me: I can't make him have sex with me? I'm totally going to.
Mike: It's not that kind of video game, I don't think.
Me: Ooh, sweetie! You are such a hottie.
Mike: Yeah?
Me: I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to Carth. OH MY GOD! HE JUST FLIRTED WITH ME! WHAT DO I SAY? WHICH ANSWER WILL MAKE HIM LIKE ME?
Mike: Oh God.
Me: My character is totally gonna do him. But aw, he doesn't trust me because I'm a smuggler.
Mike: You have to find the undercity to look for the rescue pod.
Me: Whoo! That guy invited us to a Sith party!
Mike: Go in a direction you haven't gone. Look at your little map.
Me: Yeah, yeah, yeah... what? I was still on the party.
1. RPI 3-2 over BU Friday night at Agganis Arena! The Terriers can kiss their poll spot goodbye next week. In this dramatic return of old-school hockey fan Sarah, I was to be found cheering on the Engineers in the wrong arena as the people behind us glared. The go-ahead goal was a beauty, too. I forgot how much I missed hockey. WE WANT MORE! SIEVE SIEVE SIEVE SIEVE SIEVE! (Oh come on, 3 goals on 13 shots. I think that qualifies for a little mini sieve cheer!)
2. My mom was 9th in the Masters Double at Head of the Charles today! Yay! :-) It wasn't a pleasant day for a row, but that didn't matter, as the mom-stroked #17 boat rowed smoothly through the rain and wind to finish in the top half. Good times were had by everyone except my toes. I tried to ask them what they thought of the race, but they'd unfortunately gone numb an hour before.
Funniest. Site. Of the Week. Period.
Each day a new horrific Harry Potter fan fiction story is featured and rated. In case you're not aware, "Mary Sue" is a term for an inexplicably perfect female character, who is gifted with several rare abilities and has "hair that fell like a shimmering veil to her waist, black as a raven's wing, with eyes that shone like brazen emeralds of the sky" or some equally nauseating, cliched, and overwritten description. All the other characters love the Mary Sue even though she displays no individual personality whatsoever. Oh, just go look. The writing speaks better than I can. (On one hand, I realize the people who write these stories are probably 13. On the other hand... Oy.) Fan fiction is something I'd never waste my time writing. If I am ever published I'll be one of those authors who has a lawyer on call to sue the hell out of anyone who turns my characters into gay porn. Yet somehow, like the proverbial train wreck ... (Should I be ashamed of the fact that I have a folder in my bookmarks titled "Guilty Pleasures" that's full of this stuff? No, no. It's OK. I'll own that.)
I've finished my first two assignments for my online classes. Seems to be going well so far, except that I didn't start working until Tuesday because I tend to forget I am in a class at all. I've also been interrupted by the addition of cable to our apartment. It definitely says basic cable on the work order and receipt, yet we inexplicably get 300 channels and like 4 HBOs. I wonder if it was the refugee story I told to the cable guy...? Ha! Right. Wait till we get the $180 cable bill...
My mom is coming this weekend for Head of the Charles. For those of you who don't know, it's probably the most famous crew race in America. My mom will be rowing in the masters double. I have never gone, even when I was rowing at SLU, so it should be fun. I thought about rowing this fall while in Boston, because they don't really have an active club in New Orleans, but I decided to sail instead.
Currently reading:
Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (new)
George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords (re-read)
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (re-read)
Ursula K. LeGuin, The Farthest Shore (re-read but not for over ten years)
Yes, I am well aware that is four books. I am rarely reading less than three at once. What if you're just reading one, and then you aren't in the mood for it tonight? It becomes a huge frightening life dilemma! (Um, for me...)
It stayed out for exactly three hours, then disappeared behind the wind-driven gray clouds. The weather has been terrible since last Friday. (Not last Friday as in 10/14, I mean the previous Friday.) Trapped in a very small apartment, Mike and I grow weirder every day. Perhaps if this weather keeps up, we will devolve into a strange sub-species that has lost the ability to communicate with anyone but each other.
In other news, my online classes started. And I blocked my own browser from the Song of Ice and Fire EZboard in a probably futile attempt to forget about the Feast. I have written 6,900 words of my current story. I have not done any writing this weekend. There is a strange inertia that won't let me leave the couch.
The people demand their Feast. Have spent all evening physically restraining self from reading spoilers posted online by people in England who already have the book. Then I thought, if I had known about Ned Stark, would that part have blown me away when I read A Game of Thrones? No. It would not have. Explained dilemma to Mike. He told me not to do it. He is right. I know he is right. The Feast should be read in order.
On the other hand, I know damn well I will not be able to read it strictly in order, ie: will skip ahead to the POVs I like best. 
A lot of people read ASOIAF this way. For instance, I admit to usually skipping Davos chapters, occasionally Catelyn chapters. And Bran chapters were kind of "meh" as well. I go back to them on the re-read, but honestly, I could care less about certain plots, for instance the Melisandre/Stannis thing. When they arrived at the Wall (and the main plot) at the end of the last book, I was taken aback, like, "What? Someone hasn't killed them off yet? Why not? Argh."
But I am not reading spoilers. Because I am going to read the book in order. Right. (And besides, thorough search of internet did not reveal any Brits posting specifics. Perhaps they are slower readers than me.)
I've downloaded yWriter, which is a piece of freeware that basically allows you to separate your project into chapters, and separate those chapters into individual scenes which can then be labelled with descriptions and dragged around to wherever you want them. I am finding this highly useful, as opposed to my previous strategy of creating tons of random Word files and then copy/pasting them around. I think it ought to help with my organization problem, as in I am strong in writing scenes and dialogue but get stressed out because I can't see the big picture.
Other tasks for today: back and forth with Progressive about my car. They set up two claims, one for vandalism, one for damage. I am not covered for either; I just want to report the loss so I can get a denial letter to send to FEMA and cancel my policy. Also, I finally got through to UNO ("due to tremendous call volume all representatives are busy at this time") only to find out they still can't access any students' accounts.
Me: So how do I know how much tuition I owe? Do I have to guess?
Girl: Sounds good.
Me: If I send too much, will I be credited later?
Girl: Probably.
Me: What if I don't send enough? They're not going to kick me out of online classes for not paying?
Girl: Probably not.
Geez. My next question ought to have been, What is the point of sending a check at all?
Because they are great. And they made last month's bill free because of Hurricane Katrina. Not only did they make last month's bill free, they also made all the minutes I used until Sept. 30th (half of this month's billing period) free. I ought to be on one of those ads that's like, "I love my phone company!" (I switched from Cingular. You don't want to hear my Cingular story. It makes me spit when I talk in a frightening way.)
Officially one month until the long-awaited Coming of The Feast. Oh, but don't buy it for me as a present: my copy is already on pre-order. Seriously, though, George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, of which A Feast For Crows is the fourth book, is pretty damn good. You've got to admire a guy who's bold enough to kill off main characters. What I get from these books, which I don't get from most other fantasy, is the feeling that no one is safe. While sometimes it's a bit depressing, the writing is good and you get sucked in. People aren't sure if Feast will live up to expectations, because it took him 5 years to write and then he ended up having to split the book in two because of the length. So we're only getting half a story. What does Sarah say? Sarah says, Who cares? I WANT MY FEAST!
I read Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince in six hours. Currently taking bets on how long it will take me to bang through The Feast.
Totally randomly came across this online tonight:
Boston Globe's Blog Log
So... the paper has a column that blogs pieces from Boston residents' blogs. What do you do when you find out you made the "Blog Log"? Blog it! :-P (Side note: I love how they got me at my most depressive.)
I'm not quite satisfied with the second to last scene of my story, so the ending part is staying carefully hidden on my hard drive for now. However, since a surprising number of people have been bugging me, I'm posting a link to the middle section of the story. Yes, I did switch the protagonist's real name and her alias around. Davis said I should, and I agreed. Even in sci fi you can only have so many unpronounceable names floating around. It's still a rough draft! And I wrote it, so I have ultimate power! Whoo!
Because so many people have expressed interest in the fate of the Amazing Mutant Betta Fish, I am luckily able to provide the following update. Last Saturday, I dumped the dirty water out of Leopold's fishbowl and cleaned his blue rocks and his pagoda. (He has a pagoda that he lives in.) During this time, he spent a pleasant half hour swimming in a glass of bottled water. I then took him back to the house on Monday and left him on the shelf in the entertainment center where our DVD player and VCR used to be before they were stolen by looting thugs, with plenty of provisions. Marissa is happy to report that he was alive and well when she arrived on Friday. He is now on his way to Cleveland via car.
In the Harry Potter tradition, he will be known henceforth as The Fish Who Lived. Speaking of which, if anyone from the New Orleans Public Library is reading this, I would like to reassure you that your hardcover copies of Harry Potters #1&2 are quite dry, and I will eventually return them. I hope we can work out an arrangement regarding my late fees.
