Somewhere Not Here

Due to a major paper that needs to be finished by 5:00 Thursday (currently on page 7 out of a projected 12), having to be at UNO Friday morning, flying to Rochester Friday afternoon, and the aforementioned tearing up of the bathroom floor, I will probably not be here tomorrow. I may not be here the day after, either. Or the day after that.

We will all just have to find a way to live with that.

ETA: Argh. I majored in English and one of the humanities, and it is like PULLING MOTHER*&#$ING TEETH to have to use APA format in these stupid education papers. Because of course I automatically do it using MLA, and now here I am going back and taking out all my capital letters. It is a huge pain in my ass. Can the academic world just please agree on something??

Music Meme

I have been tagged by Sadie, Sadie, Married Lady for this meme. Therefore I'm going to list seven songs/CDs I've been listening to lately. It's going to be songs because I haven't bought an actual album for almost a year. It's not that I don't like music... I'm just more of a mix CD person. And most of my music is from circa four years ago, because the only time I listen to the radio is in my car. I'm an iTunes picker and chooser when it comes to music, although there are a couple of albums I might break down and actually buy. So. Seven songs. Here goes:

1. Kathleen Edwards, Hockey Skates. Funny story. My restaurant has these mix CDs that are put out by the corporate headquarters, which play over and over ad nauseaum. Most of the songs have the effect of making us want to go drown ourselves in the dishwasher. I don't know whose job it is to make these CDs, but they are so bad. On one of them is, I shit you not, an actual cover of "Time After Time" by a whiny male singer. Anyhow. This is the ONLY RESTAURANT SONG I have ever liked. I kept saying, "I have to have this song!" But of course the names of the songs aren't written on the stupid CDs. So I went into stealth Google search mode, and I hunted it down. Kathleen Edwards is a Canadian folk/rock singer, and I think I'm going to buy one of her albums. Anyone who puts the lines "I am so sick of consequence and the look on your face/I am tired of playing defense and I don't even have hockey skates" in a song is fine by me.

2. Vienna Teng, Harbor. According to iTunes, this is my most played song. "Girl with a piano who can write" is pretty much my #1 music genre, and she is awesome. You can listen to this song online at her site.

3. The Fray, Over My Head (Cable Car). In case this song wasn't overplayed enough, here it is in my playlist! I just like it. Leave me alone.

4. Hole, Celebrity Skin. See what I mean about me and music? This is totally from high school. This song just goes really well with the main character in my new novel in progress. I think it's her theme song.

5. Fiona Apple, Sleep to Dream. Ditto on this one. This one might also be Claudia's theme song. I think it's also one of the best breakup songs ever, period, no contest.

6. Nickelback, Far Away. According to iTunes, I play this song a lot. It's sort of cheesy, but I heard it on the radio and liked it.

7. Snow Patrol, Chasing Cars. OK, I guess I have downloaded a number of cheesy radio songs lately. I have no excuse.

Perhaps I'll think of people to tag later; the friendly downstairs construction men are about to start ripping up our bathroom floor and I need more coffee.

Scarlet and Brown. 4L. Peace.

I love the St. Lawrence alumni magazine. The day when it arrives in the mail is usually rendered completely anti-productive. Because I instantly have to drop everything and read it. The alumni magazine has a strange effect on me. First, it throws me back into reminiscing about college. Second, it causes me to need a beer RIGHT NOW. Unfortunately, we are out of beer. So instead, I'm settling for going through my files and finding the sketchiest SLU picture I have and blogging it.

This isn't even close to being it (believe me), but it was one of the sketchier ones I have scanned on my hard drive. Here we have me, also in my blonde phase, at an army-themed mixer with Phi Kappa Sigma circa 2002. I appear to be A) wasted, and B) throwing the shocker. I really cannot say why we're all throwing the shocker. Not "can't say" as in "there is a top secret reason for it," but more like as in, "the combined effects of keg beer and the passage of time prevent me from discerning if there was ever a reason this was hilariously funny."

That GATE CLOSED sign in the background used to hang in whatever house Phi Kap had as their off-campus. Phi Kap might have noticed that it disappeared sometime in 2003. This is because I stole it. I feel sort of bad about that, now, because I have much love for Phi Kap. Sorry, guys.

But there was a good reason for it. Really.

I Kill You, Hair

I am aware this isn't the sexiest topic of conversation, but do I strike you as a person who cares? Didn't think so.

What is up with random body hair? I have A hair that grows on the right side of my chin, in the exact same spot. Normally I would just say, whatever, everyone has hair, right? I mean, women have hair on their faces; it's just very fine and you don't usually see it unless you're up close staring into your pores in the mirror. Except for this one hair. It is of a dark color and a stiff wiry texture. It's prickly. Plus it's weird. It apparently has the ability to grow IN ITS ENTIRETY under the skin and then sort of pop out at once. So it looks like it's this itty bitty black spot, but when I pluck it it's like, "Whoa, there is a whole centimeter of hair in here!"

It just drives me up the wall, and when I feel it there, I end up running my fingers over it... and over... and over... and over, until I give in and run to the bathroom to pluck it. This morning it appeared again. I swear it is a millimeter long, but I can still feel it. It is just that weird of a hair. I don't know why it bothers me so much... it's just A hair. Ugh.

OK, it's gone. It's gone.

Cat Fight

There is a cat fight on my living room floor right now. It's pretty intense, yet highly humorous. Someday I need to capture video footage of the daily cat fight. All my attempts to photograph it have failed because they move too quickly. Also, they spring apart guiltily when they catch me watching.

First Jolee baits Starbuck by lying on his side, blinking his blue eyes and appearing fluffy and innocent. She can't resist-- her butt starts to wriggle and she pounces. He slaps her with his giant paws. She goes for the jugular, burying her face in his neck. Oh! Starbuck for the takedown, flipping onto her back so she can kick Jolee repeatedly in the chin with her back feet. But he reverses the equation, popping up onto his feet. He's in the clear! He leaps! It looks like he's squished her... ow. And then she's up again, and here's the pitter patter of rampaging cat feet as they fly apart to regroup.

Oh, cats. Now Starbuck is behind the door, and Jolee is bouncing back and forth from the hallway to the office, obviously hoping to entice her to attack. Jolee is the funniest to watch-- he's more babyfaced than the baby, really. His face is round and fuzzy and blue-eyed, while Starbuck has this lean pointed look to her. She's a scrapper, but Jolee always has this goofy look, like, "Me? Fight? I just happened to be posing here in a vulnerable position."

Three SF/F Things I Am Enjoying Right Now

1. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion -- I'm on Level 15. I closed my second Oblivion gate yesterday and came to the shocking conclusion that, for someone who loves the game... I hate hate hate being in actual Oblivion. It has such ugly scenery and, frankly, bores me. You have to go through these dreary towers full of rooms with names like "The Meat Tower of Anguish," "The Flesh Render," and "The Blood Feast." We are supposed to be in hell. I GET IT, OK? I don't care what kind of cool loot is in there, if I have to go through another Meat Tower and fight thirty more of those stupid dinosaurs and ice monsters, I may die of boredom.

I just want to collect all 12 volumes of 2920, pick flowers, and steal things, all right?

2. The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch -- This book was so much fun when I read it this fall. This is my first re-read, and I'm pleased to report that... it's still fun. Cannot wait for Red Seas Under Red Skies, the sequel, which will be out in a couple of months.

3. Battlestar Galactica -- Have watched Season 2 up through Epiphanies. Liked the part where they found Pegasus. Slightly sketched out and suspending sense of scientific disbelief over the Cylon-baby cancer curing blood incident. But when does Season 3, Part 1 come out on DVD? Because I don't want to rush through Season 2 and then have to wait. Battlestar is my new guilty pleasure. You just sit there like, "They didn't!" and then, "Oh, come on," and then, "But I must have more..." Or at least I do. Lee Adama: sohotrightnow.

Anyway.

KOTOR 3... Please Please Please!

Every month or so, I run a search to see if there's any word on the streets re: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 3. If you read this blog, you know how I feel about Star Wars. KOTOR was THE coolest game because, for the first time, it was an experience that really allowed you to live in Star Wars. If you have something you really, really, really love the way I love Star Wars, you know how special that is. I think I clocked 15 game hours in the first 24 hours we had the game. It was the first game I actually got out of bed at 7 AM for, because I had to play. I, in fact, refer to it to this day as The Game. Fans have been waiting for the continuation of the KOTOR series for years. This interview makes it sound like it might be in the works. And this post from last month, though based entirely on secondhand rumor mill-type information, gives a person reason to hope. Honestly, I don't know why LucasArts seems to have dropped the ball on KOTOR 3... both of the previous games were critical and commercial successes. Not to mention the huge cliffhanger ending they left us with in KOTOR 2. And the fact that in Star Wars, things tend to come in threes.

Don't get me wrong, I'm having a great time in Oblivion, but as I wander around I can't help thinking, "Oh my god, if they come out with KOTOR III and it looks like this, it will be the most amazing thing in the history of ever!" The thing is, it's not out of the realm of possibility. Chances are, if (when, I'll just say when, because they'd be stupid not to make it) KOTOR 3 comes out, it will be in 2008 or 2009 and it will look like that. Which is to say it will look ten times more awesome than the previous incarnations of the game, which came out in 2003 and 2004.

And now, a short quiz. If they announce KOTOR 3, I will:
A) Pee myself
B) Fall on the ground and twitch
C) Spontaneously die of coolness
D) All of the above

The answer is (D).

In the spirit of these hopes and because I'm in a space-y mood lately, I decided to play a little KOTOR 2 this afternoon... only to find that the game won't start. Tried downloading new patches and no-CD cracks, even though I was pretty sure Mike already did it, but to no avail. I did a little digging online, and found out that KOTOR 2 is one of the games that has Windows Vista compatibility issues. I got into it twice, amidst a series of crashes when you click the launcher, but now it's decided not to let me load it. I thought maybe it was because I was playing with the graphics settings (we have a vastly better graphics card now, why not use it?), but when I set them all back, it still wouldn't start. I ran a hardware check and it popped up a message that my graphics card wasn't good enough. Which, obviously, being an NVidia 7600GS that can run Oblivion with no issues, it is. In the message it says, "Update your drivers," but the version it tells you to update to is something from 2003. @%#*&!!! Now I read online that people can get it to run by disabling sound?? Well, screw Windows Vista. What I don't get is why KOTOR works fine but not KOTOR II. Sigh.

Tags: games, star wars, knights of the old republic, kotor 3

We Meet Again...

So I've been having these intense headaches that come and go. This would be since my stomach episode last Thursday/Friday. I just sort of dismissed it as being a side effect of the pills I was on. I have been very careful about what I'm putting in my stomach, and I haven't had any caffeine, alcohol, or dairy since my ER experience. Until yesterday at work, when I purposely hadn't eaten breakfast or taken my drugs. I wanted to be aware, yet I wasn't taking a chance on food, just in case it gave my stomach problems. I had spent the previous two days at work completely zoned out, which, you can take it from me, is sort of hard to do when your job is to interact with people and multitask the details of their dining experience. I didn't majorly screw anything up, but I never felt entirely "with it." So Tuesday I was walking through the kitchen area, just as the shift was about to start, and something snapped. "Fuck it," I said, and grabbed the pot of fresh coffee that was brewing on the waitstation. I poured myself a cup, slapped some soy milk in it, and within minutes (I tell you, minutes!) I was feeling better. Then it hit me that the headaches weren't from my medicine... I've been having caffeine withdrawal. More to the point: I need it to live.

But I didn't have any today. Because I am trying to be good to my stomach. Until... this evening while he was cooking dinner, Mike was drinking a reheated cup of coffee. I said to him, "Can I have a sip of that?" Next thing I knew, I had downed it. And just like that, I perked right up. Damn, I thought. Get me another pot of that.

And so, here I sit, typing away at my novel on the couch with a fresh cup of coffee. This, my friends, is what is right. This is what I do. Oh, coffee, I was wrong to think I could live without you.

Now let's do what we do best.

Stop Making Me Feel Old, People!

My friend Melanie got engaged this weekend. I am on the way left; she's standing next to me. She is the natural blonde; I am not. This is us at our Hawaii Chi O semi formal my junior year. (How is it 2007, by the way? When did that happen? Where did the last three years of my life go? Why do I feel like I've done nothing remotely useful with them??) I have this picture in a frame in the living room. (Our living room, I should note, is shamefully "Sarah's Fun at St. Lawrence!" based. My photos kind of took the place over when I moved in, which I do feel sort of badly about.) Anyway, she's engaged, so congratulations, Mel! It is nice to know that, after all our dubious boyfriends and sketchy stories, everyone hits their mid-twenties and suddenly... the guys shape up! People actually date! Quality things happen to quality people.

I can't help feeling like I've suddenly jumped into a time warp, though. Mostly because I don't feel like my post-college years have had any super-defining moments yet. They're just... there. Well, certainly Katrina was a defining moment. But I don't want something like that defining my mid-twenties. I don't know what I'm talking about, I'm just rambling... I wonder why other people's milestones cause us to reflect on ourselves this way. It's not like we're all on the same forced timeline, after all. If you had told me in 2002 that in five years I would be living in New Orleans doing the trying-to-be-a-writer thing, I would have said, "Cool." Whereas right now, I feel like the least cool person I know. This could also be because I haven't shaved my legs in like a week, and it is really wearing on my sense of cuteness. I am a feminist, so I should philosophically be above such things. However. The construction workers turned off the hot water yesterday, so I am over 24 hours behind on the whole showering thing. And before that I was too sick to be bothered.

If you asked Melanie, Chrissy, or V, the lovely and estimable girls in the above photo, they would probably say, "And how is this any different from usual?"

Yeah. Well.

I am going to finally get in the shower, where I will ponder important questions of Life. Such as, was my blonde phase a wholly bad idea? Or should I perhaps get highlights?

Anyway, congratulations to Melanie on the big news! She is an awesome person, and while I have not met The Fiance, I'm sure he is too. :-)

Gratuitous Jolee Photo of the Day

Because we haven't had one in a while, and he is the jealous type.

(On a side note, the fur on his back near his butt has gotten soooo matted and out of control. I try to keep on top of it, but it's just spiralled out of hand. I love the way his fur looks all long and pretty, and I'm sad about it, but I'm just going to have to go after him with the clippers. It is such a mess. Does anyone else have a long-haired cat? How do you keep this from happening? I try to brush him every day, but this particular mat is beyond brushing. It's like his entire undercoat of hair just clumped up overnight.)

Oh, New Orleans...

It seems like whenever something happens to encourage me that I do not live in some tiny, strange Third World nation, some other thing happens that makes me say, "Oh. Never mind."

Those two guys on Claiborne selling shrimp out of the back of a pickup truck with a cardboard sign was that thing.

Spending the Weekend Dead

I guess I haven't been here much. I think I'm finally starting to recover from my horrible stomach cramps that wouldn't let me even stand up. I know it's nothing serious, because I had all the tests done at the ER. They decided it was most likely an intestinal virus (ew). I'm worried that it has something to do with me being lactose intolerant. The last thing I had before becoming horribly sick was a glass of milk. Then Sunday night I was feeling a lot better, so I had just a little milk to dunk some cookies in... only to wake up early Monday morning in pain again. I know sometimes people develop allergies out of the blue, so I hope I haven't gone from being slightly lactose intolerant to being full blown allergic to milk overnight. I'm not about to test out that theory, though, for several weeks. Therefore, you can be sure I will not be touching cereal this morning. Or any morning in the near future.

I worked all day yesterday, and I was totally zoned out on medication. I also managed to get first degree burns on my left middle finger, which still stings this morning. I'm really over that place, but I can't be bothered to quit when I'll probably only be working there a few more months. Speaking of which, tomorrow is my day off, and I will probably be spending it on job applications. And... yeah. That's what I've been up to. It is super uninteresting. As my friend Veronica used to say after a bad weekend in college, "Life rots, and then you die."

We might get a new disc of Battlestar today, though.

Huh. This Weekend's Going Well

Of all the things one could be doing on one's weekend, spending an entire day in ER is definitely not at the top of my list. Ugh. I woke up early Thursday morning with my stomach in incredible pain, and it didn't go away. I haven't been nauseous at all, just in severe, persistent, cramping pain. In fact, it kept me up the entire night Thursday night, except for the nap I got between 5:30 and 7:00 AM. Then my stomach started hurting again, so badly it woke me up, so I finally gave in and took myself to the medical professionals. After doing a bunch of tests on me (I have no idea how much this is all going to cost on my crappy student health insurance, and I don't want to know), they pronounced it a gastrointestinal virus, gave me some IV fluids, and sent me home with medication. I guess it was worth it to go, just in case it was appendicitis or something serious. I kept looking up my symptoms online and freaking myself out.

I went to sleep at 7:30 last night and just woke up, so I must be sick. Well, also I didn't sleep at all Thursday night. My stomach feels better today, but still in enough pain for me to take my pill. Maybe I'll even eat some real food.

P.S. We were very impressed by Touro. They had a surprisingly (because this is New Orleans) friendly, literate, and helpful staff of people running that place. I felt like I was not in the third world. So, shout out to Touro Infirmary.

In Which, In Trying to Justify Today's DVD Purchases, I Prove I Am A Huge Geek, In Case We Weren't Aware

Me: I'm trying to decide if I should buy the Battlestar Miniseries.
Sweetie: Honestly, I'm surprised you haven't bought it already.
Me: But I don't know if I want to buy it new or used. But if I buy it new I can combine it with something else and get free shipping. So I'm in my wishlist, but most of the stuff I want is all pre-orders for this summer. And I'm poor and shouldn't be spending money on DVDs.
Sweetie: Just buy them.
Me: Well, I haven't bought anything for myself in months.
Sweetie: Why don't you buy an X-Files?
Me: We haven't bought any X-Files in a while, have we? And why haven't we? We left off with Anasazi, which is one of my favorite episodes and a huge cliffhanger! How could we not have bought Season Three yet to find out what happens? Mulder was missing! And they find the train car in the desert with the alien bodies in it and Mulder goes, "Oh my god, Scully, what have they done?" And the Cigarette Man goes, "Nothing vanishes without a trace. Burn it." And... OK, fine, maybe I've seen it a few times.

Tags: x-files, battlestar, dvds

Watchin' TV

It's time for Voyager time! It's time for Voyager time! I watch a lot of Spike TV in the afternoons when I'm home. They play Star Trek reruns for several hours. I'm not a huge Trekkie or anything, but they're nice to play in the background because they're simple and you can multitask without missing much. I haven't had Voyager time for a couple of weeks. It's sort of disappointing because, the last time I watched, I believe Voyager had just encountered the Borg cube, and now Seven of Nine is on board. I don't recall seeing those episodes, so it's too bad I missed them. I can't make up my mind whether Trek is more or less satisfying than a show like Battlestar, specifically the fact that there is much more of an encapsulated feel, with the episodes standing alone rather than existing in an arc.

These season-long arcs are the trend these days. I do enjoy the fact that events in current "cable shows" exist in a larger context, but it's a very different concept of how to do television (although, Voyager is less on the other extreme than Next Generation-- there are some ongoing threads and the ship's journey has a point). It's satisfying to have longer arcs, because we have more character development. You're not going to be able to jump in and figure out what's going on right away, of course. And you can't just casually view and feel satisfied when the episode comes to a neat conclusion. Then again, there's the danger (and I haven't seen enough Battlestar Galactica yet, but there are worrying shades of this) of falling into the "X-Files syndrome," where the episodes are either issue-of-the-week/monster-of-the-week or focused on the show's mythology. The problem is that X-Files tried to drag out the series and ended up compromising its own mythology. I like Battlestar, but being an X-Files fan makes me decidedly wary of "They have a plan." Because it turned out the aliens in X-Files didn't have a plan. Or rather, there were about eight of them that made sense in their own mini-arcs but not as an overall mythology. The show outlasted itself by at least two or three seasons, by my reckoning. And they had to put a lot of "filler" in to make it last that long. So I guess there's the problem with having an overarching plot to episodic television: it has to come to an ending. And that ending has to make sense from a storytelling perspective. That is, after all, why it's an arc and not, well, a line.

I don't know, I don't watch a lot of TV. I don't even know if I'm going to watch The Shield this season. Oh, fine, I probably will, because Mike will watch it religiously, and I'll be in the room. But I do not forgive them for what happened to Lem (oh no, they didn't!). Me and The Shield are so not speaking.

This Week In Oblivion

The coolest thing I did this week in Oblivion was climb this mountain, right at sunset. I must have taken about fifteen screenshots up there (Thayet brandishing sword! Thayet without sword! Thayet in Elven armor! Thayet in clothes!) I might have gone a little overboard.

Shortly after this impressive scenic photo shoot, I should admit that I had to reload from a previous save because I lost my horse. Like, I hopped off it to run up to the peak and take pictures of myself, and then I couldn't remember where I'd left it. I wandered around for a good ten minutes looking for the damn thing, then gave up. I am such a flake in Oblivion sometimes.

For those who actually care about my progress in the game, I'm around 50 hours in. I am currently Level 11, and almost finished with the Thieves Guild quests, I think. I just started the main quest (ie: the actual plot), too, but then I stopped as soon as I started. They wanted me to go to Kvatch to find the heir to the throne, but I didn't care to go. There was something else I wanted to steal that sounded more fun. Also, I've only seen Kvatch from the outside, but it looks suspiciously like another shit-town. How, you may ask, am I only on Level 11 after putting in so many hours? Well, I would have to guess it's because I tend to do things like change my clothes every ten minutes, or spend an hour rearranging my bookshelf (I recently decided to collect all the books in the game), or pose and take screenshots whenever I see a piece of cool-looking scenery. Or whenever I get a new sword. Or a new dress. I spend inordinate amounts of time picking flowers. Once I was occupied for several minutes trying to put a skull on my bedside table (it kept rolling over onto its face).

There's just too much to do!

Tags: oblivion, gaming, video games

Starbuck = SO Annoying!

Seriously.

I refer here to the kitten, not the Battlestar Galactica character. I am home from work on my break, before going back at 6:00 to work the night shift. I have been on my laptop for, I kid you not, twenty minutes. In that period of time, Starbuck has attempted to insinuate herself between me and the computer roughly 180 times. I have shoved her off the couch at least 30 times, which seems not to deter her one bit, since she immediately hops right back up. First she wiggled under my arm, which made me not able to type. Then she went right for the keyboard. Then she attempted to sit ON my hands, while they were navigating the mouse. She keeps flopping right across my wrists. I keep pushing her off.

Yes, yes, she's purring, she's cute. But seriously, she is the world's most annoying kitten. She has this little perky "mow! mow! mmmmmow!" It would be cute if it wasn't crawling into my armpits and onto my laptop. And kissing me on the lips. She likes to kiss people on the nose, which is cute (she even did it to the vet!), but I draw the line at the lips. She does not understand "no." It would even be cute if she sat on me, but just sat still. But "still" is not in Starbuck's vocabulary. Don't get kittens. They are the spawn of Satan, with a cute face. I should also mention that this is NOT because I'm not paying enough attention to her. I already petted her and played with her... she just seems to believe everyone should be petting her all the time.

Sigh. It's hard to tell something that adorable to get the hell off and go away. I should be thankful she is out at all, and friendly, unlike my devilish feline companion who hasn't showed his face yet this afternoon. I suspect he is under a piece of furniture up to no good. (The construction workers put him in a foul mood.)

Oh, Battlestar Cracktica, You Evil Manipulator

I was very excited to get our next Battlestar Galactica disc this weekend, only to discover that it only had two episodes on it. Yes, it seems there was a Season 2 and a Season 2.5, and they celebrated the end of Season 2 by (joy) a huge cliffhanger. I felt cheated out of my regular four episodes. This wouldn't be a big deal if I had the boxed set, but it is kind of a blow when you're ordering DVDs from Netflix. Also, you can't tell this sort of thing ahead of time from the Netflix site, so it's always sprung on you when you rip off the envelope.

That said, though, props to Battlestar for surprising me. It was a moment for celebration: "We found another Battlestar! The whiteboard of life total is back up to 49,600!" And then came the interesting twist that, not only did the Admiral on Battlestar Pegasus outrank Adama, they were a bunch of assholes. Humanity cannot get a break, can it? The interesting bits, I thought, were when Adama was making arguments about what had happened on their ship, and the Admiral kept countering him with perfectly good points. This was perfectly highlighted when she lectured him on letting Starbuck and Apollo get away with being insubordinate, and then they cut to the scene in which they both started loudly protesting their new orders in the same breath. But still, you felt for Adama. "Make her watch the show! Not just read the logs! It's different, because you're our friends!"

You realized the things that had been going on in the fleet were sometimes shady-- but at least the Galactica folks were learning from their mistakes. They were stumbling through a lot of tough questions and progressing. That didn't seem to be the case on Pegasus. I think they also didn't understand the implications of having 46,000 civilians in tow, either. Note that when the Admiral got off her shuttle, she said, "Welcome back to the Fleet." Everyone was kinda like, "Whoa, OK. There is one of you. And fifty of us," but politely pretended to ignore the weirdness of the statement. It sure showed what kind of a character she was, right off the bat.

The scene with Baltar and the other Six in the cell was great, too. Good acting there. Starbuck and Apollo are so cute when they're being insubordinate. I hope Apollo kicks his little Raptor pilot partner's ass. And I hate that they're going to hook him up with Dualla. What about Billy? Poor, hapless Billy. And... and...

Coffee. I need coffee. And more Battlestars.

(Note: Yes, I do know what happened last week, because I spend so much time on the internet that it is impossible not to. But I don't watch the current episodes because I'm not finished with Season Two. Therefore I am not speculating about it, or discussing it, and have in fact blocked it from my mind for the foreseeable future.)

I'm My TV Boyfriend!

You scored as Capt. Lee Adama (Apollo). You have spent your life trying to live up to and impress your Dad; shame he never seemed to notice. You are a stickler for the rules. But in matters of loyalty and honour you know when they have to be broken. Capt. Lee Adama (Apollo) 88% CPO Galen Tyrol 69% Tom Zarek 63% Commander William Adama 56% Lt. Kara Thrace (Starbuck) 50% President Laura Roslin 44% Dr Gaius Baltar 38% Col. Saul Tigh 31% Lt. Sharon Valerii (Boomer) 31% Number 6 13% What New Battlestar Galactica character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Coincidentally, he is my desktop wallpaper at the moment. Mike said, "Ooooh." Whatev. I told him if he wants to put hot women in bathing suits as his background, I won't say a word. And I will put my TV crush as my background, and everyone will be happy. It's not like it's a wallpaper of The Towel Shot, anyway. (Wait, I wonder if there's a wallpaper of the towel shot out there?? Has anyone found one? Where can I get it?)

Tags: battlestar cracktica, bsg

Cat Looooove

Or, wait... there's a bad pun in here just dying to come out... wait for it... kitty porn! LOL.

We Weren't Using That Porch Anyway

I returned home and walked up the steps to find that our friendly downstairs Katrina-renovating men had removed chunks of our front porch. Fun times in construction town. Apparently the wood is rotten and they are replacing it. I wasn't aware that I was in imminent danger of falling through the front porch, but nevertheless it is good that someone is on top of these things. The downside to all this construction is that it's in the 70's and it's my day off. I would have loved to do a bit of hanging out in the backyard in less clothing than usual, but unfortunately the workers have taken over the yard.

Now I am back in the office, with my resentful cat, who is sulking under the futon. Well, "with" is not quite accurate, since he is avoiding me and his favorite spot of avoidance happens to be in the same room as the computers. I tried to brush him for, I swear, thirty seconds and he flipped out and darted under there. He refuses to come out. And he was so lovable this morning. Starbuck is right next to me, though, playing with a pen on the desk. I bet she would love it if I brushed her. Too bad she is the shortest of American Shorthairs and will never need it.

"This Is Me Expressing Myself"

I should really take a picture of myself right now... in plaid pajama pants, an old Chi O t-shirt, my hair in a ponytail and a HUGE FUCKING MARTINI in my hand. Then you could get an idea of how much I can't deal with my job. Which I just got home from... at midnight. I think I'm twitching. Or, I was. My glass consisting of three shots of straight liquor is kicking in. Everything will very shortly be aaaaaaall gooooooodd.

I always say the day I quit my job, I will totally pull a Jennifer Aniston in Office Space. In the movie (one of my all-time favorite quotable movies, by the way), she is a waitress who works in a TGI Friday's sort of place where she's required to wear fifteen "pieces of flair" on her uniform. In an early scene, her manager pulls her aside, saying, "We need to talk about your flair," and berates her for only wearing the minimum number of stupid pins on her vest, when her lame dorky co-worker has 37 pieces. "You don't want to be a person who only does the minimum, do you?" he asks. I really, really, really identify with this scene. I'm not about to be one of those bloggers who talks about her job-- I've never actually said where I work (wearing sunglasses in your photo totally makes you anonymous, right? right?). But. I'll just say I get it.

In Office Space, the scene where she finally snaps and storms out of the restaurant is one of my favorite parts of the movie. Her slow-talking corporate-bullshit-spewing manager pulls her aside again, and says, "I still only see 15 pieces of flair. What about our talk? Don't you want to express yourself?"

"You know what?" she says. "I do want to express myself. And I don't need 37 pieces of flair to do it." And she flips him off, right in his face. "THIS is me expressing MY SELF. I hate this job! I hate this goddamn job and I don't need it!"

Let's just say I came dangerously close to "expressing" myself tonight. But I have $150 in my pocket, a giant martini on my desk, and two days off. I'll cool down. For now.

Kitten Pictures!

Because who doesn't love kittens?

Starbuck plays with a Mardi Gras throw. She weighs five pounds now.

Starbuck and Jolee watching birds together on the living room couch. She looks like she's almost his size in this picture, but it's the perspective.

Starbuck managed to singlehandedly destroy the Sunday Times Picayune. As in, it was in a nice stack looking like a newspaper, and she strewed it across the floor and chewed it up. This is her admiring her handiwork (and, I think, getting ready to pounce on Jolee's tail, which is in the bottom right hand corner).

I Know What You Mean

This morning, at the school where I volunteer, I was one-on-one with a kid who'd been pulled out of class because he wasn't able to focus on his essay test. They were supposed to be writing a five paragraph essay. He'd written five headings and topic sentences, on five different sheets of looseleaf paper, all of which he'd discarded. I told him that if he'd spent all that time writing instead of doing the same sentence over and over, he'd have half an essay. So he pulled out a fresh sheet, figured out his three main ideas, and started again.

And then it hit me. It's not that he's screwing around: it's that there's just something daunting about a blank piece of paper. It stares at you, daring you with its whiteness. You can put anything there, but will it live up to what you could have put there? You start. You erase or delete. You start again. The blankness is what's scary-- once you get rolling, the words begin to flow. At first it's just a trickle, but then you find yourself typing faster, like a stream building momentum as it winds down a hill.

He stops after the third paragraph and says, "I don't know what to put in my paragraph about rappers."

"Which rappers? What songs did they do? What albums do you like? What are their lifestyles like? What cars do they drive?"

He stares at me. "Where'd you get all those ideas?"

It gets easier, believe me. Or at least a little.

Tags: writing

Sick Flooferator :-(

My Jolee-est was sick last night. I was in the office on the other computer, when I heard him yowl. Mike was going to go over to him to see what was wrong, but he was afraid he would just run away. He was yowling his "I'm crying" yowl, not his "I'm playing" yowl. Then he ran to me in the office and proceeded to throw up at my feet.

What does one say to such a gift? Oh, thank you. You shouldn't have.

Poor kitty. I hope he feels better today! From all indications, the daily cat race has begun (oh the pitter patter of thundering cat feet), so I'm sure he's fine. He probably puked because he's upset about how ugly his beautiful coat looks. Dammit, his butt looks like someone indiscriminately took scissors to it! (I have discovered that it's easier, instead of chasing him around to comb the mats out, to sneak up behind him while he eats and lop chunks of his fur off with the scissors. It looks like... well, let's just say that's exactly what it looks like.)

I'm not fine, though. I got a crumb under my space bar, so I pulled it off to clean out, and I think I broke it. I am seriously not happy about it. I hope I can fix it somehow...

Writing Progress

All right, I'm officially 18,612 words into my new work in progress. It is sadly lacking in the title department, but I can tell you that it has a heroine named Claudia. And a hero (foil?) named Jack. Who will have sex but not end up together. So there. Because it's my story and I can write it how I want. No one ever ends it that way, which makes me want to even more. I just knocked out 3,000 words and am pretty pleased with myself. I've been so busy lately I haven't gotten anything written.

18,600/75,000
(24%)

Tags: writing, novel

I Got a Red Right Hand

The other night in Oblivion I snuck into the castle in Bravil and stole all the silver from the dining room... behind the Count's back while he was eating at the table. I have $6,200 in stolen goods right now. And more photos for my slightly lame and tourist-y album.

Answering Machine Stage Fright

Sometimes I want to beat myself up. I swear to god I am incapable of leaving a good, sensible, short voicemail. I just hate leaving messages. I hate, hate, hate it. I am fine talking to people in person-- part of my job is to walk up and make pleasant small talk with complete strangers, after all. I am fine talking on the phone-- I could go on for hours with someone I've never even met. I am obviously fine with typing my thoughts to the world. But give me a beep and a blank bit of air time, and I become the most stuttering, rambling, fast-talking person you've ever heard.

I used to work in a law office, where a good portion of my job as a plaintiff's attorney's assistant was being on the phone with clients. I definitely am used to calling total strangers, though I can't say I find it fun. But I could do it. Whenever I had to record a new answering machine message for when we were closed for holidays... oh boy. I used to have to do it sixteen times before I gave up and accepted that, whatever I tried, I was just gifted with the curse of sounding like an idiot on the phone. So believe me, I know I sound like a rambling loser, all full of "sooooo"s and "ummm"s, because I have listened to myself. I envy people who can speak slowly and sound measured and business-like. I hate how I sound on the phone.

I just had to leave a message for someone I'm doing an internship sort of thing with this semester. There was a misunderstanding about which day I was supposed to start (she assumed I'd come in Wednesday because that was the day my teacher said, but on my sheet it said no Wednesdays, so I called to clarify and ask if I could do Friday, she called back, I thought it was someone else calling and missed her, etc., etc). Even worse than leaving a regular voicemail: leaving a voicemail in which I have to explain something. It was a recipe for disaster. It's not that I'm scared of the phone, it's that I ramble. Ask my mom. I think it works OK in person because there's someone to cut me off and keep me on track. Anyway, here I am once again beating myself up for having left the flakiest, mile-a-minute message in the history of ever.

I had to vent.

Bushie Makes An Appearance

I have it on good authority that President Bush is, in fact, roughly six blocks from my house. Today. Perhaps as we speak. I don't think I'm supposed to say how I know this , but let's just say I know (ETA: Oh, it's in the paper this morning, good. No one can yell at me for telling the big secret). I find it disingenuous that he ignores us for months, then decides to fly in and make showboating speeches. But whatever, nobody asked me. Though I am sorely tempted to walk over there and see if I can sneak in and tell him to go fuck himself, I think I'll stay in. It looks like rain. It's not like I'll be able to get through the neighborhood with the Secret Service here anyway.

(In case you aren't aware, I'm referencing the ER doctor in Mississippi who, upon returning to his destroyed home to salvage his stuff after Katrina, found his road blocked off by the Secret Service because Dick Cheney was holding a press conference. He then crashed the press conference and yelled, "Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney!" from the back of the crowd. This appeared in the Spike Lee documentary. It was kind of awesome.)

Tags: bush, new orleans, post-katrina