anagram of brat

Had an interesting twist on the old dream where you show up to a final exam to a class you never went to, in that I was preparing for a trip overseas that was happening in a few days and only just realized I never got my passport. The part where it got weird is as I tearing about The House frantic about this my mother (who often shows up in these dreams alive and well) calmly told me to stop freaking out and go look in the freezer with the rest of the Important Papers. Right, okay. Not sure what all my subconscious was trying to impart to me there, but felt it was just off the wall weird enough to note for posterity.

I've never had a passport, incidentally. I should fix this. I'd like to GTFO of the US for a while someday. Still unsure as to where I'd go, but it'd be nice to go somewhere.


I have solved the mystery of why I fell out of the habit of getting up at the ass crack of dawn, seeing as I have started doing it again. Hungry cats. Lily has figured out that the quickest way to wake up her humans is to kick my glasses off my nightstand, the sound of them falling to the floor instantly rouses me. Dick. Also the soporific effects of warm glomphy bedtime companion do nothing for my early rising abilities, especially as he routinely fails to get out of bed until fifteen minutes before he has to be at work. But yeah, apparently kitty needing foodins is a far more effective alarm clock than anything else I've tried. We'll go with that.

I started watching Community with the boy last night finally. Two eps in and it is cute, snarky fun, not to mention another opportunity to ogle Joel McHale. I can't get over how old Chevy Chase is. My mental picture of him is from Christmas Vacation, what the hell happened? Oh, yeah, 20 years, right. I'm still a little O_o about that, honestly, that it's been almost two decades since a whole lot of random pop culture and music I remember loving/watching/listening to. And then I remember I was a kid 20 years ago. And then the whole "20 years ago" thing hits me and my brain just kinda melts a little around the edges. I'm not sure how/when I got old enough to say "20 years ago" and have that refer to an actual period of sentience in my life. What. Just bring me the Geritol and Dentugrip now.


Today is Stan's birthday. Also today is when Dad gets out of rehab and goes home with Ruth thereby to terrorize her for a couple months while we all finish tending to The House. Looks like phone calls will make up a significant portion of my day.

I've been all thinky this week. Some good. A lot bad, honestly. Mostly neutral. And deeply thankful for the handful of things in my life that are going very very right and keep me going through the rest of it. One of which is STILL ignoring his alarm clock and snoring behind me, lol. I should go kiss him before he lumbers out of bed.

It's good to be home.

on my way out of New York and back to demanding kitty, adoring Manbeast, and most importantly my own squooshy way too comfortable bed. I honestly don't know when the last time I've been this dog tired was.

Despite the complete and utter exhaustion (I kinda forgot what an ordeal getting back on the regular crohn's pills is and in light of that should probably have waited until next week to start back up) this trip was overwhelmingly a more positive one than the last, probably entirely because of the amount of progress Dad has made since the pneumonia scare and return to Mt. Sinai on my last visit. On the contrary, after a meeting with his rehab team yesterday he's been given a release date of next thursday which is awesome news. Two months of hospitals and rehab is entirely Too Much. Considering how he was when I first went to see him in the hospital in January and where he is now, which in some ways is in better shape than before the stroke, I'm astounded by his progress. The rehab center has a small coffee shop in the basement for its residents, and yesterday we went down together for a late afternoon snack. Dad was up, walking (and not slowly either) with a little help from a walker for his balance, and once downstairs he was being his usual charming pain in the butt self at the lady running the place as well as trading jokes with the nuns on staff. He still loses words on occasion and while he always mixed up the names of his kids/grandkids (and had been known to go through at least five or six names before getting to the right one) that tendancy's gotten a bit worse. Still, for someone who had a stroke seven weeks ago, he ain't looking too bad.

Still I think all of us will be glad when he's out. Well, Ruth'll be more frazzled while he's staying with her, but he'll be if not home, close to it, back in Brooklyn, and I for one will be happy if I never have to take the IRT up the upper east side ever again. Between Mom at NY Presbyterian years ago and Dad ending up in Mt sinai for various and sundry over the years, I've almost never had to be up there for a good reason, and over the past couple of months I've come to utterly loathe having to take the sardine tin that is the Lexington Ave line anywhere and personally can't wait for them to hurry up and open the 2nd Ave line, because goddamn them IRT train cars are NARROW as HELL.

Sorry, veered into subway nerdage for a minute there.

Anyway, I didn't get everything I had to do done this time around (there is just not enough hours/spoons in the day for all the shit that needs taking care of) I do come home with a grim sense of accomplishment with what I did manage to get done. There was something about finally finding, buying and delivering the four silk ascots after two days of chasing them all over Manhattan that was deeply satisfying. I often need to be reminded that I can be deeply resourceful in a weird as hell pinch. I did manage to keep up with my actual job this week as well as pick up a little extra scratch from the fam, so this week will be somewhat profitable, and I just got a notice that my moderately whopping federal refund was accepted and should be hitting my account early next week. Just in time for PAXEast, not like I'm going to let myself spend much out there, seeing as most of my money's kinda spoken for for at least the next few months. Still... kinda nice to know things are looking up on several fronts for a change.... y'all don't know how thirsty I've been for some sunshine thrown my way. But for now I'm looking eagerly forward to boy and bed tonight. Or vice versa. I don't care, it'll just be good to get home.

Gonna catch a nap now.

A large window, overlooking a swath of street well trafficked by both pedestrians and cars, mounted high on the wall.

Warm red walls, a six inch sill by the window.

A raised table flanked with high bar stools, level with the windowsill, tucked around the corner from the door, protected from the draft by a glass box vestibule, creating a sort of alcove for this table by the window.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and maybe if my phone camera had been working or I had brought the Hatemonber with me as I waited for grinninfoole to arrive for our lunch date, I would have captured this empty spot at Bueno y Sano in between its lunch rush occupants. It's a prime people-watching spot, so catching it empty is a rare thing indeed. Likely I could use far more words to describe it - the beige, evenly spaced slats on the chairs, the green cushions, the speckled, faux-stone plastic inlay on the top of the table. But I won't. I only know that I spent about five minutes staring into that corner, caught up quite powerfully in a very pleasant memory of another time, another lunch date, and catching myself smiling. Funny what will do that to you sometimes.

I need to go back and take that picture sometime.

It's been a long tiring day, and lunch with the Foole was one of the two high points of it, the other being running into Phil driving the B43 and catching up with him after not seeing him for a year. One bad thing about driving so much last year is that I miss all the PVTA drivers, so it's nice to see them when I do have to head to Northampton for something these days. Alas, the day post-lunch has been meh at best, due to being somewhat under the weather, intestinal cranky, and learning some sad news affecting friends. But I've been home for about an hour or so, and I'm about to head downstairs to make dinner for myself, the Manbeast, and the McGurk (see, it's alliterative!), who is coming over for Smallville shenanigans later. So I am not writing off the day just yet.

So they're moving Dad out of the stroke unit and into the rehab one today, which is awesome news.

I'm meeting jaicat for lunch later on.

Maybe today won't be as much of a gloomfest as I was fearing.

Just briefly:

avalon616 throws an excellent party. :) Also, omgwtfaninja and bloodandsmoke should just hang around in togas all the damn time, they look scarily good in them.

No major aftereffects to be had, I think I had all of one drink due to my intestines crying havoc and letting slip the dogs of... I could continue with that metaphor, but it's gonna go somewhere gross. Nonetheless, it was good to see everyone in one room, the ball dropped, I got kissed at midnight (and again at 1, which was midnight somewhere, right?)... I'd say New Years was a success.

New Years Day sees me up and procrastinating hard from cleaning up the kitchen (I started, but it's pretty daunting, as cell23 made stuffed dates and hot wings for the party and thus the place looks like a bomb went off. D:) and other housecleaning stuff. Eeegh, starting the year with procrastination, this is not a good sign. Also the other big to-dos are some major hair stuff (involving conditioner and yarn, since I got a new skein yesterday. "Cherry Cola." Hmm. Appropriate.), a good portion of which will involve plopping myself on my couch and knocking a few things off my netflix queue. Company is welcome for that. Also some work and projecty stuff.

I have resolutions, though when asked last night they all flew out of my head. Mostly they can be summed up by the wisdom of a certain dog:



Also see dedicating a lot less time and brainspace to the Internet, certain people that shall not be named, drama and bullshit.

Eggs though. Girl has to have one stupid internet indulgence.

~~

Anyway. Off to do things.

Things that are good:

• I'm perversely pleased by the hip deep snowdrift piled up against our back door. Honestly now that I'm not trying to get home in it, I'm rather pleased by the snow in general.
  
  
• My state of mind after a good night sleep in my own pre-toasted bed glomnomnommed all over my man, whom I missed very very much this weekend. (and vice versa).
  
  
• Coffee.
  
• No holly for me this year but I am caught up on all other Christmas dragons.
  
  
• There's a 2L of Pepsi Throwback in my fridge.
  
  
• There's also the last loaf of pumpkin bread for the season, as cell23 forgot to take it for dinner. MORE FOR ME NOM NOM NOM.
  
  
• Christmas loot: 2 cashmere sweaters, a pair of silly designer but WARM swede boots, a down blanket, a wafflemaker (!!!), and a black and white Amazon Kindle. Yes, someone got me an e-reader for Christmas. It's like the 21st centruy's all NOPE, you can't stop at music/movies, YOUR BOOKS GO NEXT. Yes, this is seriously amusing to me as well.
  
  
• Licor 43 Cuarenta y Tres. I tweeted about this last night but I am putting out the call to everyone again to keep an eye out for this stuff because it is DELICIOUS and WE MUST DRINK IT NOW.
  
  
• Watching of the Doctor Who Christmas Carol will happen at some point tonight. Yes. From all reports, it is good. And excuse me, that seems to be a topless River Song in the trailers for next season. I'll be in my bunk now.
  
  
• Found both my camera cable and my gloves. :) Man these muppet-fur convertible mitten things have been the best gloves ever. Not only have I managed to hang onto them for three winters now, but they have boomerang properties - every time I "lose" them they reappear.

Things that are not as good:

They exist, but I'm going to drink my coffee and attempt to accentuate the positive today. There may be an extended [crazy] post coming, I'm not sure yet. I will say I'm sad I missed the kiddos this weekend, but I've had it on good authority that they liked their presents. And apparently Kidzilla has entered the charming gaping-holes-in-face stage of childhood, as she's lost two of her bottom front teeth now. Hopefully someone took pictures.

Really overall it's just nice to be home. It was in many ways a good holiday but it was also a very rough one and I'm not ashamed to say I'm glad it's over. Plans for today include hiding from the snow, doing some pottering around the house, work, to-do lists, SVU and making some Skype calls to folk who want to hear my voice.

This is the first morning in a VERY long time that I've felt completely positive, upbeat and just stupid content/happy. It's 9:43 and instead of being my usual KILL/DO ALL THE THINGS and crushed/overwhelmed by that, I'm actually kinda planning my day and thinking about what needs to be done on my to-do list and you know, not panicking about it for once.

Starting the morning with grown-up fun may have had something to do with this. *shifty eyes*

But yeah, this is weird. Good weird, but weird. Wellp, nothing for it but to ride the positivity train hard and put it away wet, because I know it's a fleeting thing, but man, is it welcome right now.



In other news, avalon616's D&D game had its character gen session last night, and holy balls, I'm excited about the game. I think we're all going to work very well as a party, and I like where my own character concept is going. I'm still a little nervous about actually playing, since I'm pretty n00by at D&D and diving head first into a paragon level game, but I'm less nervous about making an ass of myself, especially since in response to avalon616's comment that everyone should show up at least wearing pants, cell23 showed up in one of my skirts (!!!) and renegadethumper forewent bottoms altogether other than boxers.

Both of them, btw, have distractingly nice calves.

So yeah, that was a fun thing that happened, so I'm looking forward to working on stuff for that this week. Also the first meetup session for verbena76's game is on Sunday so I'm all WOOOOOOOOOO about that too. Still working things out for extrajoker's game, that one may have to wait until I get Hanzo-san legally mobile again. Damn, at this rate I'm going to need a dice icon or something.


Anyway. I'm gonna check if the Jones is open yet and head down while I'm still all motivated and crap.

Today has been all about little things what make me happy. Some days are like that, but as my first inclination is always to belittle said small things rather than recognizing them as important in their own small collective way, I figured I'd list them here.

1) Wild cherry Pepsi. Sadly the bottle I bought is almost empty, but when it is, I have a brandy new unopened bottle of Hershey's syrup to drink my Silk with.

2) Gorgeous, I mean really lovely, perfect weather. I think we maxed out at somewhere in the mid seventies with a delicious breeze.

3) And since it's so cool. I'M BAKING SOME GOT DAM BREAD. Never mind that...

4) I have most of a bag of whole wheat tennis rolls left in the fridge.

5) managed to swipe a vampire egg from the Dragcave abandoned page! All cave laid and errthang. Now if I could just get a couple of icicles and a female Gold...

6) so far haven't managed to miss any of my pills for today.

7) finding this gif:



8) being able to scrape up a wee bit of extra money to both help out a friend and also get back my paid account for at least July.

9) EMAIL! BANK! GROCERIES! CLEAN THINGS! Well, I check my email compulsively anyway, I only had 2 things to buy at the store, and the clean all things is still in progress. But still:



Don't judge, okay? 'Specially since I also PAID THINGS today. *strokes trophy and glares at you*

10) a week of blissful peace and quiet starting tomorrow.


And now I'm going to have myself a nice hot shower and try get some more stuff done.

Shit, it's memorial day weekend, get in the car.

Odd how this shit just kinda creeps up on you. This time last year I was heading down to DC for my cousin's fantastic wedding with plans to head up here to visit the job and cell23 immediately afterward. This year I've got no plans except kiddoes and since I seem to be on a WORK jag continuing with that, though I'm going to have to find something to watch to distract my brain while I do, seeing as I finished up S1 of Mad Men and S2 isn't finished torrenting yet. While I still can't decide one season in if I actually like the show, it makes good background noise while I work and I do like playing "spot the historical detail/fuckup" while its on, so I'll probably keep watching.

I'm also in a weirdly antsy let's get on with this sort of mode regarding life the universe and everything, which is both interesting and frustrating seeing as the dead broke bit is a major holdup in that kind of planning. Lets just say that my winter shit is packed up already and I've kinda started the pre-move process of going through Other Shit and and figuring out what to keep or get rid of. Mostly this has resulted in a lot of seethe and grumble over shit I have but don't want and other shit I thought I had but is now missing/lost in Amoeba purgatory that needs replacing at some point. Also trying to put down some kind of plan so that my finances are not as bolluxed up as they are/have been for the past two years, and attempting to stay positive about the lessons learned this past year regarding me and how to suck at money and learning not to do so quite so hard. But also... I guess trying to cut myself a little bit of a break as well. A lot of what got me in trouble financially was neglecting my own mental health, and when I'm structurally unsound in the brainmeats, the depression and anxiety freeze me up, and this has never been more true than in the past year. Though I'm also coming to realize that it's been true for a long time before that, like I'd been in a slow downward spiral since 2003ish, and various things between then and last year just accelerated it until a brick wall was met... and what I'd been doing for the past year or so is recovering from that impact, though most of said recovery was spent escaping from it in various and sundry ways.

Yeah yeah, I'm sure it's obvious to everyone reading this, but I've been going on for so long trying to maintain the soft cuddly steel stiff upper lip everything's FINE really front for so long that I really am only just now seeing this and cutting myself the appropriate slack. Which is nice really. Maybe I can finally get some damn perspective and work on Phase Whatever now instead of being lost in the maelstrom. Course that involves figuring out what exactly phase whatever is. I already know I don't want to be Andee Browne, Professional Webmonkey my entire life. Thing is, the only other thing I've ever wanted to be when I grew up was a scifi/fantasy writer, and the gods only know I don't have anywhere near the concentration/focus/dedication to go back to that yet. I think I've said this before though - it's not like it's something with a hard deadline, like wanting to be a contortionist or a prima ballerina, it's something I can do when I am in a better place with my health and mental state, but still, I'm getting the blips as I slog through the George R. R. Martins (somehow A Clash of Kings is not as attention grabbing as its predecessor) of Y HELO THAR WHY AREN'T YOU WRITING THIS SHIT INSTEAD OF READING IT? Hell, I can't even use the excuse of not really thinking my writing's any good, because look at Stephanie fucking Meyer - clearly there's a market for crap out there, lol. But yeah I don't know. Maybe it's just something else to work toward. I'm sure as more and more things get unravelled and put away in my head and in my life, other shit will start falling into place. But I'm annoyed and frustrated by transitional phases, especially in light of the fact that I seem to have been mired in one for the better part of a decade. And it sucks because even though there are some hints of a new foundation under me, the events of the past few years has definitely undermined my ability to trust in what's been built... which is doing me no favors, lol.

So yeah... I guess where I'm at is clearheaded enough to make a stab at consciously rather than unconsciously working on some kind of personal future, but as per usual, completely daunted by the amount of time, focus and work it's going to require. Bah. But at least it's me steering this damn ship for once... be interesting to see where I end up once I figure out where I'm going.