Need to dig out the cords but my computer is hooked into the mother's network so I'll have proper Internet for the next three weeks w00t! Good flight, despite some turbulence and my stomach protesting such, which is fairly unusual. But, I'm home, it's windy and sunny, and my shins are covered in cat hair. :D

Today was one of those days where you look at the clock at lunchtime and think, "I just got here!" and seemingly the next time you look is when it's past time to go home and you think, "But I just came back from lunch!" Oy vey. I acquired a new weekly project and while it will go faster with some practice, it's going to be a much bigger time-sucker even than I'd thought. :/ Ah, well. It's good to be trusted with the responsibility involved, if nothing else. And my newlywed manager was back today, although she had a tonne to catch up on, of course. She brought a couple of photos and it looks to have been lovely. Yay.

Today is also my kitty's birthday, awww. Happy birthday, Nibbies! He's ten, holy shit. Old kitty is old! I think one of the best things about my trip to Canada was that I was able to see that he was totally fine but had also not forgotten me, and, well, still cared. lol. It doesn't upset me to talk about him anymore the way it was before, and that's a good thing.

Got a relatively small package from the mother with Red Rose, Kraft Dinner, maple syrup, Marcelle bronzing powder and one of my favourite tea mugs (I have four). Yay Mom! ♥ And I get to see what the new tap in the bathroom looks like because that's the box that she used to pack everything LOL.

This seems a very cool site - you can find out what the weather was like in a particular city on a particular date (handy for those of us who're anal about details *g*) and all manner of other similar facts and figures.

And this is a post by Trent Reznor: my thoughts on what to do as a new / unknown artist. Which is *excellent*, if somewhat stream-of-consciousness and he says right off the bat that it doesn't include everything - one rather large hole being playing live, lol, but I think that most marketing strategies for music assume that as a baseline. ;-) I found it really interesting, anyway, especially as the promotional campaign for cradlesong (and apparently for Wilco's new one too; I've seen articles comparing them) incorporates a lot of these ideas, even though Rob and Wilco are both established artists, not new at all.

Lastly, I have a preeeeeetty new layout. And made myself a pretty blue icon to go with. *points*

Landed, all is well, flight was fine despite the occupants of the six strollers loaded on board (six infants! Aie!) and am now ensconced with Wisers and Pepsi, with a cautious and sniffy but 'don't touch me until invited' kitty. Awww. This is much better than the hiss-and-spit I'd feared.

Fucking weird filling in customs forms saying I'm visiting Canada, btw. Haha.

I consistently get asked one of two questions (sometimes both) when I disclose where I'm from: "Why would you come here from Canada?" and "Aren't you homesick?" My answer to the first has been streamlined from that I used to give to the "Why are you going?" question, which is to say, I was already looking for a different job, I came into some money, my dad was born here and I've never been, so it seemed like a good time to check it out. My answer to the second has been, "Well, I do miss my cat." And I do, dreadfully. He's been the single constant in my life for the last eight and a half years, and those last few months in Ontario, it was often the knowledge that he needed me to take care of him that was the only thing propelling me out of bed in the morning. I've mostly dealt with his absence by simply not thinking about it much. David's cat and Jade's dogs helped loads too; they're all far bigger attention whores than Nibbs. The rest, I really haven't had time to think about. I've been in perpetual motion (or recovering from it!) since I got to the UK. Then when I woke up this morning, I turned the alarm off and there was silence. No quiet radio, nobody else moving upstairs/downstairs/anywhere else, nothing but the creaks of an old house and the faint buzz of the kitchen fan someone left on, and it kind of hit me all at once. I left Halifax two months ago today and now, yeah, finally I'm homesick. I miss packaging that's half in French. I miss knowing where everything is (though I am getting a handle on that). I miss being able to drive there - or anywhere. I miss being able to IM with people who are now several time zones away and not catchable that often anymore as a result. I miss not having to struggle to understand anyone's speech. I said to revid before that I feel like I'm my own sociolinguistic anthropological test subject and most of the time, that fascinates me, but today I just didn't want to deal with it.

So I didn't. I gave myself permission to tell the world to fuck off today and to hibernate and be miserable and take a break. Tomorrow I can finish my errands and my cleaning/set-up and all that. I have the leeway to steal a day and bury it in tears so I took it. What my mom would call a "mental health day," though hers usually involve things like trips to the beach. This time round, mine involved copious amounts of sleep and some kleenex, and now I'm going to go make some of my precious remaining Red Rose tea. *shrug* It's all good.


P.S. leighrowena, I hope you had a lovely birthday yesterday. Apologies for missing it. *mwah*

I had intended to fire off some emails and then get started on non-computer-related stuff but I find myself sitting here, just blinking tiredly. It's barely eight o'clock and I kind of want to go collapse into bed. Not that there's anything stopping me from doing that, aside from my own stubborn idiocy. It doesn't really matter if I wake up at four a.m. and do stuff then - in fact, I'd probably get more done, because I wouldn't be dragging my ass. It has been an exhausting day.

My cat has begun to be a mite clingy, in his own way. That means that he sticks close by and often follows me around like a lost puppy, but it does not mean that he wants to be touched, thank you very much. lol. My dad is the one he cuddles with, whenever he actually does. His relationship with me is more like that of a teenage boy: desperately wanting to know that I'm there but not wanting to be seen with me. He'll sit in the window around the time I get home from work and watch for me, and come to the top of the stairs to see me come in the door, and then bugger off like he couldn't care less. Fraud. :D He is definitely aware that something is going on, though. After all, he's already been through three moves with me, plus getting packed up and flown back and forth to here when we were still in Ontario, so he knows the signs. The part that makes me sad is that this time, he isn't coming with me. :-( That's going to be the hardest thing about all this in the end.

My cat is such a freak. :D We're having sunflurries, with these big-ass intermittent snow flakes, and he keeps going out on the back deck and trying to catch them. Well, he *does* catch them, but he doesn't quite comprehend the relationship between the flake landing on his paw and it disappearing and making his paw damp, lol. It's so cute. I would totally have gotten my phone and taken a picture, but I can't find where I've put the USB cord for it, so not much point there. It should turn up soon as I continue to dismantle everything and make an even bigger mess in here. *eyeroll*

Question for those more technically-inclined: There are a couple of programmes on my desktop that I want to transfer to my laptop. I tried drag-&-drop copying their folders from the Programs section of Windows to the external hard drive and thence to the same section in the laptop, but they are just sitting there now. I don't see an .exe file in any of them and they're not showing up as available programmes. Anyone have any insight into how I go about doing this? I was hoping to be able to duplicate them exactly as two of them, I don't have the keys written down anywhere so it's not as easy as just downloading them again, and for the third, I do have the programme CD so I *can* start from scratch if I have to, but I had a lot of plug-ins installed so I'd prefer not to (the plug-ins did copy over in the programme folder). Help?

Yeah, I'm posting in the middle of what would normally be my workday. I called in this morning cuz I've been hobbling around like a crippled woman and didn't sleep well. It's not too bad now but it seems that because the newly-inked skin is right over muscle, the skin shifts when the muscle shifts, i.e., when I stand up/walk, so it was some painful this morning. Any of you that regularly switch between high heels and flat shoes will know what kind of calf muscle stretching I'm talking about! And it would also have been damn near impossible to conceal with me limping around like that so I decided to use another day, plus with the tired (since remedied by couch-napping). One left, which will probably still be left when I leave. I'm okay with that.

I'm kind of sucking at this hiatus thing, eh? I stayed away completely for the first while, but aside from the previously-mentioned feeling of disclusion (even though I am the one responsible for it), etc., I find that I feel really disconnected when I'm not talking to anyone and that's not healthy for me. There are very few people here in RL who know what's going on with me, and there's a certain level of assuredness I have to project to the parents, who are the only ones I see regularly. Hence I am occasionally popping in to comment elsewhere, though with no real pattern or anything so definitely don't expect that I'll have read any particular entry, but I will continue to post (duh) because there's just stuff I need to get out of my head some days.

Here is a cute story about newlyweds who met because she was dared to kiss the next guy who got on the bus for $40 and she did and they ended up dating. Hee. How random is that? I love it.

Blender's list of the 69 Sexiest Songs Ever. Can't say I agree with all of 'em but it's a fun read.

In case the random spammage with actual links et al wasn't a clue, I have accomplished fuck-all today. I'd intended to do some fairly critical stuff that requires a steady 'net connection and a printer both, but ran into a snag. That being, my printer's ink is dead and for obvious reasons, I had not replaced it, so I borrowed the mother's printer to hook up to my desktop. It's parallel so won't go on the laptop, of course, but the desktop doesn't recognise that it's there. :/ And the mother's computer frequently drops the connection so it's not really usable for stuff that takes multiple steps. I suppose that means that buying a new ink cartridge isn't going to be a waste after all since she'll have to take the printer, too, which is gonna piss her off - for all that it's older, hers is the better printer. And I can't get said cartridge until tomorrow b/c the parents went downtown to have dinner out and stay in a hotel overnight for Valentine's. Ergo, I has no car and I'se spent the day alllll alone, except for the cat who has been less than impressed about having just me to bother, lol. He did finally come downstairs and sack out on the couch about half an hour ago. As for me, I am tired, hormonal and completely unmotivated today. And feeling overwhelmed-ish, mainly due to that (see: hormonal, particularly). I have to be up really early tomorrow, too, so I might actually head to bed shortly even if that's super fucking early for me, but I didn't get a lot of sleep last night for w/e reason and was out late the night before so I should just suck it up and try to sleep. I was hoping to get some writing done today if I couldn't manage RL productivity but nope, that didn't pan out either. The old brain was just kind of, Huh? *eyeroll* I've been pretty drained this last week, period; so has the mother, so it's probably partly weather-related as we're both sensitive to atmospheric pressure.

It sounds like I'm not done there but I don't really have anything else to say, so... *posts*

P.S. Yes, I did: this article written by a guy who was part of Morrisey's tour entourage - for 24 hours. He still doesn't know what random quirk it was that made him not acceptable to what sounds like quite a diva indeed. It's interesting reading and makes me thankful all over again for the OTB and their general sensibleness. ♥

Man, am I ever craving chocolate now, lol. The dad told me that the Food Network was having an all-chocolate-themed day so I've had the TV on instead of music. By now, I'm thinking that I should have made sure I had chocolate in the house before listening to all that! Though the one woman squicked me pretty badly by having ice cubes in her glass of milk. Ew. Also, I now understand what all the fuss is about re: Nigella Lawson. Wow. (I don't mean her cooking, though proper hot chocolate and chocolate cheesecake do sound yummy.)

Five hours of sleep ain't enough. But once I'd woken up, I was *awake*, brain chugging along, so I gave up on trying to get back to sleep after about fifteen minutes and got up. Now, however, I'm running out of steam. But it's much too late to nap, especially since I have to be up really early tomorrow to go to the dentist, mreh. New dentist, btw; I haven't been back to the other one since getting the filling filed down a couple weeks after the root canal he fucked up. Ergo, I'm in dire need of a proper cleaning and said fuck-up is going to need to come out. :-/ Not tomorrow - hopefully I can make an appointment for next week for that (and there goes another day...).

My cat is a freak, in other news. Not that that's news by now. But, it started out raining today and finally switched to snow, so it's been snowing pretty good for the last few hours and there's about 10cm out there. Nibbs just went out onto the back deck and is puttering around in the snow, playing hockey with the small snowballs the mother is throwing at him. Hee!

Whee, alliteration!

Last week, the mother bought a new tree for the cat. The existing tree(house) is eight years old and taller than me - I shall have to scan in a pic of it from my apartment in Mississauga. Anyway, it's still in excellent condition save for a bare patch on the house roof where the carpet was shredded down to the wood, but my kitty, he ain't graceful and he's getting old, so the tall tree with the smaller platforms was getting a bit difficult for him to navigate. Which is critical because as I mentioned a few weeks ago, we've moved his food dish up onto a tree platform so that he has to actively want to eat instead of eating because it's right there. (This, btw, has worked beautifully. Best idea ever.) So, enter the new, half as tall tree with nice big platforms. The old one was picked up today by my co-worker and her husband. She was happy about it before, but totally thrilled when she actually got here and saw it, hee. It really is a cool piece of furniture and her excitement made my mom happy. Anyway, with the small tree moved into the corner where the old one was, there is no longer a place for the cat to sleep in the sun in the middle of the window (where the tree had been hanging out all week), so the mother decided a second small tree was required and we have just gotten back from purchasing it. The poor store kitty was asleep on it and she had to pick him up and move him, awwww. Nibbs is now sprawled in the last bit of sun in the dead centre of the living room window, like the utterly spoiled brat he is.

Never let it be said that cats don't rule the universe. :D

This past week has been interesting. I had my bi-annual appraisal on Thursday, which was, as N speculated, "sparkling." I was more or less expecting that, though it was better than I had anticipated, which is always nice. But I mean, I know I do my job and do it very well. I've not had a post-graduate employer who was anything but disappointed that I was leaving - my last employer in Toronto was willing to bend over backwards for me, in fact - and not too many prior to that, either. (Only one, actually, and that was technically actionable for the way they let me go, but I was much too fucked up at the time to follow through on that. I did, however, receive excellent references so go figure.) Anyway, I was sort of dreading the part where you're supposed to set goals for yourself for the next appraisal period, for obvious reasons, but as it turned out, we came up with stuff that was surprisingly relevant. There's a library at work and there are a few titles dealing with adult learning, and she also directed me to a particular web site where I can take little courses on computer stuff. They have a few things that are Vista-focused, so that's immensely useful in terms of me learning my way around WS. Also, I used my gmail instead of my work email address to sign up, so I may be able to continue accessing it for a while regardless. ;-) But yes, these are excellent things and I am pleased.

She did ask me one stumper, though: how DO you motivate a content person? This is a question I've asked myself for years and never been able to adequately answer. Because it very much does apply to me - I get in a comfort zone and it's very difficult to pry me out of that, and to make me actually act on the things I talk about instead of just daydreaming about them. It's like my current life situation. I've been thinking about doing something like this for a long time, and the reasons that it got put off were valid, but still, it took a combination of things to really push me into moving forward: losing my car, with all that entailed; making concrete plans that gave me a specific deadline; and having people I can count on helping me. That last is perhaps the most difficult simply because it's hard for me to put so much faith in other people. But it's good. I'm good. I'm learning. :-)

On the technology front, I'd come to the conclusion that iTunes would be the best fit for the laptop, since I despise WMP and the software I have on the desktop is now a legacy programme. And was sold to Yahoo besides, who're about to be gobbled up by Microsoft, so that'd likely land me right back at WMP anyway. So, iTunes it is. Thus, after perusing what sort of cheap mp3 players are available and concluding that they are all CRAP, and anything that's actually worth even considering is over $50 anyway, I caved and bought an iPod Nano yesterday. Just a wee 4 GB model, so it's silver, and for the moment I have an uber cheap clear plastic case that's got crystals on the front. Blingy, lol. It has no music on it yet, because I haven't got anything moved onto the laptop yet (that's today's task, along with making sure that everything non-critical on my desktop has been transferred to the external HD (critical stuff was transferred immediately upon installation, of course)), but WS has a MiniSaint companion now. Hee. I blame linzeestyle for teaching me to name my electronics, btw.

I am, for no particular reason, having a good day.

Oh, and one more thing: If you use a laptop on public/unsecured WiFi networks, read this. Apparently there's a rash of new hacker technology that makes it pretty easy for the person on the other side of the café to sidejack your specific connection and see exactly what you're doing online. Your "https" pages won't be visible - where you type in your password - but in most cases, once you've gained access to your passworded account, the pages are all "http" and therefore not secured, meaning someone could gather all of that subsequent information about you. Eep. There is a solution: Hotspot Shield from AnchorFree. It's freeware that "creates a virtual private network (VPN) between your laptop and the wireless router. This impenetrable tunnel prevents snoopers and hackers from viewing your email, instant messages, credit card information or anything else you send over a wireless network. Which means you remain anonymous and protect your privacy." Very good thing to have.

I have, perhaps surprisingly, been more or less following the US elections. Maybe it's from having been friends with politically-minded people long enough that some of it's rubbed off, heh. Or it could be because what happens there will affect what happens here on an even larger scale than usual, and in an increasingly uncertain world, I find that there isn't the room for wilful ignorance that there used to be. Despite that, and despite obviously being aware of Obama Barak's race, it did not occur to me to worry about his personal safety whilst making a speech. This blog entry demonstrates that there were people so worried, though; scared that his ultimate prize would be not the Presidency he seeks but death. It's a sobering and heartbreaking read, and I encourage you to read it for that very reason. There is an awareness there that I will never share. That's okay, because I am who I am and I can't, nor do I want to, change that. But it bears reminding me of that every so often, because the true crime would be to forget.

Tangential to that is this article about the new security measures for US drivers' licences that the HSO wants put in place. Ew. Invasive much?

In ...happier news (?), we have moved the cat's food dish to the second platform of his tree. This is actually more easily accessible than the first platform, as it's a small step above the end table beside the couch he gets up on twelve million times a day already anyway. The idea is that he will go to his food dish when he's actually hungry, as opposed to his existing habit of, "When in doubt, eat." We tried to do the rationed portions at specific times thing (he's always been allowed to free graze dry food), but my dad is the one who feeds him primarily and he wasn't cooperative with that. *eyeroll* Nibbs needs to lose some weight and the mother saw the tip about the tree location and we thought that might actually work with him. He's not exactly a happy camper about it but this was the first day, so we shall see. So far the only problem is that he keeps forgetting where it's moved to... *sigh*

Well, that went fairly painlessly. Mostly because I just cut and pasted and checked the formatting without allowing myself to read as I reposted, so I didn't have to cringe through the excessive ellipses/italics/Max-stuttering/etc.. I can't even bear to think of the rewriting that fixing the rampant head-hopping in some of my earlier stuff would entail! At least Veracity only has one deus ex machina. Forging has TWO, oy vey. *rolls eyes* But I feel better that that's up, and my WBA page is all fixed. I dunno, I mean I'm not active in the fandom anymore but there's lots of people who are still, and it seems...rude?...not to at least keep your links up to date. Perhaps I'm being exorbitantly Canadian there, though. :P

The cat is asleep on the couch upstairs against the arm with all his legs up. I buried my face in his belly and his entire response was to crack open one eye. *giggles*

I've mentioned that they're constructing some offices at work, right? I've had a varying level of headache for the last couple weeks since they started. Well, tonight the crew came in about an hour before the end of our shift and stuck post-its to the walls and put rollers and trays in each new space, so they're clearly planning to paint tonight. *sigh* So God only knows what tomorrow will be like for me. If I *could* I would take Friday off, but it's September so it's fucking blackout, aka no vacation allowed. If it's bad, though, I'll leave tomorrow and then stay home on Friday anyway and just not get paid. :-/ I can't afford to do that, but I don't have any personal days left because I had to use half of them the *last* time they painted and the rest for stuff like last-minute appointments that are always in the middle of the bloody day or, y'know, actually being sick for reasons that do not have to do with my work environment. Gah.

BUT! Enough with the whining. If you've ever wondered what it's like to attend the Emmys as a TV writer, go read tightropegirl's post about that very topic (she writes for House). It's entertaining and illuminating. :D

Also illuminating but a lot more sobering is the fact that the Arctic ice area has shrunk enough for the fabled Northwest Passage to actually be seen. [source] While that news brought a moment of "Oh, cool, it's real!" the fact that it's now visible is baaaaaaaaad. :-(

And from the GDA news page, a panel discussion on the film Punk: Past, Present, & Future, one of which panelists is Larry Livermore.

Oh speaking of work - I am going out for wings and karaoke tomorrow night, as a kind of send-off for two of our team members who are shifting over to the phones. Which means that for closing purposes, there'll be me; V who actually leaves at 8:30; T who's been there for a few months and isn't totally up to speed on everything yet; and W, the brand new one. There were supposed to be two brand new ones, but the other has already given her notice and Friday is her last day. Yeah. Just kill me now plz kthx. And then there's just some other non-work-related stuff that won't get out of my head that's spinning me in a million directions and it's all very confusing.

Oops, descended into a spot of whining. Too bad for you! ;-P I can't say it's been a *boring* week, at least. There is also an 'awwwwww' in that the kitty has graciously actually stayed with me tonight. He usually checks to make sure I'm home and then buggers off like he couldn't care less but he's curled up against a pillow and sleeping away about three feet from me. ♥

My cat is CRANKY. He really does not like high heat, and this week has been on the brutal side. I don't like it any better but at least I work in air-conditioning. He normally sleeps on a towel-wrapped pillow in front of the railing that overlooks the 2-story entranceway - this week, my mother has been putting one of her frozen gel packs under the towel and he's apparently been quite happy to lay there. :D His tolerance is slipping today, however, after a number of days of this. At least, even if it's Ontario-esque summer weather, it's not accompanied by the smog alerts and all that shit - the sky is still blue. Me, I'm a fan of whatever keeps me breathing. I'll prolly shower right before bed, sleep with the fan on...re-wet my hair in the morning so I don't scare people...LOL.

Can't remember what else I was going to say, which is nice and ironic considering that I've had one of those days where my brain just WON'T. SHUT. UP. Argh. I suppose I'll just leave it there and come back if there's anything burning to be said. *snerk*

Fuck me gently up the Jesus tree, but I'm glad my cat only has to get a physical/vaccine once a year. He is just...the best explanation I've ever come up with is that he pulls an Exorcist act. The only reason it's such an ordeal is *him* and he's been impossible to take to the vet's since he was neutered. Yeah, there's a pinch when the needle for the vaccination goes in, but damn, it doesn't actually hurt to have someone peek at your ears or your teeth or hold a stethoscope to your chest, man. But that low, almost electronic bass growling starts as soon as he's taken into the examining room and someone else comes in. Then, once he's out of his carrier and the poor tech with the hawking gloves on and the towel to wrap him in to keep him still and the lampshade collar thing ready so he can't bite the shit out of her just touches him, he starts screaming bloody murder. It's the kind of sound that you need industrial earplugs to avoid. And that is when I start to cry and have to leave the room, and just listen to him wail for the next twenty minutes or so because it takes twelve times as long as usual to examine him since he struggles so fucking much. I'm not sure if it's better or worse that way than it was back in Ontario, b/c my vet's tech was a useless bitch and I held him down myself. I never got out of it unscathed, though - ended up going to the doctor for antibiotics once - and the truth is that he frightens me like that, as much as I hate to admit that. And it didn't really make me feel any less helpless, either. *sigh* It's better for him that someone properly trained does it, as much as anything can be better for him in this situation.

Anyway, watch this space for PWI. Alcohol is not normally what I consider a good solution to anything, but it's once a year and the situation isn't something I can avoid - I need to make sure he stays healthy - so my plan is to get completely fucking wasted. Hopefully I'll retain some ability at html coding since I'd like to do a proper birthday post later, but for now:

Happy 35th Birthday, Billie Joe!

Oh, whoops, is that supposed to read, "Home, sweet home"? ;-) Heh. Which is where I am - back in Hfx where it is actually the same weather as I left SF in waaaay too early this morning, aka cool and drizzly. Beats the near-freezing with the odd swirl of snowflakes (!!!) that was Toronto! Although - weirdest fucking thing of the entire trip, and I'm including the EEB in that: I saw my former boss in the Toronto airport. No joke. If I hadn't been just about to go through the boarding gate I would have talked to him but I didn't have time. It was about 6:20 and the flight was supposed to leave at 6:35! (It was a stuffed-full flight and they were reallllllly slow.) The oddest thing was, as soon as I saw him all this info came rushing up - he would have taken the 5:00 flight from Ottawa b/c that is an hour long and would have gotten him to TO at the time I saw him going through the airport, and after I saw him, he'll have gone to get his car b/c he parks there for the day instead of taking the GO train, and then I thought, yay I don't have to do the travel expense claim paperwork. LOL. I haven't seen the man in 3 years and it seems nothing has changed in his world. Little bit of a sad thought, really, especially considering *my* world has undergone quite a transformation in that same time period. I'm just blown away by how completely RANDOM it was!

ANYWAY, will work on a recap later; I have a bazillion emails to wade through and I expect I'll hit "crash" right soon. I'd actually thought that my flight didn't get in until midnight for some reason; that must have been the Saturday one I originally wanted to take (that would have been $100 more!).

Awwwwww. Nibbs just plopped down on the clothes I just took off. *snuggles her kitty while he's still in "I missed you" mode, before he hits "You suck I hate you for leaving me" mode* ;-D


ETA: There aren't all that many questions yet in the "Ask me" meme here, hint hint nudge nudge. :-)

I belong to a few interesting comms, some of which are busy, like little_details. This is the place to go when you've Googled and Wiki-ed your way to nada and need more information. Even when you're not asking a question, or you don't know the answer yourself, some of it is fascinating reading. (That's where I got the synaesthesia info before.)

Another fascinating discussion is currently happening in writing_sex, about noises during sex. It's very frank, so you've been warned! But it's interesting both in terms of the information and assumptions being posted, and for the openness of most of the posters on the subject.

Clearly I opted to stay in this evening! Because a) I didn't feel like glamming up to go out and b) I wanted to work on some projects here and c) once I am in the house, it's occasionally difficult for me to leave the house. However, I'm still meeting Karen to go see a play or two tomorrow afternoon. Dude, I *have* to. It has the pretty boy actor we saw in The Sex Play last February. It's an office comedy thing, so I'm guessing he won't be half-naked and making out with girls and boys this time but that's okay. :D

I put MuchRetro on and let it run for a while, b/c it's fun to hear 80s and 90s tunes, and the video for Bon Jovi's Living in Sin played. OMG I remember the massive controversy when that came out. They thought it was soooooo immoral and showed too much skin. *snicker* Not so much by today's standards. Though the cut from her taking the communion wafer to her kissing his bare chest still packs a punch.

Last but not least, seven years ago this weekend I got my sweet little Nibbs. I saw my parents the Monday night of the long weekend and they were all, wtf why are you all scratched and bleeding? lol. The pic below of him sleeping in his hammock was taken recently, and yes, those are my uber white legs reflected in the glass door. *dies* I was gonna crop it but I think it's funny!

( AwwwwwCollapse )

My cat is a fucked-up individual. He goes through these phases where he doesn't like coming into my bedroom. Usually, he'll go sleep on the couch right down the hall instead, but this morning he decided that he wanted to see me but did *not* want to actually come into the room, so he sat at the doorway and yowled. Yeesh. Did I mention that my door is not closed??? It's propped on a doorstop so that it dislodges as soon as he brushes it. But noooooo that was just too much effort today, so I was rudely awoken an hour and a half before my alarm, which was already set earlier than usual b/c I have to make a couple stops on the way to work today. Argh. I am going to be crankeh later.

Mmm. Thanks to _somniac_'s lovely picspam yesterday, I actually cracked open Photoshop for the first time since Christmas and have a pretty new icon. :D I needed more that complied with the Arbitrary Rule for qeverything anyway, hee. Oddly enough I don't have many that fit, possibly b/c thelackey has the definitive belly pr0n pic icon. But I'm perfectly content with this one. *grins*

ETA: For the Beatles people The theme on audiography this week is handclaps and there's a post with some unusual stuff. Thought I'd mention it. *smooches*

My cat is SUCH a wuss. We'd left a little to be shovelled still, namely to get my mom's car out (mine was clear, and she doesn't have to work today), and my dad had gone out to deal with it. We didn't let him help yesterday as there was so much. But Nibbs was in the window whining and carrying on like his best friend had died, lol, and then he cuddled all up to my dad once he came back in. Sigh. Damn cat never does that for *me*! :D

I took stumphed's excellent suggestion and created a comm for my poems and similar stuff: language_play. Shockingly enough, that was my first choice for a name and it wasn't already taken! I threw up one poem just so that the page didn't look so depressingly empty, lol. Not the one I wanted to, but that one has some funky spacing that LJ didn't want to cooperate with and I didn't feel like wrestling with it this morning. I'll probably put my non-fannish digital art there, too, actually. Not that I make a lot anymore but whatever. :)

I think it's going to be a long day. I wasn't up *quite* so ridiculously early, but I also went to bed later than usual. I haven't even left the house yet and I feel tired, lol. I hope it's busy at work or I'm going to be blurring all over the place.

Yes, the Bonnie Tyler song from the early 80s; I heard it on the radio today, and it reminded me why I loved it. Maybe it's from listening to old Meat Loaf lately, since both are written by Jim Steinman. But TEotH always evokes such strong imagery for me of an apocalyptic love story. Two people caught up in some dark events, losing themselves in each other and shutting out the cruelty of reality for a few hours at a time. It's one of those pieces of music that fills my head and makes me feel creative. (lyrics) (download)

Vet went okay - better than expected, particularly since I didn't have to stay and help hold Nibbs down since we had him put under altogether. :-/ So I am not quite the wreck I was last time. B/c of the anesthesia though, he can't have any food until tomorrow morning and I feel awful every time he goes to stare at where his dish usually is. Man, I should've been Catholic; I'm so good at the guilt thing. Does it count that I graduated from the Catholic college at the University of Toronto?? LOL

( A couple pictures of my kittyCollapse )

Wow, it feels so much later than eight o'clock. I wouldn't normally be even near the computer for another two hours or so!

I'm thinking I should probably just stay up, as I need to leave the house in three hours and I ain't in bed yet. o_O I know I push that bedtime thing a lot, but this week it's been just insane. I think I'm too tired to sleep most nights.

Course right now, part of it is that my kitty has finally stopped whining about no food or water being available (meep! I feel so MEAN when I have to do that!) and curled up on the couch to sleep. Sleep is good for him. And if I go off to bed, he'll get up and wander instead of coming in to sleep with me, b/c he's just a little bugger like that, lol.

Compromise: I forgot about the travel alarm clock. Gonna set that and curl up on the couch, too. Hopefully it won't piss him off!

ETA: Interesting seque: Much went from the JoS video to Bif Naked covering Metallica's Nothing Else Matters. It sounds *odd* without the deep growl. Not bad, just strange.

Got my last mix from the audiography trade today, wheeeee! I have not listened to it yet but the fact that I know almost nothing on the playlist excites me LOL.

Since my company is stupid and sick time doesn't roll over past the fiscal year (end of Jan.), I'm taking a sick day tomorrow to take my cat to the vet. Which is not as frivolous as it seems, considering that this is an undertaking that annually reduces me to a fucking BASKETCASE thanks to the antics of Exorcist!Kitty. I kid you not. I wear a heavy sweatshirt and gardening gloves, and occasionally a tech wearing fucking hawking gloves has to come in and help hold him so that the vet can give him his shots and attempt an examination. Sedate him, you say? Yeah, this is *after* he's had so much cat valium he can barely fucking WALK, until we get through the front door of the vet's office and he goes batshit crazy. The last vet wouldn't let me help hold him and I ended up literally crouched in the corner bawling my eyes out. Going somewhere else/new this time but I know it won't be any different.

So, since I can't change it and it's a finite well-defined occurrence, I choose to cope spectacularly badly and get completely trashed after said annual ordeal. Watch this space for even more bizarre than usual ramblings tomorrow night. :-/