Warhead On Legs

( Русский язык )

( Pictures of the Beast/Bastard/Thing )

I made a new icon. Now you too can enjoy the hilarity of David Warner and the banana.

So, yeah, that's my new guitar up there. Well, new to me, which is what matters. I have an amp I can use for a bit, and a cord, and now all I need is a strap and a new set of strings, probably a backup set of strings for both guitars, and a set of noise canceling headphones. In reverse order of importance, because it's strung and I have the cord and everything, but not annoying everyone requires headphones.

Dragon*Con is bearing down on me like, well. Like a dragon. I'm quietly freaking out about just about everything. Whether I'll look good in my costumes, whether my costumes will look good, whether I'll be able to walk around for a few hours in my Silk Spectre stripper boots, whether Bruce Boxleitner will even notice me in black spandex and 30 ft of blue EL wire, whether he'll cancel at the last minute, will I survive the gauntlet of hours and hours running around maybe or maybe not getting enough to eat, etc. And most of these are semi-foolish worries, but still. Fortunately I've done this often enough to know that most of these are also customary worries, and to be able to smack them upside the head and go leave me alone, brainweasels. Fuck off.

I do, however, need to get my bangs trimmed before Dragon*Con. Because they are of the long and the past couple of times I've been the one trimming them, and I haven't yet mastered the art of trimming them consistently in a straight line. Sometimes I can. Other times, not so much.

Right. REALLY going to get monofilament thread today. Or if I can't find that, at least a couple charms to dangle from my hairpins. Because they are awesome and deserve danglies. Also, because my guitar picks will need something else.

Right. New plan. Review ALL THE DAMN VERBS today and tomorrow. Then resume schedule. Or maybe just, that order of things.

( Deutsch )

And now I'm bored with that and tired and need more sleep and to do my Japanese. So!

( 日本語 )

One of the horrors of having an analytical mind. I think. I think that's the term for it, is that I take a few paragraphs of an interview with someone, smash it into a couple articles and what I know from other interviews about the person, and extrapolate all kinds of profile type data. Which wouldn't be half as bad if wild guesses made in other circumstances didn't turn out to be right so damn much of the time. And now I'm horribly depressed and want to hit people for being invasive ...

Never mind. Um. Yeah. Never mind. I have writing I could be doing instead of dwelling on things I can't help and don't know anything about except an interview excerpt and various other previous interviews and a vague knowledge of another party in the situation.

WRITING NOW. Come on, Jag, focus. God I am so tired of this whole up at 5 am thing. I'd adjust my own schedule, get up earlier and go to bed earlier, except I suspect the boy is moving to third shift soon and then I'd just have to adjust back. Still. I've finally reached the conclusion that the reason I'm so fucking tired all the time is because I'm not getting a solid night's sleep and ARGH. Do not like.

( 日本語 )

Oogh. That may be all I have brain for tonight. I was going to also talk some about names, things we use to define ourselves. How "tired and emotional" used to be a polite way to say someone was a lush, or a drunk, or any spectrum in between. How people used to be eccentric if you were rich or respected and 'mad' if you weren't, and now we have fifty different words for all the different ways that people don't conform to what's seen as a normal state of mind. There was a conclusion in all of this, but all I'm left with right now is a fuzzy headed feeling and a sense that we use words in such bizarre ways. We value them so deeply as definitions and ways to shape our identities, and yet we also toss them around with such carelessness. It's strange.

Anyway. Tired. Trans-Siberian Orchestra this weekend, which will be amazing fun. Human Target was wicked awesome, Guerrero was practically gleeful at the opportunity to do some crime, I thought. Very chipper psycho for hire, he is. I want to do some writing but I'm exhausted, I may just go to bed. Stuff developed today which... I'm not sure I'm ready to talk about just yet, but it's good stuff.

And I learned something today. A friend of mine who's been perusing self-help and life coaching sites, among others, looked at several and commented that a lot... almost all, really, of what they talk about doing is stuff we've been doing in Courtesan school. Looking at your patterns and changing them or using them to your advantage, breaking down achieving your goals into manageable steps, monitoring your mood and finding your triggers for various things like what makes you feel good and what makes you feel upset or unhappy. It's all stuff we do already. Just generally being mindful of things. Right now, though, I think I'm going to be mindful of the fact that I'm exhausted, not stringing words together well, and have been falling asleep at the helm all day. I don't have any deadlines that can't be just as easily worked on tomorrow.

( 日本語 )

The funny advantage to this is that I have both a brother and a sister, although they're both younger. So I guess I can pretend I have an older brother or sister to practice, because I bet they're going to ask that next.

Meanwhile, I have become a serious knitting ninja. Which is good because I still have an overflowing mailtub of fiber I'm not sure what to do with. I have two knitting projects currently going on now, a scarf that is ribbing practice because, yes, until recently I wasn't comfortable purling, and a pair of very simple fingerless gloves on two circulars. Which are way better than double points. After the scarf I might tackle shawls, but I'm going to be doing fingerless gloves for a long, long while. I like wearing them.

I'm also hoping to be able to move the cat stuff out of the craft room now that, for all intents and purposes, Murdock is no longer in quarantine. He's still in there at night when we go to sleep, so I still have to maneuver around cat food, water, and a litterpan, and I haven't put the mail tub of fiber back yet because the door can't really be closed. But I'd really, really like to be able to lock it up and use it as a craft room again and, oh yeah, do some more spinning. A lot more spinning. It's relaxing, dammit! Actually, I might just take a bobbin to work tomorrow and set up on the wheel there. Hmm. But, yes. I have at least three people to spin yarn for for, roughly, winter holidays type things. Four people? Lots of people! You can all enjoy my learning yarn! I've gotten to where I can do a fairly consistent width and I think I even know how to get it the width I want, but finishing it off is kicking my ass. I wind up with, basically, a big poofy tuft. Ah well. Something to work on!

Also, I need knitting/spinning icons. Hmm. No interesting links tonight. If I'm very, very lucky (and if I can figure out why I can't upload anything to my website, grr, or I couldn't a couple days ago) I might start uploading Nano stuff or I might just wait till after November. Did get a few words written in Yuletide, but I still need the opposing force in the story, and that's apparently inclined to stay in the shadows. Stupid characters.

... No, you know what? I'm going to take this book to work with me, I'm going to write out each phrase ten times, with the translation, and hopefully then I'll have sorted out the last couple grammar points that were less than helpful. Or, okay, на + vehicle in prepositional case isn't that hard, but the other part was fucking confusing when all I had were some goddamn bus drawings and not actual translations. Stupid book.

(For my reference, actually, so I don't have to take the book with me: Ordinal numbers: первый, второй, третий, четвёртый, пятый, шестой, седьмой, восьмой, девятый, десятый

надо выйти через одну (два, три, четыре) остановку (остановке) - go past one (two, three, four) stop(s)

надо проехать одна остановка (две, три, четыре остановки) - go for one, two, three, four stops

надо выйти на следующей остановке - go to the next stop (or could be said as, go one stop)

¡Necesito coger los químicos! Me olvido ayer. Tambíen, como eso no es suficiente, tengo también que corregir mi cuento del desierto en seis días para poner en el comunidad en mi día asignado. (¿Es eso el verbo correcto por la red, poner? No sé. LJ usa publicar...)

Ay, quiero descansar. Pero, creo que hoy no va a ser tan loco. Yo creo. No sé por cierto. Ya lo quiero golpear alguien específico, pero ... eh, tambíen quiero estar más calma y mas descansada. Y preocupando sobre eso person nunca lo hace nada productiva. Entonces... oi, tengo otra problema mas sustantiva. Sobre que necesito pensar eso, pero no ahora. No esta semana, posiblemente la semana proxima. Después que yo termino mi cuenta y forma un plan por abordar ... oi, no sé. No quiero ser una adulta propia, con responsabilidades y tareas. LA RED, PARA SIEMPRE.

... eso no parece tan buen como en íngles. Mierda.

(And, now that I think about it, if anyone out there could help me with internet vocabulary for Spanish that'd be super, because the last time I spoke Spanish for any length of time, consistently? Was before the internet. I am so not joking. It's hilarious, but it's also a pain.)

( 日本語 )

Well, that fit of energy lasted until I got in to work. Fortunately I was able to slowly do all the things I needed to do. Languages got done, lunch got eaten, hopefully that will energize me some between the carbs for longer energy and the chocolate for the immediate burst. At least it's not that busy right now, here in back. Either that or I need to stand and stare at my spinning wheel till the excitement ramps up enough that I can do things that aren't nodding off at my desk.

Like sit out front! Sure.

Hrrm. Yarn might not be dyed today, I did forget that there aren't that many of us while the Witch Queen and the Dye Giant are off on holiday, and the Lurking Bandit is at the farm minding things. On the other hand, it's really flippin' dead. On the other other hand, that doesn't mean it won't go nuts soon. Maybe there will be spinning for now, in the lull, and writing my fingers off after shipping goes. And then dyeing things either at home over the weekend or whenever I get a chance next week. Hm! Decisions. That seems like the best plan, really.

Yeah, I have no brain to do anything right now. I think I'll see if I can find more work-work to do, and then bring my wheel out front and sit and be a tourist attraction. For all the tourists that aren't here now that school's started.

I have a wheel! Eeee!

( 日本語 )

As it turns out, I can, in fact, do stretches and Russian at the same time, as long as it's review. That is just flippin' awesome.

Today is a day of simple pleasures. For instance, the pleasure of being able to pack up and send out people's autographed pictures with materials scavenged from work without having to pay stupid UPS prices for packing materials. No, no one got packing peanuts. Domestic pictures went out today, which is probably the quickest I've ever gotten them out (I still need to send out someone's that I've had since last year. I are bad kitty.) and international ones will probably go out towards the end of the week, on account of needing more frames. Or if you two want to frame them yourselves I can immobilize them in cardboard and send them out. Damn, why do you people all live in the UPS boonies? Also, defy_n_gravity, I don't have an email address for you but since it's relatively close you might actually get yours tomorrow.

Things to do tonight, so I don't forget:
1. Tie-dye
2. Vacuum craft room, if boy hasn't done so already
3. Write my fingers off.
4. German
5. Don't die.
6. So you can rep to your artist.

I'm not sure what to do with this soup. I don't think I'll make it again without going back to the original recipe, because I substituted chunked tomatos for pureed tomatos since that was what I had. And it's tasty, but it's not soup, it's soggy vegetable matter. Tasty soggy vegetable matter! It's like a tiny flood happened in the pantry and a lot of spices and veggies sat together for a few days. Only without the mold. After the second day of experimenting, for future bentos, I think I'll put a bit of wheat flour in when I put it in the bento, and commit adultery on it with a packet of soy sauce when I heat it up at work. That seems to make everything better.

... And that, doctor, was when I realized I have to think at least a little bit in five different languages every weekday. Holy moly mother of fuck. If exercising your brain is good for you and keeps you mentally healthy, I'm training for at least the X games or something.

I really wish being an adult wasn't so hard. Especially an adult in a one-income household. We've got a main room lamp that needs replacing badly, rent is due, and while I'm not financially worried about any of this, we're skating a lot closer to the wire than I really want to be. On the plus side, in a month and a half (two months of billing cycle) my credit card will be entirely paid off, again, so for Christmas I will give me a decent-sized money cushion. But it's still irritating. I'd like to be able to get a new TV, too, so we don't keep running into the problem of wacky aspect ratios for shows that are designed to be watched on the fuckoff big TVs with HD. But that's not going to happen. The other plus side, I guess, is that I've also (apart from the TV) already spent all the fuckloads of money I was going to around the end of the year. And now it's just being very careful, watching what I spend, and paying off the credit card from D*C prep and D*C. ... Ooh, another side effect of prepping this early, not spending 300$ in one month on a costume. Guh. Why is being an adult so hard? She whined, with food on her table and a roof over her head.

Maybe if I ever get caught up at work I can dye my yarn and knit a Dr Who scarf out of it, because that's really about all it's going to be good for. It's first-run spun yarn. On the other hand, I have a wheel now, and I can spin yarn for EVERY FLIPPIN BODY. Why yes, I'm having way too much fun with this.