Warhead On Legs

Right. Got down to page 36 and a bit over because the last paragraph was long, and it's... coming easier? После is the word of the day, as it was repeated three or four times at least just in that one page, and for my future reference it means after or later on. There was also some repetition of "tailor" and "barber" or "hairdresser" but I'm not sure I'd be able to pull those words out of my brainpan if asked. Recognize them, probably, remember them readily, not so much. Still, progress.

Also Woot is trying to kill me, or at least to kill my wallet. Do really want a lot, the white and the ... what, purple? Should not spend money on. Do want, though. At least, it being Woot, I only have to resist till the end of the day. Add it to the list of nail polish and other things I'm resisting buying.

Things and stuff. What else is going on.

I need to buy a dress. I need to be Zoe Washburne and look for a dress with some slink. I want to be Kaylee instead and COVERALLS FOREVER, but I'm going to Portland, chances are I'm going to go to some restaurant or another that will be formalish, I'm going to want a dress with some slink. I can't even begin to explain to you how awkward I feel in formalwear. I've worn it so little in my life that when I put it on I feel clumsy, awkward, and two sizes bigger than I am. HALP. It's not even, I think, that shopping for the dress it the problem, it's not feeling awkward. Maybe I should pretend I'm cosplaying Inara. I do have one slinky black dress, but that's about it. I'm also debating seeing if I can fit into and then taking my leather pants, because leather pants.

Yeah, I'm much more ... I don't know. I'm not Inara. Maybe I can compromise by finding a nice pair of slacks instead. Anna's glaring at me now, isn't she.

Did call Mom last night. Need to confirm days off with boy and then book plane tickets for DC, because ... because. Because life goes on until it stops, but right now it's still going on for my grandpa, I guess? She says he seems happier and livelier, which might be a result of I don't actually think that man's lived alone for any long stretch of time in ever, and maybe he was lonely and is glad to be living with family again? Hell if I know. But with luck that means we can see him in February.

Still haven't pulled out time to edit, probably won't till the end of the day, but that's okay. I did my Russian. Still roughly proceeding on schedule. I do not need to be jittery, or nervous, or anything else. I'm doing fine. Really.

( Gaeilge )

My kingdom for a 501 Irish Verbs book. Seriously.

The great bra adventure continues. I haven't told you guys about the great bra adventure, have I? It's not that great compared to some, at least I have a size on the upper edge of standard. But, okay. So I started snapping my underwires on my bras, which is usually a good sign I need to get more. For whatever reason I seem to have been getting them in batches the last ten years, when one goes, the rest usually follow, so, new bras. So okay, rather than go to whatever cheap discount store Voldemart I usually get my bras from, where they still fit decently and last a few years, I decide to go to an actual lingerie store. I get a recommendation from Anna, measure myself once I figure out how the measuring tape goes in ways that will not make me feel horrible about myself, and hey! I've lost an inch or two around my ribcage. Cool, maybe I've gone down a band size. So I get my bras and I order them and they come and first of all, holy shit padding! The other reason I get my bras at a cheap discount store these days is because they are the only place left that doesn't have everything in padded bras. I loathe padded bras on the general principle of, look bitch, I already have enough padding, I do not need more! So what I ordered were bras that I thought would fit and be comfy and what I got were giant turquoise colored foam cups held together by itty bitty straps. The fuck. The shoulder straps were also the shortest I've ever seen. I let them sit in the box overnight and and think about their sins.

Then I got up in the morning and decided it might not be that bad after all, I'll try it. With the sort of reservation I usually keep for poking something that may or may not be venomous/poisonous. So, before my shower, I went and tried two of them on, since I got two different styles. And they weren't bad? But it turns out I haven't gone down a band size like I thought. Which likely only means that the bras I originally bought a few years ago were a larger band size than I thought; all the size info has now rubbed off of them so I'm guessing, and the measuring tape would do nothing since, band stretch. So, fine, I will wear the goddamn padded bras, but I'm exchanging them for the proper band size and we'll see how that fits. I think, actually, once I get to the right band size it'll work out? But fucking padded bras what the hell. I suppose I'll get used to the concept. I got used to putting on makeup! But would someone please explain to me the purpose of padding in bras for women who already have ample shelf space? I hope there is one. I'd hate to think this was some sort of hur-dur big boobies conspiracy.

So, yeah. That's my morning! That and gleeing over the fact that three bowls of pasta alfredo over two nights are not enough to make me gain so much as a pound. I suppose it's a tradeoff for ballet exercises in the morning and building what might end up being ridiculous amounts of muscle. Oops? I will once again marvel at how much more densely muscle packs than fat. Still about the same size I was five, six years ago. Eight years ago? Just twenty ish pounds heavier. Where the hell does it all GO? Bloody hell. I think of all of those weight loss victory stories, the before and after pictures, and I think, I haven't gained twenty pounds! Muscle. Tightly packed muscle. Jeez. On the upside, it's made me not so afraid of the scale.

Right. I almost got all the edits on Black Ice done last night! In between getting lain on by a boyfriend. Finishing that and the goddamn G&M today and why is it that every time I think I've gotten ahead on Gods and Monsters I end up right back where I usually am? Argh. Maybe I can finish that today and start on the next one tonight. Yes. I think between that I will also work on blog entries and get those done. And that ought to be enough to keep me busy for the rest of the day. If I can manage it there may be porn writing, or at least implied porn writing, somehow I don't think it's going to work around to actually being on camera, as it were. But that story's been slowly dying for the past two weeks. Ugh.

( Gaeilge )

I have now seen Man With THe Iron Fists. I think I can safely say that was one weirdass movie. It's not exactly standard Kung Fu movie fare? At least not the kind I'm used to/prefer, not the elegant wirework or, well, Jet Li. It was written and directed by a guy from Wu-Tang Clan. And Eli Roth. So there's that. It wasn't bad. And I definitely prefer Kung Fu action Lucy Liu if I have to watch cheesy Lucy Liu at all, rather than Elementary Lucy Liu. But. Um. Huh.

I have made an appointment for girly pampering, including brow shaping, which ... I'd say I have no idea what even am I doing except I know exactly what I'm doing, it's just weird and new that I'm doing it. And a little exciting in that newness way. But there's that and a pedicure and a quick chair massage and then there will be going out for dinner and seeing Pacific Rim. So we start out with stereotypical feminine pampering and go on to dinner which may involve bleeding flesh of some kind and giant robots beating the fuck out of godzilla creatures. Because this is how my life works. Hey, if I'm going to make pretend like I'm beating the fuck out of godzilla creatures in a giant mecha I'm going to do it looking fucking fabulous.

Dentist appointment today. Do not want. Anna inbound tomorrow. Do want! Can I just skip to tomorrow? No? Bleh.

( Gaeilge )

Today's dance exercises were about as inefficient as one can get, ugh. Not entirely sure why, either. Tomorrow may be better. Should be better.

And the boy did pick up longer screws, so now we have the frames for raised beds. We just need to turn up the soil so that some of the mulch mixes in and then we can transplant maybe tomorrow or Friday! Which will be good because it's definitely time and almost past time to be planting. Well, except the peppers and cukes. And food from the ground! There will be food from the ground and it will be awesome.

At least there had better be food from the ground by the time Anna gets here or I will scold my garden most vociferously.

Anyway, the amaryllis bloomed. It popped out a huge freaking bloom and I need to take pictures of it because amaryllis! So beautiful. And it's in the 60s and 70s already and, okay, I could do without it pushing 80, but I am all about temperatures in the rest of that range. 'tis spring 'tis spring!

Which I will totally blame for my new habits and practices because otherwise I don't even. Well, no, I kind of do. And it started when I decided to change jeans and t-shirts for jeans (because my work isn't exactly the most decorous, and I like jeans, dammit) and blouses, nicer shirts, more fitted and pretty and decorated shirts. I doubt I'll ever be the traditional feminine, but my style seems to be a sort of faerie rock star type style, so I started swapping out generic-shaped t-shirts for that. And now we appear to have gone from nicer shirts to makeup. I've started putting on makeup, first lipstick in the morning, and then foundation powder. Since I'm not interested in much in the way of face makeup it's a light coating of that mineral powder shit and then done. And I do enjoy painting my nails, I like painting them funny colors. But now I've branched out into wanting to do eyeshadow, and I don't even with that. Apparently my ... something. Draws the line at eyeshadow. I have two voices right now, one of them all "IF YOU START WEARING EYESHADOW YOU FORFEIT ALL YOUR REBELLIOUS TOMBOY CRED," as though the nailpolish and foundation powder and lipstick weren't enough. And the other voice says "Look, you like colors, you like being funky colors, you want to be a rock star like Heart and P!nk and you want to be like Lori Petty and what's wrong with that? As long as it's something you want to do and feel like yourself while doing, what's wrong?" I like that voice a lot better. It's a more sensible voice.

So, that's happening, and I blame spring. And regardless of what the first voice says, I am wearing bright red nail polish (I forget the actual name), and black leather bracelets, and my "Yarrrrn!" shirt, and soft naturalish pink lipstick with gloss, and natural-looking base, and fuck anyone who says anything against it. This is how I want to be. And it's a beautiful day.

( Gaeilge )

You know, on the one hand I'm amused that certain conservatives/Republicans are so scared of Obama winning they think he's going to circumvent the actual fucking law saying that the Presidency is only two terms per person? It's in the US Constitution, guys. I am, however, not at all pleased that they're forcing independent agencies to withdraw proof that says their ideas are bullshit. We've known trickle-down theory doesn't work for thirty years. I knew it when I was a little girl. If a five year old can understand why trickle down theory doesn't work, you should be able to. It was a joke when I was little. It's not funny anymore.

(Yes, I had a different childhood.)

I need more Nameless icons, clearly. Also it deeply amuses me to be studying Irish right before tackling my daft Irish half-fae bastard story for Nanowrimo. Seriously, all I need now is to finish moving in to the house so I can set up the spinning wheel and then I can Nano and spin when I'm not Nanoing. And wear lots of flannel and take up drinking beer and being generally uncouth at everyone in my vicinity. NOTHING CAN POSSIBLY GO WRONG WITH THIS PLAN. Except I hate most of the beers he likes. Cider, I'll drink cider. Actually now I kind of do want to get a six pack of cider.

It's Friday. Yay. Tonight, TV and cleaning and packing, tomorrow, profiling and profiling and packing. Sunday! Packing and packing and moving stuff. I really love moving. Not. On the plus side, once we finish hopefully we won't have to move ever again. Or at least not for a really really damn long time. Maybe in between profiling I'll try to push this weekend and see how much packing we can get done, now that the house is, mm. 2/3 to 3/4 of the way done. Bathroom ceiling, heat pipes and their enclosing boxes need to be done. But I think that's mostly it. Couple weeks worth of work. WOO. HOO.

Right. How the fuck have I already spent my clothing allowance for the fortnight? (Answer: Because it's not a big allowance, silly.) How the fuck did I become the sort of person who can do that? (Answer: Because you bought leather bracelets with bullets and skulls on them.) I need to figure out how to tell if I can wear camisoles under things, preferably with several things to try on under them. Possibly this will involve getting out some of those shirts I bought for Faye Valentine. Ooh. I'll do that tonight, then. Along with packing and watching TV. Yesh. And fuck you, PMS weasels, I am not fucking tubby and saggy. I am in goddamn good shape and if I am feeling a little bloated and squishy right now it is because water retention because fucking PMS, so fuck you.

Yes, I still say 'fuck' a lot.

( Русскйи язык )

Ugh. Parsing still difficult and time consuming. Useful! But difficult and time consuming. On the plus side, that was a little easier than before, maybe I'll do another paragraph or two later. If I remember. I always say that and it never happens, at least until the next appointed hour.

You know what else is difficult? Sorting through clothes and getting rid of a grocery bag full of clothes that I used to love and want to get back into but either can't or probably won't because I don't have an occasion to wear it anymore. And I know they were just cluttering up my dresser and my closet, I haven't worn any of that in years, literally since before I moved down here, but it still feels like a failure or giving up in some ways. Even if I wasn't giving up anything I was actually using. On the other hand, now I have room for the clothes I do wear to sit neatly without falling over everything the moment I grab for something to wear, my summer clothes are packed back up (when we move I should invest in vacuum bags) and I have room for a couple pairs of jeans and some real grown-up sweaters.

'cause apparently that's the reward for cleaning up my clothes like a grown-up. Being dressed like a barbie doll. Having a talk about my personal style and deciding that I need:
Cowl-neck t-shirts and sleeveless shirts
Boat neck long-sleeved shirts, maybe.
To look into wearing my belt
Rock star bracelets/bracers
T-shirts with the collar cut off a la 80s
Real grown up sweaters, simple small rib knit, very Prentiss from Criminal Minds
Jeans, jeans, and more jeans
Arm warmer bases that I can sew rags onto to make it look like I have rag wraps

And the more I think about it, the more I think that sounds about right. Wandering around in goth gear was all right when I was in college, LARPing, going to clubs and such, but I'm not doing so much of that anymore. So what I need are staples in colors that blend well with jewelry and can have other kinds of bangles and straps and things attached to it, but that I can wear without all the ornamentation if I want to be simple and plain, and that will still look good on me. ... Yeah. That works.

One thing I am definitely looking for, that I might have to commission someone to specially make, is a set of handstar finger picks. Or something, somehow combining finger picks with hand jewelry over the back of my hand. Apparently with all the punk, goth, death metal, hard rock rockers out there there are no places I can find on the internet that have these things. Oi.

Sigh, too, I should have known I wasn't going to get to sit down at a bank this week. Between the boy's crazy schedule and my retail hell over the Christmas season it's just not happening. On the plus side, the boy gets made permanent soon, so that'll be added incentive, and maybe next week there will be a little less panic and a little more time. I finally got all my printouts of all my information, so there's that. Hell, if we're very lucky we can start looking for houses and at banks at the same time. Maybe. Ugh. Time, too much crap to do in terms of running around the town and not enough time.

Aaand back to routines. Russian!

( Russian )

So, I've picked up bracelets and some BPAL, per recommendations. Makeup, I'm torn. I think I know what shade (or rather, I've narrowed it down to two shades) I need, but it's either get both and don't use one or go to a store and get actually matched. Which may or may not happen this weekend. I need to wander around downtown and see what there is in terms of such stores, to see if there's a place I can walk to tomorrow that'll do that. And I probably should get new eyeliner, and not the random colored liquid/latex liner that's really tempting but just, eyeliner. And lipliner and lipstick. I'd forgotten how nice lipliner is. You wouldn't think I knew that, but I did. Earrings will be forthcoming as soon as I decide which ones I want.

Another thing I think I'm going to look into picking up is a bento box. Either that or I'm going to pick up some small internal boxes and just use my Witchblade lunchbox, which is also an option. Once I finish off the fried rice I have I'll have to see. I have, however, discovered I can do pretty damn well with the routine of getting my day clothes, earrings, and perfume on before I start doing my Russian, and then I don't have to rush when I'm done. I like this. The only thing I might need to do is come up with some way to consolidate my satchel, my purse, and my potential bento/lunchbox. Because the number of small things I'm carrying to work is getting ridiculous. It may involve consolidating my purse and my satchel, I think that can be done.

Randomly, damn. I think that actually is Washington National Airport they're showing in Prison Break. Or at least, close enough that it's making me double-take and I've been through that airport a lot. Doesn't say it was filmed there, though, so probably not.

Oogh. It is nice, somewhat, having the apartment to myself. I can imagine myself getting pretty tired of it by the end, but right now it's nice just having the apartment to myself. Tonight there will probably be tidying of the living room, and some writing. Hopefully. And editing. There turned out to be not as much work as I thought to do, so hopefully I'll be able to get some of that done today, too. Mmph.

And more beauty practice will happen tonight. I need to practice this otherwise I spent a fair chunk of change on makeup that really will just sit in my top drawer and be useless. And I don't want that. So, practicing! It is not fearful stuff. It is just something I have not yet mastered. Seriously. CS post involving this and probably some other stuff should happen in a couple of days, when I'm a little more settled back into routines. It's nice to be home again.