( Gaeilge )

Aarghar;gjdfhs;gjsdfhsgjk;dfghs;dkfjghdfg. Why do I get myself into these things.

Okay, no, I will say, it is almost 11 and I have already done most of my morning routine (exercise was halfassed because I was inexplicably sleepy) as well as my edX Intro to Computer Programming for the day, finished the lecture on lipids, and brought my notes in to work to transcribe. And add on diagrams and things to, because oh dear god the information is so dense in those lecture videos that my handwriting is for shit and I don't get a lot of diagrams down. That's what the internet is for. (Yes, I will confirm the wikisourcing or whatever I've done with the video. Because wiki.)

And I've also gotten about ... little over 60% done on the fingerless glove I'm now practicing. Another repeat and the rest of this one and I can start practicing the thumb ulp. I was working it in a Hawkass Purple type yarn, and then I got to where I'd start having to decrease for my forearm and stopped and realized I had no practice doing the thumb. So I'd better do that on something shorter where I don't have to do another five or six repeats before I get there. So, um. Yeah, stuff is happening. I'm being productive! I just. Feel all frazzled and like I'm not getting anywhere on anything.

We got a shipment of candle stuff in yesterday. The colors are fine, I'm going to be labeling colors all day, but that's fine. But the candle scent? Smaaaashed. Smashed like a frat party. The scent that had been smashed had leaked all through the box and onto other boxes, it was soaked, it left the entire back area of the store reeking of a bad chemical imitation of marzipan all day. So disgusting. Much headache.

Hopefully today will be better. It's at least starting out on a more productive note.

Oh god, I just hit the first practice problem on the Computer Programming course and now my head hurts and I want ANY compiler and waaaaah. Food. Food will help this.

( Gaeilge )

So. Garden things. Item 1: Holy shit I thought I had a lot of tomatoes before, and now there are ten new small tomatoes. That' an estimate, not an actual number, I did not stand there and count all the tiny new tomatoes growing. Also the weight of the tomatoes is pulling down one of the stakes, which means the next step is rebar. Which it turns out is useful for something after all! Item 2: Holy shit peppers. My pepper plants in my beds are finally starting to do something; I might start dropping tea bags in there in the hopes of continuing to fertilize them. And the peppers in the pots? Last I really looked at them on Friday ish they had dropped their flowers, this morning there's a pepperlet slightly larger than my thumb. And at least a couple more that I saw at a distance. Item 3: I really really need to clean out the marigold pots ugh. Item 4: My dahlias, which were so lovely, are starting to droop and fall again. Ah well. It really is hot. Item 5: FUCKING MINT. And fucking weeds in the herb garden. These are not the same thing, there are intended and unintended weeds. I need to harvest the mint again. And dry it better this time. Item 6: Someone smack me if I don't de-caterpillar my porch plants this evening. Item 7: Why did I ever worry about gardening. Jesus.

Item 8: We really, really really need a compost pile. Really a lot. I may just unscrew the damn giant bed and move the whole fucking thing myself this weekend. Or over the course of the week and the weekend. Hell with this.

So. My siblings have been and gone! My house did not get cleaned to my standards. The world did not end. (Everything was clean, just, not everything was tidy. In fact, a lot of things were not tidy. The world still did not end.) I did get stung by a fucking hornet and I hope I tasted awful, and that did put a premature end to the hiking since no one brought either anything for hornets or, in my siblings' case, shoes suitable for hiking up hills. Also the hornets' nest was right in the middle of the fucking narrow trail. Oops. We ended up going back and hiking around downtown Asheville instead and I picked up another non-fiction book I don't need, in this case London: The Biography. It looked interesting, okay? Shut up. Also a place to start for researchings.

Oh dear god I just listed out all the things I'm working on right now to a friend of mine and now I feel like an over achiever. A really overwhelmed over achiever. Dear god I have way too much crap I am currently doing. One. Project. At. A. Time. Or at least a piece of a project at a time. I swear I can do this. Especially now that I don't have to worry about impending siblings. FUCK but I do have to worry about impending Dragon*Con and argh. No, that's a next month problem. Fuckit.

( Gaeilge )

Still a bit freaked about money, and the amount of it I have to spend. Still annoyed that everything needs maintenance. Still not completely freaked because savings, but ugh.

On the somewhat more amusing side, I managed to sit through the entire first episode of Dominion last night. It was troperrific. I'm entirely certain there was not one goddamn character in that episode who had a lick of characterization beyond the trope/archetype/stereotype. There was the Chosen One, played by Chris Egan who also played the Chosen One in the LAST big budget biblical-based show, Kings. Woo. There was The Aloof And Powerful Mentor, played by fucking Astinos from 300, boy he grew up pretty. There was the Corrupt Politician and the Honest Politician/Nobleman, who was exactly as ineffectual as you might think. The Nobleman's Virtuous Daughter, The Racy Harlot (who is sleeping with the Aloof and Powerful Mentor, because why bother with a whole season of Spocking around when you can just get right to it), the Winsome Waif, the Corrupt Politician's Son who is exactly what you'd expect, both "Dad, Why You So Evil" and "I Will Be Eviler Than My Dad Mua Ha Ha Ha Ha..." ... No, Sebastian Stan did it better in Kings. Which, yes, I am going to compare it to because big budget biblical based show with Chris Egan in it. Chris Egan, who cannot for the life of him play a savior figure because he has the follow-me charisma of a rock. Not even a cool rock, like Gibralter or the Stone of Scone or even the Blarney stone, a beach pebble that gets stuck in your flip flop/thong.

No, actually, I'm not going to compare it because I'm not going to watch it. The only reason to watch it is the Aloof and Powerful Mentor figure, and only because holy shit Astinos grew up pretty.

Right. It seems I have a lot of fiddly things to do at work today, so hopefully I can get writing done between everything. Hopefully I can stay awake enough to do everything with a clear mind. Hopefully I can get shit done? Oh dear god. I am going to collapse at some point this weekend and I only hope I have enough shit done that I don't feel tremendously guilty for doing so. Efficiency will be the watchword of the rest of the week.

( Read more... )

DAMMIT IRISH.

See, this is the problem with trying to learn a language where the dialect/accent changes every ten miles. I'm not kidding, that's an actual linguistic map. So now there's fifty billion grammar and pronunciation rules. Argh.

Speaking of argh, what am focus. On the plus side, I've discovered that taking a loratadine in the morning even during weekdays when I'm not ostensibly around the plants that much? Makes me much more productive in the evenings. I got the garden weeded, the succulent mix mixed (and now I need to mix more oh well), the tomatoes finished tied up, things watered, dinner made, an ant incursion on the cat food dishes cleaned up, cats fed, scooped, a couple places in the house cleaned up, laundry put away, dishes cycled, laundry cycled, um. Plants transplanted. And writing done; in short, a shitload. Way more than I have been since the summer hit. So, yes. Allergies are that bad.

(The hilarious part of this is that another friend is contemplating prescription strength anti-allergy meds, and this is the first year I've taken any anti-allergy meds short of going into a den of strange cats, so apparently this year we have allergens +5? Or something. Epic level allergens. Need extra buffs to defeat.)

Today it at least seems like there's a lot less day jobligations, so we all know what that means, right? Writing! Because joy. Both actual joy and oh god this story will never end I just keep slogging through it why did I even start trying to write this joy.

Things. Stuff. I sent back the rejects from my first StitchFix box today! Two of which were budget rejects rather than eew what the shit rejects, which is a good sign. One of those budget rejects was something the tag called skinny jeans. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't skinny jeans supposed to be form fitting? These weren't! Which I think is good because unless my jeans have a high enough spandex content as to be barely jeans anymore, I do not want form fitting fucking jeans. They can form fit my thighs and that's it. The jeans were also white with do not bleach instructions, which, although I am perfectly willing to disregard laundering instructions as it suits me, that.... no. And then the other non-budget reject was a lovely turquoise top that looked really nice but it lost the coin toss between that and the other top. (The other other rejects were a skirt that barely came to the middle of my thigh and a pair of earrings that, while pretty, covered my entire earlobe and up to the middle of my ear. Comically large. Both, no.)

Okay. Writing. Seriously. Not shopping for bookshelves, not pondering getting lumber to build them, not pondering when and how to persuade the boy to set up the damn saw so boards can be cut to build the damn pressing table so stuff can be stored in the garage to build the bookcases and so on and so forth. (We replaced the porch steps over the weekend, which now results in me wanting to build all the things. Go figure.) Writing and day jobligations. Let's go, self, let's get this moving.

( Gaeilge )

... I take it back. Irish is the most complicated, annoying language ever. Worse than any other language I've studied. Worse than English.

My lavender is coming up with pretty pretty flowers! My morning glories are not, but I planted them... what, a week ago? Less than? I should really just calm down. Especially since I've definitely established that I can grow things from seed. So calm down, self. They'll grow when they grow. It's only towards the end of May, you have the entire summer and into fall for some growing seasons. Calm down and stop worrying about your plants.

(I will not calm down. I will in fact calm up. I will also attempt to collect more plants.)

Thingy thing thing. I'm making myself finish at least one of the friendship bracelet projects I've started before I even attempt to do a cabinet cover for my courtesan cabinet, but that may be the next knitting/braiding/thread project I start on. Which has not stopped me from picking out a pattern, but at least I have some degree of willpower. Maybe? There's at least a couple other knitting projects I need to finish too, while I'm at it. Le sigh. Maybe I can remember to get going on that. And repair my wheel. And everything else.

And no, none of this has distracted me from writing, it's just that thinking of one craft project I want to do reminds me of all the unfinished ones I have yet to do. One project at a time I guess? Plus the writing one project at a time, which is its own sort of chaos and aaaugh. No, I'm allowing local chaos to infect me. One project at a time. Today's project: finishing this bracelet and working on the dime novel I was working on. Once that's done, the next projects. And so on and so forth. I can totally do this. Really.

( Gaeilge )

So, okay, yes, I got a webcam yesterday which should be here tomorrow, so I can Skype with or without video with [Redacted] as [Redacted] chooses and what even is my life right now.

I was going to read Iranaeus for Sleepy Hollow. I'm sure there was a good reason, I'm sure if I open the doc I'll figure out what it was, but damned if I can remember it off the top of my head. I think it had something to do with the Four Horsemen, because Christian theology scholar. Though trying to dig up what the fuck THAT was all about led me to three other research books. The list of books I should be reading right now is amazing and huge, between that and Helix. I really need to organize that somewhere. Especially if Amazon is going to continue to be a fucker and play keep-away with my wish lists.

Wednesday Reads
Well. I may have devoured all the current Walker Papers books with the exception of No Dominion, which I really really need to get and read at some point soon. After Portland, though, I'm keeping a somewhat rein on my spending, so even $6 books aren't something I'm just going to reach out and grab too much of. Plus I have that entire trip to Powell's I need to shelve and finish reading. Still. Walker Papers. Amazingly hysterically funny and good and clever and I absolutely love Joanne WalkingStick even if I want to grab her and shake her till her teeth rattle on occasion. I really love Morrison. I want a Morrison. (Though given some of the ways I get handled by my boy I suspect I already have one. I suspect I'm more like Joanne WalkingStick than I think. Oops.)

I am almost done with Stray Souls, which is a newish book set in the world of Matthew Swift. Things I did not know! Also that there's a new Tiger and Del book, also that there's three or four more books in the Paksenarrion world. I may or may not have gotten the two new Matthew Swift world books (now called Magicals Anonymous for this series) and the new Tiger and Del book. I restrained myself from getting the Paksenarrion books, mostly because I was already buying shittons of Hellblazer collections. So, yes. Plenty to read upcoming.

Still need to finish Long Walk to Freedom and Women Who Run...

I also picked up a book I now rather deeply regret, A Study in Silks by Emma Jane Holloway, which was categorized by bookstore and publishing company as Gaslamp fantasy/mystery and actually seems to be a romance novel. In that most of the time the heroine, instead of solving mysteries, is focusing on which of two men she would like to keep. Uh. Both men are of course fascinated by her for no reason they can discern, and tell us so repeatedly and often, ad nauseum. The prose teeters between descriptive and insipid, and I don't think that's just because the author accidentally a romance novel when she meant to write a mystery. The character list is far too vast, the plots are far too numerous, to the point where the author loses track of who's talking to whom at at least one point that slipped through. Now, I've lost track of whose point of view I was writing from but never who was in the room or talking and acting at the time, and the only reason I can come up with for that is that she has too many fucking plotlines going on at one time, and too many POV characters. Only half the mysteries were tied up by the end, which although it's a trilogy, left me unsure of whether or not her pacing skills could hack it, and I have no inclination to go after any more of her books. She may be a better romance writer than a mystery writer, but A Study In Silks was so misleading and so disappointing that I took forever to read it and am now probably just going to donate it and get it out of my house. Also, Sherlock Holmes' niece? WHY? There is no earthly reason for that to have been the case, let alone for her to be the daughter of some long lost Holmes sister. It's like bad fanfic.

Anyway. I think I'm at the point where my brain is going fast enough that I need to write shit down in small steps or I will trip over my own feet. I have no idea how I achieved this level of hyper, but I dislike it immensely. Especially since it's more nervous than productive energy.

( Gaeilge )

Well. I learned today that dark purple/blue/gray/silver eyeshadow does not at all go with the berry colored lipstick I have. This may be a factor of, the berry color is lighter than I expected, or it may be a factor of berry + dark/cool eyeshadow = no. Further investigation required. As Rorschach would say. But not about makeup.

Finished Helix last night! Now we get to wait impatiently for the next couple eps, then wait impatiently for it to get renewed. Hatake is still my favorite character, continually followed closely by Daniel/Miksa and Anana. If that's her name. It sounds like a fruit. Which I guess is the hazard of watching shows like this with multiple language backgrounds. Then I got to watch the supplemental videos with Hiroyuki Sanada reciting over one of the missing players dying horrib... wait a second. Never mind.

So, um, yeah. Anyway. Tonight. Fantasia! Because that's just what you want after plague zombies turn into immortals trying to take over the world. And also Chinese food because the hell with cooking, tonight I am going straight home, ordering food, and watching Fantasia. I'll cook after Fantasia, if I really feel a need to do something with the chicken and beef.

Wednesday Reads
I don't think I've done one of these in a while. Trying to think what I have been reading. I've reread all the Tiger and Del novels because why not. And because I was tired and sad and needed some comfort reading. They're pretty simplistic, but the world is solid and the description is good and they're generally a good time.

I read Those Who Hunt The Night by Barbara Hambly, which was slow going at first but as the vampire thawed out to the protagonist so did I. Which isn't so much a reflection on which character I bonded with as, I think, the story became less frustrated and frustrating and moved a long at a better pace. Fortunately that didn't take too long. I did like it, and I need to get the next few at some point. I also read her book Bride of the Rat God, which was wonderful and engaging and vivid and I really wish there were more in that universe. On the other hand what I loved about it was more the plot and the activity in the story than anything, and the end of it didn't leave much room for future similar endeavors, so maybe it is best as a stand alone.

I read Thunderbird Falls, the next Walker Papers book by CE Murphy. I continue to love all the characters in it, except I kind of wanted to throttle the main character because a) be more suspicious and b) DUDE. A PERSON COMES TO TEACH YOU OUT OF THE BLUE STARTING AS A SNAKE IN YOUR PERSONAL MIND-GARDEN AND CALLS HERSELF MORNINGSTAR? HAVE YOU LEARNED NOTHING FROM POP CULTURE RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE? I do hope I'm not spoiling anything with this but I'm leaving it out in the open because I'm also not telling you if I was right or wrong. But when I started the book and got there I was all SHE IS TOTALLY EVIL. As you do when snakes in your garden call themselves somethingsomething Morningstar.

Anyway. Right now I'm also reading Long Walk to Freedom, because I enjoy stabbing myself in the psyche (I started that one on the way home from visiting family and Grandpa's ashes, yay masochism!) and still with the White Goddess, and at some point I need to pick up Women Who Run... etc again, and I've also started the Black Company novels by Glen Cook. The boy likes them, I tried to read them a while back and didn't make it through the first few chapters, but then I listened on audiobook. I've discovered audiobook makes a lot of things more palatable! Sadly I don't process audio story format well. Soooooo yeah. I should also work my way through some of the other shit on my Kindle. I guess that's also what long plane rides are for. Hi Portland. I will be with you soon!

ETA: I forgot one. The Devil's Alphabet by Daryl Gregory. The fact that I forgot it doesn't bode well, but it did actually keep me wanting to get back to it when I wasn't reading it for a while. That said, by the time it did end I was deeply unsatisfied. The mystery that I no longer cared about was solved, and in fact I hadn't given two shits about that mystery since maybe a chapter after it was introduced. The mysteries that I did care about? Unsolved. Except one, which was a disappointing resolution when none of the OTHER damn mysteries were resolved. I .... am not sure I can recommend this book. If you do pick it up, keep in mind that you're reading a murder mystery, and the author isn't actually interested in anything else. Or at least it doesn't seem that way.

( Gaeilge )

Oh, now the boy's eating peanuts in front of me, that's just mean. And Piratey. I have to get blood drawn today, I'm not too sure if I have to fast for a thyroid re-check but better safe than sorry? But still hungry. And there are tasties in the kitchen and I can't have any of them.

After a second night of getting a decent amount of sleep I am inexplicably still sleepy, but at least less so than when I started. And I did get all the goddamn virtues mostly done! (And then Anna came up behind me and cleaned up after me, so.) And I got the edits done, and I still haven't finished with the bracket notes but I'll turn that in today and then I'll kill off the dime novel. And this weekend around blogging I guess I'll work on the first blazer because why not. And. AND. In plenty of time for Portland, I have gotten the coin and key pins that they were selling a while back. I can pin them on my blazer!

Also last night, when I realized I did not in fact have the energy to do any cleaning and it was time to curl up in bed with a book, I ended up picking up Sword Dancer again, because why not. And devoured it in about two hours, because it's a short book and because apparently I still love it as much as I did initially. So I guess I know what I'm reading for the next week or so. Irritatingly, I only have books 1, 2, 4, and I think 5 out of 6. At least they're on Kindle, though that's ALSO going to irritate me. Maybe they're in the lending library.

(Unless anyone out there has Sword-Maker, because I know that's one of the two I'm missing. Can't remember if I'm missing either Sword-Born or Sword-Sworn.)

Um. There was some grandpa news as well, but I don't feel up to sharing that right now. I will say that people are trying to talk me out of visiting, which is only making me more convinced that they need my zen. Which, distanced from my daily responsibilities and giving myself permission to focus on what's there and not my usual stuff? That's a lot of zen.

Still gonna pick up that sutras book and keep it in mind when I go. I have some gold in my HabitRPG character purse anyway.

( Gaeilge )

So, it's happening. For a value of "it's happening" to mean that I kind of expected this answer so I'm not really surprised, just sad. Hoping for something more, not expecting to get it. I don't know what I was hoping for, precisely. ... no, I know exactly what I was hoping for, precisely, it's called a miracle. And, really, those are better off granted to people who can't spend a last few days with their loved one, who haven't lived a full and rich life (Director of Central and South America for the World Bank? Director of Southeast Asia? Entire fucking chunks of the world? Jesus, grandpa.), and, you know. There's no reason this shouldn't be happening except that it makes me sad and I don't like things that make me sad. I think everyone in the family is pretty well accepting of how it's going, though. And he's not in any terrible pain as far as I've heard, and he is receiving medication and medical attention for the pain he is in, so. It's going about as well as can be expected.

But I'm sad. And I'm tired. And I keep hoping that if I say it, I think, something will change for the better, but it keeps not happening. So I'll be sad and tired for a while yet.

The whole Night Court flower garden thing is sort of solidifying into a plan, which is good. We're going to get our, well, order our media center today, which is also good.

... Less good is the news I just got, which is that a co-worker of the boy's just had a heart attack and is still in the hospital. So, that happened.

I'm definitely going to need to check in today. I don't think I need to break down to survival mechanisms so much as I need to rewire my head to find cope in things I do normally rather than stress in deadlines, but. Something. I'll figure it out at check in with the girls.

I'm so tired, you guys. I'm so tired of people dying, I'm so tired of dire medical shit, I'm so tired of this coming out of the blue with a flu virus or a heart attack. I'm just really tired.

( Gaeilge )

Ow. Ow ow. Ow ow ow ow. Fucking planks. Fucking morning exercise. Fucking everything.

Aunt is in DC. Have had no news since. Not entirely sure whether or not to be worried by this, my family has the bad habit of not telling people things in the interest of not worrying them when there's nothing they can do, despite the fact that sometimes people would like to know things even if things suck. It's not just me, we do this to everyone. Sometimes I end up complicit because bad habits are contagious. Blegh.

The better part of Saturday was spent doing taxes and playing Baldur's Gate, but Sunday there was a fair bit of picking up and laundry done, and weeding the front walk, because it's that time again. And, you know, it might have gotten some sun on my skin. Shock! Amaze! I think between now and Portland there will be all the garden prep you can shake a stick at, so if there's more warm days I might get even MORE sun on my skin. Be astounded! Going out into the daylight! Of my own volition!

Line edits on this story for this anthology are turning out to be a bigger pain in my ass than previously thought, and not for the initial reasons I thought. But because MS Word is a pain, as my grandmother said, where no pill can reach.

But if I'm very, very lucky I can get that done today, the virtues post done today, and get a couple scenes in WL done today. And not frazzle myself into a coma. I even remembered not only to bring in my new, more functional water bottle, I remembered to mail off my damn taxes! Yesterday's productivity spree seems to be holding. I could get to like this. Until the next hit comes.