Suppose I should journal again.

For awhile there when I started back up I got really active, and then things slowed down a bit. I blame the level of busy I had with school and work last semester for some of the quiet.

Christmas was okay. Nothing spectacular, but not a real disappointment or anything. New Years was quiet. Brad came up. We went to see Avatar in 3D, which was spectacular but not a movie I'd care about without the spectacle.

I'm currently waiting for work to begin, which is a day-by-day thing. I'm meant to be covering for a paternity leave but the baby hasn't come yet, leaving me unsure each evening whether I'm to be going to work the following morning. It's a bit frustrating but I can't complain too much about it.

I picked up the new Discworld. I enjoyed it, though I do kind of miss the Bursar having an onscreen role. Or at least, I miss Ridcully bellowing for the Bursar. I laughed a fair bit reading it, though, which is generally a good sign with Discworld.

My D&D game has been on hiatus. Supposed to start up again this weekend, if all goes well. I should, I suppose, make some plans in that direction, make sure everything is ready, etcetera. Oh well.

In general, I'm hoping that 2010 comes out better than 2009. I lost too much in 2009. It's time for getting some back.

I am increasingly coming to terms with Vostok Lake's defiantly underground/no-commercial-potential status. In short, this is because the music industry is collapsing all around and the last thing any sane person wants to do is to win a free ticket on the Titanic (that Swedish guy who Leo diCaprio beat at cards in the James Cameron movie must have outdrunk the rest of Belfast for two solid weeks).

But to give a case history: I have recently fallen in love with Repo! The Genetic Opera. Some call this the Rocky Horror of the 21st century, and while certainly that level of kudos is extremely premature, it is certainly playing in a similar ballpark of cool. (Other people hate it with a passion, some for no better reason than Paris Hilton's in it. Considering that she plays the spoilt, vain, drug-addicted daughter of a very rich man, I can see how she got the part, and how she plays it with surprising competence.)

But anyway! Repo! existed in various forms in live-on-stage format for going on 10 years before they made a demo film and got picked up by a major motion picture studio.

Pros: a film got made, with serious-business talented stars (I was sold on the description "gothic rock opera with Giles from Buffy and Christine from Phantom of the Opera"), DVDs distributed even to my backwater part of the world. The authors found their audience on a global scale.

Cons: since the film is defiantly niche-marketed, the mainstream critics hated it and weren't shy in saying so. Therefore: the film lost money. Therefore: the studio now own it until hell freezes over, or it makes another $7 million for them, one of the two. You can't even do the stage show any more because they own that too.

Tool said "I sold my fuckin' soul to make a record". Tool are worshipped worldwide. To make my record - called by trustworthy reviewers easily the best thing I've ever done - I bought a few grand full of cheap and/or second-hand equipment, made a lot of false starts while teaching myself to use it, and took seven years to come up with a complete set of songs. Hardly anyone knows it exists, and fewer care. But I have my soul. Who got the best deal?

Anyway, the tour is being booked. Keep checking that page. Or book one for me in your home town! I'll go anywhere in New Zealand, or anywhere world-wide given a travel subsidy and free lodgings.

This entry was originally posted at http://vostoklake.dreamwidth.org/287976.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

• 17:50 Oh, what a difference a day and a phone call can make :) Things are looking up! Happy new year! #

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From Hirac Delest and Michael Grant's Twitter



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Not sure how I feel about the lenticular covers, but BOO-YAH for the thought these could be out this year.

Happy 2010 everyone!

I wouldn't really call this video a book trailer ... I'd call it more of a book cameo. An an homage to Snuggies, which we fly white girls know are super dope.

Enjoy! And don't forget to order today so you can take advantage of the crunk posse member special offer!

Today was a bit of a rough day. I'm still travelling, but it doesn't really seem like it since I'm in Eugene and staying in the same flat where I used to live, with the same people and the same cats. Anyway, I can't remember how much I covered here before about James!kitty being diabetic, but he was diagnosed with it in the summer and gave us all a huge scare about August where he had severe ketoacidosis and had to spend a weekend at the emergency vet. So now it's a matter of monitoring his blood glucose pretty closely, and being a little freaked out if anything is even a bit off...which it was yesterday, though he was back to the high side of normal today. (However, stickycheeseman and I were trying to get blood to test and kept poking him in the ear and it just wouldn't bleed, so we had to try a few times and we just felt so crappy because James is the sweetest cat ever, and he's lying there being good and purring even though he's got this look on his face like 'why do you keep doing this to meeee?')

Other than that, the UK consulate decided they needed new copies of my transcripts for my visa application, which of course I don't have because, well, I sent them last time. Since I'm in Eugene anyway, UO isn't that big a deal--and they let you order them online anyway--but WSU is ridiculously behind in their process and there is of course NO OTHER WAY TO PROCESS IT beyond printing a form, faxing it in, and making me set up a FedEx account in order to get it overnighted. It was kind of a nightmare, though it did get taken care of and send out. I tracked it and it's now in Memphis. Why on earth does a thing have to go to Memphis to be sent from Washington to California? It's a straight bloody line!

I did manage to get out to buy the netbook I wanted, though, which was on sale at Best Buy (and Oregon, so no sales tax, yay!). I've been setting it up and getting things transferred over to watch and play with. Its name is Spot. A memory upgrade is in its very near future (Ephram!laptop's, too).

Tomorrow is getting the other transcript sent, and bumming around campus for a bit--I need to check some stuff in the library and might be able to stop in and say hi to a couple of people while I'm there. And now is sleeptime, because the files I was transferring to Spot are all done, now.

A friend once told me his mother, a pharmacist, takes Benadryl when she needs to sleep, because she knows it won't hurt her. "And ibuprofen? You can take as much of that as you want, as long as you eat and drink with it." I worry about ibuprofen, but Benadryl I believe. It knocks me right out. Except tonight. Tonight I just can't sleep. There may be several contributing factors:

1) I had tea at about 8pm. I threw away the first couple brews to get rid of the caffeine, but that might not have been successful.

2) I've been reading Little Women. It's so moralistic, but so melodramatic (and I get wrapped-up in things).

3) A friend is being redeployed, and I worry.

4) My throat seized up on Saturday night. I spent yesterday sick and most of today feeling fine, but now I can't stop coughing. Note to body: you'll feel better if you let me sleep.

5) I don't like my job. I feel guilty that I don't like my job, and I can't move on (e.g.**, find new job) until I deal with my guilt. Note to self: you'll sleep better if you stop being silly.

6) I'm breaking out like a seventeen-year-old in a hormone factory. That's not directly related to sleep, but it's making me worry. It's a small thing, let it go.

So here I am. I haven't been online at 2:30am on a Tuesday morning in quite a while. I remember in college thinking that 2am wasn't too late to go to bed and 6am wasn't too early to get up. I still think that way, but only if it's one or the other. Tomorrow's going to be great.

*...in more ways than one! Ah, I crack myself up.
**Gosh darn, is it "i.e." here? My brain isn't working, so I can't remember which is right. I also can't remember where I put Strunk & White.

• 12:30 Car: totaled. Body: world o' pain. Finances: scary. Relationships: falling apart. Have I mentioned the toothache? No? I want a refund, 2010! #
• 12:36 & I just realized that I took collision coverage off the car last year. Seriously?! Whatever doesn't kill me only makes me stronger, right? #

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This video dropped Georgia into the #50 slot on the Most Educated States list. *headdesk*

He may live without books, -- what is knowledge but grieving?
He may live without hope, -- what is hope but deceiving?
He may live without love, -- what is passion but pining?
But where is the man that can live without dining?
We may live without poetry, music, and art;
We may live without conscience, and live without heart;
We may live without friends; we may live without books;
But civilized man cannot live without cooks. - Owen Meredith

As usual, I have Resolved to make one new recipe per week. As usual, I will probably have a 35% success rate (as in, I make a new recipe in 35% of weeks, not that 35% of the recipes are good, successful ones; that rate is a little higher). But I'm taking Steps towards my Resolution, which means I'm going through all my cookbooks to find recipes I want to make. I found the above poem in my mother's book group's cookbook under a recipe for Peach Soup. (It's more like a peach smoothie that you eat with a spoon. I am not planning on making it.) I'm optimistic about this year. I see no reason I can't gather ingredients and find time for preparation. And people to eat. And the right utensils. And pans. Or at least, use what I already have to get close to the effect of having the right stuff.

Wish me luck!

• 21:06 Zydrate comes in a little glass vial. #RepoTheGeneticOpera #

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I started one of these for 2007 and 2008, but I never finished both. I knew that after this year, and at the end of this particular decade, I absolutely needed to do this without any excuses.

So, herein lies the 2009 Year-In-Review after so many life-altering events of the last twelve months and the last ten years!

( My Life in 2009 )

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

A jigsaw falling into place
So there is nothing to explain
You eye each other as you pass
She looks back
And you look back
Not just once and not just twice
You got the light
You can feel it on your back
Your jigsaw falling into place

"Jigsaw Falling Into Place" by Radiohead

I used this song as my theme song for my new Livejournal layout that I updated in August (after Stephen mentioned that the old one wasn’t exactly reflective of my current incarnation), but I never truly appreciated that song until now. It’s my first song on my Soundtrack for 2010, although it could very well by my last song for 2009.

I feel that at the culmination of 2009, my life had finally falling into place after a decade of drastic upheaval, drama and depression, doubt and discomfort, and desperately seeking myself. Ten years that started with a bang and continued with so many changes… It’s incredible to think just how far I’ve come. How different I am. And how much I love my life. It was a struggle and an uphill battle, but now, from the top of the world, I can look down upon the seemingly impossible slope of 2000-2009 and be proud of myself for the first time ever.

Thank you, LJ friends, for sticking with me and letting me follow your lives. Thank you weltreisender for being my best friend, for being there when no one else was, for being the one constant these last ten years. Thank you, katharon for getting me through the darkest months of my life. Thank you, former Academie folks, for being the friends and distraction I needed to get through my depression.

Thank you, Stephen, for rescuing me, loving me, adoring me, laughing with me, showing me the beauty in life, being everything that I have ever needed in one person, and promising to be there for me and with me for the rest of our lives together. I love you so much.

So, another year, another decade, another series of annual Livejournal traditions, although I've been incredibly (and understandably) remiss in my updating. Life has been quite overwhelming, and while I adore the internet and enjoy the fact that I've chronicled my life here, finding the time has been nearly impossible. I'm hoping, now that for the first time in ten years I actually know what will happen in the next year, I can start to maintain my precious LJ once more.

Seeing as I only have a total of seven entries for the entirety of 2009, I won't be completing the usual list of first-of-the-month entry titles. However, I actually have completed a full Year-In-Review to post (the first since 2006... I never finished '07 and '08) as well as the annual Color Quiz.

This is the seventh annual taking of the same quiz, in which I look at a series of colors twice and the quiz dubs me with existing situations, character pluses and flaws, and what I want and what is blocking my way. Ever since I have started this tradition, I always find amusement in the results, because they always appear accurate.

Granted, there is probably some psychological aspect to it all, probably involving my belief in the quiz and how I approach it in order to view it in a correct manner, but I, frankly, don't give a rats ass. This is purely for reflective purposes and to watch my progress over the years.

( The Color Quiz of 2009: )

Every year, it never fails: I get two "actual problems". I suppose two is better than one; my life is so complicated and interesting that it merits more than one.

So, let us put our cute little armchair psychologist hats on, shall we? I am undoubtedly always wanting new and fascinating things in my life, and I certainly do get impatience when things tend to stagnant. When I get bored with a project, I tend to move on to something more interesting and come back when I find that my interest wanes in the new project. Rarely do I sit in one place and finish something in one sitting (although I big cup of coffee and access to the internet helps... such as now, seeing as I sat down to write an entire entry for once).

While I do find myself somewhat of a Renaissance Woman when it comes to random ass knowledge and my month-long obsessions that rotate in interest, I suppose I can be overbearing at times. However, I completely reject the "nosy" comment, as anything you want to keep secret from me can be kept secret. If it is something important, my friends will tell me in their own time.

As for feeling forced to compromise, sure, I can see how that appears in my life. Recently, I feel as if I have to put a spin on everything in order to please everyone around me and make them see future changes in my life as a positive rather than a negative. I can never truly express my happiness, because other people are not happy about the changes in my life, so I can never be fully happy. I'm juggling all these different groups of people, and these past few months, I've grown tired of it. Living in Charlottesville come May will definitely be a good change in my life.

No complaints of explanations needed for the desired objective; it's certainly where I am headed these days! As for my problems, well, I still feel restricted within the environment in which I live, but that has changed a little since the wedding and will change drastically once I move, I'm sure. I readily admit all over this journal that I use charm often, most applicably at work and most especially at work when I am dealing with people whom I 1)don't want to deal with or 2)are easy to sway. No shame there. And problem numero dos emphasizes the whole freedom thing; I admit, I am feeling a little suffocated in my current living situation. I do NOT like limitations or restrictions put on my own development, thank you.

In summation, marrying Stephen, a man who understands all the above, was a great thing, and making my major life changes in the next year will be great, too. Giving myself a new place to live and explore and growing in my relationship without expectations will do wonders for me.

I really can't wait for the third of January 2010. This is an awesome start to the new decade!

Happy New Year to all my LJ friends and non-LJ friends who read my journal. I know it will be grand!

Married!


P.S. I love you, Mr. Stephen!

Jeez Louise, even my horoscope sucks!

The Waiting Game

This year opens on the wrong foot, and you struggle to get into step with those around you. Since December 26, 2009, retrograde Mercury has been turning your life upside down. Things will begin to straighten out on January 15, when your key planet, the trickster Mercury, turns direct.

Serious Saturn's retrograde turn on January 13 backs up into a harsh square with relentless Pluto on January 31. This powerful, long-lasting event sets a somber tone for the month, making you wonder why pleasure is so elusive.

The New Moon Eclipse in hardworking Capricorn on January 15 falls in your 8th House of Intimacy and Transformation. Its supportive sextile to breakthrough Uranus enables you to be aware of your feelings and to reap the benefits of sharing them. Avoid being overdramatic on January 30 when the expressive Leo Full Moon is conjunct feisty Mars in your 3rd House of Communication.

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So, according to this, things will continue to suck for at least 12 more days, and then the tone will be somber, and pleasure elusive. Oh, and I should avoid being overdramatic on the closing night of my play. Say what?

At least the last paragraph contained "Intimacy," "sextile" and "Uranus."

Hey, I take comedy wherever I can find it.


P finally came home sometime after 5am. I am happy for his newfound sense of romance, but his timing really effing sucks.

I slept a little. My ribs hurt like crazy. That's going to make tonight's rehearsal (and tomorrow's work) a whole lotta fun.

Just gotta make it through the day.

• 13:13 has far too many ideas and far too little hope of making them all real, let alone coherent, in one lifetime. #
• 18:21 Seafood is stupidly expensive in this country, considering we live on an island. #

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I only wrote one story--it was my first time doing it, and I had my dissertation and an essay to finish and then jet lag to combat, after all! So mine was (perhaps predictably), But Rather Darkness Visible, a Young Wizards/Doctor Who crossover scene for ariastar.

Okay, guys, I don't want to sound crazy or anything, but I think the Sherlock Holmes movie may have been made for me personally.

In conclusion, I need everyone's clothes to come back into mainstream fashion. Especially Holmes' and Irene's, because I need to own the entirety of both of their wardrobes and wear them all on a regular basis. Seriously, I am going to go looking for a hat like Holmes' tomorrow. Also, I think bustles are overdue to make a comeback. They should have secret compartments for purses, so that when somebody calls you on your cell phone, your ass will ring. I cannot stress enough just how much I would love to live in a world like this.

At Lake Tekapo, have just had dinner at a lovely Japanese restaurant called Kohan. We're going to head back to the backpackers soon and then probably wander up to the hot pools until they close at 9pm, at which point we will come back to the backpackers and watcdh the sun set. Or something like that.

Randomly drove to Aoraki/Mt Cook village today in driving rain and looked at the clouds—there were a few little bits of mountain and snow peeking through the fog but really not very much. The cloud began to lift on the way back though and we got some lovely views over a lake.

Tomorrow: Christchurch!

And arising out of last night's conversation, I ask a Very Important Question of all of you:

Poll #1506570 cliff, shag, marry!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7

Cliff?

Shag?

Marry?

Comments?

• 01:35 Can I drive and dance in these? Apparently so! twitpic.com/wbpil #
• 16:57 Driving to the gym, hoping for a new start, and my car gets t-boned. The symbolism in my life is hi-larious. (Btw, I'm more-or-less ok.) #
• 22:41 Need to get out of this House of Quiet Death. No car? Rotten timing. (And wouldn't "House of Quiet Death" make a great Vincent Price movie?) #
• 22:56 @whatwuff omg, I can hear it, too! "_No-one_ shall escape the... House of Quiet Death!" (In Funkytown.) #

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Was starting afresh, driving to the gym today, when I got t-boned by another driver. I'm alright, just badly bruised. I don't think my car's going to make it, though. It's the first traffic infraction I've ever received.

Seriously, Writers? Aren't we going a bit heavy-handed on the symbolism? Sheesh.

I was supposed to be at a cue-to-cue rehearsal tonight, but the director suggested I take the night off and rest up. I appreciate her kindness.

Paul's off to a bonfire, a second date with his new girlfriend (a woman he had been brazenly and drunkenly hitting on at our friend's memorial service-- classy, I know). We had something of a "no dating" rule, but he ditched that when it was no longer convenient.* For him. I don't have much room to talk on the subject, I know. I quite like the girl; I'm a bit disappointed that she and I will probably not develop a friendship as a result.



He and I had been going out together since 2003; living together since 2004. I don't know what to do with the ring; the ring I haven't worn in two years.



It's awkward, to say the least. Now I'm stuck at home, slightly injured (both physically and emotionally) and very lonely. I'm determined not to cry again, though. I've done quite enough of that in recent weeks and months.

I'm not quite sure what to do. Wishing I had someone to enjoy this new year with as well, but that's clearly not happening the way I would like it to. Heck, for all intents and purposes, it's not happening at all. If wishes were fishes, I'd be up to my nostrils in sushi by now.** I've grown very tired of wishing and waiting.



Can't even properly walk anywhere. Well, now that the ibuprofen is kicking in I could probably manage a short jaunt, but I should really try to stay off it. Maybe I'll read or something. Or figure out a way to make enough money so that I don't have to claim bankruptcy or live on the streets when I am finally kicked out on my ass.

I spent the last two months of 2009 just wishing it would end; I hope I don't have another twelve months of this. I'm honestly not sure that I could take it.

Just... too many stressors coming from too many directions, no money, no love.

When will it be my turn again?



I really should have wished for the lottery.

And wow, what a piss-poor choice of music this turned out to be.***

Dammit, I'm not going to cry, not going to wallow in this self-indulgent mudhole I've created for myself. Stepping away from the comp for a bit. Maybe have a glass of wine and play some sudoku or WoW**** or something.

Sorry for the emo crap I just took on your head. This, too, shall pass, I know. Writing it down here helps. Thanks for the ear (or the eye or the rss feed or whatever).

~Hugs to those who need 'em, those who want 'em, and those who don't run away quickly enough~

* In all fairness, he suggests that it just "coincidentally coincided" with his decision to "move on" to pursue his goals after the first of the year. I find it funny that I pegged her as his next gf within moments of meeting her. I hadn't realized it would be so soon.
** And man, that would really start to stink after a few hours.
*** Music a second choice when I couldn't find It Sucks to be Me from the same album... proving that it does, indeed.
**** Holy cow, I think it's been nearly a year since I've really sat down and played that. I wonder how my Guild's doing...
***** Hey, things do get better, eventually, right? This is just a test of character, right? Am I passing or failing? How will I know?