Everyone should read about this courageous young woman.

Last night, I was responsible for saving a small African nation.

First, we went swimming in a lake which was also a backyard pool. It was alternately lake-sized and pool-sized. The dolphins would only swim in the shallow end, because the deep end was toxic.

Why was it toxic? The leftovers from bauxite refinement. Mostly arsnic, IIRC. The fact that I'm still feeling ill might have something to do with the fact that in my dream, swimming in the pool made me sick.

The house the pool belonged to was a combination of my aunt's house in Florida (which really does have a pool) and the Brady house from TV. The young African kid who lived there (he had siblings, and parents, but I only ever saw him) wanted me to save the dolphins, because I was white, and therefore "know the secrets". I told him that the secret is that there are no secrets, and felt very Zen.

I then spent a lot of time arguing with the country's government, which was apparently three guys in suits. I tried to tell them they needed to do one of two things: disallow bauxite refineries in their country, or legislate so there was no toxic output. I told them that moving the refineries out of their country was a short-sighted solution, as it would just move the pollution next door to whatever country would let the big companies do it cheapest. They really needed to require refineries to have no toxic runoff if they were refining bauxite from this country, regardless of where it was being refined. We talked about how that would mean more short-term poverty, but would keep people from dying of poisioning.

Then I went back to the pool, but now it was a quarry lake, and there were no dolphins. I was disappointed, 'cause I wanted to swim with the dolphins.

Never had an issue reading e-text vs print, but I may now have switched over to the prefer eBooks camp. Backlighting and adjustable font sizes makes for happier Eugie eyes. And anything to decrease the strain on my eyes is a definite plus.

Recently got new glasses and contacts. I have degenerative myopia, and my glasses prescription is now so high that I can no longer get the frameless style that I prefer (the lenses, even uber high indexed, etc. are too thick), and I can't order my contacts online because the power dropdown list doesn't go high enough.

My eyes, they sucketh. Which is rather problematic, considering my occupation(s).

Today, I pulled jeans on - and then realized that they were my size 24ws. Not the 26ws I thought I was pulling on. Yay! It's working!

I went yesterday to the gym after work and biked for 6.45 miles at the Planet Fitness in Manchester before going to craft night. I need to figure out where in Middle Earth I am now.

beard5, are you still up for Farmer's Market tomorrow? Despite the rain threatened?

Okay, found where I was in the Eowyn Challenge. Will be updating this much more regularly.

Miles to Rivendell: 426.71

Looks like we've just stopped to eat! Yay!

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I got my new red Doc Maartens today.

And they are two small. I am annoyed- I have a pair of a very similar style, but they must have an extra inch of width in the calf.

I've yet to decide if I want to sell them on ebay again, or to attempt to stretch them or insert a panel.

My life is hard yo. Big stompy boots in buttery cherry red leather.

And for what?

My "Beautiful Winter" is the cover story of the new issue (#13) of InterGalactic Medicine Show, featuring gorgeous artwork by Nick Greenwood. Shiny!

I'm in early again - I've been really lucky with traffic, so despite waking up late (I really, really need to remember to either take the 24-hr allergy meds, or take another 12-hr med at night, because this waking up at 3 am unable to breathe because of snot in my nose is NOT cool), I'm still in with plenty of time to eat breakfast and finish waking up. AND I managed to hit the grocery store, so I could restock my bread, peanut butter and jam at work (Yes, I live on PBJ sandwiches sometimes. Welcome to my life).

Things I wish I could remember BEFORE I leave my house in the morning:

1. That I have microwavable steel-cut oats for oatmeal, so I could have a hot, fast breakfast. (I should leave the package on the counter the night before. With a bowl. Maybe then I'd remember.)

2. That tea from the coffeepot is damn hot and takes forever to cool.

3. That I need sneakers to exercise.

I'm heading to Craft Night tonight, so I might (if I'm remembering correctly and have sneakers in the car) stop at the Planet Fitness in Manchester and do some biking before I head to Deerfield. Yay black ticket membership!

I also have homework to do, and I really should get cracking on that packing list. I'm hoping woadchic will help me with my new pattern tonight - I'd like to get it cut out so I can hopefully start whipping up some new garb tomorrow night. Yay new garb! We'll see.

Had an odd dream last night, where I was a multitude of different people - but each person was the same thing: a demon hunter. I could tell when the demons were around because I'd get this awful pain in my chest. It's an interesting concept (nope, never actually SAW the demons, but I knew they were there!) and I might noodle with it a bit today. I'm in that kind of noodling phase.

Now, on to work! 13 days and counting to Pennsic!

Getting close to fork sticking on "Whatever Skin You Wear," I think. Waiting on one or two more critiques before sending it out. In the interim, the plan is to resume flogging The Stupid Novel.

Poll #1430440 Where do I sleep tonight
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

My bed is covered with most of my clothing, as a part of my effort to clean my room. But I'm tired, and I want to go to bed. Where should I sleep?

So I've been talking about how awesome it would be to do a fanvid, jumping off from the Aerosmith 's Crazy video. Following the adventures of Alecia Silverstone & Liv Tyler from their sapphic school girl years until their 30's, by splicing in footage from their various movies.

Funny or Die? Means that I don't have to.

Tonight I have two missions:

1. Transform my bedroom from a Pit of Despair to something more like a 'slightly dusty under decorated boring room'. ¹

2. Find the $300 check my Father gave me in May, that I wasn't going to cash, because I'm a self supporting adult. I'm a self supporting adult who has purchased two plane tickets and a computer in the last month, and who has a $400 car insurance payment coming due. My pride, I no haz.

3. Had a sudden personal revelation about my current taste in fanfiction, one I should have had six months ago. Never let it be said I question my motivations much. For the record this has nothing to do with the current Star Trek binge.

4. HUNGRY. No food in house. No want to cook. Tempted to order takeout. Decisions. Decisions.

1. I have like 30 framed pictures, I just haven't bothered to hang any of them.

Had a good meeting with my nutritionist yesterday - we talked a LOT about some of my emotional eating. I'd originally said that I didn't do emotional eating - but it was pointed out to me that boredom and procrastination are both emotions too... *sigh* So something to work on. And we also started to address my perfectionist nature, which I'm struggling with in other areas as well.

Today, the sun is shining again! Day FIVE! I'm so excited!

I got in wicked early to work, so I sat outside of our caf and wrote my morning pages while the birds sang to me. I also took advantage of VTO a bit to give me an hour lunch, as opposed to the 30 minutes I usually have, and went back outside to write. I got about 2 handwritten pages on the Shanna story I've decided to work on (I'm not abandoning Star, I just don't know what I want to do next with her, so I'm letting her sit for a bit) and enjoyed the sunshine. If it's still nice when I get out tonight, I might go for a wee little bike ride before class.

No gym today, but that's okay - I didn't wake up quite right, because my CPAP smelled funny last night, so I ended up not using it. I really need to get a new mask - mine is starting to shift. Waiting for that new cushion to come in!

Oh, and after all that last night? Argus ended up calling the mechanic after all. :p

Off to study now. I've got tea and it's still very bright in here, so I'm happy.

Back from San Francisco. Currently in NYC to take care of some stuff and will be heading back to DC by train tomorrow morning.

Because we went for a week rather than one of our shorter long weekend trips (don't want to overstay our welcome), we did some touristy stuff in addition to visiting my 4 year old nephew and my brother and sister-in-law. We were staying at the Palace, so one of the first things we did after checking in, was stretch our legs after the 6 hour flight by going for a walk in Chinatown and picking up some fresh lychees. Later in the week, we finally got around to seeing Muir Woods. We booked on a smallish tour (30 on the shuttle bus) which left from the Ferry Building, cut across SF, crossed the Golden Gate into Marin County and first stop was Muir Woods. The redwoods were really impressive. I had not realized that a large precentage of redwoods were offshoots/sprounts of a mother tree rather than from seed. Which of course explains why they grow in circles. It was a sunny day, but you wouldn't know it from inside the park. My mom and I didn't want to do the more difficult paths, so we walked up to bridge 4 then doubled back and crossed over the creek at bridge 3 and back to the entrance. It was a very nice 2 mile walk. The only downside was occasionally walking into each other and tripping on cracks in the path because most of our attention was focused on looking up. After spending an hour in Muir Woods, the tour took us to Muir Beach overlook, which was a really spectacular view (and the old army lookout posts were kind of interesting too). Then the tour wound up in Sausalito, where we took the earlies ferry back, having already "done" Sausalito with my brother's family on a previous visit. The ferry ride was pleasant and gave us a great view of Alcatraz.

We also revisited Mission Dolores and since were more or less in the neighborhood went over to Borderlands Books. We've never managed to be at the store at the same time as the hairless cat. My mom took a quick spin through the new and used books and then very patiently waited for me while I looked through all the chapbooks and zines (Borderlands is one of the few stores that carries any, let alone such a wide selection). I ended up getting various issues of Flytrap, Talebones, Electric Velocipede and Sybil's Garage. I was pleased to be able to get some of the early, out of print issues of Electric Velocipede for cover price. I also picked up a coulpe old Turtledove books and Jane Palmer's second novel. So once again I spent a ridiculous amount of money at Borderlands and it's probably a good thing we don't get out to the Mission District on most of our visits.

Saturday was my nephew's birthday party so we took the N Judah out to their place mid-morning to help with the set up. The party consisted of my nephew's nursery school/day camp class plus their close age siblings and parents. This year they had a pinata shaped like Lightning McQueen from the movie Cars. It turned out to be very sturdily contructed and took a while to break open. There was pizza and fruit juice and ice cream and cake and for the kids my sister-in-law made little candy decorated individual cakes shaped like cars (last year they were trains like Thomas the Tank Engine). Later that afternoon we went down to the Embarcadero to stroll through the craft tents and I ended up getting a neckalce made from purple glass beads separated by much smaller hematite beads.

Monday was my nephew's actual 4th birthday. In the morning he went to his half day camp/nursery school at the temple they belong to, but we celebrated with them in the afternoon at their house and that's when he opened the presents my mom and I had mailed out to him rather than trying to take them on the plane with us. I got him a couple tiger shirts from the National Zoo, the Mack Truck from the movie Cars and a couple dinosaur puzzles, plus a Kung-fu Panda birthday card, which hit most of his current interests. The truck was a big hit. My mom got him a stuffed elephant and a big box/bucket of Lincoln Logs.

Made it to the airport three hours before our flight. Took a shuttle at 7:15 am. Haven't slept more than three hours in a row since last Monday. Hoping I can konk out on the plane for our 19 hour journey to the land of brats and kolsch. If we're still functional when we arrive in Cologne, the first order of business will be drinking our jetlag away. That works, right?

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Turns out that, not only am I right handed, I'm right hipped.

After bellydance class Monday night, my right hip felt fine, but my left hip ached, especially after sitting for a while. But, it was a very small price to pay; the class is great!

This past Saturday was the 9th Mensaversary of when Mah Sweetie and I started dating :) I got him the third season the the Muppet Show, since 9 is 3 3s, and we both adore the show. He got me a wonderful, recycled blank book (just the kind I like to use!), a large-print crossword puzzle book, and a vocabulary building crossword puzzle book. Yay! He's so very thoughtful :) We had a lovely Mensaversary evening/overnight, too :)

Work has been, and will likely remain, CrazyBusy. I'm still working on finding the right balance between getting all the work stuff done, and actually having a life - hence the lack of posts, and being totally awash in unanswered emails. But, I shall find a good, healthy balance!

Today I'm taking a vacation day - I'm doing a whole lot more nothing than I'd planned, which is probably for the best :)

Exercise Report: about 1/2 an hour of strength training exercises

Writing Report: nothing, yet, but the day is still young

Gratitude List:

1. taking as much time as I felt like to get out of bed this morning
2. knowing I'll see Mah Sweetie later today
3. looking forward to seeing the new Harry Potter movie tonight
4. daily exercise
5. gardening
6. Wake Co. Public Library
7. having made lots of mental health progress
8. having a washing machine at home
9. that a messy house and feeling overwhelmed at work are my worst problems
10. my doggie

I hate Big Brother, week 1. Too many new people. No idea of how the personalities are going to fall out. And it's too early to get attached, as the next two weeks are going to be almost entirely at random.

But I will persevere, and about week three or four it is going to get good.

Even if this group are dumber than a box of rocks.

By the standards of BIG BROTHER they are dumb. And that's. That's a really low standard.

Meanwhile, I should be cleaning the hosue, but I'm gonna go to bed early like a good girl, so I make it to class in the morning.

Yippie.

Not.

Morrigan sets her heart on a goal, and Barris wakes up from a terrible idea hangover.

Originally published at The Murverse. You can comment here or there.

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