Hm. I said I was going to stop writing summary posts like this. Another time, I guess.
This week in a nutshell:
Furniture. Up to NY on Saturday-saw my sister for half a day between a gig and the next leg of the tour, rescued her from a flat tire when she had no money and a dying cell phone, played a rousing game of "where the hell are the table legs?" in a house full of stuff from my dad's moving-in girlfriend, and ate sushi-back from NY on Sunday, and now I can has furniture. Well, the table/chairs, an area rug, a small bookshelf, a little papasan chair, and a metal cart left over from college, anyway, but at least now most of my things aren't on the floor.
Oven. Adventures in broken-down apartment features this week included the smoke that came steaming out of the oven when I tried to use it for the first time. Long story short, it took one day for maintenance to identify the problem, another for them to come back and fix the problem instead of just telling me about it, and another for me to find out they had come, because they sent a note to the previous tenant's email instead of leaving the piece of paper on the door like they'd always done. Aie. I had, naturally, just bought a chicken to roast; the poor thing ended up in the fridge for a day, cooked for ten minutes on day two, put back in the fridge for a day, frozen for another day, and it's now defrosting so I can cook it tomorrow. If I die of salmonella or something when I finally eat it, please all of you play nicely as you divvy up my things.
Hair. Attend: I am making a pact not to use elastics anymore (except at the gym, where I have been trying to go most evenings right after work). Gone with the ponytail of yesteryear, I cry! Thanks in part to a book about curly hair recommended by
hannahrorlove and wisdom accumulated five or so years ago the last time I got a good haircut, I am trying to care for my hair with conditioner and gel so it can do its thing without frizz, and plan to use some freelance money to get a good-quality cut at a real salon in a few weeks when a spot opens up.
Alcohol. For the first time in all the years I've been over the legal drinking age, I bought a bottle of alcohol for myself. Two, actually: amaretto and sweet-and-sour mix. I plan to use it as a wise professor once advised me, to lower inhibitions so I can actually write without the impending deadlines of Kink Bingo. Okay, his advice didn't mention Bingo, but the rest is true.
Plants. A coworker who gardens potted two small plants for me, a spider and a philodendron, and they make a disproportionate difference in this place than their size would suggest. The spider plant is in a pretty earthenware pot that's glazed deep blue-green with brown streaks in the light. She said it reminded her of my eyes. Aww.
Job. I have absolutely sucked at work this past couple of weeks. Just sitting there all day getting nothing done. I have to get my act together and make up my mind about which of the two offers I have I'm going to take, because while neither is ideal, I can't keep stringing people along and agonizing so much that I'm totally unproductive. On the bright side, just got a raise and will have health insurance in November. On the dimmer side, that means a two-month lapse in coverage; need to find a stopgap plan, because there are prescriptions to fill and possible illnesses and accidents to be prepared for.
DVDs. After following up with Amazon, the postal service, and the place I used to live, a refund was attained, a new order placed, and SGA S5 finally arrived here on Thursday. Hopefully that'll kick-start the vid-that-was-in-progress about how Pegasus people are angry.
Fanpeople. Thanks to
kassrachel, I was put in touch with a local cluster of fans who gather weeklyish to watch sci fi down the street from me. I met many of them for the first time last night and it was wonderful. We watched the Vividcon premieres along with a few others, had tasty food, and chatted about the usual hit-and-miss collection of fan topics -- vidding, knitting, cats, various Star Treks, works in progress, textual analysis, slash, Canadians, mpreg. Okay, the last was my fault for having brought up, as we were leaving, the fact that I was glad we hadn't talked about it, after
barely_bean scarred me for life the first time I hung out with the NYC brunch crew.
Good vids included
greensilver's
American Tune, a tribute to The West Wing set to Simon & Garfunkel that moved me even though I barely know the show, and another viewing of Seah and Margie's spectacularly unsettling Dr. Who vid
No Handlebars (again, need not know the source material), and
Learning to Crawl by
jarrow (BSG, ditto). A couple of nice vids introduced me to lovely songs, including Greg Laswell's
It Comes and Goes in Waves (
vid) and Jars of Clay's
Boy on a String (unlinked vid of the same name was by traykor).
Okay. Off to see the wizard Laundrys for the first time in a while, and then… long weekend!