So, the parcel containing my bday presents from cfred arrived today. Courtesy of amazon, I got:

• the Horatio Hornblower box set (A&E; version) 6 disks of joy!
  
• the soundtrack to Miyazaki's Sprited Away, once again done by the amazing Joe Hisaishi
  
• The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850 by Brian Fagan. My Roman history/archaeology prof was big on climatic factors, especially as related to the fall of the Empire (the Rhine froze so barbarians could swarm in. More rain and cold in the Eastern empire was bad news, but was actually a helpful thing in the Western deserts, etc.)
  
• From Dawn to Decadence, 1500 to the Present: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life by Jacques Barzun. I've heard lots of good things about this book, and am interested to see how such a huge topic is managed.

After I finish LotR, these beauties are next...revel in my geekery!

feeling: dorky

another chilly morning in the garage office. Today was weigh day...down only 2 lbs., which isn't bad but I was hoping for something a bit more dramatic. We'll have to see on Thurs how the measurements look.

I'm a bit depressed of late by my inability to write anything worthwhile. I have three fiction pieces in various stages of disarray and two non-fic articles that I have researched to pieces. Why can't I sit down and work on any of it? Traditionally I have always done my best work when I am supposed to be doing something else (some of my worst grades have come in the classes where I did nothing but work on my own stuff)...will my productivity increase when I get back to school? Is my muse simply hibernating while I work? Or was writing simply a childish notion that I have at last grown out of? Some famous author once said that if you want to make your living at writing, you have to treat it like a job...put in your 8 hour day and just bang some stuff out. More often than not I wait for scenes to come to me...which they used to do all the time. I suppose I have other things on my mind now and the scenes can't always just appear, Athena-like (Athenaeically?), in my head. Perhaps if I sit still long enough, I can make myself come to them.

feeling: contemplative
listening: The sound of my blood freezing

I'm on a productivity kick, whee!

Saturday was not productive per se, but was still fun. Went down to Austin with M&B.; We went to the Uber Old Navy in Round Rock (hopefully M won't mind me outing her to the lj community....they're having a kid and the Old Navy in RR is the nearest that sells maternity wear). She got stuff and I got some boy cords that have a waist 4 inches smaller than the last pair of boy pants I bought, w00t! Then we went to the Alamo Draft House for food and Big Fish. I wasn't sure how I was going to like this one, but I really enjoyed it. Caveat Emptor, it gets a little throat lumpy at the end - good thing I don't rarely cry at movies. It's a good movie, worth the (insert going rate of movies in your town here). We did Dave and Busters which was largely a disaster on my end since the power card I needed to activate my gold player card was in my purse at the time of the break in, dammit. Still had a good time watching M&B; acquire many tickets. We went to Babies R Us as well and played with car seats and such...all that stuff is so expensive...I hope I have many rich friends and relatives to help me out by the time I need any of it. We got back to Waco ca. 10 or so and I went back home and slept :)

Sunday begins the productivity...much washing of dishes, cleaning off cfred's desk, finally getting all the fucking xmas stuff back in boxes and into the closet. We also went to the wretched hive of scum and villainy (aka Walmart) for toiletries and low carb stuff...including Breyers Lo-Carb Chocolate Ice Cream! It's made with Splenda and sugar alcohols so it is Atkins-friendly...like 4 net carbs or something. I think I've missed sweet stuff most of anything, so it was nice to be able to have dessert for the first time in nearly 3 weeks :)

Today I am off work, and I have already: taken plastic bags to be recycled, mailed packages, done the dishwasher & handwashing, and begun the process of organizing the junk room...including assembling the metal shelves from hell (well 3 of 5 are assembled, but I hope to have the rest of it done today)

So there you are another lame little weekend recorded for posterity...

feeling: productive
listening: May It Be - Enya

1) Little snippet based off of the song that was going on the tv at the time (an Indian pop song) The cast of Taboo was dancing which included not only Boy George but Whoopi Goldberg as well and they were doing moves from the wedding scene of Bend It Like Beckham...very weird

2) cfred and I were on some survivor like show. We were trying to get to Angel Falls...first one there wins or something. Apparently Angel Falls has relocated to Thailand. We stopped by an NCSU alumni reunion thing to find a map and then the dream went the extra weird notch and we were back in the US and had to drive there (to Thailand...which apparently only takes 3 days on a bus) Everyone kept disappearing off the bus and when we asked the host/driver he said it was because they all kept dreaming. Bus driver was half asleep too, but said he could handle the hairpin curves.

3) The desert we were driving through suddenly became a battle field and I was Frodo Baggins. I was trying to get to King Aragorn (who I kept calling Theoden, but visualizing Aragorn). Many years had passed since the fellowship, but Gandalf was still hanging around. There was an evil army we had to get through, but this piece of Theoden's armor I held vaporized them as they got close to me. We went through the desert and then came out into a parking lot filled with cars from the 50s. The armor made it hard to walk but we continued on to a path that lead into a dark wood. In the wood there was a village, nearly deserted, with a pub that prompted the comment 'I should have liked to have seen Merry and Pippin drinking there' Guarding Theoden's castle was a dragon. Gandalf sacrificed himself to kill it and I went through...don't know what happened with the king exactly because it went to a first person shot of me stirring some salad telling the story to someone else.
...I seriously hope that none of that relates to anything that actually happens in the books...somehow I doubt it :)

feeling: contemplative

Yesterday was stressful...so very glad that it is friday.
Just hanging out and redesigning the house website.

still don't have anything productive to say...but I do have Monday off so I can do things like sleep and clean, woo-hoo.b

feeling: boring
listening: people talking

...I've made some real progress, no lie. Now I'm working on a summary of our strategic plan (which is hard, because we don't exactly have one) and I'm tempted to write, We resolve to continute not to suck. Maybe this is only funny to someone who's been staring at this thing for 4 hours straight.

feeling: ditzy
listening: Copland - Rodeo

Huuuuuge grant I'm working on must be postmarked today, so no time for (much) frivolous internet surfing. Wish me luck, etc, etc.

One other thing...I think the second best thing I'm taking away from Baylor (aside from my diploma) is my windbreaker. It is bright gold but so cool :)

Alright, back to work maggot!

feeling: busy
listening: sound of the printer

Okay, for some wacky reason, my most recent entry is showing up behind my 50 states meme entry. Weird. Here's the entry if you think you've missed it.

Anyway, as consolation for the distress mentioned in that entry, I got happy CSI:Miami dreams last night. mmmm Horatio :) I have to say I made a fairly crappy officer, as I spent a lot of time crying and not having my gun. I'm not entirely certain of the details of the case but there was a kid whose mom and step-dad were crack heads and smuggling stuff. Some how the kid got it in his head that the way to protect his family (younger brothers and sisters) was to kill himself...which he did after waving his gun around. Fortunately for me, I don't know enough about violent death to paint an accurate picture so it wasn't very graphic. Also fortunate, I do know enough about foreplay ;) But the stupid alarm woke me before it could get really good. I think the crack head stuff came from some made for tv movie I surfed through yesterday...and the crack head dad tried to fire my pistol through my jacket a la 'The Long Kiss Goodnight' (my dream self did think that I probably ought to invest in a holster). And Horatio was missing his badge, which he had given away in the episode I watched before bed.

So yeah, I'm a weird kid. But I'm a weird kid who's already down 9.5 lbs! (yes I know this is water weight but let me have my moment ;)

feeling: weird
listening: No Doubt - Underneath It All

...thousands of fangirls cried out in pain

So we're watching the Mizzou/Syracuse game, right? Quin Snyder CUT HIS HAIR! Those beautiful curls, all that (Sturgis-esque, NCSU types) hair mojo...gone! I weep for it. People of Missouri, rise up! Do not let this travesty go unremarked! I need a poster for the BU/Mizzou game "Bring Back the Hair!" that'll get me on ESPN!

Okay, enough of that (although it is sad, in a shallow kind of way). Loooooong day at work today, and I've apparently been coopted into being the secretary for all the meetings leading up to the house's big event in April...yay for me *ugh* it wouldn't be so bad but I found out during the first of these meetings...and they're all at 5:30 on Tuesdays and promise to be fucking interminable. Everyone is at last back in the office, which is nice...but not conducive to my free reading time :)

feeling: crushed
listening: Me first and the gimmie gimmies - Build Me Up Buttercup

( 50 states )

feeling: blank