the maw of Fafnir

This made me smile. I was attempting to explain to someone that I tend to plan cleaning and doing work til the absolute last minute.

His response: "I just pictured in my head me showing up like a minute early, and knocking on the door, and you opening it and being all messy, and your place is like on fire, and then you slam the door in my face, and say "Gimme a minute." Then in a minute you open the door again, and everything is perfect."

That's so totally me.

This is a late-but-better-than-never-PSA: Valentine's day is in two days.

If you haven't started planning to do something for that special someone, you've got very little time to put something passable together. If you've declared you're not doing something, please make sure that your special someone is also agreed on this point, else you may end up with a lot of hurt feelings and a general air of "But you forgot me!" Even though I'm always a champion for the original, unique Valentine's Day Semi-Surprise, I might suggest that even traditional dinner and a movie works as a stop-gap in the direst of times.

I, meanwhile, have plans of an extremely unromantic sort. I'm going to an anti-love choral cabaret in the city, with a friend who is most definitely a friend, to watch darkest_light sing.

This post was going to be a "Romance is dead, here's why I say that, and it's your responsibility to go resurrect it" post, but really, y'all already knew it. And if you didn't, well, comment and let me know so I can proceed with ranting.

Funny. The more you think you've got someone figured out, the more likely they are to surprise you. Except if you've got me figured out. Once that happens, you're home free -- I'm pretty predictable. It turns out that you can't really box people into nice little square-shaped containers.

I'm very sick of this rain. It causes the ants to panic and flee their flooded homes for my apartment. I'm not really okay with that. And also, cold.

My friend is loaning me a lot of DS9. The show was interesting at first, but has since improved even more so since my friend told me that the same people who created Battlestar Galactica did DS9. Ronald D. Moore and Bradley Thompson wrote and/or produced the majority of DS9 and BSG. Anyway, it's totally bizarre. Chief+Keiko == Chief+Boomer; Changelings == Cylon v.2; Julian Bashir == Gaius Balthar; Kira == Starbuck; human race fighting for survival

Try not to tell me giant plot spoilers about either show in the comments -- I'm halfway through Season 4 of DS9 and I don't remember anything from after the end of season 2 of BSG -- but what do other people think?

Well, you found me. Was it worth it? The only thing you've managed to break so far is my heart...
This isn't brave. It's murder. What did I ever do to you?
...you don't even care, do you?
Please proceed into android hell.

Merry Christmas, all. Yes, I know I'm a few days late, but it's been hectic. There was my brother's birthday, then mom's birthday, then Christmas, then a 12 hour drive to Massachusetts, then a 4 hour epic cleaning of my mom's laptop, and it's off to DC tomorrow. So needless to say, it's been busy, and I should really be in bed since I need to be up in six hours.

In any case, I got to see Jeremy tonight. Turns out that even though there's a New Year's party this year, it is unlikely that I will go, being that his girlfriend (who seriously does not like me) will likely go. Frankly, since I feel it's likely she'll try and kill me if she ever meets me, I'm kind of okay with just hanging out with Jer tonight. Although, honestly, she really shouldn't worry about him -- he is dating *her*, not me. Don't you remember? We had that whole kafuffle last year and he chose you over me. Sending text messages in order to interrupt his hanging out with me just makes you look psychotic. ANYWAY, whatever. I'm done with the dramatic angst for now, although if that other damn boy doesn't get out of my dreams, I will go insane.

My fishtank apparently is still doing badly -- the water's gone all cloudy and I'm not anywhere near it to fix it. Thanks to Mike, though, they did get a water change. I can only be glad that someone actually was around to feed my fish. Thank you, o wise sir. I'll check it when I get back and try and fix it.

In terms of (bandito?) loot from this Christmas, I received far too many DVDs (including Serenity special edition, BSG Razor, Buffy & Angel) and far too many books (including the Goodkind book, and the remaining two books in the NightWatch series) and also an extremely nice pair of earrings and a wallet. I gave my brother a the giant lego set of the Millennium Falcon and an awesome dragon, and other neat stuff to the rest of the family, including a lot of Google stuff. It's problematic when you work at a neat company -- people just seem to want Google stuff from you.

Right. I'm off to bed, to arise early and drive 8 hours to DC with my dad. In a minivan. Hope I'll have the right set of music to keep myself from going insane.

New Year's in a few days. Guess I ought to start thinking about my resolutions or somesuch. Ew, committments. I'm really not any good at those.

Thing I'm happy about: Henry's coming to visit in little over a week! And he's staying for a week! And it'll be awesome to see him and stuff.
Thing I'm less happy about: It's impossible to find a station that does techno remixes of Christmas carols. The closest I've come is somaFM's Christmas lounge, which has a few chillout remixes. Also, I think there should be a station that does hiphop remixes of Shakespeare. Coz that would just be awesome.
Thing I'm working on: Digging myself out of piles of work so that I can go to BCBG's & VS, do my laundry, and pack before going to bed.

My friend Casey just got engaged to the most perfect guy of all time. I cannot express to you how golden this couple is. I am so incredibly happy for her! :)

Thing I'm happy about: One day more, and then it's the weekend...
Thing I'm less happy about: One day more. It should be tomrrow already, thank you.
Thing I'm working on: I still need to unpack. But at least I bought some plane tickets.

I was very unmotivated yesterday -- I think the rain dampened my spirits. Whatever the case, I ended up spending ~90% of the day in my apartment, alternately watching Deep Space 9 Season 1, reading a book, and staring at various lyrics online. I didn't actually leave the house until 10pm, when I was invited to go play board games at Green & Brown's, so I went over and we played Monopoly. I know, group of 5 gamers, and we decide to play Monopoly! Weird. In all fairness, there was a tiebreaker between Monopoly and Apples to Apples. No one had played Monopoly in a really long time, so it was kind of fun...

I honestly can't remember the last time I played Monopoly. I feel like it must have been sometime during freshman year of college or the summer after, but I can only remember playing Monopoly in Saudi with Kati. We'd eat cheese puff balls, read Calvin and Hobbes, and play epic games of Monopoly. I used to always play with the horse and cowboy when I was little, so that was my piece of choice. Anyway, David took an early lead, but by the end of it, I had rent immunity on enough properties and had enough well placed properties of my own that I ended up with total assets of over $16,000. Which is a lot of money in Monopoly, but not as much in real life. I doubt somehow I'd be able to build a house for $50, even if it were on Connecticut Ave. In any case, the game was relatively short (aka, 3 hours) since David and I decided not to duke it out after the other three players went bankrupt, but then there was some Smash and I didn't get home until 330am.

I love watching Smash. I have no idea why. I don't really have any interest in playing it, but it's fun to watch. This is odd, since I didn't play any of the games that the characters are from, so I'm constantly asking, "Who's that? What's that stage from?" Anyway, it reminds me of my last year at Stanford and going over to EAST and hanging out with various people in the lounge playing Smash. I don't really miss being in college, but I really miss having the ability to be online at 3am and find someone else to hang out with who's a five minute walk away. And how large group things just kind of materialized of their own accord -- now it's all about the planning. Ah, we could go here, we could do this, etc etc. Which reminds me, I should try and organize a Girls' Day with the few in-the-area girls and go up to the city or down to Santa Cruz or something.

Thing I'm happy about: sleeping in until 1145. Sleep is fantastic. Also, digestive biscuits with nutella are AWESOME for breakfast.
Thing I'm less happy about: This cold. It was supposed to clear up rapidly, but it seems to be hanging on a week later.
Thing I'm working on: Errands and packing. I'm going to NYC tomorrow night for a week...

Tonight I get to hang out with The Other Woman. Actually, in this case, I might be the other woman, but whatever. It's still uncomfortable, and I hate drama. (Actually, you could have guessed this last from the millions of entries I've written saying that recently.) The rest of the day has been relatively good. I was productive at work, and lo and behold, I did (mostly) clean my apartment. You can see the floor now. It's actually beige, not miscellaneous-stuff-colored.

Thing I am happy about: Right now? This: http://youtube.com/watch?v=77zxCAfVeD8 Also, the fact that after 6 hours of work, my apartment is liveable again. Good thing, too, since Alexandra is spending the night.
Thing I am less happy about: The price of airplane tickets to various locations, including but not limited to Ohio and Japan.
Thing I am working on: Maintaining a good attitude and optimizing awkwardness.

In an amusing follow up, it turns out that Dobromir did get his trip to Hawaii, so I don't feel particularly bad about not having a birthday present for him.

The party was good, I drank a little more than I originally wanted, but still did not get drunk, and drank significantly more water/non-alcoholic things than alcoholic drinks. And also, pomegranate martinis are a generally bad idea. Bookstore crawling was also good, and, although I did not pick up anything particularly random, a good time was had by all. It culminated in getting chicken adobo and being very very full by the time I went to the party.

I also found a new BFF 4-eva. Just don't ask.

Thing that I am happy about: that extra hour of sleep.
Thing that I am less happy about: people drama. It gets tiring after a while.
Thing that I am working on: Having patience. And losing some of the bitter edge to my sarcasm.

Pluto has white spots on him. Likely ich. Maybe mouth fungus. Likely means, all my fish are going to die. Yes, there's salt in the tank. Yes, I'm going to the pet store tomorrow to try and fix it.

In other news, onetruedavid failed his reflex save against the whipped cream attack of the hot chocolate he happened to encounter. It was really funny.

Got a weird package from my parents consisting of random hiking gear they thought I should have. The sleeping bag must be from the 80s. I have never seen it before in my life, but they assure me that this is the sleeping bag they bought for me not so long ago. The medkit expired 7 years ago. All of it smells like my basement.

I think I give up for now. I had a great idea for a vignette, but I've since forgotten it. I believe it was a story about the Gates of Hell or a description of the Deerfield River.

Also, I need to go write bad love poetry about well-oiled gears and ink spatters.