the maw of Fafnir

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.

The day has dawned sunny and cold, should be down in the 40s for most of today. I had dinner with my brother yesterday, which was awesome, minus the fact that we were both some level of exhausted. We only did dinner and chatted over Italian food But, as I pointed out, we'll see each other for Christmas, and that'll be good.

Christmas is turning into such a complicated affair this year. I think I'm visiting not one but both of my grandmothers, which will include me being in a car for 840 miles or so. I'm looking forward to it, but it means that I need to start planning presents NOW, before I get swamped with vacation planning.

Thing I am happy about: It's FRIDAY!
Thing I am less happy about: I'm still sniffly, and the lack of restful sleep has not been helping.
Thing I am working on: Remembering to wake up in time tomorrow to get to the airport for my 830am flight.

At home, safe. Avoiding checking my work email as much as possible.

Today, I was glad to discover a couple of things:

1) No matter how much time you spend talking to people or trying to understand them, inevitably you will be surprised by them. In some cases, more than once.

2) There are still people in the world who believe very strongly in the success and brilliance of love, and who are not necessarily jaded by whatever situations they might have been in before you knew them or after you lost them.

Both of these things makes me quite happy, even though I'm not sure that I fall into either category. It's just good to know that things like Truth, Love & Beauty still exist as ideals and that people are very different on an individual basis.

In completely unrelated news, I had an awesome dinner at Kaygetsu, which consisted of 6 courses of unidentifiable foods and fantastic tastes and much green tea. I had spent a good few hours stressing about what I was going to wear, how/whether to do my hair, how/whether to put on makeup, and other things, before watching a couple episodes of season four of Buffy (yes, I have seen all of it more than once but I'm rewatching it) and forgetting to be stressed until about 10 minutes before I had to leave. Thank goodness for skillz which allow me to get ready and look good within 10-15 minutes.

I also realized, after some conversation, that I'm vaguely addicted to my Livejournal and that I tend to write in it more than is good for me. Of course, this isn't actually reflected in my entries, given that I spend a lot of time thinking about what I'm going to write, deciding how much information I want to divulge, and then writing whatever part of it I feel like I can write, sometimes expounding further in a friends-locked post. (Though, as you may have noticed, I don't like friends-locked posts much.) Usually, I get the urge to post something 2 or 3 times a day, but generally restrain myself to posting once every 2 or 3 days.

Henry is safe in Texas -- I know this because I called him and he picked up. I thought, for whatever reason, that he was two hours behind (so calling him at midnight my time wouldn't be so late for him), but, as it turns out, he's two hours ahead. And now much less well-rested. Sorry, Henry.

I have also added large amounts of things to my Amazon wishlist. And I kind of wonder when I think I'll be able to afford the complete Star Trek seasons of the original series, the Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine, as well as the whole set of movies. In the meanwhile, I kind of also need to get Buffy 5-7 and Angel 3-5. It's a pity that my birthday is so close to Christmas. Although I don't get any fewer presents, I only get them once a year...

I also kind of want to go and buy an entire new wardrobe, with shoes and everything. I've recently had an increasing urge to become more girly. I don't think this will actually happen, although I should probably go buy another pair of flat shoes (maybe puma SpeedCats or more ballet flats) and maybe a pair of peeptoe pumps.

I have at least two snails in my tank. One of them is named Sparky. I think the other is Trouble, both in name and in actuality. Apparently, snails are hermaphroditic, so can produce without a mate. And apparently, they do this often enough to take over the tank. I have experience with this, actually, since I found one snail in the morning, and twelve hours later, there were two of them. Coincidence? I think not. I have to figure out what to do about them, although the internet tells me that most snails are generally beneficial to the tank.

Finally, I realized that it was the last week in July, which means that Summer is nearly 2/3 over. This is both sad (end of summer) and good (beginning of pumpkin pie and a return of Christmas music). Also, at the end of September, my parents will have been married for exactly 40 years. My dad wants to go watch a large quantity of P-51 Mustangs take to the air in Ohio, but I'm not sure we'll be able to all make it out there for that. And it's no fun without all of us.

As part of summer going away, Formula 1 season is also drawing to a close, with Louis Hamilton, the rookie, in the lead for the Championship. Will Kimi, Alonso, or Massa be able to steal his early lead? Only time (and the remaining races) will tell.

If this were the normal size of my LJ braindumps, would you really want to read two or three of them every day? Yeah, I wouldn't, either.

i am in massachusetts until monday evening. that is all. :)

back in the exciting-but-not-overwhelmingly-so world of menlo park, california. today's travel adventure was the 1 hour walk to the post office to pick up my mail and the 1 hour walk back before sitting down to do precisely 3 hours of work. which was basically me looking through the giant giant piles of email that i had.

my inbox is empty again, so i can breathe.

( for those of you interested in my trip, read on )

well, there you have it, folks, nothing much to see here.

i went home this weekend, and managed to eat well and sleep well for the first time in weeks. it was kind of surprisingly nice, considering how much time i spent on the airplane and how little time on the ground. but i got to see my parents, watch an f1 race with them, and chill with my puppies. and then see jer and kim and people from the cave. I miss my MA boys/D&D group. interestingly enough, someone who is the best friend of one resident and the gf of another resident of the cave is moving to the bay area and working in menlo park...a whole mile away from my place - literally, i walk 2-3 blocks up ravenswood, and two down middlefield, and i think i'm there...small world.

Also, my department is hiring. If intrigued, go here: http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/search.py?lr=lang_en&type=f&query=adsense+coordinator&Action.Search=Search+U.S.+Openings If further intrigued, send me an email with your resume, and I'll make sure it gets to the appropriate people. It's fun, the people are good, the money is decent, and the perks are awesome (free food! free gym! free espresso! free other stuff, too.) Being technically proficient isn't a requirement - look at me with my oh so technical classics degree. You just have to be (vaguely) intelligent.

keep on rockin' in the free world... on my way to ohio for christmas!!!!

merry christmas and many saluations on the day!

happy thought for the day: I put up my christmas tree. Yes, the one from school. With all its ornaments. And we played lots and lots of christmas carols and I really just sort of want to sleep under it tonight. We'll see--the dogs'll probably eat me in the night...

happy thought for the day: mom's crisp, light and fluffy french toast with real maple syrup for breakfast on a rainy day...

( Discworld meme.... )

Also, this Friday, Nov 18, at noon, George R. R. Martin will be coming to Kepler's to debut his new book, "A Feast For Crows." http://www.keplers.com