Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!

Well that was an expensive day, yesterday. Dropped $515 on my car. It got various oil leaks fixed, as well as a new timing belt, which had never been replaced.  It drives about the same as it did before I noticed all the leaks, so I suppose that’s something to be grateful for.

It still leaks power steering fluid, however, so I guess until I can save up $650 in the next six months, I’ll have to open the hood every morning and pour fluid in it. Stupid car. Like a pet, but ungrateful and always dirty, smelly, and annoying. And it doesn’t love you.

Other things that have annoyed me today are that the lawn guy, hired by my land lady, came and blew leaves around the yard for about 20 minutes and then left. The lawn looks the same as it did the last month, the gutters aren’t cleaned, and since he blew most of the stray leaves into the backyard, the backyard now looks like shit. I don’t understand if he just assumed that nobody was home and nobody would care, or if he was just some random guy stopping by to blow leaves around? According to the land lady, he was supposed to take care of the yard and clean the gutters. I guess the car in the driveway didn’t tip him off that there was an occupant inside, watching him. Asshole. No work ethic, I swear.

My throat also hurts. I will be disappointed if this leads to a cold, but I’m fairly certain it hurts because my room is horribly toxic right now. Or maybe I just need a humidifier.

So I’m trying to move past those things today so I don’t end up grumbling and stressed out like I have been the last few weeks (thanks to work).

So, things I am grateful for on this particular day:

• it is Wednesday, and I’m leaving early from work!
• I can go to step tonight! And have closer attention from Julie, my girl-crush/teacher, since I guarantee that nobody will be in class tonight except for me (and Cousin, whom I’m also dragging to class)!!!
• I can stay up late and play games with friends because…
• tomorrow is Thanksgiving!
• the car actually runs, so I guess until my annoyance threshold is completely broken down by having to buy new quarts of fluid every day, I can live with checking the levels
• NaNo is almost done. 1000 words left.

That’s it for now. Time for lunch

I think playing Fallout before I go to sleep gives me bad dreams. A few nights ago I woke after seeing my dream self run screaming hysterically out of a room, away from some perpetrator. Two nights ago I had a dream that just left me feeling bitter and resentful when I woke up, and last night I dreamed that my house was the only one–in the middle of a family dinner, no less–that was swept up by a series of tornados that came through the area. I lived in a wooden/corrugated metal shack, which was then destroyed against a brick building. The last part of the dream had my father gasping in the driver’s seat of a car, unable to breathe, while shouted for my cousin to take the wheel (we were in the back seat, petting his dog).

I didn’t think I’d have anything to really blog about, but it appears that I do.

A couple of books for the rest of November. I should finish over Thanksgiving, a much-needed four day break.

1. Diary – Chuck Palahniuk
2. The Borgia Bride – Jeanne Kalogridis
3. The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
4. Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana – Anne Rice
5. Until I Find You – John Irving

I finished The Borgia Bride on Saturday night, and it was an appropriately fluffy story with a decent mix of sex, violence, betrayal, jealousy, blah blah blah. Slightly less fun than a Philippa Gregory book, but interesting and quick.

I’m interested in The Road to Cana because it’s written by Anne Rice, who wrote the (beloved) Vampire Chronicles. I’d never thought that she was particularly religious, but I suppose in my mind I can see how vampirism and religion may go together. She received a lot of crap from people about her sudden switch from vampire novels into books on Jesus’ life, and so I’ll try one. Well, it’s the second in the series. I don’t think I’ll have missed too much (and it was the only one my library had).  Oh, and the other reason I want to read it is because it seems to coincide with the rekindling of my roommate’s faith, which I find highly ironic given his flagrant bigotry and intolerance of others different from himself. Actually he’s Catholic, so maybe that makes perfect sense. Either way, apparently I’m not allowed to proclaim my atheism or make fun of religion anymore in my house because it’s too offensive (I politely asked, then, if my roommates would stop making fun of gay people and my own ethnicity in front of me, at the very least, since I find that offensive, and was met with something akin to sarcastic disregard. Wonderful!).

Anyway, John Irving is always a favorite, and I happened to be wandering through that aisle when I suddenly remembered that I liked an author whose last name begins with i. So there. A good way to end the month, before I start reading Harry Potter again (agonizingly slow, I may add, as only three chapters a week or so, so I don’t get too far ahead of my friend, who is reading along).

In other news, NaNo is coming along fine. I hit the 38,000 word mark last night. Hopefully I can finish this weekend (as I should hit 44,000 words Friday night) and get it over and done with, to move on to other projects.

Actually, this is the first year that my story does not seem to be wrapping up very soon. Most of the stories I’ve written I’ve been able to wind down pretty quickly, or at least hit their halfway marks at around the same time as I hit 25,000. Am I just losing my touch? Do I suck so much that I’ve just drawn it out for thousands of words???

I guess we’ll see when I edit it (if I edit it).

Quiet weekend. It was nice. Slept in Sunday, watched Hairspray, finished my book, and played as much Fallout as I could stomach.

Definitely saw the new Bond movie. I love Daniel Craig.

I don’t have anything else to say, except that I woke up a little bit dizzy today. But otherwise it was a good day.

That is all.

• I’m 4000 words behind in NaNo, which is a fairly regular occurrence. Life has simply interfered. I’m not worried about it, however, since the weekend is here, and I’ve been craving time to sit down and write, anyway.
• Saw Happy Go Lucky last night at the Landmark theater in midtown (near the park), with a bunch of people. Several were familiar, some were newcomers to the group. The movie was about a free-spirited primary school teacher, Poppy, whose optimism routinely tests others. During the course of the movie, the main threads seemed to be her relationship with her sister(s) and Zoe, a driving instructor, and a romantic liaison with a social worker helping out one of the kids in her class. Anyway, it made me seriously consider the way we interpret things and how different life would be sometimes if we would just change our outlook. A fairly tall order, though. Also, the first thing I said when I came out, to a couple of the people I had met was…Wow. My life is one big pile of boring, apparently.  Is it? Is it?! What can I do differently?
• After the movie, we went to Après Diem, right next door to the Landmark, and had some drinks and tapas. Quite an interesting group of people. Mostly, we talked about our jobs and what brought us to Atlanta. I should have done things like this ages ago.
• Looking forward to the new Bond movie tomorrow. I can hardly believe it’s here, and that November is halfway gone!

I think that’s it. Generally, it’s been an okay week. Nothing special. Today it’s so cloudy it reminds me of Silent Hill. Other than that, I hope it will be a nice weekend

1. Diary – Chuck Palahniuk
2. The Borgia Bride – Jeanne Kalogridis
3. The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien

I guess I forgot to write about finishing Palahniuk’s Diary. Well, it was interesting, and then took a rather paranormal turn around the halfway point. I’m not sure I’m very thrilled with Palahniuk’s writing, as it seems gimmicky to me. It worked in Fight Club, but as far as this story goes… I don’t know. The protagonist seemed almost too pathetic, and then I didn’t quite believe the paranormal stuff. Typically, yes, I can give myself over to alternate universe scenarios and things. Stephen King, for example, usually takes me there. I can accept the weird shit that happens in his books. But this was a little bit too much for me. A decent and quick read though.

And… I finished The Hobbit over the course of three or so days. I’d forgotten how much I loved it. There were certain details that I now picked up on though, having watched each movie multiple times, and read the series five or six times through. For instance… how often Bilbo puts on the ring. Granted, nobody was searching for the ring at that point, but still. And I was slightly annoyed at all of the whining done by the dwarves (although I defended their behavior to a friend who’d mentioned that it bothered him as well). Overall, an awesome book that brought me right back to the day I was banned from reading on the bus, since I’d gotten sucked into the “Riddles in the Dark” chapter and missed my stop, thus causing the bus driver to, once realizing I was all alone, turn around and drive me all the way back home. Haha.

Well, now that I’m through that, other things:

It is nice to finally be in a relationship that your father completely approves of. Apparently, my aunt finally told my dad who I’ve been seeing, which pissed me off royally. What part of “Do not tell anybody this because I’m not ready to, and I’ll tell them on my own terms” do you not understand? Seriously?

But she spilled the beans and I got suspicious looks from my step mom last visit, and finally an outright question from my dad during the last email we exchanged.

My dad emailed back and said that they thought it was awesome, and that this boy is welcome over no matter what the premise/condition/whatever of our relation/friendship. Etc. And even during the last family barbecue, my grandparents asked when he was coming over. They hardly ever did that with any of my previous boyfriends (especially not the last one). In fact, I think only with the last relationship was there outright disapproval of it. Not sure how much of that had to do with certain factors… either my complaining about it, my constant unhappiness (late night arguments over the phone and even once or twice at the house), or the fact that even after the above I still wanted to move away. I do know for sure that’s the only time, for example, my grandparents (who support me and the kids of the family to this day, I would say, especially when things were rough around the house when I was a teenager) have ever stepped in a said something about it. Although obviously defiant, I was actually quite humbled by their observations and advice over it. And uncomfortable, because I think secretly my grandma thinks it’s funny talking directly and unabashedly about things in front of people. Like body parts and functions at the family Thanksgiving gathering. Well? She was a nurse, and is not squeamish. Man, I heart my family.

So it is nice to have something that everybody is happy for. Almost everybody knows now, except some people from school, and our old friends. Mostly we don’t want to tell them because they have always looked down on this boy, or tried to date me (with no success), and now I think it is funny that for all their ridiculous talk and wondering whether this boy actually liked women at all…. Well whatever. Not like any of them have even bothered keeping in touch.

A bit spiteful?

Oh well. I suppose they’ll find out about us when we invite them to the wedding. Bwahahahaha.

Please, skip this post if you don’t want Fallout 3 spoiled for you if you’re planning on playing it.
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Tags : fallout, games, strategy, walkthrough

It really bothers me when other people don’t take responsibility for their lives, ask me to get involved, and are then pissy when I want nothing to do with it. Sorry, I don’t want a hand in helping you continue to develop terrible habits.

In other news, this weekend was nice up until this point, but I’m determined not to let it wreck the rest of my weekend. Perhaps some time tomorrow doing something I like to do, by myself, is in order.  I like the sound of that.

It’s been a weird couple of days.

First, I’m super excited about President-Elect Obama, disappointed about Proposition 8 passing in CA, and saddened that Michael Crichton died yesterday.

Next, I’m glad it’s Thursday today, because that means it’s only a day until the weekend. Work has picked up quite a bit around here and I refuse to give into the mentality that all my coworkers seem to have–that there’s nothing beyond work, no life to be had after you go home. That I should continue working even while at home. No. Absolutely not. Are you getting nervous? My boss asked me this about the sudden increase in work yesterday. Because I am. I’m panicking.

Nope, I told her. I’m keeping a focused emotional distance from it, because that’s what I have to do in order to stay sane. When I need to, I can exist in a very small bubble, the best parts of myself reserved for the rare moments at home when I can let down my guard. Usually in the dark, just before I’m ready to fall asleep, to someone who’s far away and just a voice on the phone for now. So no, no I’m not worried because it’s only two months of hard work, and then it will be a new year and I can see about moving on.

Finally, my car is leaking something, and that’s causing me stress. Great. I suppose it’s time to email Dad and see what I should do (even though I know what he’s going to say…)

Well, time to get to work.

Oh, wait. One more thing. Are you still writing? It’s day 6 of NaNo, but the weekend is coming up. You should probably stay in on Friday night and catch up on your writing, like I will. If it’s rainy this weekend, why not stay in instead of going to the bar or the movies and write? Aside from playing Fallout 3, that’s what I will be doing (most likely), as well. Just saying.