It amazes me that people answer their cell phones in the "quiet study area" of the library and have loud conversations that are clearly not about urgent situations that can't wait.

Maybe the fact that this still amazes me means I haven't given up on the human race after all.

---

One of my friends has also joined my old guild (er, my new guild... it's like Grover Cleveland, nonconsecutive terms), and we're finding out how hard it is not to butt in with your own opinion about how to do things. Neither of us had ever taken a step back in progression before (ie, joined a guild that was stuck on bosses we've already done), so this is the first time we've ever had the opportunity to be that guy who says "well in MY old guild we did it THIS way" every couple of minutes when no one asked his opinion. We're trying really hard not to be that guy, and I think succeeding so far.

Of course it would be well intentioned. They probably would be better off knowing what we know. But if you don't wait until someone asks your opinion to share it, you just come off like you think you're god's gift to wow and everyone resents it. Funny how that works. Had the occasion to comment:

People are happier dying than being told how not to die.

My cat has an eye infection and has to take antibiotics. It cost 400 dollars to discover this, because my cat bites and scratches strangers even under normal circumstances, let alone when they are trying to touch her eyes, so they had to anesthetize her to find out what was wrong.

Maybe my cat is really special, but it seems like every vet I've seen is disproportionately afraid of her, jumping when she hisses, etc. You'd think vets would be a little more blase about aggressive animals, especially ones that only weigh 10 pounds.

---

The WoW situation gets crazier by the day. For the moment I have taken refuge in my old guild, which I left for greener pastures like a year ago. There was a time when I was very angry at the leader of my old guild, but there was also a time when we were good friends. I think it's possible to acknowledge and respect both those things.

A bit after I had rejoined her guild, I was playing on a newly created character, named Ninereeds. She saw me and, not knowing it was me, sent me a message like "sorry to bother you, but you're named after the dragon twoflower imagined in the color of magic?", to which I said "yes", to which she said "good call", at which point I revealed it was me and we had a good laff over it. That sort of thing used to happen to us all the time; it would just randomly turn out that we liked the same stuff.

She's also trans, and I had just recently been talking to my shrink about how I didn't really have any trans friends anymore, and it was lonely and things. It's not even a matter of talking *about* being trans, but... not being the only one all the time.

I'm taking most of the day off work today because I had a very painful medical procedure done yesterday, and I figure among reasons to take off work, that's a pretty good one. The good news is that I don't have bladder cancer. The bad news, as usual, is that they don't know what I do have.

---

I was trying to think how to explain why my WoW guild collapsed in a way my fandom friends could understand, and the first thing that came to mind was Pornish Pixies, and the attendant perpetual wank about being "elitist" and why one writer got invited and another didn't, and so on. That analogy only goes so far, because a guild is really more like a sports team -- some players are gonna get cut. (Okay I've never been on a sports team. But I've seen them on TV.)

( this is not a 'you are not prepared' joke )

So. I don't know what my plans are. It's not the game I'm burnt out on, it's being treated like shit by people who used to be my friends, in what used to be my escape. Sadly probably most of you in fandom can relate to that.

Hai! My WoW guild is in the process of collapsing! Like right now, as I'm typing. I'm alt-tabbed from the game to share this delightful fact.

Illidan... you were so close... yet so far.

Is there still room in Discworld fandom? Sorry I'm late.

You have slash, right?

No, things sure haven't been going very well. I would tell you what's wrong with me but I actually don't know and neither do my doctors, who are treating me for things that might be wrong in true House style. The latest medication takes 30 days to reach maximum therapeutic effect. So, see ya in 30 days!

Let's see, what else.

( health benefits )

( well it could be worse, you could have been hit by a car )

( fotobukket )

If you have your physical health, count your blessings.

No Helmet (R) by _hannelore.

That is all.

For about a year my desktop was ( this. )

When at last I made a revised version recently, things were ( rather different. )

This boob issue made me think primarily of the song The Future Soon by Jonathan Coulton, in that you spend the whole song sympathizing with the cute awkward geek, and then at the end of it you realize something very creepy about what can happen in the mind of an awkward geek that is not actually cute at all.

I link to the Spiff machinima of it because it makes the plot of the song easier to understand, and because it is a very nice machinima.

( dragons flying over shoulder of very large dead boss )

---

Also things have just been... hm insane. I had to go off hormones for about 3 months due to losing my insurance (back on now), and I grossly underestimated how horrible that was going to be. I dunno if any transpeople read this, but srsly don't ever go off hormones even for "a little while" if you can possibly help it. It won't "probably be fine".

What else. I am in kind of a developing new relationship, after being totally uninterested in dating or sex (with other people anyway) for several years. It is scary and exciting, frequently at the same time.

Relatedly, I'm thinking about where I'm going to live in the future, and what the process will be like of getting my brother transitioned to living on his own. He's able to do a lot by himself now, but I haven't ever pushed for his independence because I basically didn't see any reason to. It's not a living situation that I particularly mind, and I never had any motivation to want to live elsewhere. But both of us can do better for ourselves, can grow more, and grow up more, if we take the opportunity.

Many other things. Due to various twists of fate I'm seeing my old therapist again... like from six years ago. Nothing like that to make you consider how far you've come in six years, and yet how stuck you still are in some ways.

( Of course when you get to Magister's Terrace you find out that you never actually killed him, you just killed his hair. )

They call this boss "the guild killer" because he is so difficult that sometimes while trying to learn to beat him, people can't take the pressure and frustration, start fighting among themselves, and the guild collapses. That didn't quite happen to us. We spent seven weeks on him. It was hard, and it did cause a lot of strain, people bickering and snapping at each other, all that. (Doesn't this game sound FUN?)

When you first engage the guy he has four friends with him, who each come out one at a time and say their bit. I kept myself entertained by imagining this set to the RHPS floorshow, you know:

Thaladred the Darkener yells: It was great when it all began...

Whatever gets you through the night, I say.

My DSL is working again.

My body is not working anymore.

I had a dream that I was in a play, and not only did I not know my lines, but I was also not sure which characters I was playing. I knew one of them, but I thought I was supposed to play another as well (which I think derived from reading the Wikipedia article on Angels in America), and when I asked the director she pointed out that in fact SHE was playing the character I thought I was. And also I didn't have my costume. And the director was my ex-girlfriend.

More of you should read urbaniak, which is the really real LJ of Actor James Urbaniak, as seen on TV, as seen in movies, and as heard in radio commercials. He has a distinct knack for performative blogging, where he tells you what's going on in his life but makes it come out really entertaining and cool instead of lame and emo.

Today:
I have an audition tomorrow for an episode of a TV show. The last page of my character's sides ends with this stage direction: "FWOOSH! He BURSTS INTO FLAMES." Tips on how I can pull this off in the audition room are appreciated.

So I got to my store, and my boss tells me she has "terrible news", which is that a minion of the other store had fallen down and broken a bone, causing Minion Who Is Leaving to have to fill in over there, meaning that she would not actually be at our store on her last day for us to give her a card.

I pointed out that we still have to get her a card, even if we have to mail it to her.

Which of course led my boss to admit she STILL had not picked a card. Who didn't see that coming?

---

Totally unrelatedly and cryptically, there are moments when I suspect I am actually far, far luckier than I deserve.

Yes I mean that in a good way. :P

It turns out when you forget to pay people for a long time, sometimes they turn things off. I feel this area has been significantly slighted in public education.

So I have been stuck on dialup for a few days while my DSL gets turned back on. It's not actually as slow as I remember it, which seems impossible since I've had DSL for years. Maybe it really is faster than old timey dialup, or my expectations were low enough that anything seems good.

Ah what else. In the style of Pepys, I could tell you about my UTI!

( Or you could scroll away! )

( Unrelatedly, I have reached a new level of understanding with my boss. )

And now I think I actually have to drop by work. One of our minions is leaving, and I am supposed to sign her going-away card. I don't resent having to do it, I quite liked this minion and am sorry to see her go. What did piss me off is that yesterday, when I absolutely had to leave at 5:00 in order to make my clinic appointment, someone thought it was okay to hand me two gigantic shipments at 4:00 that all had to be processed and merchandised by me. This was easily two hours of work, even cutting corners would not have gotten it done, so I just said that and did as much of it as I could, but it was still very stressful.

And as I was trying to leave this unfinished project in a state that it wouldn't be strewn everywhere, my boss goes, but you have to sign Minion's card! So I say, give it to me and I'll sign it. My boss says she hasn't picked it out yet and Minion's last day is tomorrow, when I'm not working.

Have I mentioned: We work in what is, partly, A GREETING CARD STORE. How do you manage not to pick a card for someone in a two week period while surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of cards that YOU YOURSELF purchased for the store.

Well. I will still go sign it, she better have picked it by the time I get there.


Re: mood icon, I am not really pissed off. but you know, it's a picture of a giant urine sample.

so Mah Novel is in the form of the diary of one of the characters, which was mostly inspired by reading Pepys's Diary. Pepys wrote about everything in a largely unvarnished way -- the current entry as I write this is about his ongoing urinary tract issues -- and it's striking how often he goes out and does things and sees people. I frequently need to mine him for ideas of what people did after work, before electronic forms of entertainment.

( i gave up watching tv quite some time ago )

I keep thinking I'm going to post something. :P

( hm )

So I have these pajama pants. I wear 'em. You know, for sleeping, or lounging around.

( pajama pants vs cat )

( pajama pants vs grocery store )

In other news, my boss has a black eye, which was given to her by her toddler son. Accidentally, of course. Apparently he whacked her in the freaking face with his head WHILE she was sleeping. Thank you, people who choose to perpetuate the human race... I would not do what you do.

my Incipient Novel or whatever you want to call it is over 10,000 words long at the moment. I was thinking that's the longest continuous thing I've ever written, but then I checked and the Other Novel that I tried to write a long time ago had 18,000 words when I stopped, but it was far more disjointed and overall bad than the current one. I've never had 10,000 words of something I was willing to show to another person, even just one person.

I'm also in the process of transcribing the fragments of it that are in different notebooks, because it has happened to me that a notebook got lost, and with it whatever I had been attempting to work on. There's 4k words in that file, and I couldn't really guess how much I haven't typed yet. (This is my usual process, I write down ideas on paper, in whatever order they come to me, and then sit at the computer with that propped in front of me and pick out the non-stupid parts and put them in order.)

The only reason it matters to me is that I'm bad at sticking with things. I get bored and don't finish. I'm trying to figure out what it takes to see something through to the end.