Flounce O-Rama!

I know it's kind of late notice, but after much heming and hawing I decided I'll have a party at my apartment: October 17 at 7:00 PM 'til whenever.

Nothing major--just having people over to hang out and play video games. I'll provide some amount of food and drinks, but you are encouraged to byo(beer/scotch/rum/tequila/etc) as well as snacks. We can also order pizza or wings or stuff like that if people want.

Again, that's October 17, next Friday. Like I said, short notice.

Please leave a comment here if you're interested in coming!

Bliss (noun)-Supreme happiness; utter joy or contentment. (Archaic. A cause of great joy or happiness).

Right now as I am typing this, my 5 year old daughter is asleep on the couch with a slight smile on her face. She is relaxed and looks very blissful. Above her on the top of the couch and on the window sill are two of our four cats who are curled up with each other. One of them just sighed a very contented kitty sigh. Next to me is the old man of the kitty parade who is asleep with one paw on my leg. He is asleep but purring slightly. I can hear the birds and crickets outside the house as the afternoon winds into the evening. My house is in a state of bliss right now.

This state can be interrupted so easily. A stray car horn or loud truck lumbering by will break the stillness that is in the moment. A barking dog or people arguing while they pass the house will do the same. Bliss is such a delicate state and must be treasured when it is found for it is soon interrupted and the state is past never to be regained the same way twice.

But bliss does not have to be quiet. Some of the most blissful moments in my life had lots of various noises accompanying the feeling of utter joy I felt. When I got engaged at the Adventurer's Club at Disney World, when I got married to Peter, the first time I held Caroline in my arms and the world just went away for a moment and it was only her and me, when I graduated from the Yale School of Drama, when I won my first fencing match, when a show went totally right and the audience loved us, when I held in my hands a copy of the book that I was published in.

Then there is that moment of bliss that I get when I get something creative to its finish point. When I have completed a puppet or a doll, when I get a costume done and up on stage, when I send a paper doll or an ATC (artist trading card) or an ATD (artist trading card doll) onto its new owner, when I finish writing something and know that I have said what I wanted to say.

I have been blessed with many small and big moments of bliss in my life. And I sincerely appreciate each and every one of them.

This was written for the 5th season of the LJ Idol. The bliss of the house was broken by a doorbell and a campaigner for one of the local politicians. Caroline is still asleep but the cats are now milling about expecting dinner in their food dish.

Glazed Donut (sexual reference) - soggy biscuit game (WTF?)

"It's always a monkey fuck until the last minute."

"Hey....Grand Californian."

Hi! I'm hoping people would like to sponsor me in a 24-hour reading marathon at Jo-Beth's on this Friday/Saturday. They provide the comfy chair, I provide the books. All proceeds from my reading will go to Beginning with Books. I'm doing it because: I like the charity, I love the idea, it's a brand new idea and they need support for it, and I love the Jo-Beth model of charity. Let me know if you'd be willing to sponsor me at all. Thanks!

I'm only about 2 minutes into this, but it's one of the creepiest things I've seen in a long time.

On this day, Daniel M. Laenker spewed forth:

• 02:42 @ultramundane I've had an idea for a while to design some kind of deep-blue foofoo cocktail drink called a Piso Mojado. #
• 13:55 Doctors have discovered an organelle in HIV that never mutates: tiny.cc/dNRqn #

Automatically aggregated and shipped in bulk by LoudTwitter, or so we hope.

Saw V is coming up, and with it, my review of it, in which I will likely say lots of mean things about it. Well, okay, it's possible that Saw V may be good, but considering that the previous four movies were all just barely-dressed-up torture porn, how likely is that, really? Anyway, last year, I saw Saw IV after having three of those single-shot bottles of good alcohol, which made the movie a lot more amusing. I'll probably be doing the same thing again this year.

In addition, a friend on LJ gave me a writing challenge, also related to Saw V. The scary thing is, it turns out the real challenge will be waiting until Saw V is actually released to post it. I'll probably post it under footsie's name, on JournalFen. I'll provide a link here when I've posted it there.

(Enigmatic post is enigmatic.)

I stole this from caprine, who now owes me a new set of abdominal muscles, because I laughed so hard I've torn mine. Ow! Ow! Ow! And I still can't stop laughing!

Obama = ? : Biden = ? : McCain = ? : Palin = ?

So far, my favorites:

Obama = Bill Hicks
Biden = George Carlin
McCain = Rodney Dangerfield
Palin = Dane Cook

Obama = violin
Biden = trumpet
McCain = bassoon
Palin = kazoo

Obama = brie
Biden = sharp cheddar
McCain = american swiss
Palin = cheese whiz

I slept like shit last night - I was worried about getting lost walking to the station, so I was running the streets through my head all night. Nothing to worry about, it's a pretty straight shot there. The train runs perfectly to get me to work on time. It was a long walk to the MV station, but it was nice and cool out, I had my ipod, and there was no one around. I'm now wondering if a bike would work, since the bike car was full this morning, and that heavy ass bike would be a pain to haul up and down the stairs. It would give me more time to sleep in in the morning, though, and if there was a place to stash it (there's only a few lockers, and you have to pay for them), it would be perfect. The walk once I get to RWC is only a mile or so.

A Razor, on the other hand....nah, I'd feel like a dork, would probably biff it over a pebble, and I'm sure they don't make them in Damn! sizes.

After a short period in which it felt as though my whole life was devolving into a whole clusterfuck (with my injuring myself in various ways every single fucking day, breaking an incense holder and a glass lamp and missing a biology test, my dad's credit card being skimmed and random €750 withdrawals from his account made from an ATM in Germany, among other things), my life found a way to balance itself out (most notably through my teacher telling me that I had not missed the test, because it was later in the week), and the last couple of days have been better and better. I have been having odd dreams, though. In one Hugh Hefner wanted to be my best friend and was desperate for my cell number so we could hang out, and in another, Gabe Saporta and I were super close friends, like, soulmates or something. All weird.

E and I went to the Gothenburg Book Fair, but this year it was a complete letdown, sadly. there was nothing fun there at all, the only two interesting things there were the hottest politician Sweden has had to offer the last fifty years, Thomas Bodström, and a (relatively) cheap DVD boxset of Värsta Språket featuring Fredrik Lindström. E refused to flash the ex-minister or any of the other stuff I suggested. Boring. :( There were so many people there, and everyone was old and standing in the way and gossiping and standing in awestruck silence around famous Swedes such as Robert Gustafsson and shit, which was hell.
We also discussed going up to Färgelanda to visit this week, she needed to talk to Mikael, and I wanted to see Golala and Bahez again. I ended up not going, though, as I was more down and anti-social than cheerful and "let's go see all of our old friends!" (And, truthfully, also partially due to my retarded if-I-push-people-away-before-they-push-me-away-I-won't-be-rejected thing that I get into when I'm down.) From what I have been told, the only people from the people I used to hang with left from when we were there are Golala, Bahez, Niklas and Mikael, and the new people there are no fun at all. I feel bad for the guys. :/

Next year, Watchmen will finally be coming to the silver screen! From what I've read and seen, the movie is going to be extremely faithful to the graphic novel. It looks beautiful and is more polished than the graphic novel with a few updated costumes, and if you don't believe me, check the trailer out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4blSrZvPhU In regards to casting, I agree with most of it after seeing the trailer, but I think Jude Law would have been awesome as Adrian. I might have squealed like a fangirl when I saw Rorschach... Either way, I celebrated this amazing news by re-reading the whole thing. It's still great.

I've gotten back to reading now, and thank god, I seem able to do it too. For a while there, I was worried that I had completely lost my ability to focus enough to be able to read. After all, reading requires a certain measure of concentration, even if you're reading an interesting book, unlike sitting in front of your computer with about 50 tabs in Firefox, skipping around tabs to entertain yourself while a few pages load. Recently I finished Chuck Palahniuk's Lullaby (awesome, and so uniquely a Palahniuk book I could have guessed it was his if I hadn't already known), Anthony Kiedis' autobiography Scar Tissue (interesting, especially for me as I was completely obsessed with the Red Hot Chili Peppers circa Californication), The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (excellent book, can't wait for the movie - Peter Jackson, don't let me down!), The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman (absolutely fantastic, anyone who has any interest in cultural anthropology should read this) and And Then There Were None by the fabulous Agatha Christie (very different from reading the Swedish translation, which was the only version I had read until now) and am about to start in on... The World According to Garp, I think. I might finally get around to reading all those books I bought in HI and had shipped over here when I moved back.

The last few days in my life can be summed up in two words: Cobra. Starship. I'm absolutely crazy about 'One Day, Robots Will Cry' and 'It's Warmer in the Basement'. My love is so overwhelming I am considering going to buy both While the City Sleeps, We Rule the Streets and ¡Viva La Cobra! - and I don't often buy CDs.
And now I am off on another song binge. Take care bbz, ilu.

'cause people change
can't you see my eyes?
are they not the same after the lies?
I know I'm like a machine
but I still have dreams
I know one day we will

sleep for days
come over come over
I won't make the same mistakes
come over come over
I'm dying not to hurt you
in our dreams we can be complete again

when you were young you kept a list
of the things you'd miss as you got older
I've known you in every life I've lived
yeah, I'm still a kid
even though I'm colder

when you were a child
I was lost in the wild
but you built a home for me in the road
I was born in the cold
turn up the heat
I know one day we will

sleep for days
come over come over
I won't make the same mistakes
come over come over
I'm dying not to hurt you

While eating my lunch, I was skimming the BBC Cymru site. I saw a headline that I just had to click on: Llys: Bygwth 'bwyta corff marw'. For some reason, I immediately thought of dreadpiratetait.

To be honest, there were a lot of words I had to look up (I usually don't read up on court cases in Welsh). But there was enough that I was able to understand--much without translating--to make it worthwhile.

I cannot express how good it felt to be able to read "Mae'r gegin yn llawn gwaed, mae fel pwll nofio yma." and understand it in Welsh without first mentally translating it to "The kitchen is full of blood, it is like a swimming pool here." Now that I think about it, even if I could express how good it felt, it would probably be for the best if I didn't.

Edit: for those that don't read Welsh, the BBC also has it in English Woman's 'threat to eat dead body'

I had a ton of crap to update on, but this guy just cracks me up.

I am always so cold, especially at work :(




Oh yeah, since it was asked--my number is the same.

This weekend was long, and filled with good stuff. Thursday night was La Fondue, we ended up eating almost all exotic meats; buffalo, kangaroo, llama (yes, we ate the DRAMA LLAMA!), , and a few other ones I can't remember. The ambiance was lovely, the food was good, and my date was super cute, so all in all, a perfect night.

Friday was a chill night (finally!) - the new couch and pirate chest are bad-ass and comfy as hell. I think the couch has a weird smell, but Dan says that should go away soon. We went grocery shopping, and Dan let me get whatever I wanted - it was like Supermarket Sweeps! I felt like Albert Brooks in Mother, buying $10 jam just because I could (I didn't, but I could have!).

Saturday's plans got changed a bit, but was still a good day - we got the new printer installed (after some tweaking), I got all the photos from the wedding to Whitney, and talked to Herher for a bit. Gotta get the CD for Kelly's 80's party to her before I go, which means I have to track down and burn all those archaic hits.

Sunday started off with a bang (so to speak), and let's face it - when the day starts with sex, it's gonna be a good day. It was a really hot scene, too - using Dan's terminology, it was a total success ( I would do the exact same scene again in a hearbeat). We went to his laundry place and did laundry, he corrected my homework (I'll be getting 100% on my test, thanks to Dashing Dan!), and were generally disgustingly domestic.

After that, we went to Nordstroms to play dress-up with him - that was a whole lot of fun! Jeans were the order of the day, and after I got over the sticker shock (and he realized he wears 2 sizes smaller than he thought he did), it was all about what made his ass look the best. Isn't that the standard for jeans? Who cares if you're comfy, your ass looks hot! The sales girl looked like Boo Boo Kitty Fuck from Jay & Silent Bob Strikes back, and had some hot-ass boots on.

Did a quick stop for Quiznos (he liked his ass in the new jeans, so he was good in his food choice), and headed to Game Castle next to Edges (saw a friend who works there now) for Dan's heroin fix...er, I mean gaming interests. (Hey, he's taking me to Disneyland for 4 days, I'll go to 50 game stores with him!). It was fun, actually - I scoured the store for a hint of Disney while Dan stood in line, the only thing I found was a Kingdom Hearts ad on the back of a magazine.

The Edges TNG Exploratorium (or the Kinky Sunday School, as one person called it) was AWESOME! Shelly led the discussion part of it great, and I tried my hardest not to be overbearing (considering the topic was How to Assert Oneself, I tried not to over-assert!), and outside of one interruption that spooked the newbies a bit, I think it went smashingly.

My flogging demo/talk was good too, Dan was a great demo and testicle expert (yup, we had a bit of a random segue to "How much is too much?" wiht genital play), and though I talked too fast and was all over the map in terms of discussion (I didn't know what the format was supposed to be, so it was off the cuff), I don't think I sucked too badly.

Home again, home again, jiggety jog, we ate leftover enchiladas and Dan tried to teach me how to play Halo with little success.

The fog is starting to burn off already.

(I sent this to Dan, using him as a random thought catcher)

The longer I wait to buy a car, the more money I can save up. Of course, this happened 1 day after I made the final, non-refundable payment for my Disney trip ~eyeroll~. The longer I don't have a car, (hopefully), the more I'll be able to exercise my ass away by taking the train & bike. ;) Plus, there's that whole "being good to the environment" thing that I should be doing more of. Train pass for a month is $106, and I can either take my bike on with me, or lock it up at the station. I know myself, as soon as I have a car, I won't use the bike/train, even if it does make sense - I'm inherently lazy. So, this situation forces my hand. There's only three things that could fuck up my Master Plan, the main one being I've yet to figure out how I can get to school - Wednesdays, Nance's granddaughter might be able to take me, but that leaves Mondays to figure out.

Now that I have a definite answer about my car, I'm better able to focus on solving the current problem, and though it's far from ideal, I kinda like the idea of taking the train and bike. My ass is gonna be sore, though!

I managed to get the laundry done from gathering the stray dirty clothes to getting the clean clothes folded and in the right rooms. It might seem like not that much to most people but I am a laundry procrastinator and tend to forget that I have laundry in the washer and dryer until much later in the day. I also got under both couches clean because Caroline lost her current favorite rubber ball under one of the couches and after clean under one, well I had to get the other one too. I went to the PTA meeting and then to bowling where I shot over my average helping my team take points.

I also watched the end of the Saints vs. the Vikings game. Wow! That was pretty impressive for both sides. The Saints have nothing to hang their heads about considering what they did in the 3rd and 4th quarters. And then the Vikings just take it away from them. Honestly it was the penalties that killed the Saints more than anything else well that and the four turnovers.

What is missing from that picture? (No, it’s not Waldo) Remember how I was going to work on a craft every day? Not so much. But I plan to pick up and start again today with one of two ideas. One is a set of Scary Godmother Puppets that has been kicking around in my head. The other is a Death of Rats marionette from Discworld that has been nibbling on my brain for a while. I also want to make some new tombstones for the Halloween display that I put up every year.

However tomorrow is paper recycling and there is a lot of it around here that needs to go out the front door. So I guess I’ll break my day into easily digestible chunks of time.

Peter will be web logging the debate tonight at www.peterdavid.net. I am hoping to score or create Bingo Cards for both McCain and Obama so Ariel can play one candidate and I can play the other.

I am grateful for more that two computers in the house.

keyboards are gross. it's amazing what you can pick out of them with a toothpick.

• 12:32 Weekend rocked - ate a llama on Thurs, wish I could do that with all the drama llamas in the world. Some fava beans and a nice chianti.....
• 12:38 Eating the oatmeal that I brought for breakfast now - it's been one of those days
• 13:53 Car's dead - took him 7 days to look at it for 10 minutes, he missed the block being cracked the first time - I'm pissed
• 14:07 Murphy's Law: the car breaks down 1 day after the deadline to back out of the cruise & WDW
• 14:21 If I can figure out how to get to school on Monday nights, I might be ok. You can take a bike onto Caltrain, right?
• 16:28 I have the sweetest boyfriend alive. Squee!
• 16:41 @Shelly713 One of the guys at work may buy it.

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter