o/` Alanis Morissette – Your Congratulations o/`

Well I finally got around to typing up those book reviews:

Armor, By John Steakley, 426 pages
This science fiction book tells of a man named Felix. Felix is a carefree (as in he is free of cares…) soldier in a galactic fleet and by a cruel twist of fate, he is thrust into inhuman conditions of battle. But Felix is not what he seems. The structure of this book is a bit confusing at first, but by the end, when everything comes together, it’s really amazing. I guess my only problem with this book was that it contained a few lengthy battle-scenes that really don’t interest me. As far as the story goes however, and the way it was written, as a whole, the book was very very good.

Wheel Of Time: Book Eight – The Path Of Daggers, By Robert Jordan, 685 pages
The Wheel Of Time continues to turn in this 8th book in the series. As each book in this series reveals more of the story it becomes more complicated, and this is very clear here. It gets slow in certain parts because of how complicated it is, but Jordan does an excellent job of reminding the reader exactly what is happening without being overly redundant. The fate of Mat is unfortunately barely made reference to, much like book 6’s absence of Perrin. But much is discovered about the Sea Folk’s wishes (and ‘bargains’), and much more is explored (and mode questions raised) about Rand’s sanity. And again we are forced to notice how Rand has changed since leaving the relative safety of Emond’s Field. Also, the paranoia that Rand and a few of the others over Darkfriends and traitors is strengthened through more betrayal, while at the same time the characters must trust a few people, a very delicate balance. This book is a wonderful addition to the series.

Griffin and Sabine, By Nick Bantock, 48 pages
I first discovered this book while taking an Illustration and Design class in high school. It’s a series of post cards and letters between a male artist in England ad the exotic Sabine from a small tropical island, but by the end of the book you are forced to ask yourself if it was all that it seemed. The main draw of this book was not the story, but the format. The letters and postcards are actually “written” and you can take out the letters that are actually folded inside envelops within the pages of the book. As interesting as the correspondence between these two is, it’s really a lot of fun to open the letters and read them. I really love this book, and commend it’s originality.

I had a really weird dream last night… I have been having a lot of weird dreams lately (er, remembering a lot of dreams lately, I probably always have weird dreams). Last night tops it tho. I was at one of those governer election parties… I assume this comes from watching election episode of the West Wing or something… and while I was there I ended up in a back room with my friend Pete from Rochester, NY, and we did some heroine. GAH! I was thinking about Pete yesterday, because I have to email him soon since I havent in a couple months… and he IS the only person I’ve ever done any sort of “illegal substance” with… and I just watched Trainspotting monday night. So I know where all the parts of the dream came from, but it was just weird! I’d never do intense drugs like heroine! And at a winning election party!? Did I mention that Hilary Clinton was there and she was a real bitch? Hehee… Strange strange dreams.

Speaking of dreams, I often remember nightmares more often than dreams, and I discovered a few things that I am VERY afraid of through these dreams. First and foremost, the nightmares that make me wake up crying always have to do with the demise of my youngest sister Annette. For some reason I feel some need to still protect her, I mean we were always very close, at one point she called me “Bethy Mommy” because I was around so much more often than my mother was. Well in all these dreams it’s somehow my fault that she dies, in one I slowed down to talk to a friend while we were riding our bikes and Annette was hit by a car… in another she was kidnapped and later found dead in the woods after I was doing some laundry instead of watching her play outside. I guess these are the sorts of dreams paranoid parents have %) But it’s always Annette, and it always HURTS terribly even after I wake up, and I feel the need to email her or msg her just to see how she is. Another common nightmare is losing Myk, wheter through death, or me doing something wrong and making him leave me, and sometimes even a misunderstanding that makes him leave me… And another common “feature” of some of my nightmares is my ex being a scary dominent figure, like when I was dating him… being helpless again like when we dated, and in these nightmares he is always this super-evil character, much moreso than he was in reality… like I pile all the abuse and put-downs of my life into him and create this terrible monster in my dreams. In the strange random scary dreams there are other things too, like birds, I have a phobia of birds that has only gotten worse as I’ve grown older, to the point of actually jumping when I hear wings flapping in a tree nearby… cringing when geese fly close over head… and many of my nightmares have an Aphex Twin soundtrack %) The Girl-Boy Song by Aphex Twin is a wonderful example of the type of the type of music in my nightmares, and I can’t even listen to that song anymore ’cause it *scares* me.

Next! So I’ve been exposed to a great deal of ‘abnormal’ sexuality lately. Not my own or Myk’s! But friends… and although I still love and accept these people, I can’t help but wonder what is causing all this diverse sexuality… maybe it’s always been around and it just wasn’t brought to my attention until recently? This one sorta new friend of mine just recently decided that he wants to be a woman, or at least “see how it feels” … I’ve been talking to him about it, trying to offer advice where I can (unfortunately, my lack of ‘girlyness’ is brought into the forefront in situations like this). Anyway, I’m completely supportive and I understand than when you are younger you want to experiment, as strange as what you want to do is to some people. All I care about is him being happy… but even he has questioned WHY he feels this way… Then there is “polyamory” … basically ‘poly’ is where you “love more than one” .. emotionally, spiritually, and physically. What does this mean? You can have multiple boyfriends/girlfriends, and, well, use your imagination %) or go to polyamory.org and read the FAQs. Now I have heard about this before, but we actually have a few friends who are into this “lifestyle” … I guess I can’t understand such a living because I am VERY jealous at times, an could NEVER be involved with someone when I knew I was not their “only one” … So why all this abnormal sexuality? I assume people have always felt these sorts of things but it’s never been as ‘socially acceptable’ as it is now, I mean people arent as afraid to be open about these things as they would have 40, 20, even 10 years ago… And as much as I am a net freak, I really think that was a big part of this openness. Anyway, just for the record I AM NORMAL … one guy + one girl + no kink = i’m happy … then again with all this freedom maybe that makes me the abnormal one?

Moving on… I went out and did some grocery shopping last night, fun! Gah, I hate grocery shopping. But I was able to pick up some christmas cards since I have been lazy and havent done that yet. After shopping I came home and told Myk that we were gonna send out Christmas cards ane he laughed. I guess in his entire life he has never really cared enough to do something like send Christmas cards to anyone, so this was a whole new thing for him, which is actually kinda funny… but he IS a guy ;) Anyway, he said his parents are going to think he’s on drugs again ’cause this is so out of character for him.. he’s like “they’ll see the card, think I’m on drugs, then see that you signed it too and say ‘ah, lyz'” … It’s sorta funny, he told me that I am the most “stable” woman he’s ever lived with… That made me feel good %) So I got him to sign all the cards to my family n stuff, I made a couple up to send to friends, and bugged him until he finally wrote some to his parents and grandmother, hehee.

Oh and just for the record, I never did do anything after posting yesterday, besides grocery shopping, the day was a waste yay! We did get the database fixed tho, so my guestbook is back up yay. Anyway, today I am actually going to get my PA License! After all this time of having a Maine license, and it’s been almost 3 years since I lived in Maine “oops” Wow, I’ve had my license for almost 3 years. Well now that I seem somewhat settled *knocks on wood* it’s a good time to finally change my license. The same friend I went out with last week to the mall is going to come by around 1 to pick me up so we can go to the DMV (so Myk doesnt have to take off work to take me)… I guess we’re going to try to head up to a few stores too and get some christmas shopping done, I still need to get the giftcards for my sisters, and I’ll try to send them out with the cards tomorrow. So it should be a nice day %)

Unfortunately I am in a very pessimistic mood. I just finished a conversation with this stupid 19 year old kid who thinks he’s an outcast. He has a girlfriend, he has a job, he’s in college, and yet, “no one understands him” … Now i think the problem with people like him, and ALL teenagers really, is they grow up *convinced* they are special and unique, and so they FEEL like their feelings are different than everyone else’s. So when they hear that Korn song on the radio (oh, is my music reference dated?), they feel like it’s speaking to them.. without considering the number of people who think that song was “written just for them” … I realize I have addressed this subject before, but this kid was just SO SURE that ‘preps’ are soulless assholes, it was pointless trying to explain to him that they are human too and despite what he THINKS about them. Oh well, hopefully he will eventually grow up and realize he is not a special and unique snowflake, he’s just like everyone else, and you need to just move on. YAY PESSIMISM! I will die young.

Anyway, enough of this *wanders off*

o/` Miranda Sex Garden – Without Trace o/`

I HATE Mondays. The weekends are nice, but monday comes and I get all lonely and cant seem to focus, it’s so evil %( So to try to get my mind off my hatred of today I started putting together a #13thHour History. I have logs since the beginning of the room, of course I generally chatted every other day (my sister, Heather, and I had to switch off days on the computer), so they are only logs of while I was around in chat, but failry complete none the less. SO I went through logs from December til June of 1999 … it’s A LOT of logs, heh. They bring back all sorts of good memories, and looking back on them it’s so strange how I didnt see certain patterns emerging, like how close Time, plas, and I always were, I dont think I had ever had friends that were close like that before. And how Exeplis and I certainly were not compatible! How could I have thought I could spend my life with someone who was obviously less intelligent than myself? Not to put him down or anything, he just couldnt keep up with the learning I was doing, had no desire for learning, and in retrospect that is what really made me realize things wouldnt work out. I noticed that I chatted with a few people fairly early on that I didn’t realize had come to the channel that early in it’s history… and of course found all sorts of sections where we said really silly things… some quite ‘epic’ now, like this:

-Time- ouch, pins and nerls
-PrincessLeia2- nerls?
-Time³- needles
-PrincessLeia2- hehehehehe
-Time³- lol
-Time³- NEEDLES!
-PrincessLeia2- nerls
-Time³- NEEDLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

..Myk and I *still* say ‘pins and nerls’ instead of pins and needles because of this silly typo.

Anyway, I do have some good news, as it quite obvious (you can see my pic of the weblog now) my webpages are back up.. for the moment. Unfortunately all our issues with mysql are not resolved, so I had to just disable my guestbook… hopefully soon everything will be back up and running nicely %)

Last night I was feeling fairly bored. Our friend Barry called us and said he was going to be in the area and that he could meet us somewhere so we could pick up our copy of Battlefield 1942 that we accidentally left at his house during the last lan party. So I drove up to the store where he was (a Giant grocery store) and picked that up… was going to get some turkey for sandwiches while I was there, but then saw the line for the meat counter had about 10 people in it, and so I’d prolly be there for 45 minutes waiting for the stupid turkey! Plus the half hour I’d spend in line for the checkout, that place is so friggin busy %(

So I came home and looked in the fridge and realized we didnt have much food, so I turned around and went back out, to a pizza place nearby, pick ed up a chicken cheese steak for Myk, a turky sub for myself, and some french fries… also stopped at Blockbuster and picked up Trainspotting ’cause Myk had never seen it. It turned out to be a really nice evening… I even got a chance to read a bit before going to bed.

I think I am going to go try to get something done, so at least I can’t say today has been a *total* waste. *wanders off*

o/` Audiovent – The Energy o/`

Yesterday was pretty boring… good though, relaxing days are nice %) Got up and chatted a bit in the morning, booted into windows and went to a “meeting” for Syntech. Turns out only one other person showed up, a guy from Germany who is working on a MUD (the only person, might I add, who is working on anything), unfortunately his MUD is mostly in German, heh. It was ok tho.. I think if things don’t start happening with this ‘company’ I’ll just stop wasting my time on it, it’s really ashame, it looked good on ‘paper’ *shrugs*

I was able to finish The Path Of Daggers yesterday afternoon, wrote up a review, but I am pretty behind on *all* reviews right now, I will probably post the 3 I have tomorrow or something… I started reading When True Night Falls, the sequel to Black Sun Rising, already I’m impressed, seems quite good.

I made a yummie dinner last night, chicken parmesean, spaghetti, and salad … hey maybe I am sorta getting the hang of this cooking thing, of course I have yet to make my own tomato sauce, still too scared for that, hehe, but someday!

I talked to my sister today, the 19 year old one in college, Heather… asked what she wanted to xmas, got the usual “i dunno” so I finally dragged out of her a store she would want a gift certificate to, Best Buy. I’ll prolly get her a $20 one or something… I’ll get my other sister a $20 to barnes and noble, at least that way I can *dream* that she is buying books, when I know she will actually spend it on a rap cd. She is so hopeless.

Yeah, my webpages are still down… figured that there was a problem when we reinstalled the box with Debian stable instead of testing, messed up the DB files, *ugh* I can still extract the stuff so that all I’ll need to do is recreate the databases with the info in them (which isnt much), but it’s still a huge pain, especially when I am trying to show off my work… oh well, hopefully we will get the problem resolved today.

I think I am going to go back to bed… so sleepy (+ lazy).

Radiohead – Climbing Up The Walls

I’m not sure what made me so depressed yesterday… maybe it was something as silly as my webpages being down and I was in a vunerable mood. Myk came home yesterday evening after work tho, and I cheered up a lot, even if MySQL is being crankie and making it so my page is still down *sigh* … see we turned off apache and mysql ’cause we dont want some sort of security problem *shrugs* Hopefully it can be fixed this weekend.

We had beer last night… I guess I just had a bad day yesterday and wanted to finish it off by getting drunk %) So when Myk got home I went out to the grocery store and picked up some eggnog and port wine cheese (great for munchies!), and then headed up to the beer store to get some Rouge Dead Guy Ale… The guy at the counter is there everytime I go and he recongnised me, I mean granted, I guess not too many chicks with Maine licenses come in there and buy that beer (i give him my license even before he asks for it.. i know i look young, hehe), but when the guy at the beer store starts to know you just 2 months after your 21st birthday does that mean you have a problem? Heehee

I started playing with Perl DBD::mysql yesterday afternoon, didnt get too far, but the online documentation for it really sucks %( I might actually have to buy a book! NO!!!! hehe… it’s fun stuff tho, hopefully I can figure out summore today if I get a chance.

I got into contact with the main guy from Syntech Studio, the place I am sorta volunteering at. It is really seeming like it is a project that this guy is trying hard to get off the ground but people just arent doing anything. Plus, the chat client he has set up is in flash… sure, I have flash plugins, but it’s the icky evil windows only flash; see, I think flash has very loose standards especially on .swf files, so it’s easy to make flash things that just dont work in linux (like the flash animations on my website actually *sigh*). So I’ll have to boot into windows for a ‘meeting’ today at 1.

I’ve been chatting in another room on psiblade.net lately… #Linux. It’s basically a few newbies from the room #DarkTower that decided to try and use linux. I feel so smart there, haha! Anyway, it’s kinda cool helping these guys out when they need it, and they are people who came from the scifi server that I never really chatted with before this, and it’s nice to meet new people on irc. Of course the conversation never stays on linux, and one of the guys asked if I played Diablo 2… said they wanted to play sometime, so I guess I’ll go into windows anyway and install that, and create a battle.net character, have it up a couple levels by the time we get around to playing together, hehe.

Yeah… *wanders off*

My websites are down %( *sigh*

I am depressed, dunno why, I have a headache too, and I’m not sure which happened first, it’s possible that one caused the other, heh.

Went to the discount bookstore yesterday, turned out to be one of those ones where they rent an old store building and set up temp tables everywhere with cheap books on them. I found a few good ones, picked up Griffin & Sabine for $5, a book I was first introduced to in high school when I was doing an illustration and design class.. it’s really cool, a series of letters between two artists, you see the actual handwriting and postcards and you can pull out letters from envelops to read them (all fictional of course), a really great idea, and fun to read. I also got Shadow Of Hegemon, since it was inexpensive and I’ll be getting the rest of the series soon enough. Got Midnight in the Garden of Evil and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon as old library books, so they were like 2/$5 .. i’ve heard good things about them so it’s worth it. Also got a World History For Dummies book, to again expand my lacking history knowledge, repetition is the best for remembering %) And lastly, I got a big illustrated copy of Terry Pratchett’s The Last Hero … it’s a really cool book, lots of pictures of discworld things, cant wait to read it and check out the illustrated adaptations of them.

After going to the bookstore, my friend Nita asked what I wanted to do next, since we hadnt really planned anything else. I sorta shrugged and admitted that I really don’t get out much and had no idea what there was to do, and plus I really wasnt up for actually spending any money. So she suggested we go pick up her boyfriend’s sister and go to a mall. Sure, I had never been to the King Of Prussia Mall before. Now again, I am not a big mall fan, but I guess it’s ok to spend time at, I mean people are still annoying, but it’s better than sitting in a car and just talking, I guess I might have preferred going to someone’s house and hanging out *shrugs* don’t want people I am with to be bored %)

So walking around the mall, I went to the stores I liked, suffered through going to a few clothing stores (hehe), and while talking to friends I went with I got the distinct impression that I didn’t really belong. My humor generally dark, pessimistic and overall dreadfully sarcastic, they laughed a lot, but it’s a rather dry humor most of the time and out of place… There were also a few times when they were checking out guys… now I’ve never been the kind of person to openly “check out” guys and sit around and giggle about how cute they were, in fact, I am so oblivous that I barely ever notice! So each time the conversation went in that direction I was completely lost. And at one point we walked past this store with some nice dresses hanging in the window. Normally I wouldnt even have noticed them, but Caren pointed them out, and then they muttered something about how I have the type of body that would look great in that and they hated how they didnt. I wasn’t sure how to respond to this type of comment! Usually the *last* thing I talk about with people is my weight, I dont care much unless I see I am gaining, and I generally wear men’s clothes anyway so it’s not like I care to show anything off… so I mumbled something about how it has a lot to do with genetics, and just the other day I ate 14 cookies (when I was baking cookies). They stopped and looked at me. “What?” “You don’t hang around women much do you?” Well, no, I guess I dont…. “Saying that kind of thing will get you in big trouble!” Oops. %( I don’t exactly understand the problem, I mean I was just trying to demonstrate that I probably eat just as badly as them and so that I know it’s not *completely* a diet thing, and I’m just lucky. I guess this is what men mean when they say they dont understand women, I just hate admitting I dont understand women sometimes either %(

I went to bath and body works and got some bubblebath (finally!), and then we got back to the car around 6:15 or so. Nita suggested going out for dinner, but I didn’t want to go out without Myk, and we are trying to save money. But Nita insisted and said I should call Myk and ask if he wanted to go, Caren piped up and said “yeah! i wanna see Myk again!” So I used Nita’s cellphone and called up Myk, who suggested he call Nita’s boyfriend (Caren’s brother) Mike and see if he wanted to come out too. I told him that we were on our way back to our apartment and we could see what Mike said when we got home (yeah, two Mike’s very confusing, luckily when typing they are Myk and Mike, hehe). So we drove back to my apartment, turns out Mike’s T1 (they have a t1 in their apartment… he works for an ISP) was down and he has been really stressed out and didnt feel like going out. So we just picked up my Myk and ended up going out to TGI Friday’s. This was an interesting experience unto itself.

We get there, wait the customary 15 minutes to get a table, order our drinks and food, and start talking. It was fun, I mean you go to a restuarant in a situation like that to socialize with friends, sure we were hungry, but that is definately secondary. So it took something like 35 minutes for our food to be made, and I noticed at one point that that was a long time, but honestly I didn’t really care. Finally the food comes out and the waiter is full of apologies about how long it took, and we were like “oh, ok, whatever” and he was obviously flustered and taking it too seriously. HE ended up going to the manager and the manager came over to our table and asked if everything was ok. It was, my chicken sandwich didnt have bacon on it, I got extra mayo, I was happy. So the waiter comes back with a couple things we had asked for, and says “sorry again, and you should have told the manager it was horrible and took forever! It looks bad on me now…” WTF? Again we just sorta ignored and went back to eating… and the service actually got worse because the waiter was working himself up about this all and kept forgetting what we asked for. Oh well, in the end, again, I didn’t really care, I wasn’t there for the quality service of TGI Friday’s (HAH!)…

Anyway, the best part of the day for me (besides the bookstore) was when we got back from dinner. It was almost 9:30, and we all came back to our apartment, and congregated in the computer room. Now both Myk’s and my workstations are on linux, and the first thing Caren said when she walked in the room was “nice screensaver” .. about xsnow and xpenguins. I quickly explained what it was (she is smart, but fairly clueless when it comes to computers)… Then Myk pulled something up, and got a bunch of ooh’s and ahh’s about the multiple desktops. So he went into explaining what exactly multiple desktops were, and how navigation and keybindings worked and stuff. Then I showed Caren and Nita a few things (Nita has debian on her computer, but doesnt use it much ’cause Mike hasn’t gotten sound to work there yet. It was really a lot of fun, I love showing off R2 %) and especially to people who are truly interested, makes me feel smart too, hehe. I also showed how UT and UT2K3 run in linux, and how cool that is, and stuff. So in the end Caren looks at Nita and said “can you teach me about linux?” Nita laughed and I put in that I’d be more than willing to have a “chick linux learning” session with them… and they agreed that that would be fun. Both Nita and I are unemployed (for much the same reasons, actually, but she does have a car), so it would just be a matter of finding time when Caren was available. I’d be so happy to see both Nita and Caren running on linux near full-time.

The interesting thing about Nita and Caren’s limited access to the power of linux is that Mike is REALLY smart, a total linux guru. Maybe he’s just not a good teacher? Maybe he just doesn’t have the time? I am not sure… I mean Myk is busy, but always has time to help me out with my stupid problems, hehe… Maybe they have just not shown enough interest in it to make him want to take the time to teach… or maybe he doesnt want the added trouble of being tech support when things break, hehe…

Anyway, it’s friday, that means time to clean the apartment, fun fun. I should go do that now. *wanders off*

o/` Red Delicious – Vertigo o/`

I’m in a really strange anxious mood. The kind of mood I am in when I drink too much caffiene, or am stressed out about something. But I am neither really. I *am* going out with a friend this afternoon, maybe the past few months of little to no social interaction has caused me to have more problems where my social anxiety is concerned? I dunno, probably. But I feel really comfortable around this friend of mine, she’s really great, it can’t be that. Maybe since I woke up worrying and my body has not yet adjusted to the fact that I don’t need to be worried anymore, yeah, that must be it. Isn’t it great how I always work out my thoughts like this in my weblog? Heehee.

So yeah, I am going out this afternoon with a friend, it’s just to a used bookstore… she knows I love to read and found this old store near her house, and we havent seen each other since, um, my birthday I guess… about 2 1/2 months. Anyway, it’s an excuse to hang out, and that’s all I need. She’ll be picking me up around 2…

Ever have one of those days were you get cravings for a great variety of things? Yesterday evening I was like that… watched The West Wing and Law and Order, and almost everytime they had food I developed a want for that food! Ugh! Especially since I had been snacking on (er “testing”) cookies all day, hehe… I still have a craving for pizza from Pizza Joint in South Portland, the greasy pepperoni covered stuff, like 1000% daily saturated fat content in one slice… mmm yeah… and I dont even eat pepperoni anymore %) Luckily South Portland is a few states away and I wont be tempted to wander there and buy a pizza, hehe.

MySQL is cool. I wrote this “address book” that holds address, phone number, email address, name, nickname, birthday and stuff for everyone we know.. this is all with a php front end, so we can edit, add, and search (by name, nickname, or birthday) easily through a web browser. I spent most of the day on tuesday working on it %) I have yet to add many people’s information to it because I havent really had a chance, but it works really nicely… of course it’s just on our home lan, it should be cool when all the people are added %) Ever since creating this I have thought of TONS of ways to use mysql, mostly dealing with the ability to make the database searchable. Like my books page, put all the reviews into a mysql database, and have it searchable by author and title, yeah! And the Recipe section of my site I’m working on, I could put that info into a mysql database and make it searchable… the possibilties are endless and I keep thinking of more, hehe. It’s really fun tho, I learn so much each time I go to work on something new with mysql and php… Now I am even considering working with Perl and MySQL … using my irc bot (written in perl for irssi) and possibly making a searchable database of contact information for #13thHour members, accessible by approved nickname. THAT would be a fun project…

Anyway, I have a few things to do (like eat lunch) before i go out this afternoon. *wanders off*

Well my site was down for a bit last night, we were changing our webserver from testing debian to stable.. prolly should have done that *before* we moved the webpages, oh well, a little downtime didnt hurt too much %) Everything seemed to go smoothly I’m really happy %D

I’m making cookies now. Prolly going to go read while I do it so I dont burn any cookies by not paying attention, hehe. The sugar cookie dough is in the ‘fridge chilling (needs to chill 2-3 hours before making the cookies), and I have chocolate chip ones in the oven now, YAY!
*wanders back to making cookies*

Jimmy Eat World – A Praise Chorus

The direct link to the guestbook for princessleia.com is :http://www.princessleia.com/Guestbook.php … it’s located under the links on the right side of the main page too, heh.

Working on an address/email/phone number database and I’m writing a php frontend for it, with search options. It’s more difficult than I thought it would be %) *wanders back to work on it*

YAY! I have my new guestbook up on princessleia.com

Everyone can go there now and sign it (%

o/` Stabbing Westward – The Only Thing o/`

I didnt write anything yesterday, never really had a chance.. er I did, but I used that chance to chat instead. Saturday I said I probably wasnt going to do much, but I ended up going to the … wait for it…. MALL. I just have one thing to say about that experience:

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I didn’t actually *want* to go to the mall. As people who know me know, I HATE malls, and this hatred goes much further when the month is December. Not that I don’t like shopping, I’m a woman so at least that instinct is intact ;) But actually going to a store, and having to look for what I want, having to deal with PEOPLE is really annoying. Like I have said before, online shopping was made for people like me, besides, with online shopping you not only get cool stuff, but you get packages in the mail too! And getting packages in the mail is fun. Anyway, I went to the mall in December because I needed cookie sheets, and cookie cutters, and a rolling pin, and cookie tins to put cookies in… I know they sell most of these things at the grocery store, but they tend to be really expensive and the quality is questionable.

This was the first time I drove myself to the mall ’cause I told Myk I’d go out and get all the errands done myself. I get to the mall and then spent 20 minutes looking for a parking space. That 20 minutes was HELL. At one point I was stopped in the entrance to part of a parking lot only one car width wide (one way since it’s a very busy part of the parking lot), and instead of letting me go this other woman decided she wanted to squeeze her car in next to mine going the wrong way! Then of course it caused a big traffic jam because she couldnt move until finally I backed up the jeep so she could get out again and go down the correct lane *UGH* I finally found a space in the back of the mall, WAY far out in the parking lot ’cause I didn’t want to deal with people long enough to get a closer space, I CAN WALK %) I get into the mall and it’s insane as expected. I go to stores primarily looking for cookie cutters, ’cause if all else failed I could just get everything else at the grocery store… and I couldnt find any!!! Went to the Disney store and all their xmas stuff was marked down! Same with many stores, and the selection sucked, what are these people thinking? I ended up walking around the mall for almost an hour, I ended up getting some of those little wire hook things to hang up bulbs on the tree with, and then just went to sears and bought a couple cookie sheets (they didnt have cookie tins that I could find OR a rolling pin, UGH!). I resolved to either just have round cookies or hope I found something at the grocery store.

So I get to the grocery store plaza and there is a “Michael’s” next to it, where they sell crafty stuff, so I decide to go there to see if they had cookie cutters. All they had were individual BIG ones that were like $5 each … and then they had “generic” ones that were like a star, moon, heart … so I just got those. Then I noticed a “Bath Body and Beyond” store and remembered that I wanted to get bubble-bath. So I walked over to that store and saw tons of kitchen stuff! GAH! I didn’t need to go to the mall after all! So I was able to get a couple Christmas-themed cookie cutters, a rolling pin, and some cookie tins. So I get back to the Jeep and put the bags in there and realize that I forgot to get bubble bath, DOH! I am such a woman.

Then I went grocery shopping and got all the cookie ingredients and then went home. In all this entire venture took about 4 hours… It was good getting out of the house I guess, even if the mall was insane. When I got home we put up xmas lights on our porch, they look nice too, even if we are the only people in our part of the complex who has lights up. We’re going to take pictures of the tree n stuff in a few days once we have firewood, so we can take a pretty picture of our fireplace and decorated mantel with a fire in it.

Last night I found out something interesting… Baking Powder has an expiration date! And not “in ten years” but like, 2 years… Now this wouldnt surprise me but I could have sworn that my mother had the same baking powder for like 7 years, hehe. Maybe I just didn’t notice she bought more, but what the hell do you use baking powder for? My mother certainly did not do a lot of baking from scratch… *shrugs* In any event, I am not going to use all that before 2 years is up, I wish they sold it in smaller quantities.

Going to get my PA license prolly on Thursday. We would do it earlier, but Myk can only leave work so early and the DMV usually closes at 4:15… if we got there at 3:30 it would be difficult to get everything done before the close, but on Thursdays they are open til 8 .. so going there at 3:30 wont be a problem, and hopefully it wont be too busy.

I love coffee.

So I have been reading the second volume of the Outline Of History by HG Wells. And I have been learning quite a number of interesting things. In school they made it seem like Asia and Europe were quite separate and had no influence over each other until after Marco Polo, they *stressed* this even, which is odd, because I have found several instances where there is interaction, usually through Christian missionaries, but also through invading armies that clashed along the transient borders between Asia and Europe, and through a bit of trade. I mean granted, the influence was not much, and news didnt travel much, but they really did know about each other, and they weren’t as isolated as I was led to believe, I hate school. There are also lots of interesting facts that would have made me more interested in history if people had only pointed them out! Like the Pope who began the Inquisition was Pope Innocent III .. innocent! HAH! and that “Normandy” was named for the “Northmen” (vikings) who settled the original (located in what is now northern France)… and Gypsies are called “gypsies” because they are rumored to have come from Egypt. See, there are lots of interesting things about history that I just don’t know. I also noticed from reading this history that Wells wrote this for “the common person who didn’t know much about history” … but it’s often that he makes references to world geography that I just don’t know much about. Granted, Wells lived in England, and I am sure people of England know European geography better than I do, but it’s definitely made me learn more in an effort to visualize everything explained in the book. But it seems like 80 years ago when this was written, so many things like geography were common knowledge, and they really arent anymore, sad.

Speaking of sad, recently I was talking to a friend. He has a girlfriend who has a lot of health problems and was saying that he doesnt want to be “burdened” with taking care of her when he gets older and she cannot take care of herself. This was really surprising to me. I mean I guess I can see where he is coming from, he’s young, and doesnt want to grow older *knowing* that he’ll have to take care of the woman he loves, but does he really love her if he sees it as a BURDEN? I can see myself in the same situation, if Myk was somehow going to get older and end up in a wheelchair and I had to take care of him, and I don’t see that like that at *all* It’s a change, and it may be difficult, but by no means do I see it as a deturrant. And what if this guy breaks up with this girl because of her health problems and 15 years into his real marriage his wife gets into a car accident? Would he be willing to take on the responsibility of taking care of her then? I guess it’s just a question of how much you love someone … I’m sure he’d take care of someone he truly loved, but right now he just doesnt see it like that…

Uh, so maybe you will notice that I took down the banner that says “PrincessLeia2’s Journal” and replaced it with just normal text. I did that ’cause we moved princessleia.com and wallaceandgromit.net down to our home connection last night (sooner than I had expected, but that means I can put up my guest-book soon, yay). Anyway, the image is hosted there, and now whenever anyone sees an image linked to my site it “uploads” to them, thus making my connection slow and sucky. So to avoid so much lag on my connection I am taking down images I have in places other than my site that I really don’t need. If you go to princessleia.com the load time is a little slower than before, but as long as I don’t make it too image intensive it’s still fast enough for people to browse, it’s not painful anyway. And although my page gets a good number of hits, it’s not like it’s constant so my connection shouldn’t be *too* terrible

Is anyone still reading this entry? Congrats.

I was a bit stressed out yesterday. I guess it’s ’cause on Saturday Myk and I talked about me getting a job, and an entire of year of procrastinating came crashing down on top of me. It’s so EASY to say I will go out and get a job in the field I want to, so easy to say “sometime in the future I will …” but when the future comes rushing up at me I just tend to run. Excuses, rationalizations, completely avoiding the subject and hoping it will go away. I’m scared. I feel like I had an entire adult life looming in front of me and I don’t know what to do, I feel so inexperienced and stupid! So it all came down to me breaking down and crying while Myk tried to explain to me what he went through at my age. And although I am still scared, it’s not quite so bad. Myk told me not to worry about getting a job, because currently the things I say about not having a job arent just excuses, they are the truth! To get even an entry level position somewhere I need a car, preferably contacts in the area to help me get in the door, and some sort of community activity (which again, requires a vehicle). I dont have a car, I dont have friends around here (well I have Myk’s friends…). But I still feel that although these things are holding me back a bit, I am still hiding behind them. I know I will freak when I get a car. So I sorta talked to Myk about this, and he said something really profound “There is not much more to life than this.” Now I have spent MONTHS worrying about the future, and working myself up about it, that this worrying has created a HUGE cloud of confusion and fear in my head, and it’s really not all that bad. I get a car, get a crappy tech job, and work my way up from there. Building a career does not begin with your perfect job, I *know* I don’t know enough to do well at my perfect job. And if I really love what I do (and I do, I love computers) I will be happy, even a crappy tech job is better than working at a grocery store. So I guess I wont be going up to the plaza near here and getting a job… We cant afford a car for me at the moment, but we will work toward that, so eventually I will. And in the meantime I will continue striving to learn everything I am interested in and that will benefit my future.

I am much less scared now, I love Myk so much. It’s nice to have someone to drag my crazy worrying into perspective %)

This entry has been long, I should end it now so I can go get some work done %) *wanders off*