Tonight is going to be all about hanging out, calling people on the phone, doing laundry and doing the minor things related to going on our trip to Ohio. So, if you want to come round and hang with me and JD tonight you are totally welcome to.

The Bad News: The power completely went out at my house this morning. The whole block is down, street lights and everything.

The Good News: I woke up with plenty of time to get to work.

Bad News: I had to get dressed in the dark.

Good News: I don't look like I got dressed in the dark.

Overall, fairly successful given a minor bit of adversity.

Last week I sent my landlord pictures of a pretty nasty roof leak. Today the repair guy shows up (sporting an intense Dali handlebar moustache) and 3 hours later he's all done, patched the roof, fixed the ceiling and painted everything. Pretty fantastic.

Back in DC now. I slept through most of the flight and my boss was on there, and she offered me a ride back since it was on the way.

All is well.

Except my fracking wrist. GOD. It feels like I broke it or something. I need to get a wrist support or something and fast.

dmlaenker and I will be in Bethel Wednesday (all day) and Cincinnati through Friday. If you'd like to see us, please contact me. If you don't have my number drop a note on the LJ and I'll check it later tonight.

Much Love,
Fritterfae

I'm feeling better today, and I am back at work with the rest of society.

I used most of yesterday to try to clean up my fricking mess of a house. I've got all kinds of paper trash that I've been stockpiling for god knows whatever reason. So, I put the books away, put the paper in the trash and nearly cleaned out the entire living room.

There are two main reasons for this cleaning, and spring is not one of them. 1) sqrlcub will be staying with me for a little while, and that's where I've got a spare bed these days, and 2) Faeries returns to my house this month, so I've got to get as much free space cleared out as possible.

JD and I have been joking with each other about how our fandoms have been slowly taking over the house, and that one day it'll either explode or we'll have a con. This morning I started thinking about, what IF we had a con? I mean, just a mini kind of thing where people were over for the whole weekend and we had gaming and pizza and anime and Doctor Who and whatever... That could be fun. I think this is an idea who's time may have come, but we'll see...

I'm feeling kind of BLEH today. So I'm staying home.

Just an FYI.

* Work: Worked today, and will work again tomorrow and monday. Sometimes I'm too responsible for my own damn good.

* Japanese: I'm up to Rosetta Stone level 1 Lesson 2.5. Today I learned Big, Small, Long, Short, Shapes, Colors, Sequences, Yes and No, and the difference between animals and people. I find it unusual that the Kanji for "circle" is so non-circular. The phrase that cracked me up the most was "Chiisana tento" which means "little tent." I was saying it over and over in the shower like a crazy person.

In continuing with Japanese I nearly answered the phone Moshi Moshi tonight for fun. It was Greenpeace asking for more money and I gave it to them. I should have pretended to be Japanese, answering them only in bizarro Japanese. It could have been fun.

* Body: I shaved my head tonight, and I nicked the HELL out of my scalp. I've got a band aid on my head and I feel kind of stupid. Thank goodness I'm not going anywhere tonight. Also, my hands are UNBEARABLY dry. I have some Curel ultra healing lotion and I'm hoping that helps. It seems to be doing good so far.

* Home: jcruisedirector moved out yesterday. The room is empty and my home is amazingly quiet. Though empty boxes still remain to be broken down. It's nice to have the place to myself again, if only for a while.

* Movies: I saw Juno the other night. It made me feel loved. I need more moments like that in movies. We all need more moments like that in movies.

* TV: Television is slowly grinding to a halt because of the damn writer's strike. I'm kind of sick of it. I just want to be entertained when I come home at night and not have to be bored by the dregs of television because of a labor dispute. All the reality TV in the world is nothing compared to shows like Journeyman, Chuck and Heroes. Thank god I have the world of anime to comfort me in my time of need.

* Books: I finished reading "The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears." It's a wonderful book about an Ethiopian immigrant in Washington DC, watching the early stage of the gentrification of Logan Circle, and just dealing with his life. It was a great book. Wonderful even. Next for the book club is Edward P. Jones's "All Aunt Hagar's Children." It's a collection of short stories, also all based in DC. Can't wait. I'm also reading "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People." It's a very eye opening book. I'm glad I got it.

* Comics: I read Monster v.2, Hellsing v.1, Parasyte v.2, the beginning of Lone Wolf and Cub, and I'm muddling through Mushishi 3 in Japanese (not doing too well). I'm getting a box shipped from my favorite comic shop in Cincinnati sometime next week. I'm REALLY looking forward to that since it's a fucking fortune in comics.

* Internet: There's been some talk on Fabulon about wanting to have some kind of DC meetup, since there's a whole bunch of us from DC. I'm thinking it should happen so I put a note out there for a Fabulon Expedition/Exhibition in DC sometime in January. Details will be forthcoming.

* DC: Titan bar is closing their doors tomorrow and I'm very sad about this. Titan was like the one bar I would go to here in town and for reasons unknown they gave notice to everyone on Wednesday and it's been all over the blogs. I hope the owners and the staff all find new directions that benefit them. It's even sadder that it's one more gay club in DC that's gone.

* Quilt: I haven't worked on the quilt, yet, but I've got to clear up my dining room so I can work at the big table. I'm planning on next weekend being a good quilting weekend.

* Book: Haven't opened up Mordred since Nanowrimo. I will work on it again. Slow and steady it will come round. I've got the outline down and ready. I just need to write. I will set aside time next week to work on this.

* Faeries: I haven't been to faeries all month. I plan on going on Monday. Hopefully there will be someone there and we can sing carols or something.

* New Years: JD and I plan on going to his friends's New Years party. It was a lovely occasion last time. I'm hoping it's just as good this time round. Probably will be. And no more splurging on fantastic dinners before hand because the food was out of control at that party. We'll bring a couple bottles of booze to add to the cause and hopefully that'll keep people going.

DCist informed me that Home and Garden Television is giving a neighborhood makeover to some lucky city. One of the contestants is Anacostia, which is a very old (and kinda sketchy) neighborhood in DC. It's unclear what the revitalization plan entails, but honestly, any outside help would be a great asset to the neighborhood.

To help cast a vote (and you can vote every day until 12/21) go to The HGTV Neighborhood Makeover Page.

Thanks!

* Work vs Faeries: I now work monday nights, and thus am taking a few months off from faerie potluck. This sucks but can't be helped. Honestly, I think it will help me get over the burnout I've been experiencing with faeries. It's just hard to be on for so long.

* Money: Money seems to be working itself out slowly but surely. Hopefully I'll be able to get fully caught up on everything and get my finances back in order.

* Home: jcruisedirector has moved back in temporarily. We've worked out an agreement that is mutually beneficial, and hopefully can move beyond the drama of previous issues. The only major thing is that there are like five-million boxes all over the house now. But we're working on that.

* Art: dmlaenker and I have successfully purchased all the required frames to finish out our home art gallery project. It's turned into something absolutely fantastic. Though there are still obvious empty spaces on the walls that need to be filled. We'll get there.

* Kimonos: I blew a big amount of cash on 50 yards of plain white broadcloth to make these costume kimonos for yule. Now I just need to fucking cut and sew out 7 kimonos and dye and draw everything.

* TV: I've been watching Project Runway again. It deserves some full length post treatment. Seriously. I'm loving some of the people this season, especially the crazy one who is not only crazy, but also seriously talented. OH! And Dante's Cove is back. All I have to say is you mixed my Jungian psychology with my witchcraft! You mixed my witchcraft with Jungian psychology! House of Shadows indeed.

* Nanowrimo: I fail again at Nanowrimo, but I shall not be defeated. I still feel like I had a great book going when I stopped for my Seattle vacation and I just haven't had a minute to catch up. I'm going to try and hit that 50,000 word mark by the end of the year and get that shit done.

* Quilt: In keeping with the spirit of getting shit done, I'm going to get that fucking quilt on the hoop this winter and finish off the cosmic quilt. It's been 4 years in the making. It's going to be worth every procrastinated minute of it.

* Games: dmlaenker brought me the gift of another little bookcase. We decided to put it under the buffet area in the dining room and it fits PERFECTLY. I decided to load it up with all the house games, and it looks great and will be perfectly accessible when we get to having regular game nights again.

While hanging out at Archie McPhee's in Ballard we decided to redecorate the bathroom.

We've gone with a Sushi motif.

This is the shower curtain
This is the rug
And this cup for toothbrushes

Tee hee!

I'm doing it.

Here's my profile

I started my book last night. I've got 3018 words so far.

Why?

Because my cable & internet got shut off for not paying the bill yesterday. So I had nothing to do but either a) read, b) watch videos that I've already seen or c) write to my hard drive.

I decided to go with C.

I'm writing a semi-modern fantasy story, as a spinoff of Marion Zimmer Bradley's the Mists of Avalon. It's a time jumping faerie tale extravaganza of magick, sex, faeries, and apparently also Radical Faeries.

The title: Mordred.

I'm enjoying the hell out of it.

Only problem is I can't update my nano-meter on my profile except at work, due to that pesky lack of internet. So I have this weird high point today, and nothing yesterday. Eh, oh well. I'll write more tonight, and hopefully since I've got all day off tomorrow I could be blazing through story land all day. Of course there are dishes to do...

But it feels good to write again.

I just spent the last, oh, four hours cleaning out my room. I threw out four full large lawn and leaf bags of trash and a plastic hamper full of trash as well. I'm still not done with this bedroom overhaul, but it's substantially improved. Of course the spare room now has a bunch of stuff in it. One thing at a time.

Things I found:

* About 300 pictures, from various trips and times in my life.
* The scripts from my brother's wedding and mostlie_sunnie & shrike
* My Sandman poster autographed by Neil Gaiman
* An autographed photo of Robert Gant from Queer as Folk
* The Encyclopedia of Heresies and Heretics!
* Lots of tax papers
* Every pair of earplugs JD has ever used
* And more dust than you would ever believe

It's been an ordeal, and I'm greatly pleased with my progress.

And now I take a shower and hit the bed.

Oh, and to queenlaura75, that Louis Jordan box set you sent me is AWESOME! I finally got around to listening to it and it's got me wanting to swing again just like the old days at Jefferson Hall. An interesting song on there was "stone cold dead in the market" all about some woman killing her husband in the market place cause he beat her, and "beware" all about the signs that a woman is out to get you to marry her.

Beware

Fellas, listen to me,

You see these girls with these fine diamonds
With fox furs and fine clothes
Well jack, they're lookin for a husband
And you're listening to a man that knows
They ain't foolin
And if you fool around with em
You'll get yourself a schoolin'
If she's sayin she'll dough and won't go to a show
Beware brother, beware!
and if she's easy to kiss and never resists
Beware brother beware!
And if you go for a walk and she just listens while you talk
She's trying to hook you
And if nobody's lookin and she asks you to taste her cookin
Don't do it!
And if you go to a show and she wants to sit in the back row
Bring her down front
And if you go for a snack and she wants a booth in the back
She's trying to hook you
And if she's used to caviar and fine silk
And when she goes out with you she wants a hot dog and a malted milk
She's been used to going to Carnegie Hall
And when you take her out nightclubbing she just wants to hear one meatball
If she grabs your hand and says 'Darlin you're such a nice man'
Beware, I'm tellin you
Listen to me
If her sister calls you brother, you better get further
I'm tellin you
And If she's kinda wild and she says 'darlin please give me a trial'
Don't give it to her!
If she looks in your face and just melts into place
Let her melt!
Listen, if she calls you on the phone and says 'darlin are you all alone'
Tell her no, you got three girls with you
If you turn out the light, and she don't fight
That's the end, it's too late then, she got you hooked
You're just as well to stick with her
Put down that racing form and pay attention to me
If you get home about two
And you don't know what to do
And you pull back the curtain
And the whole family's lookin' at you
Get your business straight
And set a date
And don't be late
So brother beware!
Beware!
Beware!
Brother you better beware!

Thank you Goddess Vesta for showing me the way.

I know that I had garbage bags to get rid of all my trash downstairs, but thank you for conveniently hiding an entire box of them in my room underneath a pile of trash that I've been meaning to throw out for months.

And I shall continue in your rite properly equipped.

With Love and Pietas,
Fritter

------------------------------------------------------
ETA:

WOW! There's a floor!

And it's effing filthy.

*breaks out the vacuum*

I've been dealing with some interpersonal drama, and the run-around of work and I'm just really tired.

At least I'm nearly done with that book I've been reading. That's the problem with reading, it takes so damn long when you don't have hours and hours to dedicate to reading. Manga is easy and fast. These Pagan books are worthwhile, but gods they take me forever to finish.

I've got to get to doing some housecleaning.

Oh, and poisoning the mice. I think their rampant behavior in the house is doing nothing for my allergies and my recurring sickness. Same with all the piles of junk.

I'm just going to try and purge and purge and purge.

Wishing you the best.

I'm feeling like crap today. I've got this runny nose, that could be allergies, could be illness. Not quite sure.

Gee I wish I had some fucking HEALTH INSURANCE! I might go see a doctor or something.

See, HR at the DC Public Library has neglected to file my health insurance paperwork for SIX MONTHS. Needless to say I'm a little peeved about it. Especially at times like this.

At least it's a holiday day. I'm trying desperately to try and clean some things up but. But when I have to stop for hours just cause I'm sneezing, it's kind of a problem. Thank god we've stocked up on tissues.

Now to make some food.

And I'm not going to faeries like this.

Given that we've got the exterimnation company coming out to figure out how to get rid of the mice once and for all, and since dmlaenker will be moving back to Richmond this weekend we've decided to do a massive house cleaning.

The plan: Clean one room a night.

Tonight I have conquered the living room. Of course there are still a few elements that need attention like putting pillows up in the upstairs closet and unloading a totebox full of books. But I've gotten out all the trash, clothes, mail, and other things that were just kind of piling up in there.

It feel really good to have at least one clean room.

Tomorrow I'm going to finish off the final living room elements, and then tackle the dining room. This will involve moving some furniture around, tossing out LOADS of trash and beginning to get JD's stuff ready for Sunday's big move.

Also, I've located a shelf that needs to be installed on the home altar and a ceiling lamp that needs to be installed as well. Now the lamp I'm the most worried about since it requires us to turn off the electricity to that part of the living room and to do some minor wire splicing. So, I'm going to need to go to the hardware store and get some gloves and some of those wire connection caps to put the thing up there. Overall not a complicated job, but still something that's a little dangerous. I promise I'll be super careful.

I had a conversation with sqrlcub about hiring a maid and he informed me that they generally only do the cleaning of surfaces and dusting and what not. This was a little disheartening, because I kind of wanted to hire someone to just pick up all my shit and just throw it out. But still, I thought, hiring a cleaning crew for a one time go round wouldn't be a bad idea. Then today I got a flier on my door for a "Filipino Maid Service." They have an impressive list of things that they clean and it said that they're bonded and insured as well... I may be calling them in a couple weeks to get some estimates. I wouldn't mind paying a few hundred bucks for a floor wax, a carpet cleaning and a wall scrub. We'll see how that goes.

So, tonight dmlaenker and I went to CVS to get some claritin since we're both dying of allergic fits, and this caught my eye.



Ostensibly it's a plunger, but the handle... Um. Yeah.

Yesterday, jcruisdirector moved out. I came home and all the stuff was gone and the bedroom was empty.

I have the weekend off, and I'm going to be cleaning the house and rearranging things.

I was originally going to go to Body Tribal, but I just couldn't bring myself to work for the store this weekend after doing like 15 days in a row at the library. It was all just too much.

So, this weekend will be spent on putting my house in order. Hopefully that will go smoothly.

I've been working at yet another branch that isn't mine today. The lovely Southeast branch has been full of people loading in new books and putting them on fantastic new lucite shelves. It's quite pretty, but unbelievably hot. Not for lack of trying mind you, because they're running the air full tilt. But it is still hot in there. Of course doing loads of manual labor will make you feel hot anyway.

So, I've been reading Joe Hill's "Heart Shaped Box" which is a horror story with a rock flair. Nothing to write home about per se, but it's not a bad first book. It reminds me of high school and reading those paperback horrors one after the other. On the list of other things to read I have:
( One book and lots of graphic novels )

Yes, I'm trying to get a flavor for everything to know what to buy. Though I haven't started getting into the Shojo titles yet, I know they are just right around the corner. I actually wound up having a conversation with some random kids at the Border's tonight about what they read. Though I refuse to buy another volume of Chibi Vampire. Some things just shouldn't be perpetuated.

I'm all caught up on Doctor Who. Excellent! This season is like a constant high note. They have really been going full tilt and doing fantastic work. Loving the ending storyline. I have my own ideas about what's going to happen, and I hope that I'm right. Though I'll live if I'm not right.

Festival season is kicking into high gear. Of course this means that I'll have loads of conflicts and overbooked weekends. And that brings me to: ALA! ( My ALA schedule for this weekend )

And I've already scheduled off for July 21-22 for Otakon. Yes. Otakon will be a working trip for me as I'll be watching Anime and looking at Manga to find out what are actually hot con trends so that the library can be up to date. So, if you're going to Otakon, please let me know. Unfortunately I'm going to have miss a lot of Saturday, because of a prior library commitment because of programming, but I should be there around 4:00 I think.

In life news I haven't heard much more about my grandmother. Honestly I'm not writing her off just yet. She's a tough old lady and she may go the route of taking the chemo treatment. I'm hoping she's around for a long time, but I'll be ready if she does pass sooner rather than later. And I'll keep everyone posted about that too.

On the homefront situation it sounds like jcruisedirector has some good leads on a place. I'm happy for him, because I think it'll be good for him to have a place to himself. Not to mention the fact that it's hard to live with three people in this house. We've all realized that we have WAY too much stuff and that it's just best to keep the occupants down to two.

And on that note, I'm heading to bed. I've still got a stack of comics from the last round of ordering that I've got to get through. Hopefully I can plow through them in the next couple weeks.