Musings

(cross-posted)

I am sitting on the balcony of my flat.
My feet, bare on the smooth ashy-coloured wood, will get cold at some point. Weather in the summer here is like an endless spring: capricious, moody, mostly chilly, interspersed with the rare blinding sunny afternoons when the lawn in a park looks inviting as an oasis.
I've had a nice long bath, very hot to soothe aching leg muscles. Bless the British and their baths. One of the greatest civilizing influences of our time. That and, of course, tea.

Note to all British readers: despite having lived in Boston lo these many etc, I will never threaten your tea with seawater. I am, however, a fan of parties, up to and including Tea Parties.

The sunset has me holding my breath as though awaiting the climax in an action sequence, all cool purples and pinks with orange limning. It feels like surely, fireworks and cheering are about to burst out for a grand finale. The soundtrack is essential: gulls, of course (more on that later); traffic, from a fairly sizeable road, nearby but across the water - less, however, far less than back home for how close to a city-center area it is. Occasionally a snatch of voice; whisper, laugh, exclamation. A car alarm. Footsteps. Like all sunsets, though, its exit is silent and orderly, gradual as a tide.

It's a small city, Dundee. Fourth largest in Scotland, I think, with a population of around... a quarter of Boston's, maybe? Not sure. Most city amenities, a rep theatre, that sort of thing, plethora of bars-pubs-clubs-etc due to university student population. I know I've only just scratched the surface of places to go. I've made some friends here, good peeps all. I am relentlessly mocked for my Americanisms, and relentlessly mock all my Aussie, Irish and otherwise expatriot friends, and we all (mostly) refrain from relentlessly mocking the Scots because we are aware of our guest status here. :-) I keep far too many late nights. I have found people who like to go dancing, and in my book, that says a great deal about your quality of life. Some people at work and I started a band; we have now met a grand total of twice and I am feeling very positive. I sing karaoke when I can get to it and get bribed with drinks to sing, which is very flattering and only rarely awkward.

...
Mmmm, deliciousness. Pardon me, that was a small break to assemble dinner. Sauteed halloumi and shiitake mushroom saute on toasted wheat, with prosciutto. As I said in an IM earlier tonight, "basically bread meat and cheese, which I figure has been good enough for the human race for thousands of years and is still delicious!"

Right. So. Gulls.
An encounter today was utterly typical of my interaction with a percentage of Dundonian seagulls.
Gull,  strutting across sidewalk right in front of me: You lookin' at me?
Me: I am twenty times your size.
Gull: What. WHAT, mofo? You want some of this?
Me, eyeing it warily: ...No.

These things have become the primary scavenger in the area. The pigeons live in fear. They kill other birds. As a base M.O., I do not fuck with several types of Dundonian: a certain kind of drunk pubgoing male and/or chav on the prowl, a Scottish pal looking for a drinking competition, and the local gulls.
Gull: Seriously! I'll cut you!
Me: *scuttles around its personal space*

It's a perfectly nice apartment I'm in, but I'm moving this weekend to another place.

Side note to Dundonian readers: combined housewarming at my new flat -- Realtime Worlders have taken over entire 5th floor, ping me if you're free for a BBQ this Saturday (1st Aug) from 5 pm on. You know you want to.

I'm moving to another place because current flat does not allow cats. Mine are joining me in December (waah, soooo lonnnng, rassen frassen quarantine laws for UK, at least they aren't in a kennel) from the States. It's a whole process getting them here. Also, privacy is good.  At least packing only involves a few suitcases' worth of stuff.

Work's going well. Settling in there, too.

Tell me one thing that has surprised you in the last, oh, three or so weeks.
If you have more than a Tweet's worth of characters, tell me something you don't think I've heard of.
Heck, if you have a minute, sit down, dear, tell me about your day.

Tea?

AKNN (Ayesha K News Network), Thursday, May 28th 2009

Studio: First reports just coming in from the front. We now go live to Khan, on the scene in her new Dundee apartment. Khan?

Field: Thanks so much, Ayesha. Well, it's a cold day here in Dundee -- but then again, it's cold the vast majority of the year. The garrulous driver who got me from Edinburgh airport to my new flat told me that when the wind changes, it's apparently coming right the fuck from the Siberian plains via Scandinavia, and is, and I paraphrase here, colder than a brass monkey's balls in a blizzard.

Studio: That's very cold indeed, Khan.

Field: Yes it is. I had to wear gloves this morning and evening, though it was nearly T-shirt weather around lunchtime. In other news, the flat is a two-bedroom, and very unexpectedly came with a roomie -- a red-headed Texan Ass-Prod --

Studio: I'm sorry, that must have gotten garbled. Did you say ass prod?

Field: Yes, Ayesha; that's what we in the industry call an Assistant or Associate Producer. Anyway, she arrived last weekend and was also very surprised to find out she was going to have a housemate. However, the view from the flat's balcony is quite nice, and it's less than a thirty-minute walk from work.

Studio: Which is a good thing, as you're unlikely to get a car, yes?

Field: Damn straight, Ayesha.

Studio: And how are you finding Dundee so far?

Field: Full of history, of course, but this is Europe, where it comes from, as Mr. Izzard says. The oldest British man-o'-war still afloat, the Frigate Unicorn, is moored literally down the street from where I am. I can see it from my balcony, and it's very impressive-looking. A few shopping centers, that could be from anywhere in the world. Lots of pubs, but few that serve any food after eight p.m., which feels strange. Also, all the shops close by five-thirty or so.

Studio: The question arises of when the hell they think anyone has time to go shopping.

Field: Rather what I was asking myself. The flat comes with a television, but the quaint British basic package only includes four channels, and at any one time three seem to be playing news or talk shows discussing Parliamentary scandals.

Studio: And are you familiar with the issues being discussed therein?

Field: Less familiar than a scorpion with a bathing costume, Ayesha.

Studio: With a?

Field: Swimsuit, in Limey. Do you realize this entire country contains only five million people?

Studio: Holy crap, Khan.

Field: Exactly. Reporting from Dundee, this is Khan, in search of emotional and intellectual stimulation, and hopefully a good-looking if probably orthodontically-challenged Scots boy or three to take home and corrupt. Not all at once, of course. And now, back to the studio. Ayesha?

Studio: Thank you very much for joining us, and good night.

_______________

AKNN Saturday morning, 30 May 2009

Studio: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen! We have a scheduled call with our field reporter in Dundee, where it's still this morning -- let's see how Khan is doing.

Field: ohmygodShhhhhhhhhhh

Studio: ....Khan?

Field:  Kill meeeeee

Studio:  ....Er. Perhaps we should try to catch up with our field reporter, um.... another time.

________________

 

AKNN Monday, 1 June 2009

Studio: We have a dispatch from field reporter Khan, to share with you today while she's at work:

( CLOSE-UP OF DISPATCH )

People I have learned never to try to keep up with when drinking heavily:

Aussies
Midwestern and Northwestern farm-raised boys
Older Pakistani upper-class businessmen
That dude Dave from the Burren
The British -- SWEET BABY G THE BRITISH ESPECIALLY THE SCOTCH WHAT DO THEY FEED THESE FUCKERS

Studio: Um... Thank you, and good night.
_________



In related news: I miss you all.

This is a writing sample I recently posted to my blogspot; thought you might be interested. It's from a project that's been on the shelf for a while, but I'm considering looking back into it: an alternative history novel about the early days of Islam.

Let me know if you think it's any good! Would you want to hear more of such a story?

(LJ-cut to save your Friends page.)

 

( They came out of nowhere, bursting over a large dune like a frothing wave, with savage yells and whoops of glee at spotting the overloaded camels, already congratulating each other on acquisition of such easy booty.  )

Evidence that contradicts the ruling belief system is held to extraordinary standards, while evidence that entrenches it is uncritically accepted. --Carl Sagan

Do you believe in God?  Or gods?

If so... why? 

______________________________________________
( On defending the indefensible )
Because if you don't stand up for the stuff you don't like, when they come for the stuff you do like, you've already lost.

--Neil Gaiman, in response to a letter. The whole essay is worth reading: syndicated.livejournal.com/officialgaiman/495775.html .
___________________________________________

Is the indefensible worth defending?  Should I fight for NAMBLA's right to print flyers, or Barely Legal's right to photograph and publish anatomically improbable insertion scenarios?

I think I should.  Much as it is distasteful.


Completely Off-topic:
Are you on XBox Live?  If you would like to add me as a friend, please comment with your gamertag and I'll respond with mine (comments screened).  ^_^

Damn, this was exhilarating. Holding the woman he loved in his arms, fondling her, and plotting the demise of his enemies all at the same time. The only way it could be any better would be if they were naked.
I don't know why, but that made me go "heh heh heh" in a rather evil-Muppet-like fashion.

Also: I shall contact those interested in corsetry/skirtage today and try to get the orders in by EOD or tomorrow at the latest. Apologies for the radio silence.

Also also: I'm planning on going to see a musical / comedy at the Opera House called The Drowsy Chaperone with a couple of coworkers. If anyone's interested in making a night of it, let me know. It runs from 4/22 to 5/4; I haven't bought the tix yet so could prolly be swayed as to choice of night.

Spent some time at lunch with The Mind-Boggling Cuteness That Is Little Maya.

HER MOMMY: Maya's gonna be a conservationist when she grows up, she tells me.
ME: Isn't that nice.
HER MOMMY: The other half of the time she plans to become Evil Queen of the World.
ME: Sweet. Hey, Maya? When you grow up to be Evil Queen, can I be your minion?
THE MIND-BOGGLING CUTENESS: *adorable giggle* ...no.
ME: Aw man! My minion application has been rejected!
HER MOMMY: But sweetie, that means she works for you! She'll do what you say and do your dirty work!
ME: *salutes*
THE MIND-BOGGLING CUTENESS: Tsk. *head-splodey-ly cute giggle/headshake combo* No cause when I grow up an' rule the world, I'm gonna be good.
ME: *ded*
HER MOMMY: Isn't that nice.

Did a bit more today.

10867 / 50000 words. 22% done!

Argh, not as much as it should be yet.

Phooey. Oh well.

3905 / 50000 words. 8% done!

Well, Tim was good about not letting me read or watch anything till my word count was done. I asked him to nag me. I may regret this later. But what the hell, I know my willpower will need the help... and if the boy could get me to quit smoking, he can probably get me to write a novel.

Sidebar, I think my mommy thinks he's a superhero.


Anyway.

2771 / 50000 words. 6% done!

I have decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month.

If you are also participating, please drop me a comment with your NaNoWriMo username and we can be writing buddies or something. I'm still figuring their website out.
My username is musingvenus.

I'll be posting excerpts to this journal.
I'm not allowed to start writing before Thursday -- so I have until then to decide WHAT I'm going to write.

Oh gawd. HALP! Help me decide. Poll to follow.

I briefly worked in the inventory department of a large, hi-tech company. I wrote this during that time, just before I got my current job, which is much better. I have had my share of less-than-optimal jobs; I've been a waitress in several restaurants, done mindless data entry, copy-edited the text of tiny-fonted newspaper advertisements, and worked retail at the mall during the Christmas season (UGH).
This one, however, was awful. The job involved taking inventory of all remotely valuable items throughout this company's large campus -- many buildings, a lot of arcane scientific equipment, and electronic devices of all kinds, all in various states of obsolescence. It involved scanning barcodes and double-checking them against lists of what equipment should be in that room, many of which were out of date, incomplete, or just plain wrong. To add to the fun, a lot of equipment was either in the wrong room, registered to the wrong person's name, in locked rooms, or buried in obscure filing cabinets, closets, or on high shelves.

( An essay on workin' inventory. )

Crossposted to MySpace and Blogspot.

I always thought I'd be braver if things got this bad. Or more scared.

I'm kind of frozen-calm.

When the first of the wounded -- a woman from Customer Service, who'd been outside for a smoke when it all started happening -- stumbled in, gushing nail-marks raked all down her flank, the mood was near panicked throughout the building. CS and those of us in QA rushed around ripping cloth for bandages, until we had a mountain of scraps of gaming-logo T-shirts piled next to her. It looked ludicrous; a concerned overkill.

We used them all, of course. Eventually. Now we're running low on paper towels.

I'm so glad I always got along with my family. I hope... I hope they're safe. I hope this is some sort of freak thing limited to South Boston..... but we've gotten nothing on the radio for a while, after the first shouting, praying, cussing we-interrupt-this-programs. And when we still had power, nothing on TV. So I can only delude myself and pretend that everyone I know and love is somehow making it through this.

I used to joke about this being the 'troll-cave'. Now I bless the forethought of drab modern office design. It's practically fortified.
Most of the windows are too narrow for anyone to squeeze through, no matter how twisted their limbs nor how uncaring they are of damage to themselves. Those that were too big have been barricaded with filing cabinets, overturned tables, and cupboards. We have no lights. We still have water, though. Thank goodness for small mercies.

Tim..... Tim is gone. He was in the front room, helping to build barricades, when the first wave of zombies came through the plate glass employees-only entrance.

I'm not going to think about that right now. Can't afford to. Things to do.

The vending machines are still reasonably well-stocked, but we have just under a couple hundred people trapped in here. Supplies won't last. I dread the hour when someone gets desperate enough... or worse, heroic. When some stands on a cubicle desk (and, when that collapses under him, on a conference room table) and announces that we must make a sortie, must go look for food.

After all, we have to eat.



...so do they.

Difference is -- they can wait.


__________________________________

[Incidentally, I'm blogging like it's the end of the world.]

Para ti


_________________________________

When everything implodes explodes
There are treasures scattered throughout the debris.

When life has reached critical mass
There is beauty in the sharp edges of the pieces left over.

When I must weep or risk sulphurous meltdown
Gut-quivering, mucilaginous, unpretty
When I would wail, had I any breath left --
My tears can nevertheless make cacti bloom.

I have no choice but to see this loveliness
I have no gaze but that which turns lightward
I have no wish but to hide my face
I have no home but in your arms
I have no hatred into which I might retreat.

Today I've been considering that side effect of adolescence and twenty-something-dom, namely, whining.

Isn’t that what my generation is becoming famous for? Self-indulgence? Whining? MySpace and LiveJournal and whatnot? Me me me, I’m so individual and different, just like everyone else – I am the center of the universe, everything revolves around ME. Pay attention, for god’s sake, can’t you see my haircut, don’t you wonder at the cut of my jeans, don’t you think I’m dressing too old or too young or too sluttily or too shapelessly? Don’t you dare ignore me. I swear I will make your life a torment. I will act out and freak out and then go chill out with my friends.

The weird thing is that my friends and I mock those kids. Net brats. They have decent Intarwebs connections and too much free time and not enough grammatical aptitude and nothing to do but troll LJ communities and haunt forums and post angsty pics on their hi5 pages.

I am in an awkward generation between X and Y (the Why Not Gen?). We’re technically Y (I think...?), but are on the oldest edge of it (early 80s pride in the hizzle, mofo!). My GenX friends are all marrying and spawning, which is damn disconcerting as I am not yet responsible enough to be trusted to properly take care of a cat. My friends of my age are still drifting in and out of crap jobs and crap apartments and careers and relationships, while our older gaming buddies are dealing with breastfeeding and babysitters and building blocks. But we still relate to them better than to our co-generation-Y-ers, most of whom are not out of college yet – that's if they’re even done with high school. -makes a face- Our childhoods were not all that different, but sometimes it feels as though there is an abyss separating us from our parents, from the breeders, and from the emo indie iGen kids.

Net brats. They spend every free moment updating their blogs or whatever because, hell, they’re fifteen. I can only thank my lucky stars that there is no permanent record of my own adolescent idiocy floating about on the net. I have a few diaries and all that; that’s it -- and they're safely locked away, thank you, far from blackmailability.

As a teen you have no car, no mentally stimulating job (and it seems that fewer and fewer overprivileged white kids are even being required to work summers at all), no way to get to and from your friends’ places without parental support or the dubious aid of an inadequate public transport system (if there even is one in your area -- welcome to America), you can’t drink, you’re screwed if you’re caught smoking up or just smoking... what the hell else do they have to do except connect to each other over the internet? You want to complain that your kids and their friends don’t leave the house? That they spend all their time online? How does this possibly surprise you? Do you remember being fifteen? How well? You want it to change? Don’t just overschedule their time with bizarre community center pottery classes or intramural field hockey. Extra-currics are great, sure, but no-one likes that nonsense shoved down his throat. Give them a little leeway. Give them a little trust. If you're buying their love, then give them a moped and some independence, instead of a PSP.

Or at least cough up for a decent cable modem. You know, whatever works. Could be worse; this way their minds are getting stimulated even as their adolescent asses begin to stealthily store fat cells that won’t truly emerge until those bedamned growth spurts are done with and they can start growing out as well as up.

Isn’t that just about the most shocking thing, when it happens? When your body completely betrays you and you just start piling on the flab? Here you are, dealing with your teens and all the godawful crap they come bundled with – desperate depression and angst, an oily face and greasy hair, bouts of childishness and tantrums, periods and cramps and dandruff and pimples, the PSATs and SATs and APs, massively stupid hormone-driven life choices like making out with Larry in the back of his mom’s nasty old sedan (shudder), cliques, gossip and high school politics, gaining permanent stretch marks on your boobs when they grow all at once, your first kiss and drink and joint and spiritual revelation – and just as things start to chill out, here comes the parade of lipidous fat cells, all piling over that teenage six-pack and throwing a kegger in your lower belly and inviting all their friends. Blech. No wonder we all go through an eight-year-long snit during that time.

I had a very strange dream the other night about being a Catholic priest from Paris who was part of a French seven-person teen idol singing/dancing multi-racial & -gender group sponsored by Crayola. It was very involved and detailed. Just thought I'd mention it. Such things tend to stick with one.

I've just been informed that the government might start partially subsidizing health insurance for temp workers, which would be teh awesome if it works out.

Decorating my cubicle are, among other things, three Giant Microbes. I have Mad Cow, which is spotted like a Holstein; Flesh-Eating disease, which is embroidered with a little knife and fork; and E. Coli, which has big googly eyes and a lot of cilia.

French-Onion-flavored Sun Chips are teh yummy.

I look ATROCIOUS in the photos from the Foamies, through no fault of the photographers. This does it; I am not photogenic. I have always been convinced of such, despite the reassurances of family and friends -- but now there's proof. (And it's online, oh my god...) Don't get me wrong, I don't think I'm a hideous Thing From The Swamp or anything -- I think I look fine in person -- but I haven't seen a picture of myself that I liked since before I turned 10. Seriously. I just don't look good in photos. Le sigh. I shan't get pics taken at my wedding if I ever get married. I have spoken. No, Dad -- I said I have spoken!!

The game for which I am doing QA is coming along nicely. It makes me excited to see something like this in development.

Entering bugs is, however, a pain in my butt. Bah-foo. ^_^

I overslept this morning. I blame my cat, Cleo. She decided to come into my room this morning and be Uber-Cute, shortly after my alarm went off.

Alarm: Skeebedee Beep! Skeebedee beep!
Me, stretching: Welp, time to get up.
Cleo, climbing onto my chest and pinning me down: Mroo? -big eyes-
Me: Awww, hi honey. -petpetpet- Oh-kay, if you'll excuse me...
Cleo: Murrrrow. -closed eyes, purrpurrpurr knead-
Me: Dangit. OK, two minutes.
Cleo, climbing onto pillow right next to my head, curling up: Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Me: Yeah, I should get... -yawn- I oughta... Time to -yawn- to, uh... gznk... zzzzzzzz...
-half an hour passes-
(From upstairs): Are you getting up, already?? It's 8:30!
Me, vertical leap straight out of bed: SONOVA -- !!
Cleo: Mwaah ha ha. Sucker.
Me, frantically getting dressed: Wait, what?
Cleo: Uh... meow?

So I've been thinking a lot about this new job that I have. I have decided that I really like it (so far).

There are, admittedly, a few downsides besides the low pay and lack of bennies. There is no natural light in my workplace -- sunlight being the well-known nemesis of the average computer game designer. My eyes do tend to ache and be a bit crossed by the end of the day. I am sitting all day with no exercise.

But. I found the following piece, written on notepad paper belonging to the last company I was working for (the Evil Temp Job) during my shift one day several weeks ago. After re-reading it, it reminded me of why exactly I left that position for this one.

( Bring on the Excel monkeys! )

So yeah. It could be worse!!

Here, my coworkers get my jokes. I am not, by a long, long, long, long, LONG shot the "weird one" in the office. If I start to quote Spaceballs, or the Princess Bride, or Serenity, or Star Wars, a minimum of two coworkers will chime in to finish said quote. I HEART THAT.

Much love to my geeks yo,

Ayesha K.

I would like to muse for a moment about names.

I have often been complimented on mine. It's unusual/exotic/sounds pretty bla bla bla. And I appreciate those compliments (I do!). Especially because I disliked my name as a kid.

What was the name of that series of books? Girls who were little during the 80s, help me out here! They were about these blond twin chicks... Elizabeth and Jessica. I used to look down my nose at Elizabeth, mostly because I resembled her a lot when I was a kid -- studious goody-two-shoes type. But I hated how the books were always slanted completely towards her. She was *always* right and Jessica was *always* wrong. I found it a bit lame that way.
/tangent

Point is, the name Jessica. I wanted, for yeee-hee-hears, to be named Jessica. It was so normal! So incognito. Throughout my childhood the absolute last thing I ever wanted was to be noticed, any time, by anyone, ever. I worked very hard at fading into the background. My name didn't really help all that much with that. Add the fact that I wasn't French, but going to a French school, etc etc wah wah. -tiny violin plays-

Also -- the nickname! Jess. Short, sweet, semi-androgynous, cool. There is no nickname for my name except maybe Aysh -- and that sounds like a suppressed sneeze.

So I wanted a cool, normal name, with a nickname. Actually, Alexandra (which is still one of my favorite names in the world) would have been my ideal; it has history behind it, an elongated, elegant sound full of 'ah's, and the ultimate in cool nicknames.
Now, of course, I've not only gotten used to my name, but also grown quite fond of it. It may be awfully common in many, many places in the world (and living in Pakistan really made me suddenly sympathise with the Jessicas and Michelles), but it's still kind of unusual here. So what if no-one can spell it or pronounce it at first? Real friends begin with those who bother to try and get it right. ^_^

Anyway. /musing.

For those who've asked, heebeezee is doing well in Karachi. The city's been slowed down due to riots recently, but those should clear up soon and she'll be able to get out and about again.

Lastly, and I shall perhaps address this again in the future after yet more thought, I'd like to comment on this whole cartoons-of-the-Prophet thing. A lot of people -- not all of you, I know; most of my friends have very open-minded and informed viewpoints -- have been foaming at the mouth to one degree or other over this.
LJ is full of links, to articles about bounties offered on the heads of the cartoonists, or how crazily people are reacting to the whole thing, etc etc.

My comments go suchlike:
Do you remember that art exhibit with the Madonna juxtaposed with elephant poop?
Do you remember how people LOST THEIR GODDAMN MINDS about it? How it was NOT OK, and Completely Disrespectful, and Not Art, and all the rest of it? Even those of us who are not Christian, myself included, felt vaguely that, well, it was a bit off, eh? Not Quite the Done Thing. Seemed more sensational than artistic.

In other words:
We're talking about Religion here, people! Of *course* people are going to act irrationally! Of course they're going to call out the dogs and wave pitchforks and torches! How is anyone even remotely surprised about this??

So many people are shocked, SHOCKED we say, that Muslims would violently, vehemently, knee-jerkedly react the world over to "a few little cartoons" .... that happen to smash one of the few completely unbreakable taboos that all sects of Islam everywhere can agree upon. Representing the Prophet in any way is blasphemy of the highest order. Might as well burn a flag (check it out!) or three, staple the Torah into your underwear, pee on some Bibles, and make the Book of Mormon into a hat while you're at it.
You get the idea.

Looking forward to the Bugs Bunny Film Festival tonight at the Brattle Theater with illuminari!

Did I leave the gas on? ( No! I'm a fucking PIRATE! )

I just realized (thanks to a recent email from heebeezee) that this LJ is, in fact, one of the major ways my sister in Pakistan and I are going to keep in touch. Which means I am going to attempt to write more "this is what's going on in my life right now" posts.

I have been keeping these to a minimum since moving back from Karachi, for two reasons. One, my life is just not objectively speaking as interesting back here. And many of the ways in which it is more interesting here are unsuited for a public forum. Two, I was using LJ to keep in touch with friends ten thousand miles away; they had no idea what my daily life was like unless I told them. Now, when I am in much more constant contact with them, I feel like posting online is just repeating things they already know.

But now I have an audience who is, once again, ten thousand miles away. An audience of one, true, but she seems to be very important to me, somehow. ^_^

So.

I spent Friday night with happynekko, who has been having kind of a tough time of it lately; Saturday night with my new team for Radiant Dragon -- the more I learn about this game, the more excited I get! -- and Sunday night helping to compose someone's character history.

Seriously. I almost want to just quit my job and be unemployed for a few weeks so that I can do nothing but sew my planned outfits while watching Buffy. WOO.

Z, I miss you dearly. I promise I shall update and email more often from now on.

Waaaah ha ha ha ha ha!!

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/26PatrickCassels.html

...
OK. That does it. I declare my random Intarweb surfage OVER for the day.
I shall now exercise my floon!!
Meaning: time to get started on my character history for Radiant Dragon. Sidebar: thanks to ryxander among others, whose fascinating discussions on what makes good, playable LARP characters were invaluable. Things I'd never thought of!

I came to LARPing, unlike most of my friends, NOT via table-top gaming. I had never played a single game of D&D. To date, the entirety of my table-top experience has been: one afternoon of D&D 3rd edition, and one afternoon of Changeling. I was a female drunken boxer and a sluagh, respectively.
Other non-computer or console gaming experience includes, in toto, an evening of Vampire: the Masquerade at Arisia in 1999 or thenabouts. To echo the sentiments of many of my friends -- "rock, paper, scissors" is NOT a valid fighting style!

In other words, I started LARPing at 17 and it was my first sincere foray into gaming and geekery. Thank goodness. :-D But the total number of PCs (and by extension character histories) that I've ever played (and written)? Three. Rafaela, Cookie, and Constance. That's it. And the only really cool one was Constance, who (sniff) only existed for a year (bless you, Cavalier!).

So. I look forward to writing my fourth-ever history! Hopefully, this time I'll make a really enjoyable character.

Chaaaarrrrge!!

Today is Very, Very Monkey.

TEETH.

First of all, I had to wake up at cock o'clock this morning to make it to a pre-work dentist's appointment, for a cleaning. Which sucked.

Then, after getting my gums poked with sharp metal objects for half an hour (par for the course, I know), they said I needed new Xrays.

After which they informed me that the emergency dental work I'd gotten in Pakistan was apparently done by monkeys (I suspected as much) who seem to have caused a massive infection below my back molar by sticking a post directly into the nerve to support a poorly-sized cap.
Which means I need a root canal.
A ROOT CANAL.

Nothing terrifies me more. I have had one in my life (the same tooth!), at age 10-ish, by a sadistic-ass Parisian dentist, and it freakin' scarred me for life. It was horribly painful, both during and after. I hate dental work anyway, but root canals make me want to cower under my blankies.
Does anyone know if you can get them with full anaesthetic...? (only sort of kidding)


Oh! Wait wait! My crap day has just been upgraded to a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

WORK.

I've just been let go.
Due to "overstaffing" and less ad turnover, my services will no longer be required. Tomorrow is my last day. Ah, to be a temp and expendable. There go my plans for an mp3 player and a new cell phone.

My next step is to take an $8/hour pay cut and take a 3-week assignment as a receptionist for a real estate company while I try to get my head together. Sigh. I also have my "we have no jobs currently but would like to meet you" interview with Tor on Monday. I'm not really in the right headspace for that at the moment, but that's not their problem, so I'll just have to try and find the headspace by the 19th.

The adorable kintani has offered to help me find a gaming job, and the equally sweet crowmeat has offered to buy me a consolatory milkshake. Friends -- what would a girl do without them?


SPAM POETRY.

On what I guess is the plus side, I got this lovely little piece of incomprehensibility in my inbox today. In the spirit of iralith's creative efforts with spam, I present you with the unedited version:

behead some team it a breakdown or ! diagonal see some callus ! try atlantes and may honda it on factious notthe beebread !.
and sole not see hank , may hatchway it the whimper some on persimmon not a fluctuate on or israel ,on crandall some.


Yea verily. Sing it, brother.
On the theme of the spam:

Ode to an Israeli Persimmon on Some Crandall Evening

The team assembles and considers the situation gravely.
Break it down? How?
On the Diagonal, of course, states the wisest.
Are you sure? asks the newbie. His brow crinkles.
She is the most experienced, the team murmurs,
The sound like the susurration of air in a hatchway.
See her palm, see her thumb. See?
The newbie respectfully eyes the callus.
-- Some callus, ma'am.

She stands poised. There is not a whimper of a decibel to be heard.
Firmly gripping her Atlantes (tm) butcher knife...
The Beebread, a honey-soaked wheat and
Seven-grain concoction, already lies split
Open, exposed,
Ready to receive the red-orange blood
And with a jarring Thwack that does not fluctuate in speed --
BEHEADED !

Mmm, persimmon.