Muddled thoughts
Life is slowly startng to return to normal over here in Casa de Crazy. There's still a last few bits of JournalCon stuff sitting around and there is a crapload of laundry needing to be done, but I've managed to go grocery shopping (so as to finally start eating healthy food again) and get the kitchen wrestled back into shape. I even cooked dinner tonight, for probably the first time in something like a month. The gym was calling my name again so I ended up there this morning, in the dark pre-dawn hours. And now my ass hurts. But I digress.
This weekend was a busy one. Productive but busy. Friday night LoLo came down and...well, we drank a shitload of vodka in a very short amount of time. In public. While wearing very slutty shoes. And then we went out dancing, until my feet just hurt too much and we tumbled into a cab with our laughter spilling out of us. Somewhere along the way, I told a girl her tits were entirely too nice to be wasting her time talking to the guy she was talking to and LoLo kissed a very yummy young man because it was his birthday. It was awesome.
I spent the rest of the weekend pretty much immersed in all things witchy. I don't talk that often about that side of my life anymore, and I don't know why other than it's because as I've gotten deeper into it, it's gotten more private. And also, I don't feel like encouraging people to leave me comments about how my soul is damned because I happen to dance in the moonlight with my (un)coven members from time to time. Anyhow, this weekend was the funeral for the baby that was lost to my friend eariler this month. She wanted to do it close to Samhain, since that is when the veil between the dead and the living is the thinnest. And she wanted me to cast a small circle and call in the guardians for her beforehand.
I had never done that outside of my own group.
I was more than a little nervous. But she's a friend of my heart and if I ws going to do it for anyone, I would do it for her. And so I did, and it was amazing to hear one of the women who joined us say to me afterwards "Wow, what was that you called in because it was amazing!" And I just shrugged and played it off as something I do all the time.
Really though, I DO do that all the time. I don't just go to class to learn from Kathryn, I go to worship, to commune with the spiritual in the way I find fit. I honor the gods and the goddesses and I listen to the whispers of things that I can only hear when I'm truly and honestly quiet and meditating.
Tonight is one of our two biggest holidays. Samhain, when we honor the Mighty dead who have left their mark up this earth despite being physically gone. We celebrated last night, with an altar honoring our dead and a dumb supper to celebrate their lives. And tomorrow is the start of a new wheel, of a new year of life for the earth. It's the start of the dark times, when I feel the draw of the earth pulling me in to rest and hibernate and rejunvenate myself before the spring.
It's been a chaotic year, for me and for most of my friends. There have been too many tragedies, too much drama, too much stress. It is time for a new season, time for us to rest and recover and get ready for what the next year may bring us.
Happy Samhain, everyone. May the new year bring you happiness and peace.
Tonight LoLo came to town
I am so drunk
Go see your eye doctor, because your eyeball arteries are probably hardening
I went to the eye doctor on Monday afternoon (after having forgotten I had an apointment and informing my boss that hey, I would once again be leaving early). I hadn't been to said eye doctor since something like 1999 or 2000. It had been at least 5 years is all I know.
I had the best of intentions about going to see the eye doctor because I've known for 3 years that I needed to go get a new prescription. But then one year I ended up spending all my FSA money on crotch doctor procedures, and last year all my FSA money was spent on the MRSA infection treatments and root canals. And I am a cheap ass bitch who didn't want to pay $500 out of pocket for my new glasses. I figured I could just plod along for a bit using the old prescription, which was better than nothing, right?
Then last March, right after I transferred into this job, my old glasses broke. So I had no glasses, needed a root canal and then caught a highly drug resistant staph infection that I almost needed to be hospitalized for. You with me?
A year and a half goes by and I notice that hey, my eyes are really tired. All the time. And then I notice that hey, it's October and I haven't had any big medical dramas and so I have a crapload of FSA money left to spend. That's how I ended up at the eye doctor's on Monday afternoon.
There is one thing I really don't think anyone wants to hear in the middle of any kind of medical exam, and that's a doctor suddenly exclaiming "Wow!" in that way that sounds more like "Wow, that's a gigantic tumor!" than "Wow, you are the healthiest person I've ever seen!" And yet I got to hear exactly that "Wow!" on Monday.
I'm not going blind (yet) but I have managed to cause my gnarly case of
esophoria to regress right back to where it was 10 years ago. Basically, I've turned myself into a cross-eyed idiot by not wearing my glasses. On top of that, her fancy new optical retina scan revealed I have two tiny hardening arteries in my eyeballs (one in each), which means I will probably stroke out any day now since according to her, the arteries in my brain and heart are doing the same thing. Oh and also, the goopiness that my eyes have been experiencing is actually a sign that I'm suffering from mild chronic dry eye so she tossed some eye drops at me too.
In other words, I done fucked up my eyeballs by waiting so long to see her.
But hey, I ordered
new glasses and they are awesomely adorable on me and I should have enough FSA money to even go grab a second pair as back-ups. So now I can rock that funky librarian vibe I've always dreamed of rockin'.
Let's just start a commune, okay?
I don't even know where to start this entry. I think I'm suffering from some post-event letdown. Not a full depression, of course...it's a weird mix of relief and sorrow. JournalCon was basically the biggest party I've ever thrown, and as awesome as it was, I'm so very glad to not have to worry about any details for awhile.
It was awesome, you guys. I keep trying to come up with other ways to say it but there just aren't any. My brain is still too tired to come up with anything else.
There's all these moments that I want to capture and keep in my head forever, stories that I need to write down when I start scrapbooking the 150+ pictures I took. Or hey, maybe even write them down in my online brain puke repository.
Like that 20 minutes I spent curled up in bed with
Weetabix before dashing out to dinner on Saturday, the first bit of quiet we had to talk about how things were going and how much fun we were having. We've been through the fire together, Miss Weet and I, and she will pretty much be my friend forever (whether she likes it or not). Also, we've discovered we're pretty much the same person, which should truly worry you all.
Or there was that couple of hours I spent at Hennessy's with
Pratt and
Arianne and
Mary Ann and
Marigold Mind and
Meg and
LA and
Dichroic, drinking myself into silliness and laughing hysterically over the fact that Pratt had just emailed a picture of my cleavage to Kevin via his cell phone.
And hey, how about that poker game with
Chuck and
Beth? I have never in my life felt so comfortable calling such a cranky man a dumbass before, but hey, he shouldn't have gone all in over and over and OVER again. (And dude, you totally lost the first one to your wife. I was the second one to hand your ass to you.) That poker idea was my best idea ever, and it allowed me to hang out and bond with
Xeney and Maya and
MoPie and
KarenD way more than I would have. Also, KarenD and Xeney are the best bluffers ever. Thank God the chips were worth nothing, or I would be living on the street right now.
And I LOVED the expression on
Jessi's man's face when I switched from calling him Thumper to "Mr. Jessi", almost as much as I loved being slammed against the wall by MoPie when she was demanding gossip from me.
Chauffi was, as always, both the life of the party and the demander of pancakes, and we all love him for it.
Hearing
Kymm's laugh ring across the room made me smile every damn time, and seeing
Mare smile a real, happy smile made my heart swell more than a little. And do I really need to mention how fucking cool
Pablo is?
Fucking with
Trance and torturing her with wet willies brought me inordinate pleasure, as did getting to see that
Cruel-Irony really is teeny tiny (she's a pocket blogger!).
Amanda got me hooked on Australian Crack, and I love the fact that she felt the need to photograph my bumper stickers.
And oh, how happy I am to have met
fredlet (who bought us all a huge comfort food lunch despite our protestations) and
Ray (who is pretty much the nicest, coolest guy ever). I'm beyond thrilled that I've managed to meet oodles of SoCal journalers living here (
Jecca, when are we going to see The Mikado together?
Poola-Girl, wanna come with?) and in Los Angeles, and so I won't have to wait a full year to see most of them again. Meg, want to join Arianne and I for Roscoe-Con??
I got to go to Cafe Sevilla, finally, after years of craving it, and I got to go there with
Bozoette Mary, who I still wish I had gotten to run away to the circus with.
There's a bunch of people I didn't get to spend as much time with as I would have liked, people I consider my friends, people I have spent time with before. But they had a good time too, those gorgeous friends of mine....
Science-Girl and
Deb and
Hez and a bunch of other people I'm sure I will regret not mentioning tomorrow morning. And the other new faces I met,
Carol Elaine and
ThatGrrl and
dashby (I'm sorry, I meant to write -b) and
Montykins, who I did not know grew up down here.
The view is definitely different from the organizer side of the crowd. I spent a lot of time worrying about everyone having a good time, but I spent just as much time making sure I had a good time, and I think that was essential to the general awesomeness.
I said at one point during the weekend that JournalCon really just comes down to boobs and booze, but I was wrong. What it comes down to is conversations and sharing good meals and hanging out with your new best friends and analyzing this crazy internet writing thing we all do while trying to figure out when we will all be able to get together again because one weekend a year just isn't enough. The booze and the boobs are just a bonus.
Thanks, you guys. You made the weekend better than I could have hoped it would be. And you totally make me
look hot.
I think this calls for some cabbage patching
JournalCon's over, and it's done, and everyone's gone home.
People seemed to have a good time. Can't please all the people all the time, but I think we pleased most of the people most of the time. And that, along with the oodles of new people I got to know this weekend made it all worth it.
I miss you all, every last damn one of you. Mwah.
Somehow in the next 12 hours...
My nails need to get done, my eyebrows need to be expertly shaped and my legs desperately need to be waxed (thank Jeebus I'm pretty much blonde).
I must hit the mall for a wild rampage of Finding Fabulous Clothes, because I hate everything in my closet except for one shirt and two pairs of jeans and above all else I must look cute this weekend because there will be cameras. Many cameras. I also desperately want to swing by Sephora but if that doesn't happen, I'll survive.
Swag needs to be finished, both mine and Kevin's. And laundry, for that matter.
Everything I need to survive this weekend must be packed. This includes every damn bit of makeup I own because darling, I destroyed my skin this weekend. It also includes Rolaids and Excedrin because I refuse to be hit by a hangover.
And sleep. I must get some sleep because I expect to get very, very little of it this weekend.
And it all starts tomorrow when I dash away from work (sayanora, bitches!) to pick up Weetabix and then Mare-Ingenii from the airport. I cannot think of a better way to start such an awesome weekend.
And I promise you'll get a walk recap at some point too.
Tired
All done. Kris is broken
Biofreeze good
My new best friend
4am Day 3
It's raining really hard and the tent keeps blowing around. Hoping our stuff stayed dry last night. Today might really suck.
No blisters yet
We barely survived Day 2 but we are determined to walk tommorow. Woo!
Bedtime
First day done. We are so damn tired
Tomorrow, the 3-Day
I have packed and repacked and then packed one last time, making sure I have all 8 pairs of Wrightsocks that I own. Each day's clothes are packed in their own Ziploc bag and as usual, I have too many pairs of assorted footwear (at last count, 2 pairs of sneakers, 2 pairs of flip flops, 1 pair of slippers and 1 pair of these super soft slipper socks that LoLo gave me).
I've carefully portioned out three days' worth of Gatorade since Kris and I despise the crappy sports drink they chose this year. Our credentials are packed,along with sunglasses and cameras and sunblock.
There are roughly 5 zillion band-aids and 6 sheets worth of Second Skin stashed in my fanny pack, along with enough Advil and antibiotic cream to ensure that I will not ever need to get near the cesspool of germs that is the medical tent, thus avoiding the staph infection of doom that I suffered through last year.
The money's been raised, and I can't wait to get out there. I'll be sending in picture updates from the road (hence the previous test entry), and I'll come back with tons of stories.
Pray for my feet, folks. They've got a big job ahead of them.
A day in my life, randomly snippeted
I've developed a Jamba Juice habit lately. And when I say I've developed a habit, I mean I've been to Jamba Juice so often in the past two weeks that the people at the location near my house (which is ever so convenient when I'm on the way home from the gym) didn't even have to ask my name this morning when I strolled in for my post-workout smoothie and blueberry cinnamon swirl. They just knew who I was and called my name when it was ready. If I keep this up, I'm going to end up with my picture on their bulletin board next to some overly cheerful blurb about how I'm the coolest customer ever.
Which would, of course, totally please my inner attention whore diva girl.
This morning I was walking into work and as I headed up the stairs, one of the guys (our newest employee, in fact, who is very tall) leaned over into the stairwell to say high...with a very large grin on his face. Which is right about when I realized that half of my shirt (which is a very adorable but oddly complicated V-neck tunic-type thing) had shifted roughly 6 inches to the left and left half my boob exposed. And when you're packing boobies like mine, half a boob is a heck of a lot of boob to be exposing at work.
No wonder he was so smiley when he said hello.
We got our invitations today. Or actually, I got them today. They are pretty and green and awesome and I love them. I was going through the box and opened one of the smaller boxes and there were these gigantic ivory square envelopes that matched absolutely nothing I ordered and they had this little banner on them that said "These are your inner envelopes". I was about to have a big ass freakout until I opened the very last little box and there were the lovely white, lined, small square inner envelopes I ordered. Thank goodness, because I had already spent 40 minutes in the fifth circle of hell that is the Dell phone system today and I was not looking forward to calling yet another customer service number.
So yeah, I have a bunch of giant ivory square envelopes if anyone wants them.
In other news, I'm almost totally packed for the walk, and the JournalCon stuff is coalescing nicely. More on both of those later, when I'm more coherent.
Promise.
Brain function on zero
When I heard the news about Nicholas Cage's son being born, I discovered something a little disturbing: I have absorbed way more geekitude than I thought I had. How did I discover this?
I knew that he had named his son after Superman, and that it was Superman's alien name.Gah. Double gah, because WHO THE HELL NAMES THEIR CHILD AFTER A COMIC BOOK CHARACTER? Crazy movie stars, that's who. And then they wonder why their kids all grow up slightly psychotic....because you named them after superheroes and fruit, for crying out loud!
Anyway.
There seems to be a time shortage going around lately. I know I'm not the only one in my social circle who's desperately trying to find a way to get everything done by the time it's due. At this point I am just praying for the end of October, because the month, it is packed. Company picnic this weekend, the 3-Day next weekend, and JournalCon the week after that. All good, all crazy making.
Those of you coming to JournalCon? Expect to see me drink copious amounts of spiritous liquor. Man, that is going to be one hell of a party.
Speaking of one hell of a party, this weekend we went up to Julian to meet with the people at Angels Landing and get some more things nailed down. Have I mentioned how much I love those people there at Angels Landing? Because I really truly do. It's going to be like getting married at a friends rustic estate instead of getting married at some random park with random weirdos walking by and watching our cermony which yeah, would have sucked. Anyway (the busier I get, the more distracted I get, did you notice that?) Afterwards we went into town and had some lunch (and pie....it's like a law or something that if you go to Julian you must have a piece of pie), I dragged him over to the Cider Mill.
And there amongst the jars upon jars of Bible-quote emblazoned honey and preserves I found nirvana in the form of....pumpkin butter. It's like apple butter, except it tastes like pumpkin pie. And oh good lord it is obscenely good on biscuits. And graham crackers. And straight out of the jar on a knife.
Unfortunately, I only bought a tiny jar and it's half gone. I think we will have to head up there again sometime soon, only this time I'll be getting the large jar of pumpkin butter. And some cherry mead from Witch Creek winery. And some fresh bread from Dudley's.
And maybe a pygmy goat.
