Officially broke until Pennsic. :/

Oh, dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. I seem to be in a bit of a spot... :(

The NAMES Project Quilt was on campus this week. Always sobering. Some of these people were so fucking young...





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Well, looks like I'm going to have to buy a new car tomorrow...

I'm spending my New Year's Eve packing up my life to move to a new place. Still no car and unsure how it's going to pan out (but still hopeful). Met someone new but things are still very early on (but again, still hopeful). Living down here sucks more than usual, but at least my job remains pretty awesome.

All in all, I'd like to kick 2011 squarely in the teeth and then curb stomp it. Here's hoping 2012 is better all around.

Happy new year! ;)

Thank you for interrupting my morning tea with an emergency drill...

Not a good morning.

Snow today. Great.

Running myself ragged. Friday night was a party with friends, then Saturday we had to cancel plans to hang out with friends at the Ren Faire (see my last post as to why). Was I able to at least get some work done? No - we headed into DC Saturday night for dinner and clubbing with mike14780 who was in town from San Francisco for an interview. Got home waaaaay too late, so most of the day Sunday was spent sleeping, although I did manage to finish sewing the shirt for my costume. Yesterday I had to leave work a little early to go renew my driver's license, and then last night I had to run out and get a few more yards of fabric, and stayed up waaaaay too late cutting the patterns. Tonight we have to get our hair cut, take the car back in to get looked at (making weird creaking noises since we got the axels replaced last week), and I have to actually sew the cloak and pants to finish my costume. I was hoping not to take the day off of work tomorrow, but we'll see how much I get done tonight, because we're leaving to Mom's at some point, then Thursday we'll stop and see friends for a while in Massachusetts on our way to Vermont, then the convention is Friday through Sunday, then it's an overnight stay seeing friends in Albany, and finally stopping at Mom's to pick up the cats on Monday and hopefully getting home at some reasonable time.

UGH.

I've been kind of stressed and quietly freaking out the past few days over some issues, but I think I'm finally getting my arms around my life and am starting to feel a little better, and maybe that I'm getting a handle on things. Hopefully it will all settle out before I leave next week.

Wait, next week? ALREADY? Well, crap - now I'm panicking again! :P

Today is a bad day for the HVAC to go out...

Things I have not blogged about:

• Quincy's brother's wedding
  
• The Gene doll convention in Philly
  
• The Wizard World comic convention in Philly
  
• CON.TXT this past weekend in DC
  
  Life is life. Blah.

Raining outside, but it looks like it's going to turn to sleet and snow soon. I'll see if I get a phone call in the morning (and even if I don't I'm going to take my time going in, just in case).

Oh, and Mom made it back from Florida, but we're hearing fairly bad news about a very, very good friend of the family, of the vein "I hope the weather clears up so visits can be made before it's too late." Very sad, and I'm more than a little worried and concerned. Blah. Hopefully things will change, and I'm going to make my own phone calls tomorrow to get more info. Very sad. :(

Bad idea to look at Pennsic pictures in January. I miss my family in Brigadoon. The longing! It pains me! :(

(Doesn't help I'm listening to John Barrowman's "What About Us." He's awesomesauce.)

So, the guy who "To Catch A Predator"'d ACORN is busted trying to sneak into a Senator's office and tamper with the phones. Was he going for illegal wiretapping, or just miffed that she wouldn't take his calls?

Interesting to watch the righty pundits, after heralding his oh-so-not-so-revolutionary "Gotcha ya!" investigative techniques (not quite "journalism" with all his bias showing) after ACORNgate, sloooowly backing away from him now. Sure, ACORN fucked up, but what did he have against this Senator? Could it be she has a little "D" before the "-LA" on the CNN newscrawl? Naaaaah!

Oh, and after consideration, I'm pretty peeved at the Supreme Court, too. What candidate could compete against a large business that wanted to throw money at their opponent? I understand that companies have a vested interest in who gets elected (as do their shareholders), but there were reasonable outlets for them to express their choices before without the ability to financially overwhelm whoever they don't like. I think it hurts the political process, and I cringe to think what might come next. I had hoped that SCOTUS would protect voters from those politicians who only think of how to raise enough money to get re-elected every year, but I guess not.

I want to post about my fabulous, exciting weekend, but there wasn't one. I slept, I watched TiVo, I poked around online, and I played Zuma. That's. About. It.

On the plus side, feeling better, except for this hacking cough that's slooooooooowly going away, but not fast enough for my taste. Gaymas in 2 weeks - gotta start cleaning for that.

Otherwise, BOLLOCKS.

These are the most God awful bagels I've ever had. BLEARGH.

Anyway, had a little get together with queer staff and faculty last night, which was pleasant. Wine, cheese, fruit, cider, pumpkin pie, cookies, and dish dish dish! It was just a few of us boys, so it was nice to catch up now that we're all back on campus.

Tonight and tomorrow I have no idea what we're doing, and Saturday is two Halloween parties, one with the doll freaks, and the other with Q's friends in DC. Should be amusing. I'm probably wearing my SCA garb, which is cheating, but I'm too lazy to put anything together. Not in the Halloween mood as I normally am, I guess because I knew we weren't going to be at the house Halloween night, so I didn't decorate (not that it matters - last year we got 5 groups of kids, so I kind of lost my enthusiasm). We are doing a little Halloween cider and cookies party on Friday in the office, so at least that's something.

You will be missed.

Got woken up early by insane cats, stubbed my toe and all but ripped off the toenail, and car didn't start. Twice.

Last night I came home, saw Q off to work, sat down to watch TV... and promptly fell asleep. Woke up around 9, ate something, checked e-mail, and went to bed past my optimal bedtime; then, of course, I had trouble sleeping, so I'm off today.

This has been happening more and more often, like a couple of times a week for the past few months. Lethargy, rut, depression, winter blahs, job stress - call it what you will, but as much as I love sleeping (and I do!) this is getting kind of annoying. :(

Worked until 8:00 p.m. Friday. Slept all weekend. Worked until 8:00 p.m. tonight. Will be busy this whole week doing 3+ peoples' jobs. Not happy. Sigh.

Came home from work, got the truck towed to the mechanic. The timing belt went, and they gave me a worst case quote of $1,100, depending on what else needs replacing once they get in there. Should be done tomorrow afternoon, which means I'll need to leave work a little early again tomorrow so Q and take me. So there goes another huge chunk of our Rainy Day/Move to San Diego Fund. Plus Posh is acting odd, so who knows? Maybe she'll need a vet visit on top of that.

Time to go hide for a while.

OK, so my truck crapped out on me this morning. UGH. That's 2 cars in as many weeks. I took Q's car in, but I'll have to leave early to get it looked at. UGH.

$425 for a new starter, plus he'll need a new battery within the next couple of months. Oh, well - more money from the Move Back to San Diego fund gone. :(

So meant to post about the weekend.

Thursday we had a date night, so we went food shopping and had dinner at Cici's. Hoo baby, we're a wild pair. Friday was spent mostly catching up on TiVo and chatting with friends.

Saturday it was pouring rain so I slept in, but we did get our butts in gear and headed up to Annapolis for the Maryland Ren Faire, where we met up with Tyrvan, who got us in and toured us around a bit, including showing us backstage to see revkellyshannon. Whilst out and about I was molested by amywon, and then we ran into Finn, who escorted us for the rest of the afternoon. It was the first permanent Ren Faire I'd been to - even all those years in PA I never went to theirs, and I went to a weekend one in San Diego once, which doesn't quite count - and I have to say I was impressed. It truly did look like what Pennsic would look like if it were permanent and we let in looky-loos (if Pennsic were permanent and just for us, I'd move there!). It was a beautiful setting and there were a lot of really lovely people. I went in garb, but Q wimped out and went naked, which serves him right as he was wearing wussy sneakers and I was wearing my big waterproof boots, and there was mud everywhere (we were actually quite lucky that by the time we got there the rains had finally passed, and there was a LOT of it on Saturday). We didn't buy anything, but it was fun to see the many merchants, watch a little bit of the jousting tournament, sample some of the various foodstuffs they'd come up with, and just walk around and enjoy the ambiance. Afterwards we went to Applebee's for dinner, and poor Q had had a few too many, so he all but passed out before we even got to the car.

That was actually about it. Q had to work Sunday, so I slept in and spent the day putzing around doing chores and whatnot. Conjecture was also this weekend, but I haven't heard how my artists did (I sent work from Thalia and akirashima).

The work week has already been a grind. Work's been crazy since we're down one person, and it's only now that we're into the groove of the semester that I don't quite feel like I'm drowning (of course mid-semester grades and a big due date are looming, so it's only a matter of time before I'm awash again).

This Friday there's an LGBT pot luck that they're trying to do as a regular thing, and we know a few people who are going, so we'll check that out. Next weekend is Gaylaxicon, which is just going to be awesome, of course. (Something else is happening next Wednesday, but I'm sure it's nothing important.) After that we've been invited to a bowling party in Baltimore later in October, we're not quite sure what we're doing for Halloween yet, and we're already starting to think about Thanksgiving and beyond (like a December trip to WDW with Mom, but we'll see how things go).

Hope everyone else is doing well. :)

Today is both a wash due to it being my co-worker's last day (we're small enough that the farewell celebrations will eat up the entire afternoon, and planning for them will eat up most of the late morning) and a day I'd like to just quit and walk out (not entirely necessarily due to the aforementioned wash). Fortunately I'm leaving at lunch so I can go home to finish getting ready for the party. However, starting Monday it just starts to get worse since she'll be gone. Bah.

The Cough That Would Not Die is back. I thought I got rid of it before Pennsic, but here I am, three months later, and I still have it. Time to head back to the doctor... :(