there she goes, she's airtight

So I'm assuming everybody who's going to care about it at all has already seen this, yes? (If not: important Fall Out Boy news. It was super-awesome to check my email after I woke up and see that.)

Also, while we're on fannish things, here are some pictures of the Avengers drawn as senshi, because seriously. *___*

-- and, to round things out, I guess, with three: I'm not entirely sure how, but I missed the last few episodes of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (I missed the costume theater one from a week ago, and I don't remember why but I watched Thursday's on mute and picked up the pertinent information from the comments), but gauging from the response I've seen on Tumblr I'm sort of getting that that's a good thing? Idk. I'm sort of afraid to watch it now.


Otherwise the thing I'm most excited about is legitimately the fact that we're getting four temps at work and they could actually be starting -- well, yesterday, actually, as I remember it's now Tuesday. January ended up being a less wretched month for my team than I was expecting, and actually a less wretched month for the department as a whole than I think any of us were expecting, but "less wretched" is a long way from "actually pretty good, really". We've only been saying we needed temps since last May or so, you know, so. Hopefully they will be competent and not like the last temp we had, who wasn't necessarily bad at the work as much as really awful at documentation, which is sort of vital in an FDA-audited facility, and who refused to learn from his mistakes (and therefore made the same stupid paperwork mistakes over and over and over). That would end up making more work. And might make some of us more homicidal than usual.

Speaking of work, my mom went back to her job yesterday after almost a month. She said she's glad to be going back out, just not so much glad that that's where she's going. Which is fair, considering how much she dislikes her job. (Uh, for people who aren't Rue or Betsy: my mom is finally getting over a case of shingles, which have been making her miserable officially since the first Monday in January, but actually since the 2nd, when her back started to hurt; she just thought it was a pulled muscle, since we moved our gargantuan TV twice two days before. They're almost gone! She actually got like seven hours of sleep last night! It's all very exciting.)

Oh okay that was a lie up there! Most exciting: I tried a new cookie recipe Sunday night/Monday morning, and I baked with non-butter butter for the first time, and they were both massive successes. Which is code for "incredibly delicious", for the record.

I'm pretty sure the most interesting thing going on in my life right now is the fact that I've started watching Utena (I am 19 episodes in!) and it's really, really awesome. If, you know, befuddling at times. My reactions are usually WHAT IS HAPPENING, shouting at various characters to stop being dumbasses, observations that various characters are bags of dicks (people in this category: Saionji, Touga, Souji; Akio gets his own special YOU'RE A BOX OF DICKS category because I think he's the box everyone fills their bags from), or observations on how wonderfully healthy (and in sibling cases, not at all incestuous) all the relationships tend to be.

("Big brother complex" my ass.)

I am, however, thoroughly enjoying it. And I'm getting the impression majesdane is enjoying my reactions, too, although I'm pretty sure (as I mentioned on Twitter) that she's mostly just going OH YOU'RE SO PRECIOUS to herself. I'm pretty okay with that!


Work is very strange lately, but not in a terribly interesting way. We're going through a lot of internal restructuring, which mostly means most of the department is changing seats (although NOT ME HOORAAAAAAAAY) and some of them are also changing buildings. It's a lot quieter in the mornings now; it's kind of weird. Although, on the bright side, I did finally meet someone who's actually in my testing group today (I have been seeing his handwriting/signature for months now -- he does raw material testing on heparin -- but I never actually bumped into him), so that's nice. I complimented him on his handwriting. It's very clear.

(I appreciate people with clear handwriting. I, unfortunately, do not fall into that category most of the time.)

majesdane: i can tell you are anxious about tomorrow/thursday.
majesdane: because you sound like my dad.

I'll take things that were incredibly uncalled-for for $2000, Alex.

I post rarely these days ("these days," as though that's any kind of change) mostly because my life is simultaneously incredibly ridiculous and really, really boring. But, anyway, a list of relevant things, because I keep composing posts in my head and this way some of it will leave.

s) One of the second-shift guys at work -- so I see him for like an hour and a half a day -- calls me "Beej" now. As in "Hey Beej!" It's lasted longer than I expected. (The reasons for this are: a) my coworker Tori and are often referred to as partners in crime (this is part of why another coworker's wife thinks I'm married to majesdane); b) Tori recently changed her nametag so now it looks like this. I asked second-shift guy if that made me Trapper or BJ and it actually took him longer than I expected to answer. Mostly because he seemed to be giving it genuine thought.)

p) My mother has been bribing me to clean my room (okay, to be fair, it hasn't been cleaned since I came home from WPI, which was two years ago in May) by telling me that if it's all clean she will paint while I'm gone. So I think I've actually settled on a (ridiculously-named) color and everything. And it's like half-clean in there? More progress than I was expecting anyway.

d) I keep forgetting I'm going to Dragon*Con and then remembering and thinking !!!!!DRAGON*CON!!!!! Apparently I am internalizing this well.

f) I'm super-excited anyway.

g) Does anybody who's going this year want to bump into each other at some point? (Other than you, majesdane, because I plan on bumping into you intentionally. And often.)

At some point I will probably be posting at least a few of the pictures my mom and I took, but for now, a list of Things That Happened To Me In Boston (& Surrounding Areas).

-- found a paperback of the first version of The Stand, about two days after my mom mentioned regretting getting rid of hers.
-- managed to make it out of MA without buying another copy of "Three Septembers and a January", because I (inexplicably) have three already.
-- discovered an apparent shellfish allergy? Which makes no goddamn sense, and is kind of impossible.
-- directly related to the above, woke up with a rash/hives on my right arm on Tuesday. And then Wednesday they were also on my left arm and very slightly on my chest. No idea why.
-- missed the fireworks completely. I am still kind of upset.
-- got myself sunburned! (This is because I am a dumbass who did not say anything when my mom said "eh, do you think we really need the sunblock today? I think we'll be fine.") I can now cross "get a sunburn blister" off my list of things to do before I die. (Locations: tippy-tops of both ears.)
-- got my very own 20-minute tour of the Thomas Jefferson, which was in the harbor for Harborfest and which is also a survey vessel for the NOAA. It was so awesome, guys. Seriously. Almost makes up for the fireworks.
-- completely refrained from telling the incredibly nice man who got permission to give me a brief tour (the ship was actually closed to visitors, but he went and asked the CO) that he looked unnervingly like Buster Bluth. (As he was actually in the Coast Guard I am assuming he has a better handle on cartography at the very least.)
-- saw about eighteen thousand penguins (miiiild overstatement) and also harbor seals being trained/fed. So awesome.
-- snapped a picture of a road sign in Salem declaring the road to be Barton Square. Actually I took like eight because I wanted to make sure I got a clear one.
-- learned on a Duck Tour that the Charles River isn't drinkable but is not in fact flammable, either, sooooo.

None of my sunburn itches except the tops of my ears. :/ (Although, funny story, my mom burned less than I did and hers itches like crazy.)

Apparently the answer to how do I figure out my new character's actual voice? like, the one he uses to talk? is open up a Notepad document and ask him questions.

It's surprisingly effective.

(So are the excedrin and tylenol PM I took half an hour ago. I'm at that incredibly strange point, this particular moment, where my headache's mostly gone but the sleepy hasn't kicked in yet but I know it's coming. It's actually helpful, because it's a signal I should go get done what I want to do before I go to bed before I start getting loopy and useless.

Also that I should probably stop writing, because after a certain point it's just going to be really absurd questions and really absurd answers back and forth, and that will probably amuse me but be useless, practically speaking.)

GUESS WHO GOT TO DRIVE IN SNOW FOR THE FIRST TIME TODAY~~~

(... you get three guesses; first two don't count.)

This is close enough to a my-week-in-brief entry that it's not awkward to mention how immortality was in Buffalo last week and we hung out and it was awesome. (We also had an amusing discussion about the differences between place names where she lives (CT) and where I live. Her: I saw this huge mall on the way here near ... some place ... *says something very vaguely intelligible with cheek in it (possibly)* Me: ... are you trying to say Cheektowaga?) Also she let me have a bit of her root beer float, so.


When I woke up Friday (actually woke up, which here means about three minutes after I got up) I realized I smelled baking chocolate, which meant BROWNIES. My mother makes the best brownies in the entire world, like, I cannot effectively convey how amazing these brownies are except to say that the recipe calls for, among other things, five eggs and three cups of sugar.

So it turned out that she'd timed it so the pans (one square pan of nuts for her, one square pan of not for me) would be just cool enough to cut by the time I was leaving for work, so she was like, hey, you want to take some to work? So we did some maneuvering and I wound up taking one pan with me (half nuts and half non). I didn't actually cut it until like half an hour after I got in because Tori was late, and obvs I wanted her and Eric to be sure to get brownies, but they were still warm enough the chocolate chunks were gooey.

Tori's reaction was basically "... omgdelicious". Eric's was "wait, who made these? your mom? ... can she be my mom?" which changed shortly to "does she want a new husband? like, seriously, how do you feel about a stepdad?" Jake, who went and got one quickly enough it was still warm, ended up taking his first bite as he was rounding the corner to join the three of us, and his response was "oh my god. is your mom married?"

& so on. They were completely gone before fourth shift got in (Melissa gets in at 5ish). And by that I mean Eric came around the corner with the last one in his hand, saying "fourth shift will never know".


When it gets to reasonable o'clock I have to call my dentist again (UGH). For two reasons, really -- a) the penicillin doesn't seem to be working (I only say this with authority because there were a few months in high school where one of my teeth would throb constantly for a few days, the result of which was always a penicillin prescription (... and eventually a dentist appointment which led to the most traumatic experience in a dentist's office I hope to ever experience), so I remember what it feels like for the shit to kick in), and b) I've figured out which tooth is the problem, and it's kind of ... not on the jaw I told her it was. And she gave me a referral to a root canal specialist based on the idea that the pain was in my bottom jaw, sooooo possibly we should get this straightened out. Uh.

(The upshot of which is mostly that I hate my teeth, but I have still managed not to get any of them pulled -- both of my parents have had teeth pulled, so it's basically my only concrete goal in life not to have that ever happen to me -- and I was still born without wisdom teeth, so I guess that's something.)

(When I called Wednesday morning to try to see my dentist sometime that week, the receptionist asked me if I'd had my wisdom teeth out when I described my problem. I always forget that's a Thing.)

Re: this post:

FUCK YES.

So this afternoon I remembered that I left Nightmares and Dreamscapes half-finished like three weeks ago, so this is slightly less urgent than it could have been.

However! I still require input.

[Poll #1583071]