five thousand shades of blue

---

<spoilers>

I finally got the chance to watch the Voyager series finale. My initial reaction? Eh. Was anyone really surprised that they made it home? I was more than a little annoyed and disappointed when it became plain that they lifted the storyline straight out of "All Good Things" (the ST:TNG series finale, which, IMHO, was vastly superior). By the time we got to Harry's speechifying (at the decision to blow up the Borg hub) we had irretrievably fallen into MSTing the show. When Voyager bursts from the Borg sphere (exactly when did and how did THAT happen?) we shouted out the Nestle Wonderball theme with glee.

Come on. Seven of Nine and CHAKOTAY? What are they smoking down at Paramount anyway?

As to the Borg hub concept: nicely and conveniently invented for this episode, and blatantly ripped off of B5's "jumpgate" concept (as I defined for Julie:"Jumpgates are an artificial construct that pull open wormholes, essentially, and allow for subspace travel between distant points in the galaxy." Sound familiar?). It also tends to nullify the information presented in the TNG episode where Q introduces the Borg to the Federation -- in which the essentially said that if not for Q's interference, the Borg would not have found the Federation/Earth for decades to come. (Hey, it's been a while, and I'm rusty on episode names.) Come on. They can jump between quadrants at the blink of an eye, but never noticed the Federation's presence in the Alpha Quadrant until Q pulled us into the deepest reaches of space? I suppose it could be argued (thanks, Julie) that the hub was built after that introduction just to get to the Federation, but it seems to me to be more like bad.. no, LACK of planning and continuity, and inconsistencies and a convenient plot device to get Voyager home. But then again, that's the Paramount / Berman way of doing things.

I betcha Roddenberry is spinning in his orbit.

Enterprise, the new show: oh Gods. Don't make me laugh. This show's gonna be a prequel to ST:TOS, yet there's an Enterprise? Um, wasn't James T. Kirk driving the very first Enterprise? Methinks it was a freudian slip, as Julie suggested, reminding us in the most blatant way that the Star Trek universe is their enterprise, their cash cow. I think I'm gonna be sick. Brace yourselves, folks, for even more inconsistencies and continuity errors!

</spoilers>

It's always hard to resume life after a long event weekend. Emotions ran high after the event and then being reminded of mundane responsibilities led me to just sit and sob for about a half hour last night. I'm doing better today but there's a lot to catch up on.

This sort of thing always both inspires me, and depresses me. I'd like to have my ger by An Tir/West war, but I'm not sure it's going to be temporally or fiscally possible. I also want to try to make myself a pair of Mongolian riding boots, but I'm terrified to try. I've never made shoes or worked with leather before.

Suddenly I am overcome with a deep seeded, illogical fear that the people around me are merely tolerating my presence. I don't know why. Maybe because I'm about to spend the weekend with 1800 people and as always happens in large crowds, I tend to fade into the background, feeling utterly unremarkable and plain. Like it wouldn't (irrationally) surprise me to hear, "We found someone better. Buh-bye."

I'm sure I will have a good time. I always do. It's more like a 'cold feet' reaction before a wedding, than a dread. Hard to explain.

Eyes are tired and scratchy. Not only am I tired, but it's hot, and much particulate matter in the air.

See ya'll on Tuesday, likely.

I hate days like this. I got up earlier than my body would like, after staying up later than I should, and have been going full tilt at the café. I left for a bit to do some prep for an event; now, I have returned to the café to finish out the day (Andra is one of two people in charge of the whole thing this weekend). In front of me tonight, I have a night full of additional scurrying about my house in search of event crap, after taking care of closing up and cleaning up here, before cleaning out the back of the truck, packing everything into it, then driving 25 minutes, and unloading everything and setting it up. I'll be lucky if I get four hours of sleep tonight. (Okay, the latter part about driving, etc. may happen in the morning, because I've heard horror stories of people having their irreplaceable stuff ripped off out of their vehicles.) My eyes are sagging and I swear if I don't focus on staying upright I feel dizzy.

Think anyone would notice if I curled up for a nap behind the counter?

*falls on the floor laughing*

You. Must. Read. This.

A little taste of what you're in store for:

Despite being nearly four feet from the toilet opening, the nozzle succeeded in dousing me with a jet stream of warm pressurized water not only in my left eye and face but in my nose and left ear as well.

Scott rocks.

When the hell did I become so domesticated? To wit:

• I can cook. I've been unwilling to face this fact for some time now, but a few weeks ago I invented a cold Chinese noodle dish on the fly. I can't really deny it any longer.
  
  
• I can sew. So I'm no seamstress by any means, but I recently (with some guidance from friends) took the sleeves off of a very cool quilted purple silk Chinese jacket that was too small for me, and inserted the sleeve material along the side seams, and now have a very swell looking quilted purple silk Chinese vest. Right now I'm constructing a seat and back for a folding wooden chair that Andra found at St. Vinnie's.

Sigh...

I have a million and one things to do before Egil's this weekend, and I'm going to not think about it and talk to you about a couple of TV shows. Let's hear it for procrastination.

X-Files: The season finale was this past Sunday, and I was actually disappointed that it wasn't the series finale (seems that Fox is going to milk this cash cow for all it's worth, much like Paramount and Star Trek). My feelings on the ending were somewhere between Julie's and Sheri's/Erin's. It was kind of sweet that Mulder and Scully end up happy and together (I admit, I went "Awwww."), but at the same time, I'm disappointed that Chris Carter decided to compromise the professional relationship that was so unique to Hollywood and to TV, and went back on his promise that he'd keep their relationship "just friends". Why on earth would he even make such a promse? I also kind of think that Carter wrote himself into a corner. Really, was Scully's baby going to be an alien? And since there were no recurring characters outside of the realm of Scully and Mulder's work (Joe Accountant, Jane Librarian), it seems inevitable that the pair fell for each other (can I call this the Inevitability Factor™?).

Whatever. The show I was much more excited about was Dark Angel, which wrapped up its first season with an episode that was a kick in the teeth. Who would have ever thought Lydecker a sympathetic character? Nana Visitor? Excellent as psychobitch! And... the best hallucinatory episode EV-ER. You can see that James Cameron was a man with a plan. I heard that early on he didn't expect the show would last the season (fortunately, his pessimism turned out to be unfounded), and I can see how things might have gone if it hadn't. Whew. Looking forward to the fall to see how Max will manage to resist Manticore's re-integration, evade the psychobitch Renfro (aka Evil Kira minus the sensuality plus blonde hair), and make it back to Logan, who thinks she's dead (well, most people who have their ventricle obliterated don't make it back to the land of the living).

The air is thick with irritants. It feels like there's an out of control faucet on inside my head and I'm sneezing like crazy. The combination of meds I've taken is making me feel a bit weird, and what I really want to do is go home and go to sleep, but there is so little time left to this week and so much more I need to do that I really can't in good conscience sleep, even though I'd probably more efficiently work better rested. Knowing me, though, I'd spend my 'nap' worrying about what I had to do, effectively ruining my sleep and wasting time.

Looking forward to the weekend. It may be spent outside sleeping on the cold ground, but I will be with friends and away from this modern life and all its trappings. I never thought I would be happy about that.

The Kaycee that I spoke of last week turned out to be a fraud. To the perpetrator of the hoax, "Debbie", I say: The ends do NOT justify the means. If you wanted us to care about people you've known who have lost the battle with cancer, fabricating an entire fictional lifetime was the most unethical, low down dirty way to do it. Instead of feeling sympathy for you and your loss, I am left feeling disgusted, manipulated, and distrustful of anything I see on the web. You might have garnished sympathy from me just as easily with a real cancer survivor, but a pretty young girl who died before her time would probably get more traffic, eh? </cynical>

Feh. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Jim Henson passed away ten years ago yesterday. And any baby born on the day Mt. St. Helens erupted is celebrating with their first legal beer today, as that happened on this date in 1980.

Time doesn't march on. Once you hit college age, it positively sprints.

I figure, it's a bad sign when one's dreams involve being tired and wanting to sleep. Last night's dreams were essentially a brain dump of the last few days. It's funny how when I dream of "home" I still place myself in western New York, even though it's been about seven years since I lived there. But I so vividly recall the need to get home and sleep because I needed to wake up early... and then I woke up. So unfair. I feel almost like I didn't sleep at all.

Egil's is in a week and I'm proud of myself for finding a master packing list from last year. However, I am unprepared for the actual event. I was hoping to have my ger ready to go for Egil's, but no such luck. By July, hopefully. I have grown to HATE the green plastic tent. I want to be able to dress standing up, and to have my cast iron wood stove inside to keep me warm instead of a stupid propane heater.

I've made a list of things I have to get done by then and I want to smack myself. This thing takes place the same weekend every year -- you'd think it wouldn't take me by surprise, AGAIN. *sigh*

Requiem for a Stranger

You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone, says the song. Realizing what you've got before it's gone is a special gift, and I thank a young girl I didn't even know for giving it to me. Thank you, Kaycee.

I'd never read her blog before I saw the link on Julie's page this morning. The last post she made put a lump in my throat -- the last day of her life and she's on top of the world! What a humbling thing to read. The outpouring of love and sadness by this 19-year-old's passing is amazing and the loss felt by people who knew her (and by many who didn't) is immeasurable, and touches me deep in my soul (read some of the links on her journal page, and especially the bulletin board, and you'll see what I mean). It sounds cliché but what a lesson in appreciating the fragility of life. She went down fighting, truly an inspiration to everyone, and has rightfully earned the name "Warrior".

I am sad, but by the same token, I am inspired. Rest in Peace, Warrior. You've fought the good fight... and believe it or not, you have won.

why this is crossed out

Excuse me while I hyperventilate and regress into a 14 year old fangirl.

Martha has inspired me with her pictures, Julie has too strangely enough with her To Do list, and Sheri has paid me a huge compliment (and made my day) by telling me it'd be an honour to let me read her latest piece of writing.

(Now if I can just scare up about $1500 by the end of the day, I'll be happy. :P)

I wish I could borrow Julie's camera too, because I would take a picture of my rosebush, which is crazy right now with grey roses. It's a Stainless Steel, a sturdier version of Sterling Silver roses. I had Andra snip one off and bring one into the cafe, along with some blooms from the sage bush. They're so beautiful, and on a rainy day like today they make me smile.

Turns out this sign is in Redwood City.

Trés weird, ya?

9:33 am

Well, Blogger's off line at the moment, and I'm kinda feeling wordy.

Friday was hell. I think I wrote about it and Blogger posted it but didn't publish it (I got some kind of weird error). The gist is: a bill I have been trying to pay for nearly two months finally had to get paid via Western Union, because no one bothered to inform me that the third (THIRD!) attempt at a 'check by phone' failed due to the customer service woman taking my account number down wrong. I'll stop now since I think I already ranted this one. (Note: I did, see previous blog which didn't publish on Friday.)

Now, mind you, no one bothered to tell me that Western Union only accepts cash (how dumb is that!), so there's me flying across town to my bank to get +$800 (again, UGH). Watch San act all paranoid as she is certain that everyone around her knows she's got all that loot on her! The whole experience was hell on earth. You can bet I'm gonna sit down and author a complaint note the size of Texas.

Longish weekend. Didn't finish the cleaning I wanted to do. An and I had to take back some Vitamin E capsules I got for her, since the formula was not the right one (d-alpha something, not dl-alpha something), and spent way too much time in Costco. Came home with the new Myst game (Myst III: Exile), which looks amazing, and for which I will have to exhibit herculean restraint to keep away from until after Egils -- which, by the way, is a scant 10 days or so away, and am I ready? NO!

Oh, but the thrift store shopping afterwards yielded much good lootness. Best of all is the cobalt blue Chinese silk brocade outfit (jacket, top, skirt that goes to the floor). All I need to do is convert the buttons into frogs/Chinese knot buttons and I might even be able to wear this at events. I have to either move the buttons about an inch over or lose some weight (one's a short term solution, the other's a long term goal). It's just gorgeous!

Had quite the adventure in a downtown emergency room on Saturday night, as well. Not something I care to repeat any time soon. An's stomach was bothering her all day Saturday, and nothing she usually does to calm it down was working. It really hurt, so of course, at 11:30pm nothing else is open but an emergency room. Oooohhhhh, was that special. Mentally disturbed homeless man feigning depression in order to get a bed for the night (I heard him admit to it); two young women walking around with sheets around them and I have no idea why they were there; another woman who may or may not have overdosed on something sitting there wheezing and crying, pink pijamas and no shoes; and so on. Wild horses couldn't have kept me from accompanying An into the treatment area, and luckily no one tried to stop me. They ran bloodwork and found that she doesn't have anything horrible (i.e. not related to liver, pancreas, etc.) but it's looking more and more like it's probably a hietal hernia. Treatable, at least. Ever the geeks we are -- I told her it was more like a hardware problem than a software problem.

They gave her a dose of morphine to kill the pain, and she said it was very scary to feel it go up her arm and into her head. She was HI-larious stoned on morphine, I have to say, and I had to help her get dressed and put her shoes on. Kind of like helping a two year old getting dressed.

(later)

I had to make some edits to my original text, there, and wanted to add that an acquaintance I see at my health club was at the same emergency room about the same time I was (though we were already in the treatment area) and saw the scary people I mentioned above. Small world!

Haven't had much to say. Too annoyed with my mortgage company, which seems to exclusively be staffed by chimpanzees. No, that's not fair... to the chimps.

GRR...

This is the second time I've had to deal with the Customer Service department of a major company whose representative was someone who spoke with an accent so thick it was almost impossible to comprehend. Don't get the wrong impression, here, of me as a hopeless bigot against people with accents, because that's not my issue. My issue is with these companies putting hard to understand employees in positions where clear communication is essential, such as, oh, CUSTOMER SERVICE. The latest fuck-up with the mortgage company stems from a stupid communication error (mistype of my bank account number). She probably read it back to me erroneously but I didn't catch it because I didn't understand what she was saying!

Thank Laxshmi it's Friday.

Reported to me/seen by a friend who takes CalTrain:
A standard-looking yellow street sign, all by its lonesome on the side of the road; visible from the train, and no signs appear near it. All it says is:
OBEY THIS SIGN.

A titch disturbing...

So now I have to pull off an impossible task and whip my house into the epitome of beauty and wonder, by Friday at the earliest. When you get your home refinanced, it's almost like buying all over again, only slightly less nerve-wracking because the house is already yours. There's still the appraisal -- which could happen by the end of this week. Let's just say that my house wouldn't now be given the Martha Stewart Seal of Approval™. But a 6.75% interest rate (as opposed to the 11% something or other we're stuck with now) is well worth the effort!

I'm iBooking as I watch Norton Utilities whip my desktop's hard drive into shape (1.4% fragmented! AIEE), and I just remembered a really weird screen shot that I took.

As shown on Friday by my FTP program:



It's so nice to know that the programmers took all that time-travel hoo-hah into account when they wrote this program.

(I wanted to insert inappropriate apostrophes before every ending "s" in this entry! Bob would hurt me!)

Weekend came and went, filled with sunshine and fresh air and using muscles I forgot I had weeding around the rosebush; Rocky Horror Picture Show DVD playing with callbacks and prop prompter turned on, a riot and a half; a late night, cross-country telephone call discussing family and the fleeting nature of time and how we'll never have back the days when we were all together, flooding our eyes with tears as we regret suddenly being so far from our families and overcome with missing everyone so much it's almost unbearable. Going to the airport to pick up Andra from visiting her family and feeling myself on the verge of tears watching families say goodbye, remembering what that's like everytime I go back east. Catching bits and pieces of a John Hughes film, which brought me back to the days of vinyl records and old, old, OLD computers, making me totally nostalgic as well.... Watching X-Files, being impressed with the subtle tribute to an X-Files fanfic author who recently died and suddenly missing friends I haven't seen in years (the name of the town in the episode was the same as the dorm complex I lived in in college, just to provide the connection).

...and now, quietly and tiredly adjusting to Monday, with mortgage refinance meetings and work and barely time to rest. Sometimes I'm glad for the fact that my days or packed with things to do and responsibilities to meet, or I would just crumble thinking about it all.

Adjusted the journal links to include a newly bloggerized friend and to remove one that hasn't updated since before Christmas break (bad Tay, no biscuit!).

Finally: Happy Birthday, Julie. I was right last year, wasn't I? :)

The Freaks Are Out In Full Force

Full moon is just a few short days away, and it shows. Yesterday Rivka got punched in the eye by a guy at a bar she didn't want to dance with, and Shannon got her apartment window broken this morning (a rock thrown at it while driving by) by a weirdo that is apparently stalking her. (Both ladies are our neighbours at The Piercing Shop.) All I gotta say is: be careful if you go out partying for Cinco de Mayo.

Mystery solved. DVD was from my parents! What makes it strange for me though, and why I didn't think of them first, is that the DVD was The Rocky Horror Picture Show 25th anniversary disc. I mean, how cool -- but WEIRD -- is that?

Was listening to NPR last night as we were cleaning up and "All Things Considered" was on. I've never really listened before, but apparently yesterday's was a special show, a thirtieth anniversary show where they interviewed thirty-year-olds about growing up in the 70s and 80s. It was a real blast to listen to (in fact, I'd love to get a copy of this show on tape).

The part that really weirded me out was the interview with Ani DiFranco. For those of you who don't know, Ani is from Buffalo. I grew up in Western New York and went to school in Buffalo; I remember seeing the flyers for her playing the Buffalo club scene (I was too young to get into the bars, but I kinda wish I'd gone anyway!). I found out from an Entertainment Weekly interview that she attended art school at the same school at the same time I did -- and realized I had probably ridden in the elevator with her, since I doubt many other people had pierced eyebrows in 1988. Anyhow, the NPR interview divulged her birthdate, and I was spooked out to realize I'm precisely 10 days older than she is.

In other news, the girls protesting at Hollins are idiots. And, like a loser on Survivor, the U.S. is voted off the island.

[dream mode on]

I'm in the café with Andra and Marian, and we're trying to clean up because it's 6 o'clock, and heck, that means it's time to go. There's suddenly a couch where the computer table along the window is supposed to be, and some folks (who, in my Dream Wisdom, I know are friends) are still hanging out as we close. Also different is the fact that the office door has been replaced by doors to a men's and ladies' room. Well, this weird man walks in and goes over to the amenities table (you know, cream, sugar, stuff like that), and picks up the shakers that the cinnamon, nutmeg and chocolate/brown sugar are in, and starts shaking toppings all over himself, while in a lecturing kind of tone going on and on about something. I repeatedly ask him that he has to leave, but he keeps on talking, and finally it's escalated to the point where I'm screaming at him. Andra's just laughing and laughing, and no one's helping, so finally I have to call the Red Coats, but by the time they get there, the man's locked himself into the men's room, and I'm crying because I just want to go home. Red Coat dudes ask me if they need to kick out the people on the couch, and I tell them, they're friends. Like they don't want to deal with the man in the bathroom anymore and take the easiest thing to do instead.

[dream mode off]

And, for the record, if my day is anything like this, I'm going to go mental.

If I'm this tired at quarter to nine in the morning, I shudder to think how shitty I'll feel by 6pm. An's going to visit family out of town and, while Marian will be here in the afternoon, my entire day (and tomorrow too) will be here. Ugh.

No clues yet as to my mystery benefactor. Watched the movie last night. :)

My day keeps getting weirder. I received a DVD from Amazon, only I didn't order one. My Amazon account doesn't show me ordering one, so it wasn't someone ordering via my account. I have no explanation for this.

Then I come home and try to blog but get this instead:



So how was YOUR day?

"last published: 5/2/2001 7:34:48 AM"

That for the post I just published at 10:25am. Blogger's lost its mind! :)

Lost two posts.... Blogger must be ravenous today. And delusional, since it thought it published something this morning.

It's a good thing I didn't post the Great American Novel.

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