PocketWatch Romances

Archive for April, 2004

If you don’t like people exercising their First-amendment rights, please go away now. (Also, I mention that I hate football. Just so you know.)

Here’s a sad fact: Pat Tillman is dead.

Here is another sad fact: Pat Tillman WAS NOT AN AMERICAN HERO. He was JUST A GUY that happened to also be a football player, and JUST A GUY that was in the army, AND JUST A GUY that was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Being a football player does NOT make you a hero. Getting killed does not necessarily make you a hero. Being in the army doesn’t automatically make you a hero either. I’m not saying that Tillman deserved to die — far from it — but please. He was JUST A GUY, not a deity.

…I don’t feel any better, but at least I finally got it off my chest.

And now I must go feed myself, take another advil (bleh), and head off to school to finish up my whole withdrawal process.

I’m so not interested in doing so… *Whine* *Shuts up and wanders off*

…and minor apologies to Jack Kerouac.

Anyhow, I’ve managed to find a site to which I can post from my phone, which is about thirty seven kinds of cool. You can find it, from your desktop or your phone, at http://winksite.com/giantsquid/ontheroad/ (If you have a pop-up blocker, it may not show up — I had that difficulty, so.)

I doubt there will be much in the way of scintillating content there, unless I am treated to another public discourse on who is a ho (Michaela), how long they’ve been a ho (all her life; always), and why (she was born a ho; mother was/is a ho) whilst taking public transportation…

(P.S. The girl expounding on Michaela’s ho-ness was not exactly a prize herself, and her wallet emblazoned with ‘Hoochie’ did NOT help. Lesson? There’s a time and place for gossip, and the bus isn’t exactly it.)

…no, really!

I know, I know… But this week/weekend was just sort of a blur. Here are the highlights:

– Toulouse went to go live with my grandparents, who lost their kitty to kidney failure not too long ago. I think that Toulouse will be very very happy with them, once she calms down and realizes that it’s just her and my grandparents, no icky boy-cats or big slobbery dogs.

– I now own a Husqvarna HuskyStar sewing machine and all the ingredients for a circle skirt, which I hope to have done before the end of the week.

– I have finally admitted the truth, to myself, my mother, and my (incredibly kind, gracious, amazingly tolerant) aunt: the reason I have not attended class, aside from mental and physical health issues, is very simple. I just…don’t want to go. All interest in class has fled, along with any and all desire to be a Professional Pastry Chef. I just don’t care, any more. I don’t know that I ever actually wanted to be a PPC, and I just talked myself into coming down here so I’d have -something- to do and at least make an effort at pretending that I want a career of some sort. I will post more on this and the various thoughts I’ve had about it later.

– My room is -almost- completely straightened up. It’s not likely to -stay- that way, but at least you can see most of the floor.

– Got my DVDs sorted out and at least the anime is arranged in alphabetical order.

– …As are my English-language tankouban (manga).

– Missed Sakura-Con, again, but it’s really okay. There are more cons in the months ahead, and I’m actually, like, within decently-priced traveling distance! (Plus, if nothing else, this gives me time to like, figure out a Japanese-fashion-magazine inspired outfit, which is fun.)

– Found my mother’s little gold beading scissors, which she accidentally left behind when she went home from her visit. I also remembered to put her book on Japanese baths into her Box’O'Stuff, yay me!

– Watched The Wild Wild World Of Batwoman (“Oh, stop pretending there’s a plot! Don’t cheapen yourself further!”) with my aunt, who loved it in all of its horrid glory.

– Accidentally bought the first volume of Rebirth instead of Ragnarok, but I think it was a serendipitous accident — I -really- liked the beginning of the story, and am eager to read more. Also picked up the first volume of Full Metal Panic!, which is pretty funny, so far. Am planning on getting a couple more volumes of each tomorrow.

– Random Anime Plug: SAIYUKI! *Ahem* I know I’ve insisted on people checking it out in various places, lately, but I can’t remember if I mentioned it here. If I did… Well, I’ve been liking it so much I’m mentioning it again. If not… Other than some weird art direction, lack of bumpers/eyecatches, and a somewhat unpleasant ending theme, it’s _great_. Funny, plenty of action, some angsty bits, and four good-looking guys with plenty of slash potential.

– Anime Also: Read Or Die* is pretty spiffy, so far, and Texhnolyze is exactly what you’d expect from the people that brought you Serial Experiments Lain, NiEA Under 7, and Haibane-Renmei: Very very strange, kinda gory, but almost inexplicably mesmerising. Plus, the opening theme by Juno Reactor kicks ass and makes me want to write, which means that I need to find me an album of their stuff, like, now.

– For two days in a row, the bus route around here has suffered from a mysterious lack of regularity. On Thursday, I was almost to the bus stop, and had just checked my watch. Confident in my timely arrival, I looked up… Just in time to watch the bus I was intending to catch go sailing merrily by. And there was no -way- I could have run from where I was to the next stop in time to catch it there — it would have been long gone by the time I arrived. I did catch the next bus, but it didn’t get there until almost forty minutes after the one I wanted had left. Then, on Friday, I went out to catch the bus to go to school and deal with the registrar and all of that — no big deal, right? Wrong! I got there in plenty of time to catch the next bus. I settled on the bench, preparing to wait the five minutes or so that the bus would take to get there. Forty minutes later, I gave up and went back home to play NWN and watch anime, since the only bus I’d seen was going in the opposite direction and had been and gone just as I got to my stop. If this keeps up, I’m -not- going to buy a three-month bus pass. (Weak threat, I know, but it’s more convenient than buying them a month at a time… *Shrug*) Okay, that, and I’ll complain. A lot. Loudly.

…And that’s really all the news that is news, aside from the fact that I seemed to have developed muscle spasms in my neck, which I am not enjoying.

* Yomiko Readman? Is me, except Japanese, a secret agent/substitute teacher, and has that coooool ability… But I swear, if I were allowed to, I would live exactly the way she does, post-its and books and all. Hee.

= My neck/shoulder is feeling much better.

= Have decided to become professional hermit.

= Am going back to sleep, I hope.

Particularly since it involves the St. Louis Blues, one of my favorite teams. At least I’ve never heard of the guy that got arrested, and so am not in complete mourning.

It’s odd, in that A) it -does- acknowledge the fact that there are indeed gay players in the major leagues, but B) only goes to show that, as per the usual, the actions of one manage to tarnish all.

My neck is still bugging me. I think I’ll be sleeping on the heating pad my aunt graciously loaned me, and taking more painkillers tomorrow. At least it actually -is- better, rather than being the same as yesterday… It’s still a pain (ha!), though.

–

Gensou Maden Saiyuki (a.k.a Saiyuki) rocks, in both manga and anime formats. The manga is not being published nearly quickly enough, in my opinion, but I suppose it takes somewhat long what with the format being different and all.

One caveat, though — the episodes don’t seem to have commercial bumpers in the middle (which I hate, because everything freezes and it appears something is wrong with the disc), and the ending theme…well, frankly, it sucks. But there’s plenty of ‘fic potential — Hakkai/Genzo, Hakkai/Gojyo (even though canon Gojyo’s supposed to be thoroughly into women; I think I could make it work. If I couldn’t, I know some writers who -could-, if they knew about it.), maybe even Genzo/Gojyo, but I don’t really see that. And I really don’t see any of them with Goku, mostly because he’s pretty much the baby of the group and appears to be about 16. (Not that that precludes him from having a sex life or anything, but the rest of them, while physically only in their early twenties, all -act- _much_ _much_ older than Goku… It makes more sense in my head, trust me.)

I’m going to try to pick up a few more volumes on the way home tomorrow.

–

Things I Am Planning To Do Tomorrow/This Weekend:

– Clean up my room. Technically, this means I need to A) put away my winter things, B) throw away trash instead of hanging on to it, C) continue rearranging things on my shelves to find the most optimum method of storing things and D) vaccuum. I managed to vaccuum the common areas on Tuesday, so that was good.

– Hem and install my new curtains (blue and white stripes! They nearly match one side of my comforter cover.)

– Go to a fabric store and find some fun (and cheap!) fabric and notions for redoing the waistband on my petticoat and making a circle skirt (also look at sewing machines, perhaps even purchasing one if they are within my means… In other words, no Husqvarnas or Sergers for me.)

– Start working on Japanese again, brushing up on grammar, etc.

– …And other stuff, if I think of it.

I managed to hurt my right deltoid.

How? Well, let me tell you how I did -not- injure it:
– playing hockey
– playing hooky
– playing with the cats
– knitting
– reading
– playing Mario & Luigi/Sword Of Mana
– playing Anarchy Online
– buying another something I don’t need and swiping my card one too many times…
– getting far too involved with a movie and pounding on my leg in amusement or anticipation (long story short? I spend too much time with only critters for company)

So, not having damaged myself that way, I now must confess just what -did- make me hurt: writing.

No, that’s not a typo — I spent about forty-five minutes working on a letter to Mme. Jean, yesterday, and apparently I was holding my pen incorrectly/was sitting in an anti-ergonomic position/offended the Writing Gods… Something. I think it was more that my posture was utterly atrocious than anything else, actually. But it still makes me feel lame — So I haven’t written by hand in a good long while! You’d think that I’d, I dunno, be in better shape than that. *Sigh* If nothing else, at least I’m feeling better.

————————-

I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I so very much want one of the Madame Butterfly corsets from Isabella… They’re so gorgeous.

And now I have to go to sleep.

“[...]gay vampire and amateur sleuth[...]”

Not because I don’t have aspirations of writing mystery stories, or even because I don’t have (a) gay vampire(s) — but because I never thought about how…dumb something like that sounds until I saw it in print, today.

Well, okay, that and I doubt Hubert would ever -want- to be a detective. He likes working at the library too much, and he worries that being a detective would mean excessive exposure to sunlight. (…And on that note, I’m tempted to actually, like, borrow the book from which the above blurb-quote comes from the library to see just how the author works around that little quirk…)

Edited To Add: Okay, now I think I -have- to find it at the library — one of the main suspects’ name is Lady Prunella Blitherington, which sounds like something either I or my mother would come up with. Besides all of that, it actually sounds like it might be an interesting read.

I can’t decide if I’m thrilled by the idea of a Series Of Unfortunate Events movie or not. On the one hand, the two pictures and the cast list I’ve seen look and sound promising. On the other hand, it has Jim Carrey in it. Fortunately, Carrey is playing Count Olaf, which means that he’ll do the role justice, but… I haven’t been a fan of Carrey for rather a while. There are no bodily-function jokes in the books, and Carrey seems to thrive on such material, so…

Also, who will play Sunny, and how will they do her teeth? (Besides ‘carefully’, of course.)

If nothing else, there should be a new SoUE book in the fall, which makes me happy. It gives me plenty of time to finish rereading books nine and ten (like I need the next six months to do -that-, heh) before the latest volume hits the shelves… Yay!