octoberbreaking

octoberbreaking @ 2010-01-05T13:41:00

2010-01-05T21:41:03Z

Cooking most of this week. I like the break from customer interaction, but I don't really like the job itself.

octoberbreaking @ 2010-01-03T07:00:00

2010-01-03T15:00:52Z

I'm starting to get frustrated with my mom. Last night she asked me to come to the church to help her get connected to the internet, which turned into a fiasco that lasted until 4AM. Not the internet part, but all the other stuff they needed to get done to set up the Sunday service.

She made me promise to come with her to the hospital at 8:30, so I just stayed up. At 8:39 I called to ask what was going on, and I guess she just went up to the ICU without me. She wants me to drive up there at 10:00, but at this point I'm just tired and irritated and I want to get some sleep.

It's awesome how she calls me for tech support and then asks for emotional support (presumably because one of her friends was there), then changes her mind at the last minute and doesn't even bother making a phone call so I can go crawl into bed.

Family is such a goddamn pain in the ass sometimes.

octoberbreaking @ 2010-01-02T23:37:00

2010-01-03T07:37:03Z

My stepdad's in the ICU throwing up blood. Way to start the new year off with a bang.

octoberbreaking @ 2010-01-01T16:23:00

2010-01-02T00:23:33Z

-20. The car won't start. Even after being plugged in for two hours. Last night the TV broke -- Sheryl zapped it dead with her static electricity trying to plug in the S-Video, so we ran out and bought a new one . . . and I love it more than I should, given my near disinterest in material shit.

But anyway, about the car. I whined about it on Facebook and my mom tells me to tighten the battery cables and pour Heet into the gas tank, and her would-be solution cracked me up. BECAUSE THE COLD WEATHER LOOSENED THE BATTERY CABLES AND BECAUSE WE WANT TO WALK TO THE GAS STATION IN SUB ZERO TEMPERATURES TO BUY A FUEL ADDITIVE.

octoberbreaking @ 2009-12-31T03:34:00

2009-12-31T11:34:10Z

Had girls' night. Drunk and surly.

Sheryl was holding the chorizo at crotch level like a double penis. I'm not sure if I should laugh or be disturbed, so I think I'm going to stick with surly.

God. I had enough to drink that I'm not really hungry anymore, but I guess I oughta eat.

octoberbreaking @ 2009-12-30T21:56:00

2009-12-31T05:56:48Z

I'm seriously annoyed with Sheryl tonight. This was my first night cocktailing and I was freaking out that I was going to suck at it, make an ass of myself, etc. Anyway, it wasn't bad. It got busy and I got my butt kicked and the bartender said that I did great.

So I got out of there late. I made sure to get my sidework done thoroughly, I had a table that stayed late, and I stuck around to socialize for awhile.

Anyway, I came home and Sheryl had a huge attitude about it being really suspicious that on nights when she doesn't work, I "get stuck there later than anyone else could possibly get stuck." She already pulled snottiness (admittedly in a joking way) when I stayed to help them wash dishes when the dishwasher broke down.

If she doesn't know where I am 24/7 she thinks I'm having an affair. She gets worried, she freaks out, and instead of being supportive of a significant change in my life, she gives me shit as soon as I walk in the door.

On nights like this, I don't know why we're still together. I've never cheated on anyone. I'm a complete jerk, but that's something I wouldn't do. Ugh. She hasn't even asked how my night was, if I made decent money, anything.

So. Much. Annoyance.

octoberbreaking @ 2009-12-27T00:58:00

2009-12-27T08:58:21Z

Snow up to my waist. They "fake plowed" the roads -- as in, they drove snow plows down the street, but they DIDN'T CLEAR THEM HARDLY AT ALL. So you peek outside and get the impression that you can go somewhere, but in reality YOU'RE GOING TO GET STUCK FOUR TIMES DRIVING FOUR BLOCKS.

And not just a little stuck. I'm talking four people trying to shove the truck, three shovels, and hours wasted on the experience. Don't forget having your pants soaked and frozen all the way up to your butt. I hurt so bad. Sheryl and I both faceplanted, but not simultaneously or anything. Also, she threw the car in reverse and pushed me up against a snowbank. Lucky for us the snow was light and fluffy. I still had a moment of panic. She also came within less than an inch of pinning my foot under the tires, but I guess that's a risk you take when you shove out a vehicle that freakin' big.

This is hell. We have to help get my parents' driveway clear, and possibly their front sidewalk. They have a snowblower, but the snow is too deep for it. Dead serious. After we get that done, we have to shovel a path from our back door to the driveway, and then we have to do some zomg intense housecleaning because my dog got out of the basement and tore up three bags of trash, ate some books, terrorized our rabbit, and then pooped all over the bathroom.

God. Why did the snow bank have to be soft?

octoberbreaking @ 2009-12-24T04:00:00

2009-12-24T12:00:47Z

Will Heaven of the Daily Telegraph said that the plot line involving people of color who wear "tribal" jewelry while sporting dreadlocked hair, being saved by a noble white man gave the film a "racist subtext" that he found "nauseatingly patronising."

. . .

LAWLZ I BET IT WAS A TOTAL BURN THAT THE NOBLE WHITE MAN SCOOTED AROUND IN A WHEELCHAIR.

Yeah. I went there.

On a more serious note, if the protagonist was Michelle Rodriguez, would Avatar have been less patronizing? Since I totally didn't pay attention in sociology class (in fact, I'd have to get a copy of my transcript to say whether or not I passed), I was oblivious to any racism in that movie. I'm not saying it wasn't there, I'm just saying that I went to the theater to enjoy the movie and didn't pay a damn bit of attention to any subtext, whether it was anti war, pro environment, or an underhanded insult towards everyone who isn't white.

Anyway -- the movie was pretty cliche and predictable all around, and if a black guy directed it than maybe some people would be offended that the white protagonist was a bumbling idiot who seemed all but incapable of grasping the subtleties of the culture with whom he interacted. Just sayin'. It didn't feel like racism to me, it just felt like a cardboard, Disney-esque depiction of how different cultures interact.

octoberbreaking @ 2009-12-24T00:00:00

2009-12-24T08:00:45Z

Today: made two batches of cookies. Snickerdoodles and Hershey Kiss cookies.

http://www.donogh.com/cooking/cookies/hershey.shtml (Hersheys)

http://www.joyofbaking.com/Snickerdoodles.html (Snickerdoodles)

And anyway, they both turned out great. A friend (Leigh) recommended that we skip the part where it says to put the cookies in the oven after adding the kisses 'cos they melt. In addition to that, I'd suggest letting the cookies cool down for five or ten minutes. They melted a little bit anyway . . . the white chocolate ones really flattened out, lulz, but I figure no one's going to complain about it.

LAWLZ. Sheryl was sharing pictures of the cookies to her friends, and one of them pointed out that they look like .

octoberbreaking @ 2009-12-23T04:36:00

2009-12-23T12:36:15Z

ADD: Additional mobs needed. These are too easy, pull more!
AFK: Attack, fight, kill! The healer is telling you to go pull mobs.
WTF: Way to fight! The healer is applauding your tactical genius.
OOM = Out Of mobs, go pull more.

lulz. I stumbled on this on the WoW forums. So very, very accurate.

octoberbreaking @ 2009-12-22T12:56:00

2009-12-22T20:56:22Z

Added to the list of festive baking: gingerbread men and apple pie.

Buying the ingredients tonight, and probably making some of it tomorrow night.

octoberbreaking @ 2009-12-22T00:59:00

2009-12-22T08:59:27Z

I want to write, but I keep coming home and playing video games instead. God, I'm such a slacker.

octoberbreaking @ 2009-12-21T14:02:00

2009-12-21T22:02:10Z

I found a website that was basically taking a look at people bitching about the trend towards eco-friendly LED lights. Nostalgia aside, you know what I remember about the old Christmas lights? Not being able to touch them -- as a kid, I wanted to play with them. The fact that they were hot just meant that I had to be a little more careful. I also remember going through hundreds of lights trying to find the one bulb that was burned out, which made putting up the tree an all day event.

An event that involved fighting, swearing, broken bulbs, and a general sense of malice directed at the tree. It's weird, but I used to look at the Christmas tree as something close to an entity -- it was pretty and all that, but getting it arranged was nothing short of a sacrifice.

We aren't putting up a tree this year. Sheryl and I don't really do much for the holidays, which kind of sucks -- and part of that is 'cos we don't like to half-ass stuff. I'm thinking we'll be more festive next year, though.

Hopefully we hit the after Christmas sales early enough to get some decent decorations. It'd be the smart thing to do.

octoberbreaking @ 2009-12-20T01:50:00

2009-12-20T09:50:34Z

I gathered up the cookie recipes that I'm making this year.

And while Martha Stewart has some of the prettiest looking cookies I've ever seen, I'm sticking with plain and simple: sugar cookies, chocolate sugar cookies, Hershey Kisses cookies, and Snickerdoodles.

Four different kinds sounds like more than enough variety -- anything more and I'd be dreading the whole experience. I'm making the works on Christmas Eve, since that's my next day off. We're going shopping for the ingredients tomorrow night, I guess.

octoberbreaking @ 2009-12-18T01:42:00

2009-12-18T09:42:17Z

Installed the new washer today.

In the basement. Evie (our shepherd dog) was outside, and she walked by the window. It caught me by surprise and I gasped, and it scared Sheryl, so she started hitting me with the, uh, whatever the tool was that we were using to loosen the hoses.

If there's ever a zombie attack, stay away from her. She'll totally shoot you in the kneecaps.

octoberbreaking @ 2009-12-17T01:38:00

2009-12-17T09:38:41Z

OMG OMG OMG.

The dollar store is selling candles with colored flames, and I'm not talking about half-assed color. These are crimson and vibrant green -- even the yellow one is obviously not fire colored, and they're absolutely gorgeous.

I'm going back tomorrow to buy more because this is seriously the most awesome thing in the world.

(and yes, I knew that colored fire was possible, but I didn't realize it was something you could just buy. I thought it was, y'know, limited to chemistry class.)

octoberbreaking @ 2009-12-15T13:38:00

2009-12-15T21:38:26Z

We got a new stove. Picking it up tomorrow -- I'm super excited! Time to clean up the kitchen and bake some cookies!

And a new washer.

octoberbreaking @ 2009-12-04T01:42:00

2009-12-04T09:42:27Z

Jack's my dad.

He reminds me of the old guy on Community.

Also, his name is John.

octoberbreaking @ 2009-11-24T02:28:00

2009-11-24T08:28:28Z

My grandmother's dying. Her kidneys are failing, and the doctors think that she's going to have heart failure before the end of the night. I haven't seen her in close to five years; she lives less than two hours away. I don't stay in contact with her because she's batshit crazy and because the fucked up things she did to my mom are what caused my mom to do fucked up things to me -- but I have a lot of good memories too, and I'm more upset about it than I want to be.

I may be heading out to Colorado for the funeral. It'll be the first time that Sheryl and I have spent time apart in the last three years. I don't like the idea of going alone, because my mom has never accepted that I stopped talking to her, so it's going to be awkward. I'm trying not to put much thought into it, because there's a possibility that she won't die, and that we can put this whole thing aside for a few more years.

Anyway, I'm pretty sad.

I also feel like one of the managers at work was giving me some disapproving looks for staying after my shift to have some drinks and joke around with friends -- and I understand why she would. One minute I'm crying and Sheryl's asking if I can have the next day off (which I'm not taking, since I'm already anticipating at least three days for the funeral since it's out of state), and the next I'm acting like nothing's happened. I don't know, maybe I'm being too sensitive and reading into things. I'm not really good at letting people know that I'm upset, so there's that.

And the dishwasher just recently had to leave early because her grandmother's in the hospital, and Sheryl had to take a day off when her stepmom was sick, so the timing is horrible.

Also -- it was totally awkward to sit there having a conversation about what happens when people die when I already felt like shit. Sometimes I think that Jaime is a lot more socially awkward than she realizes.

octoberbreaking @ 2009-11-17T19:51:00

2009-11-18T01:51:56Z

LOLOL @ Sarah Palin complaining that Newsweek is sexist.

Because beauty pageants are totally all about empowering women. And because she says the only difference between herself and a bulldog is lipstick -- definitely doing her part to ensure equality between the sexes.

LULZ.

BONUS POINTS for her then pointing out that Newsweek is notorious for depicting liberal women in a positive light and conservatives like morons. Having any sort of political agenda = sexism. Duh.

octoberbreaking @ 2009-11-10T18:46:00

2009-11-11T03:02:06Z

I feel things in dreams that I would never experience while awake.

It's where pieces of some of my favorite characters come from. I've been a woman in love with a murderer: I felt a devotion so deep and absolute that I was willing to drag bodies into the woods, willing to help him bury my closest friends after a dinner party went awry. I've been a psychic taking advice from a dead man: I've felt the chilling certainty of knowing that we were standing on an unmarked grave, and that I needed to learn what I was doing quickly because he wouldn't always be around to keep me safe. I woke with the sound of his voice in my ears, but I couldn't remember anything he said.

Last night I had one hell of a dream. It was a fragment of a larger, reoccurring chunk of imagery -- I'm usually in a building. Somewhere that I shouldn't be, somewhere that people rarely go. It used to start with curiosity, with the desire to explore. Now, when I have those dreams, I have the vague sense that I'm searching for something. Something that isn't mine, and I don't really know if it's a secret that needs uncovering or if it's just an object that ought to be dear to me; I've thought more than once that it's a body, or a monster that I need to look in the eye.

Yeah, so I totally haven't ever lived long enough to find it. Those dreams usually leave me feeling scared shitless, and a little pissed off. Like failing a video game. They give me great ideas for scenes in horror books, but I don't write enough to use any of them.

This time around, I was sharing an apartment with strangers. There was a man boarded up in one of the rooms -- he was sealed away so thoroughly that it took us weeks to discover we weren't alone, and when one of my new-found friends broke down the door, I was so certain that we'd finally found what we were looking for.

Except he was afraid, and he'd boarded himself in that house to hide from ghosts or monsters, or whatever else was lurking in the house, in the town itself. Something was coming. That was the impression we had, even before he told us. He had two dogs, and they were afraid of me.

We decided to leave. To pack up our shit and just get the hell out, go to another city and forget the whole thing ever happened. It wasn't our problem. We were neither responsible nor knowledgeable enough to set things right, and we were smart enough to accept that or we were immoral enough to shove the problem on someone else.

Either way, we tried to leave. I don't remember how everyone died, but I do recall the moment when I was standing there with a teenage girl and a man around my age, and the three of us decided to turn around and run back to the house. We thought we had more of a chance facing it there.

We'd taken a secret passage that led us underground. It started with a crawl space in the house itself, and when we retraced our steps and I emerged through that small door, I was alone. I didn't know what happened to the people who were with me, and the moment when I realized they were gone was the moment when I knew that I'd reached the end of the road.

There was an elderly woman standing there. She was the landlord, and I startled her, but she recovered quickly and asked me to follow her. She had something to show me.

We climbed the stairs to a loft of some kind -- I don't know if we were in a barn or what, 'cos dreams are strange like that. But there were cobwebs, and it was shadowed and drafty. She turned to me and said, "You're dead and your body's still warm. What kind of a woman would I be if I left you like that," and I turned to look back at the door to the crawl space.

I believed her. And in that instant, I was terrified that I was dead. I mean, I knew that I was, but I had this overwhelming sense that I didn't want to hear those words spoken aloud. It was quickly followed by the feeling that, if I had just a little more time, then I'd want to see my body. I'd want to know how I died. She didn't really give me the chance, though. Before I had time to turn back to her, she shoved a pitchfork through my chest.

Totally a shit dream -- but hell, how many people get the chance to feel something like that?

Whatever character I end up applying those emotions to, I know I'm going to dig her a lot. I don't know if she'll be a ghost yet -- most of the characters I steal from bad dreams end up drastically changed from the initial person. I mostly want to keep that sense of fight.

'cos prior to that dream, I don't think I ever really grasped the mentality of someone who'd stick around to haunt a place. It sort of makes sense now, and I want to take advantage of that.

octoberbreaking @ 2009-11-10T14:56:00

2009-11-10T21:41:08Z

This year, my gardening plans are going to be much smoother. Instead of trying to precariously balance boxes of plants on any flat surface I can find, I'm going to use a cheap shelving unit and stick it in the basement where the animals can't go. The only challenge there is remembering to check the plants.

Also, I'm not going to undertake removing all of that gravel. There's a lot of it. The soil underneath is probably in bad condition -- I know it's seen no small amount of weed killer, and when I initially planned on clearing it out I hadn't stopped to consider exactly how much square footage needed filled back in . . . and a project of that size is a little intense for me.

We need to remodel the bathroom in the next couple of months. My adorable little puppy found a loose bit of linoleum and ripped it back, then dug at the subfloor. While this could've been an epic disaster, the previous owners were idiots when it came to diy repairs. They did a shit job of sealing the bathtub/shower (and used off-white caulking on the white panels and white caulking on the off-white panels -- THAT LOOKS GREAT MORONS), and the plywood underneath is so rotten it comes apart in your hands. So it needed fixed, puppy or not.

Right now we just laid the linoleum back down and the dogs are leaving it alone. Evie's stuck in her kennel while we're at work now, but she doesn't seem to mind it much. Housebreaking finally clicked in her head, and now she stands up against the back door and whines to go outside. She's quickly turning into a perfect dog. When I take her for walks, she tags right along side me and shoves her head under my hand for attention. Sometimes she takes my hand in her mouth to walk me, and while I know I should discourage it, it's really cute. Like the doggie equivalent of holding hands.

She's finally gotten on Sheryl's good side. Evie loves music, I've known that since we first took her on a car ride and she got all quiet and interested when we started singing. A couple of nights ago, she realized that she can sing along too, and she howled her way through Hallelujah. Definitely a breed I'd recommend to anyone -- lulz, after having a pointer and a terrier, she's like a little furry saint. Sheryl frequently points out how bad she is, but I think she's forgotten about how Gypsy destroyed my car. See, Sheryl used to want to bring her everywhere with us when she was a puppy, and she was a v.bad puppy who ate seatbelts and took dumps when she was unhappy. And everything made her unhappy. Oh, you're going to go inside to pick up dinner? GUESS I'D BETTER SHIT NOW. Oh, I have to come inside after an hour of playing? FINE BUT I'M SHITTING ON YOUR FLOOR.

But anyway, now that everyone knows that the house is not their own personal toilet, we can finally put new tiles in the kitchen and bathroom (why they carpeted the kitchen and half the bathroom is beyond me), and we get to tear up the carpet and clean up the hardwood floors underneath. This house is actually gorgeous, it's just a little small and the kitchen/bathroom needed updated. Oh, and the basement could stand to be finished properly -- the ceiling tiles need replaced and we have most of the carpet gutted from down there too.

So much work ahead of us. Our car is so close to being paid off, and when that's out of the way, we're going to save up to buy a new sofa and chair, and move what we have down to the basement. Actually, we're refinishing the bathroom first. Then we're fixing up the basement and moving the furniture down there, and taking advantage of the open space to get the upstairs repainted and the floors refinished. Since we have to rent a damn machine for it, and there'll be dust everywhere, it'll be much easier if we can just drag the bed into the kitchen and knock it all out in a day or two, right?

And I'm one of those people who doesn't think a television belongs in the living room, lulz, so having that space in the basement will be awesome.

Anyway, I'm going to kill time today trying to pick out exactly what plants I'm going to grow. I'm leaning towards raised bed gardening so I just don't have to deal with moving all those rocks -- and so I don't have to figure out how to rip out the insanely large (and ugly, imo) bushes in the front yard.

By the time we're done with this house, it'll be absolutely gorgeous . . . and I think I'm going to be a picky little bitch about moving, because I don't want to have to ever go through this much work again.

octoberbreaking @ 2009-11-09T18:30:00

2009-11-10T00:38:49Z

I recently read an LJ post about how the owners of roleplay chatrooms are afraid that users mentioning drugs could get them in srs trouble with the law.

Well, shit.

For the record, when my mutant sex kitten character was trolling around for eightballs and dirty sex, that was all totally IC.

~~DON'T TASE ME BRO~~ DON'T BAN ME, ROO!

Also, I'm v.sad that you deleted the Livejournal community for IB. I really miss commenting there. :( :( :( :( :(

octoberbreaking @ 2009-11-05T11:48:00

2009-11-05T17:52:55Z

WHAT THE FUCK, WHO PUTS A SCREAMER IN THE MIDDLE OF A COMPILATION VIDEO OF FAILED PRANKS?

Man. It wasn't even that scary. But going from laughing to startled in .2 seconds is, like, instant heart failure.

octoberbreaking @ 2009-11-05T11:21:00

2009-11-05T17:24:03Z

Oh. Remember how I threatened to post a bunch of random pictures I found on the internet?

Yeah, it was a long time ago. I forgot too.