Dear Rainy-day Drivers

Dear Rainy-day Drivers,

There is a happy medium between not speeding and not moving.  Please find it.

Thank you!

Cable results in bad habits

I don't like kids.  I don't have the same passionate hatred/terror that Colby has, but I don't really like kids.  People keep insisting that I would be a great mom, and I don't believe them at all.

In any case.

I've been watching TV much more recently.  Well, no, that's not true.  I've been watching about as much as I always have, but I've had more to choose from.  I've started watching TLC and the Discovery channel (they've always been my faves), and there are three shows that will get picked before ANYTHING else on TV:  Good Eats, Dirty Jobs, and Jon & Kate Plus Eight.  WTF?  

I have no idea why I love watching a show about a family with 8 kids.  It makes no sense to me.  And they're REAL kids, complete with whining and crying and screaming and hissy fits and dirty diapers (in the earlier episodes) and puking and EVERYTHING.  Despite that, I enjoy it.  Maybe it's because they're trapped behind the TV screen, and I know I won't have to deal with them in person.

The kiss

The lights shone down on the couple.  She looked up at him, her expression a mixture of shyness, apprehension, and excitement.  His face held somewhat less emotion, but there was still a sense of anticipation evident.    Her eyes gleamed in the light as she leaned forward.

He reached up and gently cupped her face in his hands.  Her hands, after a moment's hesitation as she tried to think of a place to rest them, came to sit softly at his waist.  He grinned briefly, slightly tickled by her touch, but tried to compose his expression to a more appropriately serious one.

She smiled back, still looking apprehensive, but less so than she had a moment before.  Briefly, she wondered if she should have brushed her teeth again, but dismissed the thought - it was certainly too late now.  

He leaned towards her, and time seemed to slow down.  He was aware of the softness of her cheeks beneath his thumbs, and she could smell the spiciness of his cologne.  Involuntarily, her eyes closed.  Their lips made contact, softly at first, tentatively, then more firmly.  Finally, both the man and the woman relaxed, letting themselves drift apart.

She opened her eyes and looked up at him, half-expecting some sort of change in his expression, or perhaps a change in the way she saw him.  He was the same, though, if a bit less tense than he had been a few moments earlier.  He let his hands slide down from her face, following the line of her arms until he held her hands in his.  He gave them a slight squeeze, and she smiled again.

As one, they turned towards the audience, enjoying the sound of the growing applause much more than either of them had enjoyed the kiss.

The sun has gone to bed and so must I

You know I've been around a show too much when it's appearing all over my blog... and I've hardly spent any time at Sound of Music compared to Trailer Park!

But this makes two nights in a row that I've headed to bed well past my bedtime.  And, as it turns out, if I don't get enough sleep, I'm cranky.  And if I don't eat, I get cranky.  It seems I'm stuck as a three-year-old when it comes to mood swings... 

In an effort to be a reasonable human being tomorrow (when I'll be dealing with the first day of Tech Week), I'm going to bed now.  Perhaps tomorrow will be an early night.  Wow.  I'm either funny or ridiculously optimistic...  At least Monday will be a fairly slack day at work!

New look!

MUCH shorter!  The first cut took off about 7 inches.  But it feels great!

My favourite things

I'm not a big fan of raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens, but there are a lot of things that I just plain like.  Here are some of my favourite things!

* Words spelled with 'u' - colour, favourite, etc.

* The smell of warm puppy (not to be confused with the stench of wet dog)

* A brand-new ball of yarn

* The itty-bitty home-wrapped ball of yarn left after I finish a project

* The crackle of bubbles in a can of pop

* Alpaca.  Need I say more?  (If I do, go find a yarn store and pet some alpaca!  Then you'll know.)

* My blog buddies - go visit the links on the sidebar there.  Go!  Go!

* Dad's old recliner; it's about 23 years old, but it's my favourite chair.

* Easter candy

* The smell of a new book

* Office supplies, especially coloured pens

* The crack a new book makes when you open it

* Getting into the flow of a story

* Stickers, especially as rewards for accomplishing little goals

This is tough!

Okay, so the blogging daily thing is really hard.  It's not so much that it's hard to find the time to sit down and do the blog (okay, sometimes that part is hard, too), but it's hard to find something to blog about.  Particularly when I'm going through a bit of a creative dry spell.

I really want to write.  More than anything, I want to write.  And I am doing some writing, really.  It's just not stuff that's aimed at the blog.  I really need to just take my black book with me and write more on Take Five, but I haven't been able to find time at work lately.  I'm working on my play, because there's actually a chance that, if I finish it before the summer, I might be able to have it as part of the 2010/11 season at the theatre where I've been doing all my stage managing.  Honestly, the chances of that are better than the chances of finding an agent for any of my other WIPs (assuming I ever get them edited), so that's where I'm focusing my energy.  However, there's just no way I could put that up online, so, well, unfortunately, my readers (assuming that I have any!) kind of get the shaft, and have to put up with reading more personal stuff than I had intended.

Sorry folks.

Since you've got to read stuff about me anyways, I decided that I would share my earliest memory with all of you!

I must have been about 3, because it was in the Hamilton house.  I was watching Sesame Street, and I wanted a chocolate chip muffin for breakfast.  My mom got one out of the fridge, and I watched her push the little round buttons on the microwave to warm it up.  She left the room (maybe to have a shower?  I can't remember).  My muffin was still cold in the middle, so I decided that I could warm it up.  I put it in the microwave and pressed the little buttons so that I made a 1 and a 0, just like mom did.  Ten MINUTES later, there was a blackened little lump that used to be a muffin, sitting in the middle of the microwave.   Oops.

Moment of panic!!

So I was upstairs today, turning my computer on, and Mia was sitting with me.  And then she wasn't.  I called a couple of times, but she didn't come running.  Then I realized that I had left some knitting on the couch downstairs, so I hurried down, ready to yell at her for eating my yarn.

She hadn't eaten the yarn.

She had eaten the chocolate.

For those of you who haven't heard, chocolate is toxic to dogs.  I had never looked into how much was needed to cause problems, because I just assumed that by NOT feeding chocolate to my dog, I wouldn't have any issues.  

So I panicked a bit.  Luckily, I have Colby to turn to for advice, and she assured me that one piece of milk chocolate was not enough to hurt Mia.  Might upset her tummy a bit, but it wouldn't hurt her.  

Phew.

If I react like this with my dog, it's a really good thing that I don't have kids!

Slow down, you move too fast

If you've been following my blog, you may have noticed that, from time to time, I comment on stupid drivers.  Tonight, on my way home, I had another jerk behind me, following way too close, with his lights shining right in my eyes.  

Granted, I may be a little more sensitive to this sort of thing, given that I've only been driving for... wow.  I've only had my license for five months.  It feels a lot longer than that!  Hooray for freedom!

Sorry.  Still get a little excited.

Anyways, this guy behind me was being a pain in the ass, and I kept up a little monologue about how by riding my ass, he was simply encouraging me to slow down to exactly the speed limit.  I got to a red light, and he pulled up just enough that I wasn't being blinded and I saw the license plate in my rear-view mirror.  It had a star and three numbers on it, and for a second, I tried to figure out if it was some band or something that the driver was supporting.  Then I looked up.  The car had siren-y lights on top (I'm sure there's a technical name for those, but I don't know what it is).

The jerk was a cop.  

So I felt even better about standing my ground and driving the speed limit.

Technical difficulties

Well, I tried posting from my phone last night, but it apparently did not work... so I posted again!

We went and saw Jeff Dunham live in Columbus last night and it was awesome!  I think he's probably one of the funniest men alive - and his puppets rock!  If you haven't got any idea who I'm talking about, go and Google him.  Or try YouTube.  And if you haven't heard of him, you may have heard of his puppet Achmed the dead terrorist - awesome!

Apparently, on this tour, he hasn't been bringing out the Bubba Jay character, but he got so many emails requesting him that we got to see him last night.  Jeff brought out his cheat notes, because it had been a while.  It didn't matter, though, because everyone in the audience knew the lines!  At one point, Jeff gave up and just laughed as everyone recited the bit... "Like 10000 voices in my head!"  or "a real fucked-up version of church - we will now read from the book of Bubba."

Okay, maybe you had to be there.

But it was awesome!

Awesome!!!

Jeff Dunham is the funniest man alive!  His show rocks!

The hills are alive!

I sat through The Sound of Music for the first time tonight.  Wow.  It's long.  The first act was 1h35m, the second was 56m.  Yeesh.  Luckily, this was just the first time that the cast had run the whole show, so it should tighten up in the next two weeks.  We hope.

Overall, it was pretty good for being two weeks from opening night.  No real major snaffus, which is good.  And I only cried once.

Yes, that's right.

But it was for good reason!  In the show is the song Edelweiss, which is the song that my dad used to sing to me when I was little, and my dad just left yesterday, so I've been all sucky anyways.  That song just, well, pushed one button too many.  But I think I managed to be not-too-noticeable, and I pulled myself together.

In any case, the fun of the theatre has begun again!  So for the next... three weeks, my life will be full, to say the least.  However, I should have plenty of time to write while at rehearsal, so I don't think the blog will suffer (like it has in the past two weeks!).

Another quick one

Yes, yes, I'm sure you're all sick of reading these short little posts, if you're even still reading at all!  However, life should return to some semblance of normal (whatever that means) in the next few days.  Until then, I am still letting all sorts of story ideas marinate - expect more on Take Five and Meliora once I'm back.  

And if you have any suggestions for the characters in Take Five, I'm open!  I've decided that it's going to be more of a soap opera than anything else, so there will be more characters appearing, and more little scenes that have their own little story arcs.  It'll be fun, if nothing else.  

Sleepy

After a long evening, and a short night, and a long day, I'm tired.  My puppy has been sleeping in my lap for the last hour, and I've finally given in.  Two more days, though, until my evenings open up a bit more for posting.  Stay tuned.

Mmmm... fog...

Fog is really beautiful.  It's got this special quality... it's creepy, and peaceful, all at the same time.  It surrounds you, it's soft, it's clinging.  It fills the valleys and hides the bases of hills.  

And it's a total bitch to drive in.

Last night with both folks

Tonight's post is shorter than I would have liked, but that's because I have better things to do!  Tonight is the last night that both of my folks are in town, so we're hanging out and being a family - and that's got to come before my blog.  Mom leaves tomorrow, and Dad leaves Thursday, so it'll be a few more days before there's any high-quality blogging... but I won't be away!  I've still blogged every night (even though last night was an offline, post-posted blog), and I don't want to blow it!

Delayed posting

Who would've thought that getting online would be so difficult?  I had to go out and buy a new piece of equipment, because, despite the number of bloody boxes I had, none of them would actually make my internet talk to my computer!

I had an access point, which talked to my bridge, which talked to Shane's bridge, which talked to Shane's router, which connected to the modem, which connected to the internet.  It turns out that neither an access point nor a bridge is able to talk to the modem on its own - so I went out and bought a router.  Of course, then I had to make the router talk to the computer and the modem at the same time... so tonight's post is offline, about all of the fun of getting online!

But if all goes well, I'm going to have a completely stable internet connection, without being tethered to a wall!  And I should also be able to get my Wii online, which is exciting... I think that my folks and I are going to go out and buy some Wii games that we can play together online, and have a family game night at least once a month - I'm looking forward to that!

I'm sooooo looking forward to being online!!

I got it!

I got internet access!!  Woot!!

Of course, now I'm going to spend the next... long time... figuring out how to make the wireless connection work, but that's okay!

So the better post will come tomorrow, once I've figured it all out.  But yay!  Stable internet access!

Blogging by phone

So I'm blogging from my phone, which is both cool and ridiculously expensive, so this will be a short post. My internet access is gone for the moment - I've been on my boyfriend's account, but he's moving, and today he transferred the phone. But tomorrow I should have internet of my own! So expect a better post. Or not, since both of my parents are in town now - yay!!

Domestic goddess

I think that I would be a good candidate to become the next Martha Stewart.

I mean, eventually, she's gotta die, right?  (Of course, this is assuming that she's actually human.)  And when that day comes, I'll be right there, ready to step into her shoes.  So why would I make a good Martha Stewart?  Well, let me tell you!

- I make shit.  Seriously, I make all sorts of stuff.  I knit.  I crochet.  I sew.  I write.  I cross-stitch.  I make crazy things out of popsicle sticks.  I scrapbook.  I make cards.

- I like teaching people.  I've been a dance teacher and a university instructor.  I've taught several friends to knit/sew/crochet/etc.

- I like to bake, and I've been told that I do it well.

- I'm just crazy enough to pull it off.  I've got a compulsive attention to detail.  I've got a need to have things that coordinate.  Trust me, I'm the right kind of crazy to be Martha.

So when the time comes for the queen to step down, I'll be ready!

Mmmm... food...

I made dinner tonight. 

Okay, so for most people, this doesn't sound like a big accomplishment, but, honestly, it's been months since I actually prepared a real dinner, not just making myself a sandwich or nuking a frozen dinner.  On most nights, we go out and eat, because I'm tired when I get home.

There's something about having my folks here, though, that makes me want to cook and show them that I really can do stuff like that, even if I choose not to do so on a daily basis.

In unrelated news, I lost my navy blue gel pen, and I can't make myself write in my "Take Five" notebook without it.  :(  Sometimes OCD sucks.

Not-so-famous last words

So I was driving today... actually, I was backing out of my parking space, and I pulled out, put the car into drive, and stepped on the gas.  Apparently, the car was not fully out of reverse, and made an awful clanking noise (shh, yes, I know, that's not a good thing).  My response was to say out loud, "Well that's not good."

I was thinking about it a few minutes later as I was driving, and I realized that, if some idiot had driven into my lane and killed me, those would have been my last words.  How sucky is that?  My last words were the sort of thing that someone would say before earning a Darwin award, and no one was around to hear them!  

Wait, maybe no one hearing those as my last words is a good thing.

In any case, it got me to thinking.  I talk to myself a lot.  Well, maybe not a lot.  I like to hear things out loud, though, and I'll often speak my thoughts when I'm alone.  Is that weird?  No, that's a rhetorical question, so please, don't answer.  What it means, though, is that there's a good chance that no one will get to hear my last words, whether I say something stupid like, "Well that's not good," or something incredibly profound and beautiful (of course, since I can't think of an example of something profound and beautiful, the chances of the world missing out on it are slim).

And what if my last words are written, rather than spoken?  Like if I have a massive coronary moments after posting a blog?  I look back on some posts, and there's no way I would have wanted any of those things to be my last words!

So I've concluded that I simply can't die unexpectedly.  I just won't risk having a crappy set of last works.

So there.

265!

Okay, so 265 isn't really a big, important number, but I didn't say anything when I hit 250... Of course, that's not 265 this year, since it's only mid-March.  It's 265 since I started my blog, which was... April 13 last year.  I actually blogged every day for four and a half months, then my internet got all wonky and started dropping out randomly, so the last few months of the year were not daily posts.  But so far, I've posted every day this year!  I think that's pretty cool.

In that same vein, I think it's time to revisit my new year's resolutions:

- Blog every day.  Check!

- Finish at least two craft projects before I start on a new one.  Check! I've only finished three so far, but I've also only started one new one, so I'm doing okay.

- Lose 20 lb.  Boo... No change yet.

- Get in better shape.  Almost check?  I've started walking 30 minutes every day after work with Mia, so we'll see.  I had been using the Wii, but the show got in the way in February, so I got out of the habit.

- Read more.  Check!  I've only read four full books so far this year, but I've got a trilogy that I'm working through on my Palm, and I've got a couple of anthologies that I'm reading from nightly.  I may not be doing a lot yet, but it's consistant.

Okay, so overall, not bad!  Go me!

Take Five (Part 16)

"Umm..." Laura stalled, trying to remember the story she had concocted in case something like this ever came up.  "Well, not directly... I mean, not like this.  He was the director for one of the movies I was an extra in."

"I see," Blake said, not really buying it.

Laura took another sip of her coffee, concentrating on blowing on it to cool it down.  "How about you?" she asked, feeling more than a little uncomfortable as the actor stared her down.  "I mean, is this the first time you've worked with him?"

"No, actually.  He was the director for the first film I was in.  You might have seen it - it was 'Far From Here,' starring Melissa Knight and Joe Amos," Blake said, sounding pleased with himself.

"I saw it," Laura said.  A slight frown creased her forehead.  "I mean, it was a few years back, but I don't remember seeing you..."

"It wasn't a big role," Blake replied.  "I was the stable boy.  I only had a few lines, and, well, most of them ended up on the cutting room floor."

Laura smiled, then took another sip of her coffee.  Blake smiled back at her, and she couldn't help but feel a bit out of sorts.  She glanced up at the door to the trailer, half-hoping that Sophia would come out and break up this awkward moment. 

Blake, on the other hand, was rather pleased with the way things were going.  He hoped that if he could keep Laura feeling a bit uncomfortable, he might be able to catch a few more hints about her relationship with Ricardo.  From her earlier comments, Blake was quite certain that Laura and Ricardo had done more than work together on one other project, but he couldn't figure out how involved they were.

"Five minutes!" came Ricardo's voice over the loudspeaker, causing Laura to jump, spilling coffee on her shoes.

"Crap," she muttered, irritated that she now had wet shoes, but relieved at the interruption.  "Um, sorry, I've got to grab something to dry off with, and then get Sophia... Um, I'll see you around?"

"Sure," Blake said, watching the assistant run off.  He grinned as he headed into his trailer.  She was going to be easy to break.

Internet and offices

My internet ran away... but I think it may be back enough to blog if I'm fast!

I'm trying to get cable internet, but it's more challenging than one might think. The biggest hurdle is actually getting the darn thing... I don't want to sign up online, because I want to try to get cable plus internet, but all of the deals online are for cable packages that have way more television (and cost way more) than I really need. It appears that you can get a basic cable package if you go to the store, but the only store I've been able to get to is closed on the weekend. I really don't want to take time off from work, just to go get cable. So I'm working on finding another location. We'll see how the search goes tomorrow.

However, I can't spend much time looking for a cable place tomorrow, because I have to clean! I've got my awesome shelves up now, and I should have most of my downstairs craft stuff organized tomorrow. I really need to finish cleaning up down there, because my dad will be in on Monday, and my mom will be here on Thursday! I'm super-excited about seeing them again (haven't seen them since Christmas), and I want the place to be presentable. I figure if my room, the guest room, the bathrooms, the living room, the dining room, and the kitchen are in good shape, it'll be okay that my office is a bit of a disaster, and the laundry room is overflowing with crap that I'm trying to find places for. At least, I'm hoping it'll be okay. Actually, my folks are pretty cool about that sort of thing. I'm the one who's a bit neurotic... and I actually can't work in my office if it's tidy, oddly enough. I can't handle working in the dining room when it's a mess, but the office has to be a bit (or a lot) crazy.

I'm sure tomorrow's blog will be nice and boring, since all I plan to do is clean... maybe I'll get the dining room tidy enough that I can take the laptop down there and write... or maybe I'll keep the office messy enough that I can stay up here and write!

Woot!

Talk about an awesome night!  I got U2's new album AND I got a birthday present!  Okay, so the birthday present is, like, six months late, but still!  Birthday present!  It's a set of three wall-mounted craft supply organizers - sweet!

I'm off to listen to music and organize stuff - talk amongst yourselves tonight.

Great minds think alike

I was trying to figure out what to blog about today, so I meandered over to look at some of my blogging friends and found this!  Go!  Check out MJ!

This is exactly how I feel!  I would make a kick-ass grandma, but I really don't have any desire to be a mother.  I want to sit around and bake cookies (because I am SOO good at that!), and knit sweaters and socks, and watch soap operas, and do crosswords, and all of the other stuff that my grandmas did!  Hmm... maybe I just want to be retired...

On a day like today...

I almost wish that I had resolved to write every day instead of resolving to blog every day... I just want to go and work on a story!  And it's not one that's ready for public consumption yet, so I don't really want to write it here...

I've been having all kinds of crazy dreams lately, the kind that are only a little bit off from reality, so they're more creepy than any other kind of scary dream.  Like the one where I dreamt that it was morning, and I had to get ready for work, but when I went into the bathroom to have my shower, one of my friends was laying there in a bubble bath, just grinning at me.  (In the dream, I got pissed off and went to use the guest bathroom.)

Or the one where I dreamt a full day of work, and then my alarm went off and I had to get up and do it all over again.  (That REALLY sucked.)

Or the one where it snowed in Georgia.  Wait.  That one really happened.

Okay, off to take another crazy dream and write it into a story!  (That's the only good thing about these dreams - they make awesome stories!)

Snow day? Not so much.

I was told that the general rule for our office was that, if the weather was bad enough that schools were closed, we would be closed.

They lied!

I had to go to work today.  There was still snow on the ground when I left, and the door of my poor little beetle was frozen shut (hooray for hairdryers and extension cords), and I still had to go to work.  Everyone kept telling me that when you get any sort of snow in Georgia, the whole place shuts down.

They lied!

I was looking forward to a day off of work, laughing at all the silly southerners who couldn't handle a teensy bit of snow.  It turns out, they CAN handle a teensy bit of snow!

They lied!

WTF??

It's snowing!  In Georgia!  On a Sunday... crap!  Why couldn't it have snowed tomorrow, so I could stay home from work?  

Still - it's kinda cool!  I got my snow fix when I went home for Christmas, and they've still got tons back home, and I've been around snow for pretty much my entire life.  Still, it's fun to see how everyone else is reacting - I'm loving all of the Facebook status updates!

And it's funny, because at first it was just freezing rain, and everyone was calling it snow, but now, even I will admit that it is snow.  Luckily, it started just after I got home, so I didn't have to be on the road with all of the Southerners who have no idea about how to drive in the stuff.

Want some proof?  Here's video, shot minutes ago!

And a photo, from just a few minutes later!