at thanksgiving. There will be asking because there has already been asking. i don't think they can help it, really; it isn't like it's their fault or that they're bad people or that they're really that far from an acceptable level of nosy. But at least the folks in indiana have six or seven Tinies so it is just asking and not active pressure. Mostly. and they're sort of easier about it anyway and not all histrionic and paranoid.

but.

Besides the centurion i've been pointing out to anyone who will look for five years, i mean - though i wouldn't recognize him in anything other than that little leather kilt, so if i ever do run into him in the real world (which, for all i know, has happened, and i just haven't noticed) i'm in no danger of going all giggly. But the little leather kilt and then his legs come out from under it and really, i should know what his face looks like, at least, but i only ever notice him when he's walking away so does it really matter? i make fun of men for this - all men - all the time. All the time. Fucking hypocrite. But i should still know what his face looks like. and also one sort of doesn't want to hear him say anything because he would probably turn out to be a complete moron and let's just keep the illusion, here. like if David suddenly woke up from being all marble he'd probably go around trying to slingshot postmodern art or something and clearly would have to be put away (notwithstanding the fact that we ALL secretly want to slingshot postmodern art, or anyway i do, but still) and then everyone would be sad because he wasn't quite so nice any more.

But. also. that when someone sits at your table - which there are approximately a dozen of you so you're fairly well taking up the whole thing and, well, whatever, but someone comes and sits at your table and then starts throwing cookies at you for no immediately obvious reason - hey, kiddo, you started it, and i honestly was just trying to be nice since maybe you're not here with anyone in all your finery, with that vaguely ostentatious silver goblet, at that, and i've drunk milk out of silver goblets and to be perfectly honest i know it tastes funny - well, when tiny people in ridiculous outfits with even more ridiculous on-again-off-again accents start throwing perfectly good chocolate chip cookies at you, it makes a good story. Kinda.

and, thanks, i do know my tits are fantastic. There's never been anything i can do about it; i didn't get to choose them out of a catalog. one might think to compliment people on, say, their fantastic taste in bodices. But no.

Also another reason i can't wait for vienna: living out in the country i think i have poison ivy again. Damn you.

Obviously i should give up all this scientist bullshit and start writing menus for a living.

pictures from maine, virginia, and the San Marcos River.

So it was going to happen sooner or later, as we're all doing things with all these other people, and this is probably going to be very cryptic and not entirely clear. But. It was bound to happen. And the fact that it blindsided all of us is just silly because if we had been paying attention - really paying attention - and probably if we kept in better touch than it wouldn't have blindsided us all quite to the extent it did. Or anyway i was blindsided. here's the thought process: how could you ... and why would she ... but i respected him! and there's just this awful thing. Like watching a movie and you know the killer is hiding in the closet, but the little hottie on the screen is just blundering closer and closer.

But Sigourney always saves herself somehow. Always. here ... not so much. Besides, maybe i just had that in my head from the skeezy, skeezy hotel, where they were watching tales from the crypt. Hm.

Drama continues to not be my friend: which is why i ignore it every chance i get. (By every chance i get i mean i like it only in hour-long chunks, with Cylons.) and probably if i did not do my best to avoid it, maybe when my friends got hit by trucks, so to speak, i would notice them coming.

Some things cannot be done right away. Things, in particular, that need to be done in a certain order cannot be done in reverse order. Thing Two cannot, just for example, happen before Thing One. And so if the person that does Thing One has not done Thing One, then there isn't very much sense in asking me why, especially when i've been out of state for a weekend and Thing One hadn't been done when i left and hasn't been done now when i'm back, i haven't done Thing Two yet. I need the thing from Thing One to actually do Thing Two with. And under university policy i am not allowed to do Thing One. But without the thing from Thing One, Thing Two will not work properly, and so attempting to put pressure on me to do Thing Two will result in very, very little. Especially when you talk to the person that does Thing One on a highly regular basis. So why don't you just go home early again, and i'll see how much i can get done.

If i didn't like my job, i wouldn't complain about it. right?

One of the reviews for the place we are staying tomorrow said they "accidentally cancel reservations sometimes." There are no other rooms listed online as available anywhere in waynesboro. but: it is thirty miles from C-ville. This gives me certain ideas.

so who else are we going to see? :)

So american airlines sucks. and i mean that in the bad way. also, you know you're in new york when you see a little old lady wearing the following: (1) Depends; (2) Knee-high, four-inch-heeled black leather platform boots; (3) black leather pants. Little old lady. White hair, little old lady coat and bag and husband, black leather pants. Over Depends.

It nearly made us go blind. please, world, let your grandmas know. Leather, like spandex, is a privelege.

The reason american airlines sucks is that they got us to the lobsterfest nearly a day late, and almost too late for the lobsterfest itself (which is really just what i'm calling it, because there were also mussels and clams and crabs and corn on the cob and some lovely local beer and also, the electric heaters were lovely). But we made it despite their efforts. Bitches. And Maine is very cold but still ok. And weddings are lovely, particularly when there is good company and happy food and really good cake (really good cake) and i basically just like weddings more than is probably entirely normal. Also i can take a lobster apart by myself now. Because i rule.

LOBSTERFEST

back monday

Shiraz is the Australian word for syrah. Syrahs are French.

drama is not my friend.

Not. My. Friend.

arrgh. what, we can't all just get along? it's like North fucking Korea across the hall. Don't make me not be switzerland, bitch. it would be nice if i could say something like you don't want to see me not be switzerland but i'm pretty sure i'm not very scary when i'm pissed. i have a funny feeling i might just become some silly parody and utterly deserving of ridicule (see also: mouse that roared, the). so i'd really rather not go there, eh?

dear Manolo Blahnik, i hate you. because you said yes, they're like a painful, uncomfortable, blister-causing, frightful corset, but they're like a painful, uncomfortable, blister-causing, frightful corset that you love. you are a man. you have no fucking clue. okay? No fucking clue. I HAVE A CORSET AND THESE ARE WORSE.

Seeing as how we will be almost strictly walking in Vienna as a result of not having a car, i'm doing my very, very best to expunge from my closet all the shoes i can't wear for a minimum of eight hours in a row. In two hours, when i get home, i am going to do my very best to ask my roommate if she wants the gorgeous camel knee-high leather boots with the four-inch heels, if i can possibly bring forth the words and manage to maintain my resolve. (This is by no means a sure thing: i love those shoes. I wanted a pair of camel knee-high leather boots for twenty years, literally twenty years, before i bought them, so elegant, so chic, so perfect. i might try wearing them again first. just in case. by "might" i mean "will do my damndest to wear the things in.")

today: i have the most adorable pair of black ankle boots. Seven hours in, they make my toes a bit pinched and i'm getting pins and needles in the balls of my feet, which means i (a) can't wear them to either wedding this month, as i'm not carrying these ridiculous things in a suitcase and i obviously can't wear them all day on a plane and running through airports and (b) i have to offer them up. They're so fucking cute. The sexiest little line. Details. And very comfy in the heel area. and i've already gotten rid of all the shoes i didn't absolutely lust after. so this is not an easy thing, what i am doing.

Not easy. Probably not harder than learning german, but not easy. Especially because i don't want to be left with only the Danskos and one boring pair of sneakers that i can barely deign to allow on my foot. i can't wear those things with a skirt!

However, this leaves room on my shoe shelf for a pair of shearling moccasins. Hmm...

Dear Itunes is going to let me download Battlestar Galactica for $1.99 an episode,

I love you. I know sometimes it seems like i say that lightly but i mean it every single time.

Edit: WHERE ARE MY CYLONS? Noooooooo .....

Edit edit: in the meantime, FINE. Bitch. Who needs your stinking set design and costumery and fat Adama anyway.

The next time i fly, i am not going to take a Ziploc bag, which is what one is explicitly supposed to be using. i am going to take a store brand discount one. If i am lucky, the store brand one will have something abstract and surrealist printed on it to further the cause, like little happy faces on flowers. (The cause being, of course, caustic, abrasive, and utterly-lost-on-the-recipient irony in the face of them taking away my obviously highly explosive and dangerous deodorant. i can "cooperate," in an ironic fashion, to avoid being arrested and get to the various weddings. But i can be snarky and mean about it. Also, my normal-size deodorant says it is three ounces on the side, and it does not differentiate between liquid and solid ounces, and i bet - i bet - the minimally educated person behind the TSA counter will know. Very very sneaky sir.)

the power was out for six hours last night. It was still hot. there was no air conditioning, it's october, so there are hideous mosquitoes, and all the screens have holes in them.

And you want to say at least the toilets still flush but saying so could jinx them.

which is better: to get it started early (so you're not surprised when your one friend is smushed by a minivan somewhere outside of Portland, or when your other friend gets mono which you never knew you could die of, or when your other friend jumps off a bridge, or when your other friend gets cancer, or when your other friend does too much coke, or when your other friend, or when your other, or when your ... ) so that you know where your head is going to go, and how long it is going to stay there, and where it is going to end up finally, or to be blindsided by it all when it inevitably happens to everyone? is it about even - to be able to deal with crisis and have a clear head through it, but to lose out on all those years of blind invulnerability? and is it even an ethical question to be asking? of course it's nicer if none of your people die young.

but i can breathe. and i remember i used to keep that anniversary more faithfully than anything, that horrid, creeping, sacred day. but when you tell someone that doesn't already know that it will get better, that next year it will be a little bit easier, and easier again after that, and then one day fifteen or twenty years on you'll just blink and look sort of distant. there's nothing that can be done. And it's an awful knowledge, knowing that you're going to get over it. Like resilience is a pathology. Like survival could be a sin. and somewhere sometimes you hate yourself for it, because it ought to change everything, and it does, for a while. For a while.

and i can also go up to it, like a well or a dark little cave, and go in and wallow in dank misery. (even now, always, april is just around the corner.) and sometimes that's good. Healthy. Normal. but you can't help but learn the way out again.

and now, i can have grapes (i can finally have grapes, i always bought them and then couldn't eat them and they'd stay in the bottom drawer of the fridge for weeks and bleed grape juice over the plastic and get all sticky) and herbal tea and tomatoey pesto, i can go for walks in piney woods and stay up late at night, i can stand to laugh and hope and sit in the sun, and i can almost believe that i can have something that can't be taken away, because even if it is, then i still have it. Almost.

Almost.

as if the cars and warcraft and synthetic fabrics and myspace and oh, i don't know, having a degree in molecular biology wasn't enough. because all of my cousins, and all of their kids, and all of my aunts and uncles for nearly an entire half of my family live in Lancaster County. Where the shooter was. Fucking eek. !!! Creepy. But because i know they aren't Amish i know they're all fine. But i bet they are going to drive by that particular schoolhouse and still be creeped out. and the guy wasn't Amish: what if they knew him? what if he, like, tried to molest one of my cousins-once-removed once? Because from all the pictures i see they're very small and cute. extra eek.

*not very factual on motorcycles either

:anmut: :annika: :chin: :dooce: :ewok mama: :food: :little frog school: :lj: :longform: :low odysseys: :natalya: :rich: :salon: :slate: :this is how: :unique yn:



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