scrawls.

scrawls

still cheaper than therapy*

28.2.07

the skinny?

i have a pair of Job Interview Pants. and i don't even wear them at every job interview because they pick up dog hair like magnets, and sometimes i wear them to other things because they make my butt look fantastic, but mostly i don't ever wear them because of the dog hair issue. Especially Denali hair. so i maybe haven't worn them in two, three years or more.

(i always forget, also, that i should probably redo the hem.)

and, oddly, i put them on. Because we have no dogs until next week and i might as well, seeing as how they make my butt look fantastic. right? and, oddly, they are almost too big. One month ago, when i wore them to the most recent (and successful) job interview, they were not almost too big.

i sort of thought this might happen, what with all the walking and going up and down stairs. but it's weird, and i wasn't really going for it. if i brought all these clothes and none of them fit me in six months i'm going to be a little bit sad and i think clothes here are very expensive. plus, i was perfectly fine liking my body the way it is. Was. Thing. i was totally fucking hot before, thanks. i'm not supposed to be getting thinner. and i'm all conflicted about liking it.

please, goddess, don't let my chin get all pointy.

Labels: baby, health, reflection

scrawled @ 11:07

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26.2.07

the cable guy is a bit of a weirdo

Because he came to install the teevee (and they do a lovely job of installing it, drilling these tiny holes in the walls and digging out all the wires they need from these tiny, tiny holes, truly a master of his art, and he moves all the furniture by himself and won't let me help, and installs new cable-boxes here and there and runs wires around all neatly so they're not lying about on the floor) and the first thing he flips to is?

The Gilmore Girls.

Labels: media

scrawled @ 09:52

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23.2.07

what do i do all day?

while i wait for the work visa, and wait for the cable installer guy, and wait and wait and wait? I make macros for World of Warcraft, but only - only! - when i get really super bored. Warlock ones and druid ones and general type ones. yes, they all work. some have dual-announces because it takes less space to do that than to do the if-then more raid members than zero thing, and we only have 255 characters to work with. the actionbar:2 target=kawaha ones allow me to be afk making dinner or taking a nap or something else while M is running around with aracataca on follow, automatically healing him and leeching all his xp. Druid cat-form is annoying because you have something like seventeen abilities to fit into one twelve-slot cast bar, so we have that fixed. i like not keeping track of which kind of water or bandaid (hey, i'm still leveling, here) i have at the moment, so we have that fixed. The assorted healing ones work with very similar functionality to the old ClickCast mods (i was using clique, and before that, watchdog) but without being, well, mods. i like the burning crusade / warcraft 2.0 thing because i don't have to specify "and please show me the cooldown on my soulstone" and it automatically does it - whatever spell is the first listed, it automatically shows. Mostly. I think. anyway. they work.

ER
# show Heavy Netherweave Bandage
/use Heavy Netherweave Bandage
/use Netherweave Bandage
/use Heavy Runecloth Bandage
/use Runecloth Bandage
/use Heavy Mageweave Bandage
/use Mageweave Bandage
/use Heavy Wool Bandage

WATER
# show Purified Draenic Water
/use Conjured Glacier Water
/use Purified Draenic Water
/use Filtered Draenic Water

INNERCRO
/cast Innervate
/stopmacro [harm]
/p Leave the gun. Take the canoli. Innervated %T.
/script SendChatMessage("Anyway I'm drinkin' more. Innervated.","WHISPER",nil,UnitName("target"))

GROUPBUG
/script LeaveParty();

GUILDCRO
/g Pwners Den is not friendly, helpful, or numerous, has no plans for expansion, and does not accept blood elves or stinking traitorous Horde paladins. We are unpleasant, potty mouthed, and not the guild you are looking for. Also no furries.

MOUNTIE
/use Swift Green Windrider
/use Green Windrider
/use Great Brown Kodo
/cast Summon Dreadsteed

SAPCRO
/cast Sap
/p Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment. Sapped %t.

PETGO
/PetAttack
/cast Attack

HS-ADVERT
/p Your business is politics, mine is running a saloon. 2496 HS.
/stopmacro [noraid]
/ra The leading banker in Amsterdam is now the pastry chef in our kitchen. 2496 HS.

KILROG
/script SendChatMessage("Freddie, that thing can't be real: Level " .. UnitLevel("target") .. "+ " .. UnitName("target"), "party");

MANA TAP
/cast [nomodifier] Dark Pact; [modifier:alt] Life Tap

SSCRO
/cast [modifier:alt] Create Soulstone(Rank 6)
/stopmacro [modifier:alt]
/use Master Soulstone
/stopmacro [nogroup]
/s If history has taught us anything, it is that you can kill anyone. Soulstoned %t.

FIREFIRE
/castsequence reset=12/target Immolate, Incinerate, Incinerate

SEDUCECRO
#showtooltip
/focus target [button:2]
/petstay
/petfollow
/cast [target=focus] Seduction

FEARISIZE
/cast [nomodifier] Fear(Rank 3); [modifier:alt] Fear(Rank 1)

SUMMONS
/cast Ritual of Summoning
/script local s="He taught me: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. Summoning %T."; if GetNumRaidMembers()>0 then c="raid" else c="party" end; SendChatMessage(s,c);

HSBOX
/cast [modifier:alt] Create Healthstone(Rank 6)
/stopmacro [modifier:alt]
/s How do you say "banana daiquiri"? 2496 HS in the box.
/cast Ritual of Souls

AOE (warlock)
#showtooltip
/cast [nomodifier] Seed of Corruption; [modifier:alt] Rain of Fire

AOE (druid)
/cast [nomodifier] Hurricane; [modifier:alt] Tranquility

REGROWTH
#showtooltip Regrowth(Rank 10)
/cast [actionbar:1, nomodifier,target=none] Regrowth; [actionbar:1, modifier:alt,target=none] Regrowth(Rank 4); [actionbar:2, target=Kawaha] Regrowth

REJUV
#showtooltip Rejuvenation(Rank 13)
/cast [actionbar:1, nomodifier,target=none] Rejuvenation; [actionbar:1, modifier:alt,target=none] Rejuvenation(Rank 4); [actionbar:2, target=Kawaha] Rejuvenation

HEALINGTOUCH
#showtooltip Healing Touch(Rank 13)
/cast [actionbar:1, nomodifier,target=none] Healing Touch; [actionbar:1, modifier:alt,target=none] Healing Touch(Rank 4); [actionbar:2, target=Kawaha] Healing Touch

DEBUFF
/cast [actionbar:1, modifier:alt, target=none] Remove Curse; [actionbar:1, nomodifier, target=none] Abolish Poison

FOLLOWKK
/target Kawaha
/follow

CHARGE
/cast [nomodifier] Feral Charge; [modifier:alt] Enrage

KITTYONE
/cast [nostealth]Cower; Pounce

KITTYTWO
/cast [nostealth] Ferocious Bite; Ravage

KITTYTHREE
/cast [modifier:alt] Faerie Fire (Feral); [nomodifier] Tiger's Fury

LIFEBLOOM
#showtooltip Lifebloom
/cast [actionbar:1,target=none] Lifebloom; [actionbar:2,nomodifier,target=Kawaha] Lifebloom; [actionbar:2,modifier:alt,target=none] Lifebloom

REZCRO
/cast Rebirth
/script s="I don't like violence, %t. I'm a businessman; blood is a big expense." if GetPartyMember(1) then c="party" a=1 if GetNumRaidMembers()>0 then c="raid" end;end;if a>0 then SendChatMessage(s,c) end;

Labels: internet

scrawled @ 16:51

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so, obviously,

there are good days to be here and bad days to be here. There are more bad days in the beginning, i think, when really nothing makes any sense and you can't find any tomatoes or shampoo or something, and you have this desperate need to do laundry and no options, and no friends, and noone to call and freak out to and completely dissolve on, and it's all so bizarre and foreign and of course you knew it was going to be but not like this, and you're fucked because now you're here and you can't even find anything to eat. Small things become very, very big. Eventually they get back into proportion, generally, as you find food and meet a person or two so you can leave your flat and go out into the world and start behaving like a rational human being instead of some crazy hermit. Finding things to eat is very, very important.

Small and weird and okay: There is no Energizer bunnny: There is a Duracell bunny, and a little Energizer dude-made-out-of-batteries.

Small and weird and bad: I hate the dial tone. And the ringing-noise, too, for that matter.

Big and weird and mostly good: We have no car. Public transportation is awesome until midnight, when everything turns into a pumpkin, and you have to walk home. But walking home is not really so far. And not having a car is very, very cheap, but it means that we can't just hop in and go somewhere, like Switzerland or something, or even to the airport to pick up M's brother with the dogs. Not that this will happen so often - but still.

Medium-sized and weird and not so great: We still do not speak German. M's work is buying him lessons, we think, possibly starting next month; after I get my work visa, which could theoretically take up to a month or more yet, then i can negotiate a contract with my work, and presumably the people they use to teach German to their employees start classes every month or every other month or so because Berlitz is a very large company and i couldn't imagine they would start classes less often than that. But we have enough german to get groceries and food, and not starving is very important.

Small and weird and very, very bad: Stores are still closed, everywhere, after 7 pm every day, 5 pm (latest) on Saturdays, and entirely on Sundays, except for the ones at the very largest train stations. We are near enough to one of these (Sudbahnhof) that if it was an emergency, we would still have something to eat; but it is overpriced and yucky. Eventually we will learn to plan around this.

Medium-sized (well, for me) and weird and bad: There are only five spices here: paprika, oregano, basil, pepper, and coriander. There is no rosemary. There is no cumin, no thyme, no turmeric, no nutmeg, no chile peppers, no jalapeno. There are herbes des provence and curry mixes, but, first, who the fuck uses herbes des provence, and, second, could we have more than one variety of curry mix, please, so that not everything tastes the fucking same. And fucking parsey doesn't count. Lack of cumin = no chili. Lack of thyme (and, for that matter, why do they not have celery, like, anywhere?) = no jambalaya. No jambalaya and no chili = sad liz. i really need to NOT google mexican food right now or i might cry.

Small and weird and really quite excellent: Five weeks (i think, it might be six) of vacation. F-i-v-e. Holy shit.

Small and weird and disappointing: Everyone says the bread is supposed to be awesome. M was hoping that it would be like the French bread at Albertsons. It is most distinctly not. At all. And there are a million different kinds of this bread that always looks so good, and then it is like trying to eat an iron ingot once you bring it home because it is nothing but density and you have a mouthful and you're full. And annoyed. Because they call it eighty different things, too, so you're trying to find some kind of bread that is not like this, only they all are.

Medium-sized and surprising and good: Pizza is excellent. Mmmmm. Every other block has a brick-oven pizza shop. Lovely. We like pizza.

Small and weird and will probably end up being good, later, once we have the nerve: There are sushi shops everywhere, too, but austria has no coastline, so we're a little squicked out by it.

Small and weird and sad: They have no proper toasters. They have sliced bread, but no toasters. Similarly to how they have blankets and sheets and fuzzy sweaters, but no clothes dryers. It's like living without ever seeing the sun. And the worst part is that they don't even know what they're missing. You tell them about dryers and warm blankety goodness and they're like, So?

Small and surprising and good: Our flat has this incredible, wide, deep bathtub. it doesn't look so big, but then you get in it and it is.

Medium-sized and weird and bad: They also have no Travelocity. A million airlines advertising all over the city, and noplace to actually find a cheap fare unless you go and pay one of the million travel agents all over the city.

Big and weird and bad: Did i mention we had to come up with nearly five months worth of rent to sign the rental contract and move in? We did. It was the suck. And we got a fucking deal, so it could have been much worse and usually is and we were lucky. Lucky to only have to pay nearly five months rent. At least we only have to do it once.

Big and weird and good: Our apartment is nice. It will be even nicer when we have furniture in it.

Labels: expat, vienna

scrawled @ 14:18

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22.2.07

yeah. so.

waiting for the work visa to come in.

argh. waiting.

Labels: work

scrawled @ 10:49

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12.2.07

this noise? what is this?

unfortunately sometimes the choir of angels at ikea covers Celine Dion.

the music here is weird. Good, mostly, but weird. They really like Johnny Cash, which is great, but none of the songs that are popular in the US are the ones that get playtime. Nearly all of the music that they play in stores and restaurants and on the radio (that we've found so far, and somehow my cellie maybe has a radio on it, or i think it does, or a lot of them did and i don't remember which one i got finally, but i haven't figured that out yet, and it's weird and complicated and not a Nokia, which is all i've had before, so i don't know how it works and i don't know if i need headphones or crazy bluetooth whatsits) is in english, and it's by bands that we recognize, but it's all B sides.

so it's sort of almost familiar, but then not at all. Except the Man in Black.

Labels: house

scrawled @ 10:55

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9.2.07

i have internet!

it's like coming up for air. i can google. oh, the glory of it.

whooooo ... they really do mean horse. when, you know, they say it on the side of the wurstel-stand. but will horse, for us, ever compete with The Original Cheddarwurst (kasewurst, which is almost certainly not cheddar, and may in fact perfectly easily have horse in it)? Probably not, because The Original Cheddarwurst is absolutely delicious and it comes with this phenomenal mustard with big fat bits of onion in it (zwiebelsenf) and crusty crusty bread (brot) and really if they put no zwiebelsenf on their pferd it's probably pretty worthless. it's this giant greasy thing, and you bite it and cheese comes out, and it makes an american cheddarwurst look like those hideous wrinkly week-old things they have at gas stations.

And they have the Platonic Ideal of a Tater Tot. it was Platonic ideals, right, not aristotlean? i cannot even explain how well these people know their potatoes. There are no words that do it justice. If there is a heaven, they import their tater tots.

and. are grape seeds bad for you? like, now that there are no seedless grapes, but only grapes with giant pale crunchy bits, what does one do? is it polite to spit them out, cupped in a palm or napkin? will they weird up my gastrointestinal tract? are they remotely digestible, being so crunchy? but, these grapes are good. And the broccoli is all Italian, because nicely, the EU (i think) requires that all food be labeled with where it came from. Also nicely, all the bread is from a block and a half away.

i completely and totally *heart* public transportation. Except after eleven p.m., when it starts to become a very long way to walk home. Because all the fucking buses, and all the fucking u-bahns, and all the fucking trams stop running. On weekdays. Or anyway they're on mean nasty cold-hearted go-to-bed-too-too-early schedules.

Internet makes a good day. We have an apartment. We have a phone number, but we have no phone. similarly, we have a contract for cable tv, but since they need the tv to set up the cable, and we have no tv, we have no, um, tv. We have one table, one couch, one coffee table, and one mattress. And (fortunately) a fully furnished, if not fully equipped, kitchen. Which is apparently more common than everyone said it was. we have very nice hardwood floors, which are very creaky, but we have heard no creaks from upstairs (ok, we've been here less than twenty-four hours, but still) so it's not so bad i think. We have curtains, and bookshelves, and a hall wardrobey closetty thing that looks like it has much more room than it does. The entire apartment is outfitted for someone very tall, and i'm not even talking about however giant the ceilings are: the kitchen cabinets are way up high. The hanging-rods in the hall wardrobey closetty thing, i can barely reach. The wall cabinets i can't even reach the second shelf on.

We also have a ladder. Unfortunately (even though it needs to be painted anyway) the ladder makes ucky gray marks on the wall. So i think at ladder-height there might have to be, um, a "stripe" that is made to look deliberate. Somehow. Because of all this faboo lighting and we will have to be changing lightbulbs up there often enough. the previous tenant appears to have been very good with lights and electricity (ceiling lights: not so common), but somewhat afraid of plumbing (i have already fixed the toilet, i think, i hope, and we had someone come fix the dishwasher).

also. i have seen the inside of an ikea. For the first time ever. and the first thing that happens when you go in, is that there is a hidden choir of angels. and the second thing that happens when you go in, is that you notice the restaurant and how it smells fantastic and how of course they put it not only right next to the door but also right next to all the kitcheny goodness. and the third thing that happens when you go in, is that you get completely and utterly lost, and neither the arrows on the floor or your nose can get you back to the entrance. and then you finally manage to find all the bettwaschesets you were there to look for in the first place, but then you have to walk past m's Favorite Chair to get out. and i couldn't buy a wok because you can't carry a giant blanket and sheets and pillows and a wok on public transportation. With only two hands.

because have i mentioned that the beds here, or more specifically, the blankets, are directly responsible for europe's falling birthrate, and i am not the first person to say this? Everyone gets their own blanket. It is fantastically hard to find one mattress that is big enough for two people (because the vast majority are ninety centimeters, which is not very big) and then it is even much, much, much harder to find a blanket that will cover it. To the point that when they have mattresses that are big enough for two, they actually cheat and put blankets on horizontally so they look like they cover the whole thing, when they are lying through their teeth. so. and you can't cuddle properly when there are two blankets in the way. what? you can't. and how i have been sleeping with this craziness for nearly a month i have no idea. Also the pillows here are entirely the suck. (should a pillow not have some thickness to it, some resistance? because otherwise, why do you have a pillow?)

Labels: vienna

scrawled @ 17:21

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