(warning: particularly old content) I don't ask for it to make sense RSS feed

2008.01.31

The lingering aftermath of the flu has kept me well in check. I've been going into work this week, but it's a "just barely there" sort of effort. I cough constantly, and I get tired by such involved tasks as "going to the kitchen" and "hurrying to a meeting." I left early today, and ended up crashing out for two different naps comprising a good four hours of sleep, and I'm still bushed and ready to bunker down for the night. Stupid stupid flu, I hate you. I roll the dice every year; with my aversion to (and doctor mandate against!) needles, getting a flu shot just doesn't fly. It's been a couple years since I failed my con check. And that my asthma has kicked in, for the first time in two years, is just really not helping anything.

I'm tired of being tired and not able to breathe. I want to unpack, and set up my kitchen, and generally feel like I've actually moved into a house instead of a construction zone.

Think

2008.01.26

It wouldn't be quite correct to say that I felt better today, but I definitely feel better tonight. I spent most of the day curled up in bed with Micah, feeling generally terrible. Mom did show up mid-afternoon with some provisions, which was both wonderful and kind of hilarious; Mama can go a bit overboard sometimes, but I shouldn't complain at having two coolers full of orange juice, iced tea, yogurt, cottage cheese, and mandarin oranges in my bathtub when my fridge is unplugged due to ongoing work in the kitchen. Particularly given that the state of my kitchen was no doubt contributing to my funk (fridge turned off, oven was delivered today but the space wasn't ready for it and there's been no sign of Dennis all day, and tools and sawdust everywhere). Anyway, five episodes of Veronica Mars, some cottage cheese, enough orange juice to drown a small child, and a three hour nap later, I felt human enough to go unpack all of my books and set up my computer in my new office. And there's nothing that makes me feel better like accomplishment.

I don't think I can go game tomorrow, though. Still pretty icky, and even if I'm feeling 100% better, there's all the things to get done that I should have gotten done today and yesterday. Seth is gonna hate me.

Think

2008.01.25

Holy crap would I ever not be surprised if I up and died. I'm more sick than I've been in a really long time; what started out as a wee cough on Tuesday evening turned into a full blown fever with dizzy spells by Wednesday afternoon, and I haven't been able to take it nearly as easy as I should, considering work emergencies and, you know, the whole finishing packing and moving thing. I lost my voice earlier tonight, which was irritating, but it whispered back. What's far more concerning is that my lungs are seizing up something terrible. I haven't had full blown asthma symptoms in almost two years, and it's extremely frightening to be gasping for each breath, particularly when you have things to get done like bring cats to their new home, and a brother and co who, while sympathetic to your distress in general, are not going to do shit for you.

I took a puff of my inhaler for the first time in over a year, but I must have more hit the back of my throat than down into my lungs (understandable given that I'm out of practice and my throat is swollen up, I suppose), because my lungs aren't doing that much better and I'm albuterol jittery. I tried one more, formally gave up on doing anything else, got undressed, have curled up in my chair with a bottle of water and am trying like hell to breathe calmly. Freaking out just makes an asthma attack worse.

But goddamn, times like this are when you want someone to be taking care of you. I'm scared to death and trying to cry as mellow as I can.

One hour later, the albuterol seems to have finally kicked in, and Jeffie got online and talked me down from my (probably albuterol-side-effect-induced, but no less scary for all that) panic that I was going to die alone up in my room. I may sleep in my chair tonight; lungs work better when they're upright.

Think   1 Thought

2008.01.22

Vegas was... dare I say it... fun. it has been downgraded from a place that I actively resist going to a place that, if my friends want to go, I won't even mind tagging along on the trip. We were limited in our debauchery by Jeff being on crutches, but on the other hand, we got jumped to the front of all the taxi lines, which was pretty awesome. We saw Penn & Teller on Saturday night, which was fun; even though I didn't think they were as funny/good as they were when I saw them in Seattle several years ago, they were still pretty good, and Jeff/Ken thought it was fantastic. Maybe they're just not as funny the second time around? On Sunday night, we got to see O at the Bellagio for free up in the lightbox operations booth, because Ken knows someone in the costume department. O is not a Cirque show that I would have chosen to see, but I still broke my face with glee during several parts, and you cannot beat seeing a show for free (and it was pretty cool to be up in the ops center hearing all the light cues being called). And we (hee! pushing glasses up the bridge of my nose) did up some mad Star Trek: The Experience action on Sunday afternoon.

So. Hilariously. Awesome. Total fantastic use of $40.

I cannot wait to move and have a scanner available to me so that I can get the picture of me in the captain's chair, Ken in the useless counselor seat, and Jeff as my super gimpy #1 posted. HEEHEEHEE.

Other than that, it was a bunch of random wandering about, but I didn't mind it as much this time; it wasn't nearly as crowded, and having a plan for our evenings helped me take aimless meandering more in stride during the day. Also, I drank a lot this time around. That helped. Heh.

In house news, my bedroom is half painted and all my worries are melting away on that front in general. There's a lot of random work around the place that will creep past moving day on Friday, but I'm tentatively optimistic that the major stuff will be finished. And on that note, time for me to pack a box and go to bed, seeing as I have to be there between 7:45 and 9:45 for my fridge to be delivered (YAY! It may not be pretty, but it's an infinte improvement over no fridge at all).

Think

2008.01.18

Vegas tomorrow, for two nights and three days with Ken and Jeffie. I'm willing to let it be awesome, but last time did not wow me, so we'll see. We're gonna see Penn and Teller, and O from an ops booth, so those should be awesome, but last time I checked, I don't really have to leave Seattle to see such acts.

I'm cranky because I was at work way late trying to figure out something that possibly wasn't even figure-out-able, and even if so, it's not really my job to figure it out. And I hate flying even when Jeff's been a dear and arranged everything. Waaaaaaaaah.

Think

2008.01.17

I promised myself I'd pack at least one box today, and look at me, I packed three! That's gotta count for something. Even if the amount of packing left to go leaves me a bit worried... aka gibbering in terror.

Place I would have thought that I would have stashed my Master's diploma: not between some roleplaying books on my living room shelf. Place I in fact stashed my Master's diploma: between some roleplaying books on my living room shelf. Apparently that's where it goes!

Think

2008.01.16

I'll tell you what makes me feel better about throwing $2400 at the house this week: letting myself in late at night, covering my face with my scarf to avoid the fumes, going upstairs to look at the work, and promptly dropping my scarf to gasp in delight at my gorgeous new floors.

Chalk another bit up for whoever had done previous work on the house being insane and/or tasteless and/or untalented. A serious sanding, a crapload of patching, and a new clear finish, and the floors I described last week as "beat to shit, mushy looking, and seriously embarrassing" are now "so absofuckinglutely beautiful I did a little dance around my kitchen."

HOORAY!

Think

2008.01.15

I got to work at 10:30 am today and left at 2:00 am. Whee. I really don't think I want to discuss that too much, as frankly, I've already spent all damn day thinking about it, so let's do a nice round of focus on the positives of the day!

  • Sunny, sunny, sunny
  • Treats for Seo Young's birthday
  • Lunch with Gus and Beth
  • Impromptu atrium hangout with Todd
  • Run over to Crossroads for dinner with Dave
  • 2:30 am hangout with inexplicably awake Mama

See, self? That's a whole five six (just added the sun!) things that were nice, or downright awesome, about the day.

FOCUS, I SAY.

Think

2008.01.14

Meh. Meh meh meh meh meh meh meh meh meh meh meh meh meh me meh meh meh! And that is all I have to say on the subject.

Think

2008.01.13

Next house I get, I do not want to have to do a goddamn thing. Or at least I want to have a house with basic fucking appliances, floors that haven't been utterly beat to shit, and walls that don't look like they've had a nailgun taken to them. Is that so fucking much to ask? I'm having nightly nervous breakdowns about all the stuff that needs to get paid for; Bryce and Jenya may be taking care of a lot of the in-person details, which I definitely appreciate, but it's the fucking bank of Jen that's rolling this whole thing, and nights like tonight it feels like I can't afford it. Right off the top of my head, just costs already figured and not counting the stuff we haven't gotten estimates on yet, $3500 is flying out in the next couple weeks! Thinking that there's more to come, not to mention the worst scheduled vacation weekend ever, scares the bejeezus out of me; how can I be going out of town and bleeding even more money at a time like this?

I feel physically ill.

(Yes, I know I get paid in the next day or so, and that this time of month is always the worst, as all bills and such have come through in the previous two weeks; that's just not really helping at the moment.)

Think   2 Thoughts

2008.01.12

After many many moons, I decided to do some semi-major site updating. Some weird php iconoclasts have been brought into line, my resume has been very slightly updated, various names have been removed and/or neutralized to very slightly protect the innocent, some random pages were updated just because I felt like it, darnit, and a good number of the lingering (s)htm(l) pages have been nuked and replaced with their proper php successors (including the actual laeren index, which I've been meaning to do for, oh, 4 or 5 years). There's only a few to go!

Takako:~/Sites/zoggins laeren$ find . -name '*.*htm*'
  ./graphics/index.shtml
  ./japan/hifletter.shtml
  ./japan/index.shtml
  ./japan/japanmoz.shtml
  ./japan/jnaming.shtml
  ./links/index.shtml
  ./oldindex1.htm
  ./oldindex2.htm
  ./oldindex3.shtml
  ./otherindex.shtml
  ./pers/blammo.shtml
  ./pers/essayme.shtml
  ./pers/geek.shtml
  ./pers/graduate.shtml
  ./pers/jenbrian.htm
  ./pers/progress.shtml
  ./pers/quake.shtml
  ./pers/shame.shtml
  ./pers/undergrad.shtml
  ./pers/whychemjapan.shtml
  ./rpg/dice.shtml
  ./rpg/dicepics.shtml
  ./rpg/index.shtml
  ./rpg/l5r/index.shtml
  ./rpg/l5r/magistrate.shtml
  ./rpg/whatisrpg.shtml
  ./rpg/zendice.shtml
  ./taiko.htm
  ./tht/abortionramble.shtml
  ./tht/chrisquote.shtml
  ./tht/copa.htm
  ./tht/doped_zns.htm
  ./tht/happinesses.shtml
  ./tht/kanjiramble.htm
  ./tht/poetry.shtml
  ./tht/reid.shtml

You last 40 bastards, I've got you in my sights. You're all on notice save those that need to stick around for archival purposes.

Interesting. I'm not going to go through exactly what bits stitch together into other pieces, or which are just outright deprecated, but the numbers for what makes up this crazy site of mine are a bit boggling:

  • .php: 538
  • .*htm*: 40
  • .css: 18
  • .jpg, .gif, .png, .ico: 4457 (4420 of those are .jpg)

Even before we consider what I've got stored in the various databases, I certainly have been busy, putting bits out into the internets for the last near-decade, haven't I?

Think

Think for yourself...

Allowed HTML: <br>, <em>, <strong>
Posts with 'http' in them will be blocked, as will thinker identifications including numbers or URLs
Irritation may be directed at bots... cut it out, asshats

Thought

Thinker

Never mind...

Hide thoughts

2008.01.11

How could I not be pleased about spending my Friday out and about drinking with some (2/3) new geek friends... even if none of the 3 were the specific geeks I might have most wanted to be going out and about with? Heh. Much drinking, much bullshitting, much deflecting of interest in me was had, and lo, it was damn good.

I do wonder, though, if I happen to fall into the "standard comment of <name redacted>" category, though. Too bad if so, but he's off on some date with a girl with a computer science degree tomorrow, so I really just can't compare in the first place. Hah!

Think

2008.01.10

Well, today was pretty fanfuckingtastic for my ego. I'm positively bubbly!

Now if only I could A) feel like this most of the time and B) GO TO DAMN BED. I always run at a relatively high base insomnia level, but do I really have to have the numbers jacked up this bad for this long? It seems slightly unreasonable.

Think

2008.01.09

This week has just been too damn hard and long already, and not in some sort of nice phallic sense. Too little sleep, not enough getting done, and too much stress. I'm getting pwned by sleep; if it doesn't get better after the move, I may finally consider a scrip for a sleep aid. But Micah is braced up covering half my face with his purring head at the moment, so that's at least nice enough to report.

Think   2 Thoughts

2008.01.06

After a rough start to the morning when I thought I was going to be sick, I slept another several hours and woke up with plenty of vim and verve to go over to The New House and continue pitching in on the first weekend of getting shit done. We've taken all the nails and screws out of the walls, pulled off all the faceplates, marked all the holes that need to be patched, chosen all the paint colors but the ones up in my room, replaced all the broken/missing lightbulbs inside and out, brought over / bought some various bits that will be useful over the next weeks like trashcans and doormats, hosed out the hot tub, picked up the trash in the yard, bought a fridge (delivering middle of next week) and a hot water tank (the Fool will get it in tomorrow), pulled out the nasty and defunct (respectively) upstairs range and oven, started disassembling the right-hand kitchen cabinets that will be thrown out immediately, measured and remeasured about a thousand and fifty things, changed our minds back and forth about a good dozen possible furniture arrangements and other details... I'm still pissed that Bryce and I blew our chance at getting paint picked out for my room, but hey, it was a pretty productive weekend regardless, and we still had time to teach me and Misha (Jenya's brother) how to play mahjong. And I grabbed all the boxes I had up in Jeffie's garage, so packing in earnest can begin.

I think this is gonna be one pretty crazy month.

I've lost an earring. One of my favorites, which makes it all the more distressing, but mostly I'm superstitiously terrified. Losing earrings has been a bad omen for me for several years now, and I dislike having it happen at such a critical time of change. (stamping foot) I swear I was wearring it in the house this evening, so it's got to be around here someplace. It must.

Think

2008.01.04

Mail today:

Subject: Do you feel any different?
Bryce, Jenya, Jen,
Congratulations!!! You're officially homeowners.

Holy criznap! There's a couple new keys in my pocket, booYA. One hell of a way to start a new year!

Think   1 Thought

2008.01.03

(face in hands) Jeff broke his leg again. That's my boy. What can be done? He just got finished healing up from the uberbreak of doom, and what does he do? He goes skiing. (hands in the air) HOPELESS!

However, he did crutch out to delicious delicious Izumi sushi with me tonight. I'm notoriously picky about sushi places, but every time we go to Izumi, I practically glow. Everything is right, everything, not least that I'm reminded, each time, that Jeff searched through dozens of reviews and recommendations and listings to find me a place he hoped might meet muster. Every now and then over the last year, the Fool network has commented how much they wish that Jeff and I hadn't stopped dating. I say that I'm just fucking blessed to have him be my fantastic fantastic friend.

Even if he can be a bit of an idiot sometimes. HOPELESS!

Think

2008.01.02

I think Bryce and Jenya and I actually bought the house today. I'm assuming that's what the gigantic fucking stack of papers was about, at least. Words were all BLAH BLAH LEGAL STUFF BLAH BLAH LOAN AMOUNTS BLAH BLAH in one ear and out the other, but hey! Keys on Friday! I can't fucking believe it.

Of course, now all the fixing of the house commences. Whee! Paint buying and appliances hunting this weekend, oh my, painting and chimney cleaning next week, oh my, hopefully floors being refinished the week after, oh my, hopefully kitchen counter ripped out and replaced and new appliances installed the week after, oh my, and I'm moving on the 25th!

AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHHHHH!

In the most excited way, of course.

Think   1 Thought

2008.01.01

Damnit, I've gone and lost my diploma again. This time it's the Master's that I can't find, but it's been the BA and BS often enough in the past. I should really do something with those, or at least, the next time that I know where they all are, put them all in the same place. One might think that packing up my office for the impending move would be a good time to go through papers looking for the ones I need and getting rid of the ones I don't, but considering that I find myself sniffling every single damn time I pack that room up (it's too full of old keepsakes and photographs), it's not the best time to go looking for something. I suppose also that this way I should find it when I unpack, and then I can do something sensible from the new place. Silly pieces of paper.

The move isn't happening until about the 25th, but I figured that sorting through clothes and packing up the office would be a good way to start off the new year. The sudden reminder that the bulk of my boxes are in Jeff's garage put a bit of a damper on this plan, but hey, I do have *some* boxes here. Boxes to fill full of very heavy paper. Poor movers, but that's why I'm paying them.

Think   1 Thought