serinde

Is $2k the usual rate to fly to Australia, or is this the "you are planning way too early, which is Un-American; come back about six weeks before you want to fly" tax?

And this is cattle class. I'm afraid to even look at upgrades.

Illustrator is smarter than me. I read the manual, and what I want to do should be dead simple, and there are directions for that very thing, but what should happen is not happening.

Back to fingerpainting for me, clearly.

Edit: On the other hand, I've finished wrestling Pages to the ground; and I have created a brochure hawking our services to the newbies. It just needs two (possibly three) graphics, which see above. ...Also I have to find out where the hell I am supposed to get this printed.

My Xmas present from my body is that I'm having today's day today, instead of on Christmas, which is when it was scheduled for.

I'm trying to remind myself that this is A Good Thing.

I thought to myself, "I made it in yesterday." And I thought to myself, "Okay, admittedly, I was wobbly as hell and felt like I was going to fall down at a few points. And I could barely stay at the FCO outing, I was that tired. But I made it in. And I got stuff done." And I thought, "Sure, I feel a little wobblier this morning than I did when I got up yesterday, but I bet I could work the day through; I'm tough."

And I thought to myself, "I HAVE TWENTY SICK DAYS. This is what they are for. Stop being a Goddamn tool."

I seem to be coming down with whatever Steve had. I woke up horrendously lassitudinous in the first place, but just chalked it up to the Bataan Death March that this past week has been; but as the day progressed I've had to keep running to the euphemism, and the thought of food is disgusting, and now I'm feeling the first opening volleys of stomach cramps and nausea.

Measures taken: 2 caplets of acidophilous, 1 anti-nausea pill stolen from Steve (since he is not needing them any more), and a bowl of sops (namely, a slice of plain toast with broth poured over). Also, I have burned sufficient STUN to make applesauce out of the half-dozen overripe apples going bad in the fruit bowl.

I CANNOT FUCKING WELL BE SICK THIS WEEK. Not for work and not for social reasons. I refuse and deny it.

I'm on a mailing list for discussion of 14th c. costuming. It's generally pretty informative, and all is fine. Except...a continually-recurring question is one that boils down to, "How can I do it wrong and make it look right?" To me the answer is simple: YOU CAN'T. Wearing a sports bra, or wrapping your breasts, or only wearing one gown and putting fake sleeves underneath, or trying to have some of the fit happening in the chemise--none of these will work if you're trying to replicate that particular look. You may come up with something that passes the squint test from someone who has only seen froofy post-period paintings, but don't delude yourself that it's going to be accurate. It will fit differently, it will feel differently, it will hang differently. You Will Not Look Like The Source Material.

Now, you may not have the facilities or resources to have such a garment fitted to you, which is how it would be done correctly. And that's fair. One does what one can, and sometimes trade-offs must be made. But that's not the way, it seems to me, that a lot of people are approaching the problem. I might be misinterpreting what I'm reading, but there seems to be a strong meme of "I don't wanna do it that way!" with concomitant delusions that it can instead be faked. Bah.

(Jesus H. Christ. I just did a Google Image Search on "cotehardie" and one of the images on the first page is something that looks like a nightie with a black leather girdle laced over it. DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE)

I have decided, determined, and resolved that I shall not approach my next vacation as the Allies approached Operation Overlord, which had been my usual wont. For our upcoming trip to the Antipodes, I will not make detailed plans of what points of interest we need to hit on which days for greatest efficiency, complete with scheduled & defined meal locales and other hysterics. I shall instead treat it as a vacation, where I shall wake in leisurely fashion[1] and, over a relaxing intake of (reputedly-excellent) coffee and pastry, discuss with my Beloved Husband what we feel like doing that day.

I make this declaration because a) I'm getting way too much like my mom, particularly when A Plan is deviated from; and b) for the sake of my pooky, who is starting to get a hunted look whenever I nag him for "So what do you want to doooooo when we go?".

[1] As leisurely as I can, anyways. On vacations I tend to be about like a kid on Christmas morning, snapping awake at the crack of dawn and bouncing on the bed to wake everyone else up in my sheer excitement at YAY NEW STUFF YAY. Steve hates this, too.

I have problems walking today. I will keep wearing my Naughty Schoolmarm Shoes (this time to sweh's office Xmas party), even though after a full day they make me wish for death. But they are so very, very hot. "Life IS pain, Highness."

Going out today to test-drive vans, because we just aren't suburban enough. (Need to have a people-mover by Arisia.) It's between the Kia Sedona and the Toyota Sienna. It says something incredibly, incredibly silly about us that the major misfeature of the Sedona is that it cannot support satellite radio.

My work's office party is next Friday. Here is a new dimension of lame: it is a party for all faculty & staff...but there are only 400 "invites". Apparently this is because that's the most number of people the cafeteria can hold. Well, gosh, maybe you should try holding it somewhere else so everyone who wants to attend can do so? (My connections hooked me up, so it's not sour grapes here; I just find the situation moderately offensive.)

Had my first work-related stress dream last night; a minor one. It actually started out as an Arisia stress dream (though it seemed more like the Lunacon hotel, in fact), as I ran around frantically trying to make sure that the room(s) we had were suitable and getting a party set up and blah blah blah. (Note to auntiemisha: Yes, b00jum is crashing with us.) But at the very end, somehow The Boss was coming into inspect the arrangements with some of the student workers in tow and I was freaking out because I had a strong sense of having Done It Wrong. I think what's up with this is either having a tender pink conscience about having bunked off two Fridays running to go to various other events (not that the CUNY IT conference is anyone's idea of a good time; and the Apple presentation yesterday was useful and I learned things), or a vote of No Confidence from my psyche about the next big step, which is standing up to a bunch of people who are older and more experienced and been around longer than me and saying "Shut it, relics, this is how it's going to be from here on in." I have an ego, I know I do; I think it's just been in hibernation from hanging out with geniuses for so long. (I'm very smart, but I'm not a genius.) And there have been a sufficiency of times in my life where I've merrily plunged ahead, sure I was right, and then looked dumb. I really, really hate looking dumb. However, neither do I choose to be frozen in cowardly indecision.

There's talk about going to QXT tonight (but there still seems to be a lot of stomach upset in the house, so I don't know if this is happening). If you think you might be up for it, let me know.

I forgot: Awesome essay by Nathan Fillion, forwarded by dariodevil. Wah I want more Firefly. *sniff* We've decided to re-watch the whole thing over the holidays.

Dear terrestrial radio stations: If you must needs bleep, and I wish to Christ you wouldn't, just do not fucking bother playing Nine Inch Nails. kthxbye.

I have been sitting here playing CoH, as I do. And Ranger came up and meowed for snuggly lap time, as he does. And he started rubbing his face against mine (which makes for *interesting* computer play, as you might guess) as usual.

What is different is that, ten minutes after he jumped down and went about his fuzzy business, I started breaking out in hives all over my cheek and arm, where he had been rubbing. If he was an outdoor cat, this might make some degree of sense; he could have gotten into evergreen sap or yew needles or something...but there is nothing in the house I am allergic to, at all.