Those of you whose jurisdictions are currently being pwned by blizzard: dude, try not to become a popsicle. That shit looks unpleasantly exciting.

It was a downright balmy 48°F / 9°C today, so the odds of getting snow for Christmas here are looking slim indeed. Which is a nice change from last year, when it kept dumping snow well into March and I took to punching snowmen in the face as I walked down the street. (Those of you currently trapped in the mid-Atlantic region: I recommend this coping mechanism. It makes small children cry and is extremely cathartic.)

In other news, I've been recovering slowly but surely from the grad school application frenzy. I've been learning how to knit cables, and it's not nearly as terrifying as imagined and will probably result in a cozy sweater-vest; also I have been making casseroles. Both of the parents are sick today, so we're quite behind on holiday things. Mostly, though, I'm basking in not having to write any more bloody statements of purpose. Which, in itself, is the best Christmas present ever. \o/

Here, have a ( fandom meme! )

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At first this would appear to be a portrait of our badly-trimmed maple tree, but if you look closely at the little things hanging from what remains of the branches: those are first icicles of the winter.

At least, I bloody well hope they are.

(That's one way I can tell it's winter; the other way is to check the end of my nose for a dent running across it from being constantly pinched in an attempt to stimulate circulation. HO HO HO.)

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So.

Older Brother (age 22) and Younger Sister (age 14) are very close -- due to a dysfunctional childhood, Older Brother took a quasi-parental role toward Younger Sister when they were little, and they operate on a very similar mental/emotional wavelength. Both have just suffered an upsetting experience, which was much more directly disturbing for Younger Sister.

Would it be normal, in this situation, for Younger Sister to hold Older Brother's hand?

I ask because I have a more, er, adversarial relationship with my own brother, so physical contact for us is limited to socking-on-the-arm. I have no idea what counts as normal physical affection for siblings who are actually close. /o\

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Oh my god you guys seriously I ate so much that I cannot move. I can only roll. Like a bowling ball that ate too many green beans and mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving.

BRB, tryptophan.

*rolls*

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Says it all, doesn't it? (Y)

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This is what he did when he came over to visit and play video games.



In the words of the Brother, "now he can live forever in my Wii!"

WHERE DID I GO WRONG IN RAISING THIS CHILD.
...I lol'd.

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BE AWARE, MAINE: until you rectify this situation, anytime I am considering eating lobster, I will instead eat DELICIOUS CORN. Fuck you and your crustaceans.


My own state narrowly passed its Separate But Equal™ domestic partnership referendum, which kind of takes the edge off the BURNING RAGE, but the fact that civil rights are up for a popular vote anywhere is absolute fucking bullshit.

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I had a dream last night that I infiltrated the Duggars (because they have so many children they wouldn't notice an extra, strangely Jewish-looking one, I guess?) and set up an underground railroad by which the offspring could escape to a deprogramming facility. It was strangely cogent, given that (A) it was a dream and (B) I don't even watch their creepy show, I just resent TLC from a safe distance for encouraging them. What the FUCK, subconscious.

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Things that are Totally Awesome: THIS! I am probably late to the party, but rarely have I lol'd so.

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I have been responsible for dinner the last few nights, which is actually very nice both because I feel like I'm being useful and because dinner has been much better as a result. (It's not that nobody else can cook, it's that nobody else wants to, so if I am not in charge of this then dinner is usually frozen things and/or canned things.) I have already inflicted upon the family one of my off-the-cuff culinary inventions, and it was well-received, which will only encourage further risk-taking in the future.

In other news, I'm probably applying for a part-time administrative assistant gig. There are no phones involved, just data entry and printing receipts and other things that are frankly beneath my training but worth doing if it means monies. (Y) Anything would beat another unpaid internship, which is basically the only other thing available right now.* And I need some cash so that I can spend it on capitalist frivolities -- 'tis the season, after all.
__________
* Aside from customer service, for which I would be perfectly qualified were it not for my tendency to react to people being rude and condescending to my face by flying into an involuntary tunnel-visioned rage and shouting at them. I can count change pretty well, though!

I may be going out of town this weekend, back to Internship Town to decompress and/or drop by my old office to beg for letters of recommendation. It would be nice to get out of Dodge for a few days -- I'm pretty sure Hometown is to blame for the writer's block.

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He bought an entire gallon of Sunny Delight, thinking it was just a brand of regular orange juice.

The look on his face when he took his first sip from a giant glass of it, which he then had to finish, is something that I will cherish for many years to come.

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I am still pretty much laid up with what has been upgraded from Megacold™ to Flu (Possibly Swine)™, but that does not matter for the moment, because I have new jeans! They are not quite fabulous enough to make me feel 100% better about myself, but they have thankfully taken the edge off of my sick-day self-perception as an ugly, bloated, shiny-faced creeper whom nobody will ever love. Because I am still puffy and shiny-faced but at least my butt is still cute.* (Y)
_________
* Note that I am not ordinarily this vain. It's just how I cope with the plague.

I'm also feeling better enough that I've been able to tackle the boring-but-necessary timelining and historical research for the other half of my MFA portfolio. For the record: if you're ever tempted to set a multi-generational story in the American West in the 19th century, do yourself a favor and do not fucking do it, oh god, it is a historical clusterfuck of political posturing and Manifest Destiny and gold rushes and missionaries and ethnic genocide. I now know pointless facts about pioneers and the Second Great Awakening and the Civil War and the history of Missouri that I do not even need for this damn story because it's mostly an insular family drama, and Wikipedia has its usual occupational hazards. And I still don't have all the information I need! Just a whole lot that I don't!

If only I had paid attention during Oregon Trail instead of just loading up my wagon train with the names of people I hated and sending them out in the middle of winter with no rations. (What dude that is totally how you're supposed to play Oregon Trail.)

Okay, time for more soup.

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Have contracted the brother's massive chest cold. Given his status as the resident Typhoid Mary and his fondness for sneezing into his hands and then digging through bread bags and touching doorknobs, this is far from shocking. If he does not move out on the designated date I think I may kill him. In the goddamn face.

Am currently on Day Two of aforementioned megacold, and despite mainlining vitamin C am likely to be laid up for about a week total. Highly inconvenient, given (A) the Very Literary short story I need to write and make shiny and (B) studying for the GRE and also (C) dammit I have a fun new haircut and want to go out into the world and show it off but am too beplagued to do so.

Oh well. Haircut is awesome indeed, so even if I am sick and disgusting I at least look cute. </vanity> Am also outlining a giant AU I will probably never write, because I am too strung out on cough medicine to write anything in my own universe. Ohoho.

BRB, inhaling tea and ramen and ibuprofen and watching more horrible television. My life is fucking awesome. :|

Other things that inexplicably contain coconut despite all logic:

~ Chewy Bars. THANKS QUAKER OATS. I would kick your ass, but in honor of the Quakers' proud tradition of pacifism I will instead shout at you until we reach consensus that coconut does not belong in a chewy bar. (Y)

~ Store-brand ginger snaps. Because ginger is such a mild flavor, you know, it needs some fucking coconut in there to make it more exciting. :|


This public service announcement brought to you by the two (2) attempts at eating breakfast today that were foiled by random coconut. Also sponsored in part by Benadryl.

FML.

I had a rocket pop for breakfast today. You wish you were this cosmopolitan. *flexes*

Here, have some music.

1. Tegan & Sara - Soil, Soil
2. Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - House Fire
3. Margot & the Nuclear So and So's - Skeleton Key
4. Ben Harper and Relentless7 - Fly One Time [now an .mp3 instead of an .m4a, sorry about that]
5. Jaymay - Gray Or Blue
6. Suzanne Vega - In Liverpool
7. Beulah - Landslide Baby
8. Tom Petty - Free Fallin'
9. The Format - If Work Permits

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I am in what can only be described as a transitional mood today. Namely: there are changes coming and I want them to happen, but they are not happening now and there's nothing I can do about it, so my only option is to sit around and wait and try not to be resentful.

Case in point: my brother is moving into his apartment on the 16th, and this is good. In the meantime, he is cultivating an epic head cold and doing things like wandering around in his underpants and sneezing into his hands and then touching everything in the kitchen, so even though he is happily GTFOing in less than two weeks I am still devoting an unhealthy amount of time to fantasizing about stabbing him in the larynx.

Also case in point: I am applying to graduate school soon! Hooray! ...And in the meantime I need to decide which of my two short story ideas sucks less, write the damn thing, revise it until I no longer hate it, and, oh yes, hunt down some letters of recommendation, take the GRE on October 3rd without flunking it spectacularly, and figure out how to come up with the monies necessary to pay the application fees for all ten schools I'm applying to. You can see why this entire rigmarole is not, shall we say, conducive to the creative process. Nor is the knowledge that my first-choice schools have an average acceptance rate of 2 freaking percent.* But hey, y'know, no pressure, if I wasn't going to be obsessing over that all night I'm sure it'd be something else.
__________
* Not, of course, that I have a backup plan. Well, I do, but it amounts to "move to Vermont, apprentice on a maple syrup farm, flip the bird at society's ideas of success, somehow buy a scarlet Dodge Charger." And this is not a plan so much as an indie movie.


Apropos of nothing, but it occurs to me that I've done most parts of my adolescence and adulthood out of order. I spent high school having a massive existential crisis, spent college being Serious and Studious and no fun at all, and only now am I beginning to feel an interest in Forging A Separate Identity For Myself™. I'm suddenly interested in dyeing my hair strange colors and going out for drinks and arguing stridently in public about politics, now that I am no longer in the environment where normal people express these urges. If the pattern of doing things at the wrong time continues, I will spend graduate school fighting a permanent hangover and start dating when I'm thirty. (Y)


Okay, time to go have find something for lunch. Possibly another rocket pop.

The Gmail is gone.

Why is the Gmail gone.

:(

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In other news, I had a dream my parents had another baby. You know, as fifty-odd-year-old parents with adult children are wont to do! I suspect this stems from my desire to have a little brother who is not the git I got stuck with, but that does not explain why the dreambaby was bright blue and had fish scales.

So. Naming a borderline-sociopathic malignant narcissist of a character Christian.

Entertainingly ironic? Heavy-handed? Likely to be (mis)interpreted as a jab at Christianity? Do you even associate the name "Christian" with the religion or is it just a name by now?

Inquiring minds want to know! It has the slightly-upper-class vibe I was looking for for the character and I like the irony, but I want it to be just a touch more subtle than a barrage of anvils.

"Wanna go on a beer run? I'll put on pants!"

"HI DUDES, thanks for the good wishes! PLAY TIME NOW OK BYE"

:D

Kitty I think it is cuddle times. Come here and cuddle.
Kitty.
KITTY.
Fine be that way I don't even like cats.


In a related story, Dog is now the size of a frigging brontosaurus. \o/

The diversity of one's vocabulary when discussing pop culture is inversely proportionate to the number of TV Tropes tabs you had open at two in the morning the night before.

Discuss.