katallison

Memo to self: Self, as you know perfectly well, now that you're old and decrepit the limit is two drinks per night. Two shall be thy limit, and neither three nor four shalt thou consume. And in particular, a beer followed by a gin and tonic followed by a Jameson's followed by another gin and tonic followed by a wobbly bike ride home and a nice big glass of wine before bed is RIGHT out.

*moan*

The blow-out last night was a party to celebrate (or, rather, mourn) the departure of my favorite co-worker, Smart Snarky Queer Boy, who is graduating and going off to start his real career. I shall miss him sorely--he'd gotten into the habit of dropping by my office every morning to regale me with his latest romantic misadventures, or spread gossip about what so-and-so (closet case from Central Admin) was up to at the bar last night, and he was fond of telling me I was the best boss he'd ever had, and he was in general a delight to have around. *sigh*

Anyway, despite the morning-after ouchiness of head and creakyness of body, I hauled ass up and out at 6:15 this morning, because I needed to get to the Farmer's Market before parking became impossible. I've really lost much of my pleasure in going to the F.M. these past few years; it's almost painfully crowded, and close to half the stalls don't even sell produce or food anymore, just lots of cheap crap jewelry and quasi-ethnic clothing and candles and knicknacks and assorted dreck. But I needed good red peppers and Japanese eggplant, which are hard to find elsewhere, so off I went.

And now, having consumed a gallon or so of coffee, I'm preparing one of my all-time favorite summer dishes, ( Sicilian Salad with Roasted Peppers and Eggplant. )

A few more vacation photos here. Outside it is thunderstorming fiercely, and while mooning over my photos, I remind myself that as much as I love the ocean and the fogbound Pacific Northwest coast, I also love my midwestern thunderstorms, and need not feel so wistful.

And I had an odd experience this evening while buying a few frippery items at Walgreens; the very young female clerk rung me up, handed me my receipt, did the usual "Thanks and have a good evening!", and then added, "And, uh, happy Mother's Day!"

I boggled a moment, trying to formulate an appropriate response -- "Thanks, but as a non-mother, I don't really have any special claim to the day"? Or just a cheery "You too!"? In the end, I nodded, smiled, and headed out the door. I certainly don't take any offense whatsoever at any kind sentiment aimed my way, but it just seemed like such an odd thing to wish someone. Perhaps she assumed that any woman twenty or thirty years her senior had of course reproduced, or perhaps she was merely complying with some corporate edict.

My line has always been that I've never for a moment regretted not having had children, and essentially that's true; I won't utter the traditional "I'd have been a *terrible* mother" because I think I'd actually have done a fairly decent job in the role, but I also know that I'd have felt rancorous thwarted regrets for all the things that having children would have kept me from doing or being. Oddly, though, my Life In Fandom has brought me occasional moments of ... hm. Well, every so often I contemplate a few of the much younger friends I've made in my fannish life (popfantastic would be one, and pearl_o another) and realize that, had I actually borne a child during that brief interlude in my twenties when my want-a-baby engines were revving, that child would be exactly the age of these formidable young women. And then I think how immensely cool it would be to have someone of such brain and character and delight in my immediate personal life, and to have had a hand in her or his making.

And then I reflect that it's a crapshoot and I could have ended up with a materialistic brat or a dullard and that in any event it's not all about *me* and my construing it that way shows my essential unfitness for the maternal role, and that actually I like the concept of friends much better than that of family.

Ah, the storm has passed, everything is peacefully dripping, and though it feels very early to my still-on-West-Coast-time brain and body, I should probably go get some sleep.

Oh my god am I sore today. I didn't even get to the gym, or do much of anything outside (on a perfectly glorious summerlike Saturday); what I *did* do was completely rearrange my bedroom, which involved:

1. Taking apart and hauling to the basement all the pieces of my old computer desk (big wooden slab resting on a 2-drawer file cabinet and a 4-drawer chest); this also involved the melancholy sorting-through of quantities of memorabilia stashed in the files and drawers (15-year-old love letters from long-dead relationships, notes for ancient X-Files stories I never wrote, photos of my trip to England with my mom back in '75 when she was--*ulp*--about the same age I am now, etc. etc. etc.) and vacuuming up huge wads of dust;


2. Taking down mini-blinds and hauling them out to the back deck to vacuum and swab off;


3. Completely emptying three large and filled-to-overflowing bookcases, vacuuming off all the incredibly dusty books and heaping them in boxes in the hall, and moving the (pretty damn heavy) cases to other spots in the room, also vacuuming up in the process the terrifyingly huge dustbunnies that had bred quietly behind them for the past decade;


4. Re-stocking all the books onto the shelves, sorting out in the process a large pile to sell or give away;


5. Moving my really damn big and heavy queen-sized iron-framed bed to the other side of the room;


6. Purging my clothes closet/dresser drawers, and accumulating two big bags of clothes to take to Goodwill;


7. Scraping up an ancient ossified deposit of cat barf (from my old cat who died *almost two years ago*, aaiieee) discovered in a secluded corner of the clothes closet behind some boxes;


8. Vacuuming and washing the floor, and vacuuming all the cobwebs from the ceiling corners;


9. Doing nine loads of laundry.

Continuing my musical explorations, I discovered that Great Big Sea and Mighty Mighty Bosstones are good energizing accompaniments for jobs of this nature. Also listened to with great pleasure: Death Cab for Cutie (Transatlantic), The Roches, Pulp. Perhaps my greatest musical find of yesterday, however, came courtesy of Mr. P., who'd been telling me about some radio show called "Little Steven's Underground Garage," the eponymous Steven being Steve Van Zandt, late of the E Street Band (and also featured as Silvio on the Sopranos). Anyway, he hosts a two-hour weekly radio show which Mr. P. had heard syndicated on a local station, but he'd found that it's also archived on and can be streamed from the Little Steven website. There's a lot of stuff on there, old and new, that I'd never heard of (Gluecifer? The Raveonettes?) along with classics like The Animals and Dick Dale, King of the Surf Guitar, and all in all, as Mr. P. says, "I haven't heard a single song on there that I didn't want to listen to all the way to the end."

Anyway, you can go here, click "Listen to the show on our jukebox," and when the jukebox comes up, click Playlist for a page that shows you what's on the current show and offers links to shows past. (Note that the "next track" button on the jukebox player doesn't take you to the next track but the next segment of the show, so if you're looking for a specific track, use the fast-forward button instead.)

I offer this up as a small bit of payback for all the fine folks who've shared musical suggestions with me. Rock on!

And now I'm going to go take a hot shower and soak my achey shoulder muscles. And later today, in a piece of self-indulgence wholly uncharacteristic of me, I'm going with my sister-in-law to a foofy spa and get a massage and facial and maybe even a pedicure! Self-indulgent, yes indeed, but I tell you what, after yesterday I feel deserving.

So. Got a call this morning from brother #1, about the dead car sitting in my garage. (For those who have been following the Kat dead car saga over many years, this is actually dead car #2, d.c. #1 finally having gotten towed to the junkyard earlier this year.)

Brother #1 is actually the titular owner of dead car #2--he gave it to me a bunch of years ago when dead car #1 originally died, but we never quite managed to get the title transfer accomplished, on account of the original title got lost, and the replacement title got held up because sister-in-law's name was different on the title than it is on the registration, and blah blah insanity, and the whole thing went in the mental box of "Stuff With Which I Cannot Presently Deal."

Anyway, he was calling to say "If you're not using dead car #2, how about we hand it off to brother #2, who is broke, unemployed, and without a vehicle of any kind?" To which I said "Halleluljah!!! If he's willing to get that thing out of my garage so I can actually use the garage for the *live* car, and also handle the title snafu which has made me insane, I will for my part continue paying the insurance for him until such time as he is again employed!"

The only downside in this heartwarming saga of familial automotive mutual aid would be the fact that it is currently five below zero outside, and Ye Bros. are proposing to show up in an hour or so to get going on this. I said, "Uh, I can tell you right now that NO WAY is that thing going to start. And since it's in the garage, we'll have to push it out into the alley to even be able to jump it. And it's COLD out there." To which my brother is all, "Hey, no problem, we can handle this!"

And I hope they can, but I just wish they'd handle it tomorrow when it's supposed to actually get above freezing. And also, when I'm not running against a midnight deadline trying to finish a story. Gronk.

(ETA: Score! They have listened to sweet sweet reason, and will be coming over tomorrow instead. When we could have freezing rain, but whatever. So, back to the damnable story...)

Holy crap. I'm 1,918 words into my dS Sekrit Santa story, and -- um -- there's a fair bit more to come (though what *is* there will likely be edited down, so who knows how long it'll end up). Golly. It's coming pretty easily, though, despite the fact that I discovered yesterday that the *one* episode I need to rewatch to verify certain points is on the *one* tape I can't find in this disaster area I laughingly call my house. Unfortunately, putting out the call for a copy might tip the identity of the story, once posted. Hmmm--Kalena, are you joining in our reindeer games? If not, can I hit you up for a tape?

In other news, I have successfully gotten the Firefox and Thunderbird updates installed and configured on all computers, and even (ta daaa!) finally managed to sort out the account info for my e-mail, so I am slowly switching everything over to my new address, kat at katallison.com. (I am nothing if not egomaniacal.) If you're someone who keeps an address book, you might want to make the change, but I'm certainly keeping the mrks.org addy alive as well, and will check it regularly.

I spare you all a grab-bag of other assorted blather, including the story of my incredibly depressing visit to my dad in the nursing home, the tale of last week's workplace warfare with the infuriating idiots in the athletics dept., and the completely pointless newsflash about falling down in the bathtub, with side notes on the decrepitude of the body and how very much I don't want to turn into the old lady who's Fallen and Can't Get Up. It is Sunday evening, the saddest evening of the week, the shades of dusk are already falling at 4:30 p.m., and I still have a ton of laundry to do and another thousand words to crank out. And dinner. There should be dinner in there somewhere, I suppose.