...are getting out of hand. The Terry Pratchett row has not only spilled onto the next shelf, but that shelf is fighting back. I can't fit anymore there, but I also don't want to break up what organization I've manged to create. I don't want to buy another bookshelf, but I fear it may come to that before too much longer.
I try not to take myself too seriously. I know that I'm basically a twit in the general scheme of things, but I have an Education, a Salaried Position, and an Interest in th
It never fails; I'm always the first person of my acquaintance to catch any free-floating strain of cold or flu virus. In fact, sometimes the first sign I have that the latest virus is loose is that I get sick again. This happens three or four times a year, and this last week. By now I've quit bothering to stop work or chores or anything really. I'd never get anything done if I let a little thing like the flu shut me down. Only once in the last couple years did I actually have to take a break, a
I quite thoroughly botched the Khayyam story, which I've tentatively titled "Happily Ever After." Oh well. I will finish it, because I want to see what happens next more than anyone, and I can't find out until I've finished what happens this time. Next time, I'll need to write a more humorous one. I tend to write one funny Khayyam story for every serious one, but so far none of the humorous ones have been published. It's a bit sad, but oh well. "The Road Not Taken" is the next anthology theme, s
My coworkers have learned it is best that I am steered away from real coffee. They at first, as most people do, thought my habit of drinking decaf to be a bit silly at best and counter-productive at worst. There was a time when I would have agreed with them. Of course, that was before the worst parts of puberty had really set in for me, and my body chemistry worked quite a bit differently. At that point, coffee relaxed me.
Now if I so much as smell caffeine I get wired like a five-year-old t
It continually surprises me when people, when they first meet me, take my generally sunny disposition and smiling manner as an indication that I'm also nice. This is not true. I may have been nice at one point, and I act nice when I don't have anything better to do, but I'm not terribly good at it. But people ignore the odd moments by and large, until something happens that they can't ignore.
Case in point: a few weeks ago, I went into a coffee shop. I'd just done my grocery shopping, and si
One of my cousins used to work in a strip bar. Actually, two of my cousins on opposite sides of my family have, and a great-aunt was a whore, but I digress. The first cousin told me about how she had two coworkers, which we will call Lucy and Emily. Emily was a very pretty, attractive woman, and Lucy was, while lively, not anywhere near Emily in looks. Yet night after night, it was Lucy that had the bigger roll of tips to count. My cousin was extremely curious as to why this was, because she dec
It is what we call earthquake weather here in Los Angeles. Well, not quite proper earthquake weather, the wind is not as still as a celebrity's last photograph, but as we did have a small shake down here this morning, it is hard to quibble. I've noticed that just about everyone who writes about Southern California uses the phrase "earthquake weather" at one point or another, so I thought it best to get it out of my system early so I wouldn't be bothered by it in my later years. I tend not to ass
In a day or two, depending on your location, I will have been a member of this site for two years. It seems strange, that it has been two years. On the one hand, since I have done so little here, it feels like it has been hardly any time at all. On the other, since I have checked this site near daily during a a time when my entire world has come apart and brought back together, so that I am now quite a different person than I was when i first joined, I can hardly believe it has only been two yea
As I've said, here (I think) and elsewhere, I am a fan of blogs. I don't care so much for the idea of me running one, but where we are anyways. I'm told it is the fate of all English majors, so I don't feel too bad about it. I am a fan of the idea of blogging, and I especially like reading other people's blogs. My favorite sort of blog is a stream of short stories, but just about any blog will do for me, provided it is well written and there is something to interest me. A good deal of the time I
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have been forced to stop eating take-out for lunch and now have to eat my own cooking. As I'm a fairly good cook, this isn't exactly an ordeal, but the clean-up promises to be. You see, I can start cooking just fine, but it is a little difficult to stop once I'm going. This weekend (my job is three days on, three days off, making my weekend a roving holiday of sorts that bears no particular relationship to the weeks of other people) for instance, I decid
I just across this on Kevin(afriendlyface)'s blog, and thought it intriguing enough to try it out for myself. Especially since, towards the end, I had an idea.
IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're
Oh man is this thing spoilerific. Seriously, don't read more if you haven't read the book.
I finished the seventh book yesterday. There were some things, some events in the plot that did not please me, but that was bound to happen, I suppose. The body count was impressive, and Rowling was bound to work her way someone I liked. That it was my two favorite characters in the entire series was, naturally, bad luck. Actually, I was surprised to see Colin Creevy in Hogwarts at all. I thought for s
Edit: Wrote this a couple days ago. Forgot to publish it. Oops.
In colonial Latin America, there was a pretty extensive caste system in place based on one's skin color, and what it implied about the person's parentage. If you google it, there are some pretty specific categories, where one Black, one White, and two Native American grandparents made one a Wolf, and so on. It was also partially a breeding experiment using people and slaves. The most haunting image I saw had a little girl, with
Some history about me. I have told stories, wrote stories, since I first learned to print. My sisters, who are farily good writers themselves, encouraged this fascination of mine. Just around August the year before I turned 11, I started writing poetry. By the Valentine's Day two weeks before my birthday, I had sold several of my poems to my male classmates that wanted to prove to their dates that they were willing to go the extra mile in originality. I didn't have my own date, but I did make fi
Warning: I am a Harry Potter fanatic, and my fervor has only gotten worse as July 21 draws closer. This post reflects that.
With nothing much else to do today, I went down to Irvine and saw "Harry Potter" at the IMAX theater. It's been quite some time since I saw an IMAX film, so I had a good time. I'm afraid the Harry Potter movies may spoil me, since the scenes flick by so fast I barely notice time has past at all.
Rather than review the movie, which other people can do with greater ab
Singing is something I only do when there are no witnesses. I actually had a decent singing voice at one point, but puberty took care of that, and I never took any lessons to modulate the baritone I wound up with.
However, every once in a while, my dream self will inexplicably break out into song. By the light of morning, the poetry isn't all that, but the fact that it ever comes that easilly is something I marvel at. I mention this because it happened a couple nights ago. It was a full two-
I want to start by saying I never thought I'd create a blog. I held back for years, even though I genuinely liked reading the blogs of friends and strangers. But not me, I was determined not to indulge. I created what I call a notebook for my rough drafts, but that was as far as I was willing to go. It even made sense, since I often found myself away from my computer, but rarely long separated from the internet. My writing class homework was now a breeze to accomplish, where before actually took
