al_jazi

Considering I felt much the same way last year, it's not as if I really think the New Year will bring True Change. 

But my brain feels better when some kind of arbitrary "marker" goes by, so I'll continue to wait impatiently for this stupid year to be over.

And, no, things aren't really that bad for me right now.  And I've even been in a pretty good mood for most of the day, but just now a lot of things hit at once, and all of the various sad, angry, grumpy, discontented, frightened feelings all jostled around to the top.

I'm missing all those who are gone, and all that I will never know about them.

My love to you all.
-jazi

The attempt to clean my apartment (other than just general cleaning and the clearing of space for guests) always involves a certain amount of strategy, as I have 5-6 rooms, and enough stuff to fill twice that.

This week I've been tackling "Bryan's Room" (it *does* house Bryan's clothes, and many of his action figures/toys, but the majority of the bulk in there is my toys and fabric/craft projects).  It is now Thursday, and it would take an expert to see any change, other than the fact that the living room is now full of boxes, too.  I've been going through the closet, and making up a(nother) box for Goodwill, putting aside some items for eBay, and wanting, more than anything, to spend the day sewing instead!

In the meantime, I'm recording from tv a bunch of different exercise shows; the WiiFit is lovely and helpful, but variety is good, especially now that the weather is getting ickier.  I prefer dance workouts (because I find normal exercise REALLY boring), but when I'm trolling cable for programs, I can't help but try out other things!

I'm also trying to shake the effect of a couple of nights of truly horrifying dreams.  I don't *feel* much stress when I'm awake, but I've been subject to random fits of inability to move, and my body is doing very strange things, so I know the stress/anxiety are there.  Sigh. 

I'm listening to unidentified Arab music that I found in a dumpster.  It's great; I'll have to see if our music identifying program can recognize it!  (Katie; it's the same source as "TJ Sad Mix").

Wow, that seemed like a very short fall season this year! 

I've been finding it hard to stay motivated these past couple of weeks; or, rather, I'm finding it very easy to be distracted into unnecessary side projects while I've been home. 

But today will be different!!! Really!!!  The last of the boxes I mailed myself from California has arrived and (mostly) been incorporated into the apartment, I've got 2 "new" musicals to listen to (Martin Guerre & Bounce), I've called in again to the temp agency, and I'm actually feeling kinda jazzed to do dishes and clean...and if I run out of that, I have about a million media projects to work on!

We'll see how long my resolve lasts!  Kurosaki Ichigo, be my muse!!!

Hope everyone has fun at Crown!

I walked to and from the local Post office (about 4 miles round trip), reading Gaskell's novel [yes, I read while walking *all* the time, and I never run into ANYTHING], and came across some interesting things:

(Penguin classic edition 1986: p 70)
“From time to time he met the leaders of the scientific world; odd-looking, simple-hearted men, very much in earnest about their own particular subjects, and not having much to say on any other.”  (19th century geeks!)

(p. 75)When the younger son of Mrs. Hamley shows her affection, she "used laughingly to allude to the fable of the lap-dog and the donkey; so thereafter he left off all personal demonstration..."

It occurred to me that I haven't read Aesop's fables in a very long time, so I found this retelling (along with what looks like 3 different morals?)

from http://oaks.nvg.org/faa.html#donlapdog

The Donkey and the Lapdog

A MAN had a donkey and a pretty Maltese lapdog. The donkey was left in a stable where there was plenty of oats and hay to eat. But the lapdog was fondled by the master and allowed to play with him. And when the man dined out, he would bring back titbits and throw them to the dog when it came running and rushing and wagging his tail.
       The donkey on the other hand, had much work to do in grinding the corn-mill and in carrying wood from the forest or burdens from the farm. He often groaned over his own hard fate and contrasted it with the luxury and idleness of the lapdog, till one day he broke his cords and halter and galloped into his master's house. Frisking around his master, he kept kicking up his heels without measure. He also tried to jump about his master as he had seen the lapdog do, but broke the table and smashed the dishes on it. Then he tried to lick his master, and jumped on his back.
       The servants heard these things and noticed their master was endangered. They quickly helped him and drove out the donkey to his stable with kicks and clubs tied him up in the manger again.
       As the donkey returned to his stall beaten nearly to death, he moaned:
       "I have brought it all on myself - It should have been enough for me to toil with my companions and not wish to emulate the little lapdog!"
      ♦ Keeping very still will not always be a cause for serious regret.
      ♦ Not to venture beyond our situation when it is good, may at times be the best alternative.
      ♦ Frisking about could ultimately lead to ruin and its remorse.

That last moral is going to get me, I'm afraid.


Now I'm going to put my feet up for awhile; I am *so* out of shape!

So, besides reading Ender-related books, It's been a busy summer for reading!

I started (or, really, continued) a list of all the books I've ever read, and that's prompting me to re-read things I haven't read in years, like Pamela C. Dean's _Secret Country_ series;
_This Star Shall Abide_ (one of Sylvia Louise Engdalhl, whose works I collected in trade paperbacks as a teenager)

For new books this summer, I've read:

_House of Many Ways_ (Diana Wynne Jones; a "sequel" to _Howl's Moving Castle_, along with _Castle in the Air_, both of which are excellent)
_Wives & Daughters_ (Elizabeth Gaskell, whom I learned about from the gorgeous BBC adaptations of some of her work)
_Bleach_, volume 26 (Tite Kubo; such a great anime)
_Merchant's War_ (Charles Stross, 4th in the "Merchant Princes" series. I'm really enjoying his other books, too!)
_The Constant Gardener_ (John Le Carre; excellent; I mean to read some of his Cold War-era spy novels, too)
_Death Comes As the End_ (Agatha Christie wrote a murder mystery set in ancient Egypt; lots of fun!)
_The Youngest Science; Notes of a Medicine Watcher_ (Lewis Thomas, who also wrote _Lives of a Cell_; a history of medicine as seen in his own family & life; great stories!
_The Case of the Peder@st's Wife_ (Clare Elfman)  Not a great novel, but interesting slant on the Oscar Wilde family.

Plus I've been shopping at garage sales, used book stores, & the Friends of the Library store...should be fun!

And now, away from the books, and back to the managing of my cascading piles of stuff!

I was reading one of last month's film gossip magazines from last month (_Filmfare_), and was reading the movie reviews, when I came across a review of _Suno Na...Ek Nanhi Aawaz_, a sort of a _Look Who's Talking_ knockoff, only worse. 

My favorite quotes:

"To watch Tara Sharma pat her stomach...and having a conversation with what can only be called the world's most annoying foetus, is not exactly a cinematic treat."

"The foetus' voice grates on your nerves...the film does more for family planning than any government induced plan."

"The men in Tara's life want to marry her, but are put off by her 'already pregnant' state.  We were put off by her sandpaper infused voice that goes on and on, and we wished the ghastly doll she wanders around with (yes, she talks to the doll too!) comes alive like Chucky from the horror movies and kills them all."

and it ends with calling it a "Cure for anyone wanting to have babies"!!!


Yes, I've been offline for awhile; it's been a rather busy/complicated couple of weeks.  WW was lots of fun, although somewhat fly-infested, and if I can manage to catch up on sleep soon, I'll be much happier!

I watched _The Devil & Miss Jones_ from 1941, which was adorable.  Tycoon goes undercover at a department store where the employees are trying to organize, and learns a few things from the people he's spying on!  The disclaimer at the beginning went, "Dear Richest Men in the World:  We made up this character in the story out of our own heads.  It's nobody, really.  The whole thing is make-believe.  We'd feel awful if anyone was offended.  Thank you, The Author, Director & Producer.  P.S. Nobody sue!  P.S.  P.S  Please!"

It also shows Coney Island, which in the film is so crowded that when they're on the beach, constantly bumping up against the other bathers/holidaymakers!  Yuck!  I really, really hope it's an exaggeration!

I just got home from an afternoon of errands downtown!

I really shouldn't have run off to Big Brain right after donating blood!  It's only a 15-20 minute walk, but I'm way out of shape, so I was dizzy, I could feel myself getting cold, then hot, then cold again, and broke out in a sudden sweat.  Freaky!

But at least now I have the final volume of _Fruits Basket_!!! (it was good)

Time to start packing again, and to watch the end of the Alfred Hitchcock film _Rope_. 

And transfer an ancient audio cassette into a mp3 disc. (It's someone else's childhood tape, mostly tv theme songs and a couple of musical soundtracks and 70s songs)

But first, maybe a little lie-down and some juice!

One of the joys & pains of temping; the sudden day-you're-at-home-without-planning-it!

It's really OK; I have a lot to do this weekend before WW, and it meant I could spend the morning re-reading _Children of the Mind_ (Orson Scott Card; the 4th in the _Ender's Game_ series).  I didn't remember reading it (I think I had stuck in my head that the "main story" was a trilogy), so it was almost like reading it for the first time!  I've really enjoyed this series, although it can be painful and uncomfortable as well as uplifting!

On a lighter note, yesterday's Get Fuzzy punchline (subject line) just killed me. It's such a random comic; not always funny, but I do have a certain nerdy love for comics like it (and Pearls Before Swine) that will discard everything in favor of silly wordplay!  Plus, kitties!

http://comics.com/get_fuzzy/

I caught sight of a movie on cable that has baby Colin Firth and baby Rupert Everett!  From 1984!  I must see it!  (Bryan's been kind enough to drop it onto our Netflix queue).  In the meantime, I will content myself with early (pre-Raymond Burr) Perry Masons from the 1930s.  They are much goofier than I remember the Perry of the 50s and 60s being. 

I'm so proud.  I'm not always great at recycling and being environmentally responsible (piles of plastic mass-market toys?  maybe...), but today, while waiting for phone calls, I was handsewing a 16th Century Persian gown, I ran out of the navy-blue thread I was using, went through all of the short lengths of thread that were loose in my sewing box, and was stuck...

Until I thought of the other project I had brought!  I was picking apart a skirt I bought at a Goodwill in California, and it occurred to me that it is blue, also!  So I just finished picking it apart, and have used the thread salvaged from that in my new gown!

I was put in mind of the Edward Gorey limerick:

An indefatigable woman named Bavel,
Had often occasion to travel;
On the way she would sit
And furiously knit
And on the way back she'd unravel

I, of course, would like to think my activities not *quite* so futile, but taking the long view, aren't they all?

What with the Franken & Palin news, it's a very happy 4th!

I'm researching a dress I bought at a Goodwill in California, unmarked; I think it is vintage late 1930s; it's not something I would ever wear, as I would look a ninny in peach, but it was also something that I couldn't leave behind in a Goodwill.

This may have something to do with why my apartment is crowded with all kinds of bizarre things!

But back to the research.  It is Soooooo hard to spend an hour paging through pictures of pretty dresses!

Now go out there and celebrate your freedom from Norm Coleman and Sarah Palin!

...maybe not.  I'm looking forward to being more "findable" on the Intertubes, and to getting updates from my Near and Dear online; but it's anyone's guess whether I'll be any good at updating on LJ...

In spite of being only sporadically employed at the moment, I'm being cruelly tempted to purchase things on AbeBooks and from Nehaflix; there's a terrible, TERRIBLE book of "true crime" that my Mom used to read on our road trips to Big Basin campground in Northern California, which memories I associate with mild car-sickness and gruesome details, which I only know as _3X3_.  She gave it away, but I can get it cheaply...The only story I remember much about, I strongly suspect is about Belle Gunness, a famous "black widow" from the end of the 19th century.  I'm very curious how this book will read now that I'm an adult!

And I've a backlog of media from India that is calling to me.  Back issues of Filmfare, _Dehli 6_, _Jaane Tu...Ya Jaane Na_, to name a few things!  And of course, a movie-watching gathering should be planned!

I just got back from my most recent visit to my hometown in California; everything was still in bloom, and I got a few good walks in, as well as some great talks with my mom & dad (and my sister, who was also home for a visit), and lots & lots of garage sale-ing and thrift-store shopping.  I'm sure I'll find room for everything at home.  Heh.

I wish everyone a fun 4th!