Haven't posted in a long time, and in fact, I haven't even read lj in a long time. I just read several days worth of posts. Wow. I'm behind. I have very little going on. Life is still in a not-terribly-good holding pattern. Everything is just very meh and work is terrible and my emotions are crazy, but I've just not had the brains to take much action about anything. I dunno, I don't even know what to say about it. I feel trapped.

On the plus side, I'll be in Michigan in a few days, which has a couple of anxieties of its own, but at least I have a chunk of time away from work. Not sure what else I'll be doing with people apart from the BBQ, though I'll be staying with Marv and Christa for a couple nights, which is a big yay!

( Of course I escape my real-life problems with WoW... )

I just placed the order for my phone. Yay!!! I went with the LG enV Touch, which is a new touchscreen model. I got both a soft and hard case for it, because I wasn't sure which one I would like better, and they were pretty cheap. My brother is thinking of upgrading his Verizon service to this same phone, so I can give him my extra case if he does that. Soon I shall be this.

( Guess I haven't babbled about WoW in a while... )

- I just made my last full car payment. I have about half a payment left and then I'm done. Big yay! I need new tires and an oil change. My ING has grown nicely in the time I've been ignoring it, and financially, stuff is pretty good (though I hate saying that, since it usually means Impending Doom).
- Somewhat related to that perhaps, and definitely related to the fact that my phone is now broken, I'm thinking of getting a real cell plan again. I definitely need something I can use for Twitterspam.
- Twitter is the tool of the devil.
- On my birthday, I passed someone collecting cash for a soup kitchen. But I didn't have any cash on me! I felt bad so I went home and did some new loans on kiva.org.
- I started watching "Stargate SG-1" at work while I'm working. I know I'm the last geek on earth to watch it, but I'm really digging it.
- Travel plans!!! I'm going to be in Michigan and wanting to see people July 22 or 23 (haven't decided yet) through July 27. Will definitely be at the Bru-Ha-Ha on the 25th, and will otherwise want to see people. I'm probably staying at the Marriott again, cos it was awesomesauce, even though they didn't have free wireless.

Woke up at around noon today. Grr. Even on my birthday my stupid body won't let me get more than five hours of sleep. :( I'm scheduled to work tonight but I'm thinking of calling in, both for the sleep deprivation factor and the DON'T WANNA WORK ON MY BERFDAY, DAMMIT factor.

I called my folks to talk to them while I opened the loot they sent, so they could hear my squeals of glee. My mom got me tons of makeup (OMG YAY MAKEUP) including more of my favorite lip gloss that tastes like donuts. Dad got me a really nice Mercury dime album, and my brother got me a full band 1940 dime. It's slabbed and graded, but unfortunately there is a problem with Mercury dimes getting toning spots after being slabbed, and this one has a spot on it that my brother didn't see in the ebay picture. Which is too bad because the reverse is perfectly brilliant white and beautiful with very prominent bands (they're the first things that wore off these coins in circulation), but the spot isn't too big, and hey, I learned about the toning issue! He was PISSED and very angry at the guy, who didn't mention the spot in the auction, but it happens, it's fine and it's my first Mercury dime so yay on that.

Then Dad got off the phone so The Mutant could sing me the Secret Birthday Song (tm).

I'm up and WoW is broken again, so I think I'm going to go hunt for cake.

Grabbed this from letiwolf

If there is one person or more on your friends list who makes your world a better place just because they exist, and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the Internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.

There is exactly one person reading this who I would have met without the internets, and that's alessar. Which is funny because he's sufficiently geeky for us to have met online somewhere, but we didn't; we met when while working at the law school. (And omg alessar does admissions feel like a million years ago or what?!) Everybody else I care about, every friend either shallow or close, everyone I ever dated, every happiness and every broken heart, is either someone I directly met online or my interwebs-related jobs, or someone I met through someone I met online.

I'm so in love with Stephen Colbert this week. But why is it that when they put media people in fighter jets like that, they don't tell them DO NOT EAT FOR AT LEAST 12 HOURS BEFORE THE FLIGHT, SERIOUSLY. Dave Barry did the same bit several years ago, and he got sick too.

I started watching Conan after he took over The Tonight Show. He's hilarious! I wish I'd been watching him all along. I wonder if his older stuff is on hulu.com.

I'm still being pretty slacktackular about all the things I'm supposed to be doing, but... Meh.

Kurt had some surgery this week and is basically a zombie right now. They cut his head open and took some stuff out (tonsils and nose meat and stuff). His mom came up to look after him for a few days, but she's going home tomorrow. It sucks, because she's a real sweetheart, just really nice and normal. She says Kurt is in a lot of pain and his throat feels like there's daggers in there. Poor guy.

( Really boring WoW stuff here )

There wasn't a TON of it, but there were just enough of those racist antiques to jar Erik and me both. I know there is a market for it even among some black folks, and I'm sure there is an official name for this type of collectible but I don't know what it is. It ranged from the rotund maid Mamie type of stuff, to overtly offensive and disgusting things like a monkey head ashtray with horribly stylized black facial features. Ugh. Also I was disturbed by one seller who had Nazi antiques, *and* Confederate antiques, *and* KKK antiques. God damn I hate white people.

There was a guy there selling actual honest-to-God CARD CATALOG cabinets, like libraries used to have before Al Gore invented this series of tubes. They were way expensive but my inner geek wanted them so bad. Erik was drooling over them; I told him the little drawers could probably be hacked to hold his ten bazillion CCG cards fairly well. We nostalgiaed about how cool libraries used to be. I also just turned "nostalgia" into a verb. I blame the internet.

There was one guy selling antique medical equipment. I shoulda picked something up for theshunter :)

EDIT to add one additional amusing bit of Erik stupidity because it amuses me to mock him: He had this weird obsession with opening things and rubbing the sharp end of sharp things on his hand to see how sharp they were. It was really hilarious. Every box, little boxes and bigger cabinets, had to be opened. Every cool sword had to be removed from the scabbard and the blade run gently across his hand. I think he was pissing people off, actually, because he was treating the place like a toy store and wanting to play with everything. At the antique medical stuff booth, the guy had, uh, I don't know what you call it but it's like a pair of glasses with a magnifying glass thingy hanging a couple inches in front of the eyes, which I assume was used by doctors examining stuff, or perhaps surgeons sawing off people's body parts. You'd recognize it if you saw it. But he remarked how it would be cool for larping steampunk stuff, and he took them out of the case AND PUT THEM ON HIS ACTUAL HEAD. Did I mention this was an antique fair? I did? Okay just checking.

Geek bellydance? This has tishalro written ALL over it!

Woo, Dollhouse renewed!

I got nothing else going on, except pondering some big scary life change stuff; just pondering, no action yet. I've been kind of grumpy at WoW and didn't play much this week. I'm in theory going to see Em and Eric next weekend, so yay on that. I've spent a ridiculous amount of money on girly makeup stuff in the last week or so. It's not that I don't have the money, it is just probably money that would have been better saved. On the other hand, I bought two makeup kits that I've wanted for MONTHS, so maybe if I've wanted something that long and not lost interest, it's okay to splurge.

So I picked up this laptop case thing at Target. I love it, it is exactly what I want for an around-the-house kind of case. But...my laptop is juuuuust barely too wide to fit in the case lengthwise. I can put it in sideways of course, but then I lose a lot of the protection aspects of having a molded case. Because I end up taking my laptop between my bedroom and the living room kind of a lot, I love this kind of case. It is accessible and I don't have to load and unload a bag, but it keeps everything together neatly. Has anyone seen another brand of case like this? Molded, hard sides, open at the top, designed to be stood up on the floor, but fits a 16" laptop? Belkin only makes this size, they don't have a bigger one.

Still feeling meh and blah. Felt ooky Friday night, head hurt and brain felt weird and my stomach hurt, so I got off the computer (SERIOUSLY, I TOTALLY DID) and just rested and chilled and watched tv all night. I'm feeling better than that now, but still not great. I'm thinking of getting a window air conditioner for my tiny tiny bedroom, since it is on the south side of the house and it is already getting hot in there during the day when I should be sleeping.

( Spoilery Dollhouse stuff here )

Stupid WoW thing is done. Ugh. I got really really lucky. Thank God that's over. It made me very grumpy and brought out a kinda bad side of me. I took a break and went to the grocery store, where there was Parking Space Drama. I was heading to a space and someone came from the other direction also wanting the same space. She put on her blinker, but it's not like blinker shows some kind of parking space ownership, and I was closer, so I took it anyway. Normally I'd be like, meh, whatever, it's a parking spot, I'll get the next one. But part of me needed a freaking VICTORY at SOMETHING. The other driver yelled at me but her accent was too heavy for me to understand. Meh. I get tired of always being the rational, reasonable, mature, nice one. I want to be an uberbitch once in a while.

Kurt has this weird obsession with getting the driveway parking spot, so Erik and I have to park in the street. It's not a huge deal because we only get one spot in the driveway so two of us will always have to park in the street, but he bolts out the door from work at 7:00 exactly to leave before anybody else. So on my nights off, I always move my car to the driveway so he can't get it. I acknowledge this is petty and bitchy, but annoying Kurt is really really fun.

And it can stop raining any day now. The lawn is going to start hiding small jungle animals before long.

I woke up way too early again today. I couldn't get back to sleep, so I got on WoW and pounded out some attempts at my AV achievement.

( WoW stuff here, kinda rambly, definitely QQ, one naughty word )

I'm mostly breathing better now, though I probably ought to go to a doctor. Stupid allergies are stupid. I did watch some tv, and here are my non-spoiler reactions:

Dollhouse: Z O M G. Things I Did Not See Coming for $1000, Alex?

Heroes: Still sucks less than Lost, but I'm not thrilled with that resolution.

Lost: Die in a fire.

( WoW stuff here )

I had this nagging feeling that, when I got my tax refund, I'd end up with some big impending expense. So I shouldn't have been so surprised when I went in to get my yearly car safety inspection and ended up with $750 in repair bills. Alas. Good thing I didn't put my tax refund on my consolidation loan.

My allergies have been driving me crazy. Stupid pollen. I left work early on Tuesday because I'd barely slept and I couldn't breathe, which was making it hard to concentrate. It rained a little today but not enough. Breathing is mostly better now but I'm wondering if I should go see a doctor and ask for asthma drugs or something.

Thursday - I already posted, but basically I got in and collapsed in a lump in my awesome hotel room bed and didn't do much productive.

Friday - Drove around a little and just looked at stuff. Stuff pretty much looks the same. Had lunch with my sophomore year roommate, Betty, who I haven't seen in over 10 years. It was really great to see her, because we were very very close but we lost touch. Then back to the hotel briefly and then dinner with alessar at Mark's Midtown Coney Island. They weren't the best coneys I've had in my lifetime, but they were yum and fed my need for coney. Then we went back to my hotel, where nobody wanted to hang out with me (*sadface*) so we just chatted and watched Dollhouse. Erik's brother dropped by to pick up the gargantuan computer I was passing off between them, since Erik just bought a new one.

Saturday - There is a coney I used to go to near the hotel, but it was closed when I wanted breakfast. I hit Ram's Horn instead, and had a cheese and potato omelet covered in sausage gravy. Nom nom nom. Then I drove down to Adrian to see Marv and Christa. I greeted Christa with a hug, and her littlest daughter (who I've never met before) was standing there and immediately stuck up her arms at me, all like, WHERE MY HUG AT, BITCH? We had lunch and there was hilarity and chaos and awesome, and they also showed me through their burned-out house, which was creepy. We went to WalMart because Christa wanted a pimped-out toaster and we experienced Real Life WalMart Drama when a very high-quality mother informed her children that she was divorcing their father. While shopping for shoes. At Walmart. Then I went back to my hotel and napped for a bit. My body did NOT want to get out of bed, so I was a little late for the Smithees. I drove by way of the Big House, where construction makes me sad; stupid luxury boxes are stupid. There was lots of really painful movie stuff at the Smithees and a huge turnout and it was fun. There were many many awesome people there. Pizza Hizzay afterwards, which was like 95% fun, and the other 5% was amusing in its own way.

Sunday - Didn't sleep as much as I would have wanted, but slowly got my stuff together, hit Kroger for some Faygo, cursed Kroger for not having diet Rock and Rye in 2-liters (but yay@Redpop, which is better anyway), then headed back to Virginia. Within three seconds of walking in the door to the house, Kurt was already pouncing on me with questions. Erik wasn't much better; it's 90+ degrees, I'm dripping with sweat, I've been sitting in a car for nine hours, my feet hurt like whoa, my arms are full of various bags and things, and he decides that halfway to the door is the time to tell me in the least-concise way possible that he is getting the part to fix the lawnmower Tuesday. GRRRR, boys=stupid.

After several hours of sleep and a shower, I feel much less GRRRR. Currently playing WoW and doing the late not-Easter holiday. This will be the first holiday meta I actually finish.

My laptop was scanned in at the local FedEx facility Saturday, with the comment "package not due for delivery." It is HERE, they could deliver it NOW. I could cry! Hopefully they're just holding it over the weekend.

( wow stuff is wow )

My laptop left the sweatshop and is on its way to me. YAY!!

Spent most of tonight on WoW, since the new patch came out. While many things and mods and stuff are broken, dual spec is so freaking fantastic I can't stand it. Except now I have no gold and I still have to buy glyphs. But, dude, as a priest I did dailies on my own today (without dualboxing with my warlock to do the damage.) It was awesome. Currently fishing; no turtle mount yet, but I did the new fishing daily and it was neat. And I didn't mention it, but I got my Chef title yesterday! The RNG refuses to give me any great gear, but I guess it will deign to give me a silly title.

Dad called me an hour or so ago. They're heading back to Florida (they stayed last night in Myrtle Beach). He had a medical thing come up, and while it doesn't sound too serious, it's something that would have made further travel inconvenient. He felt really bad and hoped I could go back on my time off, but I told him no worries, I'm just gonna stay home anyway, I have to use the time eventually. I'm sad that I don't get to see them, but things happen. Mom has been looking forward to this trip for a long long time, and he said she was really sad about it. It's tough to put all these plans in place and then have them derailed. Dad says they'll try to come visit me again some later point in time. I think I'm going to try to visit them maybe in June, before it gets too godawful hot.