Song of the chameleon

"I am, whatever you say I am. If I wasn't, then why would I say I am? In the paper, the news, everyday I am. I don't know it's just the way I am." --Eminem, "The Way I Am" The Marshall Mathers LP

When I say that I love Darkside because I like the person I am when I'm around him, I'm not kidding. Seems like everyone expects you to be someone, something, and each and every one of them expects something a little different.

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Link from Guide Dog Aunt

Exploding whale!

Loins, girding

votania's family birthday party is tomorrow (well, technically, today) and I'm preparing.

We always prepare for these things as if for battle, and this time's no different. I'll be wearing good pants and a fancy top. I normally don't go much for jewelry other than the usual, but I'll be wearing two stone chip necklaces -- the one with the black stones that's Marah's, and the one with the little garnet pebbles that's for garnetdagger. (That's generally an unsafe combo, guys.) I'm also bringing plenty of water, for the car trip.

Naomi's to stay far under, for this one, unless the remaining geek uncle shows.

Tomorrow morning, we probably need to give Little Fayoumis the role model lecture: "Even though you think your cousins are cool, it is bad for you to act like them. Even though they are cool to you, sometimes the way they act is mean and grabby. We know you are a good kid, and we do not want you to start doing bad things. So even though you think your cousins are cool, and you see them doing stuff, and you see them doing stuff that you know you are not allowed to do, and getting away with it, do not do that. Act like Mommy or me or Marx instead."

Minor clarification, for the newcomers: LF's paternal unit

marxdarx has no genetic relationship to Little Fayoumis.

The sperm donor's whereabouts are currently unknown, and have been for approximately the last seven years. Given the character of said male, this is quite possibly a near-optimal solution. (Best might be known whereabouts, and said location being a good long ways off. Either that, or maybe he could have changed... and the amazing flying ass-monkeys might return, too.)

Little Fayoumis's two best genetic relatives are still his mom and his grandfather. Let's hear it for the kind of relatives that people want to be related to!

SURVIVORS!

We survived the party. We were early; they were late.

No snake yet.

That Woman is evidently modeling, for $50 a photo or something. She says it's scrubs she's modeling. We're suspecting that she's going to be wearing a smile, and perhaps some jewelry.

Jewel brought along a little friend, a little older than she is, and they were exclusive and ignored Little Fayoumis. I called him over and told him how it was, and then he played nicely with Jade and Krystal, playing peekaboo in the unoccupied booths in our area. (Buffet brunch. Large party. People gave us breathing room.)

Attendees: our family group (votania, marxdarx, Little Fayoumis, azurelunatic), votania's parents (Grandma & Grandpa), That Woman & co. (That Woman, Jewel, Jade, Krystal, and Jewel's friend Dolly), Great-Grandma, Great-Aunt, and votania's hacker-uncle.

It was quite the party. LF got a motorcycle, racecars, a lunchbag, and a Harry Potter shirt, along with birthday money that got him some cool dance lights (a disco ball with spotlight, a revolving red light, and one of those multicolor spinning ball lights). There were probably a few other things, but that's all I noticed.

Afterwards, we split off from the main party and hit Walmart. I got some fabric (10 yards of very cheap black nubby knit to practice pants on, 6 yards black netting, and 4 yards each burdundy-purple netting, navy blue netting, and black slinky stuff) and another cordless phone, since the main one keeps wandering off places. Little Fayoumis was antsy, after we'd helped him pick out his party lights. He wanted to get home to play with his racetrack.

We were going to hit Lee Lee's right after that, but marxdarx was drooping in the heat, and we had to get him home. So we're here a bit to cool off, and then we girls will head back out...

For those of you who can't stand my style...

lj_nifty has the instructions on how to override S2 styles in talkread/talkpost right here.

Thank you, drive through.

Also: patience rign

Noticed my patience ring, which I've had since the spring of 1998 when we went to the AcaDeca state finals in Anchorage, has broken -- the hematite has come out.

More on the significance of this later.

If appropriate, I want to get it re-set with garnet. Within a month, hopefully. We'll see.

But look forward to interesting things happening soon. Like, within three weeks.



swallowtayle, recall that hematite ring that River slipped on my left hand ring finger, the one that broke when I was whacking a ketchup bottle at Denny's having dinner after work hanging out with BJ???

onyxrising: roaches

Dearheart, I haven't the foggiest what roaches hate. Our apartment had ants, and cinnamon, cayenne pepper, and ammonia were splashed about like nobody's business. Of those, ammonia seemed to do the trick, especially when poured down the anthill. (Yes, we were evil, and pissed as fuck.)

Other than that, I was recommended boric acid, which is a roach poison.

Necklaces...

I finished the beading for the first necklace. I have a scheme worked out whereby I can string these two necklaces together into one, and yet wear them individually, and it involves a little adapter-doohickey made of clasps -- one clasp to hold the whole shebang on, and two extra on each side to bind to each of the necklaces. Thus: ===88>-oo-<88=== where each pair of circles is a clasp, the straight lines represent either strands of beading, or connections between clasps.

The first necklace is breathtaking. It's in terribly subtle colors of transparent quartz and silver, alternating 4mm silver spheres (well, silver-clad plastic, to be replaced with actual silver at some later date) with rectangular stones.

... o [blue] o [pink] o [blue] o [pink] o [blue] o (clear glass teardrop) o [blue] o [pink] o [blue] o [pink] o [blue] o ...

It's choker-length, and I anticipate that I will likely wear it to my wedding, should I have one.

It has yet to have the clasp attached, because I'm really lousy at doing things like that.


The next necklace up is going to be orders of magnitude more complex, but very fun. I'm seeing rose quartz, amythyst, fluorite, snowflake obsidian, sodalite, and other different beads all put into a multi-stranded chaote's dream of a necklace. Mmm, fluorite.

Music

I am I the only one who hears Duran Duran's "Come Undone" incessantly in their head, especially when reading youngwizards the books?

Girls' Evening Out

votania and I hit the Arizona Mills Mall hard. There we were, two females ages 23-28 inclusive, arriving in a white convertible sans air conditioning in the Arizona summer. We stopped to pay our respects to the Lady of Slightly-Used Water, then hit Spencer's. Ahh, pretty lights and amusing toys and shiny silver jewelry. We moved on to Black Market Minerals. High-energy, going zoom! through all the pretty rocks and the crowd in the store.

We got briefly shopped out, and went to have supper in the food court. I waxed enthusiastic about technology over bad Chinese. Note to self: when they can't even claim genuine orange chicken, and instead have to call it "orange flavored", don't get it. Ever. That shit used more vinegar than orange. Now, if it had been called "vinegar chicken", it would have been fine. But it wasn't.

We had to go back to Black Market so I could get more beads for the necklace I was contemplating. It had better be one hell of a necklace, because I dropped far too much money on it... So far, though, the first part has turned out better than I'd dreamed.

We got really shopped-out then, and wandered back to the car, making noise about all sorts of things. I'm going to try my hand at pants, and if I get good, then I'll attempt making trendy pants for Little Fayoumis as schoolwear. I have an amusing mental image of even having tags embroidered up: "Azzwear", or something similar. Though that might not go over too well if there's a strict dress code...

We drove home with the top down. There was lightning, and we avoided that. It was pretty. A FedEx (I think) plane flew above us just as we drove past the airport. The radio was on loud, and we sang along with great cheer on the freeway. The sun finished setting, and the moon was bright and pretty, half-full. (Half-empty?)

Having a handkerchief to wet down makes all the difference in the world with no A/C. I stayed cool and happy. We shared car tea.

When we got home, votania discovered a flyer for some church function or other, the brimstone-spewing conversion sort, it looked like, on the floor of B. B was Not Pleased about this; she wanted to know when the fuck it had gotten in the car. "Remember at Walmart, where you left the windows rolled down?" I asked.

Heh, heh.

It was a good day.

To do:

Sleep.
Pack backpack for school.
Remember the lab manual.
Mail cissa about that custom pendant.
Mail cissa about that broken ring.
Put away laundry.
Put away dishes.
Return library books.
Vacuum.
String necklaces.

Stuff it...

I've long found the practice of naming plush ursines "Theodore" overbearingly cute.