Beds

Figment came over to borrow my shower, but wound up helping me finally put my bed together. I've had a full-size futon frame in a box waiting for the past month to be put together, but nothing had ever come of my vague plans to do so until today.

I don't like the instructions that come with Adonis Furniture things. They're not clear, and don't have very good information on where to put things. Figment wound up doing most of the actual work, because I was struck by a very likely heat-and-dehydration-related spaz attack. I wound up realizing that a lot of my expectations on what I am supposed to be able to do, physically, are unrealistic and are based on my father's notorious stubbornness and unrealistic expectations of what he was supposed to be able to do without assistance. Asking for help does not make me weak. I must remember this.

Figment succeeded in saving "You're beautiful" to my memory audio-note-filer. I wasn't as startled as I was for the incident with Darkside.

Figment had a dinner appointment with his parents, and had to leave, so after I recovered from my shakes, I wound up putting the bed the rest of the way together, moving the mattresses out of the corner, re-arranging things slightly to accommodate the new bed, and stacking everything together. The result looks, if not fabulous, at least far more like a bed should traditionally look. I am pleased.

Good Fic: "Before and After"

"Before and After" - Lily/James, before and after wars. ataniell93, this one has a bit of what the HoIF list was talking about, post-war resistance without OMG Non-Con Partytime!! going on.

As nalidoll has said, time and again, fanfic really is all about playing paper dolls. The difference is really all about how one goes about it.

Most of the objectionable stereotyped-teen fanfic writers, the Sue set, take the paper dolls from the movies and dress them up in things they'd blatantly obviously never wear, and have them boffing either Barbies, or each other, complete with squeaky and horrendous dialogue.

But there are some people who lovingly draw their own dolls from the descriptions in canon, paint them with great artistry upon fine paper, and make elaborately detailed costumes for them, not necessarily lavish, but made with love and a need for perfection. And it's those fics that I wish to seek out, artists writing someone else's characters with more attention to detail and characterization than the original author herself might be doing.

Cabinets!

Fortunately, I was already awake when the Holdover Hippie Maintenance Guy knocked on my door. Unfortunately, I wasn't quite dressed yet, and first scrambled around to get things picked up of the countertops, and then scrambled into the closet to get dressed (beat-up blue t-shirt, beat-up lavendar shorts). There is now sawing going on outside, and ...

... ah, measuring and installing are happening. Sort of. They're putting the little boards up on the ceiling to attach them to, and attempting to fit the cabinet to those boards resulted in the cabinet almost falling down on my nice counter. I was sitting at the computer, of course, and automatically reached up a hand to stop the falling object...

Just business as usual around here, of course...

I was not anticipating having a cabinet installation going on today; if I had been, I would have packed it all up and gone to sleep last night immediately after my wizardly duties were complete for the moment. As it was, I stayed up dreadfully late reading my archives and sipping wine from an incongruous plastic cup.

Fortunately, I got enough water, food, and sleep so that I'm not hung-over. This is a good thing, or I fear my head would have long since exploded, since there is now pounding, in addition to the staplegunning, the drilling, and the screwing.

More cabinets

Nothing else has attempted to fall. There is a lot of screwing going on. One of the installers has had his cellphone ringing incessantly; it is a mark of his professionalism that he did not answer it when it was ringing, as he was actually doing things when it was going off. I approve.

The Holdover Hippie Maintenance guy is hanging around to make sure that everything is being installed properly.

The gouged kitchen vinyl flooring will be replaced (ugh, and I'm going to have to smell it). My only hope is that I will be able to be away for that event.

The amount of mess associated with the installation looks to be happily small.


... perhaps I spoke too soon. There is all sorts of crud on the kitchen floor, and crud on the lower counter and in the sink, but I am quite happy to have a crudded sink and minute nails on the floor from what actually turns out to be a nailgun, not a staplegun, if that means I have my cabinets up.

The living room already looks like more of a room, and less of an extension of the kitchen.

Almost done!

Cabinet photos

http://www.petridish.net/albumview.asp?a=20452

More coming when I get a chance.

Edited to add:

Organization, time management, space management, householdery

shadesong posted a link to an article on time management for those with few spoons, and I recommend it.

I get credit for all kinds of scary time-management and space-management know-how, just because I wind up organizing stuff and getting a lot of stuff done. I used to be a lot more efficient than I am now, of course, because somewhere along the way, I collected an existence that didn't require a metric ton of pre-planning to carry out, and I lost the manic energy that used to drive me through everything. But I still have the skills somewhere in there.

( I babble about what I'm doing with the household organization now. )

Words are what I do.

Almost all my life, I've been able to rely on the idea that I'm able to come up with either the right words or some very good words for almost any situation.

In the past 48 or so hours, though, I've run into a situation. It's a situation where I know I am to do something. I have been given the charge of doing something. I must do something. It is my duty to do something, and even if it weren't my duty, I would have to do something.

I cannot find the words for it.

I am terrified.