Phone Post: Audition for <lj user=sithjawa>

Fun Evening: friends, media, silliness

Instead of working hard on the novel, I wound up spending the evening with trystan_laryssa and dustraven. Just as trystan_laryssa and I were getting started on a good gossip about Figment, there was a knock at the door from none other than the man himself. Heh.

I explained a little bit about Dagger's system of classification of people in the context of her Work to trystan_laryssa. That deserves a post of its own, actually. The guys were working on Figment's character for the Heroes campaign. We eventually wound up all hanging out in the bedroom with dustraven finding and playing a lot of 80s songs. Those two are several years older than I am, and Figment is several years older than they are, but the Retro Radio nights on KWLF back in 1995 made me almost as conversant with the songs as they were. Both Figment and I have high school memories associated with some of the same songs, though in completely different decades.

We both love "Forever Young", the one that doesn't suck. *grin* The canon one.

For the record, Figment and I are each other's Good Twins now, instead of Evil Twins. There was much silliness and teasing of trystan_laryssa. Figment was introduced to All Your Base (to get the concept), and showed Zero Wing Rhapsody (which was new to me too). I am told that the video mimics the original Bohemian Rhapsody video, which makes it that much better, even though I've never seen the thing. Following that, the Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith trailer was searched for, and somehow, dustraven Googled up the Revenge of the Sith trailer with l33t subtitles instead. I won't be able to watch the real thing without gigglishness, now.

Having finally watched the trailer, I'm all giddy and excited for the release of Episode III. I've started holding out hope that it won't suck, based on the slick trailer. There will at least be fighting! I was bouncing and clinging to Figment by the time the trailer finished. If Darkside can't make it, Figment is my next choice for a date. I may have to ask if Darkside if it would be all right to make the occasion a group event rather than a just-the-two-of-us thing. (On the one hand, that could be a relief for him, as company means that I wouldn't be tempted to be naughty, but on the other hand, it would be someone he doesn't know, thus making it more uncomfortable than just-friends.) Hmm.

May 19th is a Thursday, which means that the release will be late late Wednesday night, that is to say, very early Thursday morning. Neither of my local bondmates has Thursday off; the likeliest good date for either of them would be Saturday (evening for Figment, after work, but that might interfere with my check-in duties) or Sunday.

I must make further plans. I must scheme. I must get in contact with Darkside to scheme properly. There is less than a month remaining, so anything that we must plan must be accomplished soon. I have a day of vacation left, and I can use it to good effect if necessary.

People: Dagger's five classifications.

garnetdagger, as part of how she operates, classifies people in five ways: Allies, Clients, Civilians, Liabilities, and Adversaries. It's not boxes, but a Venn Diagram, though some categories tend to be mutually exclusive, though there's no guarantee that anyone will stay in the same category for any length of time. There is, of course, the large "Unclassified" sector of people who have not showed up on her radar enough (in general, or for the specific situation) to be sorted into the circles.

Allies, of course, are those people who have either equal skill, complementary skill, or are just plain the sort of people who you want in your corner when the situation starts to get sticky. They can be partners, backup, or even semi-neutrals off to the side offering the choice bit of advice (perhaps while drinking those drinks with the fruit on sticks). But they're trained professionals themselves, generally, and know how things work. While they may not be depended upon to be involved, whatever level of involvement they do have will be dependable.

Clients are those you're helping out, usually the people caught in the sticky situation. They can be of any skill level (from master+ to nonexistant), but they are the one who you are Assigned to help. A Trainee-Client (a Junior) tends to start out as a Civilian, but will with all good luck proceeds to become an Ally.

Civilians are those who are either not part of a situation, or must be shielded from a situation, but are not actively involved in it. They largely do not tend to have high skill levels, because the community of high-skill individuals is relatively small, and if someone of high skill comes close enough to the situation to be classified, they will tend to fall into one of the other categories.

Liabilities are those who tend to either actively or passively make a situation far more complex than it need be, though usually not maliciously. They could be the cause of a situation, or they could be only a complication, but whatever it is that they are, they tend to be right in the way doing the wrong things at the wrong times. Some Liabilities become your Clients, especially when end-user education to make sure that this person is not a Liability again becomes necessary. If they don't turn into yours, they should probably be someone's Client, just to keep loose cannons under control.

Adversaries are not only in the way and making the situation worse than it ought to be, they're often the cause of a situation, and they're doing it on purpose and it's generally malicious. Adversaries generally probably ought to be someone's Client, just as Liabilities should be, even if they never become yours. Adversaries do not, as a rule, intersect with Allies.

Local Stuff, Body Stuff, Apartment Stuff

Water's going to be off today, 10 am - 1 pm. Too bad that's my Morning Window. (I'm still Up from Last Night, due to my wacked sleep schedule.) I'll be out the door by the time it comes back on, with all good luck. Well, maybe not. But I'll try.

Allergies are still giving me hell if I let the loratadine expire, but I'm doing OK with not letting that happen very often.

This season is horrible on my lips and face. My lips will dry and crack if I'm not reasonably careful, and will definitely chap if I'm not very careful. My skin is in that dreadful limbo that's either too dry or too oily, and so I have to be sure to rinse my face regularly lest it break out, but also put lotion on the lower half lest it do the same thing my lips are threatening.

The floor installation guy was impressed that when he asked if I had any strong booze, that I asked him if that was to use as a solvent. Evidently Jane End-User isn't supposed to know about solvents. And since I saw him moving the stove and scurried to move stuff well out of the way of where he was headed to put it, he got really impressed and wanted to hire me as an assistant. (On inquiry, pay would have been comparable to weekend pay at my current workplace, but under the table, hard physical labor vs. a desk job, and no benefits, so no soap.)

I'm likely to be exceptionally groggy if/when the insurance people show up today.

I did not get very much active-writing-wise done this week, but I did get March and April 2004 read through, and all of March 2003. I'm working on April 2003 now, and then I'll only have March and April 2002 left to do. I need to keep current on that, because when I let it stack up, I don't reboot well, and then I have too much to process at once when I finally do get around to it all.

I think the Dew I had over at trystan_laryssa and dustraven's is keeping me up.

I have thoughts about me being standoffish. I am, a lot more than many people might think. I just don't make a point of it. I haven't been sharing my inner processing with the world because I've been having an inner-circle person to talk about it all to, so I don't talk about it to the public so much anymore.

Freewill

http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/printer-friendly.html

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

For one week, try this exercise: Each night before you fall asleep, review the day's activities in your mind's eye. As if watching a movie about yourself, strive to be calmly objective as you observe your memories from the previous 16 hours. Be especially alert for moments when you strayed from your purpose and didn't live up to your highest standards. If you're feeling adventurous, I also recommend that you spend a day doing a review of all of your life's highlights since your last birthday. Pick a time when you have a few hours to spare, lie back and close your eyes, and watch with compassionate gratitude as the amazing plot lines unfold.

Every month, I try and re-read the same month from all the years previous.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

"Creativity is like driving a car at night," said E. L. Doctorow. "You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." I would add that life itself is also like driving a car at night. You're pretty much in the dark all the time except for what's right in front of you. Or at least that's usually the case. But for a few shining hours in the coming week, Cancerian, I believe you'll be able to see the big picture of where you're headed. It will be as if the whole world is suddenly illuminated by a prolonged burst of light; as if you're both driving your car and also watching your journey from high above.

Hmm.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21)

Actor Vin Diesel was describing the work required of him in the film, *The Pacifier.* "The hardest stunt I ever had to do was allow my ear to be gnawed on by a duck," he said. I fully expect that among the many stunts you will be asked to perform in the coming weeks, Sagittarius, none will be more dangerous or uncomfortable than Diesel's. I won't mind if you bitch about them the whole time, but please bear in mind how innocuous they will all turn out to be.

Though ducks can be damned uncomfortable, and though the writeup may seem fucking silly, you haven't really had to cope until you've actually had to cope with them.

A Brief Brief History of Time

queennell summarizes "A Brief History of Time", to amusing effect (if one's amused by the modern internet genre of silly summaries).

Two chapters summarized so far. Come back later for the rest.

Bookmark: /2003/04/07

http://www.livejournal.com/users/azurelunatic/1861967.html: The Little Fayoumis does the "getting fish into the boat" dance, and calls himself "Strong Good".

Insurance

The insurance fellow visited around 12:30, and was remarkably non-invasive: came in, snapped three photos with the digital camera, and was gone.

Nice, efficient, and making as little an impact on my day as possible.

(This was evidently in follow-up to the fire that occurred before I moved in here.)

Spoons & freshstartwrite

We've got fresh blood here at freshstartwrite tonight. (Incidentally, we can have the LJ comm that we can use as a more public area vs. the moderator-approved yahoo group; I can set up a link to the group as well so people wandering in won't have to get specifically invited though they'll still have to be approved.)

I's play is coming up on the 30th! "Scars", at ASU, 8pm, Saturday. Free admission!
The Lyceum Theatre, University & Myrtle, a block East of Mill parking, and another block East for the theatre.

One of the new women, someone who's just checking out the group to see what a writing group is like, has fibro. Spoon Theory will be shared, yes. It's a very useful model.

Debugging:
"desire for his daughter", misleadingly phrased.
"may", right before he huffs off home; tense

"I don't know any more than she doesn't know!" M., on her scroller.

It's a full house tonight -- there are eleven of us, including me. This room is getting too small for all of us. V. finally showed up, hooray! Dinner later.

Beatrice is having a really bad day. Bad home movies.

E-mail, trust

Figment's been avoiding cleaning out his inbox. As near as I can tell, he hasn't touched it since at least March. I worry about the man, because ... well ... yeah.

So he told me that if I was worrying so much, I should go check it for him. And he gave me the password.

So I'm cleaning out his inbox, cleaning up the known spam so he can look through the other messages and see if any of them are anything he needs.

And it strikes me how big an act of trust this is. I can't believe I'm actually cleaning up someone else's e-mail account for them. I'm having a really hard time with the idea, even as I'm doing it.