So, how to describe today?

I got to bed at a bad hour. I woke up, without my alarm clock, at about 9am. I had made plans with gameboyguy13 to run some errands together, so I scraped myself together, called him, and zipped out of the apartment.

We were on our way by 10:20. The objectives: get some stuff he needed, ship it off, and then give plasma. We washed up at the grocery store, as they weren't prepared for anything but solid currency. So! Off to his bank! But which bank? He remembered the east/west street of the nearest one, and by cruising along in a direction that felt right, we wound up there. Mission accomplished, we set off for a mailing place. We were finished with that by 11:30, and headed off to give plasma.

I wasn't sure that they'd still be accepting new donors at that hour, but miraculously, they were! So I signed in, settled down with my book, and waited. The waiting room was full. I had a book, so ordinarily I would have been just fine, but I had Cramps of Definite Pain, which prevented me from enjoying the two hour wait the way I might otherwise have. I had brought several books. I wound up re-reading Losing Joe's Place (always good), and reading almost the entirety of Impulse (don't bother; the plot's good sensational enough, but the writing style is uninspired and misses in enough places to distract me from the story). (I finished Impulse at home.)

When I finally got back on the floor, I got a bit of a dodgy stick. Flow was all right at first while drawing, but on return it was high-pressuring. So instead of adjusting my needle, the lady turned down the return pump speed. That worked, but it was a v. slow return. Inevitably, when it came time to draw again, I no-flowed. Another lady adjusted my needle, and it was smooth sailing from then on.

Movies of the day there: the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie (tuned most of it out), and Surf's Up (also tuned most of it out).

gameboyguy13 and I finished about the same time. Amazing, given that he was a new donor today, but given that it was crowded enough that it took us 5 hours to get through ... I usually go through in 2-3 hours. Bleh. I'm glad I had enough books.

We needed food after that, so we went home. We were out of bread. gameboyguy13 doesn't eat his hot dogs naked, so this required a grocery run. I went horizontal near-immediately upon returning home; JD finished his hot dogs and then borrowed some floor and a pillow and did likewise. I woke up at nearly 9, realized that the laundry room at his apartment complex closes at 11, and dragged him back here, but what with feeding the starving beasts and all, he's waiting on laundry tomorrow.

Nabiki is in heat. She's been writhing on the floor and yowling and growling. I actually successfully picked her up last night, and so did JD. We didn't hold her for long, but I petted her for a while until she decided it was time to leave.

I'm probably going to get sleep early tonight. I need to call Dawn; we haven't talked much all month and it's driving me crazy. Tomorrow, maybe. I should call Darkside then too. I should also figure out what we're-all doing for the 4th, as people have days off.

The shrimp did what to the cabbage? Only this time the phrasebook isn't Hungarian, and there's only one dodgy word. Warning for dodgy language. Via pauamma.

Mad restaurant science. Via wyldemusick.

The Hobbit!

I remain thankful that in times of crisis, Darkside has never pushed me away when I've reached out to him. Once upon a time, I was madly in love with That Idiot Shawn. And I pulled a stupid stunt and ran outside in the winter with bare feet and ran down the frozen iced-over road after D.C. with her pager that had fallen off, and I came back with frostbitten feet. It was fine until my feet started to thaw and all the ruptured and damaged nerves started crying. I reached for his hand and he pulled away from me and said that he would not allow me to hold his hand because that would be too much like we were a couple. (We were involved in bed at the time.) The layer of dead skin on the bottoms of my feet eventually fell off after blistering all over (the bottom of my feet was one huge thick blister), and the doctor said I was lucky to have not lost toes. And Shawn did not let me hold his hand while my feet thawed.

Darkside may not reach out to me if he's in pain, but he does not push me away when I really bloody well need comforting. Could this be yet another reason why he's my best friend? Hmm.

Make Life Awesome!

Long hair vs. Bone marrow, FIGHT! Context: People with long hair often have people come up to them and ask if or when they plan to donate their long hair to $CHARITY. It's similar to the annoyance factor of people coming up and touching pregnant bellies without invitation, though less invasive of personal space and more self-righteous and sneakily mean-spirited. Why "mean-spirited"? Because in many of the exchanges, there's an undercurrent of "if you are enjoying your long hair for yourself while there are LITTLE KIDS with CANCER who have NO HAIR, you are a SELFISH AND MEAN PERSON!!1!111"

Today, I plan to enjoy a trip to the plasma place.

I am intimidated by the job application process but will persevere!

The Darkside should (I hope) be home from the birthday party now. He might or might not be coherent for Hanging Out later on. I crashed out about the same time as hcolleen, but didn't sleep as long. That was about five in the afternoon; I stayed out for four hours. I'm getting used to sleeping more, and that's made an enormous impact on my general mood and stuff. On the flip side of that -- if I don't get my sleep like I should, I'm Not Happy.

I have to get my annual physical at the plasma place before I can donate again, and that's a more extended process than just the donation itself. I might have time today for them if they have time for me. (The doctors might not be exactly available for that on Sunday; I don't know.) If I show up around opening time, I should have plenty of time in the morning before Darkside might reasonably attain conversability in the afternoon.

hcolleen and I went shoe-shopping Saturday morning. She works in the airport, see. Epic Miscommunication starring her former roommates (with the burden of communication being upon them, and them Not Doing the Talking) resulted in someone thinking she should be reading their minds and said someone(s) leaving most of her shoes out in what resulted in being rain. Shoes did not survive the process. So she'd been wearing the same pair of shoes to work every day. Now. Airport security being what it is means that she's had to take the shoes off each time going through security. These shoes buckle about the ankle. This is OK once or twice a day. It is not OK several times in the same half-hour. So we went in search of livable, relatively inexpensive slip-ons for her.

We bounced through Journeys, Torrid, Hot Topic, Old Navy, and Payless. Hot Topic does have some cute/fun stuff. By Old Navy, I was starting to limp noticeably. I'd never been in the store before. I saw a pair of interesting-looking shoes, beaded wedge-heeled slippers with ballet-style ribbons, but I somehow didn't think I could get away with this fashion statement at work particularly well.

In Payless, we split up according to shoe size. I saw the cutest pale blue shoes on sale. Then I saw black ones to match, also on sale! Much refreshed, I set off to show her what I'd found. She burst out laughing at me, because, well...

Twins! hcolleen and I are able to tell our shoes apart because they're different sizes. She's the one in the size OMG TINY with the anklet. I'm the one in the size 10.

Next up was an exploration of the shop at 35th and Dunlap. Alas, it did not have the tea she was looking for. It did have a scent of fish, rather a lot of random items, two ladies in a loud conversation about the shortcomings of the loud one's workplace, dried mushrooms, TVs tuned to a cheerful dance contest, pretty-shinies in jade, and sake. We left without anything, including tea.

We did lunch after that. Good times were had by all.

(I really do need a "Girly Stuff" icon. Hmm.)

In addition, I am running late. Oh bloody well. If I run too late, then straight to the dinner. I am hoping for workout time too.

Via metaquotes: 419 vs. who?

pyrogenic: Apples to Pornography

I broke out the scanner and posted a pair of sketches to DeviantArt. I really should attempt to install my tablet on my dear Thalia here, now that I've got assorted cables and an art program that I'm learning a little more. My favorite way of doing things is painting, for the record. I have been known to designate myself a corner of the page as a palette and put in clean colors and then mix them with a smear tool to get the colors I want, then dropper and plop a blob where I want it and then smear it into place.

I went and attempted to give plasma today. I say attempted, because it did not go too well. First, though, I finished my taxes (AZ does not take electronic payment, boo hiss) and got them packaged up to send, then since I was going to be sending stuff, I dashed off a quick note to Sis and the LF, and since that had some sketches that were too darling to send without saving, I scanned them...

I did get out the door in a timely fashion, sort of. I did get the stuff mailed, and I did get to the plasma place in good time. Once there, though, and inside --

-- The stick did not go well. ( cut for the screamish )

I should be feeling better by Wednesday.

I did a little grocery shopping. I had intended to stop by and see trystan_laryssa, dustraven, and any other bits of family who might be in (I suspect there might have been something Figmentatious there tonight, as he and I are harbingers for each other), but when I got home I realized I needed to do laundry, and once I'd done laundry trystan_laryssa didn't answer the phone, and no sooner had I called and left a message than Dawn called, and we spent until after 11pm just chatting away nineteen to the dozen.

Dawn's going to try and call Monday evenings now. She really needs someone there to talk with...

Happiness with the whole equinox thing! Yay!

I woke up around eleven-something-ish and did things online. Then I went and gave the plasma. Doing that always invigorates me, because it's doing something good and I get Random Expendable Budget that goes toward writing nights out with the girls, laundry, groceries, fuel, and generally some left over to be completely random with. Like the pastry-oid breakfast for work on Sunday. Dad got paid enough to do impulsive gestures like that on a grander scale (see: "Seismic Salad"), and while I can't do that, I can definitely show the love with bagels, doughnuts, muffins, and Danish.

(I've said it before and I'll likely say it again, but one thing Dad is really good at is figuring out what people really want, and making it happen. Not necessarily their deepest dreams, and he doesn't cheat at cross-ball, but when he can arrange something simple that would bring joy to someone's life, he does.)

I've been reading The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test while giving plasma for the last couple weeks, because that's the best chance I have to read un-interrupted. It's a fascinating book. I'm sure it was a profoundly weird era to have lived through.

Construction on the Phoenix Metro light rail is intense, especially in the three-mile zig-zag from Bethany Home and 19th Ave down to Camelback, over to Central, and down to Indian School. I love the concept, especially given that I use public transit so much, but I have mixed feelings about driving through all the construction. But it's so exciting to see it in progress!

I wound up in Target. I found a GE telephone headset for a reasonable price. I took a look at the rubber wrist strap jump drives, but I was a good girl. I eyed one of the inexpensive guitars longingly (again), but I was still -- a good girl. I was profoundly shocked and amused to see a $20 cellphone that takes prepaid cards. I guess I've been out of touch with the cellphone market, because the last time I saw disposable cellphones they were in something cyberpunk and then hot girls were walking out of convenience store fabricators. Granted, the $20 cellphone was dinky and played like a really cheap calculator on the display model.

But.
This is science fiction. It was science fiction in 2000. This is 2006. Granted, that was a near-future type story, but it was a 20-years-from-now near-future type story. That's a quarter of the time.

The new headset feels like a work headset, except the microphone seems to be nicer, and the plug doesn't quite fit into the jack just right. And the work headsets have a conventional telephone receiver plug, RJ-11, rather than the teenytiny ones that are measured by inches or centimeters or whatever.

Came home to find that I'd somehow managed to whack the espresso machine on, and it doesn't have a safety cutoff switch. Nothing was on fire, but the box of chocolate covered espresso beans that had been parked on top of it had grown slumped and internally sticky. I switched it off and hoped for the best. I fear it's ruined forever. It has a profound smell of overheated equipment about it. I'm just glad nothing caught on fire.

Then I wound up going over to visit trystan_laryssa and her new computer. Her computer is an Acer, just like Allegra. Well, a couple generations removed from Allegra. It was nice to have brand recognition. Her computer has a 10-key pad. So. Jealous.

Fruits Basket, yay.

Taking trystan_laryssa to school after we wake up -- the matriarch of the household usually does the rides, but as she's got another engagement this morning, she's out of the running, and I'm in.

So, I sleep.

Plasma day. Then I see if I feel like dropping off that book. Found it where I thought it would be.

Plasma. Obnoxious fucking girls in maroon scrubs need to stfu. Nasty little things. Batman begins, whee.

Plasma today. My pulse goes way up on the bus. Despite the rain. Oh, and it seems I'm heartless. Yay readability.

Gave plasma. Started and finished Dreamweaver's dilemma. Good stuff. I need to haul out the Necromancer to edit pre-nov.