I got some web-stuff done, mostly for the costuming section of my LARP advice page, but it won't be posted until I get my copy of Men's Fashion Sourcebook that I'm waiting on. Rare as it is, I know some male players who like to be costume-wonks, too.
          I even took a hack at Cutting the Cord, yesterday, and immediately ran into a dilemma. I've been intending to write it from a third-person limited omniscent point of view, but it's so different from Unplugged (which was written from the first-person perspective) that I'm wondering if I'm making a mistake by breaking from it. I wanted to use third-person POV as a way to climb into the other characters' heads a little more - particularly Malachite and Thoth - but I've gotten so used to approaching Carmine from inside her own head...sigh. I know, it's hardly world shattering, but it is vexing! I've been trying to get this story done for over six months!

          Today is a downtime game at Rob's place - apparently Rebecca is about to find out precisely how deep in the shit she is with the cult of the Rainbow Serpent. Rob had his Smug-And-Evil GM Face on when telling me about it on Friday, so it seems that much whackiness awaits. I'm not too happy that this is happening on a Sunday evening though, as work awaits on Monday (but not for Rob) and gamers are notoriously lax about arriving on time...

***

          I'm going back to bed.

***

          Seems that Rich has gotten the bug to run another vampire larp - this time as invite-only. I dropped him a line wishing him the best of luck and reccomending Grapevine (a great MET management tool, all GMs should check it out). Rich is a good GM - he only suffers the breed's usual vice of working too hard and burning out - and I hope he has a good time with his latest venture.
          Of course, this got me thinking about Aragon, again, but - with moving and other things on the horizon - I really shouldn't be thinking about it at all. Besides, with Ryan's game looming on the horizon, I think this area has got enough of the little beasts running around.
          Speaking of running around, another buddy of mine, Mike G., wants to test-run an espionage LARP at DunDraCon next month. He described it to me, and it sounds like "Smiley's People" meets a game of Killer (or 'Gotcha', if you prefer a more peaceful moniker). No kidding, the game allows for agents, case workers, counter-intel, dead-letter drops, the works. This is what hsppens when a bunch of adult men, raised on spy-films, have too much time on their hands. Of course I'm going to play! I suggested the Agent X system to Mike, which might make logistics a lot easier for him...
          And so, to work. It looks like Lisa's place could hire Dave, oh, tomorrow or so, but they pay they're offering is shite. Still, a job's a job, and since this one is just an hourly temp-to-perm, he could always keep looking and move on to a better job once he's a little more settled in the area. As they say, the best time to find a job is when you've got a job.

***

          And yet, I still haven't crossed the line for over-sharing in an online journal... I would work harder on that, but I'm out of my skull from Chloraseptic toxicity. I think the LD-50 for those things is around a pack and a half, and I had that for breakfast...

          Had I remembered that today is the opening of MacWorld at the Moscone Center (two blocks away) I would have stayed in bed with a clear conscience. Half the office is going to be contriving excuses to be over there, anyways - trolling for boothbabes and freebies. Ah well, I guess I can use this opportunity to clean off my desk and catch up on a few things... Yeah, right. I've fired up the MP3 downloader already...

***

          My boss, Dave (aka Superman) is back from his two weeks in Hawaii, looking thinner, tanned and well-rested. That should last clear until this afternoon, methinks. Meanwhile, the other department managers are in varying degrees of poor-health and there's a betting pool on how long Curtis will last before he goes back home. Curtis grew a beard over the holidays and it looks pretty good. There's no connection between those last two sentences, but I just thought I'd mention it.
          Yeah, I'm still taking cold-meds. What's your point?

          I think I may have licked the latest problem Cutting The Cord threw at me. I was agonizing over how to get into the other characters' skulls, without losing the familiar style of the first story, Unplugged. Answer: I'm going to write from the third-person omniscient POV and use journals/logs/diaries by several of the key characters in between scenes. It's going to be a little tricky, but I played around with it last night and it felt a lot better than just 3rd person POV.
          The multiple-journals idea will also force me to develop distinct character voices, which is an area in which I'm seriously deficient - much like my spelling, ho-hum.

          If you dig comics, check out Strangehaven. It's a British title, oft-compared (rather misleadingly) to The Prisoner. It's in the photo-realistic style that's plaguing comics, these days, but most readers should be able to forgive it. The story and character interactions are engaging and entirely free of super-heroes - although there is the occasional alien and/or meglomaniac.

***

          Picked up a volume of Robert Graves' poetry at the used bookstore yesterday, along with a copy of Julia Child's The Way To Cook, but that's not nearly as nifty. Of course, I've got to share a bit with my horde of fans (all three of you).

          Fire Walker

          To be near her is to be near the furnace.
          Fortunate boy who could slip idly through,
          Basket in hand, culling the red-gold blossom,
          Then wander on, untaught that flowers were flame,
          With no least smell of scorching on his clothes!
          I, at a greater distance, charred to coal,
          Earn her reproach for my temerity.

***

          Dave managed to get through his interviews all right, although they all were washouts. Once place offered ridiculously low money ($25K for an accounts receivable specialist? Ludicrous!), another wanted somebody with more database skills and the third was for a job down in Daly City, which would have been an impossible commute... Still, calls keep coming in and there is still a chance we might hire Dave at vivid, despite the hiring freeze. Therein lies a minor tale...
          My boss - who will hereafter be referred as Superdave, to prevent confusion with roomate-Dave - is going to be needing a personal assistant once the merger is complete, as he will be getting a lot busier. I like my boss, and I much prefer the idea of supporting him than the entire department - besides, this puts me on the 'executive assistant' track, with accompanying pay-raises and assures job-security, to boot.
          So, the engineering department will need a new AA to be brought in and trained up to the job (how to surf the web like a fiend, etc). I, of course, am waving Dave's resume around like a maniac... It will be a while before things gel - Superdave needs to get KJ and Curtis' permission to poach me, and determine a few things with the new bosses (such as if there's room for me on the org chart). But there's still a chance that I can get Dave a job at my office, which would be very groovy.

          Today is laundry, lazing and being Jennifer's date to her company's post-holiday party. The only person I'll know there will be Jenn, but I'm sure we can cook up some of our own fun. Initially, she suggested I wear something on the level of what I don for vampire games, just to stir the shit, but there were two problems with that. 1) I'd freeze my ass off and 2) Jennifer will have to face these people on Monday. So, cooler heads have prevailed.

          The boys are scratching at the door asking me to come out so we can get some breakfast...

***

          The company do of Jennifer's was good fun, although I was a little alarmed to learn that the dress-code of 'dressy' had somehow been translated to 'black-tie' by everyone else present. Jenn and I squeaked by, but it was definitely for the best that the corset got left at home. I don't think I made Jenn look too foolish. I, on the other hand, was my usual when-in-doubt-be-whacky self, so I'm sure I looked like a complete airhead.

          Yesterday was the Pizza Meeting for Bedlam's Rest and, for a change, I had things to do. The Toreador Primogen of San Francisco is, of course, stirring things up - although her attempt to blood bond one of the Alameda Toreador will be blowing up in her face fairly soon. What fun it is when elders make mistakes! Rebecca also had a few things to do - mostly gloating over winning another point of Tremere Status ("I'm gonna own this clan! Own it!") and hoping to Hades that the local Pontifex won't eat her for breakfast. Y'know, the usual Vampire maneuverings.
          I'm banging my head against the wall trying to think of some concepts for Rich's incipient Vampire LARP, Casting The Runes but I don't think I've got anything that's really worthy, yet. On the other hand, I suspect I'm trying too hard (Rich's good opinion means a lot to me as he had a lot of influence on my formative gamer-years) and I'll probably just throw what I've got at him with the intention of developing things further based upon his feedback. I hope that'll work.
          The gaming calendar continues to fill, as now I've got to think of a concept for Mike's espionage larp, but that one looks like extreme brain-candy, so it shouldn't take too much processor time to take care of it. One of the other players is already trying to lure me into working for him, and the game doesn't happen until next month! I've told him I'm going to wait and see what other kind of offers I get. Heh.

          Not too much else going on. Now that I've bought The Boys (aka my husband and my roommate) a copy of Dark Forces for the Playstation, I'm hoping I'll have enough uninterrupted computer time to get some writing done. Cutting the Cord is perking up quite nicely (about time!) and my idea for a James Bond fanfic, Deadly Triangle kicked me in the head over the weekend, too. Once we move house, I think I'm going to be able to put in some serious keyboard bashing as the computer will be out of Dave's room and (here's the cincher) in a house with heat!

          Well, Curtis is looking at me like "That typing had better be work-related", so I think I'll listen to the voice of caution and get to my tasks for the day...

***

          Yesterday actually produced some work at the office - wonders never cease and all that - but that doesn't mean I didn't spend some time arseing around online. I'm handling the elders of San Francisco for Bedlam's Rest and nastiness between the courts has been escalating a little faster than I expected. Botched rolls and occasional explosions will do that for a scheme...
          Today promises more of the same, I think. Well, maybe a little more on the work scale - a few interviews to schedule and the like. Superdave is out of the office, so I'm fielding his calls - most of them desperate networking attempts from strangers - so that's a change in the routine. And it's great fun to put on the Obstructive Assistant Hat and tell these grasping strangers that Mr. Mitchelhill is out of the state, would you like to leave a message? Heh.
          Oh, how cute! One of the buildmasters is sharing his guitar with the consultant who's been sitting next to him for the past week. It must be stated that I think the buildmaster in question will part with blood slightly more easier than that guitar. Sometimes, he'll strum a bit at his desk while chewing on an obstructive chunk of code and it's very nice to listen to. It helps that he's a good guitarist, too. Go check out his band.

          I'm out of random things to say, and I've got a lot of meetings to - sigh - take notes at, today (engineering meetings, which means zero comprehension) so I'm off to work...

***

          Mental note: do not watch Roger Corman movies when slightly feverish and just before retiring to bed. AMC ran X - The Man With X-Ray Eyes last night and, while Alex, Dave and I laughed all the way through it, I had some odd dreams last night...

***

          Which another engineer, Mike, followed with:

          A manager responds:

          And who says managers don't have a sense of humor?
          This proved to be a high-point in an otherwise aggravating day. By noon, the workload had crossed from 'pleasantly busy' to 'meaningless clusterfuck'. Spare me producers who tell me I can lock them in for a certain time, and then tell me - ten minutes before I intend to leave for the day - that they can't do it. I'm flying in a candidate from New York, for crissakes, don't be screwing around with my schedule!
          But Embry0 called me a "Sexy, sexy, bitch." while I was grumping around handing out copies, which almost made up for it. I suppose you kinda have to know the guy to take that as a compliment. (Note to friends of the Rich Taylor, doesn't Embry0 look like him? He acts like Rich, too.)

          Beans have been juggled, promises have been made and, with luck, we'll be getting the keys to the new place today. Bedraggled cheer. On the up-side, the landlord was willing to let us defer $400 of the deposit until the first. On the down-side, that means we'll be well and truly skint until the middle of February, unless Dave manages to get a job out of one of his interviews, today (yet again, he's multiple-interview-on-Friday boy). I tell you, locking this place down has worn me out, no wonder I was getting sick... And we've still got to move out and clean up the old place, argh.

          Cough, wheeze. Am I never going to be free of this damn 'flu? Just when I think I've thrown it off, I wake up feeling headachey, coughing and with a nasty sore throat. Maybe it's just time to do a serious dusting around the apartment - entirely likely.
          Instead of taking care of myself last night, I indulged in being cranky at my husband (sorry, honey!) and arsed about online in a cold room. Completely unproductive on all fronts, of course, unless you count uploading yet more character pictures as something productive. Sigh, and I wonder why I feel like I'm wasting my life...

          Lingering germs aside, I had a pleasant morning. Dave came into the city early with me, so we had a leisurely breakfast at a bakery and chatted about cabbages and kings. Well, film-making and museums, really. It was a pleasant change to walk into the office relatively bright-eyed and chipper. 'Relatively' chipper means that I'm able to give a civil response to the non-sequitur "How are you?"...
          And, bonus! Guiness and Whiskey are in the office! No, no, no, not the alcoholic drinks - silly reader, those don't come in until after 2PM. Guiness and Whiskey are two dobermann/something cross dogs that belong to my co-worker Susan and they are the cutest things! Guiness resembles a small-ish dobermann and Whiskey has the build of a lean dobie, with rich tan fur - hence the names. They're at the fully-sized-but-still-a-puppy stage, which makes bringing them into the office a bit of a farcical situation. Susan goes mad trying to control them, and we all spoil them rotten, all good clean fun.
          Hellishly busy day coming up, so I had best stop arsing around and get to work.

***

          Last night was the Star Wars game - the first in a while. It was a bridging game, so it was remarkably free of Imperial officers, star destroyers and the like, although the Empire decided to pin some dirty trick of their own - blowing up a chunk of a large space station - on the group, thus cranking up the bounty on us and severely hampering our movements. Yahnna is feeling sort of smug about the increase on the price on her head, but is also rightly vexed at the increased visibility that accompanies it...

          Tonight is the Kids in the Hall concert in the city. I was a bit cranked about only getting balcony tickets - after they went on sale an hour earlier than advertised on the Bass site - but it's at the Warfield and that's a good theater. It's quite small - about three-thousand capacity - very pretty, close to BART and the bar is reasonably priced. I've not seen this bunch live, before, so it should be a lot of fun and San Francisco must be one of the best places to see 'em. ;)
          The only bummer is that Alex and I will be leaving Dave at home tonight, but we just can't afford to get him a ticket. Paying for the house deposit has absolutely cleaned us out and - given the way Dave's job interviews are going - rent on the first is going to do the same... Fortunately, my W-2s have started trickling in and thanks to the joy of Telefiling - I should have my federal refund by or shortly after the first, so I think we'll be okay. I usually use my refund at DunDraCon in February but, shucks, rent is more important.
          Dave is feeling pretty stressed out about the whole job thing, too. He's trying not to show it to me, but he's told Alex how anxious he is about not having found a job yet. But he's getting a lot of interviews, so at least he's looking - unless our last roomate who had figured out that we couldn't throw him out without breaking our lease, so he happily leeched off us for four months and damn near drove us to bankruptcy. Argh.
          I'm a little worried about what stress is doing to Dave, though. I know he hasn't been sleeping right, and he's been ill for the past three days and the symptoms have 'stress' stamped all over them. Been there, done that. He's already on medication for high-blood pressure, as it is, so I can't help but worry what the current situation is doing to him. Poor sod. I don't need a dead roomate. The paperwork would be endless...

***

          After the concert, Alex, Dave and I started talking about - you guessed it - gaming. What started as a discussion about what a kickass Vampire LARP the three of us could run rapidly mutated into kicking around several different RPG ideas for tabletop and live action. The discussion was ended by sheer exhaustion - and the need to think a few things over - at 2Am and the current list is:
Burning Cross, California - Burning Cross is a small town of 5,000 people on the California coast. The town has never thrived too well, but lately the economic situation has taken a severe downturn and the PC's are residents trying to revive the town's flagging spirit. That's it. The town is perfectly normal, we swear. Tabletop. Port Townsend By Day - would run concurrent to Alex's City of Dreams/Port Townsend by Night Vampire game. The PC's are humans who are - at the beginning - blissfully unaware that a pack of vampires have just moved into town. Probably too complicated, but an amusing idea - essentially a variant of Burning Cross, California. Tabletop. Babylon 5 - Steincorp Station - actually an idea by our friend Dale, which he abandoned in the face of nasty logistical problems caused by trying to convert the B5 RPG to our homegrown Storyteller live-action rules. Dave and Alex laughed contemptuously at such problems and immediately started scheming ideas which have been lying fallow since Dale cancelled the campaign. Live-action event, of course.

          What we really want - if it's not obvious - is a game featuring human/humane characters. We've all had our fill of vampires and hard-core supernatural creatures. Politics, intrigue and angst are fine, we just want to play/run something where any supernatural elements are secondary, if they're there at all... After the massive braindump of last night, we're going to let ideas bubble inside our skulls for a little while and pick up the discussion later. Knowing us, that means another late night tonight. Once we get an idea, we have to talk it out, immediately.

          Today is packing up random stuff - books and action figures, mostly - and running them over to the place. Alex wants to pack up a couple of boxes every day and drop them at the new house each time he picks me up, as it's not too far out of the way on the way home. I'm cool with anything that avoids the unseemly scramble of our last move, which was quite rushed. Alex has tomorrow off and Dave has no interviews either, so I think a lot of packing will get done - especially after I hide their Playstation and change the password on the computer...
          I'm about to accused of shirking, so I had better get out of the den and go help...

***

          Aside from packing random stuff, yesterday was very quiet. I cleaned the kitchen and then mucked it up again baking brownies, watched TV and prettied up the RPG Defense League site, as its rough-and-ready appearance has been grinding on me for a while. It's still not quite good enough, but it looks better than it did before.

          Today is shaping up to be another busy day. We're cranking up the recruiting process, which means I've got to meet with a small pile of engineers and thrash them into following the procedure that has been established. It's a bit rickety, but it works for us, and it's better than the chaos that preceded it. Unfortunately, despite the obsessive-compulsive reputation that most engineers have, the bunch I have to handle don't like bureaucratic routine at all. I would like to agree with 'em, but my job would be utter chaos without it. Sigh.
          So, I'm off to go earn another day's pay...

***

          I'm fighting off another writing-weirdness-for-its-own-sake attack. It usually manifests itself with tales of Rachel and Paul, but I've got so many other creative projects that I should be working on right now that I have to resist the urge to goof off.
          At the moment, creative energy is being dedicated to bringing together the threads of the we'll-run-it-if-it-kills-us Bedlam's Rest Reunion game. I ran James through the prelude he needed yesterday, and he's been instilled with the proper mix of dread and anticipation to ensure he'll have a good time. Alex and I hashed out some details for Rob's character, the former Prince of the area, last night. As soon as I can corner that lad, we can start setting him up for the event. It's all very messy, but we're trying to make some order out of what was a very tangled web at the of the chronicle in '98. The faults of memory don't help, either... Still, here's hoping.

          Masses of work to do today - which means, of course, that I'm also inundated with ideas for personal projects - so I've got to leave you with this scanty entry. Oh, one final note, the Matrix action figures are very nifty! The set I had ordered was delivered last night and Alex, Dave and I played with them far too much for a bunch of supposed adults...

***

          I'm on the record as a hater of silly little overbred dogs. In my opinion, any dog that is smaller than a typical cat should be reclassified as a rodent and the owner subjected to high-voltage electric shocks. So, of course, the Ironies (the sarcastic cousins of The Furies) had to have their way with me yesterday and introduce me to the two cutest Pomeranians. Neither of them could have weighed more than six pounds - thus qualifying them for the rodent category - and most of that weight was fur. But they were sooooo cute! And friendly! I stopped to give them a little scritch - as an apology for nearly treading on the microscopic beasts - and they just couldn't stop giving my hand little licks and sniffs. Now, for all I know, they were tasting me to see how I compared to the last sarcastic Limey they ate, but I found it all utterly adorable. Argh...

          The gaming-event of the season, DunDraCon, is fast approaching and, with it, come e-mails from people who I don't see at any other time of year - some by choice and others by circumstance - all bearing variations of 'hey, am I going to see you at the con?'. The answer of course, is "That depends"... For example, I wish I saw ChrisH. more often than I do, but it seems that the only time we can catch up with each other is at gaming cons and occasional frantic drinks after work, twice per year. Drat.
          However, I can happily go the rest of my life without see T. and his ilk (name obliterated to protect the guilty). T. is one of those fools who is just so confident of his ability to attract women that he is incapable of understanding those subtle ways a woman has of indicating she's not interested - such as running away from his presence while yelling "I'm married!" - and I did this to him long before I met Alex, I'll have you know.
          I think T. finally got the hint when my friend MikeB. offered to beat T. up (offer made in T's presence) and I had to seriously think about it before I declined the offer. Mike, sweetie that he is, made a point of looking unfriendly whenever T. was in our vicinity for the rest of the weekend.
          Thanks to my apparently irresistible personality (uh-huh, yeah, right - my eyes are up here, pig!) most of my guy-friends are used to my suddenly grabbing them by the arm and saying "Quick, look jealous!" - regardless of the relationship between us - at a con, shortly before being approached by a besotted acquaintance. Fortunately, I am blessed with understanding friends who have gotten used to the drawing-room farce that is my life at conventions and they usually play along.
          I used to love (almost) every minute of fanboy attention, but time has brought wisdom, taste and a husband (as well as a more acute sense of smell) and the thrill has long since worn off. Nowadays, I'm part of the embittered old-fart-of-gaming crew who always hog the bar at conventions and mutter darkly about how we didn't have none of this larpin' bulls*** when I was a youngster...

          Added another journal to Whither I Ramble, yesterday - Lifestyle Tips For The Dead. As I had seen it recommended in both erm and Abstract Thoughts I decided to give it a try... Twenty minutes later, I nearly died of an envy-induced apoplexy...
          Am I the only Brit/exBrit journaller on the web without a razor sharp sense of humor? Did my quota of rapier-like wit get confiscated at the US Border or something? All these Britpeople whose journals sparkle with brilliant writing and cutting wit are really getting on my nerves. No, wait, I mean that in a constructive way! Come back!

***

          Busy day yesterday, busy day today and a fun-filled weekend looms on the horizon - frantic packing, Bedlam's Rest and Concordia all await.
          The house-packing has been severely stalled by Dave being blindsided by the Creeping Crud (as this year's cold/flu/disease of choice has been nicknamed) and Alex has been just plain pooped from work being more moronic than usual. This weekend, we'll have to pack a lot, as our sorta-plans call for moving all the incidentals - books, kitchen stuff, most clothes - during the week, and leaving the heavy stuff for the last weekend of the month...

          It occurs to me that if multimedia-gulch companies could fit their offices with bunk-beds and a fast-food franchise, they would. Then the employees would have no excuse to go home in the evening. This revelation came to me while I was eating my instant oatmeal at my desk, of course.
          Between the fully equipped kitchen where most of us eat breakfast as well as lunch, and the assortment of amusements contained within the office (pool table, various musical instruments, a small library) I think they're trying to soften us up to the notion of living here. Oh yes, I know that's the norm for a groovy startup staffed by idealistic twenty-somethings, but vivid hasn't been a start-up for years... We're prepping to move over to the Sutter St. office and apparently they've got the same as us, and Sony Playstations...

          As I say, a busy day ahead, and I have to call various utility companies to request various services, as well as calling my previous employers and demanding where my W2 is. I want to file my taxes and get my refund, dammit! That's my DunDraCon money!

***

          Other than I saw a very interesting documentary on Angkor Wat last night, there's not much to report and a lot of work piling up on the desk. I'll write a long, loving entry over the weekend, I promise. :)

***

***

          In entirely unrelated news, Rob ran another episode of Concordia last night. It was the usual silly fun - jive-talking giant Neanderthals in the Hollow Earth, anyone? Although Cathena managed to blow what little trust my character, Mercy, had in her with one flippant remark having to do with how the PsiCorps-esque Hermetic Mages set their priorities when it comes to mental invasion. Oops. That will no doubt come back to bite us both on the hind-end later in the chronicle.

          And tonight is Bedlam's Rest. Poor Rebecca is going to be too busy just trying keep her head above water - following fallout from varios downtime events - to actually acheive anything, so I already know it's going to be a frustrating night for me. Combine that with the fact that I know a couple of elders are in a lets-mess-with-the-neonates mood and there's some Big Things coming down the plot turnpike and it makes for what should be a very chaotic night. Once again, Rebecca's agenda of trying to foster trust in the Tremere is going to get blown out of the water. Sigh.
          And I don't have a thing to wear...

***

          Roommate Dave is doing a lot better, although I think he talked himself into laryngitis last night. A Ventrue elder can't assert himself without a lot of talking... The plotting that was going on between his, mine and Alex's characters last night is the primary reason I was up until 2AM... I think just getting Dave out of the house and visiting with people for a few hours did him a lot of good. He's been cooped up in the house for over a week and I think he was getting a little stir-crazy.

          The trend of working-at-work is continuing, as I've got to spend this week documenting my job so my replacement - whoever that might be - won't be completely at sea when they arrive. Of course, since I intend for Roommate Dave to be my replacement, training might not be so hard... ;)

***

          Dave is slowly getting better, and I'm sure he would thank you for asking. He might even have his full voice back, soon.

          Sorry kids, must run!

***

          Did the weekly obeisance with the one-eyed god last night. Tony and the Brecheens came over and I - despite my usual end-of-day crummy mood - hauled myself into the living room to watch and I'm glad I did. The Buffy episode was pretty good, although the relationship between the principal characters is unfolding pretty much as I expected. As usual, I'm a big cheerleader for Anya... Angel was alright - "...Termites! We fight termites whereever they might be - such as next door..." - but I think the edge went to Buffy last night. Although I must admit that I thought it hilarious that Dennis is jealous of Cordelia's getting any attention...

          In a decent mood this morning, even though I had a distinctly cranky last night. Every time Alex turned over, or the cat repositioned (or if the rain fell too noisily, or the air currents weren't just quite right, you get the picture) I would wake up all grumpy and growly. I'm not sure, but I'm pretty certain I kicked Alex at least once...
          So, of course, I'm a sleepyhead again this morning. Well, I was until my boss called me five minutes ago. He's cranked off at me for not being able to find him at 5:30 in the afternoon yesterday over a matter that was ultimately unimportant. Bah. Nothing like a quick shot of adrenaline to wake oneself up. The mocha doesn't hurt, either. But I had better go put on my Industrious Admin hat and get to workin'. I tell ya, I can't wait until I'm free of supporting the whole department...

***

***

          I'm feeling a little delicate this morning. Honestly, I didn't intend to. No, really! I had even already written part of today's entry with that end in mind:

          I guess I found the image a little more appealing than I had anticipated for I did, indeed, go out last night and got roaring drunk. I was doing fine until someone started passing out kamikazes. If I had just stuck with the vodka tonics, everything would have been fine. As it is, I'm spending today sitting very still at my desk. I've been spared a headache, but I've got the shakes something awful and my inner ear is convinced the party's still going, dammit.
          KJ got pictures, but I'm only mildly worried. Despite the intoxication, I didn't do anything really stupid. Tomorrow I'll scan in the napkin that has been inscribed with the secrets of how to become a writer - courtesy of a copywriter at MM. Suffice to say, he had had a few drinks, too...
          But I didn't sling any martinis. There's only one barman in this entire city who makes martinis to my satisfaction, but I got so drunk the night I met him that I can't even remember where the bar was. If any of the crew from Nothing Sacred happen to be here, couldja e-mail the location of that wrap party?

          I feel bad. I've not been living a sufficiently exciting life to be worth writing about in the past few days. No brilliant insights, but only minor things to bitch about, either. Journal-keepers with ordinary lives rarely have exciting journals. Makes me feel like I should go out and do...something.
          Keep an eye on the papers, this weekend.

***

          I never realized how much stuff can be crammed into a small, two bedroom apartment. God help us when we move out of the next place - named Miskatonic for convenience. If a two bedroom apartment yielded all this (nearly fifty boxes and we're still only half done) god only knows what a four-bedroom house will do to us...
          Alex and Dave were so pooped out from packing all day that we spent last night watching The 5th Element on DVD and eating mac-and-cheese. The first time I saw that film, I hated it - despite my adoration of Luc Besson. Then I realized it was supposed to be a comedy - rather than just inadvertantly funny (wince). Thus illuminated, I really dig the picture now. Groovy soundtrack, too...

          As promised, here is the secret of being a writer, courtesy of some fella at Modem Media.

          Trust me, it made sense at the time. This was after the six-ounce kamikazes were passed around. Yeah, six ounces of highly alcoholic death. I'm amazed I didn't swallow my own tongue on the BART ride home and I was tasting vodka all day at the office. That bastard, Embry0 (BizDev manager) had to skip the party, so he was just fulla beans all morning. The rest of us seriously considered beating him into unconsciousness, but we were too tired.          

***

          There has been one slight refinement. Thanks to some undetermined financial snafu (I suspect it's because Alex and I have the financial planning ability of grasshoppers) we can't rent a U-haul truck today. However, tomorrow the finacial snafu will be somewhat remedied (payday, yay! Rent & Rest of deposit due, boo!) and things can proceed as planned.
          If my tax refund could break all records landing in my bank account, life would be much easier. Or if my current landlord could see they're way to giving us our security deposit back before the end of February. Grr, mutter... We made that deposit solely as insurance against non-payment of rent. Surely now that we're leaving, we shouldn't have to wait 21 days to get it back? The fact that a large chunk of it is owed to my dad doesn't help my nerves one whit, either.
          Ugh. It's bucketing rain today, which doesn't make moving any easier, so maybe it's for the best that we didn't get that truck.
          DJ was the only one of our friends who could follow through with their offer to help and, since he has a pickup truck, his help was much appreciated - particularly after the current Alex-and-Johanna-mobile, Leviathan, blew out even more fluids than it usually does... That car has had more money and time dedicated to it's physical health than I have, and it's still leaking fluids from...somewhere. I'm standing by my theory of a quantum black hole in the engine block.

          So, today is that great (?) American tradition of the Superbowl. Like many other non-sports-fans, I intend to tune in at half-time to watch the advertisments and that's all. I doubt that the NFL can top Cartoon Network's Big Game (saw it last night) which included some hiliarious spoof-ads. If the network is repeating it today, watch it. All of us have seen overbuilt men in tight pants before (another benefit to football, I'll admit) but when are you going to see Wile E.Coyote's field technique criticized by John Madden?

***

          Once again proving that stress can stimulate the creative juices; while washing the moving dust out of my hair, yesterday, I came up with the core of an idea for a Babylon 5 LARP event at a convention. I would be much happier if I could conceive of ideas that would help launch a regular Babylon 5 chronicle - start as tabletop and eventually graduating to live-action - but, no, my randomly-firing neurons decided to fixate on something that would require six month's prep, instead... You don't even want to hear about my ideas for decorating Miskatonic for such a game, believe me... Alex, who knows me so well, just patted me on the head, said "Sounds great, honey" and went back to his e-mail...

          Yet another busy day ahead of me. Go out and do something nice, today. Mondays shouldn't suck for everyone.

December '99        Index        February '00