the girly who shall end all girls

I had questions written down to ask in class tonight, but we didn't go over that part of the reading and it won't be in the homework. as described, the homework is easier than the lab I labored over.

I guess I'll be one of those asshole non-traditional students who does way more work than is required. (Seriously why would we do while loops in the lab and then not demonstrate mastery of them in the homework?)

looking out into the courtyard, the sky is bright blue with fluffy white clouds. and it's steadily snowing.

has anyone else read Flesh and Fire? i just finished it. it was a perfectly okay fantasy novel that is obviously the beginning of a trilogy that provides no answers to the mysteries presented. i am not compelled enough to seek the rest of the books to find out what happens, but if they came to hand i would read them on a plane.

it's not bad - but i am totally not seeing why it deserves to be on the Nebula ballot. i've read part or all of all but one of the novels* now, and it just isn't as ambitious or original as the others, nor are the characters as fleshed out.




*i know better than to try The Love We Share Without Knowing.

went down about as mysteriously as it swelled.

ate, took benadryl, went to sleep. woke up late in the afternoon and the swelling was almost entirely gone. today when i look in the mirror i can almost see that one eyelid might be thicker than the other but it's so subtle that i'm not even sure it's there.

um, okay.

happy hour was a little too successful - there were enough people that i didn't get to talk to everyone as much as i would have liked. it's been a long freaking fall at work, and getting a few drinks last night was the right answer. i need to grind out more pages today and tomorrow, so i wish i had consumed a few more glasses of water :)

has anyone seen sassafras concentrate around Seattle? i had forgotten how much i liked it. Chapel makes a drink with sassafras and whiskey that brings back childhood memories of sassafras tea and candy in all the best ways. i feel that this is worthy of a replication effort at home. creepily, wikipedia says that you can synthesize Ecstasy from sassafras, which puts the tree outside Pappy Smith's old farmhouse in a new light.

i am now stocked with scarlettina-time, and leather soap, and bath bombs, and this thing that looks like i should eat it (we had a conversation about that, where the owner said that he had tasted most of the things that smelled like food, and they were gross) but is a lemony bath melt-fizzy thing, and a furoshiki. (yay Bliss!) the furoshiki isn't up on the website, but it's an herb-filled bath bomb that is wrapped in cheesecloth and then dipped in shea butter. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

i realized today that every hobby i have involves being hunched over and straining my eyes. so i'm going to put some time in on Ms Scarlettina's room switcheroo today and bend my neck the other way for a few hours before i go back to working on the stuff they pay me for.

every now and again i get a little surprise from Rhapsody. today, the original version of Say Hello, Wave Goodbye (as opposed to this one). tunes are YouTube links for the internationalness.

i mean, Soft Cell. wow.

minigoats for home use! somehow, i find this more appealing than the three chickens we're already allowed.

okay, i'm sort of pleased that we have a presidential candidate who is a science fiction fan. i'm disappointed that his favorite book is Battlefield Earth, but baby steps...

of course, if he could tell fiction from reality, that would be good too.

Mitt Romney making a commencement speech this weekend:
"In France, for instance, I'm told that marriage is now frequently contracted in seven-year terms where either party may move on when their term is up. How shallow and how different from the Europe of the past."

i immediately started searching for more info on this arrangement, which must have happened since i last took a French culture class. it sounded awfully fishy.

um, not France, outer space. thanks for embarrassing fen (and Mormons) everywhere. (i'm used to being an embarrassed American.)

just caught the tail end of the nomination announcement. Little Miss Sunshine for Best Picture?!!!??

it had ONE good scene. one.