Life Hack - old shirts

People wear beloved t-shirts until they are nearly tatters, then toss them. Or try to, if they have sentimental value. Here are some ways to keep those shirts around and still useful, or to use old t-shirts which would otherwise be tossed in the trash.

Cut off the arms of large t-shirts, above the seam, and they make fantastic hair covers/sweat catchers when you're working around the house or yard. You can pull them over your hair and wear them under a hat or cap. Or wear one under a wig.

You can also sew the hemmed end together and gather the ragged end to create makeshift grouch bags or utility bags for small items or items which might otherwise leave a mess behind - baby eating utensils, bottles, milk bags, etc.

Scraps from fronts or backs are great for:

• working on the car - who cares if it gets greasy or gross?
• wearing around your neck in the yard for a quick sweat wipe.
• t-shirt material doesn't usually leave a lot of fibers behind, so it's great for wrapping sex toys made of jelly or silicone or other soft materials. If you wrap your sex toys, anyway.
• baby burp rags.
• baby chew toys.
• baby lovies - many babies want something soft in their hands when they're going to sleep.
• oversized handkerchiefs for the snot overachiever in you.
• oversized handkerchiefs for your runny-nosed toddler.
• clean and toss - no guilt for throwing money in the trash if it was already scrap anyway, and t-shirts are much sturdier than your average paper towel for those extra elbow grease places.
• kitten and puppy rags - cleaning them up after birth and housebreaking/litter training accidents.
• cat and dog rags - lining pet beds, wiping allergy eyes or noses, tying in knots to play tug-of-war, cleaning up pet yak, cleaning up cages at a mobile pet adoption center.
• keeping in the car for emergencies - vehicle accidents, unexpected visits from aunt flo (in case you don't pack sanitary supplies in your purse all the time - many women don't), tying to your antenna if you want/need help but don't feel comfortable standing outside your car, carsickness, moving injured animals off the road.
• practice sewing, applique, test stitch changes on your machine.
• in your purse to line the back of a movie theater seat - have you ever gotten lice that way?
• in your purse for any emergency/random act of kindness - I can't count the number of times having a wad of t-shirt in the bottom of my purse means having exactly the thing someone else needs right then.
• wrapping rolls or biscuits right out of the oven.
• tossing over rising dough.
• wrapping thawing meat so the flies don't get to it.
• tossing over cooked meat on the platter if you're grilling outside, or any other non-liquid food outside.
• cleaning out that fridge containing science experiments.
• cleaning around that nasty toilet or urinal.
• cleaning out under the kitchen sink which has had one too many broken pipes - vinegar, wipe with a t-shirt, toss that motherfucker.
• bathing/molting your snake - your actual serpent, not your body part. lol
• napkins for barbeque or eating watermelon or other messy foods.

You can wash t-shirts until they literally fall apart, so you're going to get your money's worth out of even the most expensive t-shirt.

What do you use old-t-shirts for?

Reminiscing

I have this temp Nana gig through the end of the school year. LJ is almost five months old, and he's just a doll. He's happy and smart and gods I miss Ryan! I adore having a baby around, though. I don't even complain about getting up at 0800 for him.

Anyway, as babies are wont to do, he opens his mouth anytime anything gets in the vicinity of his face, and I've taken to kissing the empty space where his mouth is open. It makes a nice echoing sound. I didn't think much of it at first, but after a couple dozen times, I realized it reminded me of my little brother, D. I used to "kiss" D that way when he was a baby, too. That was a long time ago - 1973. Can you believe it?

Having LJ around, I've noticed my pain fades more into the background. I'm more tired after he's gone home, but while he's here, I hurt less. Or rather, notice it less. It's been interesting to note the impact of simple enjoyment on the rest of me, body, soul, and mind.

On Tuesday, Landlady and I went to a Cutco kitchen event - they've been having them monthly since the store opened, and though it's not ideal, it's a reasonably fun way to get out of the house and have a free meal. Anyway, this last time was "Cinco de Mayo" and one of the dishes was a corn and black bean salsa. While the chef up front was prepping, he started cutting the onions, and it was the same way Dad did when we used to make stuffing together at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was a bittersweet moment - I was so looking forward to having Thanksgiving with Dad two years ago, and now he's gone, it's an experience I won't be sharing with anyone, because the Potatoheads live in Florida, and I have no other children, or anybody else to "pass it down" to.

I'm starting on a new edit this week, and looking forward to delving deeper into this author's fictional world. It's the second book in a trilogy, the third set of books I've edited for her. It's been gratifying to watch her writing improve with each book. Her improvement isn't on me, but it still feels good to be a part of her journey.

My own writing has been hit and miss for months, and I keep trying. Every once in a while, I crank something out, but my word count so far this year has been abysmal. It's sad and frustrating. I WANT to write, but my brain will not cooperate. Blargh.

Watching Hawaii 5-O this week, I've been reminded of my ties to the military, and the many ways my psyche and personality were shaped by growing up an Air Force brat. Funerals especially, or welcoming home finally-identified bones, always gets me deep inside. So many people over the course of my life, haven't made it home, and some who did have never been the same. Being part of a military family is never a level life - there are moments of deep, abiding joy, and other moments of such grief it's impossible to put it into words. Somehow, H5O captures some of that, often, and watching from the beginning has been a reflective experience.

Speaking of H5O, I remembered during the opening theme doing this little dance with Ryan when he was bitty, while we were at my in-laws' house. I have no idea why that theme works on me that way, but it does make me want to "dance" with babies, if I have them around.

I know, I'm weird. Get used to it. I'm not getting normal in this lifetime. :D

How far in advance do you add things to your calendar?

My birthday next year. I'm celebrating, even if I'm alone. Come celebrate with me if you want.

General State of the GrammaGirl

I've been struggling a bit since Dad died. I'm struggling more with a lack of social interaction than directly from grief, which is a little odd. I'm not usually the most social person, but I'm finding more and more I need SOME in-person friendsy stuff to keep me on a more even keel.

I really miss Mrs. Potatohead and Baby Potatohead. Florida's not as far as Italy, but it's still pretty far from Dallas.

The antidepressant is helping, but it's not enough. I'm functioning, but not functioning well. I'm glad I have that little bit, though. It's definitely better than the years I did without any kind of meds at all. I can feel it making a difference, just not enough of a difference. :/

Ten days ago was Dad's birthday, and coincidentally nine months since his death.

I slept through the day. Like nearly forty-eight hours' worth of sleep. I did that again this week. Went to sleep Monday, woke up Wednesday. I'm not sure what that's about, and I'm not thrilled with it. I'm just glad I have the freedom to let my body do its thing.

My editing work is on a bit of a hiatus, as one author has not finished his fourth book yet, and another one is taking her time going through my revisions on book seven. What this amounts to is not having ANY income in February, March, or April, nor thus far in May. That's eating away at my already trying-to-get-blood-from-a-stone budget. I had to ask friends for help last week so I could buy groceries. That wasn't fun - it's not in my nature to be comfortable asking for help, but I'm going to have to get over myself sometime, right? Maybe that's what the universe is waiting for - me to get over myself.

I had another author lined up for December, and that would have been good, but she misunderstood my contract terms and chose to retain her current editor. Life happens. I hope that she'll reconsider in the future, now that I've clarified my contract with her.

I definitely need more editing work, though, so if you know someone who's writing a book, or a paper, or anything with which he or she might need assistance, please let me know. I'm a good editor, and I want to make a living, and my prices are flexible because I work for myself.

For that matter, I can also do transcription, or any number of other things, as long as I can do them from home. I don't travel much to client locations, but I will here in greater DFW.

I'm not getting much writing done lately, either, which is also exacerbating the depression. I use the writing as a coping mechanism, and when I can't write, it just makes things worse. Catch-22.  However, I'm on a bit of a reading kick - finding books at the library which have long been on my wishlist, and I've been reading a LOT. My To Be Read pile never gets any smaller, that's for sure.

Anyway, that's the current State of the Gramma: keeping on keeping on. The Taurus in me plods along well. I'm stubborn for sure.

Totally Random

It's been quite a while.

I followed a LINK today, to try to learn something more about using appropriate language with people who are not me. I finished the article, read the comments, and ended up more confused than ever. I still don't know what to call people who aren't me. Over the last year, I've learned that the label I put on myself isn't appropriate - it has to be prefaced. So if I don't know what to call myself, how am I supposed to know what to call everyone else?

This link was specifically about gender-identity and sexuality (I think - I honestly don't even know what to call it anymore), and how using a word - the example was "tranny" - can be damaging to a person, reinforcing years of verbal or other abuse.

I don't intentionally use labels to denigrate other people. I do have labels in my head that until they are pointed out to me, I don't read them as insulting. To me, who grew up in a family full of mechanics, a tranny is a piece of a car - a damn expensive piece of a car. I've never used the word to describe a person, but I have been told to stop using it, because it offends people. How? I'm not using it to describe people.

Specifically, I'm learning this because I'm personally affected by it - someone I know is dealing with this issue on a daily basis, and yet, I still don't understand it. Really, I am not afraid to say that I don't get it. I can't understand it, can't even empathize. I've never been uncomfortable in my own body - the kind of uncomfortable that makes surgery or a lifetime of drug-therapy a viable option. At most, I've wondered how much easier camping or road trips would be if I could whip out my penis and pee in a bush or off the side of the road. Still, I've never wanted to be a man.

What I can do is ACCEPT that you are presenting yourself to me as what you wish to be. You present to me as female, and unless you tell me otherwise, that's what you are. Same goes if you present as male. I don't go looking for subtle signs that you are just pretending. If you want to share that part of your journey with me, I will be as welcoming as I know how to be, up to my limits. I'm not afraid to say, "Okay, I've reached the point where I need to go away and process before I can take more input." That's not about you, about me thinking there's something wrong with you, it's about how my mind works.

According to the new labels, being born in a female body and feeling female makes me cis-female. I looked it up, because I needed to understand where the prefix came from in order to use it. Yes, I'm weird. The cis prefix is 'near' or 'in the vicinity of' making me near-female or in-the-vicinity-of-female? Except I'm not. I AM a female. I'm a girl. A woman. A female. A bitch, even. A cranky, curmudgeonly, twisted and deviant woman on the verge of fifty. I don't know how to respond when someone says, "Oh, you're cis-female," except to say, "No. I'm female. There's no cis about it." Why is that wrong?

Does anyone else understand this enough to talk me through it? I'm willing to learn new things. I just need more than "Oh, this is the new way to say it, but I can't explain it, it just is," to internalize it, to make it stick.

Odd, strange and bizarre....

Seriously?  My tax money has been going to this my entire life? The FBI says it has found no sign of the remains of former Teamsters union leader Jimmy Hoffa and is ending a dig in suburban Detroit. Authorities have pursued multiple leads on Hoffa's whereabouts since his disappearance in 1975.

For more on this story, go to http://usat.ly/19RpPJ1.

Book: Triple Threat by Bella Jeanisse LANGUAGE AND CRUDENESS WARNING NSFW

There's a shorter, more pleasant review on Amazon.   This isn't that one.

Triple Threat reads like a fifteen-year-old wrote a rock band RPF, inserted themselves Mary-Sue style in first-person POV, then anonymized the whole thing so it could be published for money. If you read the book after this review, you cannot blame me for the time you'll never get back.

Main character wants her best friend, but insists to herself that she’s not in love with him.  Insists that she IS in love with another member of their band, and so tries to get him into bed.  Dates another guy who has a premature ejaculation problem, so to keep herself satisfied, keeps frakking her “best friend” sometimes even when her boyfriend is on the phone with her, or on the other side of the door.  Lets her “best friend” see her naked, take risque photos of her, tells him that she’s not in love with him, lets him frak her anytime he wants anyway, at least once he "convinces" her anew every time.

Girl seems to have no self-control at all.  She says no, a guy kisses her and she’s all ready for action and can’t resist him.  

Completely unrealistic guy continually getting all down and dirty with the main character, even naked with penis touching clit, then backing away because “it’s not right” or “it’ll ruin the friendship” or “I don’t want to just have sex with you - you need someone who cares about you.”  Then, out of the blue, he changes his mind and they frak and it’s boring.  Well, not to them, because every orgasm is the best one she ever had in her entire life.  The pleasure is always awesome or rapturous.  Someone needs a thesaurus.

Lots of passive voice and telling instead of showing.  taunt is used in one place instead of taut.  Just dreck.

Liberal use of the f-bomb, with which I personally don’t have a problem with (even though I've replaced it here BSG-style, lol).  There are no other women in the book, except for the groupies the other band members frak after every gig.

Every guy is almost literally hung like a horse.  I mean like 12 inches long and so big that she can’t get her hand around him.  So big/long that it hurts to have sex.  And yet she does a DP scene with two of these guys in her snatch at the same time, because anal sex hurts.  

Both the guys she fraks the most are always telling her what she feels.  She doesn’t feel the way they think, but she’s completely unwilling to just tell either of them what it is she does feel.

The “best friend,” the one she’s been frakking since the beginning of the book, freaks out about her finally settling down with a guy and threatens to quit the band.  He asks for a threesome, she says she’ll ask her boyfriend, and suddenly, he’ll stay with the band and they all live happily ever after.

Reviewed for Kitties Like Books Too (http://kittykatreads.blogspot.com)

Random cuteness overload

Hugz!!

He doesn't pout as well as his mother.  lol

Snapple wanted people *drinking* their tea, not eating their bottle caps.  

Whatever he's got planned, it bodes ill for someone.  :D

Thus endeth your cuteness quotient for the day, courtesy of my favorite grandson.

Random reading, writing and TV

Criminal Minds, you kill me every year.  And it wasn't the finale, but I love the little glimpses we get of JJ's Will, and the way she decided to work off that bad juju was great.

I have seventeen (!!!!!) pieces, BSG and original, in various stages of done, and having my beta-reader otherwise occupied for the past month is driving me crazy.  I'm hopeful that with school letting out, her life will slow down soon.  Cross my fingers.  I might have to go over there and make her read while we're watching TV.  I can just see that.  "Here.  Read my porn, please.  No, I don't want cookies (I'd be lying), I want to finish my stupid stories so I can post the porn."  lmao

Arrow is not a perfect show, but it's got really great moments, and there were a lot of them during the last four or five episodes of the season.  During the scene where Oliver was trying to tell Tommy he'd be fine, there was so much homoerotic subtext that it wasn't even subtext.  Damn.  I swear I thought Oliver was going to kiss Tommy and I think it might've been hotter than Oliver kissing Lauren.  lol  And what's with Diggle?  All of a sudden he's running around in tank tops and he's even buffer than Oliver?  The shoulders on that man.  See, the show gives me plenty of eye-candy, and for that alone, I will continue to watch it.  John Barrowman.  :flails:  And that little moment with Thea and Roy?  Awwww.  I kind of like the idea of Oliver and Lauren, but frankly, there's more chemistry between Oliver and Felicity, and that's not even considering her continual verbal sexual innuendos.  How is Oliver ignoring those with a straight face?  Hell, how is the actress saying those lines with a straight face?  Every time she lets one fly, I think of the story Like Something Out of a Fanfic and it makes me laugh.

Once Upon a Time is getting too convoluted for me.  These two are conspiring with each other, and she's conspiring with him and he's conspiring with another her and she's become a barfly and where the hell is Red?  And Charming is boring again without his gun.  I still have the last three episodes to watch, and I will.  Ethan Embry is wasted here.  And seriously, this show does not have enough sex - everybody wears too many clothes.

Still have Revenge and Castle to finish up for the season.

I'm liking Grimm a lot better then OUaT right now.  I could listen to Sasha Roiz read the script in a monotone, if he would do it in French.  He has very pretty eyes.  I'm wondering where the Juliet thing is going.  Something's off with that.

I think I'm going to skip the rest of Monday Mornings, except for the shower scene, of course, when I visit my TV friend.  I'm also not going to bother to watch Revolution or Touch.  I'd really like to watch a few episodes of Bates Motel - I love the two leads - and see if it appeals to me.  And A&E is having a marathon of Katee's Longmire today, with the new season starting tomorrow, I think.  I have to catch up on Person of Interest, too, since I can only watch that one on the DVR.

I ran into a professional cook at Kroger today.  I was trying to find something for which I had a "free" coupon, and he asked what it was I wanted to make.  He was describing making something, and he's all "bip bip bip and it's done" and it was adorable.  I explained that I suck at cooking, unless it comes in a box or has very strict instructions, whereas my brother can pick six random things off the shelf and make something fantastic.  He said he could do that, too.  I envy that, but more I envy that he likes to cook.  I just hate it.  Cooking is all hot and sweaty and there's no good payoff.  I mean, yeah, there's food at the end of it, but if I want to eat, I have to cook every day, and that is just a big fat pain in the ass with nothing to show for it but ten minutes of eating and then dishes.  I just need to win the lottery.  Plus, I got back from Kroger and realized that I didn't pick up one of the three things I even went for in the first place.  :sigh:

Having a latex allergy and then finding out that something I used has latex in it?  So not fun.  At least my morphine allergy makes pretty purple poofies on my skin.  The latex makes my skin look like I have leprosy.  Ick.  And ow.

My new Kindle will not let me download the app that lets me read my Nook books on my Kindle.  Frakker.  The Nook is just not as user-friendly, and makes reading slow and cumbersome.

What a wonderful world this would be...

I went to the CVS this evening to return my redbox and take the landlord to get his McDeath for dinner.  As I was driving away from the CVS, my car started acting funny.  Thanks be to my misadventurous youth, I know what a car feels like when it's running out of gas, so I maneuvered to a blank spot in the parking lot and had myself a little think.

We ended up walking over to McD to get his food, since he's insulin-dependent, and I don't want to deal with blood sugar issues.  He did not have the dog or the cane, so he couldn't walk home.

We get back to the car, and we're trying to brainstorm who to call.  His father, the obvious choice because he lives five minutes away, has already turned his phone off for the night.  His brother, on a rare in-town weekend, is actually camping with his kid.   I could walk to the gas station, but I have no gas can and no money to buy one.  He's willing to spring for gas, but doesn't have enough to buy a gas can, too.  What happened to the days when gas stations would have a gas can on hand and let you borrow it?

I'm scrolling through my phone and it's all Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, DC, New York, Texas!  Oh, wait, he lives two hours away.  Oklahoma, Oklahoma, Oklahoma, damn I know a lot of people in OK.   I finally found someone and managed to get hold of her after three unanswered calls, and so a ten-minute trip to get food turned into a three-hour sit in the car.  She got there, had already procured a gas can and had filled it, and a random guy that she just happened to know was there and offered to come help.

Anyway, car started right up, I got a tank full of gas (I asked for it last week, but this is not the way I anticipated it happening, lol), and I even got my Fossil Felix the Cat watch back, because my friend had found it a week or so ago, and remembered it was mine.

While we were sitting there, I commented that the one time I leave the house without my Kindle is the one time I needed something to occupy my time.  After I declared that I was never leaving the house again without my entire purse, including my Kindle, we had a good ten minutes riffing on what would be in the magical backpack in the trunk from now on (included a tent, a camp stove, chainsaw (wtf) and various other goodies).

We also talked about energy exchanges and how he'd come to understand them.  

I've never been comfortable asking for help.  The last five years have been an exercise in curing myself of that in a big way.  Anyway, I've reframed the help thing in my head, because someone once explained to me that everyone likes to feel useful or needed or just have the warm fuzzies, so when I refuse to ask for help, I am depriving other people of an opportunity to do something that makes them feel good.  I have to tell myself this a lot sometimes, but it works.  Sometimes.

Tonight, though, he talked about it in physics terms - you know, the universe is energy and everything is energy and it flows around and through everything.  When I try to be self-sufficient, I'm frakking up the energy flow - I can't put energy out if I'm not taking any in.  I'm not explaining it very well, but it hit me that by trying to be all I need no one and can do everything myself, I'm mucking up the flow and that makes things worse for everyone, including the people around me.  So I've got some thinking to do and more reframing of the crap in my head.

And on that note, what stopped me from calling any of a dozen people was the idea behind saying, "Hey, I ran out of gas, will you come rescue me?" which is, "Hey, I'm a loser who doesn't even have enough money to put gas in my own car, and I ran out of gas five minutes from my own house, and won't your Saturday night suck if you come help me."  Gah!  I complain that no one ever calls me for help, even though I would, gladly, even at my own inconvenience.  So what makes me think that others don't want the same opportunity?  My head is a frakked up place.  I'm blaming the 60s.

But.  Full tank of gas.  Felix the Cat. I bow to the universe.

Movie: Skyfall

There's a moment, about ten minutes in, when Bond is drowning, and you can see exactly how well Daniel Craig is built.  :ahem:  It's reminiscent of a popular still from the set of the senior pilots' bunkroom on BSG.  heehee

What?  I've been writing smut, and I'm feeling shallow at the moment.  :D

Dame Judi Dench is the bomb diggity.

I like suspenders on a man.  They give his trousers the right....drape.

The new Q is adorable.

Scruff does not look as good on DC as it does on some other men.  At least not the scruff he was sporting here.

I laughed out loud several times.  I think my personal favorite is "Welcome to Scotland." 

I loved that house - out in the middle of nowhere, plenty of room to tramp around, water nearby, and a secret tunnel!  When can I move in?

Replacing Google Reader

OK, so Bloglovin did not work for me.  I couldn't arrange my feeds the way I wanted, and it would only display one column, down the middle, which included blurbs and pictures and the whole shebang.  I want HEADLINES/SUBJECT LINES only.

NetVibes gives me that.  Importing it from Google Reader was easy, once I found the tutorial on it.  It has a very user friendly interface, with click to expand and click to collapse, so I can view more of a headline, then collapse it again if it's not what I want.

Since it's headlines only, it allows me to scan the headlines for the things I want to read first.  It allows me to rearrange my feeds into new groups by dragging and dropping.  It lets me mark all of a blog read without impacting the other blog feeds under that category.

So far, I've found nothing I don't like about it.  It's going to replace Google Reader nicely.

Also, it's free, but has upgraded versions that do more things - more than the average reader would need.

One thing I do like that Google Reader doesn't do, when I mark things read, they don't disappear. So if it happens that I marked something read and it turns out that I want to refer back to it a few days later, the headline is still there, just grayed out so I know it's been read.

Replacing Google Reader

I've tried feedly.  Very big footprint and runs in the background, even when the browser's closed.  I tried feedreader, which though it let me sign up for it, I can never actually get the webpage to open.

Now, I'm going to try bloglovin.  We'll see.  Ignore the follow me link if you want.  I'm just trying something new.

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/6854303/?claim=fms8an9nr4m">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Random, some more...

Got another request for a book review.  This one's not just some no-name author trying to perk up his or her review count.  This one's from Brenda Novak.  Technically, it's from her assistant, who said she enjoyed reading my reviews, and could I please review the latest book if she sent me a copy. 

:eek!:

Also, in the seriously amusing category:  Landlord's dad was over Sunday to hang the curtains they got him for christmas.  Since Landlord is blind, I was the eyes, and made sure things were level and even and whatnot.  Later, dad's gone and we're hanging pictures in the game room, and out of the blue I say to Rick, "Your dad's a sub.  Maybe not in his work, but with home-related stuff."  Silence for a moment.  "You know, that explains a whole lot about a lot of things."   Conversation passes to other things, and another friend comes up in the conversation about getting on Medicare versus paying COBRA premiums. They're talking about the best way to get K to go through the information and get signed up (he'll be 66 in March), and again, apropos of nothing, I say, "Kent's definitely a sub.  If you want him to do something, you have to tell him what he needs to do and just keep telling him until it's all done."

So Landlord decides that we should find a way to start a dating service, where part of the inflow process is to sit and have a conversation or several with me, so that I can determine where in the spectrum someone lies, thus matching them up with their proper complement.  I got to imagining the ads for such a service and just giggled madly for a few minutes.  Me, who hasn't dated in well over two decades, matching people up based on a BDSM profile I make up in my head.  :snicker:

Weird story of the week

My landlord was telling me this morning about a friend in California who met a woman through his doctor's office - she works there as a nurse.  He's been on a date with her and subsequently slept with her.  Well, he found out that said nurse had taken an extra bit of blood, and had run an HIV test through the lab under an anonymous name, so she'd know whether or not he was 'clean' before she slept with him.  This was apparently before she even told him she was interested in going on a date.  Friend out in California is, by all accounts, totally OK with this behavior.

I am glad this didn't happen to me.  First, there'd be the violation of my personal privacy.  Then, there'd be the abuse of position at work, and the misuse of company funds, unless the office has a policy to cover employees paying for personal STD testing on potential bed-partners lab work.  Then, there'd be what seems to me a fairly serious violation of HIPAA laws.  Loss of licensure, loss of job, civil or criminal liability, the consequences for this sort of behavior far outweigh any possible benefits.  What ever happened to just asking?  I mean, I know it's an awkward conversation to initiate or to have, but in today's sexual climate, it's a necessary one.

I'm more than a little stunned that the guy's OK with what this woman did.  In the same situation, I would have dropped the guy like a hot anvil, and at the very least, reported his behavior to his boss.  I would NOT be OK with someone doing this to me.  And I most assuredly would not sleep with him after he told me all this.  

Helluva Day!

(original lj post 02/06/2013)
A couple of days ago, when I was running my landlord around, doctor, Home Depot, lunch, etc, something weird happened in my car.  I spent the last two days figuring out what the problem is, even going so far as to call the guy who replace my oil pan (and kept my car for an entire frakking year!) and ask him, since he's a Volvo lover.

Bought a light tester today, couldn't figure out from the directions how to use the stupid thing, and ended up pulling each individual fuse out of two different places in my car (inside and under the hood) to find the blown one/s.  None.  And now my hands hurt.  So, it's a relay.  I also took each one of them apart and checked, but could not tell if any of them were blown - have no frame of reference.  Auto Zone guys were completely clueless.  O'Reilly's guy at least knew exactly what I was talking about when I told him what I needed, but told me it was a dealer part, $40 each, nonreturnable, and O'R have no way of testing those, so I can't figure out which one it is.  Maybe Volvo does.  I really don't want to go to the dealership.  

While I was there, another O'R guy came in and after I described everything, including the blooming chime that never shuts up, he said, "Sounds like your alternator."  It does not sound like my alternator, but I just looked at him.  Apparently I used my 'mom' look or something, because he said I looked confused.  "Well, your alternator is basically a small electrical generator."  Really?  I had no idea.  I've never worked on a car before in my life, or rebuilt a carb, or helped pull an engine, or worked at a parts house or a dealership.  I didn't say any of that, though the frustrated bitch in me surely wanted to.  Actually, the frustrated bitch in me wanted to smack the crap out of him, but that's neither here nor there.

I've never owned a Volvo before, and I have to say that it's been a big, fat pain in my ass.  Parts are impossible and expensive, and finding someone to work on them that doesn't work at a dealership is extremely difficult.  I'll go back to American from now on.  At least I know how to find the parts and how to fix them.  Mostly.

Got back, and the guy (I call him Scrawny Hernia Guy) who was supposed to do the painting on the side of the house did a crap job, much like the crap job he did in my landlord's closet (none of the shelves are level, and seriously?  Landlord's blind, but you aren't.  Frakker.).  He wanted to get paid anyway, and his reasoning was he was paid to paint on the second story (uh, only one story on this house) and that's what he did.  If we wanted it done right, as in old paint scraped completely off before the new paint goes on, he'd have to come back next week, and we'd have to pay him the same amount as today, again.  Uh-huh.  Maybe that works for other people, and maybe that worked for landlord before he had me, but I'm a perfectionist, and I don't pay people to do crap jobs and to come back to do the job right the second time instead of the first.  I'll get up on that stupid ladder and paint that one little piece myself before I'll pay you another flipping dime.  Idiot.

On the other hand, nine days until Die Hard, and only three until Saturday, plus, my fingers have been typing a lot of stories lately, and none of that sucks, so...  :D

Maybe I'll take some benadryl and go to bed early tonight.  Wake up on the right side of the chair tomorrow.  lol 

Yet More Random

I've decided that "because you kissed me backstage during a play in high school your freshman year" is probably not a good enough reason to friend someone on Facebook.  It was a memorable kiss, but it was over 30 years ago now.  Better to move on.  lol  Besides, I'm paring down my FB friends list, not adding to it.

Texts From Last Night is a never-ending source of amusement.  Some of them are just so far out I have to wonder if they are even real, and some remind me far too much of things that I did in my twenties.  I keep reading them, who knows?  I might even find something that inspires a story.  heeeee

I went to sleep and woke up with pieces of stories and lines of dialogue in my head, mostly stuff that can expand already existing prompts-in-progress in my working document.  One of them, I thought to myself, "OK, I just now started writing for the first time in my life, and you think I can tackle *that*?  Seriously?  Methinks you need some caffeine."  Yes, I really do think to myself that way sometimes, complete sentences and Shakespearean language.  

I noticed in a lot of fics lately that people use span instead of spun as the past tense of spin, and every single time it takes me out of the story.  I saw it again a couple of days ago, and finally went to look it up, because I just didn't understand how so many writers could be using the same wrong word. I'm reading through the definitions, yeah, yeah, I already know what span means, thanks, and then way down at the bottom, there it is: archaic, simple past tense of spin.  Color me surprised.  It still sounds wrong to me, and will probably always take me out of a story, but at least now I know from whence it came.  Yeah, I know I'm weird.

Full of Random

(original lj post 02/01/2013) Two rats down in the last two days.  Creeps me the frak out to dispose of them, but then I get distracted by the science nerd in me, who examines them very closely - tails, ears, hair color, both male.  Yes, I noticed.  Then I triple-bag them and take them out to the trash bin on the alley.  My landlord has this whole story going now where the momma rat/s are at home thinking, "I just sent him for some damn food.  He's out frakking some skinny bitch with no tits, isn't he?"  It's pretty funny.  Or maybe we're just really strange. I responded to a comm prompt tonight.  First time a prompt put a whole entire story in my head, so yay for progression in that area.  I'm still working on a challenge from someone else.  That one's being a little more elusive, though I've got parts of it. Went to pick up a crockpot from a freecycler today, and OK, before I tell you the rest, I have to say that the crockpot was disgusting.  Not clean, dessicated roaches and roach eggs, just gross.  Am I the only person on the face of the freecycling planet that cleans things before I give them away?  I mean, that was just nasty. Anyway, driving away from the disgusting house, and I noticed two garage sales.  At the second one, there was a lovely four-poster bed that I would adore having, but my room is cramped and getting more cramped as it is, so no bed for me.  We drove past it, because we were on the way to lunch, and I almost missed a frakking stop sign, and yes, the mom in me still functions, because I hit the brakes hard and put my arm in front of landlord, as if he were a ten year old.  That was also amusing.  Anyway.....after lunch, we went back to the garage sale with the bed, and since it was a full and not a queen, it wouldn't work for him, but not six feet away were washers and dryers and fridges, and they looked very new.  Turns out, the family having the garage sale, the dad is a maintenance guy for an upscale apartment/condo place, where when something goes wrong, they just remove it and get new.  He takes the "broken" stuff home, fixes it, then sells it.  So, we bought a practically new washing machine, desperately needed, complete with warranty still intact, for $125.  Guy delivered it, noticed we had a problem in the outgoing pipes, fixed that and hauled away the old washer.  Didn't charge us any extra for all that.  Also, now we have a number for someone who can do some minor stuff around the house who is NOT a dumbass.  Granted, he speaks little English, and I'll have to seriously work on my Mexican/Spanish conversational skills, but that is promising.  Now we have to get the stuff to mark the washer knobs so landlord can 'see' the settings when he's doing his laundry.  I'm getting a real education on blindness accommodations living here, I gotta say. Also at this garage sale, I saw a Hawaiian shirt and a suit jacket with tails, both in my grandson's size.  I was so tempted to get them, but I resisted.  The lady running the garage sale brought me some jeans, and when I told her they were too small, she looked me over pretty good and looked at the jeans again, and  was all, "No way, these would fit you," only in Spanish.  Great compliment, but yeah, six sizes too small, thanks. And a month after I got sick (Happy New Year to me, right?), I can still/again hear my lungs squeaking when I breathe, so I guess I really do have to go to the county's urgent care clinic.  I mean, I'm not in pain or anything, but the squeaking is distracting, and I am having trouble breathing, more trouble than usual.  ETA:  I told myself if it was still bothering me on Monday, I'd go, and it wasn't, so I didn't.

Movie: Conan the Barbarian

I knew if I waited long enough, Amazon would put Conan on Prime's watch-for-free list.  It wasn't terrible, either.

So, I watched it, basically for Jason Momoa.  I loved him in Stargate: Atlantis, and though his part in Game of Thrones was very small, I liked him fine there, too.  The actress playing Tamara has the most amazingly pale blue eyes I've ever seen.  In one scene, they almost look white, they're so pale.  Stunning.

Pros: Conan, at both ages, is pretty.  Tamara is pretty.  There are many naked breasts in one scene that are pretty.  The fights, however unrealistic, are pretty.  His friend, the thief King, is pretty.  In the love scene and aftermath, both Conan and Tamara are very pretty (though the actress has a body double, so presumably it's the double's body that's pretty).  As you can tell, this was all about the pretty.  lol

Cons:  The movie as a whole was mediocre, at best.  The script maybe had good bones, but whoever didn't make any inspired choices in translating that script into film.  I had no idea it was possible to make Rose McGowan unattractive, but they managed.  The end was kind of non-endy.

Also, lest people continue to think that watching TV is not educational, while I was watching the credits, I was able to tell the gender of many of the film's Slavic workers.  If the name ended with ev, ov, av (not too many of those), then I knew that person was male.  If it ended eva, ova, ava, then that person was female.  Where did I learn that?  Babylon 5, maybe?  JAG?  I don't even remember, just that it stuck in my head.  Another useless bit of trivia for that trip to Eastern Europe that will never happen.  :)

Was that barbarian/King played by the same guy who was the head dude on Terra Nova?  I'll have to look that up, if I remember long enough. 

Anyway, it wasn't a waste of my time, but I doubt I'll be watching it again.  If they got a different director, I might even watch a sequel, though I would not pay to watch at a movie house.  I hear tell they're making another Conan movie with Arnold back as Conan.  I can guarantee I won't be watching that one. 

Merry Christmas!

(original post on livejournal 12/25/2012)
Made it to my parents' house about three, which was my ETA, so yay for that.  Took about an hour, driving in the falling snow, but mostly just careful driving, not problems.  There is much construction, so getting to the right street coming from the east was a tiny bit of fun. 

My stepmother was very nice (which actually makes me uncomfortable) during my whole visit, probably because several members of the extended family were there.   It was weird but good to see my dad.  He looks healthy, which is on the good side, for sure.  I think I might've gotten two minutes of conversation out of him over several hours, so, weird there.

In a concession to others who would likely think I'd lost my mind, I wore sleeves and socks, and brought a jacket.  I was actually too warm in the house, and sought out the cold spots several times, so I could cool off.  I even went outside once and stood on the front porch.  When I was leaving, my sister tried to help me into my jacket, and it was comical to watch her face as I declined, because it would make me too hot.

Food was fantastic, quite as expected, and we girls set the table like a well-oiled machine.  We've had lots of practice.  Because there were eight people, we used the sideboard as a buffet, and only had eating dishes and gravy on the actual table.  Talk was desultory, with recipes and lottery scratch-offs and dogs and cats and work/school as topics of the evening.  Met cousin's husband, and he seems like a really good guy.  He's weird enough to fit right in with the family, and he obviously adores my cousin, so he's a keeper.

I got an unexpected gift from my parents (from stepmother, actually, but she always puts both names on them).  Anyway, it's a gorgeous moonstone pendant, and she insisted I wear it today.  Makes me wonder if it's been cursed or something.  lol  She talked about amethysts and insomnia, because she said she wasn't sure if she should invite me, not knowing what kind of schedule I keep.  I told her my sleep doesn't really let me keep a schedule, because I just never know when or if I'll sleep, or for how long.  Anyway, on to the amethysts, and then later in the conversation, I said that I thought my brain was just fucked up.  She agreed, and that was the meanest thing she said during my visit, and it wasn't even mean.  Anyway.

Stepmother had told me to pack a bag in case the weather got iffy, and she mentioned it again when I got there, but I reminded her I'd lived in Misery for five years, and had delivered pizzas in worse weather than this, so I would be fine to drive home.  Driving home was quite the adventure, though.  Just getting to the actual freeway took nearly ten minutes, because the freeway entrances are not marked until *right there* and so I missed more than one.  I left Bedford about 6:30, and by that time the sun was down and the roads were starting to cool off, so I drove home even more carefully than I'd driven over, and there were LOTS of idiots, both driving too fast and driving too slowly.  People had caromed off into the shoulder, one into a culvert, just sitting there with his lights on, about half a dozen accidents big enough to require professional assistance.  Luckily, because I've driven in Missouri winters, this was nothing, and I made it home just fine.  Took me an hour and fifteen, but I'd rather take my time and be safe than be impatient and end up a statistic.  Had one close call where the guy in front of me slowed down just as we reached a bridge, and I couldn't brake, because the bridge WAS iced over.  I had to change lanes and pray, but it worked beautifully and all was good for the rest of the trip.  The closer I got to Dallas, the less the streets were messed up, though by the time I hit my neighborhood, cars and buildings were covered with snow that had stuck.

Found out one of the cats, my favorite, had died a couple of months ago.  I asked about her after dinner, and my uncle told me that she'd died.  Thank goodness I was talking to him and not asking my stepmother.  She gets very attached to her animals, and that would have been a faux pas, for sure.  Wish someone had told me when it happened, though.

I'm glad to be back in my own little room - trying to determine if I should actually attempt to accomplish something, or just veg for the evening until I fall asleep.  At the moment, I'm voting for anything that takes me closer to sleeping, so things are unlikely to be accomplished.