zlana

I can haz learner's permit!

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:34:10 GMT

In the grand tradition of DMV photos everywhere, I look pretty terrible in the photo. Butbutbut WOOT I passed. 19 outta 20, baby!

Now, uhm, to let my elbow heal a bit more before I try things like steering. But yeah, calling the driving school in a week or so! *boogies* Road trips, here I come!

Viciously attacked by a sidewalk!

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:00:58 GMT

Walking home from the bus yesterday, I tripped over a broken place in the sidewalk. I took a really bad spill; I skinned my knees and chin (and, mysteriously, my right breast!) and hurt my arm. The arm hurt badly enough that I ended up asking digitalpoetry to come home early to take me over to Mt. Auburn. After a long wait in the emergency room, it turns out I broke my elbow and sprained my wrist. I'm in a fair bit of pain, and a sling. (Thankfully I have pain meds; my apologies if those make this a bit incoherent.) Figures that the first time I ever break a bone is over some silly thing like tripping on the sidewalk.

Mostly I just hating the fact that I'm stuck not being able to move much while this heals. The whole dang arm hurts, as I landed palms-down an that stressed the whole arm, plus th weight of my arm in a sling is messing up my shoulder. It's supposed to heal fairly quickly because the bone involved isn't generally weight-bearing, or somesuch. It's starting to feel better already, but that may be medication.

So yeah, if you have plans with me in the next week we may have to reschedule depending on how soon this heals. We'll play it by ear. It's a bit tacky to say this in an LJ post, but I'm groggy from the meds and from hurting so long so I didn't quite feel up to making a bunch of calls right away.

Blergh. Just sitting up at the computer is a bit much. I go fall (gently) over now. Owie.

Dictionary.com has 88 definitions of "strike"

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:08:42 GMT

Here are two relevant ones (emphasis mine):

41. to leave off (work) or stop (working) as a coercive measure, or as at the close of the day.
42. (of a union or union member)
a. to declare or engage in a suspension of (work) until an employer grants certain demands, such as pay increases, an improved pension plan, etc.
b. to declare or engage in a suspension of work against (a factory, employer, industry, etc.) until certain demands are met.

If the recent writer's strike in Hollywood had had a predetermined time limit, the television studios would have snickered. Nothing would have changed.

I understand why so many of you are doing this, but personally I think it's pointless and won't make the slightest difference in achieving your goals. A mass migration to Blogger or Wordpress, no looking back, that might get their attention. It might make them rethink and look for options that make their users happier. It might not. But a 24 hour strike won't gain you anything. It's not even a strike, really.

I certainly think some of the changes to LJ lately have been rather annoying and perhaps misguided. But Livejournal is a for-profit company and they can do whatever they want with it.* If you don't like it, leave. I've been planning on taking my blogging elsewhere for some time now, the only reason I'm still here is because so many folks I know forget to inform me of things if they have already posted it here. When I find myself with the time (which, honestly, may never happen) I have every intention of taking my blogging elsewhere.

I'm not especially educated on the details of this situation. Nor am I especially passionate about it. I just wanted to get it out there that while I admire the sentiment of "Hey, we liked this community/content-driven site how it was, can't we change your minds?" I don't think this is a reasonable or effective way to convey that. If you want to get into a discussion of the subject, be forewarned I've pretty much said all I have to say.

*Within reason, yes. I'm sure there are some things they can't do with their website according to what laws we have governing the internet. But wanting to advertise on their site, even if the content is yours? This is not new, folks. Nor is censoring what you say. Various other forums and blog sites have been doing both of these things for years.

In summary: Good luck, but don't hold your breath.

P.S. Yes, I know many of you won't read this as not reading LJ is part of the strike. Amusingly meta, ain't it? :)

Just too busy...

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:11:16 GMT

I'll try to keep this short. In fact, after 20 minutes or so of trying and failing to put this succinctly, I'm opting to keep this VERY short.

I am reading LJ again, a Very Little Bit. I keep missing schedule related information, so I've decided I need to at least get that much. So we're talking a filter of eight people, five or six of whom rarely post. If you think you should be on that list, you probably are. (You're welcome to check with me to be sure if you want.)

I've said it before, but let me reiterate, it's nothing personal. It's not even a protest against recent LJ changes. It's simply that I can't seem to find the time.

one of those "I'm so blogging this" moments

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 04:16:01 GMT

digitalpoetry just insisted that "geekipolitan" was a word. :) cuz he's awesome like that.

GTD: tearing my hair out

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 18:30:35 GMT

I'm back to feeling overwhelmed and irritated with my lack of time management skills. So I've been looking at diyplanner.com and getting myself psyched up to try (again) to get organized. I tried to figure out an easy way to punch pages to fit in the 7-ring planner I have. There isn't one, even with the 6 hole punch I made by cannibalizing two 3 hole punches. The punches don't seem to align right. My next idea is to buy a new planner that only has three holes, which kind of sucks since I paid moderately good money for this one. This will have to involve getting my butt to Staples or Target or something and hoping they carry what I want, since I cannot for the life of my find a planner suited for 8.5" x 5.5" 3-hole pages when I search online. Not because they don't exist, but because a lot of the places I'd think to look don't seem to list the basic stats like size and number of holes. ARGH.

*sigh* Anyhow, enough bitching. I'm going to try and switch gears and get something else done.

EDIT In a spectacular display of my ability to solve a problem after venting about how it's not working, I figured out I can punch the top three holes, flip the pages and do the bottom three holes, and do the middle one by hand. A bit fiddly, but it seems doable.

Who wants to see a kitty picture?

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:28:00 GMT

Yes, another cat picture. It's oh so cute, but behind a cut for tidy friends list pages.

And then we rearranged the entire apartment

Fri, 23 Nov 2007 23:42:21 GMT

digitalpoetry and I have had a good post-Thanksgiving Friday. Slept late, spent the morning slacking off (mainly playing Bookworm Adventures) and have spent the afternoon and evening rearranging furniture. We're not quite done yet but I'm excited about the changes, it seems like it's going to make things feel more open, make better use of space, and feel more homey.

Further adventures in watching a lot of tv...

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 21:27:18 GMT

In an attempt to find more tv, I'm giving Veronica Mars a whirl (yes, I'm a TV based lifeform, shut up). The main character seems familiar, so I do what any sensible tv junkie netizen would do and whip out my laptop and pull up imbd.com - aha! Our latest addition to the Heroes crew, Elle (aka Scary Lightning Girl)!

The cross-pollination of Firefly and Desperate Housewives

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 22:04:56 GMT

The new season of Desperate Housewives has brought a new family to the neighborhood, whose husband/step-father character is played by none other than Firefly's Nathan Fillion (who played Mal Reynolds). This has brought me no small measure of entertainment, especially in scenes where it's relevant that the character is a gynecologist.

Watching episodes of Firefly today, I had a similar moment when I realized the Alliance Commander in "Bushwhacked" is played by Doug Savant, who plays the husband of one of the four Housewives (Tom, for them's that watch DH but are bad with names).

Light therapy, seasonal depression

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 19:50:04 GMT

My seasonal depression (Winter SAD) has been kicking my ass the past month or two, and in trying to explain things to marmota I realized it's time for a refresher course. Which is a bit tricky since a) the internet isn't the world's most reliable information source and b) the medical community still seems to be trying to figure some things out. For my own reference and for those who are interested, here is the info I found most interesting, with my comments in brackets. It ends up a bit stream of consciousness, but I'm not sure how else to get my thoughts together on this. I've done my best to format for readability, but it's a bit dense in places nonetheless.

From clevelandclinic.org:
-Light therapy is administered by a device that contains white fluorescent light tubes covered with a plastic screen to block ultraviolet rays. The intensity of light emitted (Lux) should be at least 10,000 Lux. [My light is a homebrew. It doesn't have any sort of diffusion to it, and is simply a bare bulb that is 10,000 lux at three feet away.] The patient does not need to look directly into the light, but reads or eats while sitting in front of the device at a distance of 2 to 3 feet. [This is very helpful to know, as I'd sort of been under the impression I did have to look directly at it, which really isn't doable without any diffusion. Trouble is, I find that it's painful even to sit in front of it to read. This leads me to wonder about getting myself a new light.]
-Recent studies suggest that morning light therapy is more effective than evening treatments. Using this treatment too late in the day may also produce insomnia. [Which means if I don't get to my light for a few hours after I get up it's ok. Immediately upon waking is best, but is not as necessary as I'd thought.] Many health professionals today prefer to treat SAD with 10,000 Lux for 30 minutes every morning. Patients have shown some improvement within 2 to 4 days and reach full benefits within 2 to 4 weeks. [This would be why when I've tried to find a set up for the light that doesn't hurt my eyes, it hasn't helped as much as I'd expect. I must keep at it.]

From wikipedia:
-SAD can be a serious disorder and may require hospitalization. There is also potential risk of suicide in some patients experiencing SAD. [I find this rather validating, as there have been days that the depression was bordering on suicidal. It seemed odd that I could feel so badly from just SAD, but I guess I can.]
-There are many different treatments for seasonal affective disorder, including light therapies, medication, and ionized-air reception. [The ionized air part is the really interesting thing, as an air purifier is something marmota had suggested somewhat intuitively, on the basis that Winter means being sealed into your house, and fresher air can help.] Negative air ionization, involving the release of charged particles into the sleep environment has been found to be effective. [This elaborates on what's involved in this treatment, but I want to talk to a doctor to better understand what this means.]
-Winter depression (or winter blues) is a common slump in the mood of Scandinavians. Doctors estimate that about 20% of all Scandinavians are affected, and it seems to be genetically heritable. It was first described by the 6th century Goth scholar Jordanes in his Getica where he described the inhabitants of Scandza (Scandinavia). There are words in Icelandic and Swedish that directly describe Seasonal Affective conditions. The Icelandic word is "skammdegisthunglyndi". "Skamm" means short, "degi" is day, "thung" is heavy and "lyndi" means mood although there is some argument as to how long the word existed as the earliest records indicate it appeared in the late 1800s in print. [This is not especially useful info, but interesting. And I now want to learn how to pronounce "skammdegisthunglyndi". :)]
-Most people with SAD experience unipolar depression, but as many as 20% may have or go on to develop a bipolar or manic-depressive disorder. In these cases, persons with SAD may experience depression during the winter and hypomania in the summer. [This is intriguing, given that for a few years now I've wondered how much the SAD had to do with the diagnosis of Type Two Bipolar I have, and now consider to be inaccurate.]

This says basically four things to me. I suck it up and use my light as much as I can, and accept that I may not get to my light til afternoon some of the time. I should get outside more often. I should talk to a professional, probably in the form of seeing a therapist. I should get a new light as soon as I can.

Important life lesson from a pink haired freak

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 22:04:57 GMT

Shower caps are indeed our friends. The attitude of "eh, screw it, I'm out of shower caps and I want to bleach my hair" doesn't really fly. Breathing in hot vinyl-y fumes is unpleasant but not nearly as unpleasant as hot bleach-y fumes. Whee, ventilation!

(The effectiveness of blow-drying unshielded hair is yet to be determined. I'm sitting with a bleached head now, hoping to let is bleach more. Probably going to give blow drying one more go after this.)

Stocking shopping, the saga continues

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 01:00:55 GMT

Today digitalpoetry and I drove out to the Natingham area* to do some stocking shopping. We hit The Container Store first because I'd seen them advertise the daylights out of there stocking stuffer selections online, and I didn't want to pay shipping. The best win? Silicone coffee cooleys. Like a tea cozy keeps your tea warm, these keep your hand from scalding when you get coffee on the go.

Then we headed over to AC Moore where we discovered that from 6:00-9:00 they were having their "Midnight Madness" sale (wtf??) where everything not already on sale was 25% off. It wasn't 6:00 yet, so we went to dinner and came back. I then spent about an hour and a half (oog, too much pop music) filling up my basket with about $150-$160 of merchandise that was only $75 with the various sale prices.

Time to fall over now though. So glad I'm getting the shopping done before the shops get much more mobbed than they are already. And a fair amount done online helps too.

* Natick/Framingham. Like Camberville, but more shopping and less geeks.

I can has kitten!

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 20:08:59 GMT

Piper has a kitten-sized box. It's adorable, and I have photographic proof!

Christmas update

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 13:05:25 GMT

For those that haven't heard me mention this, I spoke to my brother shortly after my post complaining of him being tricky to gift. I don't know if I caught him in a good enough mood, or asked the right questions or what, but I did get helpful feedback. Between the few things I'd found (such as a set of rpg dice that say "d'oh!" instead of 1) and his feedback I think it's gonna be ok. (dice and candy and Warhammer minis oh my!... yeah, he's a geek) Now I just have to figure out gift-giving for the major players in this newfound social life thing.

Knock on wood

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 20:27:35 GMT

Phone problems appear fixed. It had seemed potentially permanent, but now I'm thinking (from what I did that got it working again) that the battery was merely loose.

Phone troubles

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:43:27 GMT

With no warning whatsoever, my phone is acting up. It turned off in the midst of a phone call, and is being very flakey about turning back on. So it's possible I'll be hard to reach for a little while. Still not sure what's up exactly, but for the time being if you need to reach me try the phone first but if you can't reach me try email.

Time off

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 13:12:14 GMT

Today is the first day of allowing myself a week off from work. Not a vacation exactly, as I intend to use the time to catch up on laundry and decluttering, and hopefully some Christmas shopping. I'm pretty much set for gifts for my family, but gifts for friends and stocking stuffers for my family still need to be done. My teenage brother is pretty well impossible to stuff a stocking for anymore; everything he likes is in cd type format. DVDs, Playstation 2 games, PC games, music CDs... none of these fit in the stockings my family uses. I honestly can't think of a single thing he would like aside from candy to put in his stocking. Maybe some dice. *sigh*

Seriously, this kid is HARD to shop for. Picky about his clothes, doesn't drive, dropped out of school, doesn't read... so far as I understand it, all he does is play video games! Which is another rant entirely; right now my main beef with him is it makes him hard to shop for.

Anyways, enough ranting about boring Christmas minutia. I mean, if there are any suggestions out there in friends list land, feel free (mhari, we should brainstorm at some point). But in the mean time I'm gonna go put in some laundry and then try to remember how to relax. :)

P.S. if all else fails, the little brother will get a big stack of gently used cd-format-media from Gamestop and the like. We'll stuff his stocking with a few coupons good for opening a present early or something.

Foiled by mystery gluten

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 12:05:49 GMT

It seems digitalpoetry somehow got accidental gluten yesterday. No idea how, but he woke up too sick to drive this morning. Since set-up ends around 8:30, there wasn't even time to try and scramble to find an alternate ride.

So no Market for me after all. Oh well.

The continuing pliers saga

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 21:20:35 GMT

Oh, now what the heck?! I checked in the cashbox. Five time! And yet, when I went to get something else out of there just now, there were my round-nosed pliers, lurking under my price tags.

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 21:06:47 GMT

I'm really pleased with how this came out. Due to one thing and another (a cold and lack of pliers, mainly), I haven't made as many new things in the past few days as I'd have liked, but I'm pleased as punch with what I have made. This bracelet is officially the highest ticket price yet, and I'm sure it seems extraordinarily high to some folks. But trust me I've done my homework, and the price is pretty competitive. Whee, silly linkage!

And in semi-related news, I realized whilst making this that I have quite a few plastic charms of the "fad in the '80s" type that I won't be using. So I spent an hour or two today putting together an eBay auction to get rid of them, as they are quite collectible these days amongst nostalgic 20- and 30-somethings. Should be able to net $50 or more, which would easily my cash-strapped mind a bit.

Ok, back to making stuff, enough LJ puttering. :)

I can has pliers!

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 13:06:32 GMT

Still no luck finding my round-nosed pliers. So I asked marmota if we could swing by A.C. Moore on our way to Diesel. I had a sweet 50% off one item coupon in my inbox, so I picked up a spiffy new pair for only $6.81. Someday when I feel like I have money, I want to pick up a set of mini travel pliers.

Superpower failure

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 21:57:53 GMT

Among my immediate family, I am known as The Finder Girl. It's one of my superpowers. I once found my godsister's passport when a sudden opportunity for travel had her frantically searching for it. It was under her rug. I has mad skills.

Except!! It's much less effective for my own stuff. I have looked everywhere sane for my round-nosed pliers. If I can't find them in the next couple of days, I will end up buying new ones. *sigh* If anyone has finding-stuff energy they want to send my way, I'd appreciate it.

Oh for pity's sake, what next?

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 18:08:23 GMT

You know the phrase "today is not my day"? Uh, yeah. One of those. It's almost comical. Almost.

I overslept. Or rather, I asked digitalpoetry to wake me when he got up, and his alarm either didn't go off because Piper decided iPhones make good cat toys or else he somehow didn't hear it (which happens once in a while). So yeah. We didn't get up til 8:40, which isn't really a problem, it's not like I have to start work at X:XX, but I like to start work by 9:00 and still have half an hour or more to have coffee and read LJ and so on.

The landlords/downstairs neighbors are remodelling their kitchen. Which means that the water is shut off. And that there is near-constant, surprisingly loud drilling, sawing, hammering type noises coming from right the heck below me.

It also seems to mean that Piper is a bit riled up. Or it's just that she's a kitten. Either way, she's especially pesky today. Can't let her in the studio, she bats at absolutely everything and climbs up on the table or me or anything climbable. Can't shut her out of the studio, she scratches incessantly at the door. Can't shut her into the bedroom or her cat carrier, she meows her fuzzy little head right off. (Will probably go with this last though, and she can meow til she gets over it.)

Plus, I have a cold. This means I'm sniffling and sneezing a lot and thus going through tissues at a terrific rate. Which means I'm out of tissues, and using tp or paper towels instead. And the whole stuffy-head thing is making my thinking a bit draggy.

I really want to go to clara_girl's craft night tonight. But I might be too frazzled by then, and I worry about spreading my cold. Or sort of figure I'm not contagious at this point but I never really know with these things. Ah well, if I skip it (again) there is always next week.

On the plus side? I've still managed to do work today. I'm trying to clear out my beads of things I don't like or don't seem to be using. Posted about a dozen "destash" beads and charms to my etsy shop. Plans for what's next include taking more jewelry and beads photos, and making some jewelry. I'm working on stuff with giant plastic stars, and stuff with Barbie boomboxes.

ETA: Oh, that's what's next. *sigh* I cannot find my round-nosed pliers. I NEED my round-nosed pliers. Gah.

Stuff. And junk. Also +/-

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 14:10:40 GMT

Going back through the past little while, starting from now.

-I can has cold. Not only is this generally irritating, but it seems to be making it harder to wake up this morning.
+I can has really good coffee.
-Bad dream last night, overly detailed, involving an irrational but on-my-mind fear coming true. With an odd twist.
+Really good sex last night.
+Really good dinner last night.
-Not feeling copeful enough to go out last night.
-Crit-fail on communication for weekend plans. I need to get to using a public calendar. Dammit.
+Part of the reason I was low on spoons? Spent a lot on getting zlanarama.com updated. Like, really updated.
?Overly detailed dream Thursday too... was a happy thing, but not something that would actually happen. So it was good but bad, and generally did weird things to my head.
+Really lovely evening with the ever-patient gravitrue on Thursday.
-Been really cranky lately, especially Thursday. I wish I wasn't having to test people's patience so often lately.

Well. Gonna go grab a shower now, see if it wakes me up a bit and maybe clears out my stuffy head.