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Not my favourite day ever. Yesterday was also not my favourite day ever. Although it is a wonder what fresh-baked cookies and Orson Scott Card and a new lamp and fairy lights and a hot shower and a favourite sweater can do for one's mood, considering.

Yesterday: was running late for work because my contacts decided to go bad on me and I spent half an hour scrubbing at them desperately trying to make them stop going cloudy the moment I put them in my eyes. (Success: minimal. I wore glasses today.) Had Mum drive me at the last minute and had to calm down, I was so full of pent-up frustration and irritation and tightness. Got to work, was emotional for no good reason, started crying behind the calendars (honestly, right now I don't even remember why, except that I was tired and cross and didn't want to be at work and am tired of spending four hours every day accomplishing almost nothing), and then had about ten customers all day. aslkhdghghg. Also had a bloke (apparently?) trying to flirt with me by asking if I had read Twilight or Nicholas Sparks. (I said I read Twilight several years ago and did not like it at all, thank you, in my best polite voice. Also, I did not say, I find being flirted with as though I am a Girl Object extremely demeaning and I would put up a placard next to the register: Please Do Not Flirt With the Clerk Or She May Become Violent, if this might cause Management to raise an eyebrow or two. Also why would I want to text you when during ten minutes' worth of conversation we have not found one thing we have got in common? For once I was thrilled that I haven't got a mobile phone. ALSO ALSO, radioactively red hair is not "a weird colour for a homeschooler", thank you. We do not all wear denim jumpers and Birkenstocks.)

But Mum picked me up and I got a lampshade for the lamp I have had sitting unopened in my bedroom nearly since we moved here -- my last lamp having snapped in half some months ago -- and it is red and gold and Victorian-wallpapery and has got dangley bead fringe on and casts the loveliest golden-red light on the walls, and that combined with the fairy lights on the bed make my bedroom very cosy and interesting.

Today: slept nearly all morning, went off on the Angelmobile to Martin's before lunch to fetch Italian bread for Mum to make dinner with, discovered that while it is gloriously warm, it is also raining horribly, and while I love rain, it is not pleasant to ride in when one hasn't got a raincoat, and is wearing glasses, and when one is on a bicycle and so rides in the gutters so as not to be hit by cars, and all of the gutters are filled with an inch or so of muddy water, so riding to work would have been like riding in one great mud puddle, and all of my pants are currently out of commission, so I would be riding to work in a gigantic mud puddle in a skirt and stockings.

(Mum took me. But hey, Martin's had several loaves of my favourite rosemary olive oil bread, which I had rather worried they'd stopped making.)

Work went more quickly, except that I am currently menstruating, and got terrifically crampy early in my shift. ARGH. (Oh hey, that explains the wackier-than-usual moodswings and periods of weird over-sentimentality this past week!) People were sufficiently helped, and I sold gift cards, and only a few people put things back in really stupid places. But then I got off work and in the process of checking next week's schedule discovered that the schedule for Christmas week has been set up a whole week early, and I am meant to be working the day after Christmas when I won't even be here (we're going to my aunt's, and -- I kind of want to stay home, really, because this is such a lovely house to have Christmas in, and people wear me out more than usual, even though I love my aunt and cousins; but I'll have to talk all the time, and be that other self that is gregarious and cleverly funny and there won't be any sacredness at Christmas), and I thought I still had time to figure out our schedule and ask for the time off. (I did already have Christmas Eve off, thank goodness, because I'm meant to be helping at Dad's church.) And it was really horrible and I panicked and started sobbing right there in the back room, even though a moment after I read it I hadn't expected to become hysterical, and it took at least ten minutes to calm myself down enough to even go outside, and then I got into the car and started sobbing again and it was horrible. Mum took me back to try to straighten it out, and so I might be able to get someone else to cover for me, but I won't know until tomorrow, and ugh. I really don't even want to type about it anymore.

(Also: yet another Important Everyday Thing about My Employment that I did not get told: there's a calendar in the back room whereupon employees can write days they can't be in work ahead of time so that when the schedule's being set up those can be taken into account. THIS WOULD HAVE HELPED. [sigh] I like my jobs -- in some ways -- I really do. But I am tired and abrasive just now.)

But when I got home, Jonathan arrived with fresh-baked cookies, which was nice (Sarah and Hannah and Victoria already having reaped the benefits), and I feel much calmer now, although hot showers and lots of food tend to do that to me. I almost didn't even get on the internet; I nearly went straight to bed after dinner, but the shower has me feeling a bit decenter.
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So, I've been having some really rather fantastic Goodwill luck lately (and maybe someday there will be pictures; I do, after all, finally have a tripod, only there's a bit missing so I sort of have to balance the camera on it, meaning that weird angles are out, except the...constant, unintentional ones, argh). I found a splendid floor-length formal dress to wear to Alessandra's wedding for five dollars, and it fits me like a dream. (It requires fire-engine red pumps, however, which I have yet to find. Also a lace shawl of similar shade would be nice, as I have an annoying and strangely shaped tanned patch near my left shoulder-blade on account of not getting my sunblock on properly the last day of Grey Fox when I was wearing a blouse with a keyhole cutaway in the back. WOE.)

Anyway, on Thursday there was a fifty percent off sale, and among the various & sundry items I collected was a truly superlative turquoise brocade blazer, which I took at first glance to be about five to ten years vintage, due to its pleasantly softened appearance -- you know how clothing gets sort of especially cosy after a few years, but not necessarily shabby. After I had brought it home and was hanging it up in the closet I caught sight of the tag. The brand? Mary-Kate and Ashley. Verily, I am ashamed. ASHAMED, I TELL YOU. But it is a truly fantastic blazer nonetheless (TURQUOISE. BROCADE. -- Since when do they make things this niftily quirky, anyway? The stuff at Wal-Mart is never of this calibre!) so I shall simply keep mum about it, and perhaps surreptitiously remove the tag? (Of course now I've told the entire internet about it...)

There was also a book-sale at the location of the old Goodwill (they got a new, significantly larger building in which they've combined the downtown Goodwill and the one that was at the mall until it was shut down), wherein I spent about half an hour trying to find some worthy literature amongst the seemingly endless dross of romance novels (and the occasional potboiler or self-help book). Eventually I came away with new-old copies of some of our staple cookbooks to take with me when I no longer live here, Chamber of Secrets, an E.L. Konigsberg, another book on psychology by Oliver Sacks, who wrote the fabulous Musicophilia, and -- Strunk & White's Elements of Style! I was delighted at that find, which...no-one else understood. Alack.

Tomorrow, our little church is having a sort of fair, with live music and free pony rides and food and craft vendors, which ought to be great fun. I am singing, which ought to be Very Scary. (There will probably be a fair amount of people, oh dear. I mean, hurrah. So far our previous community outreach attempts have fallen somewhat flatly.) Something will be a capella and other somethings will be Songs I Can Already Play With My Eyes Shut, to lower the terror factor and give me less a chance of fumbling haplessly as I often sometimes do on Sunday mornings when leading worship or playing after the sermon. Any of you local lot who take a notion to come are certainly welcome (Jonathan's already signed on). Remember, food! And -- pony rides! (And -- me! Ulp.)
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I'm a bit overdue on this one, but -- comment and I will name you 3 interests from your list, and 3 userpics, and you explain them in your own post, asking the same of your f-listers.


And today was a good day. I bicycled to my guitar lesson in spectacular weather, thereby getting some much-needed exercise (and sun!), and then I stopped by Rosie's Bookshop on my way home and was redeemed for That One Time when they had two copies of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and I didn't purchase either of them because there was a new copy on the shelf and it is now mine (!!!). (I will have to post about the book when I am finished re-reading because it is amazing and possibly the only book that comes close to being comparable to Tolkien in any substantial way.) I also found The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (!!!) and a new copy of Anne of the Island (mine has pages missing, and the book itself might actually have finally got itself lost, as it is not in my bedroom nor the box with M-authored books in the basement), and got a little sack of chocolates, and made cupcakes when I got home (cupcakes that were not sour).
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Dad brought a McGriddle home for me this morning, which is a particular treat as we do not eat out altogether often. He also bought, er, real bacon, rather than turkey. (I settled on the couch with a book to eat my sandwich, and our not-quite-kitten Bartholomew climbed up my chest in a desperate effort to make off with the sausage.) Also in the food department (comfort food is very important, you know): last night I put together a sundae with vanilla ice cream, Oreos, and m&ms, which was very cheering. Ice cream is a fantastic medicine.

I was listening to Vienna Teng while cleaning my bedroom (during my depressed funk in January it became even more of a disaster than usual; piles of clothing and books and papers everywhere); Dad heard it from the hallway and came in to ask what was playing, because it ('Whatever You Want') was very good. :D Vienna Teng, in general, is very theraputic. Quite a lot of her music is soft and warm.

[profile] midenianscholar called, and was comforting and encouraging and diverting by turns, and prayed with me. (She also posted me Switchfoot's newest album, which arrived yesterday morning. ♥ I still haven't had a chance to give it a proper listen yet: I've got to get really deeply acquainted with an album when I'm hearing it for the first time.) 

Last night, when I was feeling fairly awful, I checked my f-list, and was cheered to the point of actually laughing out loud by NEIL GAIMAIN'S JOURNAL OF AWESOME, because, seriously, you cannot read Neil and remain unhappy, especially when he makes a really splendiferous post like this one. The comments to the LJ feed were almost as awesome.

We visited Mum in the hospital this afternoon, and she is doing quite well; resting comfortably, has got plenty of books and more television channels that we've got at home (THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL, which I am vastly envious over). Her blood pressure's gone down some, but the doctors haven't been able to give us any real idea of when they'll let her come home. Heidi (who is nearly seven) is holding up the worst; she's always been very clingy, particularly where Mum is concerned, and she cried miserably when it was time to leave the hospital. Mum's singing her a lullabye over the phone right now.

People from church are bringing us food for the next five days or so: we got a meat and cheese tray + rolls this afternoon (Sunday lunch!), and spaghetti & meatballs dropped off for dinner, along with two loaves of Italian bread (my favourite!), soda, salad, doughnut holes, cookies, apples, oranges, and a Jell-o cake (how many people do they think we are, ten? :D), which seems to be a local phenomenon. It's not nearly as wretched as it sounds: I think it's got Jell-o mix thrown in with a white cake recipe, and there's a thick frosting slathered over the top. I have never, ever seen one of these outside of my particular bit of northwestern Pennsylvania; reckon it's like pumpkin roll and (less pleasingly) 'my hair needs washed' (unfortunately, not quite as only-regional as the others).

You lot? Are amazing. Really. I'm a little too emotional to respond to all of your comments, but, blimey, I love you. I love you all and you mean the universe to me. ♥ (And, um, this icon makes me happy. Yes.)
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Dear Muse,

I'm really very sorry about ignoring you. I am sorry for refusing to let you have any of my cookies. I am extremely sorry for siccing the cat on you when you tried to jostle me awake at two in the morning with one of your propositions. Even if the cat didn't actually do anything but sit limply on your stomach. Which is about all he's ever been capable of doing anyway. Okay. Fine. Throwing the cat was wrong. I admit it. But you were bothering me. Again. Except that your bothering almost always ends up as pretty decent fic, although it's occasionally interrupted by Mum coming in to find me scribbling away and stealing my pen by way of forcing me to go to bed. (In which case I go against my moral judgement and use a pencil. Ugh.) 

Since I have been all nice and apologised and whatnot, and kept my commas in order, and everything, won't you please come back from wherever it is you've decided to go on holiday this time? (If you are in Boston, England, or Scotland, I shall hate you, or would, if you were not entirely integral to my writing process.)

- - -

Dear Remus,

Look, I'm sorry about lobbing Webster's Third Edition Unabridged at you. And The Oxford Book of American Poetry. And The Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage 1975. [Ohmygosh. I just realised that Remus could have owned that book, except for the fact that it's probably too American. Probably. I don't know. Then again, Dad bought it yonks ago, and if my completely irrational  theory is correct--um. Okay. Yes. I am KEEPING MY SANITY tonight.] I am also very sorry for inserting parenthetical comments into your letter. (FINE. BRACKETED. STOP BEING ALL PUNCTUATIONY AT ME AT THIS TIME OF NIGHT.) Er. And perhaps shining the white light at you wasn't the best move. Because interrogating people is almost never going to get them to let you inside their heads. And I may have possibly been really bothersome with all those hints about things you should be doing and certain people you should be reconciling with properly. (I did this with Abramm, too, and he nearly threw me off a parapet. Especially as Maddie was going red. I suppose if you hang out in the Character Lounge, which I know must exist somewhere, you would know this. I'm sure they tell ghastly stories about me there.)

Anyway. Um. It being too late at night, I have lost all sense of sense and punctuation. Er. Just shape up and stop refusing to be written, or I swear I will find the OED and chuck that at you too. Which won't help matters at all, but it will feel nice.



...Sweet Arda. I've been talking to imaginary people again! *flees in shame*

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