The Thessaliad Redux

My iPod and phone are back in my possession. It turns out that the waitress found them, waited all afternoon for me to come back and even tried getting hold of my friends to make sure I knew where it was (so if anyone got a missed call from me, that's why). So I get music on my way home tonight, and music to wake up to in the morning instead of the infernal bleeping that my iPod dock clock radio thing defaults to. (I'd have used the radio but I can't get any of the stations I actually like so I did without.)

So ... yay! It doesn't solve the other stuff, but at least it's one less thing, and I'm willing to take whatever good news I can get as things currently stand.

I want to put a sign up in this wretched cubicle of mine. I want it to say "PUT A HAND ON ME AND DRAW BACK A STUMP".

Look, it's relatively simple - I don't like people touching me unless I know them really well. I can tolerate it when I have no choice - crowded trains, lifts, incidental brushes when handing over money and taking change while shopping (though even that I'll avoid where I can) - but I don't like it. While I don't assume everyone feels the same way, I generally won't initiate contact with people I don't know well because it's better to not risk them being like me in their antipathy to being touched by near-strangers.

My office apparently has other ideas. If they want my attention so badly, I wish they'd ask. Verbally. Y'know, say "Excuse me?" I know I am generally in the middle of typing a letter when someone wants my attention, but they could at least wait until there's a lull in my typing if they're that worried about not being heard. Tapping me on the shoulder when I am in the middle of typing something just gets me on edge. I do not like it. I partly do not like it because it means that there is someone in my blind spot, deep in my personal space. I partly do not like it because I am fucking busy and would prefer to have people at least wait for a lull instead of stopping me mid-word. But I mostly do not like it because someone I do not know and/or may not actually like is laying hands on me. Maybe I'm oversensitive, but ... this is my body we're talking about and I should at least have some say in who or what comes in contact with it. I just don't like people I don't know well touching me when I don't know it's coming. I want the option to say 'no', even to something as relatively harmless as a touch on the shoulder. (And it generally will be 'no'; I just don't like it.)

Besides, everyone in my office knows that I am plaguemonkey at the moment. I shouldn't think they'd want to be touching me when I might pass on my cold/flu/viral infection/strep throat/whatever the hell it is I have that the doctors didn't care all that much about. And yet...

Maybe I'm just less patient about it today than I would ordinarily be because, despite getting to bed early last night, I am still exhausted, dragged out, aching and miserable right now. Even minor annoyances feel pretty major to me right now. I should be in bed, I know this, but that's not an option. If I'm lucky, I can get home early, but ... probably not. So I'll keep on truckin' and hope I don't fall asleep at my desk. Which seriously feels like an option right now. With my luck, though, I won't have anything but the weekends until the Christmas bank holidays.

Man, I hope they appreciate me...

Here's this meme again. mitchy gave me age 25. Ooooooooh shit.

I was dating:
I wasn't, which was frankly a good thing. That year was a welter of therapy and trying to get my life back in order after I had a total mental breakdown and I really didn't have the headspace. I don't think I started seeing cholten99 until late 2003 or so.

I wanted to be:
Self-sufficient and sane, mostly. Well, as sane as I ever usually get, anyhow. Maybe it sounds simplistic, but it really wasn't. Basically, all I wanted was to get my life back in order and figure out how to make sure that the last year's events didn't repeat themselves. Which ... worked out pretty well, really.

My best friend:
That would have been redstapler, nightskywarlock and happypickle. Yes, they were entirely online but there's nothing particularly wrong with that.

I lived:
Half of it I spent in a flat about two blocks from my mother's place. At the time, it was deemed necessary for me to be close by in case of mental health issues (though really I think it had a lot more to do with being able to drop in unannounced whenever she felt like and bitch about my housekeeping). Then I moved out into a flat in Tooting where I was paying the rent pretty much on my own and had a lot more autonomy. Though I guess I never really felt comfortable there because the fact was that Mum pressured me into getting that one, even though I'd wanted a cheaper studio flat in Camden that I could afford without her input but she decided that it was too small and generally unsuitable and badgered me until I got the more expensive one-bed place that she helped me pay rent on. Yes, it was a nice place, but ... I wanted to live in Camden with less stuff that needed cleaning.

So ... yeah. That was age 25. Age 25 kind of sucked.

I've been quiet out here in journal-land, I know. Mostly I've been cat-sitting and having a much-needed holiday. The biggest bonus to staying at mitchy's place to look after Rob T Furball is that I have had no stress at all over "I should be at work". I suppose it helps that I'm in an entirely different city ... and never mind the fact that the fast train into King's Cross from here is actually faster than the train I get to St Pancras every morning, and they're basically the same station. I'm farther away and thus there is no guilt over "I should be working!" Somehow I have managed to avoid thinking about how much work will have piled up in my absence. Gods, I hope they got a float secretary in...

Anyway, maybe the other part of the non-stress over work absence has been the needy furball. It's not 24/7, the neediness, but he'll alternate between curling up in his cat bed / on the armchair dead to the world, and then all of a sudden he'll decide that if he isn't fussed and petted and scritched RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND he will die of heartbreak. Cue the yowling and the feeling that someone has replaced his fur with velcro. This is not a bad thing, but it can be tricky when one is trying to chat to someone over IM and just stopping the petting gets the big-sad-eyes look and a plaintive yowl. I'm such a sucker. Anyway, the point is that I might feel guilty about taking time off if it was just me at home on my own not doing much of anything, but since I am elsewhere, maybe not seeming to do much of anything but really ensuring that a lovely furball is fed and watered and petted and fussed, at least I am being useful to somebody. Apparently this assuages my work-guilt somewhat. So ... yay!

I'll be glad to be home, though. There are definitely things that my place lacks (bathtub, gas stove, decent-sized fridge with freezer that doesn't frost over every three days, space) but it's mine and I miss it. I miss my bed and my computer 'desk' ... hell, I miss my computer, full stop. Not to mention Warcrack - I decided that it was too much addict behaviour to travel all the way home just to check on my little Azeroth denizens mid-week, so I didn't. I'm not overly jonesing, thankfully, but then again, I had DA2 as a placebo. Not to mention a particularly stellar DVD collection - my tastes and mitchy's don't always coincide, but I have to admit that she's introduced me to more TV shows than any other single person I know. Most people, it's a show here or there; it's been at least a half-dozen with mitchy - more than anyone else, fewer than it could be (I just can't get into NCIS: LA, but I love the original and Criminal Minds is growing on me).

On the subject of video games and various bits of entertainment ... Sebastian Vael. I swear, the only reason I'm not sorry I got the DLC is that the extra quests give XP. You get him way too late in the game to build him up properly, and you end up with this relatively useless rogue who can't pick half the locks or disarm about a third of the traps and, despite his mail-and-plate armour, goes down like a twenty-quid hooker the minute anyone carrying a sword looks at him cross-eyed. Mostly I just leave him tucked away in the Chantry and don't deal with him until he demands that we go do quest types of things. I haven't got through a full playthrough with him yet so maybe his hissy-fit over the events in Act 3 will make having him as a full-on party member a little more worth it. As it stands, Varric is still my all-time archer in-game BFF, kthnx.

(Also, Sebastian, character-wise, is a cross between Leliana and Hamlet.)

Warcrack-wise ... still hacking my way through Northrend. I do not like Coldarra. It's creepy-death. Or ... well, it would be creepy-death if I weren't playing a Paladin. I would say I don't think Paladins can die but I have seen proof otherwise. (I still want to know how a massive 75-Elite patrolbot managed to sneak up on me in Hellfire Peninsula when I was doing my purgatory time in Outland.) Anyway, a lot of that is Nexus dungeon and since I don't really have the sort of party backing required to hack my way through one, I feel justified in abandoning the zone entirely beyond a couple of little quests and a flyover or the 'Explored Borean Tundra' achievement. I could probably move on to Dragonblight now, but I think I'll move to Howling Fjord and grind a couple of levels there first. I like level-grinding in lowish-level areas. Particularly when I've been logged out in an inn for a week and a half. The 'Well-Rested' XP bonus is going to last forever...

I haven't been on as my belf pally as much as I could be because I don't really like Northrend all that much, though I do hack through a level or two, time to time. I have, however, been working a little on my other characters - I've made a few as alts that I might actually stick with for awhile. Dwarf Pally, Gnome Warlock and Goblin Shaman, mainly - that last a holdover from my first spate of character creation early on. At least there's kind of variety, and a good Alliance/Horde spread. Though given that the Dwarf and Gnome starting levels are more or less the same after level ... oh, six or so? I kind of have to alternate with the other two so I don't get bored out of my skull.

There have been other things - potential writing projects, finally having solidified what I want to do for this WoD site that I still need to talk to lithiumdoll about as re: Jove when she's less busy and had some relaxy time, stuff like that there - but a lot of it's too vague to yammer about here and I'm thinking moar coffee. Then haul my lazy arse (and a mid-sized wheely suitcase full of books OMG heavy) back home, likely via somewhere I can get some lunch. Then probably right back out again to pick up something for dinner because I made sure that my fridge was empty before I came out here. I didn't want to find something gaining independent life in my fridge when I got home.

My router is still hiccupping like I don't even know. It's frustrating and disheartening and I'd rather not have to call BT. I just wish I knew what was wrong with the bloody thing. If I dropped £45 on a router I don't even need, I am going to be so pissed off. But I'll have a play around with it this weekend. Possibly at around the same time as I try to move furniture around. Yes, I am considering moving the furniture, mostly because I'm bored with the current arrangement and it's a little bit clumsy anyway. I already moved the desk (hoping that taking the router off my PC tower would help matters, which ... no) but I think the bed needs shifting. Hell, I need a single bed. It's not like I use more than half of it anyway and it just takes up space. But I suppose that's one for the landlord.

In other news, today is a beautiful, bright sunshiny sort of day. So of course, I am miserable. The bright shiny sunshine is a fast-track to migraine, and my sinuses are screaming their displeasure at the pretty flowering things because the pollen is really not helping matters. At all. Of course, it also didn't help that walking to work from St Pancras this morning, there were people scrubbing the steps of the Brunswick complex (shopping, dining, cinema specialising in foreign films) with industrial bleach. Inflammation of the sinuses + bleach fumes = owwwwww. Just FYI.

So grateful it's the weekend. This week has been a bit of a slog, all things considered. Not that this weekend stands to be a whole lot better, if I'm going to turn it into a router-prodding, laundry-doing, furniture-moving, bookshelf-tidying, CLEAN-ALL-THE-THINGS-ing extravaganza, but at least I get to sleep in. I just don't like mornings very much, I guess.

For those of you who don't follow me on Twitter, I realised I never actually mentioned the name I gave my lonely Forsaken warlock lady wandering around Bloodhoof at the moment. In a stroke of questionable inspiration, knowing that people have been on this server for awhile and most of the 'generic fantasy' names have likely already been used, I gave my zombie chick the name Porphyria.

Sounds real classy until you click on the link, no? *g*

Anyway, I have decided that from now on, all of my MMO characters are getting medical terminology names. Might as well put my medical secretarial training to good use, no? So I'll see how that goes. I mean, this is always assuming I can get my stupid connection to stop kicking me offline every ten minutes or so. It's really annoying...

It's another one of those days in which I am trapped in an office where all I get to do all day is copy/paste letters from one document to another. *confetti* But at least I have my back to a wall and I can faff if I want to. And believe me, I want to. So much. Sometimes this job? NOT all it is cracked up to be. But at least it gets me paid. I guess anything that keeps me in broadband and Mountain Dew is a good thing.

For those of you who don't live in London, the current state of affairs is 'warm, sunny and stuffed to the gills with tourists'. This last bit isn't particularly unusual, to be fair - London is 'One Of Those Cities', y'know? I mean, it seems to be a running theme that tourists coming to London assume that ... y'know, that's all London's for. It's like they think it's Disneyworld or something, where everyone is pottering around strictly for their benefit and their job is strictly to be backdrop to the tourist experience. Sort of the same kind of mood you'll get in someplace like New York or Los Angeles or Paris or someplace.

News flash, people: millions of people live and work here. Yes, it's a city full of history and entertainment and beautiful architecture and all manner of things to do and see. But it's not bloody Disneyworld, okay? The people bustling around in your holiday photos of London are not there just to be 'a little local colour'. They're trying to get to work, or home from work, or grab a quick lunch break, or get to a doctor's appointment, or do the shopping for the week. It'd be nice if you respected that a tiny bit.

I actually recommend a series of bylaws for tourists. Maybe confine offenders to their hotels and stick repeat offenders on the no-fly list.

1) People cannot walk through you and your map. Therefore, there are places that not only manners but simple common sense dictate that you should not unfold a big map and spend at least five minutes poring over it, trying to decide where to go next. Places like ... the tops or bottoms of stairwells and escalators. Or right in front of Tube station ticket barriers. Or any doorway. Or smack in the middle of the sidewalk. Particularly if you are in a group, make sure that you are not blocking someone's way before you start poring over a map.

2) If you are asking for directions, be consise. Know what it is you're actually looking for. Do not expect someone to know exactly where 'that place with the thing' or 'that place where that play by that guy' is on if that's literally all you can tell them. Likewise, do your research and if you're heading for a multi-building complex, know which building you want. Don't stand in, say, one part of University College London, which spreads out over half the gods-damned city, and say, "No, just tell me where UCL is". Or at least, accept that the answer is, "All around you; can you please name a specific building so I can actually help you?" without rolling your eyes like the one who lives here is the stupid one.

3) On that subject ... the dirty looks when we maybe accidentally get in your well-framed picture of Tower Bridge or squeeze past you when you're standing in front of the ticket barrier at Oxford Street? They're unbecoming and unnecessary. We try to be polite. We try to hang back when you're taking pictures. But we would like to get on with our lives and if you're going to be selfish, thoughtless arseholes, we're going to get around you - as politely as possible, but we are going to get on with our lives. We've gone through the Blitz, the IRA, various Roman invasions, the Great Fire and more generalised terrorist bombing crap than you can imagine. We're not going to let a bunch of bloody tourists stop us from going about our day. So lose the 'tude. You're on our turf now. Respect it.

Don't mind me. I'm just a little aerated about the tourists because they're coming out in more droves than usual this week. But that's not surprising. Next week, Prince William marries Kate Middleton and London's going to be a veritable zoo. I feel bad for William and Kate, I really do. I imagine both of them just want to run away and get hitched in a registry office or something, but they know they can't. It's all gone insane, with the merchandising and everything. Though as I understand it, the Charles/Diana thing was just as bad. (I'm a little too young and too Canadian to really remember that one, but I hear things.)

Right. I'm done bitching. Smoke break, and then back to the grind. Yeargh.

So ... there's going to be more perfume. Blame again, y'all. You know who you are.

Look, I have all this perfume. Some of it came to me as incredibly thoughtful gifts. I thought it was time I started ... y'know, wearing it. So even if I'm not going out anywhere, I'm taking to actually wearing a little bit of scented awesome, courtesy Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. Currently I'm wearing Al-Shairan, which starts off a little overpowering but is a bit better once it dries. I don't know entirely how that works, but it does, so I'm just going to smile and nod. Still, I don't think it's a favourite. I think it's actually making me sneeze.

Of course, this prompted me to actually take a look at the huge list of perfumes that I actually want and compare it to the stuff that people have for sale or swap on the various BPAL forums to which I ill-advisedly belong. And someone had, like, a whole bunch of ones on my list. (Unfortunately, because my list is so long, I didn't realise that there were more on my list available by said person, and am strongly considering swapping out a couple of the ones I did buy to fill the 8-for-$10 requirement for the ones that are actually on my list before the charming entity from whom I bought them goes to the post office. But then, sometimes there are surprises in the offing when I get random stuff, so ... pondering on a Sunday as I know the post office is closed, like, everywhere on Sunday.) And they had a bottle of one of my favourites for sale. So ... there are eight imps and a mostly-full bottle of The Lady of Shalott winging their way to me. I'm pleased. But still ... man, more perfume? What is it with BPAL? Do they infuse the perfumes with some kind of addictive chemical? What?

Aaaaanyway. I'm not the sort of person who makes new year's resolutions, but there is stuff that I'm determined to be better about from here on out, as decided a week or so ago. For one thing, a look at those X-rays of my elbow following my rib-sprainy slip-and-fall got me kind of worried about the whole 'not getting enough calcium because of the lactose intolerance issue and thus all but asking for osteoporosis' thing, so I'm getting myself back into the habit of daily calcium supplements. Also a daily glass of cranberry juice (small, because I hate cranberry juice) because doctors have told me that it's a good thing for me to be intaking due to potentially TMI sorts of issues. There's the perfume thing that goes along with a general increase in attention paid to my appearance - it's not like I'm going to go overboard or anything but like with my BPAL, I have a collection of flavoured lip glosses that I really need to start wearing more. I've been pretty good about the flat but I'm still determined to keep it reasonably tidy. Well, as tidy as I can when there's a lack of storage space, anyway. Y'know. Try to keep my house in order, literally and metaphorically speaking.

I tidied up today, cleared out the fridge, did some shopping and now I'm going to start some laundry and ponder actually writing. Y'know, something that's not the daftest Dragon Age fanfic I've come up with to date. (And yes, that's counting the Wizard-of-Oz parody thing.) I finally found the handwritten completion of my chapter-by-chapter synopsis notes and maybe getting those down with the rest will inspire me to get back to the next HIPPIE book. I've bashed away at it a little since bailing on NaNoWriMo (shaaaaaaame!) but it's really time I got it up and running again. So I'll have a look at the completed chapter synopsis and see how I go.

I am headachy and depressed and really, really flat right now. So I'm sort of alternating Buffy S4 with occasional peeks at IM to see if anyone's about and that'll probably be the rest of my mid-evening. Well, that and KFC. Deep-fried nasty always helps.

After that ... well, it depends. Possibly RP, or I might go back onto FFXI and see if I can find a party invite lurking about the place. Nuking things is good. Nuking things is cathartic. Plus if I do any more damn bug broth crafting, I may well die of boredom (though, still, 115k+, not bad).

On the whole, though ... gods, I'm miserable.

(Oh. But. Courtesy mitchy:

Comment here and I will reply to you and tell you what icon of yours I associate with you. Once I reply, please repost this in your own journal, because I want to know what icon you associate with me.

Not, as mitchy says, that you have to do that last. But it'd be nice.)

I haven't been out of bed for very long, as I feel intensely miserable after yesterday's exertions, but already I've been witness to an incubating altercation at the local off-licence. Some scruffy, elderly and possibly homeless man (I say this mainly because he was surrounded by ratty plastic bags full of apparantly random belongings and cluttering up the counter while at least three customers were being served stashing his newspaper and two packs of some really cheap nasty brand of cigarette into said bags) decided to mutter random disparaging remarks about the other customers, and the other customers started taking offence. I guess it's not like in the city, where such people are generally ignored if they start mouthing off in stores. I'd be proud of the nacent community spirit in my borough/suburb/whatever if it weren't for the fact that said 'community spirit' included some guy threatening to punch the scruffy elderly man's jaw off.

My Sims 2 expansion and SiP TPB arrived today. So the Strangers in Paradise story is finally coming to an end. I don't really know how I feel about that, to be honest. I suppose good, in a way - after all, how much longer can even someone as talented as Moore follow this story along? Still, I'll be sad when there aren't any more. I wonder if he's got anything else in the works. I suppose my next purchase comics-wise is going to be the last Dogwitch TPB. Now that's one I really need to see the end of.

All the same, I suppose some of this month's discretionary cash needs to go towards new clothes. Look, my favourite denim skirt - the one that was just 'too big' last month - now is so big on me that I can take it off without unbuttoning it. This sucks because I haven't got all that much cash to spend on new clothes anyway and because, damnit, I like this skirt. I suppose I can start the shopping with a charity shop run; that should stretch the budget a little further. The problem is that I have no idea what size I am now, though I am fairly sure that none of my good skirts fit so my guess is that I've gone down two sizes, minimum. I wouldn't mind this so much if I was actively trying to diet, liked clothes shopping or frankly gave a damn about my weight. As it is, it's all just a not-so-subtle reminder that I am rather ill. After all, it's not like I'm getting any exercise to speak of right now, so if my caloric intake has gone down so much that I've lost this much weight in this little time without exercise ... well, it's bad. Just over a week to go until I see the specialist, so at least that's something.

So now I'm going to install my new Sims 2 expansion pack and make a whole new house with the new downloads. Then I may go back to FFXI - I have a deathgnome whose subjob needs levelling, and a whole bunch of gil from my auction proceeds to spend on spells and such. That's provided I can stay upright for long enough to play much - I really do feel rough.

So I went out for drinks with dodgyhoodoo and weaselbitch, and had a wonderful time. However, if two hours of so of sitting in a pub chatting to people can wipe me out that much and make me feel that miserable, I'm not seeing how work is even a vague possibility. Oh well; at least now I know what happens if I try to exert myself. Plus, again, a wonderful time was had. So can't complain.

So after that, we went home and I went back to FFXI; ( you may not want to stick around for this... )

Beyond that, not much is new, I'm afraid. Oh, except for the whole "finally going to finish off Restart" thing; it'd be nice to have that SL locked. Then I can start the New and Shiny. Yay for the New and Shiny!