Random...

So it's been a slow day at work, though it will pick up this afternoon, at least a bit. And then I should have things to work on for a few more days. :)

But in my extreme boredom, I've been going through my old blog posts and adding tags. Back in the old days, when I started blogging (2002), we didn't have these fancy tags. So a lot of my old posts are without them. How many, you ask? Well, my blog has over 1,000 posts on it. I posted a lot in the early days...

While working through this, however, I was reminded of something Marlo asked me on Sunday: "What is it with you and fish?" She asked this because I made a linocut fish and then a crocheted fish in rapid succession. Now, granted, the crocheted fish was for a specific project. But the linocut was more of my choice.

So here's the deal with me and fish:

1) My birthday falls just a couple of days after the cusp between Pisces and Aries. I'm technically an Aries, but most people who know me would not guess that. I think I act quite a bit more like a Pisces. I always blamed this on being born so close to the cusp, but as I later found out, my complete astrological chart is FULL of stuff in Pisces. And for this reason or possibly a non-astrological one, I've just always had this weird connection with water and fish.

2) This is unusual because I don't like to eat fish, nor have I ever had a pet fish. Or, perhaps, it's because of my weird connection with fish that I don't like eating them and wouldn't keep one as a pet. :)

3) Fish is a part of a nonsensical back and forth that several of my friends and I used to do. It is:

"Butter?
Parkay?
Fish?
Quack."

Like I said, totally nonsensical. This was usually the sort of thing that we'd do when everyone was at a loss for words. This is actually pretty common among my friends in Carbondale. Other similar ways of saying everything while saying nothing were to say "Blue?" (usually when you couldn't/wouldn't answer a question) and "Monkey!" (which goes back further than C-dale, and is from a Space Ghost episode).

4) The character of Delirium in Sandman is given a demon at one point to help her find her missing dog, Barnabas. For whatever reason, the demon turns into a fish (I can't remember if he does this or if she turns him into a fish) on a leash. She then proudly proclaims "I am following my fish."

So there it is. Mostly, I, too, am following my fish. Which is either a major part of my existence or something nonsensical. Mostly, I think it's a little bit of each of those. :)

Crazy busy gaming weekend, involving three LARPs. This ended up equaling Jerome and I losing our characters (and making new ones), me becoming a Harpy again, and me becoming a Ductus through the cunning use of lies (not flags). But hey, no one has checked me yet to see if I'm a big liar. Because that character is. :)

It's a month to DragonCon now, and Abney Park and Ego Likeness are confirmed. This means I'm going to be seeing 3 of my favorite bands/artists in the world, along with 2 bands that I like quite a bit. I am happy. :)

With DragonCon a month away, this means I'm working on costumes like a madwoman. Right now, it looks like I'm doing four costumes and one other outfit over the course of three days.

Friday night, it'll be Death from Sandman. I had to find a new pair of black jeans, but I still had everything else I needed for that costume.

Saturday day, it'll be Kaylee from Firefly. I still need to find one or two patches for her jumpsuit, and make sure that I can do my hair in the little buns that she does in the pilot episode. And sew the patches on. And maybe find a necklace that looks good. Maybe.

Saturday night, it depends on who is playing. Most likely, though, this will just be the night that I goth out.

Sunday day, I think I'm going with Alice from America McGee's Alice, only because I already have every piece of that costume. :)

Sunday night, which is when I suspect AP will be playing, I will probably revive my Dark Green Fairy costume that I wore for their last show that I got to see, though it will be undergoing some serious modifications, mainly for the different season and climate. I want to try to make some yarn hair falls, but I'm not sure how feasible that will be. I need a different shirt, so I may go back to Goodwill to pick up something I saw on Saturday. And I really should rethink the stripey tights, because it's likely to be too hot for those... I'm definitely rethinking the armwarmers. :)

But yeah, that's gonna be a lot of clothes to pack, particularly as it involves a couple of large dresses/poofy skirts. The good news, of course, is that Jerome will prolly cram all of his stuff into one bag, leaving plenty of trunk space for Jesi and I. w00t! :)

::..::

In other news, you would think that putting three adults and two cats into a tiny two bedroom apartment would get a bit crowded, but we're making a pretty decent go of it. Still need another bookcase, but we're working on how we can get that... :)
.

Friday Five time! :)

1. How many houses/apartments have you lived in throughout your life? Okay, let's see here...

• First was the house I grew up in... lived there for a long time...
  
• Next (not counting the dorms) was the apartment on the square... that place was awesome... great big HUGE living room (24 feet by 30 feet... no, I'm serious... that big...)
  
• Then the apartment at Southern Hills... icky non-carpeted nonsense...
  
• Then the apartment near Denny's (that's the best way I've ever been able to describe it)...
  
• Then the house in Murphysboro...
  
• And now my apartment near campus...
  

2. Which was your favorite and why? I think the apartment on the square, when I lived in Kirksville... it was close enough to school to walk or ride my bike, it was right by a lot of kewl stuff, and it was frickin' huge! I also like my current apartment, because it's close to EVERYTHING, but it's a little dinky... I'm still trying to figure out how to make more space in there, but I think we just have too much junk! :(

3. Do you find moving house more exciting or stressful? Why? It is somewhat stressful, but I like it as well... just as long as I don't have to move too often, I'm usually okay with it. Every couple of years is okay, but much more than that I don't like...

4. What's more important, location or price? I've been really lucky to be able to have good locations at good prices, so I can't really say... though at the moment, I'm more inclined to go with location... when I found my current apartment, the location was SOOOO good that I didn't really care what it cost... :)

5. What features does your dream house have (pool, spa bath, big yard, etc.)? Definitely a big bathroom, with a big bathtub of one sort or another... and a decent sized kitchen as well, preferably with a separate dining area... and PLENTY of closets! Other than that, I like basements, but nice ones are rare in this area... the water table is too high... so I can do without a basement if I have to...

::..::

End of the Work Week Wisdom:
"When in doubt, follow your fish."
--It's probably not technically a quote, but it's in the EINTKILFS (Everything I needed to know I learned from Sandman) list...

Fish?
Quack.

::..::

Time to work all day, then game tonight, then very little sleep before our bus trip to Nashville... w00t! :)

Decided to toss a picture of me onto the page... dunno why... it's just a picture that I like... :)

Granted, that's not really what I look like anymore... seeing as I've had short hair since June... but I don't have any pictures of me with short hair yet... still have to finish off the roll that's been in my camera since... April, if not earlier! There's pictures from Garou on there, as well as the pictures of me fixing the car... so I think I'm gonna go take pictures one of these days, so that I can get that roll developed...

And then there can be a new picture of me... :)

But for those who don't know, that's pretty much an IC picture of Morgan with her "Mask of 1000 Faces" up... trying to look like Death... :)

The score thus far:

Death: ScaryWhiteGirl, Mander, Old Man, Seth, Benny
Destiny: SonofaBritsch, Finn
Dream: Rafe

Clearly this means that Rafe is a freak, and that the SonofaBritsch and Finn were twins, separated at birth... and the rest of us are normal, or at least pass for normal... ;)

I am totally wishing it was 4:30 already... it feels like I've been at work for at least 4-5 hours already, when it's really not even two... *grumble*... having allergies or a cold isn't helping matters any... :(

Which Member of the Endless Are You?

I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! :)

Okay, so I will admit, it was REALLY easy to figure out who you were going to be on this test... but I did take it as honestly as I possibly could! Black _is_ my favorite color, and umbrellas and ankhs are quite nice... :)

And to be perfectly honest, I wanted the test to come up as Delirium... ;)

Well, I'm back to doing the Friday Five!

1. What's the last vivid dream that you remember having? I usually remember my dreams most every night, but the last one that I can still remember is from last week sometime. I had a dream that I was at Broken Sword, and Akasha (my friend Jenny's character) did something, so Morgan (my character) attacked her, and Akasha ended up killing Morgan. So then, later on, Akasha got hit with a derangement, and she had to come to me to figure out what derangement it was (apparently I was an ST for the game!). The one we pulled from the "derangment deck" was Harano, which is actually a Werewolf thing... and when she asked me to explain it, I said that it was about doubting your self worth and such (and then I remember this quote specifically) "because you just killed a fucking Bishop!" Yeah, I have odd dreams. :)

2. Do you have any recurring dreams? When I was a kid, I did. I would dream that I was staying at my grandma's house, upstairs, in the room that used to be my dad's room. In my dream, I'd wake up, and there would be an amber colored nightlight on, and a radio that was tuned to some talk station. Then I'd look towards the stairs, and there would be a really big, black Chinese dragon with red eyes sorta stalking up the stairs. And then I would wake up. The weirdest part was that at least one time when I had this dream, when I woke up, I could still hear the man talking on the radio. So I ran into my mom and dad's room and told my mom to turn the radio off because I was scared. She woke up and told me that the radio wasn't on. And then I realized that it wasn't.

3. What's the scariest nightmare you've ever had? Ummm... see above... :)

4. Have you ever written your dreams down or considered it? Why or why not? I would write them down, but I'm usually still half asleep when I wake up. I have bad enough handwriting to begin with, and when I'm half asleep, I'm sure it would be worse! :)

5. Have you ever had a lucid dream? What did you do in it? I think I have lucid dreams every once in a while, but none of them really stick out in my mind.

And for the "End of the Work Week Wisdom" (you know it has to be from Sandman, if the Friday Five is about dreams...)

"Our existence deforms the universe. That's responsibility."
--Delirium, in Sandman

That's right, time for the Friday Five!

1. If you could eat dinner with and "get to know" one famous person (living or dead), who would you choose? Wow... this one is hard... there are a lot of people I would love to get to know... but I think I would go with Neil Gaiman.

2. Has the death of a famous person ever had an effect on you? Who was it and how did you feel? Ah, time for the Kurt Cobain story. But this story has to run kinda backwards to make any sense. Buttmagic, the SonofaBritsch, and I were driving around one night, and I was talking about having heard a Nirvana song on the radio on my way to meet up with them. Somehow the conversation turned to when Kurt Cobain had killed himself, and I mentioned that I was a sophomore in college, and that I had found out about it the morning after it happened, while waiting to be let into the building for my college's gaming convention (which I was in charge of). The boys looked at each other, did the math, and discovered that they were in 6th grade when this occurred. This has since become a game of "let's make the ScaryWhiteGirl feel old," which all my friends love participating in... I suppose the interesting (and relevant) thing about this story is that it didn't really affect me all that much at the time, but 7 or 8 years later, it has a big impact on my life...

3. If you could BE a famous person for 24 hours, who would you choose? Hmmm... another tough one. I know it would have to be someone in a band, but I can't really pick any one person. It would be neat to see what it's like to perform in front of thousands of screaming people... :)

4. Do people ever tell you that you look like someone famous? Who? When I was in high school, everyone told me that I looked like Blossom (you know, from the TV show?)... I hated hearing that! I've also had a couple of people tell me that I remind them of Winona Ryder, but I think that was more of a similarity between me and her character in Beetlejuice... :)

5. Have you ever met anyone famous? Thanks to my friend Jamie (who I miss a TON!), I've met a handful of people in bands... like the guys from Catherine Wheel and Midnight Oil. Not like they'd remember me, but oh well! :)

And for the "End of the Work Week Wisdom":

It is a fool's prerogative to utter truths that no one else will speak.
--Dream, from Sandman

Tomorrow is Friday... Tomorrow is Friday... Tomorrow is Friday... sorry for the repetition, but, at the moment, that is my major motivating factor... work has been relatively boring the last couple of days, and when I have little to do, my mind starts wandering, and that usually leads it into places where there is no good reason for it to go. In other words, I'm worrying about things that aren't entirely in my control, and that I don't want to (or can't) talk or write about. Wow, how's that for cryptic? :)

Well, on to the nicer things. Benedira sent me a nice E-mail after I signed her guestbook... which reminded me that I should look into getting a guestbook! And then tonight is the Mummy game, which we haven't gotten to play in about a month because of school, vacation, and the fact that it alternates with the D&D game. I'm definitely looking forward to it, cuz it's nice to do non-Vampire stuff every once in a while... :)

I picked up a copy of The Quotable Sandman (which was on sale) last night, adding to my ever growing collection of miscellaneous Sandman stuff. And I don't even have all of the comics yet! :) Wow... Neil Gaiman has his own blog... add another site for me to start checking daily... :)