Spinning on that dizzy edge

kass asked me five questions. The questions and my answers are below the cut.

If you want me to ask you five questions, leave a comment and I will do so. Then you get to post your answers in your journal along with this same explanation.

Onward! Warning: this got wordy. Really wordy.

( 1) What crafty project are you proudest of? )

( 2) What fandom is making you happiest right now, and what is it about the fandom / characters / whatever that speaks to you? )


( 3) What have you learned about life, the universe, and everything through becoming a mom? )

( 4) If you could go anywhere in the world for a week, all expenses paid, where would you go and what would you do there? )


( 5) If you were hosting a dream dinner party (or coffee klatsch or roleplaying gathering or whatever) and could invite any five people from any fictional sources, who would you invite to join you at your table? )

Thank you for the questions, kass! Sorry if I TL;DRed the heck out of it.

I'm going to the Stargate con in Vancouver to see the Hewletts and my fangirl peeps, WAHOOOOOOO!!!! And some other stars too, I suppose. ;)

I've been obsessing over it so hard, you don't even know. (Except maybe a couple of you, like mercury973, who's gotten about 50 emails from me - sorry!)

The sticking point has been the airfare. I live within driving distance of a bunch of airports, but what with gas prices rising faster than Atlantis from the sea bottom plus post-con fatigue, I didn't want to drive more than an hour or so.

But today, oh frabjous day, I scored a flight for almost $100 cheaper than I've been seeing, with reasonable departure times. (The flights will be looooong, but that's what portable electronics are for, right?)

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Now I have to get cracking on a vid. I have no idea why Creation needs 40 days to review submitted entries, other than their general policy to screw with people.

Who's going? Who has tickets for what? Who knows the best places to stalk for cheap gold tickets? Oh, and who still has space in their hotel room? I swear I'm an excellent roommate. *grin*

The two-month countdown begins!

My brain has left the building, so I thought I'd ask some nosy questions of you all. Everybody likes a poll, right?

( This way to the poll! )

Today, I do NOT enjoy being a girl. Stupid cramps.

Various points of interest...

Peter Callesen – A Single Sheet of Paper. Amazing art - the visualization that went into planning some of these pieces would break my concrete-thinking brain.

Diane Duane's The "Tale of the Five" Omnibus now in electronic form. I'm hoping that the more of these she sells, the higher the likelihood that we'll get the last book, The Door into Starlight.

isagel's On Your Every Body (Though Your Skin Will Come Unmarked), a hot as BLAZES Inception fic, where Eames shows off his genderplay abilities to a very appreciative Arthur. DAMN.

After the Twitter problems of last week, I found Twazzup to use as a Twitter reader. I really like it. It includes snapshots of links and picture thumbnails and makes it easy to retweet and reply. The only thing I wish it had was a similar way to display the original Tweet being replied to.

Clash of the Geeks. A list of notable geeks wrote fanfiction about a ridorkulous picture commissioned by John Scalzi. The collected stories are available for download and donations are encouraged to benefit the Lupus Alliance of America.


A question for those of you with Wiis: do you have the Balance Board and use Wii Fit Plus? I missed a NewEgg deal on the bundle this week, and I'm wondering if it's worth it to buy one at full price. Anything that makes exercise fun is very appealing.

I think the ibuprofen is finally starting to kick in. It would be nice to start the weekend without wanting to curl up into a ball. Hope you all have a fun one!

Sometimes I high-five myself for doing such a good job raising the Emperor, and other times I feel grossly under-qualified.

For example: a couple of weeks ago at pickup, one of his preschool teachers recapped an incident from that day. The Emperor and a friend of his were holding hands in line, and the other little boy said to my son, "I love you! Let's get married." To which the Emperor replied, "We'd have to move to a different country. Illinois doesn't let two boys get married." I was so gleefully gobsmacked at this that I totally failed to get a read on the teacher, if she was amused, amazed, or scandalized. I was just happy that he both took the proclamation of love in stride and remembered the one dinner conversation we'd had on the subject months ago.

It's amazing what sticks. It's so refreshing when it's information like that and not inappropriate Futurama quotes. (Like when the husband wore his Bender T-shirt yesterday that proclaims "Bite my shiny metal ass!" and the Emperor read it out loud at the dinner table, asking if that was correct.) His teacher told him that he shouldn't watch Futurama because it's an adult show. The way I figure it, at least he's not watching "reality" shows and hopelessly confused about fact versus fiction.

Playing with Legos the other day, he asked me if the universe has a floor. I stumbled my way through a response for that. I don't know that that question would have even occurred to me at five, let alone that I would have asked it.

His current favorite thing ever is Rescue Heroes, a donation from the son of a coworker. I have to say, the cartoons are pretty good; they pass the Bechdel test, they have multiple POC and women as the heroes, and there are no villains, just accidents and bad weather. Plus, the theme has a kicky techno beat.

He's getting so independent, too! He insists on brushing his teeth all by himself, and washes himself at bath-time, only letting me scrub his back. He gets dressed independently most mornings, and lets me sleep in on the weekends as long as I get him breakfast and something to watch on TV.

On a more distressing front, though, the Emperor's started saying on a regular basis how much he hates life, and how he can't wait until he and/or everything is dead, because life is so hard. Usually 10 minutes later he'll be laughing at something, so it's not like he's moping around all the time, but I really have no idea what to do about it. Is this a phase that will pass? Should I be rushing him to a therapist? Will kindergarten distract/entertain him enough that he won't feel that way anymore?

As it is, I'm worrying way too much about kindergarten and it doesn't even start for a couple of weeks. When I registered him a couple of days ago, the teacher was hawking a LeapFrog alphabet DVD. I told her that he didn't need it as he's already reading. Plus, she was surprised when I asked about gifted testing. Even though it's on the school website as being available for grades K-6, apparently they don't pull kids for the special classes until 2nd grade. My husband and I both have a bad history of being bored underachievers in school; I don't want that for him. What I need to do is find out from my dad what the magic words are to use with a teacher that fosters a "let's work on this together" attitude and not the "I'm a difficult, crackpot parent who thinks you suck" one.

Woo, Friday! We had way too much fun at the in-laws the past couple of weekends (bounce house AND swimming), so I'm looking forward to a low-key time at home, though I think the Emperor is going to be disappointed. If we could get some tolerable weather for working outside, that would be sweet as well.

The husband just called me for the umpteenth time since he started working at his current job, emotionally strung out because his boss is a vicious asshole.  Said boss chose to blame a tech's failure to show at a client site and a cascade of other departments' failure to notice it on my husband.  Said boss forced my husband to fucking sign an HR complaint that he is insubordinate and derelict in his duties.  This is the second such piece of bullshit the Boss has perpetrated on Husband in the past couple of weeks.
( Pertinent details and bile )

I advised my husband to get the fuck out of there for today and go home, and tomorrow set up a meeting with Boss' Boss to talk about what Husband can do.

Anyone have any suggestions for framing the conversation in a productive (and hopefully job-retaining) way?  I've already told him that I'm behind him quitting, but I don't know if that will be any kind of effective, for lack of a better word, threat to improving his immediate situation.

Any and all help would be appreciated.

Ugh. The Emperor woke up several times last night, complaining about his legs hurting (probably because he rolls over and into the wall with plenty of concussive force). Of course, he was perfectly fine this morning. Me, I'm a little tired.

He had awesome days at daycare both Friday and yesterday, which I'm fairly sure can be attributed to the fact that a third of his class is gone for spring break. If all it takes is a smaller classroom...Yeah.

Meanwhile, I'm still reeling from the overwhelming numbers of people who are raging online against the BSG finale. I absolutely loved it, and I'm shocked that so many people didn't. The disparity left me off-kilter all day yesterday. I mean, I'm not one to suppress anyone else's opinion, but it made me feel all defensive and wondering if we'd seen the same show. I had one small thing I would have liked to have seen ( Hell no I won't spoil ), but honestly, they wrapped up everything I wanted and stuff I never even expected to be revisited. I thought it was a thrilling emotional rollercoaster. I also had the treat of watching it on the gorgeously huge projector screen at the_sween and hecateuse's place, in a crowd of fans who all seemed to think as highly of it as I did, so that also colored my experience. I just don't understand the harsh responses.

For those of you that saw it, what did you think?

*blink*blink*blink* I hate being this foggy at the end of the work day, with hours yet to go until the Emperor's bedtime. I'm aiming to get to sleep on time tonight, that's for damned sure.

Here I am, slow as always to jump on the memewagon.

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me!"
2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You may (if you so desire) post the answers to the questions (and the questions themselves) on your blog or journal.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

These are my responses to resolute's questions.

( Pull up a chair and read a while… )

Well, there's nothing like getting the stick after the carrot. I glumly decided that I couldn't justify the Burbank trip, what with the economy tanking and making muddy the solid financial ground I thought we'd found. Then the husband's car broke AGAIN, and yeah, it looks like we're going to have another case of happy bonus money being eaten by mundane costs.

This is on top of entering week five of cold symptoms, and having the PA diagnose it as a combination of cold and allergies. (I staunchly maintain that this doesn't feel like any case of allergies I've had before, since I don't want to scratch my face off, but the chest congestion is driving me batty.) Plus the husband is on antibiotics for his own sinus infection, and the Emperor's birthday is in two weeks and 75% of the prospective guest list have already canceled, and I'm evidently insane because I'm actually pondering hosting Christmas this year, and...the brain, it just doesn't stop.

However, I am bound and determined to find some silver lining here, so I am by gum going to get myself a new laptop.

Of course, now this opens up a huge Vista* of dithering. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go PC rather than Mac, as much as I still feel brand loyalty to the latter company. I'm poking around the Dell site, especially the outlet deals, but there are so many choices for my limited brain power! My needs list is: supports basically unlimited online surfing, including as many YouTube offerings in a row as I want; runs Microsoft Office; supports whatever software I need to start vidding; wireless is a given; as big a hard drive and as much RAM as I can get; DVD RW drive; decent battery life.

I am useless when it comes to hardware, I know, and it's a willful blind spot. That's one of the reasons I count on my husband so much.

So, anybody feel like offering an opinion on computers, especially when it comes to specs and software to enable vidding?

* Vista = DO NOT WANT. Do they actually sell computers loaded with Windows XP anymore?

I picked up a cold at the family gathering this past weekend (it was worth it, though - lots of quality hanging out and the niece loved the grab-bag of clothes from the last swap). I feel like a human lava lamp as my sinuses slowly fill up and then drain. I think I'm losing brain power with every tissue I use.

I have to keep reminding myself that, as I stayed home from work yesterday, today is in fact Tuesday and not Monday. My biggest accomplishment today will be catching up with my flist. I am so glad that I'm in the screen mockups phase of the project, rather than any coding. Trying to program right now would be the electronic equivalent of operating heavy machinery: chance of crashes = HIGH.

Wow. I'm not even on the good cold medicine, and I'm all floaty and stuff. If my comments make less sense than usual, you know why.

I'm thinking of trying a neti-type sinus wash tonight. The intarwebs tell me I should use a combination of 1 quart of water to 1 teaspoon of non-iodized salt and 1 teaspoon baking soda. Any of you have other recipes to share?