archived notes for June 2000

06.30.00 - My weird dreams continue. Sensory overload.

I was back at SFSU because I apparently was graduating, and they were telling me I had to buy a commemorative t-shirt. The t-shirts were all really cruddy and purple-colored (SFSU's colors were purple and green) and I was just completely turned off by them. That, and the guy who was selling them wanted $50, to which I said no.

So he picks up a set of cream-colored boxers that were more like really short sweat shorts, except they've got that open-boxers-crotch-thing going on. And there's this...how do I describe it? There's a mouse sticking its head out of the bottom of the crotch. And he says he wants $12 for this, but that they're going fast so if I want one I need to buy it now.

The dream changes from there to a new one. I was stalking Sting, who I knew was a vampire (a la "Moon Over Bourbon Street"). He was at a funeral for his brother-in-law, which happened to be inside this huge theatre that was showing all sorts of strange plays. And me, I was walking around following him wearing this nice black cloak I'd bought from GypsyMoon.

At some point, I figure out that Sting has figured out that I'm following him, and he grabs me and tells me not to follow him because he's afraid he'll kill me. And then the dream goes kind of funny, and he makes it known to me that he's not really a vampire, but that he really is Sting, and he's annoyed that I'm dreaming about him because when I'm dreaming about him he's actually there. And I freak out because now Sting -- the real life Sting -- knows I'm dreaming about him.

And then he turns out to be a vampire anyway, and tries to seduce me. I protest, because he's married, and he says not to worry about it.

Then I wake up.

It's really unusual for me to have vivid dreams...usually I have boring, film noir-ish dreams. And the boxers with the mouse-crotch was just too weird. Hee hee. Crotch. It's a funny word.

Jeff is gone to Texas. I have a four-day holiday starting in eight hours, and a copy of Diablo II on my desk. Huzzah! But I'm also onduty. Booo!

Of all the great songs on Downward Spiral, why did "Closer" have to be the one the radios play? There is no justice.

06.29.00 - Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Why do we cry when we're touched by what others say about us? Is it because we admire them and hearing them wish us well reminds us that the admiration and love we express to them has not gone unnoticed? I think it has something to do with that quote I mentioned a few entries back.

All I know is I came into work today and my cube was covered with streamers and balloons (Tamma's work) and there was a giant cake on my desk along with a bag full of candles. And then I sat down and opened my email and my daily journals, and there it all was.

Letters from my mom, letters from my family, IMs from friends, cards from people I didn't think even remembered me.

I'm going to start crying again.

I had a dream about Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (aka G-Force or Battle of the Planets), which is quite strange because I don't really much care for the show. The Nurse character from Romeo and Juliet was there as one of the team members (erm, okay), and the character of June was doing a Jean Grey/Dark Phoenix impersonation. Oh, and I was driving my mom's Thunderbird to get to the theatre where this movie was taking place.

Yes, it was very strange, but it wasn't so bad. It's the sort of thing my head cooks up for me when I'm sleeping. Maybe it's because I was writing about hawks all yesterday. That might have had something to do with it.

I really have nothing else to add, so I'll just head off and get lunch with my friends.

Thank you everyone. Thank you very, very much. I hope I didn't miss anyone, because if I did I apologize -- you're all wonderful and I have no idea how I'll pay forward on this. I haven't had a birthday this nice since I was sixteen.

06.28.00 - Smiles number: 1, 2, and 3.

So far for my birthday cards I've gotten....

Mima's, of course. One can't forget the grandmother's contribution to me.

One Lina Inverse card. (Yes, the crazy broad from Slayers. Suz doesn't realize the gravity and importance of allying me with Lina. Tee hee!)

Some virtual crack. From Bear, of course.

And an anonymous voodoo curse. But not really. I know who it came from. ;)

06.27.00 - Kick ass! Kai-Imakhu Nakht builds a website.

We walked into an alternate universe McDonalds today. Not that it's odd for them to mess up orders -- one cashier, ten clients, someone's going to make a mistake -- but they were playing the Beastie Boys ("Girls!") and Eminem ("The Real Slim Shady") on the overhead radio. This isn't what I'd call McDonalds music, but I enjoyed it.

I admit to the guilty pleasure of being able to listen to Eminem. I think he's crass and does to rap what Jerry Springer does to daytime TV, but I still giggle a little at the lyrics. It's wrong, I tell you. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Not much else to add today. I got ten hours of sleep. I am a happy Steph.

Redesigned the front page of Mooville. Still not 100% happy with it, but doesn't the cow look great? Dave's sister, The Sardine, did it. It's so perfect.

Also posted the What is Moo? bit, about why this is here.

And so it is.

I'm so happy Suz has gotten into this journal thing. It's infectious, I'm telling ya :) And she writes such nifty entries, too. Bwahahahaha. She's going to fill the gap that Derek Powazek has left in my web-reading life.

My mom called me this morning to tell me what I was getting for my birthday. Happy! I'd tell you what she told me, but it's a surprise.

I had a dream about my recently wedded friend Audrey last night. She was getting my mail by accident, so I rode out on my horse to see her. She took photos of me on my horse, and we talked, and I stole her mail. Dreams are weird.

06.26.00 - The hardest part about being a teacher sometimes is realizing that what you say shapes the people who listen to you. And the other hard part is figuring out when they're actually listening, and when they're just nodding and waiting for you to stop talking so they can go back to whatever it was they really wanted to be doing. ;)

On a sign outside a Mooville church:

and you know you're
gonna lie to you
and in your own way

know, know too well
know the chill
know she breaks
my siren

06.25.00 - I waited too long to eat, and now I have a headache. Dammit. I know better, yet still I do it. Bah.

So I'm playing around with Blogger, and I like it. I like it enough that we're going to use it on both Netjer.org and Kemet.org for various things. Heck, I might even start a blog for my sff.net account since I always kind of wanted to.

No writing lately, mainly due to EverQuest. Letting things get a little fuzzy is never bad, either.

I made face cream. It's too early to tell you if it sucks or not, but so far I like it. It looks heavy, but it goes on very light and my skin drinks it up very fast.

I'm enervated. Stupid headache. I'd take a nap, but then I'd never go to bed in time for work tomorrow. So instead I'm going to go take that gloomy bath I kept telling myself I'd take.

Speaking of which, I had a great idea for bath teas. One of the things I like to do is draw a big, hot bath and then lay a cloth over my eyes. One of the other things I like to do is take teabags and put them on my eyes. There are these things called "tea baths" that were popular about a year or more ago. What would be neat is if somebody made a disposable teabag long enough to place on the eyes, and then filled it with bath tea. Use the teabag for the water, and then get in the tub and put the teabag on your eyes.

I think it's a neat idea. :)

Welcome to all the new probationers who are now formally Remetj in the House of Netjer. And for the new group -- you get me as one of your probationary priests. Aren't you lucky?

I just realized that if I have a girl, I won't have to force her to wear pink or dresses she doesn't like. No offense, mom, but I never really liked the girly stuff you put me in (but you knew that).

Wow. Hey. Cool. I can raise a tomboy.

06.23.00 - Ah, yes, the cosmic clue-by-four. I know what you mean, Gryph. And by the way -- birthday condolences aren't necessary until next week.

Once again staring at ASP, and once again trying to decide if I love it or hate it. It just seems lacking in a lot of obvious areas, or maybe I just don't know enough about it. Yet at the same time, it does some things much better than includes ever could hope to. Argh.

I love the smell of neroli.

I did banner ads today. I read a depressing article on the music industry by Courtney Love last night. I think I'm ready to go back to bed now.

It's not that I really like Courtney Love. I like some of her songs, but I can live without most of them. The first time I heard about her was as a blurb in a magazine, where she admitted to taking heroine while pregnant. And I thought that was pretty disturbing.

But it's a pretty good rant. It loses focus toward the fifth part, but on the whole it's a good statement. It's just depressing, and illustrates how oppressive and dryrotted big business has become. I knew that record companies made the lion's share of the money off music, but I never knew they were doing the equivalent of slash-and-burn farming with the artists.

Writers have it easy in comparison. Some of them bitch about editors cramping their art, about vicious changes and bad cover art, poor distribution, no advertisement, lack of respect -- but when it really comes down to it if you don't want to cut your book for someone, you can bloody well take it elsewhere. It's not easy to get published, mind you, so most people wouldn't do that, but when it's all said and done with the book still belongs to you. If the publishing industry was anything like the music industry, you better bet I'd be looking for an alternative to getting my work out there.

Things are changing. Hopefully toward the better. That's the promise of the Internet. The thieves that wear business suits have gotten lazy, and I get the feeling that, pretty soon, they're going to have to learn some manners.
5:14 PM
 
 
Thought I'd start notes early today since I (still) can't sleep.

I smell like vinegar. Am I supposed to smell like vinegar? I don't know. I just used up the last of my lavender on this recipe, and I come out smelling like vinegar. How revolting. Well, maybe if I give it some time it'll mellow.

I bought fresh bay leaves and a bottle of gin today, and started in on the stuff for Heru-wer. Bay is one of those scents I associate with two things -- Mediterranean cooking, and men. So Heru-wer gets a gin-and-bay base for His stuff, and Set gets a rum-and-bay base for His. And I think I'm going to work in some of the fresh sage I bought for Wepwawet-Yinepu, since sage I connect to clarity associated with finding one's path.

Uh, yeah.

This will all make sense for those of you who will see me at New Years. I promise. For those of you who live with me or near me who aren't going to be at New Years, ask me to show you what I mean.

It's that time of the month, and I thought this time around instead of relying on my very reliable chaste berry extract, I'm going to try to treat my cramps with the zillions of oils I have, plus the raspberry leaf tea I whipped up this afternoon. I am going to have to get used to the notion that homecooked herbal remedies are not going to work like the over-the-counter stuff. For one, they work slower. For another, they don't completely kill all the pain, but that's not bad. Knowing that it's still there is good because it means something is still going on that you need to be aware of. And at least it took care of me feeling all stiff and bloaty and lumpy, which annoys me a lot more than the cramps. Cramps I can work through.

But it explains why I was all jumpy last night, why I couldn't sleep. Stoopid hormones. Why did I have to be a chick, anyway?

As you can see, I'm back into investigating the aromatics and the herbs. Time to change my obsessions list.

I owe mail to Kat, Stephen, and Gina. I know. I'm sorry. I'll write you when I'm not feeling so lumpy.
3:10 AM

06.22.00 - God does have a sense of humor.

I wrote something around 5 am today that I wasn't sure if I wanted to post or not because it was what I consider to be a deeply religious statement, and those are kind of sticky. Then I went over to Gryph's website for some reading, and saw that she had done something similar -- with an opening disclaimor similar to the one I wrote for my thing -- and I decided...well, what the hell. I'll do it.

So without further adieu....

The (mostly complete) redesign of Vent, pending movement of the rest of the Vent files.

Water kicks ass. Yum.

06.21.00 - For some reason this morning my brain decided to remind me of the movie Rock and Roll High School. Probably because the Ramones were on the radio when I drove into work. I don't remember the movie except for the end because I think someone was being thrown out a window, and at the age of five that's pretty much all you remember of a movie about a band you don't know anything about yet.

I think, though, as far as that vein of musicals goes Grease remains my favorite, even if it does have John "I'm an Evil Alien! Muahaahah!" Travolta in it. We'll not talk about that really hideous sequel with Michelle Pfeiffer, even if the heroine's name was Stephanie. You know how many heroines there are named Stephanie? Not a lot. I've been counting.

Do you like? This is the new navigational thingum for the upcoming Vent redesign. Wheee :)

Cool. NASA is announcing the potential for life on Mars on my birthday. You have no idea what a pain it was to wrangle that little favor out of NASA.

I did my bellydance thing again last night -- it's a shame I stopped way back in, uh, whenver GundamW started, because I was actually making progress before. Now I'm back to square one. I'm going to try not to be daunted. My stomach muscles were not happy with me last night, and still aren't happy with me this morning. Every now and then they do their own little shimmy. Very odd.

I'm reading the Wilkinson Temples in Ancient Egypt book, coupled with Valerie Cooksley's Aromatherapy: A Lifetime Guide to Healing with Essential Oils. If I get through them and have the gusto, I'll put up reviews. I was thinking of doing a special section of Vent this year on Kemetic New Year, for those of you who wonder what it's all about. It's a chunk of solemn and a chunk of celebration tossed together with a light raspberry vinagrette. And it's special to me, so I think I'll leave it at that for now, until I can do something more formal.

Everyone should have at least one New Year as a non-priest, and I'm glad for the one I got. Uhm, there's a story there. I'll save it for Vent.

We had a power outage last night, and I stayed with Jeff till around elevenish or so and then went home. He got stuck with the sucky job of restarting everything. Having done that once before myself, what can I say other than -- man, I'm glad I wasn't onduty.

However, if you're wondering why this entry is late, that's why. DM.net has been down for a bit due to hardware problems. Poor Andy :\

Donna, you need to update more often.

06.20.00 - Jeff writes some beautiful things, sometimes.

I started playing EverQuest again. Jeff and I are running around as Dark Elves near Freeport on Rodcet Nife (Rodset Knife? Rodstewart's Wife?). I'm the rabid Shadow Knight known as Oniko ("Devil Girl"), and Jeff is Arkati.

This is why I don't play evil characters. I think I play them too well. :) Oniko is turning out to be a devout worshipper of the Prince of Hate (can you tell the EverQuest designers spent five minutes on their theological structure? no, I couldn't, either), though she forgot last night that her god was male and started calling him the Queen of Hate.

Well, maybe he likes cross-dressing.

I like shouting to everyone in the region that I want to see all non-Dark Elves crushed beneath the bloody, steel-adorned fist of a ruthless god. Maybe I'll convince some of them I'm an NPC or something. I think that'd be fun. Then I can make them all follow me into some 50th level area, and watch them all die. It'd be worth it.

See? See? This is why I don't play evil characters!

As Suz writes, Gwen, one of our off-site staff, is preggers! I had seen her walking around the convention, but on Thursday when I was sitting at the door checking badges, she walked up to me and I looked at her and, dangit, I did that dumb thing I do.

06.18.00 - Hey there! I'm back. But I'm sleepy because I just took a bath in marjoram and lavender, and, erm, it worked.

(yawn)

Anyway, I am coherent enough (and I had set up my aromatherapy area well enough on per-Bast.org) that I put up the recipe for all to behold. If you live near me and you want a sample, I can whip some up for you to try.

Accepting your destiny gives you the power to change it.

Ummmm. This is a very odd pose for -me. I forget what I was doing, but no matter what he says, it was not smacking Jeff (though I'm sure if I was, Jeff deserved it).

Happy Fathers Day to all my dads. :) Props also to my brother, who went and turned thirty-one this week. You go, girl!

And saionara to everyone I met at SimuCon. I'm sorry if I didn't recognize you -- two years ago I remembered everyone and their respective serial numbers, but now I'm (almost) twenty-five and let me tell ya, it goes downhill fast.

06.16.00 - I admit to feeling conspicuous, talking about my book to people before it's even finished, much less bought or published.

A cold hard fact about the publishing industry is as follows: Until you've had one published, no one really gives a damn about the book you're writing except your close friends (who pretty much have to give a damn since it's the reason you don't go out and play foozball with them anymore) and your mother. And even after you have been published, you may still be hard-pressed to find someone who gives a damn.

If I had a dollar for every would-be artist who has come up during a convention to tell me about the visionary work that they're writing, I'd be a rich lady. So I feel very odd talking about it myself, since it's one of those things you're not supposed to do unless you're an amateur looking for attention.

But on the flip side, this is my journal (as I keep writing to myself to remind me), and I get to talk about whatever I want. And who knows, maybe it'll succeed? I like to think it will, but I also have tasted defeat in this arena once before.

Either way, I've learned a lot in the last thirty-five days since I started this novel. I've learned I still don't like outlines and summaries -- though I do keep an ongoing "notes to self" list at the bottom of whatever chapter I'm working on at the moment -- and I've learned what it takes to stick to something.

Why am I bringing this up now? Because, boys and girls, I just hit the 50k point. I have written approximately 1430 words per day since May 11th. A chapter every 1.8 days. I have applied myself, and I have succeeded.

I am very proud. Because, in addition to all that, I've also managed to keep the website going (with the help from the new webstaff), keep on my priestly duties, and head up to Chicago twice during that writing period, as well as worked at my dayjob with (according to my supervisor) great efficiency.

And I also played Diablo II during it.

I just got to a major point in the story -- thanks to Dave's suggestion as to what to do with the forest battle scene -- and now things are going to get even more interesting than they already were. Kiroji, it seems, is also the Human Torch, which was kind of odd, but I think it works.

If only he'd had Spidey Sense.

06.15.00 - So it's official now. I'll be elevated to kai-Imakhu in August. I've known for a while now, but I haven't been talking about it because I'm like that. So don't feel offended. I just don't talk about these things until it's safe for me to do so.

For those of you who don't know what that is, if Imakhu means "Revered One" (aka "Reverend"), kai-Imakhu ("Exalted Reverend") is an Imakhu who looks after other Imakhiu. And it also means I'm going to be busier.

In other words, kai-Imakhu is an administrative position. One of the descriptions for it is foreman-priest. Probably comparable to the Right Reverend in Christian churches. How's that?

Thanks to Libby and Marie, who were the first to congratulate me :)

I have to go write a little now.

06.14.00 - Hey kids. I made it through the first day of SimuCon 2000.

I have nothing to add, really, just wanted you to all know where I've gone. I should be back in full, typo-ed force on Monday.

And now, non-sequitor music from my MP3 player:

Honeysuckle,
she's full of poison
She obliterated
everything she kissed

ain't nothin going on but history
so don't worry
don't panic
and the music keeps on playing
on and on

06.13.00 - In approximately two chapters, my characters are going to hell.

This is a reason for me to be excited, because it's a turning point for the whole story. In my head, I've been writing this bit of the book since two years ago. It's hard to believe I'm almost there. I still don't know how I'm going to handle it -- I never do until I get there. I can have a vague idea of how things are supposed to go, but unexpected stuff always pops up. And sometimes I feel like there's a subconscious part of me that makes that stuff. I can't illustrate this point well unless I were to show you what I mean, so I'll leave it at that.

SimuCon always starts early, and so on that note there are now lots of people roaming around my office who wouldn't normally be here. I have to lock up everything and I actually cleaned my cube. I also moved my monitor and keyboard around on my desk, which is why the angle from the webcam is different (again).

Anyway, we have to eat before more people start showing up :)

06.11.00 - I just had to write about love in my book, but I don't like to.

It's not because I don't think love is important, but I think too many people write about it superficially. It's hard for me to write about a character talking about love, because we throw it around so loosely in this culture, and so I have to dig past the outer reaction I have to the subject and get closer to the heart of it, so to speak. You know it took me two years to get the words "I love you" out of my mouth when I would speak to Ron? I treasure those words. They mean so much to me. I try very hard to say what I mean.

Donna has a quote on her website that I want to throw in here, because it's one of those wonderful ones about love that I think everyone should see:

"The greatest happiness of life it the conviction that we are loved -- loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves."

Victor Hugo

06.10.00 - Wheee. I did a new front page design for per-Bast.org, and I like it. So does everyone else. I will someday start converting the actual essay over to those graphics and colors, but for now it's just the front area and the little "what is this?" Q&A I wrote for the front area.

A woman on a horse said hi to me. I said hi back. We then moved on.

And that's really it for today.
11:00 PM
 
 
I did so much work today that my brain is jelly.

Hey now! It's 19 days to my birthday, but it's 15 days to the birthday of my notes area! We're both Cancers. Hee.

I was thinking of giving a name to my notes area since it's morphed into what Vent was supposed to be, but isn't quite Vent...so far I've come up with one-word titles like "Daft" or "Actually....", but if you have any ideas, feel free to write me.

Hey, Susan, that thing you mentioned about links and Starr and stuff? Yeah. I agree. (sigh)

Okay, I concede some niftiness in DreamWeaver. It can turn Word HTML into something coherent to the HTML designer. I wish I'd known about this feature two days ago when I was banging out the HTML for the history doc some of our staff sent me. I think anyone should give DreamWeaver a go who has to use design previously done by others or convert into company format the documents people have "helpfully" sent along in HTML format. I don't use it for my own sites, but it's proved invaluable for play.net, which is a practice in cooperation between the acting webmaster, Dave's work there, and the off-site staff who supply some of our content.

So...I am starting to like DreamWeaver.

Even if it does crash all the time.

And eat up resources.

And I can't run anything else while it's running.

Pfffft.

We went and had burritos tonight. I wanted queso con queso, but instead I got my beloved cheezy burrito. I miss the carne burritos I used to be able to get in Cali. Chunks of steak, cooked up with real salsa and rice and beans and cheese and lettuce and tomato...yum.
1:00 AM

06.09.00 - Day of the Sioux! For a "first attempt", Suz has built a damn good journal page. And Susan updated, too. Sorry bout the tree, Susan.

And, and -- what's this?? Jeff updated his site?? Spoon!

Sprechen der Aktualisierungsvorgänge, I finally updated my sidebar to include the two new journalers (Suz and Gryph), though Gryph's been doing this for a while and I just didn't know. I didn't! Forgive me, O Gryphish One.

I got in a fight with my bed last night and had to sleep on the sofa. I think I need a new bed.

Or maybe I need a new pillow. A fluffy and firm pillow. A pillow with a spine. My current pillows consist of a flat firm one, a fat fluffy one, and a sobakawa pillow that is sometimes very comfortable, and sometimes not. I keep meaning to buy one that's in between the first two, but I never remember to. And I still have to buy that beer for my father.

I've been reading Sluggy Freelance all this week, no thanks to Dave. It's a very enjoyable strip, and what's really interesting is that when a character gets hurt or does something stupid for a laugh, it's not magically "fixed" like it never happened in the next strip -- there's continuity. The character stays hurt or has to get out of the situation they've landed in. And a lot of strange and unexpected things seem to happen. I like it.

For those of you in on Diablo II Beta, I play around 9 or 8 P.M. Central in the room "Mooville" with password of the same. If you want to whack some critters with me, I'd be happy to have you.

My Kenshin wallscroll came...bent. I'd gripe about it to Anime Castle, but I don't think it's worth it to repackage it and ship it out again. My experience with them hasn't been a good one. I just won't buy from them again.

Five times five is twenty-five, which I will be in twenty days. And what this means, only this webjournal can say.

When done with sincerity, you can never say enough nice things about someone.

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers
from the Great Beyond

06.07.00 - Good news, everybody! There is a God!

I just got mail today about the Diablo II stress-test beta. Guess who's in?

Tee hee!

Mental note to self: If you find out you've just gotten into the stress-test of the hottest game this side of Mercury, do not shriek with joy and dance in your chair. People will hear you. You work in a company full of gamers. They will start plotting your demise.

Dave adds: "I gotta start sucking up to Blizzard on my site!"

Hah!
8:07 PM
 
 
I get this in IMs from my seventy-nine year old grandmother today:

Mima: i am starting at work to be on computors boy do i hae a lot to learn@!!!!!

oh you'll never see my shade
or hear the sound of my feet
while there's a moon
over Bourbon Street

06.06.00 - The story has stalled. There's a romance between the two characters, but I'm having trouble pulling it out. Gee, I wonder why? :P

If I look cranky on the webcam, it's because I made the healthy decision to go to bed early, and was awoken by Miguel calling Heff at midnight, thirty minutes after I'd fallen asleep. And then someone else called at 8 am. It doesn't matter that the ringer in my room has been off since 1998. I can hear a phone ringing a mile off. It's just one of those Jonesgirls things.

Reading up on Tolkien stuff reminds me of just how depressing the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy is. It does make me want to try and read The Silmarillion again, though. And it makes me think a little, especially this bit:

The Ring of Sauron is only one of the various mythical treatments of the placing of one's life, or power, in some external object, which is thus exposed to capture or destruction with disastrous results to oneself. If I were to 'philosophise' this myth, or at least the Ring of Sauron, I should say it was a mythical way of representing the truth that potency (or perhaps rather potentiality) if it is to be exercised, and produce results, has to be externalised and so as it were passes, to a greater or less degree, out of one's direct control.
(from The Grey Havens article on Sauron)

06.05.00 - Every now and then it floats into my head to try and start up an e-commerce site.

Y'see....

Back when I was first getting into Kemetic religion, there were things I wanted. Nice incense, nice candles, lamp oil, diffusers, white altarcloth, ostrich feathers. You'd think these would be easy to acquire.

But they weren't. Well, not back then. I bought from places like Whispered Prayers, who were fast but lacked a really good incense selection, and did dumb things like deliver it to my billing address instead of my shipping address. I tried Amphigory, who not only had a great incense selection but an awe-inspiring make-up selection, but had problems -- both times I placed orders (sending them a check in the mail because they don't do secure online ordering), they weren't actually in stock with the stuff they said they had, but wouldn't email me to tell me this. No, instead they sent me what they did have of my order (after I waited a month for it to show up), and put a note on my invoice saying I had "store credit" toward my next purchase. Hello. Can we say...unprofessional? (Not to mention probably not legal in the U.S.?)

I don't want to diss the online stores. To be fair, I know it's not easy to run a business. But I've also run into some e-stores with crummier websites than the two mentioned above that were run very well, by true professionals. Honey Hill Soaps, with that abominable midi and all those flashing gifs -- a GREAT company that has never failed me, with a great product. Scentsational Scents -- messed up my order, but sent the replacement right away.

Maybe I just picked two that sucked. Not sure.

There're other things I wanted. Floral waters. Not easy to find. Well, not easy to find that are of good quality, unless you go through the aromatherapy people. Essential oils that won't run off with my wallet and write me from Bermuda. I have discovered of late that I don't even want the whole oil -- I'd be happy with a 10% or even a 5% dilution. I'm not doing therapy here, I'm making an offering. Cut ylang-ylang smells just as good as the whole thing and, in some cases, may even smell better as it's not so concentrated. Stuff like tea tree or lavender I could see taking whole, but so many of the oils need to be cut to be of any good at all.

Fuzzy mice. Whole, unshredded catnip. Empty bottles for natron and water. Offering bowls. Lamps. Statuary that doesn't suck.

Anyway.

It pops into my head from time to time. I think about starting up a company and just selling incense and then gradually expanding into other products. I have money I'm freeing up soon enough, and I may go for it. Do the mail order thing. Set up a website. Sell stuff.

Speaking of which -- now you, too, can own your own One Ring!

And to go with that link...The Top Ten Signs You're a Tolkien Fan.

06.04.00 - Saw Sleepy Hollow. Liked it. The set design was very keen, and the fight scenes were nicely choreographed (Ray Park, aka Darth Maul, was one of the Horseman's "bodies", probably the fight sequence one). Saw Dogma. Liked it again. Actually, liked it better this second time. Kevin Smith films are like that. There are a lot of places where it felt like they could have reshot the scene and gotten better lines out of the actors, but Kevin Smith films are like that, too. I especially like the turn-about halfway through the movie, when Loki and Bartleby sort of switch roles. If I had to put a voice to Bast, I think Linda Fiorentino would be a good candidate. I love her voice.

Am disappointed to learn that our favorite coffee bar, Java Jazz and Blues, has closed down. It wasn't completely unexpected. The food and drink were good, but the service was lousy, and they unfortunately encouraged patrons to hang around, which probably didn't help in the long run since patrons will sit and play cards and pool without buying drinks if you let them. Especially teenagers, who were the majority of the place's clientele.

Again, unfortunate. I will miss it. Ah well.

I did a lot of internal work on Kemet.org this week. Nothing you'll see, but it's there. I am now tired. But that's as much because of all the work I did as the Claritin-D I took earlier.

It's Sunday. Made it through a week. Glad to see, Dear Reader, that you made it with me.

In twenty-five days I will be twenty-five. Yipee for me.

06.03.00 - New "reviews" section, which will be getting its own look sometime in the future. Review of Mission: Impossible II is already up.

Aaaand I'm spent.

06.02.00 - We're going to go see Mission: Impossible II tonight. A couple hours of mindless entertainment is good for me.

I don't know how it is for the rest of humanity, but when you're a writer it's easy sometimes to feel guilty for feeling strong emotions. I think actors -- for really, what is a writer but an actor who's afraid of the stage? -- probably have the same problem. in the back of your head, there is always this lone pocket of self watching everything and recording how you felt at this moment, what you were thinking before this or that.

You start questioning your motives. Sometimes you wonder if you really needed to do this or that, or if you just did it because you wanted to feel it. It's easy to start hating yourself after a while.

Do non-writers feel this way? I don't know. I'm fickle at times -- I get obsessed with something until I know it inside and out, and then I drop it. But that's because I'm trying to live as much as I can so I can be able to appeal to a wide range of people. Perhaps that's a good quality for a priest.

When it comes down to it, the whole point of being an entertainer is to be there for others. Yet, at the same time, most writers will tell you that even if they didn't had an audience, they'd still write. It's very much so a two-sided thing. On one hand, I love entertaining people. I really wanted to put something funny up here, because I know how depressing the last entry probably was. I didn't want people who read this to be left with this sad, oppressive post for the next few days. Yet on the other hand, while I do write some of these entries for the reader, a large number of them I write for me, and as my own personal piece of therapy. Because I always feel better after I write something out. A year ago I would have written an essay to myself about it. Nowadays, I just write a journal entry.

Personal worth is not measurable by the praise of others, it's measured by how much you value yourself. Beyond the lip service you give to others ("Oh, yes, I'm fine."). You have to feel your own worth, no one can give it to you. People can tell you how great you are till the world ends, but if you don't have personal faith it's worthless. Praise beyond yourself is just reinforcement for what you already know. It can't replace it.

Suz gave me a hug today. She's very soft. I just thought you all ought to know that. She also put sugar in my hair. Damn, I'm good.
6:37 PM
 
 
You love someone so much, you wait for them.

You spend three and a half years, waiting.

And then you realize four years is coming up, and you get fed up with waiting. You let them go, because you aren't strong enough to keep on waiting. Because you want to do something other than just sit, and wonder. The waiting isn't working, it seems.

Then you hang up the phone, and hope in your heart they'll come back to you, do something to prove that all that waiting wasn't for nothing. Prove to be the person you know they are, the one you have loved from ten thousand leagues away.

You don't know what you'll do if they don't.

In your entire life, you've never seen or heard him cry. You still haven't seen him cry. But you think you heard it over the line. You just weren't there to see it. And that's the problem to begin with.

You know that right now he's out walking and probably putting his fist into a wall. That's how well you know him, even after being apart for three and a half years.

And all the time you haven't spent thinking about him comes to mind. Three and a half years of missing him in one second, hitting you like a brick sledgehammer.

It's loss, all over again.

You remind yourself that this was your decision. From the first kiss it was your decision, and that's the problem -- you're the only one who seems capable of making decisions in favor of the relationship. That, you remind yourself, is why you gave up waiting.

But you still ask yourself....

Now what?

It's Friday tomorrow. Today. Whatever. I'll get through it the same way I've gotten through the last three and a half years. With my own strength. I don't know that I'll be updating for a while, though.

I don't think anyone knows how much I love him.
3:00 AM
 
 

06.01.00 - Bah. @Home's webserver can't seem to handle me sending it photos once every thirty seconds. (cough) So, hm, we'll see if I can find someplace else for the webcam. Not soon. I'll just change the upload to 60 seconds for now.

Colorado on my mind this morning. (No John Denver jokes, please.) (No jokes about me knowing that John Denver reference, please.) My family moved there when I was...uh...nine? Ten? Somewhere before I started being life-cognizant as I believe Jeff would put it. Anyway, all I remember was that we moved on my birthday (we did that twice), and that I liked it there. That was the place where my grandfather made an infamous quote that has lived with me to this day.