Over the last 2 weeks I've spent a lot of money on movies. Not buying DVDs, but going to see an actual movie in an actual movie theater. I went to go see Zombieland three times with friends, and each time it was great. Although, now, I think I'm all zombie'd out for now until the movie comes out on DVD. If you love zombies, you need to see this movie. It's funny, scary at times (I still jump out of my seat at certain parts after 3 viewings), and it's just a good fun movie to watch and eat popcorn to. I mean, it's zombies. Zombies can't be all that deep (despite what you try to achieve with your movies, Mr. Romero... zombies just aren't good for social commentary). I would place Zombieland in the same arena as Shaun of the Dead, scary, yet funny. Laugh-out-loud funny at parts. Especially the cameo toward the end of the movie. I won't tel you who the cameo is, since that would ruin it, but it was great. I was greatly pleased with it. On my scale of 1-10, I give Zombieland a solid 9.

Michael Buble (Boo-Blay) has a new CD out, Crazy Love, and I got it. Yay for Michael Buble! However... it's not that great. There are certain songs that are good but not enough to save the whole. Track #5, "Haven't Met You Yet" it cute and good, but his cover of Ray Charles' "Georgia On My Mind" is lacking that power and emotion that a) Ray had when he sang it, but 2nd) I've heard Michael sing powerfully on other CDs, and this whole CD is missing that emotion behind the songs. His last CD, Call Me Irresponsible, was great because it wasn't produced within an inch of its life, and he had power and passion to his voice. This CD is lacking, you can hear it in his voice. It's almost like "I'm not really going to try, because I know housewives will buy my CD anyway." And don't get me started on his cover of Justin Timberlake's "Cry Me a River". So much potential to that song!! And Michael doesn't even reach it. And I want to say that #9 "You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You" is a cover of a Sinatra song (but don't quote me on it, I've been wrong before). Michael Buble has done other Sinatra songs and this one just sucks. I mean... ugh. Fail. I give Crazy Love a 4.5 on my scale. Good, but, really, could have been a helluva lot better.

Got some writing done last night, which was good. But then I got super tired at 10pm (o.0) and went to bed. I fell asleep to Robot Chicken and discovered when I woke up Kiera had hopped up on my lap (with laptop) and settled down for a nap with me. I did get somewhere on chapter sixteen before I retired for the night, and added 1695 more words to Magic & Destiny. About a little less than 1/2 of the way to my weekly goal. Since I have this morning off from work, I might get some more down. I was on call this morning @ BN for a 9am shift, but didn't call in @ 8 to check... because I was still sleeping and woke up at 9am thinking I was working at Lane Bryant this morning... oops. They have yet to call me, so apparently they didn't need me. And I don't think the MODs know they have people for on call shifts anyway, so don't bother to check. Whatever. I'm not feeling good today, anyway. So I can relax until about 4, and go to Lane Bryant and work 4 hours there. Yay.

I'm really fighting the urge to go back to bed. I have stuff I really should be doing around here. Like picking up all the crap in my office. Sweeping off my deck because leaves, bird crap, and seeds aren't pretty. Do dishes. Write more. Finish Cell by Stephen King or finish Homer's Odyssey by Gwen Cooper... ugh. Right now sleep is winning.

• Sleeping.
• Working on Magic & Destiny.
• Reading World War Z.
• Searching more dillegently for my digi camera picture transfer USB cord.
• Dishes.
• Knitting.
• Organizing something to start packing.
• Packing up more books.
• Getting new water for my fish (since I am slowly suffocating them w/bad water).
• Writing on a short story of some kind.
• Lurking around Farm Town on Facebook.
• Brushing Kiera.
• Playing Plants vs. Zombies.
• Cleaning off the folding table in the living room.
• Write out the awesome plot ideas I had for Magic & Mercy.
• Did I already mention sleep?

• Put an offer on a bank-owned townhouse/condo and the bank has accepted said offer. If all goes well, we'll close the deal and I'll get the keys to my new home June 18th.
• I've been slowly recovering after three 12 hour work days last week, and those days were in a row: Thurs-Fri-Sat. Worked both jobs those days, spent 12+ hours at the mall. My legs turned to Jell-O Saturday night and I could barely walk at work. My whole body is just shutting down and I need so much sleep (so I really should be in bed now instead of writing this @ 130am). Need to talk to manager @ 2nd job to keep that from happening again.
  
• Kiera has decided to become a 2 year old, demanding new food at 4am because the stuff I gave her at 11pm before I went to bed isn't good enough for her anymore. Her incessant mrrowing starts at 4am and goes until about 6 when I finally drag myself out of bed and feed her... to only find half her food has been eaten. We have been having little battles over this, but I think the scruff-of-neck-grab-and-throw-to-the-bed move I put on her Sunday morning calmed her down a bit.
  
• The publishing of my book is going insanely slow. I need to email North Star Press about the editing and to see if I can start revising some of the stuff the do have done. The way this is going, the promised release in summer 2009 might turn out to be winter 2010. Bah.
  
• Learning that it's really not the mold in my apartment that has been making me sick, but my cat. Have official medical proof from the allergy test that I'm allergic to cats. Mold is a strong second, but there's not enough mold in my apartment to make me sick. My allergies were just triggered by the normal amount of mold in the air, since my system is more senstive to stuff like that. So my pride, ego, soul, whatever, was knocked down a few pegs after my "righteous" hatred of my landlord over "his indirectly causing me to be sick" was proven false and I was really making myself sick by demanding I have a cat. Bah.
  
• Speaking of books, slowly working on Relic Chosen #2. Got stuck on a fight scene because I'm not too good at fight scenes, and whenever I get around to writing on it, it's 1am and I'm tired.
  
• Finished Pride and Prejudice last week and it was lovely. Had to move on to Rogue Angel: Polar Quest (#16) because I've packed up most of my books in preparations for immenent move, so Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is in one of 10 boxes of books. Ugh. But I will read it soon... prolly when I get all unpacked and settled into my new place.
  
• Have been in a funk lately, mostly due to stress of finding a place---and securing said place---by the end of August (when my 2 months' notice said so), and trying to adjust to working 2 jobs while trying to find time for hobbies, relaxation, time for friends, family, and writing. Ugh. Not enough hours in the freakin' day.
  
• Kiera is snoring.
  
• I'm going to delete my Myspace account by the end of the month. Hopefully before then, if I remember. I haven't gone on that bloody page on a consistent basis in in years (really since the last ex and I broke up) and I think I've been on the site with a purpose maybe 5 times this year. It's going. Might be replaced with something else... a writing/Relic Chosen/author page...? I dunno. We'll see.
• I am insanely tired of being single. You really have no idea how tired of it I am on so many levels I won't go into now. But it needs to stop. Which leads me into Events & Adventures, the horrible waste of time and money that was supposed to fix the aforementioned problem. Ha. Yeah. I didn't go to any events from Feb to April because of severe sinus infections/allergies/bronchitis... May I bailed on the one I did sign up for because I went to go hang out with people who already are my friends, and I haven't signed up for anything in June because... eh. Nothing sounds interesting. Big. Collosual. Waste. Of. Time.

So while waiting for James to get done with his oil change, I'm here at my dad's putzing on my computer. I thought I'd go through some of the Favorites/Bookmarks and see what I have on this old thing since I haven't really used it in 2 years.

Well... I found this:

Whose Line is it Anyway? Best Hoedown EVAR.

Now I'm going to maybe try and read Rogue Angel: Swordsman's Legacy but I don't think that will go too well because I'm exhausted from getting no sleep last night, and I'm starving... and I have no food at my dad's... maybe I'll order pizza...

• Threw away three garbage bags full of crap from my living room and kitchen


• Swept the bathroom and kitchen


• Vacuumed (with Kiera locked away in the bathroom)


• Did a few dishes


• Threw away my large pile of strip books from work that I'll never get around to reading


• Organized my good-enough-to-sell books


• Put some strips under my damned couch to support the broken support beam (the damned thing broke again in a different spot!) until my BIL and sister come back from their New York vacation (he's going to fix it for me and add a front foot)

Yeah. It was crazy. Kiera didn't quite know what to think of it all, so she hid for most of the time in the bathroom while I organized, threw out crap, and just did a quick clean run-through. Tomorrow I'm on-call at Lane Bryant, so if I'm not needed to come in, I'll do a little more cleaning. Maybe some laundry and straighten up my bedroom.

Decided to take a break from cleaning and ordered a pizza (too tired and not enough clean dishes around to make something), and watched the first episode of Doctor Who Season 3. w00t! I've seen the first 3-4 episodes of this season before I moved away from readily available source of cable. But I'm still stupidly excited for it. The 10th Doctor is hot. And, as an interesting aside, did you know that David Tennant is Scottish? He is. In the extra DVD stuff, when he's not in "Doctor Mode", he has a Scottish accent... and it's delicious. Mmm. *le swoon* Too bad Doctor Who can't suddenly become Scottish. And I've decided I need the Doctor Who scarf, made iconic by Tom Baker during his run as The Doctor in the 60's and 70's. And I also want the TARDIS money bank. Earlier this year I was talking with a former coworker (I think lokein and akoumi should remember Lee), who is a big Doctor Who fan, and we were talking all things Doctor, when she mentioned that her husband has a TARDIS piggy bank. Hmm? And when you put money in the bank, it makes the fun whirrrring noise the TARDIS makes when it's taking off. WHAT?! I want. Yes. I want.

I just got done, a few minutes ago actually, reading Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry. A delicious read for all those who like zombies, top-secret government agencies, thrilling action, and a kick-ass hero with a smartass-wise-cracking mouth. I sped through the last few chapters (which are like 2 pages long... if that!) with lightning speed because it was so good! I startled Kiera a few times because I would cry out with excitement or anger or surprise or just plain awesomeness at what I had read, and she'd jerk awake and stare around the room in sleepy bewilderment. My favorite part in the book is when the main character, Joe Ledger, is going through an office building looking for the rogue Secret Service agents and the First Lady, and he has to pop open closed doors...

From page 371, Chapter 109: "I moved forward through several rooms, encountering one locked door after another. It would be suicide to kick each door, but these were interior locks and I could trip most of them with a stiff piece of plastic. I used my Barnes and Noble member card."

draygnfaerie

So why am I online at my dad's and not in my warm comfy bed snuggling the Kiera kitty? Because I am Internets deprived. Ugh.

I got the job at Lane Bryant, and today was my first day. Mostly orientation and filling out paper work. I am now officially part of the Second Job Club. But the fun part is, that instead of getting my paycheck from Lane Bryant in a normal check form, or even direct deposit, there's this fun option to get your paycheck downloaded onto a Visa card. Like a paycheck-gift card! So I'm going to use that for my silly purchases (books, random thingies, etc) and use most of my B&N paycheck for bills and that like. Yay.

Maybe I'll eventually switch that over to direct deposit so that I can use most of my Lane Bryant paycheck to pay for decent internets. Anyone know if Comcast is good?

Okay... I should really get home. Kiera has been home alone since 830am... who knows what wild craziness that cat will get into.

[$10 says i'll find her asleep at the end of my bed...] 

Today I'm in an odd mood. Just very... eh. Stand-offish. If that's a word. I dunno. I just don't want to be around people, and a lot of customers at work today made my soul ache for the human race, compounding my annoyance with people and their existence. A lady got mad that the Cosmo magazine was at the eye-level of her 10-yr-old son, and that's not appropriate for children, so could I go please tell my manager? The hell? Ok, Cosmo too risque for you, we'll just slap a Hustler or an Unzipped up there for ya. Seriously? The only thing that's "offensive" are the titles of the articles. There's no nudie pictures on the cover, or sex positions typed on the cover in 72 point font. Now if your little brat had been poking around the sexuality/love section 10 feet to my right/your left, then I'd understand your concern. Seriously. He's going to have to learn about all that stuff in about 8 years anyway, so why not start him early, eh? *eye roll* But the best one was a lady who returned a $2.50 greeting card today. Really? You returned a greeting card? Her reasoning: she thinks she gave it to her husband for his birthday a few years ago. So you wasted the amount of money you got back in gas to return a card you could have saved for another occasion or something? Wow. Wow. No wonder our economy is shit. We don't know when not to spend money to "save".

And my stupid shrinky-dink clinic place dropped the ball on refilling my meds. I think I barely have enough to go throughout this week, and I called them a second time that I need my meds now. And I left a message. What clinic doesn't have their receptionist there? Both times I've called. I know I flaked on my last appointment, but seriously, take my call. I found out they hadn't gotten my first message when I went to Target to get my refill and the pharm tech person was like... "Uh, nothing sent in. Are you sure you called your doctor?" No, I willed a refill to magically appear. Argh. But as I was leaving Target, halfway to my place, my shrinky-dink called me and said that somehow their messaging system was either dumping the messages somewhere in the horrors of the universe where the Great Old Ones live, or the secretary was melting down; but she'd be calling those refills in ASAP. *le sigh* So I crashed at dad's to calm down and regroup. I'm just... on edge right now. I bought a new purse (the 19th sign of the coming of the apocalypse, I'm sure of it) because the one I have right now isn't quite big enough (my cousin Erica would shit a brick if she heard that; she's been trying to "feminize" me more for the last few years), so I busied myself with organizing that and putting my stuff from Old Purse to New Purse (dad didn't understand how that would be fun---not fun, relaxing). Organizing somehow helps my anxiety... I dunno, some mild OCD thing... *le shrug* I guess I'm going to run back up to Target tonight... maybe. I don't know if I want to do that. I really just feel the need to go home, get into jammies, maybe watch a movie or something, eat bad comfort food, and sleep. Sleep sleep sleep.

Yeah. Maybe I'll get up early tomorrow and grab my meds before work. I just don't want to deal with anymore people anymore. Too much run around for my brain right now. I think I'm just going to go home, order a pizza, get some laundry done, and watch Disc 2 of Rescue Me Season 4 (fucking amazing! as was Bourne Ultimatum--watched it last night).

'K bi.

(I originally wrote this on Tuesday morning... I'm not backdating it so it's not lost in the cyber miasma of friends' lists)

Because I'm nocturnal. I've always been more active and apt to staying up later than most of the people I know. My sleep cycle, circadian rhythm, whatever that thing is, is set 12 hours later than others.

And it doesn't hurt that I'm a vampire.

I just finished reading In the Midnight Hour about 10 minutes ago... and... ow! *le swoon!* So good! The last like... 40 pages just zip by and you're going "Holy shit!? How is this going to be concluded? This can't end this way! No no no!!" But it all ended good and it was such a good story. Now I have to go and get the second one in the series. And the cool part is, the series is set in Minnesota, because Patti O'Shea is from here. w00t! I'm glad I picked this for the Romance Book Club. I also got to chat with Diana, who is also in the club, and she said she liked it too, "a lot more than [she] thought [she] would." Hehehe. I do admit, when you read the back of the book, the brief description on the back is a bit confusing, so I understand the slight hesitance the rest of the RBC had when I showed them this title. But it was good! Woooo! Yay! So worth staying up 4 hours after I got home from work.

But I'm also up this late because I can't stand going to bed hungry. Why not eat something, you may be asking. Well, I can't. I'm 9 hours into my stupid fast for blood work to be done tomorrow... this morning... whatever. We're going blood tests to see if I have diabetes and some other crap, to rule those out as possible diseases/syndromes that could be causing my PCOS-esque symptoms. And for blood work fastings, they say you're not supposed to eat anything for at least 12 hours before your testing. Dammit. Sadly, more than one issue has the set of presenting issues that I have, so we have to rule a lot of crap out. Ugh. And the stupid lab work is at 845 in the fricking morning. Argh! Well, when I made the appointment, I figured that it's my day off, so I can just go get my blood drawn, and after 20 minutes of being in the doctor's office, I can come home and sleep for most of the day until DBT at 6pm. Well... now the lab work is going to be taken in 5.45 hours.... ugh. I shouldn't even go to bed! By the time I get to bed, and wind down, it'll be almost time to wake up again, and it would almost be better at that point to not have tried to sleep at all. Right now I'm way to revved up for some reason... don't know if it was the awesomeness of the book... nerves about the lab work... or... what. I dunno. Maybe I'll play some PS2 and relax... that's right folks! Yesterday after work I splurged and bought a used PS2 from Game Stop, and got a used copy of Burnout 3: Takedown. And it was even in the original case, not the stupid Game Stop default one. w00t! So I played some of that yesterday when I got home from work. However... sadly... the PS2 didn't come with a memory card... so all the awesomeness I did last night (including awards, special things unlocked, records made, etc) are all lost and I have to do it again. Ugh. Oh well. I'll get a memory card after work on Wednesday. Stupid, I should have asked if it had one, but I was dumb and assumed it had one in the box... and we all know what happens when you assume! *rolls eyes*

So yeah... that's about it for now. Yeah. Kiera is being psycho... I think she's not used to me being up this late. She makes the weirdest squeaky/chirp noises. It's freaking cute, but I don't remember ever hearing another cat make such noises. Odd. Oh well, suits me to have a weird ass cat.

Well... yeah... I guess I should get some amount of sleep. I know I'm just going to roll out of bed, slap some non-pj clothes on, and drive to the doctor in the morning---I ain't wasting time to take a shower, get properly dressed, and all that shit just to sit in a chair for 5 minutes while they draw a few vials of blood. Hell no. But I know that after my stupid fasting, I'm going to drive over to Perkins (within a stone's throwing distance from the doctor's office!) and have a big old ham 'n cheez omelet with hash browns and maybe a big ass muffin... or bacon... something like that. I hate fasting! I have been living off water for the last 9 hours! I'm starving!!! My Potbelly turkey sammich was not meant to sustain for more than 4 hours! Bastards!

*le sigh*

So I've had three conversations with guys at work about comic books and comic-based movies over the last few months, and from one of those conversations a comment was said to me that struck a chord: "You certainly do know a lot about comics." Not that that comment itself is a "bad thing", but it was more in how it was said than what was said. There was, to me at least, a slight tone of amazement, maybe even a smidgen of disbelief? That got me thinking, and a strange little thought has popped into my head. I'm beginning to wonder if being a girl (as I'm prone to be sometimes) and liking comics is something that turns guys away? I guess I tend to be a little more knowledgeable about certain comics and things than others, and I do fill in things for my sister when we went and saw Batman and the three X-Men movies (now, X-Men I know a lot about that whole world---at least until they totally overhauled the X-Men world and basically "started over" a few years ago). Or do guys like it if you're into comics and stuff like that? I remember when I was growing up, my friend Shannon and I got into comics (X-Men related titles mostly), and we had been told by our parents to some degree that comics were a "boy thing", and that young girls shouldn't buy those things.

Basically since then, I've been in and out of the comic world, buying well-known comics as well as experimenting with some off-beat comics and graphic novels, and in college there was Brian who showed me the wonderful world of Transmet, Batman via Frank Miller, and Batgirl, as well as some Authority and Planetary. But even then I was still a little weary of getting too into comics, and mostly borrowed issues from Brian instead of buying my own. It wasn't until I was with my last boyfriend did my long-forgotten passion for comics really come forth; we both had a affinity towards comics, known and more random titles, and that was one of the major things that brought us together in the first place. One night, right before we "officially" started dating, we had a late-night, multi-hour phone conversation about comics, and I think it was mostly about X-Men. Score one for comic girls! ^_^ So now I think, since I'm getting my own comic/graphic novel library up and going with main-stream comics as well as more "indy" titles, is that a... well, a turn on or turn off for guys? I mean... let's see if I can figure out the right way to word this... I'm going off on a bit of "stream of consciousness", so if it doesn't quite make sense, I'm sorry...

If comics are a "boy thing" per say, and girls tend to be tolerated for the most part in that world, is there something that boys could be interested in that is a "girl thing"? Like... if a guy liked scrapbooking or knitting? And I'm just picking those since those happen to be some things I'm interested in, you could insert anything that would be a "girl thing". Those are predominantly "girl things", I suppose. So would that be weird if a guy liked those things? Or would it be a bonus to have something else in common, like how Joe and I had comics as a mutual interest? It didn't really seem to weird him out that I liked comics, if I remember right, he actually seemed more than okay with it. I think... that if I were to meet a guy that liked... say, scrapbooking, I would admit that I'd be a little weirded out by it (and probably would question his orientation for a bit until told otherwise...) but I wouldn't be turned off from it. It would be fun to have someone---anyone, really---to do scrapbooking with. And I guess seeing a guy's scrapbooking style would be kind of fun. Since girls have a slightly different slant in the comics that they like, so would be the same for guys if they tried their hand at girl stuff.

Yeah, not sure if that paragraph made much sense. It's a little late now, and I had an impromptu 5 hour nap today that totally screwed up my plans for this evening, as well as my whole concept of what time it is. But I've been mulling over this little quandary for a while, and I was just curious. Does liking comics (or video games and RPGs and such for that matter) make one more "appealing" or "approachable" for guys? Or does it actually turn you into "one of the guys", thus hurting any chance of them seeing a girl as anything more than just another friend? But with the three guys I've had talks about comics with, overall I don't think my knowledge of comics had any adverse reaction. It was a nice ice breaker and gave us something to kill about 15 minutes at the registers during down times, and it was fun to share my knowledge (although admittedly limited compared to others') with someone.

Or maybe I just over think things way too much and I'm reading too much into this. I dunno. That one comment has just kinda stuck with me and it won't really let me be. *le shrug* And well, I've even gone into the comic world myself with my Bargain Section comics, and I even did Fallcon last year. And there were a few girls there, both selling their comics as well as buying. Even though comics still, as a whole, is a male dominated market, us girls are steadily making our way into it. I know a few guys have been interested when they found out I did the Fallcon last year and sold some of my stuff (not really, but they didn't need to know that), so, really, girls + comics = not a bad thing. The topic of the next lecture will be:

      Girls + Vid Gam3  
      Boys + PS2 + Ds                       Be ready to show your work.

Yeah... I'm tired now and not really sure if I'm making much sense. I think I'm going to go to bed again....

So I just got IM'd by this random ass person who said something in Latin... and I responded with a "right... I don't speak Latin" and they shot back with a "who is this?" and I said "Well, you texted me first, so I should be asking that" and their response was "no i didn't" to which I said "yeah, you did" which got a "yeah, whatever" which got their ass blocked. I hate when I get random ass people IMing me and playing that I started it. Yeah, right. Asshole. I should have asked, "well, if I texted you first, what did I say?" and see what started it. I know I get randomly phished by porn shit on my Yahoo IM... I should just disconnect that. And I'm not even online when they IM me there. Assholes. All of them.

( Cut due to excessive swearing )

And I'm horribly behind on the book for the Romance Book Club at work. The second book we're reading is Dark Lover by J.R. Ward. So far it's interesting... kind of starting out like Master of Surrender, where I'm not a big fan of the main male character, but he's slowly starting to grow on me. But I've been in such a freaking funk lately, that I haven't been in the mood to read it. I'm so far behind... *le sigh* I'll read what I can tomorrow before I go to the meeting... and we'll go from there. Oh well. Life happens. I'm in charge of the new book for the next meeting, and I chose In the Midnight Hour by Patti O'Shea. I've had this book for a year or so... so I figured: "What better book to pick than one I already have?" It sounds like a good action-romance book, and it has a "sequel", In Twilight's Shadow, where it's in the same world as the first one, and the characters are somehow connected to the ones in Midnight Hour. So yeah, we'll see how far I get with that. And I have some other books to finish, like the H.P. Lovecraft collection, Moongazer, and The Amazing Book of Useless Information... blah. Oh well. Whatever.

I should get home... I have so much shit to do... *le sigh* Maybe I'll go get my hair cut and eyebrows done tomorrow... I love getting my hair cut... I have this weird affinity towards my hair being combed, touched, whathaveyou, and having people work with my hair always calms me. And it'll make me feel pretty.

Okay... I'm done...

bah.