picked a handful of violets in my name

Tue, 16 Jul 2013 21:10:16 GMT

I stayed home from work today with what is either a very intractable case of allergies or a hopefully-brief cold. Snotting all over the records is a bad idea (and handling the dusty old paper when I'm already running like a faucet at the nose just makes it worse). I'm beginning to think I may just be allergic to Tuesdays - I had the same problem a couple of weeks ago and had to leave early to avoid damage to the materials in my care. Benadryl manages to stop the sneezing for a couple of hours at a time, but not the continual drip of mucus or the general feeling of itchiness/irritation around my nose, throat, and sinuses.

On the bright side I've done a bunch of housework today - mainly laundry (general clothes, sheets, jeans, towels, and three batches of hand-wash lingerie and delicate miscellaneous - plus I'm going to power through all my dry-clean-only stuff once the towels are done), but also a small amount of picking-up/putting-away/throwing-out and some prep for a meal I plan to cook later.

But I broke my glittery plastic flip-flops. Alas, and I never even wore them outside, just up and down the basement stairs. At least they only cost me 25 cents at a yard sale.

I'm going to be in New Orleans from August 9 through August 19 for the Society of American Archivists annual meeting. I even finally got around to ordering business cards! I'm not looking forward to the weather - I'm sure it will be at Peak Ugh - but it'll be lovely to visit all my favorite restaurants etc.

Also, depending on when Ellie is moving out, I may wind up exempt from helping her move to Everett* via ZipVan due to professional conference. Unintended consequence, but I can't say I mind. She does, fortunately, have plenty of moving karma to cash in among friends in the Boston area, so my absence will be much less of a pain than it otherwise might've been.

*She has located an actual apartment and paid the deposit yay! Lease may or may not be signed yet but definitely will be before her next trip to China, moving to happen when she returns.

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okay, seriously

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 01:08:55 GMT

I am granting myself dreamroll amnesty. I will never catch up and I'm just going to have to be okay with that.

Because, I shit y'all not, I have not been around since shortly after Con.txt. I was eaten by an unfortunate combination of Analog Life (mostly work, now work + class), tumblr (so low-effort!), fic on AO3, and a grue.

( Major things happening for me right now: work, school, nerdy games, relationship, fandom )

Clearly nerdy games are the bright spot in my life. Pretty sure that group are my BFFs.

I also revived my abandoned twitter account tonight. Whee, back on the social media wagon.

So, two things to conclude:
1. If there's anything you need me to know that has happened since, like, mid-June, comment or email me or something? :)
2. If you are in or near Boston, come to the Anarchist Bookfair. Especially come on Sunday, November 11, at 11:00! Most of my Community Archives class (including me) will be on a panel about community archives.

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Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:42:40 GMT

I don't actually have the faintest idea how serious Hurricane Irene is going to be, but I haven't been able to work up all that much concern about it. I feel pretty confident Ellie and I won't starve or be flooded out or blown away. I am expecting the power to go out for at least an hour or two; we've had more power outages per year in JP than anywhere else.

On the other hand, we are taking semi-serious hurricane protections at work. A portion of the library basement has flooded before, as a result of prolonged rain of moderate heaviness (and a clogged storm drain somewhere nearby - mostly the storm drain). So we're doing what we can to stop it happening again.

Classes at Simmons start on the 1st but mine are actually spread out over more than a week. I suppose it's nice to ease into the new academic year?

I wouldn't say Doctor Who is my new fandom, exactly, because I'm not feeling an overwhelming desire to read fic. But I am enjoying it and I do plan to keep watching. Not only have I got the new episode marked on my mental calendar, I'm using Ellie's Netflix account to catch up on Nine and Ten, and I'm ahem-ing as much Old Who as I can get my hands on.

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internets! I have missed yoooouuuuu!

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 04:38:41 GMT

Notes

My parents have been here for the past two weeks, and then my internet connection spent a couple of days being pissy, and then I had other shit to do. But I'm back!

Parents

It was a good visit! We did many fun things, such as go to museums (Museum of Science with Ellie's kinda-sorta-girlfriend-I-think,* two three year olds, and the dad of the of the other three year old! MFA, wherein I learned exactly how intensely my dad does museums), elbow our way through the North End (I have been to concerts that were less crowded than those sidewalks, sheesh, also who the fuck drives in the North End are you fucking kidding me), etc.

* Yeah, I'm not sure what's up with that relationship thing, so I do not have a single-word term for it. It is very functional and they seem happy! It's also kind of hilarious (but possibly only to me, because of the sheer amount of TMI I have on Ellie's life and personal identity).

Thanks to a trip to Ikea and two carloads off to Goodwill, my room is in pretty good order! This is kind of miraculous. I still have too much stuff, but A) some kind of shift has occurred that unblocked my ability to get rid of things I don't need and B) I have improved my storage capabilities.

An important note: if you are planning to rearrange some furniture, and are drawing something out on paper, make sure your measurements are correct. We were off by two feet.

Grad School

I am not sure why advising needed to be an all-day process, but it was. There was assorted fuckery related to my being listed with the wrong concentration and assigned to the wrong advisor, but I did have the proper advising experience I was supposed to. Then there was the unrelated fuckery of not enough seats in classes, the end results of which are that I'm taking core library classes in a slightly different but still completely reasonable order than I'd originally thought, and I am still waiting to hear which history class I've been placed in (they needed volunteers to take Methods some time other than first semester, and one of the alternatives was a women's and gender history course, so I volunteered, but we're being manually registered and I haven't received an email about it yet).

There were two really bright spots in my day: I think I met a friend of a former schoolmate (one year ahead of me, so we weren't really friends), and one of the professors pinged my "you are from the internet" radar. Also there was ice cream and I got to go to work for a little while afterwards.

Work

Boss is departing; she'll still be available to advise us but today was her last real workday. This makes me the second most senior employee in the archives. I am deeply unsettled by that.

I am processing a new collection... three new collections... six collections? There are three organizations who donated their records, so there will be three collections. There are six accessions right now, because sometimes they gave us stuff in multiple batches. Some stuff will need to be moved between accessions because it belongs to one of the other organizations. Sorting that out will be the easy part.

The third organization was created by the merger of the other two, which helps to explain the cross-pollination of materials and also makes it a little harder to deal with it. Furthermore, each of those orgs is the result of mergers and renamings of even older organizations, such that the final conglomerate can say it dates back to the 1800s. (The bulk of the collections is more modern, but there are items from the predecessor orgs and these are the oldest papers I have processed.) I am going to need a nice detailed organizational chart to make sure everything is housed where is belongs, is referenced where relevant, and is laid out sensibly and accurately in the finding aid. Fortunately for me, someone wrote a history of one of the orgs and all those materials are in the collection; a thank-you card to that person may be in order when I'm finally done.

(JP)

(That's supposed to represent those oval bumper stickers that usually have two-letter country abbreviations. Someone makes such a sticker for Jamaica Plain. I keep threatening to buy one for Ellie, to upgrade her Subaru wagon [Level One JP Vehicle] that now has a carseat for a small child [Level 2 JP Vehicle; can also qualify with one of those fences to keep your dog in the back] to a Level 3 JP Vehicle.)

Boomerangs has been holding a massive sale to empty the store ahead of planned renovations. I've paid them a visit every day since Tuesday; retail therapy works for me and thrift stores reduce the financial burden and potential for guilt. (I mostly look for things with violets on them. It's kind of a theme.) I also finally made it to one of our local botanicas, which I have been meaning to do for over three years (ever since we were apartment-hunting and I saw it out of the realtor's car window); unfortunately I think I kind of interrupted the owner's lunch. The botanica has a shop cat, whom I briefly petted when I walked in; I spent the rest of my time there being insistently headbutted in the ankles. Secretly I was delighted, because I almost always love cats more than they love me.

I also keep returning to City Feed for lunch. It is very pleasant to eat a ham and cheese sandwich and watch people walking by.

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Serendipity

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 20:29:46 GMT

Wound up at the Lucy Parsons Center earlier today (because they're having a sale in advance of their move to Jamaica Plain*) and walked out with a copy of Streets of Hope: The Fall and Rise of an Urban Neighborhood, which is about the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative. Which is awesome because I'm about to start processing a collection that's pretty much all about the DSNI.

(In case you hadn't noticed, I am sometimes overinvested in my job.)

* Pretty sure I bought the "history of queer rock bands" mentioned in that article, too. HomoCore: The Loud and Raucous Rise of Queer Rock, which was prominently displayed in the front room.

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omg you guysssss

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 03:49:00 GMT

I am so close to the bottom of the Very Last Box left over from the move. (We moved into this apartment in August of 2008, for the record.)

I have a giant heap of clothes to try on but I think a lot of them will get weeded out (stuff I don't even like any more, or stuff that doesn't fit), and there's still a couple of layers of folded clothes lining the bottom of the box, but.

Now I need to go to bed, because I have to open at work tomorrow. (I have found a Thing that motivates me to be early to work. If I'm the first person there, I get to unlock the door and shut off the alarm. It makes me feel very special.)

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(the other major hazard is falling off a ladder and having a cubic foot of photos land on your head)

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 00:41:50 GMT

I have to say, the biggest hazard of my job may be literal death by a thousand paper cuts.

I'm at the point now where I don't stop working unless the cut is threatening to bleed on the materials (preservation and sanitation issues!). And I should really stop putting bandaids on even the bleeders, due to the positioning.

Basically, because I spend so much of my time plunging my hands into boxes of upright folders and papers, I get a lot of paper cuts near the bottom of my fingernails (I also get them on my knuckles with some regularity, and I have one that is very nearly under my fingernail right now, rendering my left pinky useless for typing due to ouch). Bandaids get in the way pretty badly. And I'm apparently incapable of applying them competently: I just took off the bandaid from earlier today, and there's a band of white, wrinkled skin because I wrapped my finger too tight.

And the sad thing is, that's not even the worst thing I've done when bandaging my fingertips. I once left an overly tight bandaid on over night, and the next morning my fingertip was slightly maroon on the end. :(

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Thu, 30 Sep 2010 02:38:37 GMT

Recently

Work, mostly. solarcat and I are going to Garment District and maybe some other places this weekend, for Killjoys costuming purposes. (I also need to figure out a Ramona Flowers costume, since Cory has decided that's what we're doing for Halloween, since I'll be in Grand Forks and all.)

Ellie and I spent some time last night talking about our plans for revamping the apartment. The main thrust is to make our space better for our creative pursuits. So much of it depends on her having the time and spoons to build new furniture, so no idea when any of it will get done. I can post an outline of our plans, with crappy diagrams, if anyone is interested.

Links

via saystheheart: Safeword, the s&m superhero

Married to the Sea: new uniforms

via cofax7: Gerald M. Weinberg: What’s Been the Effect of Banning My Stuff?
Whatever it was intended to do, banning things increases interest. When one of the Pope’s Cardinals banned The DaVinci Code, lagging sales picked up and made a few more millions for Mr. Brown. Banning Harry Potter had a similar effect for Ms. J. K. Rowling, now richer than the Queen.

(Tangent: I once got to attend one of Jerry's workshops. He and my dad go pretty far back; we would usually pay him a visit when we took our road trips to New Mexico. Jerry knew I was working on a novel, he was running a writing workshop and it was going to be pretty fiction-oriented, and he hadn't seen Dad in a while. So Dad and I took a week off work/school and went. It was awesome.)

(And another tangent: Wow has my life been full of fantastic opportunities and experiences that resulted directly from grown-ups taking a chance on me. Including my current job.)

Plans

I am considering StrowlerCon, but would need roommates. I also need to run it past Ellie and see if she wants in.

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look alive, sunshine (WHAT ARE THEIR FACES OH MY GOD)

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 23:13:36 GMT

Recently

Looooong slog at work today. Ia ia vertical file fhtagn! And I have to do more of it on Monday. (Hell is interfiling.)

Memery

( Friday Five: travel )

Follow Friday

followfriday | Latest Things tagged follow friday

( caution: teal deer crossing )

Links

( 6 links )

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85 minutes of bleach later

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 23:36:06 GMT

Recently

I can haz purple hair! No pictures yet because I am lazy, but it does not suck. (The purple streak does fade rather quickly to nearly black as you move away from my scalp, but given how many times it had been dyed before these shenanigans, I can't say I'm surprised.)

Have been approved to take another week off work, sometime between mid October and Thanksgiving (has to be before Thanksgiving because $winterholiday retail season is likely to constrain the amount of time C. has for me). Now to find a suitably cheap plane ticket. On the one hand, yay I get to see my boyfriend again! On the other... and then I won't see him until some time in 2011.

Links

( 9 links )

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just links today

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 21:17:33 GMT

Links

( 10 links )

Plans

Scissor Sisters concert with Ellie.

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long post is long

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 04:25:47 GMT

Notes

I'll be out of town August 14-21. While I'll have internet access, I have no idea how much I'll be online. But rest assured I'll catch up even if I can't keep up.

Recently

Bosses and one reference desk person are away for the Society of American Archivists conference. Work is freakishly quiet.

Busy couple of days. Tuesday morning, I hauled a box of fun surprises to the post office (since the TSA probably frowns on taking rope in your carry-on), went to work, and then went to Diesel to meet up with shadesong and receive my BARCC auction winnings: a lovely flogger. After that, I ran into Andra and spent forever telling her about C. (she kept asking questions, and I am still flush with omgyay).

Yesterday I got some purple dye, and this morning before work, I put it in my hair to see what it would do. Not a lot, as it turns out: my hair is too dark. Now it's even darker, with something of a blue cast to it. While kinda disappointing, it's not actually surprising, and it's definitely not a bad result.

Leaving for Grand Forks at stupid o'clock Saturday morning. Clothes are basically picked out, and toiletries are selected and quart-size bagged.

Memes

Still open for questions.

I know so little about you, I'm afraid my question is quite pedestrian! What would your dream job be?

Pretty close to what I'm doing right now. I want to be an archivist full-time, as my real grownup job. But I'm not thrilled with the idea of meetings and managing other people, which my bosses at work have to do. I just want to work with the collections.

Placeholder

I want to write about "lazy femme," which is what I call my gender presentation. In short: I like things like skirts and makeup, but I don't generally bother with these more effortful bits of gendered plumage.

( 11 links )

Plans

More packing, go to bed, sleep, get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, finish packing, go to bed, get up, get on airplane, arrive in Grand Forks, get laid.

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This whole "more regular posting" thing is going so well, don't you think?

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 05:42:11 GMT

Notes

Yeah, I know. But getting used to the full-time job has been really rough this time around. IDK.

The BARCC Blogathon auctions are running through 2010-08-03, 17:00 Eastern.

Recently

Work was fun today. In that special way where my eyes aren't used to contacts yet and I spent the whole day using a computer, and also in the way where one of the door alarms was going off pretty much all day because it was broken.

I was supposed to go to a concert tonight, but I just could not manage it. :( I napped instead. After I write this post, I'm going to go back to bed.

Signs I am tired: I am trying to read my dreamroll using ?ship=300. /o\

Retail Therapy

I ordered some stuff from Fire Mountain Gems over the weekend, and it shipped today. \o/ So that'll be here next Monday, approximately. Unfortunately, I can't bring my travel jewelry kit to Grand Forks. I don't think the TSA would approve of my pliers. :( :( :( Plus I am only bringing a carry-on. DNW to pay stupid fee for checked bag.

Interactive!

Ask Me Anything: You get to ask me any one question. Any question, which I will answer to the best of my ability without violating anyone else's privacy. I am the only person who can see the poll responses.

View Poll: #4000

( 4 links )

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Thu, 22 Jul 2010 19:38:28 GMT

I am behind. I am really behind on my dreamroll, and my link-posting, and also my sleep. I know this and I definitely plan to catch up, although that might not happen until the weekend, because...
I have an internet date with C. tonight. Since we can't actually hang out in person, we are going to hang out using the magic of the interwebs and watch Dr. Horrible.
Trying to figure out when I can visit him; definitely not the week of SAA, since both my higher-ups here in the archives will be doing the professional conference thing. Maybe soon after that?
I also have to find time tomorrow or Saturday to get myself to Watertown and drop off my Blogathon auction pieces with shadesong. But first I have to take pictures and finish writing up the descriptions.
And on Saturday, I'm seeing one of the Shaken Up Shakespeare plays that have been so wildly popular. With stultiloquentia, who I missed at Con.txt, and also kyriacarlisle, I believe. And at least one other person whom I have not yet connected to a journal.
I have been reworking my tags and dealing with imported content. My goals are to make my old entries accessible to either the general public or my access list (except for the ones that make me cringe, which can damn well stay private), and to make my tags make sense. (I would be focused on forcing the "evil ex boyfriend" tag out of the tags module in my layout, but as most if not all of those entries are private, no one but me can see it.)
Art Retreat at Wyrding Studios. !!!!!! Yes plz. Ellie will drive me up because then she's already in New Hampshire and can go to their lumber yards.

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lazyweb to the rescue

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:43:19 GMT

Internets! I am supposed to write a little blurb about myself that will be sent out to the entire library in the form of a "look! shiny new student employee" email. Tell me what I should include? EDIT: Or you can suggest things for me to include in my profile, in the same area as that quote from hagiologic.

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Thu, 08 Jul 2010 02:47:19 GMT

Doctor has concluded that my problem is bug bites, non-specific. Since the quantity of itchy dots has been stable for a couple of days (no new ones), I have been instructed to continue my benadryl-and-hydrocortisone routine, and to come back if things get worse or if I'm not better in a week.

It's been an interesting couple of days at work. Our HVAC for the materials is broken and we cannot get anyone to fix it. Temperature and humidity are both too high and have been for a while. It is to the point at which I can go back there and work without needing a hoodie. Not good for the materials. D:

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Sat, 03 Jul 2010 03:13:23 GMT

Helped four statues and a balloon clown move house yesterday!

It went pretty well - in spite of having to make two trips, the Uhaul got returned on time. And Ellie came by with the Subaru Wonder Wagon for physical assistance (being a person of greater upper body strength than, say, my puny self), transportation of items smaller than mattresses, and the driving from A to B of the five cats.

Injuries sustained by me: cardboard rash on my palms and the insides of my arms, two parallel paper cuts on my left wrist, at least three separate bruises on my left knee. And of course my muscles are Not Pleased, but that is why we have pain relievers. Oh, and we dropped a dry sink on my foot heading down the stairs at the old place. Thank god for my boots, because although it hurt at the time, there's no evidence of it today.

Then I went to work today! Only for the remaining few hours I could earn actual money for, but still. Ow to slinging boxes of documents and photos after that.

And tonight we had Cid and Jason over for dinner. Alfredo sauce, ravioli, olive oil and bread.

( links )

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In which inanimate objects plot my destruction.

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 22:41:17 GMT

I was almost defeated by a cardboard box today.

I don't want to talk about it.

( Nah, actually I do. )

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currently wearing: that t-shirt

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:37:44 GMT

The one in my icon (IDK if I still have it uploaded on LJ). Even though the panic is over.

Papers done, printed, gone through TurnItIn. Just have to deliver physical copies to the TAs, which I will do after this class.

Of course, after that, I have to go to student health! Because I missed my appointment an hour ago! Because I was so busy freaking out about my papers that I forgot it. So, once again, fml. At least this round of "oh, self, fail" is minor and easily fixed.

And then I'll go to work, because I had to cancel this morning because papers.

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I had a productive Sunday. Watched four movies.

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 02:57:30 GMT

I say "productive" because they were all for class.

The best of the films was Das Leben der Anderen/The Lives of Others.

eruthros is awesome.^{[citation needed]}

pne's Dreamwidth barcode generator

And now to bed. I have to get up for work tomorrow. At least they can pay me now! :D

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further adventures in wtf

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 02:30:15 GMT

From today's work (testing the floppies with a Mac): files last modified on 2036-11-19 and 1903-12-31.

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wtf

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:41:41 GMT

So today at work I am checking the contents of a very large number of 3.5" floppies. Some of them were used in Macs but can be read by the PC I'm using. I can tell because the Mac system files are visible: DESKTOP, RESOURCE.FRK, FINDER, etc.

The disk I'm currently evaluating? Two of the hidden Mac system files claim to be last modified on March 17th, 2034.

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LJ: beware the RTE

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 02:03:57 GMT

azurelunatic: PSA: RTE data loss warning | azurelunatic: PSA: RTE data loss warning

If you have the <lj user> tag more than once in your entries, with a user first and then a community, the RTE is eating the data between those tags.

Bug only seems to be occurring on LJ.

***

I have written almost 4000 words today. Not sure how that happened. Going to finish this entry and see how far I can get.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I will be 22. I have to go to work for 9am (my finding aid is ready to level up, although it will probably need a lot of work after Boss and I go over it), but classes don't start until the 11th.

ETA: By the way, guys. I do not answer my phone if I don't recognize the number. If you have my number and want me to ever pick up the phone when you call, PLEASE email your phone number to sofiaviolet@sofiaviolet.com, so I can add you to my phonebook.

This message brought to you by someone calling from a 631 number and not leaving a message.

ETA2: If you don't have my number but want it, email me! Though again, please give me your number so I know who the heck is calling/texting me.

ETA3: Broke 5k. I have no clue how, since I just sat around notficcing with myself. \o?

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Today is the day for broken shit.

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 23:25:02 GMT

Over the course of my less-than-eight hours of sleep, my LJ flist received over 200 vgifts. Needless to say, I disabled the notifications, because I was having trouble finding actual posts and shit.*

Although that doesn't so much matter right now, I guess, since LJ managed to break its own notification system. The whole thing is down until they figure out what's wrong and how to fix it. Although I will kind of lol if the thing that broke it was the umpteen-MILLION snowflake vgifts that people have been sending. Are they free or something?

* I no longer use /friends to read my flist. I have tracked each journal I read, which delivers the full text of people's posts to my LJ inbox (or a "you can't see this, neener" message if you locked it down after the notification was sent) and cuts down on the number of different places I have to go to keep up with everyone and everything. But since notifications are down, I am not receiving posts. I just hope they mean that bit about queueing everything until notification deliveries can resume. Otherwise I will just miss however many hours/days of posts, because seriously.

***

Ellie's car wouldn't start this morning. Seems to be the battery more than anything else, but it's an old, high-mileage car with at least two "fix me" lights on, so who knows what else might be wrong.

***

Bossboss is out every day this week except Thursday.

So of course today was the apocalypse. In the form of sewage leaking through the ceiling in the storage area.

Fortunately, we received warning early enough to save all materials - a few boxes got moved, and Second-in-Command covered some shelves with plastic sheeting, and they appear to have stopped the leak relatively quickly.

The library's water was off for most of the day, and hazmat guys kept trooping through the workroom. All in all, most distracting.

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black dragon fighting society!!!!!!!!!!!!!~~

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:44:50 GMT

( whoops, half an entry from last week that never got posted )

And now what I actually came here to write about:

* BLACK DRAGON FIGHTING SOCIETY

* So my mom is going to look at all my shiny stuff when she gets up here, and then I will make her some jewelry and that will be $winterholiday. But that doesn't help with my dad or my sister.

* BLACK DRAGON FIGHTING SOCIETY

* Speaking of $winterholiday... many, many months ago, I made a post offering handmade goodies to the first five commenters. I fail at life and timeliness, and still owe insunshine and sinuous_curve their goodies. As soon as I post this, I will wander into the dining room and get started on their stuff. I will also take requests from up to three more people.

* BLACK DRAGON FIGHTING SOCIETY

Yeah, uh. That's all I got. I go make things now. BLACK DRAGON FIGHTING SOCIETY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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