picked a handful of violets in my name

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.

So, my parents are in town and we're remodeling the bathroom!

Just kidding. My parents are in town and we're repairing the bathroom, because it was last redone in the time when they still thought greenboard behind tile was a good idea. Ellie and Dad were going to just re-grout the tiles, but realized they had a bigger problem.

On the bright side, Ellie says we can put plastic up and still take showers, and we're going to Home Depot for appropriate materials in the next day or two, and then Ellie and Dad will fix this shit to a really high standard.

And on the other bright side, my theoretical future roommate gets the benefits of not having part of the wall fall off one day.

My sister is moving out by September 1, so there's a bedroom in my apartment in Jamaica Plain becoming available. Depending on Ellie's situation, your move-in date may be a bit flexible if you like. Due to my asthma/allergies, I require a non-smoking roommate.
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sofiaviolet@sofiaviolet.com

Rough few days, depression-wise. I took a three hour sad nap Monday and my moods have been low. On the bright side, my sleep schedule hasn't been fucked over by it.

And I finally dug myself out from under my work for this week, and I have finally figured out what historyprof expects and how to work with her. I have an assignment due Saturday, but I already started it and it's going well. Everything else is done (save a final proofreading of Thing for today before I submit it and submitted, yay).

Now that I am actually doing housework, I am re-configuring my life balance. Work is reasonably well blocked-out, since I have set hours for Fun Job, enough love of money to work reasonably consistently at Boring Job, and a total inability to bring work home. Classes are even better blocked-out but homework time really is not; I do all my stuff on my computer, which means poor separation between "homework time," "email break," and "internet time." Housework doesn't quite fit in yet - I tend toward mini-marathon cleaning (not hours and hours without breaks, but longer than Unfuck Your Habitat recommends), but I can also find lots of quick little tasks and do one or three of them before moving on to something else. But I've been using housework to procrastinate on schoolwork for a week or two (and then been completely ignoring the house to catch up on homework for a few days now), which means my balance is off. I'm putting all my homework assignments into SuperBetter now; part of the motivation for preferring housework tasks was that I got rewarded in SuperBetter for them, so now my academic work is gamified too.

Ellie and I are starting to think about moving. Our landlords would like to take over our apartment because it's a bit smaller and on the first floor of the building, and they're getting older and so on. (They've given us tons of warning because they're awesome like that.) Ellie wants to try living with people she isn't related to, and may be moving out of JP, whereas I don't feel like living with not-relatives is an important marker of adulthood and will maybe punch something if I have to leave my neighborhood. It's too early to be seriously looking for apartments, but Ellie is checking listings anyway - I am mentally splitting up our common possessions based on who bought what (mostly Ellie) and who uses what (varies) and trying to figure out what I will need to replace and what I can live without.

Now to get dressed and get to campus. Nerdy games to follow. :)

Lots of snow, but we didn't lose power. Ellie and I have spent most of the weekend cleaning the house. This included trying out our new Laundry Pod (which we got at a pretty steep discount from Fab.com for Christmas), for washing nice wool sweaters and delicates. It is pretty much a giant salad spinner with a drain hose, but it seems remarkably effective as long as you don't over-fill it with clothes. My bras and tights rejoice at the gentler handling.

I bought a lot of groceries a week ago and have been succeeding reasonably well at feeding myself. The only failures have been one under-flavored curry and a poor understanding of how fast the baby bok choy would go bad, meaning I didn't get to use it (and want to replace it before making my first attempt at at-home shabu shabu).

I have taken over the email newsletter for the local historical society.

Planning to do Mardi Gras nails for Tuesday. I have a decent collection of nail polish but I don't wear it very much. I am unskilled at painting my nails and, because I work with my hands a lot of the time, it chips quickly.

Signed up for SuperBetter. I think gamification will help me form better habits.

Hater-Free Wednesdays is a new tumblr aggregating reviews and stories about comic shops to help people find local shops that will not shit all over their gender/race/etc.

I bought a ticket for Fall Out Boy's Boston show in May! Very pleased to have them back. I'm not exactly in bandom any more - I am hardwired mono-fannish, and got into the Avengers thanks to the movie (and then I slid sideways into ALL THE MARVEL COMICS EVER, sort of, so that's a huge canon and fandom) - but I miss going to concerts.

stultiloquentia: Fictions and Elsewheres

Yesterday on the train I read Scientific American's special report on parallel universes. Briefly: they ain't science fiction. They're theoretical, of course, but at least some of the theories are at this point pretty darned solid and make sense of increasingly huge heaps of data.

...

Why should fandom care? Well, mostly because science is cool. But also? It means our stories are real. Quite literally. Every course of events and configuration of particles, every decision and every outcome you can possibly imagine is, in an infinite universe, occurring right now. Kurt and Blaine? Somewhere, incomprehensibly far off, they're as solid as you and I, and muddling through snowstorms and love. Somewhere slightly off to the left, they've already been married for eighty years. We'll never meet them, and nor will our descendants, because, among other problems, the multiverse is expanding faster than it's possible to travel though it. But they're out there.

They're making up stories about you.

I knew there was a reason I made an entire religion in Auriel whose cosmology says that everything is stories and god is a writer. (Well, a reason besides ego. Heh.)

Con.txt was a great experience, although I did make the mistake of booking such an early flight home that I missed all the Sunday panels.

Since getting back to Boston, I have taken over as GM for the Shadowrun campaign. I moved our setting to New Orleans. The party composition is very different this time; all the players have chosen different character types from what they played in the last campaign, and so we've got only one magic user and no hackers (last campaign had three/four magic users).

I cleaned all the things today in preparation for my parents' arrival tomorrow evening, and my allergies exploded in response to the dust I kicked up. I had to make room to unfold the futon so they have somewhere to sleep. They'll be here for about a week and a half.

I also bleached a couple of chunks of my hair and gooshed some more purple Manic Panic all over - a little of my usual Purple Haze/Ultra Violet mix, and a bunch of Electric Amethyst. I just washed the dye out and my hair hasn't dried yet, so I don't know how it'll look, but I feel pretty optimistic. (It had been a very long time since I bleached any new growth, which meant the existing purple streaks kicked in about halfway down the length of my hair. Accidental ombre.)

I had a great time in New Orleans. :)

Ellen and Greg arrived shortly after Christmas (they're moving in with my parents for part of the year). Cory was also around for a few days (he is actually planning to use the Hello Kitty dice bag). We went to the French Quarter twice (once with Ellen and Greg and Cory, once without), ate at our favorite restaurants, etc.

I did manage to get lunch with pinesandmaples, rooibos, and their roommate Sid right before leaving for the airport. Ellie and I had a very nice, very empty flight that got in early and good luck with everything once we landed except for the Orange Line, for which we had to wait because we'd just missed a train.

Since getting back last night, I haven't done much of anything, but Ellie has been on a "clean all the things!" binge today, mainly focusing on the kitchen and bathroom. We also got groceries and she's making chicken noodle soup for us and the one or more of her friends who are coming over for dinner.

( I seem to have gained some weight, for once. )

Arkham Horror last night with Cid and Christian (Cid had invited a bunch of other people but we were the only two who actually made it). We battled - and defeated, for now - Shub-Niggurath. Also we ordered Chinese from Food Wall; I ate an entire large pepper steak and accompanying rice, and now I am sad because no leftovers. Note to self: you owe Christian $$ for dinner.

Ellie and I aren't doing Thanksgiving, really. We had leftover chicken noodle soup for lunch (homemade from an entire chicken, so we have lots of it), and she's reheating a roast right now. Our actual celebration is going to be on Saturday at Cameryn's house with a huge chunk of our local friends. Note to self: buy vanilla ice cream, pray it will fit in Cameryn's freezer until dessert.

I mailed the holiday cards yesterday - okay, I mailed the holiday cards to the internet yesterday. I still need to send cards to all the people who don't read my journal, like my relatives and my local friends and my boyfriend's roommates.

Now I will sit around with my hair under a plastic shower cap, feeling grateful for many many things, like purple hair dye and a sister who is intent on teaching me to ride a bike and the people who live inside my computer. ♥

Ellie and I braved Ikea on Saturday to get the last few things (we hope) that Dad needs to finish the kitchen. We were expecting everything to suck thanks to the tax holiday, but no! Finding a parking space took a while, but the showroom areas were navigable, the line for purchasing kitchens was short, and there was no line at the main checkout. Of course, then we waited an hour for them to pull our stuff and remember to bring it to us. :\

Anyway, having been to Ikea so recently, I lol'ed at the following: Derangement and Description: IKEAD

Now waiting none too patiently for Ellie to get home from work, in the hope there'll be groceries. (And if there are not groceries, there may be a screaming fit.)

I came down with a cold on Thursday, and the worst of it has cleared out - just in time for the uterine gremlins to awaken. On the bright side, my period should be over before my sex life picks up again. (The cramps seem to be less severe in terms of actual muscle pain, but they're sharper and more symmetrical and more clearly focused on my uterus.)

A few weeks ago, we installed some new shelves in my room (there will be so. many. holes to patch when we move out, but it is worth it in the meantime), and as a result, I rearranged all the books - well, all my books and the shared-custody books; I do not mess with the order of the engineering/woodworking/etc things because they are definitely Not Mine. And I discovered that I had space for MOAR BOOKS!!!!11!1! even with some of the shelf space being reserved for display of tchotchkes. This is very exciting and I am using it as an excuse to buy things off my wishlist. (But I have to save space for books that are still in New Orleans. I only plan to retrieve a fraction of them, the rest being novels I don't want to read again and things left over from my Stereotypical Teenage Wiccan Phase, but a fraction of 400 is still a significant number.)

Two links that both come with trigger warnings (and lengthy blockquotes):
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