picked a handful of violets in my name

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.

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. :)

First things first: wow was that presale a total clusterfuck. I was kind of shaking after.

On the bright side, I did get tickets for 3 of the 5 shows I wanted: Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. (The D.C. presale sold out before I even made it over to that tab following the Ticketmaster/Live Nation failures. Better luck Saturday, especially since I've been appointed head of a ticket-buying cabal. And I was iffy on NJ but it looks like enough people are going that I can find a ride.)

Now I shall sum up my vacation! Only about two weeks late, ooops. Halloween was Rocky Horror, and then I spent Monday and Tuesday morning catching up on the internet while Cory was at work. Starting on Wednesday, I called Ellen to pick me up for hanging out, thrift shopping, visiting Adam Kemp's studio/gallery, etc. We had dinner with Ellen and Greg on Wednesday. On Thursday, we went to a lecture given by one of Greg's colleagues, then to a gallery opening where we met up with Ellen's friends Brian and Jerry, and then pizza.

( On the subject of Grand Forks: I'm considering an extended visit this summer. )

( work stuff )

Notes

Ask Me Anything still open for questions.

Recently

Ellie has painted the front room! It's light blue now, instead of salmon. I approve.

Also, I'm sneezing myself to death. IDK why. *drowning in own snot*

( 7 links )

[Probably of little interest to anyone but me; feel free to skip.]

When I go to New Orleans this summer, my plans are mainly:
1. eat good food
2. research
3. hang out with my parents
4. reclaim some of my stuff

I know there are books I want. There's also a folding table and two folding chairs which were in my bedroom at Fiona's house in Atlanta. The table will be of immediate use in my bedroom, and the chairs will probably go toward extra seating when Ellie hosts gatherings.

Mom can probably have boxes ready for me, because Mom is good at that kind of advance planning. Then I just pack up what I want, and we haul my shit to Fedex. Same process as the initial "Ellie and Sofia move to Boston" thing, just on a much smaller scale.

But before I can really bring more of my stuff to Boston, I need to finish dealing with the stuff I already have.

( my bedroom )

( crafting space/dining room )

And yes, I can post pictures when it's all done.

Kiwi strawberry Vitamin Water tastes like amoxicillin. :(

In better news, bedroom pictures probably tomorrow. Furniture is assembled and arranged to my satisfaction, but I probably ought to vacuum and get rid of the Ikea debris in the corner.

Tomorrow, Hugh and I are going to buy window air conditioners, because we're from the South, which means we are used to central AC everywhere. When we get back, I will probably take some 409 to the plastic table we rescued from the trash a few days ago.

Hugh just came in and announced a craving for diner food, so he's gone to google that, and then we'll probably leave the house in search of food.