picked a handful of violets in my name

Anybody know a good way to get soot and wax off novena candle enclosures after the candle is burned away? I'd like to reuse them (especially the printed ones) but want to clean them up first.

Related, a Helpful Hint, if you are the sort of person to do odd things involving candles at weird hours: don't burn loose incense on charcoal several hours before going though airport security. Especially not when you don't quite know what you're doing yet, and run out of both incense and desire for things to be burning, well before the charcoal ceases to burn.

You know that stupid black Western-style shirt Gerard wore in the really early days? I think I found one like it on Etsy. Someone prevent me from buying it, since I lack the skills to cut it down to actually fit me?

Also, things you should not leave until 3am before your flight:

backing up your computer (I have a Mac, I use Time Machine, but I do not live plugged into my external hard drive)

copying all 12gb of downloaded vids to your computer from the other external drive

re-lacing your 14-eye Doc Martens (yes, I fly in these shoes in order to avoid packing them. No, they are not the least airport-friendly shoes I've gone through security with. That prize goes to my other boots, which have wooden platforms and soles like tire treads, which were the only thing I could feasibly remove from my over-weight suitcase.)

Will be leaving shortly, but you'll hardly know I'm gone; I do my internets while Cory plays video games, and he plays a lot of video games. Toodles!

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.

I have a small patch of dead pixels in the lower lefthand corner of my screen. :( Fortunately, it's in the middle of the Dock, near the Safari icon, so it's not like it really affects my computer usage.

But still. :(


Went shopping yesterday, because it was in the 40s and I was tired of being inside. I now own purple jeans, you guys. IDEK. Also, hot pink and black striped tights which claim to contain cashmere. Also also I almost bought these shoes in black, but I couldn't make up my mind, and I have another pair coming in the mail anyway. Maybe I will go back and get those shoes if the ones I ordered don't fit.

I also bought a pink umbrella with white polka dots (H&M always has cute ones, and they get squished to death in my bag on a fairly regular basis). And Georgina Westbrook has moved on from demanding that I buy her jewelry. Now I also have to buy her nice underwear. She was annoyed that there wasn't a matching bra. Fictional characters. /o\


Accidentally stayed on the train when they expressed it from Jackson Square to Forest Hills. Oops. I do that occasionally. Followed a girl out the Washington St. exit and walked home from there - it's not that far.

Stopped by the bakery. I asked for 6 French rolls. They had 5. At 9:30.

Bakery. >:[


Wonderful lecture today on ancient Egyptian religion - so of course I had a worldbuilding brainwave. This is going to be fun, for several disparate values of "fun."


Hm. Think I might take a nap.