The Mono

Happy birthday to the one who knows me best.

It's been interesting so far. Best wishes for another solar circumnavigation.

to shadowwalkyr!

Enjoy your early birthday present: a miniature human!

I had one of those things happen today which is inevitable when you live in the same place for too long.

The guy in front of me at the cash register at Harvest House did a double-take when he saw me, and called me by name. I was so distracted by chatting with him (and his brother) that the cashier had to do most of my transaction. We did a whirlwind reunion and I got their contact info.

Do the names "Shawn and Matt Mesa" ring a bell for you? ;)

It's been a busy week.

( Christmas )

( No slack time )

( Decemberween )

( New Year's Eve )

The end of the year came very quickly for me, and I haven't had much of a chance to collect myself and figure out where I'm at. I'll do some of that today. Happy New Year, all; may it be better than last year.

Today, I have felt: loved, appreciated, supported, special, attractive, sexy, tickled (in a good way), satiated, connected, relaxed, and respected. I have felt so good I laughed out loud for the sheer joy of it, several times.

Multiple people have been the cause of this, which is even more flattering. They were careful of my feelings, making sure that I was comfortable first, entertained second. I feel like I have been a delight to those who spent time with me, which is a beautiful change in my perception. And I feel deeply cared for by some wonderful people, who believe that I am both lovable and deserving of love.

Not every day is like this. I hope I can remember some of the feelings, though, to hold as a talisman during some of the days when I feel particularly unlikeable.

I've done stupider things than allowing myself only three and a half hours of sleep before a day when I'll be busy for fifteen hours straight... but I have to admit, not lately.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon shopping for supplies with knaveofhearts, which was moderately successful and included an intersection of paths with eastbaygreg. Then I grabbed food and knaveofhearts and I headed out to a craft night gathering... that was crowded but enjoyable and included far too many people to list LJ tags. I got out around 11:30 and called eastbaygreg as I hit Concord again; he was awake, so I overshot home a little to bring him a couple of things I'd picked up for him during the day. Both of us needed to get up in time to be over the hills by 9am (different trips), but that didn't stop us from talking until 4. Sigh.

I got up a little later than planned (that's where the extra half hour of sleep came in) and still made it to the sick plant clinic about 20 minutes late. I had a really good time -- not only did I have energy, I was cheerful, and so was everyone else. I even got to pop over to the tropical house to see the Amorphophallus titanum bud that's just about to open (it's quite an event).

After that I cruised down to Fremont to knaveofhearts' seasonal brewing party... We've tossed about half of last party's mead into jars, and I'm waiting for the dishwasher to finish another load of glass so that we can finish off the decanting. After that, we start brewing the new round. I hope I can stay reasonably alert and pleasant for that. :)

All in all, a wonderful day.

( The ocean, and locals playing tourists )

A tip of the hat for tomorrow to supersniffles, since I may not have time to post then.

There was no airshow this weekend. I didn't take the time to ask the gate guard at Travis when there would be one, if there was one for this year (shadowwalkyr, is there a way you could find out?) but the announcements list I saw lied. I was obviously not the first one to ask, by the guard's reaction.

So we came home, with firestrike in tow. We ate a little lunch, then went to check out the B-17, B-24, and B-25 currently on display at Buchanan Field, just across town from me. We couldn't afford the $425 necessary to take a ride, but they let us board two of the three and poke around the outside of all of them, and we geeked a little bit with the moderately large crowd. They were working on one of the engines for the B-25 while we were there, and fired it up to (we think) do things like adjust the fuel/oil mixture. Pretty cool.

The big drawback was unexpected toxicity -- firestrike tipped me off to the spray bottles of 409 here and there, which meant that I didn't feel daring enough to climb into the B-24 (I had already done the B-17, but that seemed okay). What I didn't expect was for the crew to be going over the wing panels of the B-25 with pump sprayers full of Formula 409. I managed to stay in clear air for the most part, and watched the wind direction... I don't have any serious symptoms, despite having my alarm bells go off a few times when the wind shifted.

We're back home for the day now; firestrike has dropped off for an impromptu nap, and I'm debating going to join him.

The con went, as cons go. Baycon hasn't been vivacious for ages, and this year was no exception; I tend to go because it gathers a bunch of people I like to see in one place at the same time. I surfed, mostly, and wasn't particularly disappointed, but that's because I didn't have much in the way of expectations. ( More about The Hotel That Escher Built... )

At any rate, I'm home now, and I'll use tomorrow as a breather before school on Tuesday.

I'm looking for a copy of the movie version of "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead". IMDB tells me that it was indeed released on DVD, but my local "odd" video store said that all they had was a broken VHS copy. Not sure I want to drop money on it sight unseen (though I may suggest that the store order one to keep on the shelf).

Anyone have a copy I could borrow?

Happy birthday, firestrike. :)

I've been working out a few things over the last week or so. There are still logistical concerns to be addressed, but it's down to a question of "how" rather than "what".

( Upshots: )

Happy birthday mactavish!

It must be the end of the quarter -- I'm exhausted.

So far as I can tell, it was that damned biochem midterm that did it this time. Then there was Consonance, of course, and no chance to catch up on lost sleep since... but I don't just need sleep to recharge right now. I need time off.

I was doubting recently that I would still qualify as an introvert. I'm not wondering now -- the need for time to myself, specifically time in my own head, is like a thirst. No matter how much I sleep, I'm not going to feel rested until I can spend many more hours reading, or writing, or puttering in the yard. I spent the train ride up reading a book instead of doing flashcards, and I'm aware that I feel much better, even physically, than when I got on the train.

I have three-hour lunches today and next week, which do help. My lab final is next Wednesday, and then we're into finals week... what I'm dreading is that I scheduled most of my spring break for being social. I hope the plane trip out to Indiana can be spent relaxing.

I'm always tired at the end of every term; something always seems to come up that makes me overextend myself. I'm starting to guess that the lack of time off exhausts me as much or more than anything else. Next quarter doesn't look a lot better.

If I'm not reaching out and saying hi, or responding to email promptly, at least you have some idea of why. It's not that I don't like you guys... it's that I've been missing somebody else more. Namely, me.

It's been an evening. ( Has it ever. )

Happy birthday, foogod!

Well, yesterday did not go at all according to plan, though ( it did all turn out in the end. )


As a postscript, my apologies to our_meg for handing you off to another carpool at short notice... and also apologies to eyeofcanaan for causing more stress over the car/license than you needed before a long plane trip. I trust it all worked out for everyone else.

Time with an old friend is always good. Discovering that we could both of us geek out to the point that we were not speaking English for something like a half-hour straight was better. It was a conversation that I could follow totally, yet anyone who wasn't either a) taking organic chemistry right at this moment or b) a PhD in chem would have been lost after three words. That was highly enjoyable.

I've missed you, love. I'm looking forward to spending a little more time with you, at least before the next semester descends upon us both. The more time goes by, the more I think both of us realize that, rather than drifting apart, we have more in common than ever.

And I have to remember to tell you about the experiment we did that smelled so bad that Tish annotated it in every lab book she could find: "Do not do! STINKS!!"

Lots of nasty foo running around -- people being hit by trucks, mugged at gunpoint (pistolwhipped!), finding out they have serious health issues, getting into car accidents, being fired...

Take care of yourselves out there. And call me if you need me.