I'm creaky and cranky today due to nasty crampy bits and the tiny edge of a suggestion of a migraine in my left eye. I've been moving slowly and just feeling really tired all day long. I only just got dressed about an hour ago because I had to take the DoDC+3 out for his constitutional. I'm not quite focused enough to read for very long, so writing has been rather out of the question, but I still feel really positive about yesterday and pretty motivated about the whole thing.

Tomorrow there will be people here to clean out the dryer vents so I'll have to be home all day anyway. Writing will very likely get done then, as will laundry after the dryer has been cleaned up. I have some ideas where to go with the whole thing, I just don't have quite enough energy to even move at the moment.

I did have enough energy to toss my last couple of tilapia fillets in the oven with a little salsa verde, which I baked and then had over rice. Had some nummy mixed herb salad afterwards topped with herbed feta in olive oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar.

Chances are I'll be crashing early tonight because I'm so tired and my brain is so foggy. We hates fibro fog we does, my preciousss. I'm sort of tempted to have a cuppa tea but I think it will have to be decaf because I don't want to be both foggy and buzzy at the same time. It's just a bad combination.

Here's hoping tomorrow will be a more energetic day.

My day started a bit early, given that I wanted to be in Seattle by 2:30 to meet thewronghands for pho on Broadway. Things started out rather overcast but by the time I got on the road, I was one of those typical Northwesterners hissing "oh my gods what is that BRIGHT THING IN THE SKY!" I did enjoy the light, but my eyes smarted for a bit while I adjusted from my normal troglodytic north-facing habitat.

Pho was obtained and lovely conversation was had. It was also discovered that Than Brothers is now taking credit cards! This means that folks who don't carry cash can eat there now. We toddled off to the UW and met varina8 to return her headlamp that thewronghands had been using for her rescue classes. After a few minutes' chat, we headed over to the Suzzallo, where I showed her all the ravens in the atrium between the Suzzallo and Allen libraries. They're really very cool and are scattered around that area on, I believe, all the floors of the library. Some are on the walls, others sitting on top of some of the stacks. I also took her over to the Graduate Reading Room, which really must be seen to be understood. This is the room where brandywilliams's musical group, the Medieval Women's Choir, has held several of its concerts.

We met lakmiseiru at the library, whereupon we all adjourned to the Allen library to a desk by one of the big, bright windows to settle in to some writing. There were plugs aplenty, as should be in a modern university library, and we fell to our various tasks. I dashed back and forth between the desk and the library catalogue system a few times, because I don't have a login for the UW wireless system and it was the only way to check on a few references. As I was hurrying back to the table at one point, thewronghands was seen departing for the stairway, open laptop still in hand, checking out something online while on the move.

After this it was writing and muttering and more writing and then occasionally showing lakmiseiru some of my progress.

And progress it definitely was. I feel rather like a dam had burst in that I got at least 1,000 words and probably more into the article today. Getting that deadline pushed back was like removing a tiger that had been breathing down the back of my neck. I suddenly relaxed and was able to get things together in a way I hadn't over the last month or two. I'm now feeling very positive and jazzed about the whole thing and quite confident I'll have this poked into a solid first draft fairly soon.

lakmiseiru was writing on a grant proposal for her department. We pottered around on our disparate projects until about 7:30 or so, at which point we departed for the Ave in search of foodage. This was had at Malabar, which has a larger selection of South Indian food than most places I've been so far. We had a huge lamb dosa (very tasty, I highly recommend it) with sambal and a chicken spinach dish. Chai came unsweetened, yay! We talked about the CR schmooze on Monday, among various and sundry other things. It was great to just sit down and talk for a while and find out a bit more about each other. She thought it might be good at some point for the schmooze folks to just have a sit and talk about ourselves and our histories (for those who are okay with that idea). I would tend to agree -- some of us have histories together while others don't, and it would be nice to share some of that with each other.

After dinner, I dropped her home and headed north, taking the scenic route until I finally came to the I-5 onramp just north of Lake City. Surprisingly, this didn't take me all that much longer than taking 5 would have, and it avoided quite a bit of stressful highway driving. That was a lovely surprise.

Tomorrow will be a stay at home and write day. I think I can manage that! Friday the condo association has some folks coming in to clean the dryer vents, so I have to be at the house until they arrive and do the work, as they have to be let in.

I haven't been writing a lot lately about the military and women's issues, but there has been a lot going on. I've just felt rather overwhelmed with everything going on in November and December to the point where I couldn't keep up, and posting about it seemed like it would only make it more overwhelming. Believe me, it's not that I've lost interest, it's just that I've needed to take a sanity break. There's more than enough injustice to float an entire fleet of battleships with their accompanying convoys.

I just got an email today from one of the project editors and the deadline for the geilt article has been extended to February 15th, so I'm not quite fainting with panic anymore. They also said that Syracuse University Press has expressed a lot of interest in the book, so keep your appendages entangled.

This was a great pick me up for an overcast day. Just what I needed to help renew what passes for my sanity.

Traffic down to Seattle today was nearly nonexistent, which was a blessing after the madness that has been traffic south on I-5 lately. I actually arrived ahead of time, which is usually what I plan for when I have to be at the VA. We met in the room with the fishtank again, for the first time in months, and the noise of the waterpump was pretty distracting for several of us. I suspect we won't be using the room again unless we have to.

Now, I like fishtanks as much as the next watery-liking person. I've even had them in the dim past of my childhood. (Guppies jump out of tanks and commit suicide by sticking to the tank lid. Erynn is depressed because even the guppies hate her.) This said, I prefer them when they don't sound like Snoqualmie falls.

Anyway, I took my laptop and stuff down with me so that I could meet Adam (tech dude) but also in the hope of at least adding a few paras to the work in question. As it turned out, geekery got done, but no writing. We agreed to meet at Remedy Teas and he bought me a cuppa oolong while we neeped about Twibes (consider it a sort of Twitter app, if you will) and poked around trying to figure out how to do a couple of things that puzzled me. He was taking notes while we did, as he figured other folks would want to know how to do the same thing.

I made a few comments about the arrangement of the Twibes homepage with an eye to making it a little clearer as to what's what above the fold. I think the concept is useful but it needs some refinement. He asked if I was interested in participating in a phone/skype(?) chat with him and some of the other folks tinkering with this. Considering my phone issues, I did well not to flee the room screaming. He said yeah, a lot of folks have that type of problem so no worries.

He asked me some questions about how I was using various social media/communications technology and I nattered about Twitter and the elder days of IRC, the occasional uses of YIM, and other sundry items. It was actually a pretty interesting conversation regarding how different tech gets used for different purposes. When we parted he said he was going to put together another vid about how to do some of the stuff we talked about to help other folks jump through the hoops, so all in all it was a pretty winning situation. I felt good about the whole thing, and he seems like a really nice guy, so yay.

I'd thought about popping down to Broadway for some pho, but I'll be doing that tomorrow. I headed over to Travelers instead, for chai and chole and a chat with Leon about Skip's ogam book. It was quiet there, being later than I usually get in, so we talked until it was time to close the place down.

I also popped over to Babeland to replace some tech that died on me. Anybody want a 15% off coupon? It expires on Feb 15th. Let me know and I can get it to you one way or another.

Tomorrow it's pho with thewronghands and writing at the Suzzallo with lakmiseiru and taking back the remainder of the books I've had out (with one exception, which I'm still working through).

Cleaning for a Reason

If you know any woman currently undergoing Chemo, please pass the word to her that there is a cleaning service that provides FREE housecleaning - 1 time per month for 4 months while she is in treatment.

All she has to do is sign up and have her doctor fax a note confirming the treatment. Cleaning for a Reason will have a participating maid service in her zip code area arrange for the service.

http://www.cleaningforareason.org

Please pass this information on to bless a woman going through Breast Cancer or any kind of cancer treatment. This organization serves the entire USA and currently has 547 partners to help these women. It's our job to pass the word and let them know that there are people out there that care. Be a blessing to someone and pass this information along.

NB: They provide services in both US and Canada.

I just got a quick call from alfrecht. He's checked into his hotel room for the night and I think will be calling the folks at the schmooze shortly. All is well and, despite a delay in Chicago, he only got into Ann Arbor about 10 minutes late.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled LJing.

My head and tum have not stopped bothering me. The headache is a little more manageable than last night, but it was still enough in combination with other things to keep me home today. I'll be trying to do some writing later this afternoon, but I'm not sure how well I'll be able to get into the flow feeling like I do. I'm half tempted to go back to bed after I've had some soup, really.

Tomorrow I have my spirituality group at the VA, then meeting someone afterwards at Remedy Tea for a chat about geekstuffs. Wednesday I'll be meeting lakmiseiru at the Suzzallo so we can write. Maybe stuffing myself into a side room in a library with someone else who has to write can get both of us focused enough to actually do the necessary work. It'll be good to have someone to bounce bits off, anyway.

Back from the IMAX and seeing Avatar. Today, the kids are back in school, adults are back to work, the show I went to was at 11:00am in the morning…it still managed to sell out. I have never in my life seen so many people interested in one film. I was skeptical about the buzz but I had to see it after some of my friends said I wouldn’t be disappointed; some of them skeptics of film in their own right.

Avatar is the kind of story that creates religions. Star Wars did it. Some of the Church of All Worlds rituals and customs were inspired by Robert Heinlein’s, Stranger in a Strange Land. Avatar is the kind of film that Joseph Campbell could call a myth for the modern world. He said the same thing about Star Wars because it contains the requirements of the ancient myths; the hero, the quest, and the death and rebirth into a new and enlightened form of humanity.

Pagans will be very happy with the Na’vi and their attention to the Land as the Sacred Mother. The network created by all living things on Pandora gives us cause to reflect on our own sacredness, regardless of what it might be. We are all connected. Avatar shows us this by putting a rather unpleasant fellow in the role of hero only to watch him transform into a man with a new belief in his mind and love in his heart for the people whom he eventually comes to defend and the hunter/warrior/princess who also chose him as her mate.

I believe Avatar is the first 21st century myth of our era. Go see it, buy the DVD when it comes out, and store it next to your other sacred texts.

Went to bed last night with the start of a really nasty migraine. I woke up this morning a couple of times to sick puppy and had to deal with that. Now I'm feeling more than slightly queasy myself. I did email the schmooze list to say I might not make it tonight if I'm not feeling better and have passed on the contact info for aion131 for Arlen's ritual site, in case I don't make it and have reminded folks of the overall agenda for the meeting. That said, I'll do my best to get there.

For right now, though, I'll probably go back to bed in a bit since the dog isn't making weird horky noises anymore. Poor little woobie.

Oh, also, does anyone local want a huge full hasn't-been-opened box of hashbrown patties? alfrecht left them and I don't eat the things. I can't put them in a foodbank donation box for obvious drippy reasons. Come by and they're yours.

In the last two-ish hours I've got about 800+ words added to the geilt article. This is definite progress. I've bunged in paragraphs and short sections throughout the first (historical/literary overview) half of the outline. Unfortunately, eDIL isn't loading its website for some reason, which means I'm going to have to poke through my physical copy, magnifier in hand, to get some etymologies and such.

I got a later start today than I intended, but I think I'm doing reasonably well for all that. The wall clock, however, needs some batteries, as it's stopped at about 5:08.

yiaya came by around dusk to go walk around the lake with me. Since I had some things I wanted to do with her today, we agreed to go walk and have a short visit. I gave her the spare key that alfrecht had, so that if she needs to come by if I'm out of town or if she's watching the place for me, she won't need to worry about getting a key from me. I also gave her a bag of some of the food that alfrecht left here, not able to take it with him. She took a little less than half of what he left (things I wasn't interested in, like butternut squash soup) and I kept a few bits and pieces of things myself. I have a really big bag left of stuff like ramen noodles and instant oatmeal, in unopened boxes or packages, that I'll be taking to a food donation point for a local foodbank.

We got most of the way around the lake when we discovered that several gates on this side had been closed and locked. About that time I had a severe crash of some sort and had to sit for a while at the picnic table and have some water before I was steady enough to go the rest of the way home. The main gate at the parking lot was, thankfully, open, otherwise we'd have had to go back out the way we came, all the way to the other side of the park.

Upon arriving home, I grabbed enough of a snack (a little turkey, a slice of banana-walnut bread, and some organic darjeeling tea) that I got myself together. yiaya stayed long enough for tea then hied herself off for parts unknown. After that I stalled by doing some cleaning and rearranging in the kitchen and started some soup with black eyed peas and the remaining nummy chunk of turkey thigh I'd roasted the other day. The meat is now sitting cooling in a bowl waiting to be taken off the bone and added back into the broth. It should be really good in about 15 minutes.

Writing on this particular work has been an exercise in dealing with intimidation, as I've noted before. Being for an academic anthology, I keep finding my "you're not a real scholar" buttons getting pushed; mind you, I know this is all in my head. I know my research is good and my writing chops are pretty respectable as well. Taking it a bit at a time should help. Thankfully, the limit (30 double-spaced pages) is an upper limit, not a requirement, so I'm feeling better about it, knowing I don't have to scrape if I end up with 10 or 15 pages instead of 30. As long as I get my historical sources down, I can pretty much coast through a lot of the more personal half of the article.

And now, back to soup and then writing.

Today, I busked. For those who don’t know, busking is doing something in exchange for a donation rather than a fee. I used to do it as a magician, but I never did it as a harper. Since the College Bowl series made its way here, I decided to take advantage of the greater number of visitors to Tempe to try out my stuff. I didn’t do too badly for the first time, but most of the money I earned ended up being divided among some homeless people who needed it more than I. I’ve decided to do it again, but I will try out different locations to see what kind of response I get.

I saw alfrecht off to the train today, though his mom and her husband drove him to the train station. I met them there and waited with them until the train was about to board them gave the man a hug and a wish for safe travels and told him I'd see him again soon. (February, PantheaCon.)

After that, I took myself up to the hill and grabbed dinner at Travelers, since they were serving thali today. The place was packed, as usual, so I ended up sitting in the atrium instead of in the main seating area. Once I'd eaten, I hied myself over to Edge of the Circle, where I picked up a new druidy book that doesn't look too evil. I gave sebastian_lvx a ping and he met me at Kaladi Brothers where we had tea and conversation, then went back to Edge so he could say hi to Robert and Raven.

He had to head for work at that point, so I dropped by Half Price and picked up a couple of books and a handful of cd's, which I ripped when I got home.

I did some cleaning and rearranging of a few things. There's still quite a bit to do, but at least I've got a start. I'll be sticking around the house tomorrow but trying to stay away from the intertubes to get some writing done. My deadline isn't getting any further away!

The place is pretty empty with the roommate gone, but I'll get used to it again. It's just been a while.

Put in a good word with the writy deities, would you?

And now, to bed. Insomnigrackles, beware! I shall defeat you!

Here's my brother at his last reenlistment last fall in Aviano, Italy.

 

circularruins was off to the bus long before I was awake. I dragged myself out of my torpor about 2:30 this afternoon, having gone to bed after 5:30 this am. It's been a slow, rather groggy sort of day, though alcohol was not involved in the festivities last night beyond the ritual sip of sake.

Today joyful_storm and her husband came over for dinner. We ordered in Chinese and had quite the feast. Conversation ranged from recensions of the Táin Bó Cualigne to PantheaCon to the new Sherlock Holmes movie and beyond. I tried to loan her my Super Furry Animals cd, but she accidentally left it on the coffee table. I'll have to take it to her Monday for the CR schmooze. It was probably because of the pomegranate wine.

Tomorrow I take alfrecht down to Seattle and pop him on a train to Michigan. With that, I'll have my apartment to myself again for the first time in a long time. It'll take some getting used to.

Having been up really late last night, I'm feeling slow and sleepy still. The pomegranate wine probably has a bit to do with it as well. I'll need to be up by noonish tomorrow in order to have things in order for the Seattle trip. I'll probably haul the netbook along and try to get some writing done afterwards.

I hope everyone had a good turning of the secular calendar. Catch you all tomorrow! Wish me writy luck.
I had thought about doing a long, thinky post today, but I'm just not up to it. Perhaps when I've had a few days to readjust to the quiet. Oh, and I have to get a new calendar. *peers at the old one on the wall* Not sure what I want for this year.

New Year’s Eve is my mother’s birthday. We went to Liberty Market in Gilbert. It was sweet of ebonyharp to join us for a great meal including brick oven white pizza, antipasto, and salads. After that we went home and I made a “Depression Cake”. Mom was a Great Depression kid. She remembered a particular cake that called for less-fancy ingredients. I found the recipe. I think it tastes better than the regular cakes. Her presents included “The High Kings” DVD and a Captain America action figure. We rang in the New Year with Martinelli’s and toasts for hope.

Today we continued the southern tradition of eating black eyed peas and cabbage to bring good luck and fortune to 2010. We also spent some time uploading pictures to the digital frame I bought her for Christmas. Right now, I’m watching college football and pondering an early hour for sleeping.

We headed out to the shrine for Hatsumode (first shrine visit of the year) with circularruins. It was a lovely, misty night and the moon peeked out now and then from behind the clouds. We saw brandywilliams and tedgill there and talked a bit about our various presentations at PantheaCon. We agreed we had to schedule a dinner with them when we were down there.

The night was warmer than I'd expected, so I didn't need the extra wool socks for the ceremony. I picked up the new Shinto book by Rev. Yamamoto Yukiyasu, Introduction to Shinto: The Way of the Kami and will have a look at it. At first glance, it looks like a batch of essays for the Ise Shrine newsletter touching on a variety of topics.

Once we got home we had a little hoppin' John, brought by circularruins, for good luck. I'll probably want a bit more to nibble on before I head to bed.

Now to catch up on the events of the day on LJ and have a little conversation before popping into bed.

I have a musical question for you. On the "Best of Medieval & Romantic vol 1" CD, there is a band called Cedar that does a really lovely song called Nigra Sum. (Link is to an mp3 file - please download rather than clicking.) I have been searching the intartubes in vain looking for albums from this group and am not sure if I have found anything. Does anyone know where their music might be found? I want some more of it, greedy thing that I am.

Please, LJ Oracle, show me the way!