Happy Holiday

Today is the winter solstice; tonight will be the longest night all year, and then beginning tomorrow, we start to get minutes back to our days. I mentioned this to my Mexicana compadre -- who was raised Catholic -- and she said, screw Christmas, that's something to celebrate. I know! Believe me, I'm aware of how cool a day this is. It's often been a good day for me to think over where I've been and where I want to be in another year, and this year, both of those are reasonably positive things to contemplate, which is nice.

Last week, I put up my xmas tree for the first time in five or six years, which is a major (and shiny) victory over a few different things. My fat kitty made a beeline for it as soon as I laid out the tree skirt -- whether she remembered it, or whether she could just tell that this was special, and warm, and had a cuddly velvet blanket underneath it, I'm not sure, but she staked it out immediately. She and her sister have been taking turns napping beneath it. It's not as gorgeous as I remember it, or I may just not be as pro a tree-trimmer as I used to be, but it's still very very pretty. Plus, I already have my personally-meaningful ornaments -- some beautiful blown glass ones I got with my mother one year in purple and navy and pewter, some other beautiful glass animals (a snowy owl, a frog) and flowers (white dahlia, calla lily, morning glory) I got with my dad; some folksy wreaths I remember us buying when I was about three years old; a few of my dad's favorite glass ones from before I was born; the clusters of mini disco balls I got at some craft store or other; the glittery glass pine cones I bought all as part of one ornament and separated; the little soap-bubble ones I decorated myself a decade ago or more; a tree-topper I made out of a big beaded icicle thing turned upside down and a raft of different types of ribbon. I keep meaning to take pictures but haven't yet. My gifts for people didn't get here before they left for their winter travels, so I think I'll wrap them when they do arrive, put the presents under my tree, and do gift exchangey things when people get back.

Yesterday I had quite a Buffalo day. Cowpok is running a thing through xmas eve where you get $10 off any piercing if you bring in a couple cans of food to donate, and I thought, hey, that's a good excuse to get one done. So I popped down there, and found that half a dozen people all had decided to get piercings at the same time on a Sunday afternoon. Ended up waiting two hours to get a silly forward helix in one ear, but while I was there, I was treated to numerous somewht dopey-looking, slightly glaze-eyed, young, semi-sketchy Buffalo kids coming in for piercings, which was pretty cute. One skinny, but weirdly misshapen girl came in with her canned goods and two very rotund guys and asked for a piercing "downstairs." It should probably be a requirement to get a hood piercing that you at least be able to call it a hood piercing, but whatever. No idea what was up with the two guys -- two friends? Boyfriend and a friend? Boyfriend and a brother? Two boyfriends? They couldn't get the piercing because the female piercer wasn't there, unfortunately -- but it was simultaneously gross and entirely awesome and adorable for me to watch their giggly parade in and out. I did finally get my very minimal new metal, and then went up to Amherst to have dinner with a friend who lives up there, which consisted, appropriately enough, of giant calzones from Mister Pizza. We should have had beer to really do it, but I didn't think of that til I was home.

Today, after lunch with la Mexicana Picante, I went to the craft store to get some pieces to make earrings out of some wonderful little fairy-photo charms I got from one Etsy seller and some great handmade polymer clay flower beads I got from another. Got almost everything I needed, and meant to go to the other craft store, but I forgot. I did go to Target and Macy's to check out clearance ornaments and found a bunch of really great ones, especially at Macy's. Among others, I got a penguin in a snowglobe and an electric/neon/lime-green blown glass stocking with fancy Dutch shoe kind of curly designs on it. Plus some pale blue balls with glitter designs on them, some grey/silver/white glass ones in various shapes, a little angel girl chasing a star, big glass stars in purple and blue and silver. . . the stores seem to be short on the icy colors I like best this year, but it's not like I'm hard up for ornaments anyway. But, so I found these ornaments, and also, at Macy's, a fantastic bucket hat in a brown and multi houndstooth-plaid suiting fabric. Very warm. The cashier was having a hell of a time with someone on the other end of the phone who was either deaf or stupid or both -- and possibly because of that, she forgot to charge me for the hat! I got out and thought, wow, how did I get out of there with all this stuff for only $40? Hat must have been cheaper than I thought. How about cheap as free, sled dogs? Nobler people would probably have gone in and asked to pay for it, but I am not such a person.

When I got home, more cool Etsy stuff had come in the mail: some nouveau-looking brass earrings with lily-type flowers, dragonflies, and pearls on them; some beautiful horn hair/shawl pins, one with a big sunflower on it (very solstice-appropriate), one with a butterfly; and chopsticks carved to look like bamboo. Today I also got to wear for the first time this fantastic ring I got with a big cabochon made of polymer clay with a purple-and-green flower, in a filigree antiqued brass setting, with a blue-green gem at the flower's center and more, smaller ones around the edge of the brass part. Super funky, super pretty, and I got compliments on it from multiple strangers. And, as if that all weren't enough, I also got to wear some earrings I made myself out of fountain pen nibs, and while strangers didn't accost me to tell me how amazing they were, I know they actually are.

At Cowpok yesterday, I almost had them do my lip -- I've wanted a lip piercing since I was nineteen, now twelve years. Didn't get one for a while because guys kept telling me it was too much or just gross, and by the time I got over trying to please men who were never going to like me anyway, I was thinking I should keep myself somewhat professional-looking. I can get away with a lot being a poet, but only so much. But the more I thought about it, the surer I became that I should do that, and if it annoys me, I can lose it after a few months, but in the case that it doesn't (I'm betting it won't), I can get a damn retainer for job interviews next year. And to teach with if I want to. Twelve continual years of wishing I had something is really plenty to attest that I actually do like it. Had planned to end my day by going back and having that done, but by the time I got back to my neighborhood this evening, the piercing place was nearly closed. Tomorrow, I think. Need to go out to get those other earring-making pieces anyway.

I do have the first season of CSI: NY to watch. Figured since LOST is about to go out, I should find a new second TV show to watch and, you know, I don't want to travel too far from safe territory. The Miami one, I know I can't stand, but I've heard good things about the NY one. So we'll give it a shot. Good guys cracking wise and putting the bad guys away via impossibly cool and impossibly fast science will sit the midnight vigil with me. Me and my free hat and my awesome jewelry.

See? Really, really good day.

Pass the cream, please?

At about nineteen, a couple friends of mine told me they never understood why I was with a guy I'd been with for a couple years before. They said, "we always thought, she's too classy for him." I was flattered but perplexed at the time, but I can see it, looking back. I get described as stylish these days, which is in the same ballpark, but somewhere along the way I transcended class entirely and became a poet. We are not the tastemakers; we are not the appreciators of taste. We are what culture consumes.

An Ague Wracks These Transistors

* A few days ago, started having trouble with Google searches; if I click a link right out of the results, it sits for a few seconds and then reloads the search page. Happens across browsers and on different networks. I have to copy a link into the address bar to go to a page; irritating, but I keep some nonstandard things enabled and disabled, and every once in a while that causes problems -- I'm perpetually having to switch between US and UK English in Gmail because they'll tinker with one in a way that breaks it for me, so I have to use the other til those kinks get worked out.
* Yesterday or the day before, started having worse troubles than usual with my wireless. I've had weird network issues the whole time I've lived in Buffalo, with different computers, different routers, using different software, in different apartments; I can't, for example, keep a torrent client running for more than a few hours before my connectivity goes belly-up. Not hitting my router with anything like that number of requests, though, it's now only letting me load pages for an hour or so before I have to reset it. Most peculiarly, I can stay logged in to a site long after I lose the ability to load new ones. Not. . . not good.
* Yesterday, found that trying to load Perry Bible Fellowship comics, of all things, redirected me to random spam sites. Today, I just discovered that blogger.com has been hit with the same problem for me. Ruh-roh.
* Ad-Aware doesn't find anything, but won't update. Teh intertubez suggest this is a common problem for Vista users, as yet unresolved by Lavasoft, so it may be unfortunate but not related to my other problems, or it may be getting stuck by virii.
* Malwarebytes will install (I think, anyway) but won't run at all. Click the shortcut: nada. Attempt to run from a cmd shell: nada. Uninstall Ad-Aware, uninstall Malwarebytes, restart, reinstall Malwarebytes, try again: nada. Doesn't even try. Unless this is Windows just acting like a virus on its own -- would hardly be the first time, but I've been pretty happy with Vista 32-bit, and I really don't think it's screwing itself up that way -- that's definitely due to some infection.
* System Restore won't complete. Oh yeah. I got critters in this here box.

Motherfucker.

Haven't even gotten my desktop up and healthy yet, because classes started and I had to finish that chapter and there hasn't been time to finish getting it all the way together. On the good side, classes are now almost done and I was ready to wipe this one and do a clean install anyway -- but it's not a thing I needed to have to deal with. I got xmas presents to crochet (and papers to grade, and an apartment to clean, and an article to work on, and a chapter to read for, and a car to have repaired, and an eye exam to schedule so I can get new glasses, and a couple dozen or so other things to do).

Also noticed this morning that I'm really looking sick -- other than the still-substantial fatigue, I don't feel otherwise ill, but I have some very hollow-looking eyes and a serious pallor even for me. I'm guessing it's just exhaustion and once I let myself relax for a few days I'll start to look healthier, but it's unsettling. Then again, maybe it's just sympathy illness with my poor afflicted computer. Definitely wouldn't put that past me.

I think it and I are going to have to limp along for a week or so, though. No way do I have it in me to chase virii or set Windows up from nothing right now.

You know what, though, when I do that, I might give Open Office a try. That'll be something to look forward through after seven hundred reboots to get Vista back to itself.

Snap/Crackle/Pop

40 mins later, I've laid down to sleep and can't because the nausea and shakiness and vaguely unhappy head I'd been ignoring fighting all evening is now clearly turning into a migraine, sparklies and all.

This can't be the weather -- we had our first snow last night and that didn't get me, and it's calm out now anyway. It can't be allergies because nothing I'm allergic to is alive right now. Stress? MSG overdose? (Haven't had Chinese food in an age.) Dehydration? Demonic possession?

Oh, wait, I know. Lack of health insurance. That's why I keep getting these things, because the pills I could take to even try to combat them run $30 and up per pill, and it sounds like I'd need more than the minimal dose. The meds in question -- Imitrex or Treximet, which is the first thing plus Aleve -- are so spendy not because they're made from high-end exotic components, but because they're patented. Patented migraine medicine that, thanks to said patent, is only made and sold by one behemoth of a corporation at whatever obscene price it wishes in one of the many mysterious, sacred practices of the profiteers' bloody religion of obeisance to capital. Fuck you very much, you tea-partying Neanderthals and all the jet-set CEOs who bank on your rage. I hope you all come back a few times in a row as caterpillars who get parasitic wasp eggs implanted in them and are liquefied slowly and eaten from the inside out.

I also hope I just stop getting pukin'-bad headaches someday.

I think I know what it feels like to be a camel.

The sun has gone into the witness protection program.

This is my last week teaching (hooray) at this 8 am schedule (HOORAY!). I have grading I should seriously finish tonight and it's just not going to happen. Trying, truly. I've always been a slow grader -- I try to leave enough time in my schedule to get things back relatively quickly, and it's never enough. Eight years and I've never gotten to where I can do a paper in less than twenty minutes. Plus I'm so easily distracted that I have to grade where I don't have internet access, which means that when I finally get to my email, I have piles of it to wade through, which is its own discouragement. All this bodes poorly for me, although if I can just land a job where I don't have to teach comp, and therefore don't have to do the intensive grading comp requires, I do think I'll be fine.

Nearing the longest night of the year, with lake-effect cloud cover hanging around all the time, doesn't help a bit. Having spent something like a third of the semester officially sick also doesn't. All the same, if I taught at eleven tomorrow instead of eight, I could probably finish these and hand them all back.

(If I get the later schedule going next spring and am still behind all the time, I guess I'll have to admit I just take on too many things and manage them too poorly. Please let that not be the case, because if so, boy am I in for a rough career in the long term.)

Actually have a triple-duty ton of things that have been on my mind as I reach the end of this semester, but it'll be hours to post & that, I may not have til I get final grades posted.

Realized after I posted this that it's basically a repeat of the last post. I'm leaving it up, though; it's a testament to how depleted my cognitive abilities are, which really is about all I have to talk about right now anyway.