let's stumble towards success and pack some snacks for little breaks

At social gatherings in Kansas City, the most common conversational openings were, "Do you live around here?" and "What church do you go to?"

Today, Grandpa took me to a belated Labor Day party next door, and the most common openings there were, "Want a drink?" and "Do you smoke weed?"

Yesterday was Rain's party, which was awesome. Bailey, whom I hadn't seen in years, was visiting from California. Ann came, and gave Colin a lift, which made me very happy, because I haven't hung out with Colin in person since Anytown in June. Karel and Kyle came, but had to leave after a few hours. The rest of us spent the night and went to church this morning. Colin liked All Souls, and says he wants to start coming regularly, and Ann said he can ride with her. Yay!

At church, we watched Word Wars, made by (NPL member) Murdoch's brother E-Wolf, also known as Eric Chaikin. The movie is about hardcore Scrabble. I saw it at the Boston con, I think- there was a Q&A with E-Wolf afterward. It was just as good the second time, and just as suspenseful because I'd forgotten who won.

Speaking of Murdoch (aka Kid Beyond, aka Andrew Chaikin), I'm in love with his new CD, Amplivate. The first four tracks are completely vocal, but it's hard to believe that they are. Murdoch can do some phenomenal things with his voice. There are videos on his site; I highly recommend checking them out, and buying the CD if you like what you hear. (That's him on the right in my icon.)

Is it a little sad that I'm going into QC withdrawal on the weekends?

Okay, so Thursday, a cow attacked me. Well, it licked the crap out of my hand. And licking doesn't really sound lethal, but have you ever been licked by a cow? It's like being licked by a cat, only the tongue is about a foot long and a LOT stronger. My hand was very red for quite a while. That was on a walk that was supposed to help Bill feel better, and failed. His stomach was giving him problems. Mom and I did manage to dump the baby with him (along with water, drugs, and a Sudoku book) and go out to dinner, but there wasn't any all-ages music playing and we couldn't find anything else interesting to do, so we called it a night early.

Friday involved rain, Thai food, and a new skirt. Yay Grandma for that last. I don't wear many skirts, but I like this one. I'll post pics when I can. I also watched "Philadelphia," which I enjoyed quite a bit. Tom Hanks did a really, really good job. Grandma loaned me a book called "My Sister's Keeper," which is amazingly good so far, along with a couple of others.

Saturday Mom and Bill's hotel was flooded (I was staying at Grandma and Grandpa's house). They managed to extract themselves eventually, though, and off to Halflab we went, stopping at a Safeway for satsumas. Man, I miss California. The party was awesome, as all Halflab parties are. Lisa gave me the "Movies In 15 Minutes" book, which kicks major ass. (Thank you, Lisa!) There was much delicious food, including chili made by Louise and stuffed mushooms brought by rebbyribs and bsittler, although I'm not entirely sure which made them. bsittler, by the way, has gorgeous hair. I could just see Mom's fingers twitching when she laid eyes on it. She ended up putting it in a seven-strand braid, after using it to show Becca and I how to do the four-strand chain type one. I met ratontheroad in person for the first time, after a brief "do I know you?" moment. There was DDR, giving me my annual dose of Adam-and-Fred worship, and Guitar Hero, which was fun too. I was actually playing Guitar Hero when the new year rolled in, but I did sacrifice a couple of points to grab a swig of Martinelli's. My hat migrated, as it has a tendency to do at parties. I finally got to sleep around 4:30 or so, after a soak in Halflab's huge hot tub.

This morning, Mom and I got up to a dead house at 9:30, and she drove me to Jeffrey's house in Dublin, where I am now. (That's Dublin, California, not Dublin, Ireland. If you were confused.) Collin Gerard, Angela, and Tessie were here, but they left a while ago. Jeanette produced a coconut curry that convinced me once and for all that Jeffrey scored big-time, and I've been sitting around reading and fending off Jeanette's kids, Veronica and Avery. Jeffrey and I have gotten through the first *glances at clock* five hours with only one real argument, which bodes well, I guess.

Good luck for 2006 to everyone!

Last night I stayed up till 3:30 AM writing my honors seminar paper draft on the biology of HIV/AIDS, which ended up 12 pages including glossary and references. It remains to be seen whether it's what the teacher was looking for, but I worked damn hard on it.

Today was the Halloween party at the library. Laura wore this wonderfully skimpy ballerina outfit, the tutu of which kept coming off. Kim... I want to like her, I really do, and I think we could probably get along fairly well, but the very first thing I ever heard her say was how "gay" something was as an insult. I know it's commonly accepted slang in high schools, and I know for a fact that she's not homophobic, and I've heard other people I like use the term, but... I guess first impressions really do last. I can't seem to get over it.

Laura, Zak and I started an academic group, the purpose of which was never really decided. Laura is the official History Geek, Star is the Art Geek, Tom is the Math Geek, that kid whose name I can never remember is the PC Computer Geek, Rain is the Drama Geek, and I'm Dictator because I couldn't decide between Biology Geek, Mac Computer Geek and English Geek. DDR was played, various fruits and vegetables were carved, Chipotle was eaten (not, however, by me, as I refuse to support McDonalds in any of its ventures, no matter how delicious), and a really really bad Rob Zombie movie was watched. I decided about two-thirds of the way through that I didn't need to waste any more of my life on it and left, soon followed by Rain, who was having some really bad imagery issues with the movie. (There was some naaaasty shit in there.) We wandered into the kids' section and curled up in the globe chair, which I really need to take a picture of because I've spent so much time there. We talked about many things and had an amusing conversation with three little kids. Then Rain's mom drove me home, where I found the rest of the family getting ready to go out to Boo at the Zoo. I don't do zoos, so I stayed home and dicked around on the computer. I haven't had the time to waste time on the Net in a long time, so it was kind of nice. Not that I really have the time to do it now- that Darwin's Cathedral summary is due on Thursday and I've barely started reading the book, plus I have French homework and the English group project, and my honors seminar presentation. But nobody wants to hear about my homework, so I won't elaborate.

Now, pictures!
( Two pics, under a cut because they were being a flist pain )

Perhaps I should explain that. The Flying Karamazov Brothers have this bit in their show where they ask people to bring up random objects, and then they have the audience cheer for each object and pick the three most popular for one of them to try to juggle. People who know about the "challenge" beforehand bring the weirdest objects to the shows. This time, there was a roll of toilet paper, a rotten pumpkin, a phallic squash, a stuffed Barney, and my Emergency No Parking sign, among other things. The sign, the pumpkin and the squash were chosen. The champion juggler gets to make three modifications to the objects. He broke the end off the squash, then bent my sign in half, then bent that in half again (that counted as two because he tried to juggle it between folds). It was amusing to watch, but on the other hand... they killed my sign! At least I got it autographed, and it'll be a nice mantelpiece story for my grandkids. Sigh.

I need new icons.