Nobu's Ravings

No, There Is Too Much, Let Me Sum Up

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 05:56:02 GMT

People seem to be doing "The last ten years" sort of posts. I've been thinking about it all day. A ton of life has happened, as I guess it should have in ten years.

Ten years ago I was living with Mausi, broke, single, and in college at PSU. And I was still driving the Toad.
Since then I've been in 3 long-term relationships, moved to Kentucky, moved back to Oregon, moved to Eugene, moved back home, traveled to Europe (and a lot of other places), bought three cars, lost a family member, got married, fell in love twice, attempted suicide twice, gained 5 nieces, made a few new friends, lost other friends, got 5 stitches, and finally! managed to graduate college, then get into an MFA program and also drop out of one. Also, wrote two novels, and sold a short story. And dyed my hair, often.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting things. Oh well.

Reading Goals

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 12:36:21 GMT

Well, for 2009, I read about 170 books. Which falls short of my goal of 200 books by a bit. Sigh.

For 2010, I think I'm going to put my goal at 150 since I've got so much other stuff to do also. I can hit 150 without too much trouble I think.

For Those Who Read This

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 07:54:31 GMT

And not my other, writing related blog-

I sold a story. :)

Resolutions for the New Year

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 09:01:32 GMT

This will be a very short post, because there's really only one thing in my power that I want that isn't writing-related (those resolutions are already up at my other blog).

1. a)lose weight (60-70lbs would be ideal)
b)get back in shape

Sure, it's a two parter, but both can (and should) be done at the same time. So that's it.

Questions from Ursula

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:40:12 GMT

1) Suppose you were cursed so that the Internet could give you porn or kitten pictures, but not both. Which would you choose?

Porn with kittens? *grin* I'm going to take porn here to mean "erotica" because I don't actually use the net to find picture porn unless I'm trying to hurt someone's brain, but I do read a lot of online romance/erotica, so since I can get my kitten fix in real life, I'm picking pr0n here.

2) If you had a free trip to any country in Africa, where would you go?

Madagascar. I've always wanted to go. Places that evolve their own weird ecology are fascinating to me.

3) Would you rather live in a land of Starbucks clones, or doughnut stores (assuming the climate and so forth was otherwise the same)?

Starbucks. I'm not actually that fond of donuts. But in the end, since I barely leave the house anymore, I don't really have an opinion on what's around me as long as there are still bookstores :) Speaking of which, I should totally figure out how to get starbucks to sell my books ;)

4) What do you buy in airport bookstores?

Spy thrillers, generally, if anything. I'm usually traveling with so many books that I don't really make it to the airport bookstores, but I've purchased a few (bookstores cannot resist me.. or is it the other way around?)

5) What are the characteristics of your ideal video game?

No level cap. Epic feel, lots of side quests, plenty of story and possibility for character development, and pretty graphics. Basically, cross Fallout 2 with Final Fantasy 12 and maybe we'll be close. I think it's why Dark Age of Camelot drew me for so many years, it had a lot of these qualities and I loved the scope that was provided by the MMORPG setting. But of course it had flaws too. I'd also love to see an epic fantasy game like Dragon Age or Final Fantasy 12 with a seamless 2 player cooperative option.

Another Tiny Update

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 02:27:07 GMT

I'm back on anti-depressants for a little while it seems. And I was doing so well, heh. I guess managing this on my own for nearly five years is somewhat of a win. Hopefully I won't need the drugs for more than a couple months. Maybe just something to get me through the holidays, I don't know.

Anyway, between gearing up for NaShoWriMo and various other work related to my "dayjob", I've been fairly busy. Muddling along.

Eastwick

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:26:07 GMT

I don't normally post reviews or whatever, but I've been watching ABCs "Eastwick" and holy crap. I won't say the show is good, per se, though it has some truly awesome moments so far, but Darryl Van Horne, the villain, is amazing.

You know why he's amazing? Because he's the devil. And not just any devil. He's Milton's Lucifer. Seriously. Watch it and you'll see what I mean. He's brilliantly written.

So yeah, I'm hooked (Mattchu is even watching... and not just cause I've gotten him addicted to CM and it is on afterward).

Book Meme

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 06:08:16 GMT

This is long, so it's going behind a cut. Apparently the BBC released a list of 100 books they think are important and predicted most people would have read 6 or less. I found the list repetitive and by no means *my* list of books that I think everyone should have read (but maybe hasn't).

So, I made my own. It's a meme, so copy it if you want and put an X or bold the books you've read, then add up your totals. Pass it on (if you want).

This is

I stretch it a bit by making the list 110 instead of 100, and by adding a few
graphic novels, but it is *my* list, after all. 110 is likely not enough, but I had to cut myself off somewhere.

(My score is 110, obviously, so I'm not doing it, just posting it for the rest of you.)

1. Epic of Gilgamesh
2. The Prydain Chronicles- Lloyd Alexander
3. The Mabinogion
4. The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real- Margery Williams and William Nicholson
5. Snow Crash- Neil Stephenson
6. The Pillow Book- Sei Sonagon
7. Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen
8. House of Leaves- Mark Z. Danielewski
9. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao- Junot Díaz
10. The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien

Total:

11. Sherlock Holmes- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
12. The Lymond Chronicles- Dorothy Dunnett
13. Catch 22- Joseph Heller
14. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry- Mildred D. Taylor
15. The Complete Works of Shakespeare
16. Tigana- Guy Gavriel Kay
17. His Dark Materials- Philip Pullman
18. The Ramayana
19. The House of the Spirits- Isabel Allende
20. The Tain (multiple good translations out there) (Táin Bó Cúailnge if you're confused)

Total:

21. The RGB Mars Trilogy- Kim Stanley Robinson
22. Labrynths- Jorge Luis Borges
23. Angry Candy (and/or)/Approaching Oblivion- Harlan Ellison
24. The Handmaid's Tale- Margaret Atwood
25. Lolita- Vladimir Nabokov
26. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (all 5)- Douglas Adams
27. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency- Douglas Adams
28. Little Women- Louisa May Alcott
29. Cathedral- Raymond Carver
30. Beowulf (I prefer the Seamus Heaney trans, but it's not the most accurate)

Total:

31. Fun Home- Alison Bechdel
32. The Sagas of Icelanders
33. To Kill a Mockingbird- Harper Lee
34. A Tale Of Two Cities- Charles Dickens
35. Ivanhoe- Sir Walter Scott
36. Chronicles of Narnia- C.S. Lewis
37. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland- Lewis Carroll
38. Catcher in the Rye- JD Salinger
39. One Hundred Years of Solitude- Gabriel García Márquez
40. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

Total:

41. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
42. The Color Purple- Alice Walker
43. Lady Chatterley's Lover- D. H. Lawrence
44. Dune- Frank Herbert
45. The Gamage Cup- Carol Kendall
46. Frankenstein- Mary Shelley
47. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time- Mark Haddon
48. Brave New World- Aldous Huxley
49. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
50. Good Omens- Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Total:

51. Persepolis- Marjane Satrapi
52. Wildseed- Octavia Butler
53. Butterfly Burning- Yvonne Vera
54. Song of Ice and Fire- George RR Martin
55. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
56. Fahrenheit 451- Ray Bradbury
57. Hyperion- Dan Simmons
58. Flowers for Algernon- Daniel Keyes
59. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep- Philip K Dick
60. A Canticle for Leibowitz- Walter M Miller

Total:

61. Dracula- Bram Stoker
62. Doomsday Book- Connie Willis
63. Left Hand of Darkness- Ursula K Leguin
64. The Forever War- Joe Haldeman
65. A Wizard of Earthsea- Ursula K Leguin
66. Charlotte’s Web- EB White
67. Mean Spirit- Linda Hogan
68. The Stainless Steel Rat- Harry Harrison
69. The Divine Comedy- Dante Alighieri
70. Make Room! Make Room!- Harry Harrison

Total:

71. Jurasic Park- Michael Crichton
72. I, Robot- Isaac Asimov
73. Les Miserables- Victor Hugo
74. Witchworld- Andre Norton
75. Blood and Iron- Elizabeth Bear
76. Name of the Wind- Patrick Rothfuss
77. The Little Prince- Antoine De Saint-Exupery
78. Jonathon Strange & Mr. Norrell- Susanna Clarke
79. American Gods- Neil Gaiman
80. The Dark Tower- Stephen King

Total:

81. Watership Down- Richard Adams
82. Tour of the Merrimack- R.M. Meluch
83. Nineteen Eighty Four- George Orwell
84. The Speed of Dark- Elizabeth Moon
85. Cadfael Mysteries (Musts are "The Rose Rent" and "The Sanctuary Sparrow)- Ellis Peters
86. Don Quixote- Miquel de Cervantes
87. A Confederacy of Dunces- John Kennedy Toole
88. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman- Laurence Sterne
89. Murder By the Book- Rex Stout (or any Nero Wolfe book, really)
90. The Hot Rock- Richard Stark (Donald E Westlake)

Total:

91. Dirty Money- Richard Stark (Donald E Westlake)
92. Interview With the Vampire- Anne Rice
93. Neuromancer- William Gibson
94. Zodiac- Neal Stephenson
95. Midnight’s Children- Salman Rushdie
96. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy- John le Carre
97. Their Eyes Were Watching God- Zora Neale Hurston
98. On the Beach- Nevil Shute
99. I, Claudius- Robert Graves
100. The Magus- John Fowles

total:

101. The Collector- John Fowles
102. Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories- by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
103. The Iliad- Homer
104. Canterbury Tales- Geoffrey Chaucer
105. Yellow Raft in Blue Water- Michael Dorris
106. Lone Wolf and Cub- Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima
107. Shogun- James Clavell
108. The Devil's Arithmetic- Jane Yolen
109. The Adventure's of Kavalier and Clay- Michael Chabon
110. Name of the Rose- Umberto Eco

total:

Overall total out of 110:

(my pardon for any misspelled names/titles, I'm tired...)

Done Done Done

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 10:03:37 GMT

One rough draft of a possibly terrible second novel: Done. Finished. Over with.

It has no title, it's about 10k words too short, but fuck it. There's a reason editing was invented. For now, I'm DONE!

That's all.

Two Years

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 23:45:32 GMT

Mattchu and I have been married now for 2 years. Which means we've been together for almost 4. Crazy. Actually, not really. Being married is a lot like dating, as far as I can tell.

I'm glad we're finally living together with our own place though. As much as having roommates can be... exciting? Amusing? Something like that, anyway, I'm glad to have our own space. And to have a kitty finally.

Not really doing anything special for the actual day. Apparently Mattchu got me a present, which while very sweet makes me feel bad, cause I'd thought we'd already done the presents thing when we got the fire opals in Alaska and so hadn't really planned anything beyond dinner + later adult activities. Oops. I'll have to think of something to surprise him with later. I've got a few ideas.

So yeah, two years. Feels like 20 years. And I'm hopeful that we've got at least 60 more to go.

Happy anniversary to us.

Late Nights

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 07:58:53 GMT

Novel is nearly done (I'll be ranting about it once I'm finished over on my writing journal...).
Critiques are in, harp isn't tuned yet. Insomnia eats my life.

Went out to dinner tonight to celebrate our 2nd anniversary. Technically the 30th is the day, but that's a Wednesday this year, which doesn't work well at all, so we celebrated early. Found an excellent Moroccan restaurant right here within walking distance. It was super good, with awesome service. Walking distance, did I mention that? Superdangerous.

In other news I've noticed an uptick in my drinking lately. I think that's got to stop. As fun as it is to get a little tipsy (and easy, man my tolerance is nil these days), it's not helping the depression even a little. While I haven't quite sunk back to the level of drinking alone in the middle of the night, I probably shouldn't wait until that point to put a stop to it. So back to sobriety for me.

It's 1am, guess that means it is time for more banging head into novel. Right now I'm struggling with verisimilitude and she's a tricky bitch.

Almost There

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:01:28 GMT

7 chapters left on the novel. I should be done in 3-4 days.

Also to do this week:
Go to the gym
Tune my harp (and play!). I want to start practicing a half hour every weekday. There's no reason I can't do this other than laziness.
Beat the boss in Dragonquest 8. (After I finish the novel, obviously).
Do the critique for the new group I joined (it has real published authors tm!)

Things to do in October:
Catch up on my reading.
Sleep.
Figure out Halloween plans.
Decide about going to Orycon.
Write 2 novellas.

I'm not even 30, and it's come to this. Word's most boring human. That's me. Yep. Being a writer is totally glam folks. Really. Seriously.

Death and Wordcounts

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 09:15:10 GMT

It's time to kill this stupid novel. By finishing it.

This is the week of doom!

See you all on the flip side...

Apparently, I'm a Bad Cat Parent

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 08:29:08 GMT

our cat managed to play until one of her front pads got so rug-burned it started to bleed. She doesn't seem to care (not limping or anything) so we didn't notice until we saw the blood drops all over the carpet. We might have seen them sooner, but the large red carpet sheds red bits, so it's hard to distinguish fuzz from blood droplets. We cleaned it and put a non-stick pad on with vet-wrap, but we're going to have to be more vigilant in the future about her playing habits. She will literally play until she's laying on her side open-mouthed and panting. Silly kitty. I still feel like a bad kitty parent though, sigh.

In other news, I'm in death slog mode this week. Part of me thinks if I push it I can finish the novel by this time next week. We'll see how insane I get. I know I CAN write 12-14k words in a day, but that doesn't mean I want to. However, doing that for five days would definitely finish this up. Hell, 8 to 10k a day for five days would finish this damn novel. I'll see how far I get. I'm going to make an insane push this week and then see where I'm at.

I'm also ramping up the exercise and diet plan this week. Despite brownies tonight I've been doing pretty well and I think that now I've had three weeks of regular gym workouts I'm reading to step up the intensity.

Here's going for broke!

Exterior Looks Rosy (ie whining ahead)

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 08:53:38 GMT

Haven't been updating here much. For one, facebook and it's stupid instant gratification has eaten my brains. For another, I'm not sure where my thoughts are at lately. I'm in the weird zone where everything external in my life is going really well, but I feel like a giant mess on the inside.

It's as though the more orderly I make my life around me, the more of a storm brews inside. This phenomenon could be the Nobu chaos balance or something. Gotta have issues, baby. On the good side, I'm working on the novel again, going to the gym pretty regularly, eating better, and have a kitty (soon a spayed kitty!).

The bad side is that all the goals I'm working towards right now (pretty much getting back into my size 5's and getting published) are longer term goals with slow builds. I can't lose 70 lbs in a week or two, nor can I write a decent novel in a week either (or even 2. Maybe not even 200, but that's another issue). The progress is invisible from this close. Part of me wants to give up on both goals. Quit trying to write for publication and just write to get the stories out of my head. Quit trying to get to a size where I feel comfortable in my own skin and just toss all my old clothes and suck it up that I'll always be "a big girl". Buy big girl clothes and go get a "real" job (ok, a Mcjob, if we're being realistic).

It's the gap that's killing me. That nebulous void between where I am and where I want to be. I know what I want, I know the basics of getting myself there, I've even taken a few of the first little steps on the path. It's that dark area, the map unexplored still covered by the fog of war. That area I can't fathom, that place between the me and the ideal. I think this is why I clean things when I'm stressed out or depressed. I can see the goal (dirty thing into clean thing) and get there in a short enough time that by the time I'm done I have a tangible success (clean thing!).

I know the process. Writing: write. Rewrite. Send out. Repeat. Eventually, the published thing will happen if I write the best stories I can and work at improving what I fail at. With my body it's simple too, in some ways even more simple because it relies on no one but myself. Eat less. Work out more. Repeat until happy.

But it all takes time. Both goals rely on getting through the murky zone. There are no secrets, no shortcuts. Both goals take unbelievable courage, at least where my brains are concerned. It's not scrubbing something for an hour and then you're done. It's scrubbing something for 9000 hours without knowing if you'll have to scrub for 9000 more after that or if it could be the 9001st hour in which you'll finish.

Meh. I don't know what the point of this was. I won't just give up, I'm not sure I have it in me (besides, I have spreadsheets man, spreadsheets! I have to keep up with those damn spreadsheets.) I guess I'm just noting the weird discrepancy between how I think/feel and how things look to me on the surface.

And, of course, it always comes back to fear. Gotta get better at this whole "be where you are" thing. Yep. Stupid as it sounds, I'm afraid of being thin and afraid of getting published. With those things come other issues, other expectations. Fear: it's what's for dinner...

Cat, and the Plague

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 06:57:44 GMT

Got home last tuesday with the plague. Otherwise known as the flu, though thankfully not the swine variety. It's been nearly a week and I'm almost feeling normal, though still utterly exhausted.

Somehow, despite all that, I managed to get a cat. She's an 18 month old half bengal and now that she's done spazzing around breaking things and hiding behind the toilet, she's definitely a lap kitty (in my lap right now, in fact). I have to give Mattchu all the credit since he found the cat and set up everything, thank god. I'm not the most organized me (or coherent me) when I have the plague. But a kitty makes it all better.

Now, to get my apartment back in order and fully unpacked. Tomorrow. When I'll have energy, I hope.

So much to do...

Home, Finally

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 05:23:07 GMT

Home now. Forever. Also... sick. Sore throat, cough, dizziness. Thank you, Worldcon. Thanks so much :P

It was fun, over all.

Now, to mix tea with cold medication. weee.

Moving Almost Complete

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:08:35 GMT

Most of our stuff is at the new place now. And I'm hella sore. My ankles especially. Meep.

Now to put together shelves and run a lot of errands.

I have less than a week to get stuff unpacked and put away. Nothing like time pressure, eh? I want to organize my books back into proper sections and by author so I can find things, but I'm not sure I have the time to do that. It requires taking all of the books out of the boxes and laying them out in piles on the floor so I can sort by author and genre (genre categories: poetry/drama, fiction, history, philosophy, religion, language). (This grouping structure usually leaves amusing side-effects like the Book of Mormon ending up next to the Witches' Bible).

Okies. Home Depot for shelves, then Fry's for vacuum cleaner and cables, then home for working on stuffs.

Too sore to live.

No Time No Time

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:14:25 GMT

Quickie cause I haven't updated in a while:

Packing is stalled, but I've got very little left to go. I'll get the last boxes done this week, probably.

Moving is about to commence. But first, painting! I'm going a little design crazy, but meh, I never leave the house, so it better look damn good.

Writing is meh. Sleeping is overrated. Body is sick but still refuses to sleep. Same old story, I guess.

That's all. Can it be Friday please?

Random Random

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 09:18:24 GMT

Wow, LJ has private messages n stuff. Weird.

Watched Virtuality tonight. Now I'm hating on Fox network even more. That show might have been awesome. A science fiction show where the science actually makes reasonable sense (virtual reality doesn't kill you, the spaceship design pays more than lipservice to what we theorize about long term space travel designs, stuff like that). Sucks ass that they decided to air the pilot without picking up the show. Grr.

Watched Knocked Up again too. That movie was just as funny the second time around. Also, makes me glad I don't have a totally dysfunctional relationship (he still loves me even after we spent like two freakin hours playing hall tetris with the treadmill... seriously, at one point I thought we'd recreated the Dirk Gently couch problem).

In the sadness news, I'm trying not to be depressed that I'm not at Clarion West. Trying really hard. I sort of stumbled across some clarion blogs (stupid writers posting comments who I then totally click the blog links from etc... they made me do it!). Damn but it sounds awesome. Meh. I'm going to hold my own mini clarion of... me. Alone in my room rolling dice in the dark. Well, writing science fiction in the dark. I don't know. It's really hard sometimes to push back the constant drone of my inner critic who never stops muttering that I'll never be good enough. Maybe I won't. You can't ever be sure, right? Next year. Next year I'm going to apply to both Clarions and Odyssey. Hedge my bets. And maybe I'll get to meet E. Bear at Worldcon. If I'm not hiding in a corner too shy to speak to anyone because hey, at this point I'm just another non-selling wannabe groupie fangirl. Somehow I doubt that whining "but I'm getting really *nice* rejection letters" is going to cut it.

All right. It's time for my every other night of sleep.

Packing and Insomnia

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 08:53:10 GMT

So you know, life as usual. I seem to be sleeping every other day. Not entirely sure how my body decided on this schedule, but whatever. I'll work on it.

I have packed up 8 boxes of books, three boxes of random stuff, and posted a bunch of things for sale. If I sell everything I've listed at close to listing price I should make enough that we can start car shopping in September, but knock on wood. So far I've had a few bites on the lower-priced items. Of course, the highest priced item is my harp, which I'm only testing the waters on selling. I'm completely unwilling to budge on the price of it since I'm emotionally attached even if I barely play it. But it alone is worth half the price of a hybrid car, so seeing if I can sell it for that (since I don't play much anyway) could make it worth it. I'm not holding my breath. Everything else HAS to get sold though because there's no room for them. I also plan to list the older shelves once I've got them cleared off, plus possibly the futon and queen bed provided we get confirmation of abandonment from our ex-roomate on those items (since technically he owns the bed and futon frame).
(so yeah, if anyone needs (or knows someone who needs) a nice treadmill, a washer/dryer, some older bookshelves, a huge dining room table w/6 chairs, a futon couch, or a queen size bed... let me know!)

I think I have the paint colors for the apartment more or less picked out. I'll get paint samples on the day before we get our keys so we can paint some swatches and see how it looks in reality. Two weeks! Our plan to spend the first weekend painting and then move the second weekend. I'm super excited. I want to throw a house-warming party, but that won't be until Aug (probably late Aug) since we're pretty much moving and then leaving the state for the next 3 weeks (I'll be gone more or less all of that, anyway.)

Apartment!

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:25:16 GMT

We were approved for the apartment, so now I just have to pack a billion books, sell some shelves and a table and a bed and a couch, and we're good!

Now, to pick paint colors... to go with my 7'7 round red rug of doom...

Chapbook

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:37:03 GMT

It's finally done!

If you have love for me, either buy one here: http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fStoreID=2311972 (downloadable even!)
or see me in person, I have about 25 copies for sale and then I can sign it for you.

And if you truly love me, review it! In about 8 weeks it will be on amazon.com as well, I'll post the link then.

The Where to Live Debate

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:12:03 GMT

Downtown Pdx?
pros: it's hip, mattchu could walk to work and walk home for lunch, easy distance to everything I could ever want to buy or need (ie Powell's)
cons: it's damned expensive, apartments are tiny, would have to cut down to 1 car for sure sooner than later, and it means no one would ever visit us due to parking issues.

Wilsonville?
pros: it's cheap for a 2 bedroom (save for hybrid car and awesome travel), walking/biking distance to best friends, I can stand on Fox and Elfie's lawn playing sad songs until I get game, I can potentially have all the horse-back riding action I want.
cons: 30-60 min commute to work for Mattchu each way. Outside of the area of pdx we both love so much.

So where to move?

Another Short One

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:59:53 GMT

Haven't been able to sleep very well for nearly a week now. Grr. Argh.

Term is nearly over and then I'll be free of grad school and it will be time to crack down on the novels.

I'm also going to start rock climbing again as soon as school's out, which will be... painful and probably really embarrassing. However, if I wait until I think I'm thin enough to do it, I'll be waiting a very long time. I want arm muscle again, damnit. So screw it, I'll just go humiliate myself.

The eat less crap diet is working more or less, though I got a bit derailed last weekend. I've been eating 4-6 small meals a day for the last few days and that seems to work really well since if I get hungry I just eat another snack basically. I'll have to modify that plan for social situations, but I think I can stick with it for a while.

I've decided too that once my arms look nice again I'm going to get my sleeve tattoo on the right arm as a reward. It'll likely be a few months at the least, but it's something to look forward to.

We've decided we're moving in August, so that gives us time to save up, sell crap we don't need, and shop around for the stuff we do need (ok, want... a flatscreen tv is hardly a need..., though I think a couch or giant pillows are kinda a need since we won't have any living room furniture after I sell the loveseat). I'm trying to reduce our stuff down to the bare essentials since the house always feels super cluttered to me and I'm sick of it. I already cleaned out one closet. One more to tackle and then I can make a run to the good will donation place and get rid of the random clothing and junk I keep finding. Hopefully by the time we move I can also throw out some more clothes since my smaller stuff should start fitting by then (it had better, damnit. So tired of living in this body the way it is...).

Oh, and I dyed my hair copper.

That's all I got.