I feel like a disappointment to my friends a lot of the time. I've been thinking about it today.

I guess -- I'd much rather have you guys angry with me than disappointed, 'cos it makes me feel like a big failure.

I can only keep stating that I'm frankly amazed y'all have kept me around for so long. I'm very honored. I don't know how to repay all of my friends for the love and kindness [and friendship] they've shown me. I'm trying to be a better person, and learn and grow, and I know sometimes I struggle with stupid things, but I'm thankful I have you guys to help me try and keep moving forward.

Thank you guys.

I think my food journal is working. While I don't feel shame over eating bad things, or feel that I'd rather not eat than eat junk food, looking at a list of all I've consumed each day and having it all be unhealthy crap is pretty gross. When you have to look at it like that, it becomes easier.

Case in point: I could have come home last night and grabbed a pop-tart and some chips, but instead I made myself a sandwich [with lettuce and tomato], a salad with a few mixed veggies, and had a carton of delicious Australian peach yogurt for dessert.

While my food issues haven't gone away entirely [I still have to hide things, or would prefer to hide them, at the very least], I feel more in control of them, which is at least a start, I guess. I need to actually start eating breakfast, which means getting breakfast items; each Friday I'm going to the grocery store and bulking up my pantries a little more at a time. I hope this doesn't mean I become a food hoarder later in life... meh. I can deal with THAT when I come to it.

THREE char deaths in two weeks AND we lost the APC [though we're lucky we even survived losing the APC...] asldlkj

thank god we have Will, otherwise I think we would have all died!

also, Mystic Knights are BITCHES. I really hope my new PC doesn't get killed despite the fact he's one of the good guys. rofl. more later when I have time.

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/new_orleans_firefighters_worki.html

There was a chemical spill across the river today. I woke up around 8am because I smelled something funky -- a sort of burning-plastic smell. I thought maybe something had caught fire somewhere [I'm really paranoid about fire], so I went up into the attic to check, looked around the house to no avail, and then just cracked my windows, sprayed some air freshener, and laid back down. The smell abated around 11 when it started to drizzle, and then I found out about the spill -- ethyl acrylate from the Dow chemical plant in Hahnville. I've had a sore throat and a headache all day, and now I know why. The last time I had to put up with a smell this bad was on Fairfield, when my landlord was stripping paint off of the walls with gasoline.

I was just informed that there was a class-action lawsuit filed against Dow this afternoon, so I might have to look into that.

( Weekend recap )

Also, I'll say this here and now -- I'm really tired of people being pissy with me [or with anyone] for no reason. Just because you're in a bad mood or you disagree with something someone has said, please don't take it out on people who care about you or who enjoy your company. I know that I've been guilty of this in the past, but it's really not worth it to any party involved and I've been making a sincere effort to curb any and all pissiness that I might feel without reason or take out on anyone. All it does is tend to ruin people's day, and nobody deserves to be treated badly or to feel like a heel when they haven't done anything. It's much easier to simply TRY and get along with everyone, or at least to be civil. If you can't play nice, then don't play.

Dragon*Con is a go! I'm so excited! Rooming again with MacKay this year, but Jackie and Carl will be there this year!

I've already been looking at panels I want to go to. Unfortunately, Mac, you might be on your own during these, or at least the WoW panels; I don't expect many others to indulge that nerdery, except maybe Jackie. xD

Friday, 1pm, 2:30pm, 4pm, Augusta Room, Sheraton: Questgiver Signup [I did this last year, and it was too much fun; I still have my button!]
Saturday, 11:30am, Capitol Ballroom, Sheraton: Lore of Warcraft Panel

The longer our campaign goes on, the harder it gets to remember who everyone is, and what they're doing, so here are some ( Rifts writeups, for my own notes )

I repeat: the shark has been jumped!

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/18031079410-factionchange-service-in-the-works.html

This looks pretty legit. I wonder if Blizzard is REALLY going to go this far. I will be sorely, SORELY tempted to sacrifice one of my Alliance toons to gain a Horde somewhere... but I don't know if it'll come to fruition. I'm almost kind of hoping it doesn't.

Though ... belf paladin instead of dorf paladin? Tempted? Not me.

I'm starting a journal of what I eat per day, just to see how many calories I actually get. I'm tempted to say it's not nearly enough. For a woman of my height and weight, I should be eating anywhere from 2100-2500 calories a day, at least from what information I've managed to gather from the internet.

Today I've eaten: two bowls of chicken and dumplings and half a croissant, along with a glass of water and a root beer.

I'll admit that I'm developing some pretty blatant food issues; I've begun hoarding food in my room when I can filtch some, and I just. I don't like having bare cupboards or a bare fridge. I feel much more centered and content when there's food in the house. I don't really like not knowing how I'm going to swing my next meal. Of course, that last bit doesn't happen too often, but it has happened. I don't like it at all. I mean, just like perfectcherry said, when I'm eating someplace I go ahead and plan out my next meal, and I like good food. So wtf is with these food issues? I guess living in a house with someone who subsists mainly off of cigarettes and coffee does kinda complicate things a little.

But anyway, I'm going to see how many calories I need, and I'm going to start drawing up meal plans FOR MYSELF. Not for anyone else.

I will mention here that on Monday I had sushi that's literally on par with Kanno. I didn't know that was possible. Jackie and I went to the tiny new sushi restaurant by her house, Good Time Sushi, on the corner of Elysian Fields and Filmore, and holy crap it was good. We had the eel box sushi, the Good Time Roll, and I fulfilled my month-long craving for crunchy rolls. For a brand-new, tiny little sushi joint in an inexplicable location, it was damn good. I hope to go back soon; I want to go back with Jackie, Carl and Dave sometime.

ANYWAY, on to nerdy crap, because otherwise I wonder if people would even recognize this journal.

Monday saw our first PC death in Rifts. Rachael's character Shaw, a ley line walker, was beheaded by the Mystic Knights that have been trailing Black Company, and we managed to get out of town with only a little collateral damage [read: leaving the entire place in a shambles of infighting and half of the city on fire]. I guess Mystic Knights don't like when you kill their buddies. Carl's playing with us again, and is playing his dragon hatchling Skeet'ah, so thankfully we'll have some firepower again; for a long time Melinette was the only actual huge MD-causing character besides Taglia [but we all know Taglia's a social character since she's Jackie's]. Rachael's new character is a gun-bunny mercenary named Octane. When the group gets to Free Quebec, I'll be retiring Melinette and playing one of two characters: Hemingway, or a Mystic Knight of the White Rose [named Copernicus -- I keep things classy with my naming conventions].

Every other Saturday night we'll be playing Deadlands: Reloaded with a bunch of guys from Galactic Games, as well as Lil' Chris, with Dave GMing. It'll be a nice respite from Germaine's Rifts campaign, as much as I love it. I'm playing a Haitian Voodoo priestess [named Cleome, but the group calls her Miss Cleo, and they hate me already for it! lol] connected to one of the other characters somehow. I don't actually remember how.

Now In Original & Extra Bandwidth Flavor
Restaurant | Austin, TX, USA

(I work at a sandwich place, where we have signs up promoting free Wi-Fi. A uninformed lady comes in to the store.)

Lady: *looking the menu over and over* “How big is the serving of free Wi-Fi?”

Me: “I’m sorry, can you say that again?”

Lady: “The serving of Wi-Fi, how big is the free portion? Can I pay extra and get a bigger one to share with my husband, or can we get two cups for free?”

Me: “The Wi-Fi is a signal for computers that can connect to the internet wirelessly…it isn’t something edible.”

(She looks around for a long time, checks her phone and then walks out.)

Lessons learned from tonight's Rifts campaign: a fairy caught in the throes of battle-lust can, and will, take out a Mystic Knight with very little provocation. An angry, injured fairy will do this in the most efficient way possible: taking off limbs before just severing your head in one stroke [yay for rolling multiple natural 20s to strike! double damage!] I want to have armor made out of the Mystic Knight's helm, because it satisfies some sort of primal, Klingon-ish urge Mel has to gain honor from slaying enemies. I don't know if I can retire Melinette now after having a session like tonight's, though I suspect I'll have to when we get to Free Quebec. I know I'll have fun playing Hemingway, my mercenary, but Mel's been with me for 7 levels and there's something comforting and familiar about her fairy logic and character.

Tonight's session was really fun. We managed to trade in our old APC/transport for another one, the Iron Maiden, so it's off to Free Quebec with a price on our heads ... that will be fun. We may be starting up a side campaign to figure out what happens between Tintaglia-A and Tintaglia-1 [Jackie's character and her doppelganger], in the Nightlands, so I'll have to remember to bring all of my darkwave CDs.

I really love Rifts. I love having Germaine as GM. Rifts is on par with Exalted for my favorite RPG system, and that's saying something.

Anyway, aside from Rifts, today Jackie and I made the trip out to Hoa Hong 9 Roses in Gretna to try them out, and aside from pretty lackluster service -- that's being nice about it -- the food was really good. Our lunch specials were less Vietnamese and more along the lines of Americanized Chinese, but I suspect if we go back for dinner, like I want to do, we'll get actual Vietnamese food.

My hours are gonna get cut down this week, so I'll have bunches of time to DO stuff, and even though Borders cut me back, I landed a babysitting gig watching Max for Laura and Izzy, so I'm hustlin'. I need to finish filling out this B&N application, just because.

And, lastly, I FINALLY got to borrow Germaine's Madlax CDs! I'm listening to it right now! I really wish I could just spend an hour or two with his massive CD collection, but I'm satisfied with finally getting my grubby mitts on these two CDs.

was a good day. (:

Schedule 6-14 to 6-20-2009

Sunday 6-14 - off
Monday 6-15 - off
Tuesday 6-16 - off
Wednesday 6-17 - 2pm-11pm
Thursday 6-18 - off
Friday 6-19 - CUT
Saturday 6-20 - 12pm-3pm (wtf? 3 hours?)
========================
Total hours [including lunch breaks]: 11

Shoulda figured that they'd have less hours for me because there aren't any overnights this week, but I'm going to see if I can pick up a shift somewhere. I will say that working at the bookstore with the GM and T* [I'm a little leary of posting full names here since I've bitched so much about Borders] makes me want to tear my hair out. T* doesn't listen to anything anyone says, and if Borders barely functions at the best of times, the GM and T* pretty much fly along by the seat of their pants on a good day. I stayed upstairs at the minfo desk and turned up my Beatles [I am in love with the Beatles recently] and did my little six hours of work.

Also, oof. It just took me 2 hours to get home. The Causeway bus was 50 minutes late and it's, oh, 89 degrees outside, with a heat index of 97 FRELLING DEGREES. Only one of the bus stops has any shade at all. Thank god for my iPod, because it's a worthy distraction. I just now found the world's most melted Star Crunch cookie inside of my purse ... thank god it was still in the cellophane wrapper. I'd have died had it melted all over the inside of my purse [the one MacKay gave me].

Rifts was last night, kind of a slow session since we weren't playing the Chi-Town group [we RP two groups, a magically-based group operating on the East Coast and our Chi-Town group], but I made my Grackle Tooth character and then made another character for a Deadlands: Reloaded campaign we're going to be playing every other Saturday; I play a Haitian voodoo priestess. I kind of want to RP in character and speak in the Miss Cleo voice.

Last night at work, as we were waiting for the drawers to be counted down so we could go home, I was talking to Kim [the ultra-cool cafe manager] and, after telling her why I haven't been around for the past two months, she's like, "Dude, it'd be bad if the GM hated you."

I was like, "He doesn't know me."

And that's true. I'm not really worried about him hating me. The two times I've actually seen him or dealt with him after the the incident he's been kind of distant and/or cold to me, but you know what? That doesn't matter. He really doesn't know me. I come into work, do my work, and I don't [generally] fuck around. If he has problems with that, then that's not MY problem. But I'm pretty sure he won't have anything to complain about, because I'm not a total idiot. I don't steal, I don't piss off customers, etc., and they could use more people like me. I'm just excited to be working again, and -- although I bitch about a lot with this job -- I like working around all the books. :3

I am also hugely excited to be GETTING PAID again. Granted it's not for another two weeks, but it'll be MONEY. I miss being able to do stuff. I need to buy my tickets for Dragon*Con asap. I can't wait!

ETA:
From the D*con website:
"Changes for 2009: This year we will be using a thicker badge." YAY! Last's year's badge was crap. Now I won't be afraid about moving too quickly and snapping mine off my lanyard!

Also, I kinda want the Sims 3.

I hate being sick.

Around 7:30am I woke myself up from coughing. Not regular coughing, either, a deep bronchial coughing that is forceful enough it is physically tiring. I've been wheezing, some, as well. It makes sleeping really rough. Right now I'm not coughing much, but I'm just tired and somewhat achy and bleh.

Also, last night's Rifts was awesome. Somehow our weird little group [a Crazy, a dogboy and a rookie cyber-knight] has synergy. And by synergy I mean we cause massive amounts of collateral damage. And unintended civilian deaths. Poor Rallin [my character, the cyber-knight] is becoming the king of longsuffering sighs. We hit a major plot point last night, though, so we can finally begin working to actually get OUT of Chi-Town instead of thinking about it.

Furthermore, I've been spoiled by the GMs I've had. RPing without background music or without having to live in fear of tentacle monsters/death cults/shadow beasts/doppelgangers just isn't RP. I mean seriously. Shadow beasts around every turn. Rallin almost died last session trying to fend one off [I'm glad he's telekinetic].

( read at your own risk, VERY nerdy speculation about Rifts )

Sunday 6/7 - 1pm-10pm
Monday 6/8 - OFF
Tuesday 6/9 - 9am-4pm
Wednesday 6/10 - 3pm-11pm
Thursday 6/11 - 9am-4pm
Friday 6/12 -- gaming at perfectcherry's
Saturday 6/13 - 9am-3pm
===================================================
Total hours [including lunch breaks]: 33.5


Mom's out of the hospital. We have the car back and everything reinstated so we don't have to run around like fugitives. Talked to my little sister and all is well there. Saw my perfectcherry, enjoyed her company [along with Miranda's], was treated to a delicious Thai lunch and am gaming tomorrow. Went to Borders and was happily surprised by, y'know, actually being able to work next week. FINALLY.

Woot.

Night elves. Mysterious friends to nature, and, apparently, lovers of pastel.
( AMG new druid cat forms FINALLY )

Mom went to the hospital around 8am this morning because she woke up with stabbing pains in her chest -- she's been under a lot of stress at work lately, and the situation with the car hasn't helped any, but she finally decided enough was enough and went to Oschner this morning. They're keeping her overnight to do a stress test on her as well as running some other tests. My mom's side of the family doesn't have a history of health problems, thankfully, but she DOES smoke, and I'm hoping that this will scare her into quitting smoking. I don't think she's been having heart attacks because she has anxiety problems, but I'm also not a medical professional, so. I'll see her tomorrow.

Still don't have internet or phone at the house. We've been having to move money around to make a last ditch effort to get the car out. We're VERY close to doing it. Should have internet and everything back up tomorrow, but with mom in the hospital, I don't really know. Carl picked me up today after I begged him to come rescue me, so I'm getting in my internet time now. Life really hasn't been bad [for one, I do not miss Warcraft at all], but it has opened up a LOT of free time for me, and without a phone all I've been doing is taking walks, cleaning, cooking, and watching TV. I went out to Pancho's with Megan yesterday. Tomorrow, I'm calling Borders and setting up shifts if they don't give me the runaround [though, honestly, how COULD they, when one of their employees calls them to tell them WORK ME PLEASE I HAVE NOTHING ELSE TO DO!]. I miss having money. :(

Anyway, that's it. Things are finally coming together, just not as quickly as I'd like. Thought I'd check in and let everyone know that I'm not dead in a gutter somewhere.

I cannot wait 'til Friday to get my game on with Everyone again! As Jackie said -- game on, my daimies. (:

Played DnD today in Dobbs Ferry with MacKay and Miles and the rest of their DnD group -- for the record, we play Living Forgotten Realms, and when I get home it'll only be a few days before I have an official RPGA number and can go play in games elsewhere. If there are no more Living DnD groups [or even RPGA groups] in New Orleans, I might start one ... I know my local crew would be pretty down for that, even if they are self-professed DnD snobs. I'm the only person I know who still has a mad love for high fantasy. It's the twelve year old boy in me, I think.

ANYWAY. DnD in the Dobbs community center: I played a drow [surprise!] tempest fighter, unprincipled, and a follower of the Raven Queen -- goddess of death, winter, and fate. Orannis -- his name is not pronounced Uranus, thank you very much -- is pretty cool. And if I'd rolled higher on MacKay's d20, he'd have been even cooler. But of course my one time to shine resulted in me rolling a 3 on a d20 and thus completely failing to hit with my daily skill... one of the guys we were RPing with, this dude named Alex, reminded me a lot of a WoW buddy of mine. What is it with Asian men with baritone voices? And another guy, Mike, who was an EMT with a subtle Bronxish accent. Also, it's very hard to laugh without spitting out a mouthful of white chocolate chips across the table. I laughed so hard my stomach hurt, and now I don't even remember why -- oh, I remember: apparently MacKay goes to sausage parties. *giggles*


And as we were RPing, MacKay made this -- it's a digipet case from her shop on Gaia, but it's a freakin' d20. I came up with the concept. :D

Anyway -- that was fun; afterwards we came here and hung out and ordered in pizza, BBQ wings, and cinnasticks. And it's just -- nice to hang out and do quiet things and watch TV and fart around on laptops. I don't even really miss WoW.

This is how I enjoy spending my time. I just feel better doing it: more confident and centered and grounded in my own skin. Even though my situation in NOLA sucks balls [and, for the record, the one person we thought could help us, and who agreed to, also got caught in a lie over it], it's like -- I can deal with it here. I feel completely capable of handling it; I feel like I get bogged down and tangled up a lot when I'm in New Orleans.

Anyway, the day before that? Bronx Zoo. And -- well, it was a zoo, but WAY bigger than the Audubon Zoo. We went into the House of Birds and I think I went into full-on nerd mode; MacKay kept following me around going "How do you know this much about birds?" Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel really do wonders. :D I took a disproportionately large amount of photos in the bird house [and of the giraffes]. And I will upload them later, because it's a pain in the ass to do it here. :D

After the Bronx Zoo we -- uhh. What did we do? We ordered sushi and made mac n' cheese for DnD today, which brings us to the very end of my vacation.

I'm going to come back soon. I feel good up here. I'm honestly considering applying to some schools up here ... because I don't really want to stay in New Orleans the rest of my life.

Emo post was emo.

I'll get it under control. I gotta.