Word of the Day: bowdlerize It seems that the only time I have to write journal entries is when I'm at work. That seems counterintuitive. I guess it's one of the, no, the only perk of working at the desk--limited amounts of relative free time when it's slow. I've told myself I'm going to mention one thing only about both work and moving. Work: Our new front office manager's name is Beata. She worked in sales for a couple of weeks, but they rearranged things after Monica left. She's really nice and I think once she learns how to do everything she'll be good. The main reason I'm mentioning her is because she reminds me of Kate, or, rather, of how I imagine Kate is. I don't know what exactly connects Beata to Kate in my brain, whether it's the hippieish air Beata gives off, the short, reddish-brown hair, the way she talks, something about her is just, in essence, Kate-ish to me. It's a little difficult for me to reconsile, and when I talk with Beata, I always wonder, 'What does Kate sound like? How do her eyes look when she's talking?' I wonder this, at some point in time, about nearly all my internet friends--what they sound likee, what kind of facial expressions they use, what idiosyncrasies they have. It makes me uncomfortable talking with Beata sometimes just because all I'm thinking about is how much she reminds me of Kate. Moving: We're not moving till December. The folks who were supposed to move out at the end of October decided to renew their lease. However, another unit will be open for sure by 1 December because those folks are leaving the city altogether. It was disappointing when JD told me, but I felt better after I thought it over a bit. It'll be more time to save money and get things, like our car insurance, done. Oh, and maybe finding some furniture. At the moment, all we've got is a TV, a bed, a few bookshelves, a dresser, a couple of desk, Patrick's crib and dresser, and some various end tables/nightstands. The only things that'll be in the living room are the computer desk and the TV. But we'll get on somehow [/sarcasm]. I don't know what's going on with the weather, but it's October so stop raining! It was supposed to get really cold [in the low 60's] with this last front we got, but it never got cold. I started to get all antsy and nervous for a day or so, I was so excited by the prospect of coldness. The weather is messing with my allergies as well. I can't find anything that really works that doesn't put me to sleep. I started taking Clariton Non-Drowsy and it's been working all right. I'll get watery eyes or a sneezing fit every once in a while, but it's good enough. and while it does a sufficient job at holding back my allergies, it also gives me strange, Ny-Quilesque dreams. Early this morning I dreamt of graduation at a UD that doesn't exsist except in my head, but it was more like a summer ninja camp. I was rooming with Hinata and Kiba, or in their team, or something similar, and I was trying to copy Hinata's Byakugan even thought it's supposed to be impossible because it's a kekkei genkai. I felt like I almost got it and Kiba was laughing at me. We were supposed to all be packing and getting ready to leave. I realized I didn't have anything to wear to the graduation ceremony. We were sitting in the bleachers waiting for my mother, next to a tall partition. I was getting nervous because I wanted her to take me to the mall to pick up a nice dress to wear to the ceremony. I started walking around to calm myself down, so I walked to the bottom of the bleachers and walked to the other side of the partition. I looked up into the stands and saw, of course, my mother smiling and waving at me. We ran to meet each other and I explained the situation, and then we, my mother, Hinata, Kiba, and I, were on our way to San Antonio, out in the middle of the county, crossing over a river with mossy trees all along the banks. I woke up right after that scene. I just want to know why all of the strange [and by strange I mean how they make me feel when I wake and when I remember them] dreams are set in or have to do with UD. I thought I was over that, or maybe it's just a convenient location. No matter what, it's rarely the actualy UD campus--it's more like an invention of my imagination that feels like UD in my mind, or that makes me feel like I felt at UD. So, yeah...I was talking about allergies, wasn't I? I told myself to try to do the stream-of-conscience writing when I don't feel I'm very good at. I need my structure. at the beginning of my papers I wrote out a list of topics I wanted to cover so that at least I had something to say and this wasn't all just meandering thoughts. I really should, and I've always meant to, take pictures of my knitting. I've gotten decent with practice. I've made a huuuuuuuuuge scarf, a pair of gauntlets that I will send to Kate eventually, a hat knit in the round, a pair of booties for babeh Fletcher, four or five bags for the Zen, and I just finished my NaNoWriMo hat [more on that later]. I'm attempting a sweater for Patrick with exceptionally cheap yarn, so I might be making him two sweaters, one cheap, nasty one and one nice, woolly one. And after I'm done with his sweater[s], I'll be undertaking a real, overwhelmingly complicated sweater for myself with nice, pretty, cotton yarn. This will surely be next year, probably in June, when I've saved enought money for all the yarn and the courage. I absolutely love knitting. I don't love it because it's calming for me, it's not. If anything it frustrateds me out of my wits sometimes. I poke my fingers and cross my eyes and get hand cramps and miss stitches or rows or some other tiny but very important detail, and sometimes I even take the needles off and tear the thing apart. I love knitting because I'm creating something. I love, after a huge, three or four hour knitting session that goes well, seeing inches of fabric that I made with my own clumsy hands. I love that I taught myself, with the aid of the internet, of course [w00t Continental knitting]. I love that it's been nearly a year and I'm still doing it and have plans on continuing, which is a good sign. It gives me a sense of accomplishment that nothing else is really giving me right now. So I'm registered for NaNoWriMo. I've finished my hat at well. JD says it looks like I'm wearing a purse on my head, and I told him, 'Well, I'll be wearing it for the month of November, after which I'll consider making it into a purse.' And to tell the truth, he's right. I should give it pom-poms or fringe or something on top to make it look more hat-like, but I'm really just glad I've finished it. That crap was tedious. Any road, I've been writing notes and quotes that are awesome in a notebook that I carry with me. I plan on having no plan to start with, just to see what I come up with under stress. I can write pretty decent essays in a day or so, but it might be a different story with fiction. If anyone else is doing NaNo, let me know. We can make a sitD post on the forums to keep in touch. One piece of me is sure I'll be able to win, but the other part is skeptical I'll even start on the first. Wish me luck on my grand endeavour, and I'll try and keep things up to date. My last item on my list is TV. I love TV, maybe even more now than I love movies My two shows, 'Lost' and 'Battlestar Galactaca' started at the beginning of October, and I found a website that has all the episodes of 'Naruto' subtitled with new ones coming nearly weekly. 'Lost' has started off slow--no big bangs yes, no useful information in large amounts. However, just becuase it started slow doesn't mean it's not going well. Watching 'Naruto,' with all the flashbacks they have, taught me patience. I've just started thinking of 'Lost' like a sort of anime, except their flashbacks sometimes streatch for a point. By the end of it all, I just want to see someone, preferably Mr. Eko and Hurley, kick Michael's ass for being stupid, dattebayo. 'B*G' is going awesome. Lee's going to go find Earth, Adama's goign to save the folks on New Caprica, the Cylons are planning on genocide. They showed a season preview after the first esisode, and one of the clips showed Gaius looking panicked and yelling, 'Am I a Cylon?!' and I just cracked up laughing. At one point in time I thought everyone was a fracking Cylon, Gaius, Adama, Starbuck, Roslin, not Billy, though, never poor, sweet, dead Billy. Any road, I doubt Gaius is a Cylon because Number Six would know, and then what would happen to the 'be nice to the humans' movement that Gina and Caprica Sharon started? And, oh gods, copies of Gaius? Gods save them all if it's so. I really doubt any of the rest of them are Cylons. I just want them to find Earth, their home! And as for 'Naruto,' I'm having dreams with the characters in them-bayo. Like I said, I'm watching the subs on the internet because I couldn't wait to see the end of the Rock Lee vs Gaara fight on Cartoon Network dubbed in English. I like both versions, subs and dubs. I like hearing the Japanese and the original voices [most of the times the sound better], but it takes a lot of energy to both watch and read and comprehend. With the dubs, I can kick back and relax, and I like Kakashi's voice better in the dub. I'm on episode 168 or something of about 200 on the subs. I was watching about ten episodes a night [each episode is 20-22 minutes without opening or closing credits, that's a good three or four hours of viewing pleasaure] up until the end of the Sasuke Retrevial arc or maybe a few episodes after that, when the fillers started. That was a lot of Naruto and his dattebayos and of Sasuke and his emo-revenge-love of Itachi, but it had to be done. I had to see it, it sucked me in. So much so that JD surprised me one day with a Rock Lee shirt. I was happy for two or three days after that, just plain giddy. So now, with 'Naruto,' I've opened up this huge wormhole of animes. I have to watch 'Cowboy Bebop', 'Trigun', and something else JD suggested, but that'll have to start after NaNo. And amid all this that's bombarding me, I will find time to write in my diary. The time passes so quickly, it seems. I honestly cannot believe it's midway through October and it's been two weeks since I've written last. For the first time, I've written an entire entry at work, it's been so dead. I hope it stayes dead so I can write more entries, hopefully some not covering three pages of printer paper front and back. Although, I have to admit, writing feels good again.