cleverly disguised as a responsible adult

Work is being annoying today. I have things to do that are monotonous and annoying. They need to be done, but they're not fun or intensely interesting. And I have to log in at 9 pm to do some work that ABSOLUTELY MUST be done after hours. Tomorrow will require more coffee than usual.

I have 11 working days left until my xmas break. I'm really, really looking forward to this.

Downwood racked my amber ale from the primary fermenting bucket to a carboy today. As he was prepping all the stuff, Alex ran back to the den and brought my new 1-gallon test batch equipment in. He tried to set it up so that he could do what Daddy's doing. So cute. He'll get to help me when I put together my 1-gallon test batch of cranberry mead. I don't want to commit to 5 gallons when I'm not sure this will work. We'll see.

I made it all the way through dance last night. The choregraphy is a Reda/Yousry mashup that's delicate and deceptively fast. My lungs didn't fall out. WILD SUCCESS!

I'm slowly filling up my work notebook with elaborate doodles. Intricate doodles. Mehendi-inspired, Zentangle-inspired, fantastic doodles. Art helps. It's centering and meditative.

I put on new Espionage Cosmetics nail wraps today - Treasure Map. I haven't seen the glow in the dark easter eggs yet, but I will later tonight. I don't actually love this design on my nails though...they're an antiqued parchment color that's just not working with my bleached porcelain complexion.

Life does not suck. It's frustrating and sometimes boring and worrying, but it doesn't actually suck.

New nail wraps of ZOMG!Glitter fantasticness!

http://espionagecosmetics.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=masks

Ah, April 1. The day to believe NOTHING of what you read on the internet. As for me, I'm still speaking truths as I see them.

Truth the First - OMG!Ow. I think I need to get K to fix me. There's something very wrong with my legs and neck. Probably two problems, unrelated to each other, and both exacerbated by getting loose and warm and working and then having to drive 45 minutes in a cold car to get home. Every Monday night I end up hobbling up the garage steps, begging Downwood to get me Advil and a heating pad so I can get rid of some pain before bed.

Truth the Second - I am DEEPLY pissed off at the government today. I work in medical IT (not news) and one of the big governmental regulatory changes is to move from ICD-9 as a diagnosis database to ICD-10. You know, the same switch the rest of the world made many years ago? The one that many millions of dollars have already been spent in preparing software and medical staff to make the switch? The one that was scheduled for 10/1 of this year? The one that's EATING MY BRAIN?!  Yeah. Both the House and Senate approved a bill that will delay it to 10/1 of next year at the earliest with potential delays to go out even farther.

Fuck. This means that my sabbatical request for the end of September/beginning of October next year will likely be denied. And then I'll have to talk to my sister to decide if we want to go to Germany just because or if we want to wait until 2016 so that we can go to Oktoberfest.

Truth the Third - Welcome to Night Vale continues to delight me. I'm emotionally involved with these fictional characters. I wish I could go to one of their live shows, but that requires both money and travel and dealing with other people. Still, these podcasts make me happy.

Truth the Fouth - Okay, so ThinkGeek's annual April 1 email is kind of interesting. Not sure that I really want to buy any of the products, should they go forward with them, but it's amusing.

Truth the Fifth - I will not beat myself up over getting a fancy coffee this morning. Tuesday mornings are always rough, since I get home so very late on Monday night. I had to be at work early this morning, too, to shepherd my customer through a transition morning, so morale demanded fancy coffee and extra caffeine. Also, caffeine is my mistress and I obey.

I think that's all. I'm going to continue babysitting my customers and probably apply my Planets nail wraps today. Good times.

So far Lush's American Cream is winning the head-to-head competition with Jungle and Veganese for Best Lush Conditioner for Sabine's hair.  It performs beautifully with New!Hair, Soak and Float, and Rehab.  It has an amazing vanilla fragrance that actually sticks to my hair for most of the morning.  Jungle has a yummier scent, but doesn't stick at all.  I like the lemon of Veganese, but it's just not making me as much of a pretty, pretty princess as American Cream.

OPI's I'm Not Really A Waitress might just be the perfect shade of red for me.  It's got enough blue that it doesn't make my skin look cadaverous and the shine is downright gorgeous.  Now, if I could just get a bottle of the same top coat as the salon, maybe I'd be able to keep paint on my nails for more than 30 hours without chipping it.  Because nothing says "class" like bright nail polish with several large chunks missing.

I'm not sure what my dentist did to one of my upper molars, but it can't have been good for the tooth.  For the last month or so, it's been getting steadily more uncomfortable.  He mentioned that it might need a root canal back in October, but I managed to squeak by without one.  I have an appointment on March something and I'll know more about it then.  Stupid teeth.

I got a couple of inches hacked off of my hair on Sunday.  It hadn't had scissors touch it in...probably almost two years.  There were a TON of split ends that needed removed.  It looks and feels better now.  I'm still planning on donating it when it gets long enough that I'll still be able to have chin/shoulder length hair after they take the 10" they need for the wig.  I figure that being set back by four months isn't that big of a deal, especially when it'll be better quality in the end.  Downwood also got his hair cut and left a small Pomeranian worth of hair behind.  It was really impressive.

If Lush made a shower jelly with the same cinnamon/clove scent as the Marathon bubble bar, Christmas Kisses bubble bar, or the Wiccy Magic Muscles massage bar, I would be a gleeful Sabine.  Instead, I've been using the (discontinued) Spank Me With Saplings and the Woosh shower jellies.  Both are very good at quick wake-ups and Woosh has the same potent calming agents in shower jelly form as it does in temple balm form.  The Woosh combines really nicely with the Cordelia perfume from BPAL.  It is very similar to one of my longtime favorites - Arcana - but where Arcana is an herbalist's scent, Cordelia is a wise woman: same base notes, but somehow richer and more feminine.

Speaking of BPAL, I have a box of imps I'm going to be looking to unload in the not-too-distant future.  When I've gone through my stash, I'll post the list.  I have some 5 ml bottles of LE scents that I'm going to put on eBay.

I finished re-reading de Lint's Dreams Underfoot collection last week, so I started up with the Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks for the bus to staff meeting yesterday and the gym today.  I am woefully unprepared for the eventual zombie invasion.  I need to start scouting land and gear to build my eventual sanctum.  In the event that the zombies never arise, I will have my Evil Genius base well underway.  I don't really see a downside to this plan.

A couple weeks ago, I started running a very different type of game.  I took the concept of the Letter Game and ran with it.  The results are very surprising in that "jump up and down for joy" sort of way.  th_lttr_gm is the community where the various stories are getting posted as they're being written.  It's way too much fun, even if I'm about to hunt down my Alice!muse and threaten her with extreme bodily harm until she tells me exactly what happened in the mine.  Yes, I sound crazy.  No, I don't care.

Also, oatmeal with walnuts, applesauce, cinnamon, and maple syrup makes for a very good dinner, especially with a glass of milk and a mug of Stash's Decaf Pumpkin Spice tea.  It makes for many happy sighs and mutterings of how good life is.