inspector

 After the earthquake (and a moment when the building looked like it might fall down, my co-worker screamed, and custrons sprinted hilariously for the exits), we had a half-assed evacuation that lasted for an hour and change. We sat under a tree and walked around the building to count the cracks visible on the outside of the building. My main thought: But I'm not wearing ANY SUNSCREEN today. 

My life is being eaten by fencing and it is most welcomed. It's a frustrating sport, much like golf has been described to me*, but there's this incredible interplay of athleticism and strategy. Plus stabbing. Did I mention the stabbing? I frequently leave (and ok, arrive at) work wanting to punch someone in the face. It's then when I have these fantasies of someone trying to mug or assault me and I beat the crap out of them. Probably not the actual outcome, but hey, it's a fantasy, It's one of the ways I keep myself alert driving home late at night after a day of commuting, working, and then fencing until the workout clothes I wear under the uniform are soaked through with sweat and I have a new collection of bruises. That sentence is much shorter than my average day. I love the fencing part. 

My weapon arm is hilariously more muscled than my non dominant arm. Such a unilateral and lopsided sport. My dancer brain objects to this asymmetry but it's similar to curling. Like in curling, the sport is mostly made up of nice and interesting folks who love it and do feel the need asserting their 'superiority' by putting down newbies/those perceived as non-serious and then some who are and do the opposite. I vacillate between being pissed and amused at those who try such a thing. Like in curling, I have nothing to prove and refuse to buy into this adult little league mentality. Sure, I get my ass thoroughly kicked by 12 year olds who have been fencing since they were wee, but I'm getting better and occasionally I surprise people. I'm fast, strong, flexible, graceful, coordinated, and aggressive. Or so I've been told. 

I'll keep doing it as long I get to keep stabbing people. 

* I have a person who is all ready to take me golfing too!


Edited to change 'do' in 'interesting folks who love it and do feel the need' to 'don't', as I meant to write. 

So my birthday happened about a month ago and I didn't do anything for it. This isn't unusual (I was born in mid to late December after all and people born then quickly learn the futility of that) but it did get me to thinking about what I would do if I was the sort of person who did do things. And that reminded me that I'd been meaning to do a reading of Men at Arms. I can't remember if I've held one or two readings of Pratchett novels. I know I've done Guards! Guards! at least once. I may have done Men at Arms before but in any case, I think Men at Arms is a good idea, whether or not it's a repeat.

So I'm planning a reading of the above, not for my birthday just inspired by a train of thought from it. I am looking at the 19th of February, which is a Saturday at my place around 5 or 6. I will provide the scripts and some snacks. I will even clean up the living room! So, local peoples, comment or send me an email if you are interested.

Dear solar festival season, once again, thank you for your yearly ruination of my birthday. I should celebrate my half birthday or something. Maybe then there'd be a realistic chance of being able to do something fun on or around it. I suppose I should be grateful that I didn't have an exam on it this time.

In defiance, I nixed any traditional foods and made tacos instead. Because everyone needs tacos. It was Tacomas today. I asked EL what kind of filling he wanted and his look was one of why would you ever put anything but beef in a taco.  So it was beef.

I did make pumpkin muffins of awesomeness which are very seasonal, but I would make pumpkin muffins anytime. And I hung the Xmas ornaments on the motorcycle jack in the corner of the living room. I'm the regular babysitter of the birds belonging to the owner of the fencing club and they are here for the holidays. Their cages are decorated with Xmas flair which, I have to admit, is adorable.

Here are things I've been occupying myself with:

I'm trying to decide if Damn You Auto Correct is an argument for or against the iPhone. It has its mind firmly ensconced in the gutter. Hilarious! It also likes to choose the weird and obscure word when a common and pedestrian one would seem more likely.

Doc Martin is a series about a surgeon who develops a blood phobia and moves to a small Cornish village to become their cranky doctor. It's better than and different from House. He makes excellent bitch faces. Sample quote:
Patient: And you reckon these will work, do you?
Doc Martin: No - I just prescribe them for fun.

I bought a Roku. Hooray! No more watching Netflix streaming on the temperamental old laptop.

I just finished The Magicians. Loved the expressive writing, the Harry Potter references, and the tarnished characters. There's some visceral content in there.

I'm reading The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History. It's fascinating --  also gross. I'm so glad I was born into a time and place that doesn't believe a bath or shower will damage your health.

I read Cryoburn a while back. Wow. I don't have anything to say but that.

There's been a lot of kumihimo braiding, needle poking -- I mean felting, and general amateur jewelry making since exams finished. And by exams I mean projects really. I need more colors. And findings to make the braids pretty. I may be turning into a magpie. Except that I don't want to keep stuff. I just want to make it. The difficulty is finding people who want it. I don't feel like it's really good enough to inflict on people,  except for a few things. But it's relaxing to do.

I want to see it. Black Swan that is. It looks twisted, ugly, and beautiful all at the same time. I'm planning on going to go next weekend sometime. Anyone want to join me?

Y'know, for all the time I have spent on this project for the past few weeks (ok so most of the work actually done happened THIS week) it should be 'awesome' and more importantly 'finished' now, instead of 'adequate' and 'getting there'.
But it is getting there which is good because I'd be awfully unhappy if I had stayed up all night (minus a quick nap when I couldn't concentrate enough to have it be worth staying awake) and not accomplished my tasks.

I only did a handful of all-nighters in my entire life before this semester. And ok, so it's still been only three in the past few m, but there have been many nights of very little sleep in addition. But I have still pulled good grades despite (or maybe because of these nights).

I have also just about mastered the art of the fencing lesson on no sleep. Usually the adrenaline kicks in at that point in the day and I do ok, although I might told I look vampiric.

And while I had this window (I wrote box initially for some weird reason) open and forgot about it in the final excitement of racing to the finish line, I finished!

It's turned in and I am off to shower and face another day with bloodshot eyes. But I finished! So it's all good.

I got my lovely new kumihimo supplies in the mail recently and they are indeed lovely. There's a huge difference in braiding with sheen-y satin cord in pretty blue and purple colors. I can't wait to play more.

I went to ellen_fremedon 's last Friday for low key hanging out and of course there was horrendous traffic. According to the radio, there was a fender bender on the Dulles Toll road and when one of the people involved got out to check the damage, he was hit and killed by a third car. Not only is this incredibly sad obviously, but it meant that a 45 minute drive turned into a three hour one with a contemplations of mortality bonus and trying not to stare at the scene of the accident as we all inched past.

Then there was a broken down car on the road with a cop car directing traffic around it. Then a second broken down car -- this one with a guy dressed in dark clothing standing nonchalantly behind the car talking on a cell phone in the DARK and no lights on in or on his car. On the road. He's lucky no one killed him.

Needless to say, I was ready to kill someone myself when I arrived at ellen_fremedon 's place and as I got out of the car with her curling broom, which I had been meaning to return to her for a while, I was kinda hoping that someone would try to mug me so I could beat the crap out of them with the broom. Fortunately for me and her broom, no one was a-mugging around there that evening and I got to her door without incident. She was awesome and met me with a hug and opened a cold beer for me without even asking. We watched some Jeremy Brett Sherlock-y goodness and despite the ordeal getting there, it was great to do something with a friend, which I have not done much of lately.

It was determined during the conversation of the evening that I need to make a post about to my fencing coach, whom I will dub Crazy Coach Ilya and try to explain the unique experience of lessons with him. Expect references to zombies, demons, and lumberjacks.

Fencing has been extremely satisfying this year. I made the right decision to go back and also to try the private lesson thing this time. My weapon arm now has visibly more muscle to it than my left which is funny looking but AWESOME.  I lose bouts constantly but there to be expected. I am having fun and getting better and those are the important things at this stage of the game. My goal is to continue that.

I am having much better luck with fencing than horseback riding at the moment. I fell off another horse on Saturday in a stupid situation that I should have been able to keep my seat in. I am wondering what happened to my balance. I blame it on chronically stiff muscles. But, DO NOT WANT. It was a fairly controlled fall though and I was able to catch myself on my hands and shins this time instead of being dumped on my back, which I am still bruised from from the last time. They said it was possible I fractured something then but there was no point in doing an x ray because it would heal on its own without treatment so whatever. He's a young greenish horse and got a little overexcited. The lesson had been going SO WELL prior to the fallage. Oh well. 

Back to the preservation of my GPA now.

If a large and swollen bruise remains mostly unchanged for 4 months, what does that even mean?

Anyone else had a bruise stick around that long?

I'm fascinated but starting to be annoyed.

Conversation:

I put in a CD I am ripping to my computer.

EL [making a but of a face]: It sounded weird before they started singing and now it definitely sounds weird

Me: Sorry sweetie, I listen to strange stuff.

EL: Yes you do.


Quotes:

“You can’t be that cold …oh my god!” [it was 78 degrees in the house and my hands were “ice”]

“You just want every bird ever made.” [I think I was asking if I could have a chicken]

"The way you cut scares me.” [Fear me with a kitchen knife]

“Yeah, your labels fucked me!”[doing a load of whites with hot water but the sport bra labels all said cold water only and no bleach after I said yeah, you could have put them in the hot water -- I'm not sweating the state of ten year old bras]


“Oh, you want to make pterodactyl pretzels now, don’t you?” [Upon watching Alton Brown talk about the shapes you could choose to make when making homemade pretzels.]

“Pickle snapdragon.” Discussing aphasia.


“This show is like a fangirl’s dream. Now that I know about this fandom stuff. Jesus Christ.” [Don't recall the show unfortunately]

Yesterday I fell off the horse, C, we've been training.  B was moving a pole behind him and he spooked and bolted. He went one direction and I went the other. Good news is that he's not very tall, bad news is that I landed on the gravel. I lost a good chunk of the skin on my right forearm there and landed very heavily on my right side. I was afraid I broken something there for a moment the pain was so bad. I'd had the wind knocked out of me and could only breathe in gasps at first.

B. ran over and all I can think is that I can't swear in front of her. So I edit "It really fucking hurts" to "It really hurts." I am able to get up in a moment and we fetch C from the other end of the ring and spend the rest of the time walking him over and near poles, moving and otherwise.
ex
I go to work, making a stop for gauze bandages and tape. By the time I get to work and start the day, I am walking in a not at all fluid way and bending and sitting is excruciating. My co-workers say I should go home -- saying I don't sound good when I talk, but at this point I can't handle folding myself into a car (I'm wondering if I did break something after all). So I stay and it gets better. My co-workers, by the way, are wondering. They help me bandage my arm and fetch things for me. Apparently, the entire circulation department decided to observe and check up on me.  A little weird but nice. R. shook his head at me and said I shouldn't be here. I got better with moving about though.

At home, Evil Lurker patched me up with medicinal goo and more gauze. I definitely had a little meltdown on his shoulder about the shock of it. Last time I fell, I ended up in the ICU and I still remember the fence coming at me. Today I was more mobile, but many more things hurt including my neck,wrist and back. I have spectacular bruises I can't show in polite company and it hurts to sit, stand, laugh, cough, or manipulate things with my right hand. I really miss being able to stand up without gasping in pain.

But I'm ok or will be. I have a fencing lesson tomorrow. I'm not sure if I'm going to make it through it, but I'm going to try.


Co-worker T, who is another rider, high fived me when she saw me and I explained. I swear that the ground was not this hard last time I fell.