Fall From Grace

Subject:	i've got a haircut. first big change to my style in, like, a decade - not even kidding
Time:	10:38 pm.
Mood:	thoughtful.

i've got bangs. not very short ones. they're pretty long and not incredibly obvious, but it's still a change for me.

( here there be crappy pictures of brand new hair )

i had a huge fight with my mother right before i went to my appointment,so i was already in a weird mood. i just let meri do whatever she wanted. right at the very end she said something about wishing i'd go for bangs, and i just said "go ahead and do it, if you have time" so the last 90 seconds of my appointment yielded fun little wispy things that i have no idea how to tame. there's no more weight to keep them on the side i want them on. it's time to re-invest heavily in bobby pins and head bands.

i'm not 100% sure i like it yet. it probably takes some getting used to. i think i like it, though. i'm almost positive i like it.

living for inspiration,
Ophelia

Comments: Read 12 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	injury in the toiletries aisle
Time:	4:54 pm.
Music:	wall-e is holding on to a space ship rocketing through the great unknown.

i got hit in the head with a giant plastic dump truck full of candy.

it's easter-time again, and for some reason the good folks over at albertson's figure that what every little boy desperately needs this joyous holiday season is a plastic truck that he can ride that is also chock full of chocolate. i was sitting on the bottom shelf waiting for my little sister's prescription to be filled, and a stock guy in the other aisle was putting boxes of something on the top shelf, and i guess one of them fell down the back or whatever. point being, when he pushed one of these boxes back to make room for another one, he pushed a truck full of candy off of the shelf on the other side and on to my head.

down side - i'm bleeding

up side - i have grocery merchandise credits

luckily it hit kind of on the side of my scalp, so any scar i will end up with will be easily covered by hair. still, though... ouch much? my sister is sharing her pain pills with me, and we're both laying in bed together watching wall-e

and just so this post isn't entirely made of complaining...
click me and then cry. i cried. i couldn't stop myself. and for people who know me, you know that i really do not enjoy crying. especially where other people can see me. it's so sweet, though. seriously. read it.

living for inspiration,
Ophelia

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Subject:	music meme
Time:	9:59 pm.
Music:	beat crusaders - phantom planet.

1. Reply to this post and I'll assign you a letter.
2. List (and upload, if you feel like it) 5 songs that start with that letter.

vr2lbast gave me the letter C. i have 704 songs that start with the letter C, and could listen to them for nearly 48 hours. picking just 5 and rejecting 699? not as easy as you might think. seriously, i swapped songs out so many times because i found something i wanted to share more. it's hard paring down everything to fit in only 5 spots.

so here we are, in no particular order...

1. Classifieds - The Academy Is...
i was going to go with checkmarks, but i changed my mind at the last minute. i really love this song, actually.

veggie, i miss you. not sure why that just came to mind, but it did.

2. Cemetary Gates - The Smiths
does this one really need to be explained? no? good. ^_^

3. Come Together - Joe Cocker (from the movie "Across The Universe")

a_leprechaun, i miss you, too. come visit california again. **wibbles**

4. Come Out Of The Shade - The Perishers

5. Changes - David Bowie

i haven't listened to phantom planet in a long time. i don't know why. i should toss them into the rotation more often.

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Subject:	bowel clenching moment of terror early this AM
Time:	10:33 am.
Mood:	nervous.

all right, mac people. i had a total freak out moment this morning. you know, i almost thought it was a dream at the time - some bizzarely weirdly real dream, because it happened shortly after i fell asleep for an hour sitting up. not sitting up in a chair, mind, but sitting indian style on a bed. never happened to me before. was pretty damn weird. but i digress. i got the spinning tie-dye ball of suck while in AIM and went to force quit it and there was more spinning of fail, and then everything just stopped. so i cursed to myself and held down the power button... which did nothing. nothing at all. i was mashing on that thing for a good five minutes. well, i did get the screech that tells you you've been holding down the power button too long, but the screen didn't change. if i'd been able to look up where exactly the battery is on a macbook air i would have gone in and disconnected the thing. as it was, i had to unplug it and just wait for the battery to die. when it finally did and i started it back up again, for a moment i got the exact same screen i had when it froze, and i nearly pissed my pants, but then it went dark and restarted properly, although extreeeeemely slowly.

has anything like this ever happened to anyone before? i'm really concerned, but i won't be here long enough to send my laptop away for service, and i like the guys at my mac store at home. i trust them. i've never had anything this bad happen to a computer of mine before, though. at least, nothing that didn't end in crispy death. i guess i'm just looking for a bit of comfort.

living for inspiration,
Ophelia

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Subject:	uuuuuhhhgh. my nose is not a fan of stomache acid
Time:	8:33 am.
Mood:	ill.

why do i have to be sick now, when i'm also freezing?

i went to visit my aunt dot and uncle mick last night. they're an... interesting couple. very sweet people - not all there. she attempted to entertain, which is never a good thing, as she really sucks at it. not trying to be mean, she just does. some people cn't paint, some people can't sing, aunt dot can't entertain. she actually made food, which made me a little wary, but she seemed so proud, so i had to eat it. it was disgusting and largely unidentifiable and piled atop a ritz cracker, and grandma and i had to finish the whole plate. it had the hint of intestine, which was lovely. with my luck it would have been pig's stomache or something.

thank god she didn't try and make the actul dinner. no, we had one of the worst pizzas i've ever had in my life, and then some apple pie which was pretty good for store bought, i suppose, but at that point i'd already been to the bathroom half a dozen times and nothing much was impressing me. peppered throughout the gastronomic nightmare, i had to see the same pictures and hear the same stories that i've been seeing and hearing since i was old enough to talk, with only a few new ones added to the rotation in the last two years. it's not that the kids aren't cute, and it's not that the stories aren't amusing, but they get less so when you've already seen and heard them a few dozen times and have to keep on laughing anyway.

oh, and when i was putting away the rest of the pie for her (jewel osco brand dutch apple, if anyone is interested. it really was good pie.) i saw an open package of tripe in the fridge. i was right - oh joy. at least it was beef stomache. it's a sad thing when you can say that and it's actually a small relief.

( this has great potential to be TMI, as it involves the gross things that people can't help but doing when they're sick )

i'm feeling better now, on the whole, which is to say that everything is staying in instead of making a bid for freedom as soon as it hits my stomache. granted, all i've had since then is some tea and half a piece of toast and a bottle of gatorade, but still. grams got me gatorade to replace the electrolytes. i kind of hate gatorade, i think it tastes salty, but i do need to get myself balanced again, and if i'd asked for pedialyte she would have known something was up. i haven't actually said good night to nell once since i've been here, i don't think. more ways to fail. i have a gift for her the next time i see her online, though, so maybe only half fail? i don't know. probably more than half.

grams wants me to eat. she slept through the unpleasantness, and i really don't want to bring it up, because she'll take me to see a doctor. still, though, how many times do i have to say no to eggs and bacon?

em is going for the open mic night again on wednesday, so that will be fun. hopefully things will have quieted down by then.

saw dana and jules on saturday, which was seriously awesome. miss them already. also left stuff in jules' car. possibly on purpose? **shifty eyes** i don't know - clearly my subconcious wanted her to have to come see me again.

living for inspiration,
Ophelia

Comments: Read 10 or Add Your Own.

Time:

10:23 am.

my grandmother seriously is never going to stop moving. she's almost ninety and she's going to outlast everyone else in my family. so i'm chatting with the nell and the mikey at, like seven thirty-ish in the morning after finally appearing to head back toward my normal sleep schedule. not that it wasn't nice to get a taste of normal there for a while, but it was strange. anyway, i hear a noise at the front door, and i figure that since i haven't heard anything else at all that it could either be a really early mailman or something not good.

so i take the heaviest jesus statue out of the drawer where i've stashed it so it doesn't stare at me while i sleep and out i creep. it is my grandmother... just getting back from volunteering at her church, and making a quick stop home on the way to a bible group at someone's house. dude, wtf? and somehow i end up putting a coat on over my pajamas to drive her to this meeting, and then i stay... at a bible meeting. thank fuck they were talking about the old testament, at least. i got one half-hearted old lady glare when i slipped and said torah, but whatever. so, yeah, i went to a bible group this morning in my pajamas and then had breakfast with them. waffles and country potatoes. pretty good potatoes, actually. the waffles were good, too, but she only had fake maple syrup, so mine were dry, and thus not made of absolute awesome.

i wonder how odd the rest of them found it for this random jewish girl in her jammies to sit in on their bible group and attempt to be sociable while also avoiding all mention of jesus... something to ponder. ponder ponder ponder ponder.

living for inspiration,
Ophelia

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Subject:	jet lag can suck my big toe
Time:	10:59 am.
Music:	it's windy. i can hear wind. i want to hide indoors all day. can i do that?.

i finally passed out around 3:30-ish and slept in until around 9, which means i was blissfully unconscious for five and a half hours. wow! it's almost like real sleep. of course, 9 illinois time is 7 my time, so i guess it's not really sleeping in, is it?

rosesfade, sorry to just disappear on you. i got under those blankets and they warmed me up super quick and i was gone. i believe my last thought was something along the lines of "i should tell her i'm starting to feel a bit sleepy" and then zzzZzzzzzZzzzzzZzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZz

grams was supposed to wake me up crazy early to go eat and shop... or something, but she let me sleep. good grammie - have a biscuit. also, question i really should ask her - why does she keep on putting me in the spare room with jesus? she's got two, only one of them has jesus things all over it, and yet whenever her jewish granddaughter comes to visit, she puts her in the jesus room. subtle hint? not so subtle. i've tucked most of it into drawers. you know, it's really not even so much being offended, cause i'm not, but it feels weird to sleep with this random guy staring at me from, like, every wall and flat surface. not that i'm calling jesus a random guy, i swear i'm not looking for a fight. i'm just saying, no matter who it was repeated over and over again, it would creep me out - the fact that it's jesus is irrelevant.

watched the inauguration with my grandmother. love how obama caught the wrong words, made the guy say it again, and then repeated the words in the wrong order. made me giggle. grandma didn't know why. i'm weird? eh, whatever. the bush is officially gone! can i get a hallelujah?

now i'm trying to work up the energy to change out of my pajamas. i think i may have to go put my clothes in the dryer to warm them up. of course, the dryer is in the basement, which would totally have icicles dripping from the ceilings if this were a movie, that's how cold it is down there. i used to have a parka here - i wonder where it got to. probably down in the basement. **shudders** or maybe i'll just stay in my fleecey pajamas all damn day. they can't kick you out of a restaurant for not wearing a bra if you've got a fluffy blue bathrobe covering the evidence, right? anyone? anyone? damn it's fucking cold. there's snow outside. my californian soul is crying. i should be in a tanktop eating a delicious frozen dessert right now. mmmmmmmmm, ice cream sandwich.

living for inspiration,
Ophelia

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Time:

10:25 pm.

i have adopted a new icon - i like it.

also, i believe i may have just discovered something about myself. you know how most people have that level of personal sharing where they just hold up their hands and go "whoa, no way." and stop listening? i don't think i have one. i have no TMI line to cross. i used to think it was just somewhere far off in the distance, but i really don't think there is anything someone could tell me that would gross me out or put me off of them or what have you.

maybe it's kind of the way i can deal with gross bodily stuff. like everyone kind of has their limit for that, too? i haven't come across anything yet that bothered me. i mean, i've seen gross pictures that made my nose wrinkle, but i could always handle it. saw someone with a compound fracture on a hiking thing - four inches of bloody bone poking out of their mangles arm, didn't phase me at all. if someone throws up around me, i throw up, but it doesn't actually bother me. it's just, like, a physical reaction. it's the reason i will never realize my dream of being a surgeon, actually. it doesn't bother me, but i'm pretty sure that no one wants a doctor puking on them - they prefer it the other way around, i'm sure.

this is interesting. now i'm seriously wondering if there is something out there that's just... too much, you know? is there something out there that, when confronted with, i will throw up my hands and back away slowly?

living for inspiration,
Ophelia

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Time:	5:13 pm.
Music:	grams watching lingo & yelling when the people don't guess the words she does.

made it to illinois, finally. argh, what a day. how could an entire airport's computer system crash? that's fucking retarded. also, dude, seriously, if they say they'll give you until half an hour before you plane leaves to give away your seat, DON'T give my seat away 34 minutes before the plane leaves and expect me to be all right with it. and definitely don't expect me to pay the standby fee and the standby bag fee. so, yeah, now i have travel vouchers, i suppose that's a good thing. i can use them for arizona. i met a really nice girl while i was waiting for my second standby flight out of LAX. she was going to visit her dad, who works for the airline, so she always flies standby where there are seats available so she doesn't have to pay. her name is allison, she's got a great smile and the prettiest natural blonde hair i've seen on a californian in a long time. i got her number, so that will be nice when i get back. ^_^ great ass, too. right! moving on.

my grandmother never ages, i swear she looks exactly the same at 89 as she did at 75. lord, please tell me i inherited those genes - that would be amazing. ok, so i've been awake... way too long, but i'm not tired even the tiniest bit. in fact, i'm surprisingly awake. i'm really glad i brought my knitting with me for the wait. i've made two and a half hats today and a scarf that now needs to be fringed. what i really should have made is gloves, because someone stole my gloves. right out of my purse. i must have fallen asleep for, like, a minute, and someone stold my glvoes out of my purse. left my wallet, credit cards, the 300 bucks that was in the wallet, my phone, my ipod, my watch, my GPS system, and they took my cheap, ugly gloves. people are... really weird. not that i'm complaining, exactly, cause i really appreciate the fact that i lost a five dollar pair of gloves and not a 300 dollar watch. but my hands were freezing while i was waiting for my cab. i was almost tempted to take one of the airport stand-bys and just pay the sixty bucks, but i refrained, and thus saved myself a good chunk of change.

nell drove me to the airport, but she got sick. she says she's feeling beter, but i'm still worried because, you know, that's what i do. when my fingers got stiff from knitting in the cold i wrote. i have drabble gifties that muct be polished. OH! and i did some work on that snape/lockhart body switch thing that pond's plot bunny got me started on, like, four years ago? yeah, totally wrote another four thousand words in that. oh, gilderoy, how i've missed you.

so, yeah, now i'm having food forced upon me by a grandmother who is concerned that i'm too thin. i really shouldn't have told her that i forgot to eat today. we've gone from bridge mix to stir fry to chicken sandwiches to caramel bars to cheese and crackers with grapes, and she broke out the booze about half an hour after i got here. i'm going to turn into a squirrel while i'm here, seriously. i'm already scoping places to stash food where she won't find it until i return it to the fridge. i appreciate it, though. it's nice to have someone tell me i'm too thin, even if i know it's not true.

so, anyway, yeah, i'm here safe and sound, freezing my ass off, and my 89 tear old grandmother is trying to get me too drunk to knit ^_^

em, dana, jules, mikey, amanda, make plans with me while i'm here! i don't think i'll ever want to see snow again once i go home.

living for inspiration,
Ophelia

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Subject:	where exactly is this handbasket going? are you sure i won't need a sweater?
Time:	3:48 pm.

i spread myself too thin. i try to do too much, take care of too many people who really should be taking care of themselves, and it just doesn't work. there is not enough of me to go around, and so i end up almost never having the time to do things i want to do because i'm so bogged down with things i NEED to do and with things other people need but won't do for themselves. it suffers, it all suffers, and i'm sure that there are plenty of people in my life who are just too nice to say anything about it. i can't be a good daughter AND a good co-worker AND a good sister AND a good friend. i just don't stretch that much, and so i end up doing it ALL badly.

i hate my life sometimes. i get to the point where i wonder why i ever do anything at all since i know it won't be enough for people. if i can't give them what they want, why do i even bother trying? no one actually cares that you did your best. no one cares that you tried. that's just something we tell toddlers so they won't feel bad that their life is about to turn into a string of unending failures.

i just need to figure out a way to clone myself so everyone can get what they want.

fuck.

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Subject:	and LJ possibly goes the way of the dodo
Time:	6:03 pm.
Music:	anna is watching house downstairs. i can hear it all the way in my room..

so, apparently live journal is in its death throes once again... i wonder if it'll really kick the bucket this time. anybody got any ideas as to where they would go if Lj disappeared? greatestjournal? blogger? xanga? i like having a friends page and i'm used to the way LJ is laid out. i guess it's time to start backing up >_< cause that's always so much fun.

my mother got her test results back - all clear. that woman is going to live forever. oh, and my sister found a piece of rat poo by the garage door, but inside the house. **headdesk** cause that's exactly what i need right now. we've got traps set. i will NOT be the one to check them. it's probably something that got tracked in and caught in a corner when we had that one living in the garage, but still... blech X_X

living for inspiration,
Ophelia

[edit] i really need a **headdesk** icon [/edit]

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Subject:	baking is supposed to make me feel better, damnit
Time:	12:17 am.
Mood:	frustrated.
Music:	the pilot light keeps on clicking - that's bad, isn't it?.

i just made what are probably the ugliest croissants in the history of ever **headdesk**

and to add insult to injury, i filled them with the wrong kind of chocolate. i didn't realize until i got the bar unwrapped that i'd bought 72% dark and not 64% dark. you would think that 8% wouldn't make that huge of a difference in a baked good... wrong! so very, very wrong. the turnovers did come out really good, but at the moment i just can't seem to take comfort in that.

finished my sister's hat. it's green and pretty and has cables-that-aren't-actually-cables that are way cuter than i thought they would be. it's a very subtle design, as the yarn i used it a bit textured, but i like it. hopefully she will, too.

seriously, though, i'm pissed about the croissants. do you have any idea how long it takes to fold dough over and roll it out twenty five times when the whole mess is wrapped around a butter block? a long ass time. **grumblegrumble** from now on i'm sticking to muffins.

living for inspiration,
Ophelia

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Subject:	apparently i'm very universal ^_^ who knew?
Time:	7:47 pm.
Mood:	sore.
Music:	nightwatch - terry pratchett.

filled out the little questionaire thing on beliefnet

here are my results:
1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Neo-Pagan (98%)
3. New Age (96%)
4. Liberal Quakers (87%)
5. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (84%)
6. Mahayana Buddhism (79%)
7. New Thought (75%)
8. Reform Judaism (74%)
9. Scientology (74%)
10. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (71%)
11. Theravada Buddhism (69%)
12. Secular Humanism (67%)
13. Taoism (59%)
14. Hinduism (56%)
15. Orthodox Quaker (56%)
16. Baha'i Faith (53%)
17. Sikhism (51%)
18. Jainism (45%)
19. Orthodox Judaism (44%)
20. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (42%)
21. Nontheist (38%)
22. Islam (34%)
23. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (34%)
24. Seventh Day Adventist (30%)
25. Eastern Orthodox (26%)
26. Roman Catholic (26%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (21%)

actually had to go look up a few of those. it bothers me that i'm just as much scientologist as i am jewish, apparently O_o not a happy thought. on the other hand, i suppose i've always taken a bit of a "stretchy" view of my religion. it's not so much that i actively disagree with any of it, cause i don't, really, but i do have some very definite beliefs that are additional rather than contradictory. the way i look at it, there's spirituality and there's religion - the two don't always line up, but it's nice when they do ^_^

one round of holiday cards has gone out. if you haven't already given your address and want a card (and a bonus) then head over here and do your thing. i'll probably be sending them out well into january, so, you know, let's just consider it a "feel the love" card, shall we?

living for inspiration,
Ophelia

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Subject:	son-of-a-stuffy-nosed-bastard!
Time:	5:19 pm.
Mood:	sick.

i usually get sick at the beginning of december, and if i haven't gotten sick by the middle of it i tend to be safe, but NOT THIS YEAR!

i feel like i'm fucking dying, and i've been living on soup for the last two days, and i've got a space heater going on half of me and a fan going on the other half. this sucks massive balls.

also, i'm not super behind on my 'season of chilly love' cards. whatever. i'm jewish, my holiday lasts until the 29th, justification made, MOVING ON! oh, also, if you want one of said cards but haven't put your address on the list yet, you should go here and do so. on the plus side, time stuck in bed means time to make nifty little things to put inside the cards, so yay for that.

good news - i finished a kick ass scarf/hat combo for my little sister and have hidden it in a most cunning place. no way in heck is she finding her gifts this year before i decide to give them to her, no sir-e-bob.

bad news - just found out that my mother did not realize the packages i gave her to mail for me were intended as christmas presents, and so they did not get mailed because she 'just didn't have the time to get everything done' and my packages were on the FAIL side of that little dilema. by the way, this "everything" she had to get done included a hair appointment, nail appointment, facial and several trips to stores where she had no intention of actually buying things 'just to look.' **headdesk** i thought the whole point of giving them to her was so that my sick and sniffly ass didn't have to schlep all the way to the post office. anyway, if any of you were expecting christmas gifts from me, they are now channukah gifts. thank you for your understanding during this time of peace and joy.

also, i made gift labels. penguins are involved. who's surprised? i love photoshop. it is my friend when everyone else if afraid they are going to get sick because of me.

why is it so damn cold in california? it's supposed to be warm here, that's half of what people pay for when they move out here, eleven months of summer. WHY IS IT SO DAMN COLD!? it's not just california cold. it's, like, normal people cold, and it sucks.

living for inspiration (and chicken soup),
Ophelia

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