God, you guys...I have no idea what I want to do with my life.

One day, I'll want to teach in Thailand. The next day, I'll want to own a bookshop in Barcelona. The day after that, I'll be wondering if I should actually try my hand at submitting some writing to an actual publication, or maybe writing that thesis on drag kings my anthro adviser vetoed senior year.

I think my head is going to explode. I'm ready to move on, but I don't know where.

I've gotten to the point where, rather than lie down at a logical hour and hope to get tired eventually, I'll just sit up and and try to be productive until I actually am tired.

As a result, tonight I have watched a documentary on supernovae, done some sketching (I really want to make a habit of drawing, since I'm never going to improve otherwise--be warned, sucktastic scans of these efforts are a possibility), tapped out a couple paragraphs that may or may not become fic, tried on my swimsuit (and pulled a Clueless by taking a few pictures to see how pasty and awkward I am in it), and read.

I did have a great nap this evening after work, but only for a few hours. My goal for the near future is to train myself to sleep when the big shiny thing is not in the sky.

However, in happier news, I'm leaving for Puerto Rico (omg) Thursday morning and will be back next Monday. Then Friday of that week, I'm driving to Ohio, meeting up with my old AmeriCorps team, and going to New Orleans for a week to do Katrina relief. I am Ridiculously Excited. I got a new memory card today, since I don't know how often I'll be able to upload pictures.

So on the off chance anyone wonders, I'm not going to be around too much for the rest of the month because I will be busy basking in awesomeness. There will, however, be picspam.

Hi, new friends! I'm sorry the first entry of mine you see is probably going to shatter any respect you might have for me. Welcome!

No sleep again last night, so I headed to today's breakfast event riding high on a touch of the plague and a Diet Coke. Whoo. Choked down two cups of coffee, each with about five packets of Equal, and OH GOD THE PAIN. I felt it staining my teeth and stunting my growth and souring my stomach and, and, and... Ew. I seriously cannot remember the last time I was desperate enough to try coffee.

So, yeah, today was pretty much a "Holy crap, I look like crap" kind of Monday. Got a run in my stockings like like a flesh-colored comet shooting down my Achilles tendon into my fetching kitten heel. Woe! However, I was wearing this stretchy Escher-ish houndstooth trumpet skirt that looks like something Gwen Stefani vomited up backstage. Seriously, it's amazing. Seriously, I'm not usually this superficial, either.

I was supposed to go salsa with Xanthe tonight, but she also has the plague, and I ended up declining an invitation to eat with my family before the little Gorgon (freshly returned from a Commedia dell'Arte study in Italy) goes back to school. Cuddy would never stand for this sort of tomfoolery. Cuddy would probably never wear Gwen Stefani vomit, either.

And since I still can't sleep, I think I might write porn. Because everyone knows that's always a cure-all.

My magnificently magnanimous girlfriend is back on the same continent as me, at long last. We got sandwiches this afternoon, and I now have a very cool medallion hanging on my wall to protect me from the Evil Eye. Also a scarf and some baklava.

I have to leave for New Year's festivities, but I wanted to thank the Academy that is my f-list for being awesome (even those of you I suspect filter me out on your own f-lists). When I wandered into the House fandom, I was blown away by how many talented, prolific writers there were and now that I've actually gotten to know some of you, I realize you're actually not all that superhuman after all!

*watches tumbleweeds roll by*

Um. I do prefer my friends human as opposed to super. For what it's worth.

Happy New Year, everyone!

I made a big dent in my shopping today, so I'm almost done. I had the idea to get gift cards for my housemates, so I picked up three (Starbucks, Panera, and Smoothie King) and figured I'd leave them on the counter with a card before I left for my mother's house.

And of course, as I'm wandering into Panera to buy the last one, I run into two of my housemates. My stealth skills, let me show you them.

However, tonight we're going out for one of said housemates' birthdays, which should be fun cubed.

Couldn't sleep, so I invited a bunch of people to join the ENOUGH group on Facebook, missed my foster kids in Ohio, put off working on my resume, the usual insomnia-type stuff. I am a bastard of the nonprofit sector and I don't know where I want to go next.

Additionally, researching sleep paralysis is fascinating, but it also tends to freak me out. I don't like reading about people feeling the incubus sitting on their bed because then I know that's the first thing I'll be thinking of the next time I have an episode and I'm trying as hard as I can to open my eyes, let alone yell. I'm always more likely to get SP if I'm not sleeping well--then my body shuts down faster than my mind and the crazy shit begins.

This one time, freshman year, I had a pretty nifty hallucination of a girl opening a hidden door in my dorm wall and calling for me to go swimming with her. That's probably the tamest SP episode I've ever had. It was more whimsical than terrifying, it happened in broad daylight, and my roommate was in the room. Granted, she didn't notice a thing, which to me is the scariest component of all, but still.

And that one therapist I was yapping about contacting the other day? Isn't taking on new clients. So around 2:30, I emailed a few more. I guess it gets a little easier after the first time. And if you're half-awake while you're emailing.

I am going to be dead tomorrow yet again at this rate. Now's the part where I find something to eat, write some moderately incoherent fiction, and try to sleep once again. Fab.

Hey, chickens, happy Turkey Day. Those of you who don't celebrate Thanksgiving, no hard feelings.

Last year, I went to Liora's vegan Thanksgiving dinner, played Cranium with her parents, and got my car stuck in the mud in her front yard. It was excellent.

This year, I trotted over to my mother's house, watched Willow with the Gorgons, and had a mild big-sister session with the littlest Gorgon about how he's holding up alone in the house with our batty mother. Everything went well, considering. The Gorgons and I are on good terms and it's clear no one wants to be that match that sets off the mum, and there was already a decent chance of that happening since our father had the audacity to want to spend some time with his offspring on Thanksgiving.

Once our mother brought herself to actually sit at the same table, if not actually speak to the man other than a post-dinner chewing-out in the front yard about how he should've spoken to her about coming over, things weren't too odd. I do feel bad for him--he knew he'd catch some form of hell for trying to contact her and make plans, and he knew he'd catch it if he showed up unannounced. I was kind of thrown at being the intermediary ("Um, you might want to say something to her...or I can say something to her..."), because how do you play the mediator with your parents and not look like a prat?

I have thanks and I have issues, and I'm looking for baggage that goes with mine.

Whenever I hear that line, I picture Mimi picking through a pile of Louis Vuittons and trying in vain to find just the right set. Roger, of course, is off having very hot, very safe sex with his roommate.

At this evening's seminar, I spilled soda on the carpet at the Ritz. Rock on!

However, my new blazer is amazing and I met a bunch of cool people, as well as some I already know. I'm at the point now where I've been to so many networking opportunities, I tend to know at least a couple other people there. And if I don't, I don't freak out for not having a clue who anybody is. Not bad progress for someone on the socially inept side.

In fannish news, House is on in five minutes and nakeno is back!

In the wee hours of the morn, I was puttering around online when I should've been in bed...

recrudescence: And ohgod, I really need to get a few hours of sleep while I can.
nakeno: I knooow.
recrudescence: I am going to show up at this damn tech conference thing exhausted and business-card less and have to tell everyone it's because of porn.
nakeno: N'awww. =D
nakeno: But it's pretty porn!
recrudescence: "Why, no, I have no idea what this technobabble means, but I could quite possible write something that'll make you come in your pants! My card, you say? LOL noez."
recrudescence: possibly*
recrudescence: Though I may very well be speaking in typos.
nakeno: XD!!
recrudescence: At least I get to see a show tomorrow!

And I did. Leaving the technobabble conference out of the picture, today was pretty cool because oh my goodness, chickens, I just met shutterbug12!

It was awesome, even though I tend to suck at meeting new people and get weirdly conscientious. But yes, it's thanks to her that La Actriz and I snagged comps to the performance.

Aside from the fact that traffic absolutely blew--like Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day kind of blew, where the Hundred-Acre Wood gets half its trees uprooted and all that other traumatic stuff; like, it took me two hours to go twenty-five miles kind of blew--it was a good time. shutterbug12 was lovely and the two of us ended up getting sandwiches and talking about porn in public, and we walked past a Quizno's (fantastic!). Unfortunately, we didn't have too much time because she had to go back to the theatre and be a backstage ninja, so I hung out in Borders, read Six Degrees of Separation, and then tottered back myself.

Afterward, I introduced her to La Actriz and we decided the two single women in the show should indeed hook up.

Nearby fellow fangirls FTW.

Ironically, I was about to clean my closet when I realized, whoops, I missed National Coming-Out Day.

Today's the two-year anniversary for me and La Actriz. Longest I've ever dated anyone since I started up dating at all.

First boyfriend, both thirteen, goth phase, five days.

...okay, only boyfriend, unless you count a few on-the-rebound incidents those two times I did summer stock. But as everyone knows, what happens on tour stays on tour. And seriously, the guy playing Tammy Wynette's third husband looked like Billy Crudup, who looks amazing in drag. There are worse ways to rebound.

I have since progressed.

La Actriz and I were going to hit up the Turkish Festival in DC since the wench happens to be a Turk, but since we both felt kind of crummy we stayed in town, saw Across the Universe, and hung around her apartment. Which was completely cool.

Julie Taymor is still a genius, by the way, and I really wish I'd seen AtU before signing up for Yuletide so I could make that one of my picks.

And now I really do need to fix my closet. I actually went shopping this weekend, then ducked by my mother's house to pick up a bunch of winter clothes, so there's a ton of stuff that has to be put away.