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Room with a View
Jul. 21st, 2010 06:34 pmSo I don't think I can really refer to Stan as my "online friend" anymore as for the first time today we got to see each other *gasp* face-to-face!
I happened to mention how my family and I were going to be in Burlington and then Stan's mother asked if she was going to meet me; apparently, Burlington is relatively close to where Stan's family lives, at least in the grand scheme of things. So long silly story short we chose to meet at Burlington's big Barnes & Noble with a sadly disappointing SF/F section. I bought Good Omens anyway.
So we ended up like chatterboxes and of course now I am musing over the entire thing and having my "My goodness, what I did wrong!" moments but that's kind of tricky since the most I did wrong that I can blame myself for is talk too much. Which I do all of the time. Hm.
Tadhg got mentioned enough times out loud that the proper pronunciation of his name has at least stuck. Uroua's may take a while, though. Thank goodness they are not my character.
Also I really need to develop Welen's education system, but more than that I need to write, to keep my mind sharp and my prose where it should be. I feel like I may dabble a bit outside of the fantasy realm because writing stories where I must be realistic is a challenge for me, like writing from a demon's point of view or something.
Instead I just wrote the first meeting and understanding between a vampire and a human, which is oddly adorable since apparently vampires clap when excited or understood. And chirp and whistle. I didn't want them to act like dogs, ha.
In fact I need other noises for them to make, but the thing is, vampires are pretty quiet. They communicate almost entirely through telepathy amongst themselves, making the noises necessary only for those who do not have telepathy or as extras from evolution. So I may give them other calls, like screeches, chortles, stuff like that that you may expect from a monkey or lemur. Basically I need to research lemur vocals.
Okay, so apparently lemurs do chirp and shriek. Go figure. I R AWESOME.
The story is here for those who want to read it. It's not quite done but at least it has a solid base to it thus far. And a carbon copy of Nur though this vampire is actually male and this happens long before Nur is born, but hey. Eventually I'll figure out more hair and eye colours for the vampires. I'm thinking green eyes. And brown fur. And I bet some of them would dye their hair crazy colours.
So anyway, for the past three or four days all I have done is read Wikipedia articles, and I can't really term it a waste of time because I've learned so much only partially-accurate information about World War II and Finland and Poland and military food rations. And it all started because my cousin was quoting Anne Frank and I thought "Okay I know she's famous for her diary and her death was tragic but who was this person?" and yeah, that ended my chances of free time.
What I should have been doing is checking up on my garden, but before I left for vacation it seemed to be doing very well on its own. I've been trying to let the corn compete on its own and weed out the ones that don't make it, but the corn has confused me by having three of the stalks, literally growing right next each other with no room, grow equally healthy despite the lack of room. *scratches head* One of them even had an ear. I don't get it. The spinach, meanwhile, seems to attract bugs and doesn't even look like spinach to me.
I'll see how it's doing once I get home and see if the peppers or squash have done anything. If so, I'll have amazing home-grown produce! How's that for green living. *preens*
But anyway, so at work I have been unconsciously trying a new way of thinking. Basically when I first worked at the amusement park I hated it, and it would stress me out, and on my last day I started crying, and all that good stuff. So this year, not realizing I was doing it at first, I decided to try and not let it get to me. Whatever happened at work would be brushed off my back as I got through the front door of my house.
In fact, work was an escape because things were rough at home, so I would go to work seeing to get rid of stress rather than wanting any. So anything that happens -- cranky customers, rough lines, rides being dumb, anything -- I have tried not to let get to me.
Surprisingly, it's worked fairly well. Even when I went worked in the bathroom one Quarter Night upon the request of my boss, even on Fourth of July when I had to stay until midnight running the Yo-Yo, even on Jamaican Day when weed smoke flooded the Carousel... Most of it has not bothered me, and has left me only a little fatigued when going to or from work.
That is, until a man puked on my ride. Not a little kid. A middle-aged man, who puked all over the seat and the wooden platform, informed me "I threw up", then told me "I lost my teeth." He found them, told me he did, and walked over.
Because I'm OCD I spent thirty minutes cleaning it up, still wasn't done, and my breaker finished it up in no time while I lamented the bathroom being out of soap, threw out my "soggy from the heat" attempt at a tomato mozzarella sandwich, and ate some mac&cheese.
Luckily on the way home "Schaedenfreude" started playing so I felt a little better, but still grateful for a few days off. Get to miss Quarter Night too, and do breaks on Saturday, which isn't a huge problem except for the whole "at the amusement park all day" thing.
Oh well. At least I get a paycheck this week, since I'll have no money left by the end of this vacation. Woe.
In other news, my mother is disappointed in Burlington. Maybe she won't take this out on us. We shall see.
Tschuess.
I happened to mention how my family and I were going to be in Burlington and then Stan's mother asked if she was going to meet me; apparently, Burlington is relatively close to where Stan's family lives, at least in the grand scheme of things. So long silly story short we chose to meet at Burlington's big Barnes & Noble with a sadly disappointing SF/F section. I bought Good Omens anyway.
So we ended up like chatterboxes and of course now I am musing over the entire thing and having my "My goodness, what I did wrong!" moments but that's kind of tricky since the most I did wrong that I can blame myself for is talk too much. Which I do all of the time. Hm.
Tadhg got mentioned enough times out loud that the proper pronunciation of his name has at least stuck. Uroua's may take a while, though. Thank goodness they are not my character.
Also I really need to develop Welen's education system, but more than that I need to write, to keep my mind sharp and my prose where it should be. I feel like I may dabble a bit outside of the fantasy realm because writing stories where I must be realistic is a challenge for me, like writing from a demon's point of view or something.
Instead I just wrote the first meeting and understanding between a vampire and a human, which is oddly adorable since apparently vampires clap when excited or understood. And chirp and whistle. I didn't want them to act like dogs, ha.
In fact I need other noises for them to make, but the thing is, vampires are pretty quiet. They communicate almost entirely through telepathy amongst themselves, making the noises necessary only for those who do not have telepathy or as extras from evolution. So I may give them other calls, like screeches, chortles, stuff like that that you may expect from a monkey or lemur. Basically I need to research lemur vocals.
Okay, so apparently lemurs do chirp and shriek. Go figure. I R AWESOME.
The story is here for those who want to read it. It's not quite done but at least it has a solid base to it thus far. And a carbon copy of Nur though this vampire is actually male and this happens long before Nur is born, but hey. Eventually I'll figure out more hair and eye colours for the vampires. I'm thinking green eyes. And brown fur. And I bet some of them would dye their hair crazy colours.
So anyway, for the past three or four days all I have done is read Wikipedia articles, and I can't really term it a waste of time because I've learned so much only partially-accurate information about World War II and Finland and Poland and military food rations. And it all started because my cousin was quoting Anne Frank and I thought "Okay I know she's famous for her diary and her death was tragic but who was this person?" and yeah, that ended my chances of free time.
What I should have been doing is checking up on my garden, but before I left for vacation it seemed to be doing very well on its own. I've been trying to let the corn compete on its own and weed out the ones that don't make it, but the corn has confused me by having three of the stalks, literally growing right next each other with no room, grow equally healthy despite the lack of room. *scratches head* One of them even had an ear. I don't get it. The spinach, meanwhile, seems to attract bugs and doesn't even look like spinach to me.
I'll see how it's doing once I get home and see if the peppers or squash have done anything. If so, I'll have amazing home-grown produce! How's that for green living. *preens*
But anyway, so at work I have been unconsciously trying a new way of thinking. Basically when I first worked at the amusement park I hated it, and it would stress me out, and on my last day I started crying, and all that good stuff. So this year, not realizing I was doing it at first, I decided to try and not let it get to me. Whatever happened at work would be brushed off my back as I got through the front door of my house.
In fact, work was an escape because things were rough at home, so I would go to work seeing to get rid of stress rather than wanting any. So anything that happens -- cranky customers, rough lines, rides being dumb, anything -- I have tried not to let get to me.
Surprisingly, it's worked fairly well. Even when I went worked in the bathroom one Quarter Night upon the request of my boss, even on Fourth of July when I had to stay until midnight running the Yo-Yo, even on Jamaican Day when weed smoke flooded the Carousel... Most of it has not bothered me, and has left me only a little fatigued when going to or from work.
That is, until a man puked on my ride. Not a little kid. A middle-aged man, who puked all over the seat and the wooden platform, informed me "I threw up", then told me "I lost my teeth." He found them, told me he did, and walked over.
Because I'm OCD I spent thirty minutes cleaning it up, still wasn't done, and my breaker finished it up in no time while I lamented the bathroom being out of soap, threw out my "soggy from the heat" attempt at a tomato mozzarella sandwich, and ate some mac&cheese.
Luckily on the way home "Schaedenfreude" started playing so I felt a little better, but still grateful for a few days off. Get to miss Quarter Night too, and do breaks on Saturday, which isn't a huge problem except for the whole "at the amusement park all day" thing.
Oh well. At least I get a paycheck this week, since I'll have no money left by the end of this vacation. Woe.
In other news, my mother is disappointed in Burlington. Maybe she won't take this out on us. We shall see.
Tschuess.
