Happy 2012 - The World Will End in 348 Days

So, we're over a week into 2012 - and probably the world won't really end on the 21st of December, but who knows?    Anyway, this isn't a the world is going to end post so much as it's a generic New Year's resolutions and stuff post.

New Year's resolutions - don't have many.  The typical one, starting tomorrow (I was on vacation on the first and wholly refuse to start dieting while on vacation - and while I can follow a diet on the weekend, starting one just seems wrong somehow.), start eating better, start exercising regularly, be bikini ready by the summer (this is going to be extremely difficult, because I need to loose almost 15 pounds and turn my remaining belly flub into toned muscle in a few months) and look amazing for my sister's wedding; Learn enough Slovak that I can talk to mi novio's parents without a translator; get another novel published; write every day.

It doesn't really seem like that much to do, typed out neatly in a list like that, but I don't have any illusions that any of this is going to be easy.  A lot of people manage.  People who, even if they're really amazing, cool people, you just want to hate because they're so together and seem to manage to work full time, follow a tone of other hobbies/dreams/ ambitions and look amazing while doing so, but people none the less.  I'd like to be one of those people, I think.  It would probably suck to have everyone be jealous of you and secretly hating you, but I think it would be worth it, really.

I think mainly, I just need lists.  Or something to help me concentrate.  Ritalin?  I don't know. 

I don't much feel like ending this with some inspirational crap about how this year will be different, how I'll force myself to focus on what matters, etc, because, frankly, I don't know that I will.  But I will say that 2011 has been absolutely amazing, without a doubt, the most interesting year of my life so far and certainly the one in which I was most proactive.  If I could boil this all down to one resolution, it would be to make 2012 even better.

Surreality

So I'm sitting at work for the last time, listening to classical music and thinking. I've got two hours left. Hard to believe after nearly 6 months working here.

Something has occurred to me over the past couple of days. I have had 10+ish jobs over the past 10 years and this is the only one that I've actually been sorry about leaving. Of course, I love that I'm going, and I LOVE why I'm going, but it's still going to be hard to say goodbye to this place and the people that make it what it is.

In some ways it feels like I've been here much longer than six months and in some ways it feels like I just got here. I can still clearly remember the 3 day bus ride, my first night in town, spent in room 120, my first nights in Cave Hell, all of it, really, from the summer. I remember being taken on a tour of the town, and, of course, meeting this intelligent, gorgeous man and agonizing over how I would ever get up the courage to ask him out :) It's forever ago and five minutes. Time is definitely malfunctioning here.

I have so much to do today. Most of it is laundry, some of it is packing and a fair bit will be deciding what stuff to donate to charity and what to do with things like that bigass painting that I did in (I'm going to say September, but I'm not sure). Somewhere in there, I need to have a nap, go to the gym, take down the Xmas tree, hopefully go to the bank, head to the post office. Then wings tonight and sushi tomorrow... and then it's off to Edmonton, early, early Friday morning.

It's a whirlwind. Even this shift, which consisted of one phone call, which I transferred, zoomed right by. I remember once, when I was little, we went camping and when I got into bed, I closed my eyes and counted to three. I don't know why I counted to three, but when I opened my eyes, it was morning. The whole night went by in 1... 2... 3. This feels kind of like that. In three seconds, I could be stepping into the arrivals area of the airport. Unbelievable, but deeply wonderful.

:(

I'm using that face, 'cause there isn't a universally recognized I just vomited in my own mouth emoticon, and profound sadness at the situation is the runner up emotion. Soon after I got to work, this guy called, sounding fairly distraught and mumbling, then said something like, "Just let me put this down", set the phone down and proceeded to jerk off audibly. Yeah, perfect way to start my night. I'm terrified to answer the phone now. Apparently, he used to do this fairly frequently (I'm assuming it's the same guy), but stopped sometime before I started working here 5 months ago* and picked tonight to start up again. I tried to star 69 him, but it didn't work. Ugh. I so do not need this shit. I mean, honestly, why can't he just watch porn like everyone else?

Between that and learning about Bridalplasty, which is just a horribly depressing statement on the condition of the world, this hasn't been the greatest night ever. Dumb crap like this should not be getting to me, but for whatever reason, it is tonight.

I didn't make it to the gym tonight, and I really need to. I realized today that I haven't been since before Christmas. Not good.

On a much happier note, it's officially Jan 11. The past couple weeks have zoomed by... I can already feel the (comparatively) warm English rain on my face, smell airport smells and see London. I am so there.

*Hey, 5 months ago today - well, yesterday, but today for me... or something.

100?

Apparently, this is my 100th post. I don't know; that number seems low to me.

I feel like I should be making it a 100 best post, or a look back at all the things I've blogged about, but iunno. Maybe I'll do that with my 1000th post or something. Right now I want to muse about why, after going to bed post-4:00am, I woke up at 8:00 and then couldn't get back to sleep. It's not that I'm not tired. I had nightmares half the night (or half of half the night, I guess), but I managed to get to sleep after the last one that I remember, so I know it wasn't them keeping me up.

I'm super sore from my workout yesterday. For some reason, the area where I go to work out was swarming with preteen boys yesterday. I don't know if it was a youth group or what, but 30+ boys decended on the equipment and the area where I stretch, so as a result, I didn't stretch properly, then had to run to keep ahead of them... and now I'm in pain. It's nice that they're doing stuff outside; I just wish they were doing it elsewhere.

There are so many places to buy Aigaion Girl online now. There's even one site that's renting it. This makes me incredibly happy. Also, I found out today that copies not sold direct from Amazon.com can take up to 60 days to show up in my sales history, so I could (in theory, knock on wood and all that) have sold copies that I don't even know about.

Also, in A/G news, I gave it to my sister for the tour and she gave it to her boyfriend, who gave it to a friend of his. Her boyfriend said he liked it, but didn't like the pacing, and then didn't elaborate, because he said my sister would glare at him if he did, so I'm still not 100% sure what he meant. So far, he's the only person I know of who hasn't liked it, so my batting average is still pretty high.

Now, I'm off to watch some SVU before people start trying to use the computer... at some point today, I guess I have to apply for a bunch more jobs, too.

So...

A couple of things. The big one, of course, is that I got my suitcase back today. Greyhound called me this morning, and told me they had found it (over two months after the fact). It's funny that it should have happened today; yesterday, my sister offered to crochet me a new blanket to replace the one that was in my suitcase, and the day before, I was in a Coles, totally unable to bring myself to buy a new copy of Pride and Prejudice, my favourite one (I thought) having been lost forever. Yesterday was the first day I stopped believing I would see any of this stuff again.

Also, the response to the fact that Aigaion Girl is available has been overwhelmingly good, but as of yet, not particularly profitable. Everyone is very pleased, but so far, no one has bought a copy. I'm trying not to let this bother me; everyone in the world is poor right now and not a lot of people have credit cards and/or the money to buy random books. Besides, if I manage to plan a signing event, that should help me some, as should a table at FanExpo. Plus, I haven't even sent out a press release yet, so no one who doesn't know me will know that this book exists. Anyway, I'm mostly excited about it.

I think that was it for tonight. Another craptastic day at work, and I missed my workout and am a little bummed about that and some other stupid stuff going on, but on the whole, things are good.

The Work Out

After seven months of doing next to nothing (partially due to my going to B.C., partially due to my ankle crapping out on me and largely due to my own laziness) I've decided to start working out again. The night before last, I went and bought an ankle brace and my sister brewed some tea (we are taking Marrakech Mint right now) and yesterday morning, after accidentally sleeping in, we set out for a trip around our old work out route.

I was surprised, both by what I can still do and by what I no longer can do. Sit ups, I can still do. Apparently, buried in there somewhere are some abs, nearly forgotten, but still strong enough to bend me in half. Also, I managed to do seven reps on the knee killer yesterday, which given the state of my knee, I thought was pretty amazing. The dip station gave me a little more trouble. It wasn't quite as bad as the first time I tried it, but yesterday, once I had lowered myself down, I still couldn't get back up. Today, I did two whole reps before my arms gave out on me. Also, even though I've been extremely tired post-work out, I feel like I could keep going indefinitely.

Today was beautiful, and on top of the nice weather, we met a nice lady who was been doing the circuit with her dog since the beginning of February (and I thought we were being troopers for starting in March). She goes three times a week, she said.

Tomorrow, all things being equal, my older brother will be joining us for our work out. I'm also going to message my younger sister and see if I can't convince her to come along as well.

Now, if I could just remember to write in my work out journal, I'd be all set.

PS - We've already started planning for 2010's trip down the river. It's going to kick ass.

Aigaion, Yet Again

Well, and other stuff too.

I've been going through the final (gruelling) edits of Aigaion Girl for the past couple days. I've also been laying it out as I go so that I don't still have a ridiculous amount of layout work to contend with after I finish edits. Other than the fact that I've become (even more of) an antisocial hermit who has trouble remembering to eat and bathe, I'm having a fair bit of fun.

Mephie is being held together with tape and love, but he's doing very well and I'm proud of him.

I really like the way this book is looking. Really a lot. It manages to look cute but not girly, modern but not unprofessional. I'm quite pleased with myself - and, since I ate my dinner again tonight and am about to shower, I get a gold star.

In other news, my sister had some headshots taken to give to her modelling agency. They're pretty darn good, though I have no idea if they're what the agency is looking for or not. I guess we'll find out. I'm actually thinking that I might (after making use of the gym here for the months between now and May) go to the same agency and see if they've got anything for me. It couldn't hurt, and anyway, then I'd have an excuse to get a bunch of professional pictures taken and not seem totally vain ;)

What else? I'm no longer a housekeeper. There's a whole story there which I won't get into. I now work in the kitchen (well, the hotel is shut down at the moment, which is where I got the time to do the extreme amount of editing I've been doing) as a dishwasher. The su chef is really nice, as is the head chef, so apart from dirty looks from the randomly angry australian chef, I think everything is going to work out fine.

Um, I have a cousin who has H1N1. I guess it's making its rounds. Scary stuff.

Canada's Economic Action Plan is an effing joke.

I think that's close to it. I really need to shower, so I can get up early(ish) tomorrow and get to work.

Gimmie a break, gimmie a break, break my off a piece of that KIT-KAT BAR

I've been editing today, and now I feel like taking a break. I'm about 4/5ths of the way through my second editing of one of the characters from Aigaion. It's written in first person from the perspectives of a bunch of characters, so I'm editing one character at a time, so I can stick to one voice. So far, I think it's working pretty well.

I'm having fun with him, because I get to use a thesaurus pretty well constantly, to maintain his weird, old-fashioned, slightly backward way of talking. I love using big, random words that no one has ever heard of and not having it feel unnatural or pretentious, because it fits the story.

This is one of my main characters, and I feel like he needs more page-time, but I don't think he's going to get it. The story could stand to be fleshed out a little bit, but the fleshing out is more in information than events, so it's only going to happen where I can slip it in unnoticed.

Agg, I am SO sleepy. I did get to work out today ♥, so I'm in a fairly good mood.

Hopefully, I'll get my stuff out of random dude's* barn soon, so I'll actually have summer clothes, and maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to wear my green sundress to Conor's party. Conor is a friend of my brother's who's lived across the street since before we lived in our house, his party is an anual BBQ that I've attended every year for six years, and my green sundress is one that I've owned since I was 12 and almost fit in again. Just to clear that all up.

I have to go home soon and clean the kitchen, but I'm trying not to let that bum me out. Plus, I'm super damn hungry, but hopefully, I can make/ buy something within the next hour or so.

I think that covers everything. I don't really feel like finishing this editing right now, so I guess I'll leave it for tomorrow (or later tonight?). I have to buy some sort of folder to keep all this stuff straight in.

Damn it; now I want a Kit-Kat

*Random dude is the son of a man who was friends with my grandfather, as well as the neighbourhood dowser and the person everyone in the area went to if they wanted a good deal on kitchen appliances. He was cool. I've never met Random Dude.

Skipping

I got fired from my non-paying job. I have special talents.

Also, yesterday I got some money that the company owes me for work I did in January, so I was able to buy flip-flops (no more ugly-ass handmedown running shoes for me) and a shirt that I'd wanted forever that was finally on sale and a Bowie shirt, which is cool, even though it's a Diamond Dogs shirt, 'cause it doesn't say Diamond Dogs anywhere on it.

I also bought a skipping rope because I read that doing three minutes of intense cardio before working out helps you burn fat. It kind of sucks, because I can't actually skip. When I was in Brownies, kids made fun of me for not being able to skip. I don't know, I guess I just thought I'd be able to do it now or something.

I think that's it. I'm super tired now. I kinda want to go eat a chocolate bar and have a nap, but I think that might defeat the purpose of my crazy workoutness.

Yawn, Stretch... SLEEP

Let me see.

Worked out with Rhiannon yesterday, and took Loki for his long walk. Oh, that was the other thing I did...

I finished the thing I was working on for my cousin. The thing that REALLY NEEDED TO BE DONE RIGHT AWAY... the thing that was the cause for a 45+ minute conference call, during which website guy interrupted every possible chance he got, with something irrelevant to what we were working on, or something we were going to be discussing later. I finished that yesterday. It looks really good (if I do say so myself). I emailed it to my cousin and website guy at 4:30, half an hour before I said it would be done. I still haven't heard anything back from either of them, or gotten any indication that they even received it.

Also, last night, while Rhiannon and I were *finally* making the pie we've been planning to get to all week, I bit my tongue. Really, bloody hard. I couldn't talk for a huge chunk of the night. I can talk now, but it hurts like hell, and I kind of sound like a semi-deaf person who can lip read but isn't sure how English words are supposed to sound.

Today we went to take pictures of our work out path, so we could put them in our little work out books, and record what we've been doing. I'm sorely tempted to put my before and current (not quite after) pictures up on here, but I won't, because I'm only wearing underclothes in them and somehow, the idea of putting half-naked pictures of myself on the Internet doesn't really seem like the best on ever. I do look damn good, though, and it is a big change.

I worked a lot of Aigaion Girl today, too. I wrote a chapterette from the perspective of Death, which went over fairly well, and now I'm 730 odd words into the final chapter. I really wish I just had the energy to sit down and finish it.

I suppose I should run. I had pizza at sevenish, but I'm pretty hungry and I could use something cold and fizzy for my poor punctured tongue. Since no interwebz at home, I'll have to actually shut my lappy down to do that.

So here I go. Wish me luck.

Mmm, River

First, Spooey came back last night! She's been gone for a couple of weeks, so I've been working out with my dad or (far more often) alone. I had planned on going to bed early, but I stayed up until 3:00ish talking with her, then Vic. made it home, right after I climbed into bed.

Last night I did go to the casino with my mum. I started with $10, went up to $33, got greedy and kept playing, and ended up with $23. Still a win. We're going back tonight, because my mum didn't know how to work the slot machines properly, so she was only betting on one line last night, so she lost by a lot. Anyway, it was fun, which is the important thing.

Today Spooey and I got up late and went to work out. Since it was later than usual, it was hotter than usual, and I said something about how I wanted to swim in the river, and she said her bathing suit was at home - and the next thing we knew, we were planning a swimming trip to the river, which we went on as soon as we were done working out. Our lame younger siblings wouldn't come with us, because the idea of swimming in the river was just too gross for them, despite the fact that that's where everyone in the city gets their drinking water.

At some point, we decided to swim across the river (it's a big effing river), and part way out we realized that there was nothing under us except for spongey green algie stuff, which smelled gross if you touched it, so we had to keep swimming all the way across without stopping. By the time we got to the other side, I was laughing so hard that I had started to drool. It was hot.

Now I am so effing hungry I could die. I might, actually, if I don't get some food in me. I have to get cleaned up anyway (I still smell a little like river), and clean the kitchen (which there will be a rant about soon, no doubt), so I suppose I could eat somewhere in there as well. Mmm, eating.

Okay, I think that's it.

Motivational Ruffles, and All That's In Between

'Evening, Blogees.

I came into the office today to work on the identity guide for my cousin's business (I'm on my laptop, as my work station still has no Internet). Since I last mentioned said business, the logo has been redesigned by the website guy, aka, the bane of my existence. He's not really the bane of my existence; he's just a guy who went to college and assumes that this means he knows more about everything than us sad, uneducated people, who got our experience by designing magazine ads. At my cousin's request, I emailed him with what I have done so far for the identity guide (which he insists is absolutely vital), and asked if there was anything I needed to add before converting my svgs into one pdf. He responded with a fairly rude email, saying I had disregarded his instructions, and that a whole bunch of things I had included didn't need to be in there (these are things that every other visual identity guide in the world seems to have), and not to finalize anything until everyone had had a chance to look at it. I replied (and copied the reply to my cousin) as politely as I could, and asked a bunch of questions - basically, if I'm not supposed to do X, then what should I be doing instead? My cousin just wrote me back and told me she would let me get pointers from him. UGH. Whatever. I'm not dealing with it until tomorrow.

My mum and I walked to the store, got a bag of chips (I usually don't eat chips. God knows what we were thinking), and came back to the office to eat them. On the back of the bag, there was a story that started with:

At the age of 10, I lived with my family in the Fisher Housing Projects in Detroit, Michigan. By today's standards, we were considered poor.

It goes on for four paragraphs about this random kid stealing peaches from someone's backyard, then another two paragraphs about how he learned his lesson, and why self-control is great, and things to remember to help you demonstrate self control in everyday life. I feel like I'm in the twilight zone or something.

Last night, my mum and I watched the first three episodes of Dollhouse. She's completely addicted, just like I knew she would be.

A few months ago, at my brother's request, I brought V for Vendetta home from the office (I keep my movies at the office, to prevent the exact thing that ended up happening). He didn't watch it that night, but my mum and I and one of my other brothers did. The next night, that brother and the youngest one asked if they could borrow it, and I said yes, if they put it back on my shelf when they were done. Because I'm an idiot, I didn't check to see that they had put it back until last night, when my youngest brother asked if he could watch Once Upon a Time in Mexico. He insists that since both of them watched V, it isn't his fault that it didn't get put back. The other one insists that he watched the movie with my mother and I, after the youngest one watched it, so it's my fault if it didn't get put back. This is especially annoying, because this is the second copy of that movie that I've loaned out, only to have it disappear on me. My first copy is currently residing on my friend's uncle's shelf - unless, of course, he decided to lend it to someone else.

Tonight, I'm going to the casino with my mummy. I have $10 that I can spend, which I'll split into two $5 bills. Hopefully, if I go with my mum, the guard won't feel the need to ask me my middle name and have me spell it, while glaring at me and making it obvious that he thinks my ID is either fake or not my own. I should probably go work out now, since afterward, I have to heat my bathwater, clean up and get changed. Thank God it's not hair-wash day.

I didn't work out yesterday because I didn't feel like it. That's a dangerous habit to get into, especially because that makes it the third day in four weeks that I've missed, and this time, there was no good reason for it. I should work twice as hard, but I probably won't.

I think that's everything. I think. Oh, 5:55, time to make a wish. Alright. That's done with.

I missed one thing. I've started working on the final chapter of Aigaion Girl. As happy as I am to have nearly completed my... fourth book (likely the first one that will ever be published), it's a little bittersweet - and I feel an inordinate amount of pressure to get the ending perfect. I've been looking forward to writing this ending, but now I'm terrified that my readers are going to hate it. Eeek.

Okay, I really do think that's it. And I really do have to go work out. Right.

I.N. Out.

Seven Years Ago Today...

Wow, I'm old. Seven years ago today, for the first time ever, I got flowers from a guy. A week later, he asked me out. Five months later, we broke up. We're still good friends. He bought me roses for our three-month anniversary, and no one's gotten me flowers since. This isn't a pity me post; actually, quite the opposite. I was in A&P the other day, looking at their flowers, and thinking of the time of year and for the life of me, I couldn't stop smiling. It's nice to have good memories like that, ones that will make you smile nearly a decade later.

Nearly a decade. God, I'm old.

I do kind of have to wonder where all the useful, gentlemanly gentlemen have gotten to, though. I haven't seen many of them around for... oh, about six and a half years.

Still no news on the job front; I'm going to have to do another round of resumeing, I think. Ugh.

I thought today was going to be a productive day, but I feel so unproductive. I still don't have Internet in the office (my wifi works fine :), which is fine for right now, but really needs to be fixed soon. I don't feel like working out, which is unusual and smelly, because I really do have to work out every day. Spooey's been out of town for two weeks now, so I've been going alone, which is gross and not really safe. About all I can do is change the time I go at every day, and hope the people that always seem to be on my route aren't going to turn into psycho stalkers. Muh-lah.

I did do one productive thing today, though. I fixed the squeak on the door that leads into the front room. As you may or may not be aware, I sleep in the corner of my parents' living room, right next to the front room, which has had, for the past eight years, a door that squeaks horrendously loudly every time it is opened. I've been there since February. Since the beginning of May, when I actually started sleeping through most nights, that door has been waking me up at all hours, and driving me crazy. This morning when it woke me up, I decided that I would make it my personal mission to see to it that it never squeaked again. That was actually fairly easy to achieve, since my dad left the WD-40 (the best-smelling substance on the face of the earth!) sitting on his jigsaw, so all I had to do was go into the basement, get it, and spray it on the door hinges. Nonetheless, I feel like I have the right to be proud of my fix-it prowess, because I fixed something that hasn't even been looked at it the last eight years - and because I'm a girl and I know what WD-40 is.

Now, I suppose, I must go and work out. I really, really don't wanna. On the bright side, I have about a million outfits that I couldn't wear until last week, and about a million more that I'll be able to wear by the end of the summer.

I Forget.

I completely forget what I was going to post about. I applied for a bunch of jobs today. The insane rainstorm kept me from applying at the two jobs that required an in-person application, 'cause I thought it might reduce my chances slightly if I showed up looking like a drowned rat.

Also, when I worked out today, all of the equipment was soaking wet, so I had to dry it with my sweater, which was lovely. I really need new shoes. It's bad when they leak normally, but today it was just ridiculous. Despite all that, my workout was fun, and a lot easier than it used to be... I think I need to step up my game a little.

Devereaux Court is doing well, with six members and climbing.

Now I just have the rest of my cousin's identity guide to design, because, for reasons I am now a little confused about, I told her it wouldn't be a problem for me to have it done for tomorrow. Yep, I am insane.

I think that really is it for me.

Devereaux Court & Stuff

So, Devereaux Court is doing pretty well. I spent a good chunk of yesterday learning how to split the sidebar into two columns, which I did manage to do. Then I stayed up late writing posting guidelines and stuff.

This evening, I messaged some writers I know and asked them if they would be interested in joining. So far, I've had two takers, which brings our number to four, with several invites still open. I have to say, I'm reasonably excited about this.

I worked out today, obviously. Yesterday I really pushed myself, and I'm sorry to say that I didn't do the same today. It was unbelievably hot and muggy, but that's sort of a lame excuse. Maybe I'll do better tomorrow.

Tonight, I plan to watch House, work on Aigaion Girl and probably teach my dad how to do some basic photo manipulation.