a map of somewhere cosmic

Yes, please, Christopher Nolan.

2008-07-23T09:27:12Z

Holy WOW, Batman!

And I think I'm going to take a few days off the internet starting NOW, because I don't want to hear about SDCC. I don't want all the excitement to lure me into regretting being responsible. :P

I don't wish ill on you wonderful people who are going, I'm just sad it's not in the (credit) cards for me this year.

If you will be there, go to the Flight booth (#1228) to see Reagan & assorted Flight crew.

Also, I recommend you give Katie some love at BB-18.

If you were me, you'd also swing by G2 and shake the hands of Mike Daley and Pascal Campion, two of my favorite blogging artists that I've never met.

And Dark Knight was amazing.

If I had a car, I'd probably go see it again this weekend, husband along or not.

Peril and Victory

2008-07-21T10:31:25Z

Day 3 of 3. The victory is the important part, ne?

Truncated version of the epic post of insight

As each idea, each phase of introspection passes through my mind, I wind a little closer to uncovering what I really want, the true grail I am digging through this angst for. Somewhere in the last paragraphs (see if you can find the point where I lose momentum and hastily wrap things up) I unearthed a piece of that puzzle, and wrote the key down on a sticky note (and stuck it to my monitor). What I am truly seeking with my self-challenge for productivity through stretching a bit here and jotting a bit down there is a ritual for invoking flow.

I honestly believe that Flow has been lacking from my creative pursuits this year, even if I haven't grokked that fact until now. I don't think I'll be able to go straight from this long, long string of non-Flow days to consistently achieving that mental state, but knowing where I'm going will be a start.

Incidentally, earlier today I decided what new element will be introduced to my self-challenge tomorrow, and while the word "flow" did not come to mind, the new piece of my outward-growing puzzle is decidedly pro-Flow.

Over the past couple days I've fancied that the new twist in my plan would be to do a daily photo, or a fiction writing session, or otherwise add an activity. I thought I'd deepen the complexity and raise the standards of accomplishment, but instead the next strategic move is to simplify. I'm promising to, for a period of three to four hours, turn off my instant messenger and banish the browser windows that beg for my attention. Correction: the browser windows my mind wanders to, and clings to like a crutch so it doesn't have to face terror of creating.

While there is no guarantee that burning these bridges (temporarily!) will free up headspace and declutter my mind, they will reduce interruptions which are the mortal enemy of Flow, and also cut down on distractions, which are my mortal enemy, and thus my battle to fight. And fight it I shall.

And then there were two...

2008-07-20T09:39:54Z

Hey, this is easy.

Despite the fact that last night devolved into a fest of facebooking, it was still a win, and today is worthy of congratulations of equal measure.

I'm a little worried when comes the day that I will wake up before noon and want to do some internet study. That in itself is good, but once I develop details into some of my systems, I usually want to stick to those systems rigidly and pursue uniformity.

The jeopardized uniformity in question is that of my quote collection. I subscribe to the Quotations Page feed and occasionally come across a bit of philosophy or ideology that strikes my fancy. Not necessarily as something I think or believe, but a viewpoint I see as being a core to develop a fictional character's personality around. These key quotes are jotted down on post-it notes and stuck into a notebook. Whenever possible, I write the quote with a particular lavender Sharpie.

I keep the formatting consistent partially for consistency's sake, and partially so I can differentiate the "quote notes" from the "idea notes" that fill most of the notebook in question.

A mere two days ago I spotted the Sharpie on my desk and went to get a pad of post-its so I could close some quote tabs, but somewhere between going to the other room to grab the neon green sticky notes and returning to my desk, I must have gotten distracted. Now I have no clue where my lavender Sharpie is. True, I could use the navy blue, but it wouldn't be the same. It just wouldn't be the same.

I stumbled over a new thought in the process of writing this, and it's difficult to continue coherently. I'm eager to use up old art so I can start posting the new stuff that I'm more happy with as I regain my see-arms.

Personal Challenge, Day 1/3

2008-07-19T07:36:41Z

I am sweaty and my head is soaking wet. It must be midnight.

The timing was great. I got back from a short run with Reagan, stuck my head under the kitchen faucet, then did some post-run stretching. My water was about half done when I looked up and saw both hands on the clock pointing straight up.

"Time to post!"

And the exercise-induced endorphins are a great accompaniment as I sit down at my keyboard.

I mentioned yesterday that it's a self-challenge thing I'm doing, and I'm making it up as I go along. There will be pulling bits of inspiration and philosophy from different sources on and off the web, but primarily I want to build from zero and go for what is natural for me. I'll probably get more into the specifics of what and why in the future. Right now I answer to myself "why three days?"

Why three days?

I'm starting small. There are big things I want to do with the vast amounts of free time I've been gifted with, and it's a big goal to accomplish Good Things for the people who have made it possible, but I am not capable to go from zero structure to the wonderful dancing ideas I have in my mind. I'm starting small in number of days and number of things I ask of myself. After three days there will be seven days, then fourteen days, and so-on and so-forth, with each day bringing new progress on goals and projects.

But for these three days, I am only going to ask three things of myself. There is a fourth, time-specific objective, but it (studying internet) is something I promised myself a month ago that I wouldn't over-stress myself about, and I intend to stick to that.

Yoga around 3pm happened, and drawing at 6pm happened, and now posting at midnight is happening. Foundation! Precedent!

That's what the first three days are. Foundation. If I stick the landing for the first 3 days, I'll have proved to myself what is possible. I'll get a shiny medal for having a completed goal under my belt, and that can serve as a boost-up when I'm faltering in a month or so.

To a certain degree, this is the glow of coming back from summer camp, the fire of starting something new. Except that I haven't come back from camp, unless reading The Alchemist counts. I've simply hit a point where I don't know where my future is, or what my future is, or what roles I'm going to play in the future. I've decided that I'm going to make choices to make myself and my life what I want them to be, and let the future come.

I think this is where they say, "Obnoxiously positive." And roll their eyes at my endorphins.

In summation: Natural Systems. Small Goals.

More old drawings, but I did get a few pages done today, and it feels very good to get back into it, even if I'm scared of the day on which I'll have to step it up. Getting over that is a future goal. ;)

Personal Challenge, Day 0/3

2008-07-18T07:30:08Z

Stealing a few minutes from Yojimbo to put down a few words.

I'm slowly easing myself into a new rhythm, or at least trying to. Study before noon, yoga at 3, draw after 6, post at midnight. I'm going to try to hold myself to that for three days, starting Friday. (Yes! I'm sleeping mostly-normal hours now!)

Today fell squarely into the category of "normal with internet".

Strangely anime epic dreams last night, and they'd be good inspiration if I could remember more of them. Bits were actually too scary for me to want to explore deeply (as in, I wouldn't write it), but nothing nightmarish. Good because Reagan wasn't there when I woke up (running car-errands).

I found the Tick live action series on Netflix, and it is everything I want out of TV. Brilliant writing, witty, and on FOX, which means it was canceled after 8 episodes. I watched that while drawing, and Yakitate! Japan while doing milder stuff. Crackpot anime! I love all the word-play even if I don't grok it, and there are many hilarious bits. Glad there's a lot of it.

Slow drawing is slow. Getting my sea-fingers back.

The more "interesting" parts of life have happened in previous days. Car trouble and budget-searching have meant needing to give up things that I've been looking forward to and that also cost money. Main effect: Reagan going to SDCC without me. :(

Man Toshiro Mifune is really beat up right now.

In cheerier news, I got The Alchemist audio book free from iTunes last week, and finished it a couple days ago. Loved every bit of it, and it challenges me to think in new ways. The book arrived to my possession, too, courtesy of dracowayfarer. I'm very happy to have both. The guy who reads the audiobook is good, but some of his voices are funny.

And a(n oldish) sketch:

Pair the 10th

2008-07-15T05:59:20Z

This isn't catching up on awesome activities, this is notification that the boots ordered from jetgrrl01 showed up! I put them on post-haste and went for a walk to get a feel for them. Reagan took some pictures.

Wicked awesome. :D

Efficiency!

2008-07-09T10:00:13Z

I take a strange pride in the fact that my iPod is filled to within a 200 MB of its capacity. :) Hopefully being so full doesn't impair it's functionality.

And if someone can tell me what that 73.1 MB of "other" stuff on my 'pod is, I'd appreciate it. I assume that it's firmware and games, but I am irked by that small sliver of orange in the capacity bar.

What is in that capacity, you ask?

22.9 of the 27.3 gigs of music is occupied by a smart playlist called "Special New". It's an offshoot of my "New Music" Smart Playlist. The "New Music" only has two rules: Playcount = 0, and Genre != Podcast. "Special New" adds on the limitations that the tracks are between 1:45 and 10:00 in length, Artist != [blank], and Genre != [blank]. Basically, this is all songs that I haven't listened to yet in this phase of my library. Whenever possible, I shuffle my entire iPod library, so I'm slowly working through this.

The next big chunk is probably the standard Smart Playlists: Top Rated (basically any rating at all), Recently Played (last 2 weeks), and Top 100 Most Played (ranging from 33 plays to 4)

Of the three non-smart playlists, only one counts, because the other 3 are On-The-Go playlists that are still hanging around. That one playlist that counts is my stargazing list. :)

On The Go 8 is interesting, though. It's comprised of 38 episodes of NPR's Second Stage, and on each track I've edited the start and end times so you don't hear the DJ or the 'brought to you by...' messages. (Okay, i just renamed it to "Second Stage, edited")

Alright, I renamed On-The-Go 6, too, to "Slightly Emo". All the non-smart playlists count now. :P

The remaining 3 playlists I keep on my iPod are all highly functional. Numbers one and two, named "Easy Dreams" and "Lake Wobegon", respectively, share the function of putting me to sleep. Easy Dreams is soothing ambient stuff. I'm sadly missing the N.E.R.D track. Lake Wobegon is also good for putting me to sleep. Garrison Keillor has a very soothing voice. The playlist is set to pull the 12 least often played tracks from my collection of 75 News From Lake Wobegon podcasts.

I use the same "least often played" trick with the last playlist. It's 3 random YOGAmazing episodes, but is a new experiment.

The remaining space is used to hold one episode each of my other podcasts. Almost all NPR (9 of those), except for the hour long Irish and Celtic music podcast (Marc Gunn for president!), TMBG, and This American Life (it's public radio... but not NPR!).

There's more than you wanted to know about what's on my iPod, organizationally.

But I want to know what's on yours!

No Downside.

2008-07-08T09:44:01Z

I had an epiphany tonight. In an hour or less I patched up psychic wounds that has been rubbed raw for months on end.

It's not easy to put more words to it than that without becoming oblique and cryptic or exceedingly personal and revealing, and I wish to do neither (but make no promises). Regardless, I'm more joyful now than I've been for quite a while. My mind is at rest, I am at ease.

Better than merely those things, I found a new faith in Other People's Wisdom and it's a humbling experience. It's unexpected and inexplicable, but this epiphany has put a decent-sized crack in my cynicism, and I don't want it to heal over again. I hope beyond hope that I remember this feeling and that it makes me a better, more gentle person.

It's strange to me, but this epiphany isn't completely grounded in reality. There is evidence for and against its factuality, perhaps more on the "against" side (but that might be the months of baggage talking). Accepting the epiphany as truth, however, makes the puzzle pieces in my mind fit together in a way that just seems right. I'm going to put down my pride and let this new idea be true.

Letting go of my pride isn't a downside. Pride can be heavy. :P

Things get better. People improve. It does happen. Be good to each other.
Have friends you can trust, and trust them.

For additional positivity...

And Draco inspired me to write my own verses:

I love to read books
Love always learning stuff
I love to crack jokes
I hope I'm funny enough
I love the whole world
and all my awesome friends

Boom de ya-da
Boom de ya-da
Boom de ya-da
Boom de ya-da

I love to draw things
I love the internet
I love just living
and I'm not finished yet
I love the whole world
and hope it never ends

Boom de ya-da
Boom de ya-da
Boom de ya-da
Boom de ya-da!

ps: my hair is very soft.

I shop at Hot Topic

2008-07-07T03:24:53Z

Or, more accurately, I shopped at Hot Topic. I don't really plan on going back.

Bumped into lejakl while at the mall with dracowayfarer, and we bummed around a little bit, and the former suggested looking into HT, and the latter did not protest enough to stop us.

Carol and I took a look at the clearance rack in the back of the store. She tried on a neat zip-up dress but passed, I found a black tank top with a dinosaur in a rocket ship for $5. It was worth waiting the five minutes while the employee at the register did something arcane for the single customer in front of me.

...

At least I passed on the poser belt, even though it looked like Mario bricks. >_>

In other news, I finally saw Ferris Buller's Day Off.

Perfect movie!

Litmus Test

2008-07-05T15:08:46Z

I was being emo.

I listened to Basshunter's Boten Anna and instantly felt better.

Draw your own conclusions.

San Fran Trip, San Fran Day

2008-07-02T09:13:30Z

I am sick-ish, and right now it's accompanied by sharp pain in the throat area.
And I got upset-ish on the drive home from dracowayfarer's place.
(Has nothing to do with him or the visit, just stuff I was thinking about on the road.)

So here are a bunch of photos from two Fridays ago.
All the pictures with their epic descriptions can be found starting here in the flickr set.

Now go forth and comment to make me feel better. :P

Road Trip, Day One! (Finally!)

2008-06-28T18:09:46Z

Last weekend I kept dracowayfarer company as he drove up to the Bay Area to visit friends and places.

I used most of my words over in the Flickr set descriptions, and chances are that talking about photos or the trip
would contribute to the overuse of certain positive adjectives, so the pictures can do the talking.

My usericon also comes from that day. :)
Once we made it to Oakland, we met up with our host ceolyn and a couple of her friends for Thai.
I doodled on the tablecloth.

Though lights-out was fairly early (hoping to get an early start on Friday's touring),
I hardly slept a wink, so lonely was I without my gear_halo. :(
(*abandons LJ for make-up snuggles*)

Fandom Collision ahead

2008-06-28T08:03:55Z

Colbert on L&O: CI (in 2004)?

Distraaaaaacting!!

Yeah robots!

2008-06-28T07:24:20Z

Despite me being a bad Pixar fangirl and not knowing that Wall-E came out today, I got to see it anyways.

Through a confluence of having plans to do something with Tiff, wanting to support Pixar by seeing their movie opening weekend, and hearing that dracowayfarer had a pass to see Wall-E at Das Lagos... the four of us managed to catch the 9:10 showing!

I drove way too fast on the drive down and packed too much food for our parking lot picnic (and coughed way too much during the movie), but had a great time regardless.

The movie might've been more enjoyable without the environmental agenda, but it is what it is, and I very much enjoyed the story. The first act gave me lots of pings of story interest, and later parts made me reminisce about Run Robot Red. Oh, and those Mac sound effects made me grin.

The short was fantastic, as were the feature, credits, and company. :) A++!

Oh, and Fred Willard. :D

Updates! New things! Old news!

2008-06-27T22:48:36Z

My hair is sticking up in strange places, and I look totally ridiculous.

My flickr account is now pro. I am cooler than I used to be. I paid because I'm about to drop 200 photos on y'all.

I also have Last.fm. I am even more cooler than I used to be. I joined because
Ali Farka Toure came on iTunes via shuffle, and more people need to listen to Ali Farka Toure. I don't know how well this will go longer term because I tend to do more Netflix-watching than music-listening while drawing. But right now I'm messing with photos, and I do listen to music while doing photo stuff.

You don't need to add me or anything. I'm just there.

I'm there now, but you know where I've been in the past?

Know why?
+

We took a few new and special cheeses up to "our hill". Also in attendance: two bottles of the double chocolate stout Reagan proposed with, two pairs binoculars, a sleeping bag (so we wouldn't have to sit on the rocky ground), and the camera.

Even though I had to leave early the next morning (on the day of our anniversary), we had a nice, relaxing evening.

Those, and a few more, in the flickr set

tweak

2008-06-25T23:14:01Z

Hm, not as much of an improvement as I expected; some of the warmth and saturation are lost in translation from iPhoto to LJ Gallery, and I'm not feeling in love or obsessive enough to make sure it looks perfect on the internet.

Enough time on this. More time on drawing!

omfGIRL.

2008-06-25T22:52:49Z

Just home from going calling with my mom.

First thing home, after putting down my Stuff I took off my shoes

high heels. I was taller than my mom, and both ladies we visited. o.o wiped the sweat and dirt out of them, and put them back in their box.

Early this morning lejakl called a raincheck on our plans this evening, and though I tried to pass it on and pass on going to visit family with my mom early this morning, she "bullied" (her word) me into going anyway (despite saying herself that I looked sick-ish (it's just a cough)).

I went with my mom to Long Beach/Seal Beach so we could visit my cousin Laurel
and mom could pick up special flip-flops. They are not looking at flip-flops in this picture

We spent some time looking around the little-shop-y area in Seal Beach, chatting. There was a garden/nursery with a cat

and a goose

After dropping off Laurel, we headed to a lunch of salad
(not actual salad) and fried macaroni and cheese with the Birthday Aunt (other side of the family).

I offered to take a few pictures of them to note the occasion, just sitting there in the living room, and the last one came out well. Flattering impromptu portraits are something I want to get better at, and be able to do in a tactful way.

But I won't be so presumptuous as to post the good posed one, or the candid ones I like (that capture the people), so you get this candid portrait instead.
They said I look nice today.

ptfo

2008-06-23T12:04:08Z

SF trip was.

Wonderful time, and while the 1156 photos may not prove that, they certainly prove that I like the 10-shot feature on my camera quite a bit.

Now I need a vacation from vacation. Little is on my social calendar, other than Girls (tm) on Wednesday, and Mountains (tm) soonish, but I'm glad of it, as I have a backlog of things to do around the house and Internet, and the desire to get back in the creative swing of things.

Lots of thoughts bouncing around in my head. Despite being super tired, I think I'm mostly inspired and energized.

here's one favorite picture (from Sunday ((today?!?!)))

GAH (aka: OMG, SHOES!)

2008-06-18T00:33:43Z

And, yes, I'm still fighting it.

Went and spent a few hours shopping with my mom today. The explicit reason was for shoes I can wear to Reagan's sister's wedding this summer. I'm planning to make a dark gray dress, and had no Appropriate Shoes, my only heels being tan, and while boots work for my wedding, I should be respectful of someone else's choice for formality.

I was looking for something open toe and black/silver/gray, and found a couple in the style range (one was spot on), but neither my mom nor I are accustomed to spending $50+ on a single pair of shoes (heathens, I know). That was at the first store we went to. Second store we went to, nothing was as nice, and their clearance rack was way too disorganized to browse successfully.

(Besides looking for wedding shoes, I was also on the prowl for nice "every day" shoes that I can wear with jeans or a skirt... so black heels or any color of comfortable flats)

Mom offers to pay half of the nice pair we found at the first store, so we head back. While she found a saleslady to pull them out of the back, I gave the clearance section another going-over... and pulled out a pair of black heels and a pair of red heels in my size, both of which felt good on my foot. Saleschick offered to get their mates out of the back room while I tried the Nice Shoes on again in a couple different sizes.

I tried the Red Heels and the Black Heels on, both feet this time, and really loved both pair. Like "these are so nice, but I shouldn't by both, so how can I choose?" love. I hemmed and hawed and thought about talking myself into putting them both back, while across the shopping center our parking meter ticked down.

Then my mom speaks up and says she'll buy me all three pairs outright, "But you're not getting anything else for your birthday."

I can deal with that. *grin*.

Now I'm lying on the bed, typing on my laptop... STILL wearing the red heels (they are just SO MUCH FUN)... pondering how the past week fits in with my self image. Maybe this is a momentary flood of compensating for the 18 months of clothes-buying drought that preceded it, but in the past week and a half I've acquired six shirts, two pairs of jeans, a skirt, a pair of flip-flops, and three pairs of heels. And an item of makeup. Sure, some people will say that's an average weekend for them, but it is fully Left Field's News to me.

I know these things don't have to be conflicting. I can be utilitarian 80% of the time, and wear impractical shoes the other 20. I can like looking nice and not do it very often, but sometimes do it for no reason. No reason other than "I want to!"

As long as I don't keep up the rate I've been going at (and considering the utter lack of space in our living quarters, it'd be impossible), I think I can still call myself low maintenance. It doesn't make me any less crazy, but as we're nearing the two year mark of marriage (Thursday!), I'm pretty sure Reagan can deal with the crazy.

I know, I know.

2008-06-16T06:59:03Z

So, I haven't even gone over everything that happened Friday, and I still have two more groups of photos up on Flickr from events on Saturday and Sunday.

And I'm beat. Maybe (at least for my own benefit), I'll do a long recap on Tuesday of Friday-Monday... for now you have to deal with flickr descriptions and disordered randomness.

Saturday, as previously mentioned, was graduation ceremony and dinner for dracowayfarer. I also got to meet chumley and animachina, and discovered that the latter and I used to run in the same gaming circles. xD lejakl was awesome and let me ride with her, and was good company, as usual. <3

Here are pictures from commencement.

I brought home leftovers from BJs, and there are still about two meals worth of pasta in the fridge. :9

Today, Sunday, my brother's family came down for Dad's Day. Reagan had to work. :(

Brad made tasty potatoes and steak, I made delicious chocolate chip cookies. Talked some with Steph, and spent a good deal of time playing with my niece. She's just over a year old, and is lots of fun to take pictures of.

HOORAY that tomorrow (Monday) I'll be going with my husband to visit thornwolf&co. There will... likely be more pictures.

Don't worry, next week I have nothing planned, so there will be Normal Blogging and Sketching once more. :)

(ps: omg bsg)

omg, running late

2008-06-14T22:17:21Z

http://www.flickr.com/photos/itesser/

There's flickr for a non-chronological story of last night, plus a few pictures from the backyard/better ones of my flowers.

The biggest pieces left out of the Friday story are dinner at an AMAZING Greek place in LB where we had flaming cheese, lamb, and a very sweet white wine, then watching There Will Be Blood. The four of us fit on Brian's couch remarkably well. xD

And NOW I still have to get ready for dracowayfarer's graduation. @_@

I don't have a single day completely free of obligations this week, but I'm excited for all the prospective plans! :D WHEE!! Time to get out of bed!!!

double date

2008-06-14T08:20:15Z

Way fun friday with lejakl and her man. Couldn't've planned it better. Sharks, greek, and a movie. Remind me to post pics tomorrow. :D

Grumble? Unusually Chipper!

2008-06-13T18:13:14Z

It's been a while since I've set aside time to draw. This morning I forced myself to get up when the alarm went off an did some warm up sketching with NEW SYSTEM. I know, it's silly to try to put such creativity in a complex workflow, but I am, at times, very organizationally minded. (ps: I can't wait till I can afford the new OSX. Smart Folders = win!)

These aren't drawings from this morning, they're from the TONNE of scans Reagan put together for me a few days ago.

I've been up for an hour or so, I'm going to go snuggle until Reagan wakes up. :)

The things he does for me...

2008-06-12T00:28:28Z

One of the rare times I greet Reagan downstairs when he comes home from work, he gets miffed because he's carrying...

/is happy. :D

And he hand chose each one. <3<3

These are my cranky eyes

2008-06-11T07:08:53Z

I'm feeling lousy, and it turns out I will be at the DMV on Friday the 13th, so I'm going to honor a request and beat these blues by remembering better times (just a few days ago!).

Thursday

Greek food and book browsing in Brea with Carol and Tiff. We don't get to do the girls thing every week, but making the effort to spend some time together definitely pays off. I got to introduce the pair of them to There's A Monster At The End of This Book as we browse the kid section so Tiff could pick up some gifts. Of course we urged her to get old favorites from when we were younger. :) Nice to look around a different section for a change. I found a Neopets novel.

Friday

Bunker night! Reagan and I were planning to go for the heck of it, but dracowayfarer sent over notice that Ronan of VNV would be spinning a set, so we took him along. Well, technically he took us along since Draco did the driving.

The Chinese place we picked off the internet didn't look super hot once we got to LA, so we went a block or two further and found a sweet little Japanese joint that turned out to be super tasty. Japanese onion rings and iced coffee. :9

In search of an ATM for cash, we ended up at a grocery store to make use of that always handy "cash back" option. Reagan wanted fancy peanut butter for his peanut butter chicken recipe. Draco needed.... jelly. I was tickled beyond belief. :)

Bunker was pretty amazing. Much more enjoyable than the unfortunate "stuck in the stairway after the show" mishap of last time. (Other than that, my memories of the previous visit to Bunker for the VNV show are hazy). We were in line before the doors open (the bouncer checking ID asked me to verify my birthdate xD), and stayed until after 2:30... Early on in the night as we sat on the fringes of the dance floor I thought to myself that most of the night was likely to have a peculiar timelessness to it, and it held true. For a majority of the time I relaxed off the dance floor, watching the ebb and flow of dancers washed in flickering lights.

Reagan spent most of his time on the floor, and I got out a few times, only to be stymied by a lack of stamina and the occasional loss of balance. But it was great to have the chance to dance to a few songs I knew.

Oh, and I kinda dressed up. "I may not look good, but at least I look different!" Props go to Reagan for helping me put it together and put it on. I believe the look was dubbed "anti-industrial". The guys got gussied up, too. :3

Saturday
Early in the AM (around 9) Reagan had Very Important Errands to run, then had work at 2pm (till 11), and the time in between was spent napping to make up for the little sleep that resulted from getting home around 3:30am. This meant that I had a houseguest and a long lonely day to deal with on my own.

Taking care of both matters at once, the houseguest offered to stick around for a while, so I showed him the local sights.

- The Marvelous C&B of Clark Street! I make a mean pancake if I do say so myself. Fie on whomever says Bisquick doesn't cut it. Draco did his share and made the eggs and paid for the (surprisingly expensive) donuts.

- Upland Donuts! The local donut place makes my favorite fried bits of cake, but only takes cash and closes early. D: So if you want a full selection and to not pay an extra $2.50 to use the ATM at the liquor store, set an alarm and dig under the couch for spare change. :P (I'm seriously considering making a point to rise early for donuts (and a replacement cinnamon roll) next time we have overnight guests)

- San Berdoo Mountains! I wanted to buy an annual parking pass anyways, and Draco didn't need to be anywhere in a hurry, so after some time for digestion, mild internetting, and a costume change (on my part), we packed up leftovers and headed up towards Mt Baldy. It was a very nice day out, and though I took my camera, I didn't snap many pictures, preferring to explore, wade, and lose myself in the many sounds of the stream.

I had a good feeling when I pulled a piece of litter out of the water, and a great feeling when I found an ice cold, unopened pouch of Capri Sun (with straw!), but then felt kinds ill when I came across a broken beer bottle in the water. I pulled out as many large pieces of glass as I dared (and shed a tiny bit of blood in the process), then--much more carefully--made my way back to my shoes.

But overall, it was a very relaxing time. You can see just how relaxing here:

and on Flickr. Mine, Draco's. (Slightly redundant, as some pictures he took of me I borrowed for my own stream. ;P )

Once we had been back to the house and gotten things generally put away, in the peaceful lull that comes just before "what now?", I got a text from lejakl letting me know she was in town, and did I want to do anything? A few minutes later she agreed to come over, and a few minutes after that, she showed up to lead an expedition to another great Inland Empire highlight, Barnes and Noble.

After some mucking about there (I became interested in this book, Inlandia), we dropped by Elephant Bar for tasty eats. I didn't have my phone, so I had to borrow Draco's to text Reagan and see what kind of leftovers he would like, and I didn't have my ID so I couldn't join Carol in the joy of fruity tropical drinks. But neither of these killed the mood, and we had fun joking how Draco was so lucky to be going out with two girls. ;)

In the end, Draco didn't make his "heading home" deadline of 10:30 (or was that getting home?), but when everyone was on their merry way, I had less than a half hour to fritter away before Reagan got back from work. :)

Follow that with a Sunday of kicking back and Internet, a Monday of husband-time and very cool RP (some of which I may post), and a Tuesday of errands, that pretty well catches you up to date. Except I haven't mentioned Jarhead yet. And I'm not going to mention it more than that.

Know what? All that did help me feel better. Sleep always improves one's mood, and so going to bed in a good mood is EXCELLENT.