MeeJ

I've been essentially offline for the past two weeks. I've run forty-three miles, completed a tabata session (OH MY GOD), written five letters, gotten denied my chance to go home to visit my family for Christmas, and seen Ali's new house.

I have not yet looked at the WoW MoP expansion. I heard there's something about farming. Actual farming. Later this week I'll check in and see how badly Blizzard has impacted my headcanon. My theory is: a lot. But also: pet battles.

I have sprouted hives on my arms and legs, with bouts of itching so horrible that in the middle of the night I have considered simply flaying myself (but that itches, too), or killing myself with some sort of quickly-moving poison. Benadryl takes too long to work and then knocks me completely out for twelve hours. Oatmeal baths help a little. Maybe I need to run more.

Work is settled. The new boss is very cool. I like him. He has left me in charge while he's off at a conference in Houston for a week. Maybe that's the source of the hives. I hate responsibility. People should just do what I say and everything will be fine.

I've been preparing for the move to Nashville. A good half of my stuff is packed, inventoried, and put in storage. The other half is lying limply strewn over the rest of Pinkhouse. I have too much stuff and need to cull. I've tried to cut down my books to only what is not available on Kindle, but that's still a lot of books, and my stationery wardrobe is serious goddamned business, taking up a full shelf as it does. Iiiiii have far too many clothes for someone who wears a uniform to work and dresses mostly in workout clothes the rest of the time. More culling!

I am finding peace in my self as I put my environment in order. The only stress is coming from reassignment of stuff, and the resistance in my soul to divorcing myself from it in bits and bobs. Obviously I'd have a better shot at going whole-hog and living in a room with a mat and a lamp, but that isn't going to happen; I want some stuff. It's just a question of which stuff that will be.

One of this stuffs, obviously, is the Greyspell plushie Ali made me for my birthday. Despite everything, I still think that dumb emo lorks are cool. And there is a squid in his hood.

I am afraid to consult my backlog of webcomics, but Oglaf's siren call cannot be denied.

This is my new favorite thing, for now. (NSFW due to swearing in the very title of the page. Also, lots of shouty profanity, which is obviously one of my things.)

I've been inconsistent about my exercise for the past three weeks, which: these things happen when you go on cleaning jags and also have a two-year-old around the house, and also it's too hot for human habitation seriously what the hell tropical storms so selfish just blowing around when I have crap to do. I'm trying to keep up with it reasonably, since my birthday plans include - as they have for the past few years - running a number of miles in the lower double digits (and then eating all the pizza). I can reliably pull off ten miles without having to do overmuch preparation, so I'm considering I've hit a good point in my fitness. Also? I have a sixpack. I'm really very obnoxious in showing it off, too. I'll probably get better about this as I get more mature, but we've seen how mature I can be. We'll SEE.

I'm reading the new David Brin book. It's good, but he's doing the usual Brin thing of too many goddamned characters on their own tears for the first third and then what the hell!!!! Brandon Sanderson does this too, but he does adorable characters better than David Brin (David Brin still does much better dialogue and slang). So far: no giant squids. I don't know if I'm sad about this or not.

This is a documentary about a geisha in Kyoto. It is very nicely done.

Everyone should have seen "Gangnam Style" by now. If you haven't, Google it. I'M NOT YOUR MOTHER, I DON'T HAVE TIME TO FIND YOU LINKS TO EVERYTHING. Oh fine WATCH IT. Safe for work, I guess, but get some headphones.

I am trying not to stress over writing, trying not to make it about deadlines or "you HAVE to finish this", but just trying to ... let it flow. Sometimes this results in something stupid like a page of Graycloak insults, and sometimes it's turning into something cool, like the Vices/Virtues thingy Desnik and I are doing. I still have no idea where that's going, and that relaxes me immensely. I haven't been able to look at my forum tags for a while because the crippling guilt of OMG WHY DIDN'T I TAG BACK YET is cutting that right off. Baby steps. Baby steps. At least I still haven't hit the deadline of "when Walks finishes Kun-"

OH FFFFFFF

crap I've like done all of this stuff and I don't even know where to begin y'all except that obviously i've decided to like totally eff punctuation sideways right up the bean

Also, this morning Cal shared something with me:

Cal: Walks: meej recommended a Guy Gavriel Kay book to me. Should I be concerned? Right now it is mostly just lots of pretty words flowing over me.
Me: Yeah, that's GGK in a nutshell. It's beautiful Monet watercolors of castration and rape.
Walks: ...
Cal: Me: NOT EVEN KIDDING TOTALLY LITERAL
Cal: Walker
Oh look. There's the gloriously illustrated murder.

Seriously though I'd categorize GGK as more like a Waterhouse of castration and rape, and also sieges and assassinations and enucleation.

I haven't been posting again, and honestly it's not just because I'm boring; it's because I'm busy as hell and some days I don't even turn on my computer at all.

This is somewhat disconcerting, given that I use the series of tubes to keep in touch with my friends, and if I don't internet, I don't see them.

I am behind on all of my posts and all of my forums. I am bogged down by the amount of mental gymnastics I'd need to get back into writing mode. I have no idea how Kiya does it, much less so awesomely, with a wee toddling thing.

(Important note: that gup's first word was "uh-oh". I am relieved it was something so innocuous, and not - say - "fucksticks".)

I got surprised into rereading A Heart Apart last month. I'm still not sure how I feel about it, given that I'd moved on to darker pastures (I think that there was not one single baby eaten in all of AHA, and there's some guy named Arawn running around).

SO UH

ANYTHING Y'ALL WANT TO TELL/ASK ME????

I WANT TO RUN TEN MILES EVERY DAY.

Also I got rickrolled on mile eight.

I wrote a tiny thing for Cal, who belongs to Niall.

( SRS INVENTING )

I'm on week 8 of my 12-week half-marathon training plan, and on Wednesday I suffered a minor setback, like your mom. Like - like your MOM is the minor setback, not like she suffered one on Wednesday. That's what I'm getting at. There was a setback, and I hit it, like I hit YOUR MOM.

My weekly mileage is up to 24 miles, which is two shy of the goal I'd like to attain and maintain (five, six, five, ten), and I've been using a calorie counter to do a base goal of 1520 calories a day. Stop me when you see the problem.

... I've been doing this for two months.

So on Wednesday, when my plan was to run six miles, four at a tempo pace, I made my first mistake, which was to eat two pieces of toast with peanut butter and honey for breakfast, and then my second mistake was to go out to run, on August 31st in Memphis, at one o'clock pip emma, under the clear blue open sky. This was not a wise decision, but I did pull out an 8:02 mile before I collapsed and had to call Suboshi to come get me.

This led to some conferencing with my running parner-in-crime, the Alibee, and we used some SCIENTIFIC METHOD to look at our SCIENTIFIC RUNNING PLAN, and our conclusion was: dumbasses with overtraining and undereating, also dumbasses. Ever since upping the mileage past fifteen a week, we really, REALLY ought to have increased the caloric intake to account for those longer runs (burninating some serious stores in our bodies).

I decided on Wednesday, after sitting with a cold wet towel on my head and drinking all the water ever, that I was going to take the rest of the week off, then start over on Monday with a re-do of Week 8: three miles, six with four at tempo, three, and ten.

So today I have not run, although today would be my twelve-mile day. I feel odd. "RUNNING MEEJIT RUNNING FREE" is one of my default away messages on IM. Not being a running meejit running free is ... well, maybe doing some laundry will help.

I did, however, do a hell of a lot of crawling around on the floor this morning, because THAT GUP NEEDED GETTIN'!

Actually, it was a Starbucks.

My tiny brother is driving cross country with his buddyroos, Justin and Nick, to take Justin to his new job and home in Chicago. They deviated to come see their other friend Richard, and on their way they came to see me!

Unfortunately they all suffer from Unabletoplanitis, endemic among college students, so we were only able to line up ducks sufficiently for them to spend an hour with me, but hey, there was coffee and he looked adorable and my co-workers felt that all three are wicked hot, and I was all LOL THEY ARE TINY YOUNG TWENTY-SOMETHINGS, HANDS OFF YOU COUGAR WENCHES.

I am glad to have seen them. But the Boy could still stand to check in on his Words With Friends games more often.

even more so in comparison to the subject of the Chick Tract that someone left me as a tip yesterday.