BEHOLD:



After months of nagging, I sanded the stupid shelving pieces myself and did the first half of the spraypainting job. Jameson, alerted by his "urdoinitrong" sense that I was going to do a half-assed job of something in the service of expedience, took over and finished the job. STORAGE UNIT: COMPLETE.

Also, I took a picture of Qwerty a couple weeks ago, and then the cats because I didn't want them to feel left out (even though, y'know, they couldn't since they don't even know he exists, much less that I was photographing him), so you can totally see pictures of my pets under the cut.
( IF YOU WANT, THAT IS )

Oh man, I am so craving pickled baby corn. WTF?

(no, I'm not pregnant. Honest)

Qwerty stood on my finger! He did not bite me! He did not fly away!

VICTORY.

I usually put the cover on Qwerty's cage around eight or nine at night, by which time he's been quiet and blinking sleepily for a while. Tonight, though, he was still climbing around and chattering until after nine.

Me: I kind've don't want to put him to bed, since he's so chatty, but it's way past his usual bed time. Why isn't he tired?

Jimmy: Seriously. I'm tired and I'm way bigger than he is.

It's true! Jameson is way, way bigger than the parakeet.

I think I sprained my big toe during sparring tonight.

...I am so awesome.

ow

So, everyone should check out girlycon, and then maybe host one! It is an awesome idea, and I got to do a photo shoot with Jimmy's ponies to make the comm header, so that is like awesome², or something.

I would like to do a GirlyCon in Tucson sometime soonish. I think maybe my house is a little small and inconveniently situated (like, there's no place where more than four people can really comfortably hang out together at a time), but I might be able to get permission to use Mom and Dad's house when they are away for a weekend or something? I WILL FIND A WAY.

In completely unrelated news, Qwerty (the parakeet) reeeeally likes Lady Gaga. And Girls Aloud. And Avril Lavigne. He has mixed feelings about Britney Spears. ...I'm really not sure what to do with this information.

Today has been kind've a funny mixed bag. I had lunch from my favorite sandwich place, and then totally threw it up right after (I think maybe it was psychosomatic food poisoning. Long story), so then I was too ill-feeling to do martial arts, but Mom covered for me. Yay Mom! And then I slept a lot, which is nice because I sure do like sleeping, but it did mean I didn't get anything much done during daylight hours.

Things started looking up, though! Jimmy and I went to the pet store, which is probably my third-favorite place to wander around looking at stuff (first two being Target and craft stores), and we got a nice sand perch for Qwerty which hopefully he will enjoy. And he didn't totally lose his cool when I reached into his cage to install it, so yay!

And then we had dinner and watched an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and that was nice. Jimmy has the first season on DVD, and I have never watched it before now, so we are watching the episodes together and I am guessing the plots after the first five minutes. Fun!

After that, we played WoW with Karen and Heather and George, which was a good time, if a slightly confusing and hectic one. I have a really hard time visually interpreting virtual 3D environments, and the more people in the group I'm playing with who are moving around and doing stuff, the harder it is for me to navigate or parse the visual information. Glargh. But it was nice to play with my friends, even if I suck.

And then I kind've killed Jameson's computer a little bit. Oops? I'm hoping it's nothing serious, and I comfort myself with the knowledge that I wasn't actually doing anything with it that Jameson doesn't do himself on a regular basis, so it's not my fault, but still. Not the most awesome possible end for the evening. We'll see how bad it is tomorrow - here's hoping for "not actually bad."

On an unrelated note, I still have a couple of Dreamwidth invite codes if anyone wants one. Lemme know what email address to send it to.

Here's what's going on in the study this evening:

Me: *listening to music, arranging a space opera-themed playlist*

Jameson, suddenly: One two three, TURTLE!

Me: What?

Jameson: What?

Me: ...

*pause*

Me: So, what comes after turtle? Five?

Jameson: NEVER FISHING AGAIN.

I did some clean-up of my various folders of writing today (the virtual ones, not my filing cabinet. Hm. Maybe I should scan all that stuff?) and found a quickie poem that I had totally forgotten about writing. It's probably not as entertaining as my teenaged poetry - I think it counts as grownup poetry, since I wrote it last year - but it's at least as weird. I dashed it off in response to a tongue-in-cheek Blog for a Beer challenge about finding slipstream/music mashup genres beyond "cyberpunk." I thought "cyberballad" would be an interesting genre.

( So, uh, here it is: )

Last week or thereabouts, I took the time to go through all of emails I was getting on a regular basis from companies I had once purchased something from, etc., and click through the "please remove me from your list" links. I felt very happy that I would be getting fewer emails I didn't actually want!

And now it turns out that NOBODY ACTUALLY EMAILS ME. I keep refreshing, thinking there must be a glitch! Surely I should have some email waiting for me after a half-day away from the computer!

I might have to "renew my interest" in some companies so that I can feel popular again.

When I was a kid, my family ended up taking care of a very bad-tempered parrot called Jolly for a while (a year? More?) who basically traumatized me into having a fear of birds. That little bastard was mean, and he was always going after my thumbs. It's good that he wasn't any bigger and that my thumbs weren't any smaller, or I think I might have fewer of them today.

Anyway, I like looking at birds. Especially little ones that make pleasant noises. But I am very shy about touching them, even when I know they're too small to hurt me.

Jameson, knowing this, and watching me make wistful eyes at the parakeets at the pet store many a time, decided that if I wanted a bird he would tame it for me so that I wouldn't have to be scared of it during the most bitey phase. Awww! So, long story short, we got a parakeet today. He has a turquoise colored body and a blue tail and a yellow head. I'd take a picture, but I think it'd freak him out - he's still getting used to his new digs.

SO THE THING IS, this bird needs a name! I think Qwerty could be a fun name for a bird that lives in an office (where he will indeed be living, to keep him totally safe from the cats, since they're not allowed in here), but I want to have some options.

Your thoughts??

Jimmy and Heather and I are off to see the new Star Trek! I am wearing my Blue Sun shirt because it is my favorite shirt right now and also is clean. Sensing an amusing theme off of which he could riff, Jameson has donned his "It's not the Jedi way" shirt.

...We are such dorks.

I've been fiddling around with the layout for my Dreamwidth account, and I think I've got something semi-decent going on. Take a look, if you like. I got the code I built off here (if you want to click through on that, you should know that the header on that journal features a drawing of a woman with tape or something over her mouth. I know that's the kind of thing that can be a nasty shock for some of my readers).

So, yeah. All new ways to procrastinate! Woo!

Me: Did you finish that thing for Ann?

Jameson: No.

Me: Did you do any dishes?

Jameson: No.

Me: Did you take care of your car registration thing?

Jameson: ...No.

Me: ...Did you put together that storage unit?

Jameson: Yes.

Me: *looks pointedly at non-assembled storage unit*

Jameson: It's a special kind of done. It's quantum-done. So you ruined it just now by measuring it.

Robyn and Jameson: *watch an episode of Joan of Arcadia on DVD*

Dan Byrd: *plays a character in the episode*

Robyn: Luke!

Jameson: Eh?

Robyn: That's totally Dan Byrd, the guy who played Luke on Heroes.

Jameson: *laughs at his wife for being a GIANT DORK*

...I can't wait til we get to the episode where Zachary Quinto is God. I'm sure there will be much hilarity in the Casa de Fleming y York that evening.

I haz a Dreamwidth, as several of you are already aware. I am not at this time planning to abandon LJ. I will keep reading my flist, and I am thinking I'll crosspost my entries so that those of you who are reading me from LJ will still be able to do so. I dunno what I'll do about friends who are also crossposting, so that I don't end up reading doubles of everything on my two (...or more) reading pages, but I'll figure that out as I go along!

So, uh, in short, nothing is reeeally changing on my end.

Boring post is boring! I'd liven it up with another bout of teenaged poetry, but I haven't stumbled across any recently. Woe.

Oh, hey, you know what I haven't done in aaaages? The "ask me stuff that you're curious about and haven't had an opportunity to ask/are embarassed to ask because you think you should know" meme. So go for it. Wanna know what my favorite color is (I give you this as a freebie: it is grey), or how I met Jameson, or why I am afraid of parrots or something? Ask away.

Went to Target after class tonight because Jimmy wanted to pick up a pair of inexpensive shorts, since it's hot now and I threw out the ones he wore multiple holes into last year, and I needed to replenish our supply of instant icepacks for the dojang after one of my purple belts kneed himself in the forehead twice on Saturday (he's very flexible) (and he only used one icepack, but that was the second one in the box of two I put in our first aid kit last year, and I used the first one myself when I stupidly dislocated my finger, whenever that was). While we were there, I made two delightful and unexpected purchases!

1) SHORTS WITH FISHES ON THEM, Y'ALL. They're men's cargo shorts, so the fit is kind've odd, but OMG FISH ON MAH PANTS. Plus they were on the clearance rack.

2) Target is selling the boxed set DVDs of Heroes season one and two plasticwrapped together for less than what season one alone usually goes for. I had been making the grabby hands of longing at S1 for aaaages because of my deep and obsessive love of commentary tracks, but, y'know, I couldn't really justify the purchase to myself, since I can watch the episodes themselves over and over on Netflix. But to get the bonus of cracktacular S2 essentially for free... Well, I am only human.

ETA: Oh Em Gee, these commentaries are already filling me with epic glee.

Leonard Roberts, Sendhil Ramamurthy and Jack Coleman are talking over a scene, and start off by commenting on how totally smoking hot Tawny Cypress is. Then Leonard notes that Adrian Pasdar's on-screen stubble is almost ridiculously perfect, and then gives Sendhil props for his in-person stubble, too. At which point Sendhil says that it's designer Armani stubble, that's shaved in. There is much giggling and further jokes about designer stubble.

"We should probably talk about what's on screen right now," Jack observes.

There is a pause.

Completely deadpan, Sendhil admires Milo Ventimiglia's bold decision to "play this coma scene gay."

I'm ill, but mostly mobile, and before he left for work this morning Jameson petted my fevered brow and then suggested that I might find some time in the hammock pleasant and relaxing. Good idea! So I trooped out there with a book, an alarm set to go off in an hour in case I fell asleep and the sun came over the house and started to fry me, and a soda.

I didn't end up reading at all. I just reclined in the hammock and watched the local wildlife, naming the species of lizards and birds I saw to myself and being faintly apprehensive about a couple of wasps. It was very pleasant. We have lots of pretty little birds hopping around our mesquite trees right now, and it was nice to watch them and listen to them chirp.

And then one of the goldfinches shat into my can of Mountain Dew.

Ah, well. I was almost done with it anyway.