Your questions! Answered at last!

[constance]

My nose ring, for coco and laurel and telanu:



It is little and silver and has a tiny blue stone set in, but I couldn't seem to position the camera correctly to get a shot straight on.



The puppy Abey, out on the front porch, and how he entertained himself last night, for coco and laurel and jenny:



He chewed the arm of one of their deck chairs. He may actually have eaten it, because I didn't see any fabric scraps anywhere or anything. To this I say, Go Abey--but next time, no swallowing!



News of my grandmothers, for laurel:

My grandmother with the broken hip is getting out of the hospital later this week. As is my other grandmother, who went in last week. They are doing comparatively well, considering that they have both been in and out of hospitals for the past couple of years, each time coming out a little more fragile. One went into a nursing home last year, and the other has just decided to go into one, and they are making the best of it, but. You can only be so sanguine about reducing your life to a single room.

Part two of this story is that they want me to have lots of their things, because I am the Unmarried Granddaughter, and because I Like Pretty Old Things, and I can't bear to tell them no, and so I will have furniture in storage and in my house for ever, unless I buy a mansion, or some sort of duplex.

I think mansion, don't you? There is a five bedroom Victorian house for sale that I have my eye on. I shall start saving up.



News of my dog, for laurel:

Flannery is exceeding old now, and she is tired and doesn't walk so well. I had thought it was arthritis, but my vet says that it might be a nervous disorder. I am supposedly going to find out for sure tomorrow, but either way, I am lifting her up stairs and onto and off of the bed. To be honest, I'd carry her wherever she wanted to go, if she wanted carrying. I just feel terrible for her.

She had surgery last week--three (benign) tumors removed and a teeth-cleaning--and she's just had her stitches removed, but she still looks a little Frankensteinish.



My trip through the Heart of Darkness, for laurel and dahlia and telanu:

Oh, my gosh. Remember how I posted not so very long ago about being homesick for south Louisiana? No longer, man. When I got in my car to travel there for work last week, it was about 75 degrees F, sunny and warm and breezy, and as I drove southwest, it just got hotter every time I got out of the car. When I hit the Gulf Coast, it was 90 degrees F and rising, and by the time I got to Baton Rouge, it was 98 with 90% humidity. And it was awful. I imagine Hell, when I get there at the end of my miserable sinner's life, will be hot in this particular way.

There were compensations: my mother stayed in my hotel room, and though I am a privacy nut, there are special, subtle pleasures to be derived from getting to a hotel after a twelve-hour day (ten in office, two in hospital) and seeing a friendly face. In bumper-to-bumper memorial day weekend traffic, a boy diving off a bridge into a peaceful sound. Food such as I have not had for too long.

Still, when I think of that weather, the smell of the hospital, the sight of my grandmother, who is now down to 87 pounds and cannot finish a sentence without having to stop and catch her breath, the slow grind of holiday traffic. It was a bad week, really.



The State of My Hair, for laurel and dahlia:



Today is what we young hipsters like to call a bad hair day. But it is longer than it's been for a while, and it seriously needs cutting, so we are going to put it down to that. It is a bob layered in the front and back, with long bangs, just touching the base of my neck if you stretch it out.

Please ignore enormous premenstrual zit on chin thank you. Also crooked glasses which are not premenstrually crooked but only are crooked because I am a dork, which is a permanent condition.



My bathroom curtains, for laurel and jenny:



They are really just one curtain. They are really just a cotton duck shower curtain, which I no longer need because I have a clawfoot tub without a shower. But using it as a curtain makes my bathroom all stripey and festive. I like it.



The hydrangea shrub in my front yard, for laurel and jenny:



Pretty, no? The flowers are pale blue and lavender. Also, I should confess that the only reason I know it is a hydrangea is that my mother told me it was a hydrangea.



The current state of my library account/reading condition, for laurel and dahlia and telanu:

I had three dollars in fines for about six months that I just never paid, because every time I went to the library I forgot to mention it, and apparently they don't bother to bring it up unless you're seriously in arrears. However, last time I went to the library I paid it off, and I can currently hold my head up high when I go.

At the moment, I have out:

Master and Commander on audio, which I checked out because coco mentioned how much she was liking it and I decided to give it another listen. The thing that bothered me about the series the first time I read it (that O'Brian is constantly making his characters do anachronistic things in the name of revolutionary progress) still bothers me, but this reading delights me. It's dynamic and energetic and gruff and excitable, and listening to it made the whole trip into the heart of darkness more like a trip through the heart of darkness with Jack Aubrey along for company. This is entirely acceptable to me.

The Book of Sand and The Aleph and Other Stories by Jorge Luis Borges. I've been a fan of Borges's fiction for years; the precision and economy of language he employs to describe the most fantastic and surreal premises pleases what has been proven to be my robotic soul. I am in the middle of The Book of Sand right now, and I haven't found anything yet to equal my favorites in, say, Ficciones, but I have hopes.

The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst. I checked this out because dahlia loved it so much, and I'm looking forward to it, but I've wanted to save it for a non-travel week, when my reading won't be quite so limited or broken up. This coming week.



Favorite place in my apartment, for jenny:



I have an unattractive but very comfy armchair which my parents have appropriated for the moment, and though I have a rocking chair and sofa, the rocking chair is too small for three pets and a grown woman, and the sofa is sort of purgatorial, uncozy and understuffed. I am hanging out in bed these days because when I hang out there we can all hang out together. My apartment is quite sunny, and my bedroom doesn't get any more sun than the living room, but my internet connection is here, and so unless I'm watching a movie on TV, I am usually to be found sitting on my bed when I don't have anything more pressing to do.

Including this weekend. Hooray, bonus points for me!

(Incidentally, I have had this bed since I graduated from college, and I plan to keep it until it falls apart. It keeps trying to fall apart, in fact, but I am having none of it. I just shore it up or rig some kind of fix, and I will just keep doing this until it falls to splinters because I love it so.)



Do I secretly like my job? -- for dahlia

There are things about it that I like. I like that it's both fairly regimented and at the same time entirely autonomous. I work best this way, when I am given a list of tasks to complete and a deadline and no guidance whatsoever. I like road trips, I like driving, I like that the people I've met have for the most part been really nice. I like having almost no living expenses in the general way of things. I like unlimited hot water and having my bed made for me. I like breakfast on the road. But no, as a whole, I cannot say that I will really miss anything about this job when I don't have to do it any more.

Except, let's face it, for the hot water. :D



Have I managed to avoid the latest HP spoilers? --for dahlia

Indeed I have! I resisted responding to your post by running straight for the Sun website (haha, I didn't even click on the comments on that one!), and my friends list is so very tiny, and so few people on it are obsessed with HP anymore, that I haven't even had that much temptation. I am not being a spoiler Nazi or anything, and if I do get spoiled it won't be the end of the world. But I'd like to go into this one as I've gone into every other book but the last: without any real idea of what's going to happen.

Whew! This was much more complicated than I thought it'd be!

Comments

[somniesperus.livejournal.com]

Things that are cute:
-Your nose ring
-Your hair
-Your apartment
-Your hydrangeas
-You

[tofty.livejournal.com]

:O

Why thank you! One day we will meet in person and you will see how shabby and cobbled-together we all are, but until then: ;;) !

my glasses are permanently crooked, as well.

[kickthebeat.livejournal.com]

For some reason, I always remember your haircolour being a little lighter than that. :-? Was it, at one point? Or am I just going insane?

I wish I had responded to your request-a-post in time for this but really, everything you ever post about is a delight to me. <3

Re: my glasses are permanently crooked, as well.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

My hair is generally almost exactly the same dusty red-brown color as a cinnamon stick, so yeah, lighter. My camera, it is a phone camera, and it is just crappy.

<3333333333

How is NC? I am going as far as SC next week. I wish I were going a little farther!

[elynrae.livejournal.com]

Today's random mildly interesting fact: hydrangea blooms change colour according to what kind of soil they are planted in. Your soil must be mostly alkali with some acidic bits because they are blue in alkali soil and pink in acidic soil, so the lavender ones are where it is taking up the more acidic nutrients. *geek*

Also, this post rules! I can see how it would have taken an awfully long time to do but it weas interesting, and illustrated. I give it 10 out of 10. :D

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Dear most atrocious pea,

You are going to have to explain to me one day the meaning of your lj name--every time I see it, it makes me giggle.

And I did not know this about hydrangeas! (I mean, I do not know anything about any plant, so this is not surprising, but.) It is fascinating! I mean this, too, in case you think I am being sarcastic. I love knowing things like this!

:D:D:D

[elynrae.livejournal.com]

I post on this board, brunchma.com, and there is an IRC channel attached to it. One girl I know from there (cabbagemedley) is a lot like me, and so we are called the peas because we are like peas in a pod. She was working for an exam, and I was tempting her to come and visit me instead, and she said I was "the most atrocious pea" for tempting her, and it amused me so much that I thought it needed to be my lj name.

And I love fact-y things too! My grandma does a lot of gardening so I know random bits and pieces about plants (and as I get older I am more tempted to start gardening for myself but I am already so much like her that I'm not sure I need to encourage the similarity) but not enough to now present you with another interesting fact, alas.

[disdainty.livejournal.com]

I love anything involving photographs :x hooray for this post! And hooray for all your answers as well. Hooray for you!!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

:*!

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh. I love wallowing in a good, detailed, and above all, illustrated post! I have more impressions, but for now I'll just note that it's not fair that your "bad hair day" looks way better than most of my good ones. And the picture of your computer, dog and cat reclining on your bed is just darling. And your hydrangea is naturally blue! (Around here, the soil's pH allows for only pink blooms, but people can add things to force blue flower conditions) And you're awash in Pretty Old Things, just like me! (If you manage to nab the Victorian mansion, may I come and stay in the topmost center bedroom?)

Yay, Abey!

Also, I used to take my mom on business trips, and it was awfully nice to come "home" to the hotel after being brushed off by surly wholesalers and see a friendly face. Ah, good memories.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

You may most certainly come and stay in your attic bower! I can pretty much guarantee that you will have to share it with no one--the folks of my acquaintance used to complain about climbing one flight of stairs. Two would be totally out of the question!

[dahlia-777.livejournal.com]

You nose ring is very cute and so is that swept-away-fringe hairstyle you're sporting! I understand you've since had the Haircut of Doom. This once happened to me and I was so desperate I went next day to a different (more upmarket and pricey) salon and begged them do something with it. I recommend this if you're still unhappy - someone competent can transform a bad cut, without even making it drastically shorter.

I'm glad you've got TLOB and I'm keen to know what you think. It'll be interesting to hear the reaction of someone who didn't live under Thatcherism. I suspect you'll appreciate the lighter side of characters like Gerald more than I did, because you didn't have to put up with people like him running your country into the ground for 18 years... Anyway, I wouldn't actually say I loved the book, more that it left me disturbed, emotional to the verge of tears, and deeply impressed.

Can I just add that your bedroom looks like those ones in the glossy mags. Very des res!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

This past couple of weeks has been so crazy that I am going to have to renew TLOB. Still looking forward to it, though!

I am going today to what I hope will be a competent hairdresser. I am praying that this person will be able to do what you say, because my hair, while better that I originally thought, is by no means *good*.

Add that to my list of regrets: turning a perfectly decent but overlong haircut (I know it was perfectly decent because it never actually looked like I desperately needed a haircut and that it had been months since my last one) into a right mess.