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constance- I had a dream last night that featured cows with no heads; instead of heads, there were capped-off nozzles, kind of like the way a capped gas line in an old house looks. That is really all I remember about the dream, and I do not know what to make of it.
- A Conversation:
J: Cammy, are you wearing white hose? With sandals?
Me: What? No, of course not.
J: *peers closely* No, I guess not. Jesus, your legs are pale.
Me: Don't I know it. - My dog is trying to kill my daisies. He needn't bother, because I will kill them myself, given time, and I keep trying to tell him this, but he keeps knocking the pots over anyway, displaying, perhaps, an unbecoming tendency to alpha-dog it over me.
I bet you did not know that alpha-dog was a verb. But it is. - I have finally broken down and bought new underwear. I am a little embarrassed to say how long it has been since the buying of the last underwear to enter the house under my aegis, but at least now if I am in an accident, I will be able to hold my head high on the gurney as they wheel me into the hospital.
- This particular manifestation of our company's twice-yearly (semi-annual, as we say in The Business) barbecue is no barbecue at all. It is instead a chicken-fry. We will be having fried chicken (with a little baked for the no-fried-foods people), beans and corn and slaw and potato salad and brownies and pecan pies. (quick question : pe-CAHN or PEE-can?) We will be giving out door prizes and cash awards and talking about job safety and health insurance, and of course you are invited. You will be coming, right? Because really, who does not want to listen to tales of other people's PPOs while eating?
- I am currently having a ridiculous mock flamewar in which one of our superintendents has questioned everything I hold most sacred: the TOTAL UNQUESTIONABLE OMNISCIENCE of snopes.com. Here's what happened: he sent me an email of an enormous dog; the attached text claims that it's the world's biggest dog. I sent him a snopes link saying that the dog may or may not be as big as he is in the photo he sent, but the text about the world's biggest dog refers to a different dog altogether. And HE DOES NOT BELIEVE THE WORD OF SNOPES.COM. I cannot believe this. Never in my life has anyone questioned the word of snopes, which I wield the way some Christians wield the Bible to prove that homosexuality and the eating of pork are WRONG (what, has no one ever lectured you on the profanity of pork consumption?). My faith in the universe has been shaken, and as I respond to his emails in which he accuses snopes of being an enormous hoax perpetrated by our company's compulsive liar, I am thinking, God, what if he's right? What if snopes has been lying to me all along?
I think I will need some time to recover from this. And also, remind me to tell you someday the story of the Internet Porn, which involves this same superintendent but is not a part of the current bullet-point narrative. - Confidential: Yeah, me too. For whatever that's worth.
- Have I told you about the way I cope with stress? I draw house plans. Big houses, little ones. I copy them out of historic plan books and modify them for modern life. I make up my own. I look at them and imagine fitting my life into them, where the furniture would go, where I'd hide the litterbox, what they'd be made out of. Where I would put the electrical outlets.
I guess I've mentioned that I do this, but not why, exactly -- mostly because I've never really connected stress with this habit before now (I always connected it with a desire for a house of my own, but now I've got not only a house of my own but also the house of my dreams, and I'm still doing it, which has forced me to reassess my motives, because I know you were interested in hearing about that particular process) -- but anyway, I have been drawing a lot of houses lately.
Sorry for being gone. That's what I'm trying to say. I'm trying to do better. I've got posts planned. Reading schedules. Bookmarks. Et cetera.
Why do we not live closer together, why???
Date: 2007-04-21 01:51 am (UTC)I was thinking the other night, as I repotted daisies for like the third or fourth time since I got them, that I need to ship Brooke over here as a consultant. She can observe me with Leory and tell me when I go wrong and point me gently yet firmly in the right direction. I can't pay her in money -- but I bet rescue puppies (like seats in movie theaters) are easier to acquire here than in San Jose, so maybe we can still work something out.
I am very uneasy over D's lack of faith in snopes. I am fond of thinking of myself as a general nonbeliever sort. But it seems clear that I do, in fact, believe in something, and D IS TRAMPLING ON IT. (You may think that is a joke, and it mostly is, but really it is almost sort of not.)
Oh, Laurel, because I don't think you really know what you have unleashed in asking all those questions, I am going to go easy on you and not talk all starry-eyed for hours in fifteen comment posts about domestic architecture. :D Instead I will keep to the substance of your questions! I am kind that way!
As a matter of fact, I do design them with other people in mind! I've designed them for friends who've asked me to, for example. I drew up an ideal customized RV for my parents. And I've designed dozens of houses for fictional characters: Grimmauld Place (that one you've seen!) and Spinner's End and the house in Godric's Hollow, for example. (Also a pre-OOTP Ministry of Magic based loosely on the John Soane museum in London.) Houses for the Peanuts characters. Houses for Sandman characters. New Moon. Kellynch Hall. Houses for Mapp and Lucia and Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. A dream-ship for Hornblower. Fairy-brughs (invisible-walled and hidden in the trees) for the characters in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. And yes, thrifty houses and extravagant ones and tiny-space-saving luxury ones. I could go on.
Actually, that is what the Sims is so excellent for! I don't have as much interest in playing the characters, these days, as I do in planning out where and how they're going to live. I think we talked about this once, didn't we? That we had at least as much fun designing the houses as with playing around with them.
:O LAUREL I HAVE JUST HAD A REVELATION RIGHT WHEN I WAS TYPING THIS TO YOU. You know what I'd like to be known as? More than a fanfiction writer? I'd like to be a fanarchitect, that's what.
Time to get started on my new career, I think. And now I'll shut up, except that I read these (http://xkcd.com/c167.html) two (http://xkcd.com/c212.html) comics this afternoon, and apart from being totally in love with the artist, I feel that these two comics alone pretty much voice my entire life, and while I'm a little embarrassed to be summed up so easily, well, really, there are worse ways to be.
I salute your SPF summer! I myself am an SPF 1000 girl, so I welcome you to my pasty-legged club with great fanfare and joy -- and I hope your signs are nothing too serious.
Re: Fanarchitect
Date: 2007-04-21 02:13 pm (UTC)It drives me crazy when I am watching a movie and I can't arrange the rooms of a house set in my mind. I'll have it all organized in my mind, and then suddenly somebody walks from the kitchen to the den and completely blows it. Grrrr.
Re: Fanarchitect
Date: 2007-04-22 01:57 am (UTC)Please do post the book, if you think of it!
Re: Fanarchitect
Date: 2007-04-30 06:30 pm (UTC)My Amazon noodling also turned up Sitcom Style (http://www.amazon.com/Sitcom-Style-Inside-Americas-Favorite/dp/1400051789/), which is more about the sets themselves, but also looks rather appealing. I wonder if she ever explains the vast spaces in the apartment on Mad About You. At least Friends had some sort of cover story about how they afforded that huge place.
Re: Fanarchitect
Date: 2007-04-30 09:54 pm (UTC)I did put it on my wishlist, though. So maybe another inexpensive copy will pop up. It sounds fabulous!
Re: Fanarchitect
Date: 2007-05-01 12:15 am (UTC)