Isn't it amazing how things always look better in the sunlight?

Last night was a rough one. I didn't get off work until around 7pm. When I got home, my apartment keys were not on my key ring. I spent an hour searching for them and waiting for my husband to get home to let me in. We spent maybe another hour after that looking in my car and in the grass outside our apartment for the keys with no results. That is when I posted up a delay notice for the Drunk Duck Awards, took a shower, and went to bed.

This morning I got up to walk the dog I found the apartment key laying in the grass right in the spot where I discovered it was missing.

Now I just have to find my mailbox key and all will be right with the world.

yay for Niccea
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and yay for me. I'm home now. Altho I've birthed two babies, this was my first experience with surgery - and it's a dilly. So, for those who've had surgery, it was fairly routine and you know what that is, and for those who haven't, well - maybe you'll remain lucky.

Because there were a couple of days where we were battling an infection, I had a fever, a monster load of anti-biotics (still have 2 scripts to go thru for this week) and MAJOR sleep deprivation. This made for an incredibly loopy ayesinback. I frequnetly had a sensation of “coming to” or “coming back” and almost always with a new proclamation thought of sorts. There were several. The only one I can remember was:

It is decided. All things must have two names.

yeah. My husband did bring in the lap top so I was able to check in on the DD awards (super job Niccea - and everybody. what a great project!!) - but just firing up the lap top seemed to drain energy. I was able to say congrats one day, but then had to give it up becuase (I KNOW - it seems unbelievable) it just became too exhausting.

When I got home, I had a craving to watch WHALE RIDER. I love that movie. I don't need a reason to watch it, it always resonates for me, but I was so bloated (laparoscopy will do that) that I felt akin to all those belly-bellies. my peeps!

So right now, if I stay put, I'm OK (steps are Very wearing still), but I'm suppose to try and stay active. and get as much sleep as possible.

right - E - O. on it.

Ayes, I know we're just internet accquaintances, but I can say with complete honesty that I wouldmournif something had happened to you. I'm real glad you're ok! Hope the recovery goes quickly.

Thank goodness Ayes is alive and well! DD would be a grey place without you Ayes!

———–
Whoop, my next page of Pinky TA is coming along ok… It can be so tricky translating a writen outline into images, but I think I've managed it.

Thank goodness Ayes is alive and well! DD would be a grey place without you Ayes!

hmmm, DD back to grey… tempting.

LOL @ Genejoke

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I should be doing something - ANYthing - productive right now, but all I can seem to do is play Skyrim. Can't stop playing!

Annie just bit my neck. O_O

Is this the point where it goes from “Hey, I'm sick of you” or “I'm a little overexcited” to “I'm really trying to kill you”? Silly cat. She never bites very hard, but she's a little unpredictable.

Hippie Van wrote:
Annie just bit my neck. O_O

Is this the point where it goes from “Hey, I'm sick of you” or “I'm a little overexcited” to “I'm really trying to kill you”? Silly cat. She never bites very hard, but she's a little unpredictable.

Cats are weird like that. I had one that kept trying to eat my chin. Thing is… she really was trying do that 'til I brushed her aside. Hence why when I sleep I put the cat outside my room…

Ally Haert wrote:
LOL @ Genejoke

——–

I should be doing something - ANYthing - productive right now, but all I can seem to do is play Skyrim. Can't stop playing!

I think my children may start to get neglected now I have skyrim.
okay it's not quite that extreme but you get the drift.

@Ally and Oz: Thanks, and in all sincerity, reciprocated.

@Bubba -
Eh. you should either rimshot that or just SAY IT: I submitted the lamest story for Lite Bites evuh
(ba-bump)

—
speaking of cats, our two either missed me or are guarding me right now, but I have some little shadows. it's very sweet. but ooopha - some kitty breath mints are in order (cat mint? r - r - r - - - never mind)

SO I have taken up Karate, I've done a little bit of martial arts before but mainly fencing, and that was about ten years back. Of course I'm horribly out of shape but loving it, even with the aches and pains. I'm enjoying it enough to work through the pain.

Glad to see… and read… that you're okay, Ayes. Infections and surgery… ugh… I don't want to think about it. Reminds me of the time I spent with my mother in the hospital after her heart attacks…

Well, playing Mass Effect 1 again, this time with Jane Shepard. I was gonna kill off Kaiden (just as I did with Ashley when playing John Shepard), but after seeing the interactions between the two I don't think I can… Looks like that female soldier is going to be dead in both my files when Mass Effect 3 comes out.

No, no. I have no problems with female soldiers. It's just how the story plays out. It's funny how in some games people think of the main characteras themselves in that world and I don't. Well… I wouldn't think that way if the character you generated at the beginning of the game was random and didn't have a “default” setting…

John Shepard: Colonist, Survivor
Jane Shepard: Spacer, War Hero

My femme Shepard is like that- hero etc. Except she's called “Pinky Shepard” and has a bit of a Pinky look to her: high cheek bones, sort of a “Greek” nose… No Pinky hair options so she has a short blonde tousled cropped style that the game offers. (the long hair style looks like arse)

It's a good look, she LOOKS like the “General” type of character that she's supposed to be… I think of her as “Napoleon Pinky Shepard” ^_^

Debate competition was this Saturday, two days ago. This year was my 5th and final year doing it. We made it to semifinals and lost there, but my personal winning record remains flawless. See, we're a team of 5 people, and we each have certain cases and issues we handle. If quran burning was a case that was called during the competition, for example, then I alone would be arguing it for the team.

This year I tore a new one into University of Miami. ‘Took them down, and took them down hard. We lost in the semifinals against a private university called Wake Forest. Sadly, none of my cases were called, otherwise I’m sure I would have beaten them. But in all fairness, they were a hell of a @#$%ing team… like a group of damn robots, with amazing flow and consistency. They had fantasticsynergy, and their arguments were virtually bulletproof. I certainly learned something from them. After the round was over, I shook their hands and told them that in the 5 years I've done the competition, I've never encountered a team that organized. I really do lament that neither of my cases were called that round, because I would have loved to take on opponents like that.

So after the competition was over, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. “Phew,” I said to myself, “now I can just relax and let the rest of this semester blow by. The hard part is done.” Then, I looked at my schedule, and saw that I have a mock trial a week from today. And I haven't gone over any of the facts/evidence, because my focus was on the competition. @#$%.

Finished the Virmire mission in Mass Effect. Ashley bit the dust. Makes me wonder about heroes though… they give so much of themselves to help others. Would it have been alright to have one moment of selfishness, even if that moment came at the cost of someone's life? Gotta love it when a video game's story makes you ask questions…

And I wonder how that Pinky Shepard you have will look in ME3 when it finally comes out, Ozone… :)

And I still think in that game Shepard will probably pull some stupid heroic sacrifice to save the galaxy and we'll never she him/her again… :(

@Lonnehart - thanks

yay- insurance company has graciously agreed to pay for one of the two extra days - waiting with bated breath for determination of the second day.

and, Welcome back, skoolmunkee! hug?

Lonnehart wrote:
And I still think in that game Shepard will probably pull some stupid heroic sacrifice to save the galaxy and we'll never she him/her again… :(

Nah, that's not how Mass Effect rolls. I suppose there might be a ‘bad’ ending where if you didn't prepare enough Shepard might not make it, but at its heart it's a space opera and the hero wins. Shepard's amazing because s/he survives everything.

Genejoke wrote:
I think my children may start to get neglected now I have skyrim.
okay it's not quite that extreme but you get the drift.

I'm gonna struggle to get much of anything done in my free time during the next six months. I came back from the US with four DS games, Saints Row 3 comes out Friday, I plan to get Batman and Skyrim at Christmas holidays, and ME3 in March-ish. See y'all in May.

Welcome back, skoolmunkee! hug?

Thank you ayes! I'm feeling moderately remotivated. :] I suppose I might have one more hug in me, though the TSA pretty much used up my annual allotment of human contact. How many humiliating patdowns can one person endure? Find out: fly around the USA!


The day before I left for my holiday I got some work calls basically inviting me to do a presentation for a big conference in Berlin. I think they had someone drop out and needed a person to fill the spot/theme and it came around to me, everything had to be agreed on very quickly. I'm happy to do it (it means I don't have to look around for the same type of opportunity later this year) but I have to go in just 3 weeks. So I have to get everything ready now pretty fast (thank goodness for our office admin people, they're taking care of the bookings), but MOSTLY I feel awful for my pets. I felt bad enough putting them in a kennel for 10 days, putting them in another 3 days so soon after just makes me feel like a bad mom. I don't have time to look into house/pet sitters and I'm not sure it would work out well anyway- one cat is very particular and will pee on things if her home routine is disrupted. I feel like I'm starting to become a crazy animal lady whose life is increasingly dictated by her pets. I should be all ‘yeah berlin! german christmas market in germany!’ and trying to stay an extra day and instead I just want to go and come back as fast as possible.

ayes, I'm surprised (having not known about your recent experience) and relieved (having found out that you are home and okay)!
You're a good egg (whatever that expression means) and such a welcoming character – it would be a great loss if you weren't around.
VERY glad you're on the mend!

Oh hey ayes! Welcome back! I'm glad to hear you're doing well. I really did intend to create a get-well-soon-comic, but I never got around to it because of my competition. Consider this post a fanartIOU.

Well, hubby's car's radiator blew this morning. We now have to shop for a new car.

Hey, I didn't know there was a black character in the Odyssey! A black hunchback to be precise.

-Eurybates.
As the 16th century translator Alexander Pope interprets it:

"A favourite herald in his train I knew, His visage solemn, sad of sable hue: short woolly curls o'erfleeced his bending head, O're which a promontory shoulder spread; Eurybates; in whose large soul alone Ulysses view'd an image of his own."

That's quite a beautiful little passage.

Niccea wrote:
Well, hubby's car's radiator blew this morning. We now have to shop for a new car.

You're kidding… radiators are easy to replace. Just takes quite a bit of effort and some elbow grease. And it's a lot cheaper than replacing the whole car.

Unless you're just looking for a reason to replace your car, that is…

We were going to replace the car in a year. It had way too much wrong with it (blown speakers, windsheild wipers that sometimes work, burnt out window motor, etc). The repair cost would have been more than a down payment on a newer, more fuel effecient car. We tested one out last night. It was kinda fun. Hubby hasn't ever driven stick before and the one we are looking at ist manual trassmission. The money he would save on gas makes up for the price of the car too.

Is there some kind of hospital thing going around? My mother in and out twice, my sister, my wife and her ankles and now Ayes?

Been driving the wife around to her physical therapy three times a week and Monday there was also a visit to the doctor. Turns outshe has some kind of infection on the incision on the ankle she had surgery. Lots of pain and seeping goo. She's getting around better and sometimes is down to just a cane. But thatcellulitis. Bacterial infection of an incision. Yesterday my day was totally off as I got up at 1 AM after sleeping away Sunday after my 12 hour shift. I shot my concession speech for the DD Awards and added real hair (Black mohair to be precise) to a head sculpt that had molded on hair.

Then I took Judy to physical therapy, then the post office, then one bank for a cash withdrawal from the strange debit card the state gives one in lieu of disabliity checks these days, then to our bank to pay the mortage, then to the doctor. Finally we ended up in a local diner having a wonderful meal. Want to see the Greco-American community? Go to a diner. The bus boy and hostess were having a discussion ina mixture ofGreek and English regarding what tables he had to clear. I looked at the busboy and immediately thought of Fotis from Tantz's comic Without Moonlight.
The guys at the nest table were having a long discussion about TMNT. Fat guys wearing glasses in teeshirts and baggy shorts in November talking about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Should've gone over and pitched my webcomic.

who wants to be my rebound?
went out partying. I totally forgot about exchange rates, and almost screwed myself over.

just wondering if its too early to start getting the dd secret santa started if anyone is interested in that sort of thing

Bad panic attack just now. Often I can calm myself down and stop it in the early stages, but I just had to let this one run its course. Feeling better now, although my heart's still racing a bit.

All I was doing was filling out a job application. Sigh. It sucks that this sort of everyday thing has to be a challenge, in terms of managing anxiety.

And the application still has to be done, so back to that and hopefully no more panic attacks today.

Three really well done presentations on the DD awards today. Really fabulous stuff. Then comes mine for best mod. Endless congratulations all around but after the three preceding presentations? What a let down that one with the dolls is.

Even though it goes unsaid, I know what people think. Even if I do have that wonderful tendency to project my own negative feelings on others. Except others often are negative. So when is it projection and when is it reality and will I ever be able to tell the difference?

And should I really care so much about it? No. Rationally I know better, emotionally I don't. But still after those three spectacular professional looking presentations to see Searsha and a troll is a huge let-down.

You've been doing those comics long enough, why does it still worry you? I'm not concerned about that sort of thing anymore and haven't been for quite a while now.

Well, bravo, the reaction I had to your page was not a “let down” reaction in the least. In fact, I thought it was quite funny and I particularly enjoyed the troll's dialogue.
I get what you mean, though, as far as the logical reality vs. the emotional. And of course, not every comic/style is going to have appeal to everyone.
But dude, yours was an entertaining page! Not a cause to be down in the least!