THIS IS NOT A GOOD YEAR TO BE FAMOUS!!!!

The death toll for the last year is considerably higher than... well, than average, really. In the last year, the following entertainers have died:

Wendy Richards and Mollie Sugden from "Are You Being Served?" (A show I ADORE because it's so silly.)
Bea Arthur and Estelle Ghetti from "The Golden Girls"
Michael Jackson (no shit)
Dom Delouise
Billy Mayes
Ed McMahon
Farrah Fawcett

IS THERE SOMETHING IN THE WATER ?? Seriously! Most of them died within the last few months, except for Estelle Ghetti, who died last year while I was whomped out of my skull from kidney stone drugs.

It kind of bothers me that so many people I admire (not necessarily any of these, just in general) have died. Part of the problem is, of course, that I've gotten into things long, long after they were popular and as such the people connected to them are PAST IT by the time I'm aware of them. The children's poet Shel Silverstein (who wrote "The Giving Tree" and "Where the Sidewalk Ends") died about ten years ago. He was probably my first inspiration to start writing, as most of the things I wrote when I was that young (seven or so) were silly poems like his. Jean Kerr (one of my all-time favourite writers, who isn't NEARLY as well-known as she deserves to be--her books are "Please Don't Eat the Daisies", "The Snake Has All the Lines", "Penny Candy" and "How I Got to be Perfect", and you should all read them) died in 2003, three or four years after I first discovered her writing. Roald Dahl died in the early 90s as did Theodore Geisl. I HAVE met Dave Barry, and I'd like to meet Bill Bryson and Tamora Pierce before, well, you know. But the others? I'll never get to meet them or talk to them. As schmaltzy as it sounds, these are people who inspired me.

And still do.

I've been living for the last couple of days off of tuna sandwiches because there's nothing else in the house that I can eat, and even so much as suggesting that one might go out and obtain food elsewhere (like from a burger place or something) is enough to cause my parents to lose their shit. And even then, if I do do it I have to hide all of the receipts because my mother will find them and make commentary on how much it costs to eat and then berate me for DARING to buy food. (It more or less goes without saying that this doesn't apply to my brother, who also doesn't have a job but who routinely goes out to dinners and movies with his friends and gets food anyway--for whatever reason, it's fine that he does it, but not when I do it.) So, tuna sandwiches it is. I'm getting sick of it.


A thought occurred to me the other day. Among my first video game love affairs (aside from Pokemon) were the Final Fantasy games. Those games sort of warp your perception of what it takes to beat a game--for one thing, the entire FF series appears to condition a player to partake in gross overpreparedness, since I have never ever played an FF game in which the final boss fight wasn't offensively easy. It's usually the bosses BEFORE that point that can take out your entire party with one hand and both feet tied behind their backs. (This includes the KH series, by the way.) Even though I know their M/O by now, the games are still an exercise in over-preparing--I spend at least a third of my gameplay time just rnning around in some wooded area and grinding grinding grinding until I feel like I'm strong enough for the last fight, which, being a pessimist, I never think I am. I've never been able to shake it. I still overprepare for any game-universe circumstance, a situation that proves dismaying only when I do something, like, say, grossly overprepare for a Legendary fight in Pokemon and end up accidentally killing the creature in question.

Fie!

Last night I found out I have a specific affliction that several women in my family have. (This is in addition to a small brown beauty mark** on the outside of my right foot that my mother, two aunts, grandmother, and great-aunt ALL have. The same mark, in the same place. No, I am not making this up.) One of my breasts is noticeably and considerably larger than the other. I noticed it in bed last night. Yes, I sleep topless. It was 90 degrees yesterday and my father is cheap and refuses to turn on the A/C in anything less than triple-digit temperatures. PROTIP: 83 degrees is not an appropriate indoor temperature unless you are an iguana or a tomato plant. Anyway. The left one is a full C-cup, probably close to a D (they keep changing sizes in response to hormone changes when I switch BC) but the right one might be a modest C-cup at most.

Weird.

Also, I'm up to my eyeballs in drama again. I lost a friend (a potential girlfriend, actually) because of what happened with ANOTHER friend. Apparently me not spilling the intimate details of my personal life constitutes a betrayal. For the record, I fooled around with a friend of mine--kind of like the bumbling half-gropes you did in the back of the school-bus in high school because you had to get in as much action as you could before your rounded the corner onto your street, otherwise the old lady who lives in that house on the corner will tell your mom. So I neglected to tell this girl all that happened (I left it at "we fooled around but we didn't have sex") because in the end it is MY business, and she found out due to HIS bragging about it what really went on. She's mat at me for not telling her, not at him for broadcasting it. I didn't plan any of this, I didn't intend to be malicious, it just sort of happened. This really bothered me when it happened, but now I'm a few days removed from the situation, I feel better. I figure, I'm probably better off in the end--if it hadn't been this now that upset her, it would have been something else later on. I'm angry at my friend for blabbing--I've had a nice fume at him and now we're back on again.

Oh well.

I feel okay now. I'm trying to squeeze back into an old fandom or two, but my mom is home from school for the summer and lucid from not having taken her drugs for a while, so she bothers me left right and sideways. Since the end of the third series of Robin Hood, I got a bit angsty and wrote some deathfics. I shan't spoil it, though.

I met with a photographer today, to see if we got on so we could do a shoot. He was really great, one of those guys who's done everything and had every cool job (SWAT team, cop, Marine, and is a special agent for the Federal government) and been everywhere. He looked like a biker guy who could kill you with his pinky finger, but he was sweet. We got on quite well, he thought I was 'sharp' and was 'duly impressed' by me. I'm starting to think I'm the only person in the world who DOESN'T think I'm smart.

Anyway, I'm going to do a shoot with him on the 12th in the woods. Sounds good. It means I get to be a shameless camera whore.

So I'm in a good mood. Ish. I mean, as good as I can get lately. Maybe I'll write something.

I'm still not dead. Just sort of uninspired. My mom is being needy and bratty while she's recovering from her surgery, which is totally understandable but BOY is it annoying. I wait for her to fall asleep and then catch pennies off of my elbow. (My record is 21, and I can't catch more because my hands aren't big enough.)

I want to write another fanfic--another AU. But I'm holding myself down. I promised K I'd write something original even though I have absolutely no drive for writing something new. I prefer fanfiction, possibly because of the instant feedback thing. Which let's face it is an appalling waste of my talents. *is a cocky bitch today* What can I say, I'm an attention whore. I like it, largely because I get little besides negative attention at home.

I'm meeting with another photographer next weekend to see if we get on--if we do, I'm going to do another shoot. Something in the woods. I want to bring some faerie wings or something. I'm a sucker for outdoor shoots just because they almost always look so beautiful. It helps that I look like some kind of elf. *is being cocky again*

I swear I'll get back to the land of the living soon. Being Lady Nursey-Nurse lately is draining me. There's a REASON people don't nurse for shifts longer than eight hours.

So, I finally got pictures from my shoot. Yay! There are over 60---my Photobucket is locked, but you can view all 64 pictures if you want to hack the URL. I'll tell you how to do it. First, click here--this gets you to the first picture. Then change the number of the picture where it says "001.jpg" to "002". Then "003". Or any number between 001 and 064. Fair warning, some pictures are moderately NSFW, so be mindful. (None show nudity.)


And just because I'm a disgusting picture-whore, here are some under this cut down here *points* for you to sample. (Yes, I am a camera whore. Yes I know it's annoying. Call it self-image therapy.)



( CLICK! )

I managed to get out of the house yesterday and met up with that guy. We hung out for a bit, but I don't think I want to see him again. We have slightly less than bugger all in common with each other and he's as dumb as a bag of hammers. He dropped out of high school (which is not in and of itself bad) and readily admits to having only read one book in his entire life. This is a MAJOR turnoff for me. I'd rather have friends (or and S/O) that I can talk to. He had no idea what the word 'exasperated' meant. I'm partially hoping that he was full of shit and subscribing to the theory that girls like stupid guys or that being dumb is cool. But I'm not hopeful. He was cute, but just flat-out stupid.

He's being persistent though. He's not even clever enough to get that, "We've got nothing in common, so no thanks" means "no thanks". He was still shocked to learn that I am unboyfriended. That always surprises people. No idea why.

Also--I have pictures back from the shoot I did a month ago. I'll get my butt in gear and post some of the best ones later. He wasn't a great photographer for someone who's been doing it for years. Maybe it was just me, but out of 50+ pictures, only a handful came out well. And those are AFTER he went through and discarded the bad ones. Ih. Anyway. My grandmother leaves tomorrow and I'm back to Nurse Duty. Fun.

Eventually I'll get back to the writing journal, I swear. I'm just nt sure when. It's a whole lot more time-consuming to post here than it is on FFN--which I know will not endear me to anybody, but there you have it. I sort of grew up as a writer with FFN and for all of its faults (and those are MYRIAD, let me be the first to admit), I do still have a fondness for it. It's easy to find and read fic, for one thing--for another, no matter how many people bitch about the supposed extremely high content of appallingly bad fic on the site, it's actually fairly easy to avoid the bad stuff and there are indeed some fantastic writers there. You find a lot of badfic on any archive that doesn't filter or moderate its content. I just don't know why FFN gets such a bad rap when there are just as many bad writers on LJ or Greatest Journal or any other fanfiction website.

Now let me climb down off of my soapbox and continue.

I'm still playing Nursey-Nurse-Nurse-Nurse for my freaking mother. She's getting better and not quite so horrible. She thinks her surgery scars and bruises look terrible, and they do. Her whole left leg from her thigh to her shin is one big spectacularly colourful bruise. It's kind of yellowish greenish blueish and her incisions are taped together with those butterfly bandages. And she still has the permenant ink on her knee where they drew out the surgical roadmap or whatever they call it. (My dad thinks it looks like a Groucho face.) Anyway, she's utterly devastated that her leg looks the way it does, which I sympathize with--up to a point. I reminded her, "Well, it's a nasty bruise but it's better than being in pain like Dr House for the rest of your life!", to which she said, "I don't know..." Come on, lady, it's a bruise, not amputation. As a patient she's getting better, though.

I had my own doctor appointment today. After five years of unsuccessful tries, they FINALLY pinpointed the cause of my kidney stones! Everybody celebrate! One of the causes is that I have very acidic urine, which allows the minerals in my urine to clump and crystalize and form stones. I need an alkalyzer--a medication that makes my body more basic or alkaline (the opposite of acidic) to counter the acid, and I shouldn't get any more stones. Or not as many, anyway. (Also, I want "I PISS ACID" on a bumper sticker.) I'll be on the medication for the rest of my life, which SUCKS but I'd rather that than be in the ER with kidney stones every eighteen months.

The other cause of my stones is that I don't drink enough. I do drink my share of fluids in a day and I tend to stay away from sodas, I just don't drink exclusively water. And I certainly don't drink ten to sixteen cups of fluid a day, that would be ludicrous. Nobody needs that much, not even me--aside from everything you drink in a day, your body takes fluid from the food you eat. It's a great myth that even some doctors believe that somehow water is magically the only fluid your body will recognize and will hydrate you. Even caffeinated drinks give you SOME fluid. I used to keep myself chronically and habitually dehydrated because when I was in middle and high school the teachers were fairly Gestapo-like in their loo policies. We had three minutes between classes to get from one place to another--that's to traverse a three-story school of 2000 students--and if you've gotta go, you've gotta GO. It sounds easy enough to stop in the bathroom on the way to class, but most teachers frowned on that policy because you'd be late, even if only by half a minute. So you'd get a tardy notice--or worse, get marked absent from class or actually locked out of the room--for performing basic biological functions. But it gets better! If you DARED ask for permission to go during class, the response was almost invariably, "You shoulda done that before class started!" Sometiems teachers would let you dump your things in the classroom as a way of saying, "I WAS ON TIME!" and then run back out again to use the toilet if there was a bathroom close-ish to the room, but more often than not peeing during school hours was simply far more trouble than it was worth. So for about five or six years I drank very little if anything at all during the day. And I'm not the only one. Everybody I knew did that. I'm just the only person who got kidney stones from it.

(Let it be said that every teacher I know defends this practice. I think they should all be forced to go eight hours without peeing and suffer a cut in pay every time they have to use the loo. Unfair? Yes. But turnabout is fair play.)

But now they finally know what's causing my stones. Woohoo! I love finding out I'm sick. One of the reasons I don't like going to doctor's offices isn't because I'm scared of being sick--it's because I'm worried I'm not actually sick at all, and that all of my discomfort and pain is caused by me being a wimp. Yes I'm odd. Move on.

Also, I've spent much of the day texting the guy Hana made talk to me the other night. He seems nice enough (and, to be really shallow, he was very cute) but I'm still not sure if he's doing it jut to humour her. Or something. He said she didn't put him up to it, but I'm not sure I believe that. He asked me to a movie but fuck if I can get my lazy fucknugget of a brother to play nurse for a couple of hours so I can go out. It was hard enough getting him to do it this morning when I had to be at the doctor's office. Weirdly enough, he didn't seem put off at all that it could be a long while before I'm free and can go out. Weird guy. The pessimistic side of me is going, "I wonder what he wants".

That's all for now. Long and rambly post is long and rambly.

I'm not dead, I swear. Just been sort of... distracted lately. Understandably so. I promise I'll get back to the writing journal, as well. Actually, I'm thinking of giving it up. I don't think that anybody reads things there and I'm too used to putting my stories on FFN. Plus I'm doing it wrong. Anyway. My mother tried to blame her shitty behavhiour the other week on anxiety because she was getting knee surgery. I don't believe her. But things have been quiet here, at least. For now, anyway.

I'm thinking of starting up a casual side-business as a way to earn extra cash until I can find a proper job, which I know I'm not going to get anyway because I have no viable job skills. Anyway, I've been making my own cards for birthdays and things for the past few years, and I'm also a calligrapher, so I figure I could put myself out there making custom handmade cards and invitations. It's not the kind of thing a LOT of people pay money for, but the ones who do will pay a good bit for them. Right? Whatever, at least it's something. It won't pay much beyond my car insurance (especially not rent or anything), but during busy times around Mother's Day and Father's Day and other Hallmark Holidays, and around wedding season and graduation season, I might be able to scrape together some money to keep myself in insurance and food. For a LITTLE while, anyway.

My mother had her surgery and she's being a pill. She tore a ligament in her knee ages ago and has been putting off surgery until recently. She finally got it done and I find myself cruelly cheerful that she's in so much discomfort. (Karma: it's a BITCH! And so am I.) She's also a lousy patient. We're taking turns babysitting her. I was the night nurse last night because I don't go to bed until reeeeeally late, so I stayed up until 4am and then went to bed, and then my dad took over. My brother is at school (summer school, he has to take an English course over again because he was too lazy to pass it the first time) so he's basically exempt from nursing duties. She's crabby, which is understandable, but I won't let her take her painkillers until she eats. You HAVE TO line your stomach first with milk or some food. I made her eat four crackers before I was going to let her take pills. She can't get up and move so if she has to hurl she's going to throw up all over the dog. She just knocked the plate over and said she didn't want to eat. Look, lady, if I can choke down enough food to take a painkiller when my kidneys are murdering me, then you can be a good girl and eat a little bit after knee surgery. OKAY?? Act like a grownup. My dad is playing night nurse tonight (he's sleeping in the living room where she is) so I get to sleep tonight. But I'm conscripted--I have to be the day nurse tomorrow while my dad is at work and my brother is at school.

So, naturally, I went out tonight. My friend Hana is back from being on tour again so we went out to the bar and had a few drinks and caught up. Her first boyfriend who is now just a good friend came with us. When we went to go pick him up he had his snake with him--and no that is NOT a sick sex joke. He had a little bitty ball python. I played with it. It was a cutie patootie. I love snakes. I'm the only woman I know who does. This is the same friend of hers who drunkedly called her the last time  I saw him and begged her to let him ask me out. She freaked out--not because her first boyfriend wanted to take her friend out, but because she thought it would be weird. Tonight it wasn't so odd, but then he's cutting back on his drink. I told him I knew the only reason he wanted to ask me out was because he was pissing drunk that night and we came to a mutual agreement and talked about pet reptiles for a while. Because I'm weird, and that's what I do.

Hana and her short skirt were the staring-subject of basically every guy at the bar, but later she found a friend of hers and asked him to please come and try to chat me up, just so I'd feel better. She denied it, but I figured it must've been the case. I gave him my number to humour both of them, but all I have to do is pretend to be someone else and he'll think he got the number wrong. Solves that problem. We were all regaled with stories of the tour (one of these stories involved her boyfriend, who's the band's guitarist, falling asleep during sex because he was so drunk) and I wandered back home not too long ago.

I've got to be up by 9am tomorrow. Crapola. Yay for day-nursing!