market-ing

So I was out with La the other night and she mentioned that the reason she wasn't staying with me that night (I live forever away from everyone so a fair number of weekend plans involve sleepovers) was because she and S were taking their mothers to the Irene Village market the next day. I invited myself along immediately, with the disclaimer that I tend to go nuts at markets.

As much as I am trying really really hard to not be a hoarder (my parents house is cluttered and just gets worse all the time and I am trying very hard to keep my new home a sanctuary, and that sanctuary nature partly depends on it being relatively empty and clutter free. That and having the dishes washed, which is harder than I expected). I have been practicing restraint by going to thrift stores and not buying armloads of random junk.

Anyway I met them out there early (they swear by getting there at opening time, and seeing the state of the place at 11am I understand why) and we went off shopping. I got two new 'children' for my burgeoning jungle (I have a tulip names Petunia, some daffodils named Gary, 2 cacti with a rather inappropriate name as they are the love-ferns of a particularly vindictive person, an african violet (Violet) and now tw more plants, Basil and Rosemary (named appropriately if not inventively).

I also managed to pick up some chandelier button earings (yesm they are a thing), another set of earrings that are a fork and a spoon (everyone except P1 loves them) and a filligree heart necklace that is cheesy but I've wanted one forever.

kind of like this (not my picture)

After that I limited myself to gifts for the impending baby shower season, managed to walk away from an awesome lampshade that I don't have a lamp for and a pewter lizard doorstop (I do need a doorstop but it's the principle or something) and got accused of haggling by an artist until I admitted that I have a small place and I only have space on my walls for things I really like. As much as smiley elephants are cool, I would end up stabbing one after a bad day at work.

After a while La folded from shoppers-fatigue and an impending appointment and left me with the other three, who really do believe in going through every. single. item. at. every. single. stall., and I passed the time wandering around until S and I stopped at a funny little stall with canvas paintings. I fell in love with a simple little painting and thought about it for a while. It helped that the artist was not pushy, but happy to discuss his motivation for painting it and what it meant to him and I was able to see it, but still know what it was that spoke to me.

At that point S's mother decided that I clearly had no decorating ability, and I couldn't possible have only one bright blue painting, and bought me matching one to make a set. I took them off to a framer and now I am waiting for the quote and the paintings. I can't post a photo because I don't have one, but I will as soon as I get them back.

I also loved a HUGE mosaic that I can't afford, but the artist promised to make another one for me when I have saved up, if the original one has been sold by then. So instead of painting light grey stripes on my yellow living room wall, I'll wait until I can get the mosaic and then paint the whole wall grey to go with the multicoloured amazingness (once again, should have had the presence of mind to take a picture).

so all in all a successful day that has left little by way of regret except some rather stiff legs from walking so much (getting unfit). Next up, exploring the Braamfontein markets I think!

" You know that scene in Babe where the farmer clog-dances for the pig? Sometimes I'm the sick pig and I need a farmer to cheer me up. And when things get bad, my boyfriend does dance for me, and it never fails to make me laugh. He's a pretty snappy dancer." - Shirley Manson

Today I am:

• Annoyed that I hit ‘cancel’ instead of ‘snooze’ this morning and missed pilates.
• Sore from tae bo (which is SO much fun, even if it still gets me too hyped to sleep).
• Loving the idea of Operation Beautiful, and thinking very seriously about startng to participate.
• Actually getting work done (hence bullet-list vs real post).
• Excited to be unleashed onto a fresh batch of first-years tomorrow *evil cackle* if they only knew…
• Sick of annoying undergrad O-week noise. Vuvuzelas are SO not hot right now…
• Amused by the first-years who always dress up like crazy for the first week, then have loud conversations about how few clothes they have (wearing a school uniform Monday to Friday made it easier) and then become normal people.
• Shocked by how many new students are walking around with their parents. Registration was last week, it’s time to let go…
• Missing holiday traffic
• Nervous to be doing real teaching, but excited too. I get a Real, Teacher-style desk!!!
• Nauseous from the welding-smell coming in from the passage. what’s scary is that nobody seems to know what they’re welding or why, but we live with it.

Yip, it’s January on campus!

On the plus side, they’ve started baking donuts again, so we’ll get a donut-day this week!

Revenge of the ear-worm

Tired of humming along to the dancing fruit? Maybe the 80’s are the answer?*

I’m just sayin’

This is inspired by my insomnia-inspired trip to the gym yesterday where I found out there was a 6am dance class! It was hilarious, as I joined in and did the cheesy dance moves with a bunch of adorable old ladies and their daughters.  Its very hard to take life seriously with cheesy choreography that belongs in the 80’s while picturing everyone around you in legwarmers. Too bad we had to use current music rather than the more appropriate classics, but I’m sure we can work on that! Not too much of a work out body-wise, but more than worth it for the boost it gave my mood for the day!

*And don’t pretend you didn’t at least think about trying some dance moves!

I'm alive!

The power is back! Funny story that... involving raining glass, explosions and a really entertaining incident with a farmer. I will write about them if it ever warms up enough for my fingers to type more than a sentence without cramping... and when I catch up a bit more of work!

In the meantime, Luke rescued me from the latest in a string of pretty unbelievable bad luck (I'm hoping has digging through the sludge was worth it, either way I refuse to spend another year here) and i've rediscovered the joy of being connected to the world in general.

It's been a very tough week and I'm trying my best to stay positive and not end up under my bed hiding from life (too many Parktown Prawns). I wrote out a list of things to be happy about and I found that the list just kept going and going until it got too dark to write (there was no power at that stage) which is pretty cool!

I also had an awesome chat with some folks back home today and the kudu came and said hi outside my window.

Life isn't good, but it's not too shabby right now.

Long may it last!

My friends have no faith in me

Exhibit A – earlier this evening, on G-chat:

Leia: Hello!!
me: hi!
  guess what I did today!!!
  why do you feel like a dimwit?
Meg: What'd you do????
me: went shopping in nelspruit!
Leia: and....?
me: and went into a veldskoen shop...
  they had awesome non-veldskoen shoes!
I got makeup, and shoes and clip-in blue hair…
Leia: wow... did you buy any awesome non-velskoen shoes???
me: yip
Leia: ;)
me: they're white leather slop-type things, very cute :)
Leia oh awesome!
  Not velskoenny at all!!
me: did you doubt me?
Leia: for a second, i really did!!!

Exhibit B – EEbEE thought i was seeing things when I tried to send him a poo emoticon on G-chat

And they think I’m the crazy one!

The soggy factor

It’s been raining for two days now. I wish I could say I was twitching to get back out there, but I’m kind of enjoying the being cold, getting to sleep in and spending way too much time watching tv shows on my laptop. I watched the first season of the Dollhouse in its entirety over the last few days (admittedly only 12 episodes but anyway), which gave me the WEIRDEST dreams!

I’ve been considering writing my dreams down lately because they are decidedly odd. I believe that dreams are where your subconscious sorts out things that you’re having issues with – I know if I’m fighting with someone or they confuse or upset me I will dream about them periodically until the issue is resolved. Maybe being away from everyone and everything and having the peace and quiet to think through a lot of buried issues means that they’re resurfacing in weird symbolic dreams now?

I need to stay motivated and get a lot of writing and data analysis done now that there are no distractions (unless you count the kudu camping in the garden and the return of the woodpecker…), but right now I’m having fun vegging a bit. don’t judge me!

peace and quiet

Two things: I got a ticket to the Killers!!!! CG got tickets for a few of us and then was worried that I might be upset. Strange girl.. I think my jumping around squealing pretty much cleared er conscience on that one! Lets just hope I get back in time - although if not I have a plan B - a friend who also really wants to go and who can go in my place so it's not wasted.

The other thing? Well I had the quietest weekend in months and it was really nice (although I'm looking forward to getting back out there and wreaking havoc next weekend)! Laura was out from Oxford for a few weeks and so I was really happy to spend some time with her - we had dinner on Friday evening and i got home at the respectable hour of about 9:30 (getting old...).

Saturday was work at the vet - I may have got the vet's kids in trouble when I played along with their game of being a dog and a cat and zipped them up into pet carriers. I had to give them biscuits and they had a great time barking and meowing... until their mother walked in... In my defence it was their idea! after that we made paper-clip necklaces and they explored the possibilities of putting paperclips in my hair - I found another one this morning that had been washed twice but hadn't untangled itself enough to fall out!

After that I went to a music/jamming session at Duncan's house - he got a drum kit quite recently and I had a great time trying it out! I wish i knew how people do those amazing drum solos though, I could never just let loose and go nuts with the drums, I needed guidelines! The others had fun making weird noises with my viola (and chasing the cats with it) as well as trying to figure out the recorder again. I tried to play the piano for the first time in years which was fun, if a bit frustrating, and admired Duncan's amazing guitar playing! I've never been able to figure out the guitar (except for guitar-hero which doesn't count).

From there I went home and crashed, waking up in time for dinner and a run before bed.

And Sunday was quiet, I practiced tai ch (I've managed to write down all the steps I need to remember so I can practise without getting too stuck. I think my family is confused that there are little pieces of paper floating around with "stab behind, gouge eye" and that sort of thing written on them), washed my car, had a great cycle and run and went off to church which was... interesting!

Because there is very little of interest in my life lately

I thought I'd leave you guys with this to brighten your Monday!

Optimism for cynics

For those of you that read the previous post in the two hours that it was up I apologise. I took a walk and had a think and decided that stewing in misery isn't what I should be doing.

Good things that have happened:

1. Traffic wasn't bad this morning
2. I went running last night and I'm not stiff today!
3. My ankle (which is still dodgy from the bad sprain 2 years ago) was protesting rather a ot this morning and a very kind person went to her car and got out her first aid kit so I could strap it (thanks!). So there ARE decent people out there!
4. Even if Tai Chi kind of sucked on Tuesday, I think it might be better tonight, and it does make me happy...
5. Last night my friend walked into the lab, took one look at me and knew EXACTLY what to do (i.e. drinks and potato wedges).
6. My supervisor has decided that my emails are worthy of attention and I've heard from him more than once in the last two days (compared to once in the last month). Good to know he's still alive!
7. The scary bodybuilders at the gym all smiled and waved to me last night!
8. I had an incredibly bad dream last night, but when I woke up and realised it was just a dream it made me feel better about life! So in short, it isn't so bad, at elast I'm not wearing strawberry jam as lipstick which grows of its own accord and covers my face so I look like I dipped my head in oil and lay in the sun!

Anyway, I shold ge tback to work. I'm stuck pretending to be a lab-monkey tomorrow so I'll probably be a bit quiet for the next few days.

Oh and as for the title - a while ago someone told me that I was a perfect example of a cnical optimist... The cloud has a silver lining... which will probably kill you!

FAIL!

I love failblog.org! After wasting far too much time on it today I thought I'd share the love a bit... Enjoy!


see more Fail Blog

Anyway, I'm off now to get changed and stuff to go for dinner with Chief Goth and (I hope) Lara tonight, and maybe head off with Jo and Z (the makeup artist) clubbing after that.

Some more randomness

So as I don't really want to talk about my life at the moment (maybe tomorrow) I thought I would point you guys in the direction of a really adorable story about what those supermodel barbie-dogs SHOULD be doing!

The link is here, and here's the basic gist of the story:

In a small town in Germany, people kept losing shoes. A lot of shoes. Like over a hundred (in the town, not per person. Do you have 100 shoes? I don't!). One day a forest worker stumbled across some in the forest and went to investigate. He found more shoes, and, upon closer inspection, realised that they were basically strewn around a fox den.

The authorities got involved and tracked down the shoe owners and returned them, mostly in good condition, but a few missing laces. Apparently, there was a fox who stole shoes for her cubs to play with.

Isn't that the cutest thing ever! Although I wonder what they've been doing with the laces, playing 'England-Ireland-Scotland-Wales'?

*Picture from here

Guilty pleasures

It's freezing, nobody is happy (except Luke) and I figured I would tell you all about the little things that are keeping me going at the moment!

• Spider Solitaire or hearts. This started as a lab lunchtime exercise where we would play hearts together and take great pleasure in screaming at the virtual players ('Ben'or 'East' is particularly vindictive). Spider Solitaire is particularly addictive, maybe I just like the fake fireworks at the end if I win? I also play before bed when I'm on fieldwork so that when I go to bed I don't close my eyes and see rocks and lizards, which means that I wake up exhausted from dreaming of chasing lizards all night...
  
• Scandinavian metal. How can you not love someone who experiments with different beard-braids? Plus the music is a lot of fun to exercise to! Just be careful or you'll overdo it and end up in pain... Or is that the point? And yes, being Scandinavian is a total bonus, it's so much more fun if they don't really understand what they're singing, just watch Nightwish singing the Pahntom of the Opera live - where they sing beautifully about the "Phantom of the Oprah!" What would that phantom look like? Would it host a talk-show about reconnecting with your family when the medium might not be all that good?

• This blog. It has made me laugh so hard I've cried on occasion, particularly the fireman cake...


• PHD comics! I know, I'm terribly nerdy, but the guy who writes it is really good at capturing what life as a postgrad is like, and almost always makes me chuckle, while thinking "I though it was just me!"
  
• Britain's got talent: admittedly I can only watch snippets on youtube, but when I was in the field I spent an entire evening doing just that, to the point where I got very emotionally involved and had a few nailbiting session while watching the final results (not just this year either!). I guess there's something in watching the ordinary man on the street show amazing hidden talents, and that makes us all dream a bit. I found the stories that hit me hardest were of the people who had to work really hard through difficult personal problems just to be there, I find it hard to sympathise with the kids with stage parents who kind of get forced into it and have a million lessons and choreographers and singng teachers and everything, it's so sad that they are really talented and they'll probably rebel and quit at some stage.


• Tea. Now that it's freezing I can't really indulge my coffee habit as much as I'd like as I just keep drinking it until I feel sick. There's something really awesome about a hot cup of tea when it's cold outside! The front-runners at the moment are regular five-roses (I do like Fortnum & Mason but we only get that when my dad has been in the uk recently), spiced-chai tea (like drinking hot-cross buns!), ginger rooibos, peppermint tea and of course cranberry and cinnamon!

• Watching terrible 'science' based crime shows on TV. I'm not sure what appeals to me more, the bad bad science, the worse portrayal of scientists or the stylish CGI effects. I'm really not into crime shows, but I kind of got sucked into CSI when we started playing "spot the dead-guy breathing" when I was working at the video store. Don't judge me!


• Green Wing! That show makes me laugh even though I've rewatched the funnier scenes WAY too many times!
  
  

I'm sure there are a bunch more, but I think I'll stop there for now! Here's hoping it warms up a bit tomorrow so I can start living again!

Unicorns

So while I sit and set traps and all that fun stuff, I do a lot of thinking. Bear in mind that in the course of about 4 hours I may catch two or three lizards, and as I have the routine of retrieving it, taking a blood sample, making notes, putting lizard in a bag under a tree and resetting traps down to about 4 minutes, there's a lot of time inbetween for random thought. So today, instead of my usual diatribe about why thorn trees are out to get me (they are) and ticks have some mystical radar for me (they do) and the rocks only fall when I've been standing on them for 10 minutes and am starting to relax (they do), i thought I'd let you guys in on some of what I was thinking today. Today was a good day, with amazingl little soul-searching introspection or rehashing past conversations while mentally slapping myself for my stupidity, so I figured it's as good a time as any!




This is my first embed, I hope it works! Anyway I had this song stuck in my head today (it's a good song, despite the weirdness of the video!) and I got to thinking about Unicorns. The line stuck in my head was the "We're the Unicorns, we're more than horses!" and I started wondering about why exactly that is.

Almost every girl I know had posters of dolphins, horses, unicorns and (often) cats, right next to the Backstreet Boys or *N Sync (depending on which side you supported) on her wall. Bear in mind I was a teenager in the late 90's and it was cool then.

I have long since given up trying to understand the appeal of dolphins, they're ok, but really? Give me a likkewaan or a cuttlefish or a capybara anyday! But what the heck is the appeal of unicorns?

Horses I get. They kind of scare me, and as far as I know, besides the classic being dragged around by a trainer who is holding the ropes I don't think I've ever ridden a horse. But I love the idea of having the freedom to go just about anywhere without your legs getting tired, letting your transport feed itself and the general riding into the sunset thing. It's cool. The whole along a beach thing, not so much, but that's just me.

So you take a horse, which is useful, and has big eyes and therefore humans love them, and give it a horn and mystical powers? WTF? I mean really, who wants to hug a rhino?* I mean surely, taking something that's really amazing and useful and as close to man's best friend as his dog will allow, and putting something sharp and dangerous on it? And, if you take the magical powers out of the equation, all you've got is a kind of sheepish looking horse that looks like it's been the victim of a nasty prank.

On the other hand, there's always Charlie!



So do you guys like unicorns? Care to explain the point of the whole idea to me (no pun intended, really!)

*Not counting that baby rhino on the documentary who was wearing socks because his feet were cold and it was really incredibly adorable.

Well this sucks!

So I woke up all raring to go this morning, to realsie that it was freezing cold and cloudy. So I made a cup of tea and poured milk on my cereal and went back to bed. When I got up again (lets not mention how many hours passed in between) I put my tea in the microwave, ate my cereal (hours of soaking makes for wesome Squillos!) and stared at te sky going why WHY? oh WHY?!?!? (in my head of course. I'm isolated. Not crazy).

A few hours later it began to clear and so I eagerly set out in search of some lizards. Three sites later I still hadn't so much as seen one of mine and the sun was setting so I came home and went for a run out of sheer frustration, and ended up even more frustrated. Turns out running up and down gravelly hills is slightly harder than the treadmill that I know and love.

And so I measured the lizards from yesterday and took a nap, only to wake up absolutely freezing about half an hour later.

On the plus side, nothing makes running worth it like rounding a corner and seeing four giraffe staring at you with totally bemused expressions before galloping off! And I did run further than I would have expected, although the hills still absolutely kill me. I have a slightly kinder route planned for tomorrow (except for the 2km climb to get to the start of it).

And, despite everything, I'm feeling pretty good! it's amazing when I think back to the depressed and tense person I was for the last few weeks! Looks like all I needed was to get out of the city and climbing some rocks!

Wow!

Oh my gosh, today was weird... So I rushed in to university his morning, stressing out because my meeting with my supervisor had been postponed from yesterday to this morning, the traffic was terrible and I was lecturing honours students after lunch and I wanted to go over everything again.

When I got to the lab it was deserted (even the cricket was MIA) so I dumped my stuff and went in search of the elusive supervisor - it's his last day employed by the university and so it was kind of important. As it turns out I got to his office just after he sent me an email asking me to go and see him - he was about to leave, so it worked out pretty well! After that I went downstairs and started some coffee and settled down to work, which lasted for about two minutes before people started banging on the door asking for my lab mates. Five minutes after I got rid of one batch, the next would appear. Then one lab mate would appear and then leave just before the next person came to find them. It was most frustrating.

Then, once we were all settled in at the lab, drinking coffee and working (as you do), Candice arrived (not the usual Candice) to chat and visit. She used to sit at the desk I have claimed as mine now, and we don't get to see her much as she works at the zoo now and her office is really hidden away there. After she left, the other Candice arrived and went off with Luke for coffee and Megan and I ended up having a weird heart-to-heart about life and people and the universe and stuff. all this while I supposed to be stressing and doing last-minute prep for my lecture which was in about two hours at the point.

The lecture was OK, I wasn't stressed or panicky and i think that took a bit of the edge off my 'performance' I felt like the students were bored and not too interested until right at the end wen we got to the human behaviour examples, although Luke claims that it went well so I'm going to listen to him in order to maintain my sanity!

After that we ad a weird weird WEIRD conversation with Luke's supervisor who was giggling like a maniac because the cricket has moved into the office next-door to his and the post-doc in there is getting very irritated at the chirping! And Megan has to walk into the conversation when it got to discussing cup-sizes if you were to use a bra as a surgical mask. She missed the other part which I will not discuss other than to warn the innocent people out there to be VERY CAREFUL when google-searching obscure primate behaviour, such as punishment of juvenile vervet monkeys.

From there we got food as Luke was about to implode or pass out or something and we ended up talking about honours where Luke went through an Internet-game phase and played a game called Chuzzle incessantly, while I stood behind him yelling out instructions. We ended up playing it today and I'm not quite sure what the addicting factor was... from there we played Zuma and Bejewelled and Megan got very addicted to Bejewelled...

We also put in some YouTube-time watching bad performances in all the various forms of Idols/Pop Idols/American Idol which was funny and scary and just plain weird. And once I got a headache we stopped and played Bejewelled until it was time to go home.

It was a totally bizarre day!

Oh, and please can people out there help me. How do you (and I mean you personally, not convention) pronounce 'schnitzel'? It has been a topic for debate for quite some time!

It looks like so much fun!

I was watching a music video that has a huge fight scene between two people (totally over-acting and so not as horrible as it could be) and I just though that it could be really hard to act it out. I mean how on earth do you keep a straight face while pretending to throttle someone?

The blinding blinding pain!

So I went off to the gym last night, to find that the bodybuilder and the creepy little guy - while still regular fixtures over the last few months - weren't there. instead I ran into a bunch of my students. It was very awkward. so I ran off to the bike that I always use and settled down to do some serious cycling, and I nearl did 30 km! i was so proud! And now I can't climb stairs without considerable pain. I've had worse though, so I guess all in all it's not that bad!

I've also decided to stop the banging-head-against wall reaction (no, not literally) that i've had towards several people lately. I guess it's harder to move on for some relationships than others, particularly when the people in question have been around for a long time. A long time ago when a friend of mine 'unfriended' me by sms I was terribly upset until I realised that while I was a bad friend to her, I also hated being around her because she made me feel incredibly guilty all the time. There are people in my life at the moment who berate and criticise and basically make me feel like I'm substandard, and its just not good.

So while I listened to some loud music (just because I listen to goth music when I exercise does NOT make me a goth!) and ignored the cramping in my legs, I decided that it has to be more than me deciding that it doesn't bother me. I have to make a more active decisiona nd stop getting myself into situations that make me feel like I'm not worthwhile.

Some people go to the gym to spend time with friends, others for the endorphin rush, or to remove the guit of eating that extra donut. I go there to figure out my life. Therapy? Give me a bike and an imaginary road stretching off into infinity!

Fridays are never predictable

So every Friday morning we have coffee and donuts together. This morning was no exception and we were joined by the IT guy, who is actually quite cool. He also cleaned out my laptop with a high-pressure air thingie and washed my screen (with soap!) and we had a chat which was quite enlightening and thought provoking.

I was also slapped on the butt by a cleaning lady/man (I'm not sure), had some awesome moments of people watching, was tickled and chased by said tickler into the men's room, listened to some strangely uplifting morbid music and had a good giggle about some people's reactions to the lyrics.

Luke has discovered failblog, so we lost a good while to giggling over the silly things that people do/say/wear/film. the nun who works next door dragged me aside under the pretenses of my being in trouble, when she just wanted gift-giving advice. The vet from the zoo hugged me, which freaked me out totally, and the new vet student is being pursued by almost all the girls who work at the zoo which is very entertaining to watch.

We also discussed chemical peels, cellulite massages, that mineral blasting thing, the pros and cons of sunblock... poor Luke! Although he starts it as often as not...

I had way too much coffee today, and nothing makes much sense, so I'm going to stop now.

A rather mundane description of a rather fun weekend

So on Friday, after a lab that went on FOREVER I went straight off to Northgate for movie/girls' night with Storm and Lara and the whole crew. We went and saw Confessions of a Shopaholic, and I once again and the experience of seeing a movie that I would usually hate, and absolutely loving it purely because of the people I was with. Whenever something funny happened Lara and I would laugh and then as we finished giggling I would hear Kerry, on my other side cracking up and I'd start laughing all over again.

And then when the movie finished Storm and her cousin randomly decided to head off clubbing without us (when she had been the organiser of the whole thing), so the rest of us went off for drinks and ended up chatting and generally catching up. then when I remembered I'd left my phone on silent and that I was over an hour later that I'd told my folks and they were throwing a fit. So I scuttled off home and passed out until about 20 minutes before I was due at work at the vet on Saturday.

Oh, and for some reason that movie made me REALLY want to go shopping. It was very strange!

I somehow made it to work in time, to find out that it was a public holiday, the vet was closed and there were a lot of angry people with sick dogs in the parking lot One of them was the cutest puppy EVER! But as it happened I didn't have the vet's cellphone number on me, nobody was answering their phones, and I got tired of being yelled at so I left and went two blocks down the road to visit Lara at work, where we sympathised at each other for mutual tiredness and I got some movies and headed home to do my marking in front of the tv.

Then i lay down for 5 minutes, and woke up several hours later when summoned for lunch, which I literally ate with my eyes closed (a tricky skill when it comes to soup) and headed back to bed, getting up in time to go to gym and buy fudge ingredients. Apparently I wasn't as awake as I though as I bought the wrong ingredients, but I had an awesome gym session and left feeling all invigorated and stuff and so I went home and made brownies instead of fudge (the joy of having a recipe that used ingredients that really are usually lying around the house) and went off to Chief Goth's house.

Where it turned out that storm was "too tired" to join us! Lara was livid and basically the evening consisted of us trying some new wine that CG had bought and listening to the two of them bitching about Storm. While I see their point, I felt kind of awkward when they said things like "I see more of Helen than I do of Storm!" well... I would hope so! Eventually La picked up on it and pointed out that that is pretty amazing considering I don't live I the same city as them half the time, and so we played guitar hero.

Sunday was horrible, I was a zombie all day again, to the point where I think I worried Luke a bit when I spoke to him and all I could say was that life sucked and my feet were cold. At this stage it was well into the afternoon and I had gone back to bed. Eventually I got up, freaked at the time as I was late for church and went dashing out the house to meet my mom in the driveway where I realized that it was actually an hour earlier than I thought it was, and so I carried on marking, went to church and then went off to gm where I nearly collapsed.

Weird.