Thrihyrne

( Tis the season )

A serious winter storm is scheduled to hit here, or at least a major Snow Event (like 6-8 inches) probably tomorrow afternoon and Sunday could be really bad. One never knows. I do hope to attend a Lessons & Carols service tomorrow; my holidays wouldn't be complete without one. Actually, it sounds as though there may already be 6 inches on the ground by the time of the service. That wouldn't keep me away, but there's supposed to be frozen rain following the snow, making for a nightmare, especially here.

♥♥♥♥

I'll not use my fun double dagger symbol, but:
~ I actually secured some donations tonight, so, yay! Not even for the possible commission for me (they weren't major gifts by any means), but I spoke with lovely people and it helps an art form I believe in, opera.
~ One of my colleagues said I was a ray of sunshine. And she was being serious.
~ I went to a health food-ish chain grocery store to look for a gluten-free pie crust (not exactly for me; I love wheat and pasta and all of that) and ran into the homeowner of the house where I live. It was fun to see him in a different context, and totally out of the blue.
~ I'm getting a massage tomorrow morning!!
~ My Ron/Remus story was posted today, here at the remus_ron_slash fest. It's locked as it's NC-17, and is on the longer side for this fest (a bit over 10K), so if you'd care to read a recently-written HP story from me, there 'tis. It needs some love. Or maybe just a comment or two. ;)
~ I'm going to go to at least one yarn store tomorrow, and take evannichols along with me.
~ I'm able to listen to EdgeRadio again! wolfiekins's station rocks.
~ I'm making progress on my yuletide fic. I'm not supposed to discuss any details about it publicly, but I think I'll feel quite accomplished and proud of it when finished.
~ I wrote cim_halfling a letter this morning. :)
~ To work tonight I wore a cool vest designed by Jade Starmore that I knitted several years ago, and felt pretty stoked about the number of interesting garments and gifts I've knitted over the years. Mine was knitted in a purple heathered yarn, not the goldenrod this person did, but it shows the pattern really well.
~ I think I'll now go and sign up for slashy_santa. Because I don't have enough on my plate. ;)

Friday was a good day; I got up early to meet someone as I was giving away a portable closet thanks to Craigslist. The guy who came to get it was well-spoken and, well, chatty. He talked with me for thirty minutes, but as he said, he's even better than Willamette Week, one of the local papers. Originally from Ohio, he'd spent many years in L.A. and has been in Portland a little over a year; from the clues in the conversation, I think we were around the same age. I came back upstairs and did email and beta'ed before heading over to my friend Yvonne's house. Her partner Jill had surgery on Wednesday; I didn't think she'd be home until Saturday, but she was the one who greeted me a bit groggily at the door. I cleaned their house for them; it was something I'd wanted to do to give back to them, and neither of them are at full physical strength. I'd gone to get Yvonne's 13-year old son from school on Wednesday and spent the evening, and Yvonne herself ended up in the ER before coming home around 12:15 a.m. At any rate, I was glad to be able to give back a little bit. Jill had been given some flowers and the three cats had absolutely gone to town. They are such adorable but terrible beasties! There was baby's breath everywhere when I showed up.

Today was Renfaire. Very exciting! I had my directions and then… football travesty. What should have been an hour and 45 minute drive turned into three hours to get to the Faire. I went through Corvallis, where Oregon State University is. It was also game day, before a home football game. There was an accident, there were loads of people. I had two or three primal screams in my car, the likes of which I've not had since I was driving across the desert of Arizona and California. But I made it there, and was in costume and felt so very much at home; it really was a wonderful time. There weren't as many stages and events as I would have liked, but there were some fun vendors and *loads* of fun people-watching. I did get a pin for myself ("Kilt Inspector") and I bought another couple for two people: wolfiekins and elfscribe5, keep an eye on your mailboxes, as there are wee gifts coming your way. The sun was very intense, and there was precious little shade. I had on my SPF 55 sunscreen on my face, and given that I was in velvet, it was built-in sunblock. I got a couple of wonderful compliments on my dress, but nobody actually recognized it! Maybe it's been too long since The Two Towers came out. There were people dressed in Renaissance garb, faerie garb, pirates, knights, neo-Goths, normies, even a Roman or two. Very eclectic attire. And next weekend, in Portland proper is the 2008 Portland Pirate Festival. I think I'm going to see if I can cajole evannichols into going to that with me, both for fun and also so I can wear my costume again. It's not pirate-ish necessarily, but these things tend to blend together. If you show up in any kind of costume, you get some kind of karmic points. I really, really loved walking around in my costume today and chatting with people. I felt so at home, even though I was in the middle of nowhere in Oregon. My drive home was gorgeous; I took the Kings Valley Highway up to Dallas, OR, and then over to I-5. Some beautiful country I got to drive on, though it's been so sunny for so long that there's a lot of dry grass around, which reminds me of Wenatchee.

Rather than go on and on anymore about my day, here are the pics I took. Enjoy!

( Renfaire pictures )

I think I'm going to sleep in tomorrow!! I also watched "The Double Life of Veronique" Friday night and was just as moved by it as I remembered from the past. I have writings in both HP and Wraeththu to type in, but I'm a bit sun-drained. Today was also the first time, I realized, that I'd actually left the Portland environs since I moved here. Five hours on the road, in costume. It was such great fun, though. I already miss that kind of environment.

No news either from Reed or Pacifica. I don't know what's going on, work-wise. I was contacted by another staffing agency and I have an appointment with a very charismatic woman there at 10:30 Monday morning, hopefully to lead to an interview with another company shortly thereafter. I continue to hope that I'll make it to Reed, as I think I'd be a great fit with them. I also heard back from the State of Oregon about the first of two jobs I applied for; I seem to have qualified. I have no idea what that means; maybe it means I'll get an interview. I've never tried to work for The State, regardless of the state I've worked in, but Oregon seems rather complicated. Still, nice of them to let me know that I'm qualified for an Administrative Assistant position. Hopefully that will actually lead to an interview, but if not, that's okay too.

Much love to you all!!.

I've had a rough week; many of you know that. For all of you who gave me encouragement and support: thank you. I felt unable to deal with the stress of doing emergency roadside assistance with only 3 weeks of training and my truly crash course in Oregon geography, much less the other states for which I'd have been taking calls. There were other issues as well; investments in a trip that perhaps I shouldn't have made, but I'm coming to terms with the new reality of it and the person I won't get to see, and getting all of my financial ducks in order. I've also applied to a slew of administrative positions, at universities and elsewhere. I worked on the Ithiel-fic and the second part is much improved; I'll be consulting with the lovely freestylerocker as to how to do this since the other integral part is her art. I hope we'll post it at some point in the next month. In the meantime, it's back to callumjames' long-neglected fic, and/or continuing on with the early-era Sulh-centric fic I've started.

Part of me ponders making this a fic-only LJ, but I really don't want that. I've been on LJ for many years, and I keep up with so many of you via this format, oftentimes supplemented with phone calls and letters. I also have felt that my LJ was a haven to post some of my deepest (or self-deprecating, or joyous, or frustrated, or loving) thoughts, and over the years, many people on my flist have told me that s/he resonated to what I'd said about my real life, my inner landscape, the me beyond my writing. I've used this metaphor more times than I'd wished over the past three years, and it comes from the book of Job in the Hebrew Bible, about facing the gates of great darkness. I don't believe that I suffer from depression, though I may well have some anxiety issues— it's the inner tape loops of psychological self-abuse and wondering in many ways where they came from that has grabbed me by the ankle and dragged me down. So I've become focused, yet again, on the need to consciously create some new neurological pathways, and working on them with the same obsessive passionate fervor that I've pursued other things in my life, but writing most recently. One of these days I'll again unleash my inner fervent Dwarf rather than the inner Vulcan. Oh, and there's that whole elusive balance concept, but nothing like that comes quickly.

To lighten this up, since I was out and about in Portland today [again, I should remind myself that it's not just anyone who could pack up her life in ten days and move across country and be determined to succeed, despite the tripping and falling I've made along the way] while I was in the parking lot at Fred Meyer I saw two somewhat-Goth men, all pale skin, skin-tight black jeans and short-sleeved black t-shirts glued onto their thin frames, obligatory black hair. Oh, and some tattoos. Drinking colorful smoothie-looking drinks and chatting animatedly about something. They were compelling and gorgeous to me; I couldn't keep my eyes off of them as I parked my shopping trolley in a designated area.

Today I had another IKEA adventure with my downstairs neighbor. We also stopped by the DMV so I could get a booklet to read and study before I contemplate trying to take the written test to get an Oregon driver's license. I'm glad he was with me; he went inside and got forms and the book, thank goodness, because there was nowhere to park! He said there were probably 150 people there. I think I'll wait until I'm on my regular shift so I can go in mid-day on a Thursday.

We went to Ikea and I ended up buying a bedframe, slats, sheets, and a new, much thicker mattress. I assembled the bed this afternoon and I'm just thrilled. It's so comfortable. WOW. A month after I've moved, and at last I'm no longer sleeping on a thin mattress. This will doubtless do tremendous things for my mental health as doubtless I'll sleep better and quit being so achey all the time!

( so I took pictures! )

In craptastic news, I'm doing research into air fares to get to London and back for the conference in October, also seeing veloona and callumjames. Callum, you will be around in mid-October, right??! I'd love to get over to Ireland for a few days as well, but figure I can finagle those logistics closer to time. I'm appalled at the air fares, and can't even think of the spending money since the £ is double the US dollar. Ouch. But $920 from Baltimore to London and back?? WTF?! I'm used to spending $1500 to get to Australia, but I've never spent more than $600 from the east coast to the U.K. Anybody have any suggestions?

Hope you're having a good weekend. I'm off to do some beta'ing. I'd also love to see some pictures/videos of any Olympics diving, but I'm so out of the loop and I don't think that any has happened yet. ♥

Training was rather stressful today, mostly due to the ridiculous pressure I put on myself to learn everything all at once and sound confident about it [I must say; working for AAA in an area to which I've just moved 3 weeks ago does, perhaps, put me at a geographic disadvantage], but I'll buck up.

This evening post-work I called a couple of people and managed to make a dent in replying to fandom and, mostly, non-fandom-oriented emails. Then I met shinyholly for dinner in the rather eclectic Hawthorne district, where so many of the colorful people are. I'll keep this to a minimum, since she's new to my LJ and I want to respect her privacy, but this is one of those grand scheme unexpected serendipities. shinyholly and I sang in the same choir in the mid-to-late 90s in Nashville, and we've kept up ever since, primarily through occasional letters and some email. She moved to Portland in 2000. Tonight we saw each other for the first time in many years, but there was no awkwardness at all (at least not on my part!) and such a delight to get to renew a friendship in real time in an area far, far away from Nash Vegas. In speaking with her, my longing to sing again has been rekindled. Given my new schedule, I doubt a church choir would work, but there are many other singing groups in town, and she has contacts. This is a really great thing. It was a fabulous dinner, and then we parted ways, both walking home, albeit in different directions. That's another great thing about Portland, I must say, and where I live. As I ambled home, I passed all kinds of people out enjoying the balmy Thursday night, and didn't think a thing about walking the blocks home, many of them in the dark. The clouds overhead were a dusky grey against the near-black; we're supposed to get rain tomorrow morning. But there were always the echoes of voices, and as I approached my place, my hallmate was outside on the front porch swing with a big mug of tea, murmuring some discontent at her boyfriend who was an hour late. Still. So she asked me about my dinner and I told her how great it had been, and the social stuff in general.

"See?" she said. "Pretty soon you're going to be totally busy with that and work and writing, not that you could write more than you do." [during a kitchen-based conversation I gave her my website]

"Yeah," I said, feigning guilt. "I may even try to get into a singing group again. I'll try to keep it to just one."

It was an affirming evening. It's still so very, very early in my time here, but perhaps I'll end up picking up the vibe after all. I'm treating myself to a cruise on the Willamette River on the Portland Spirit boat Saturday, so I should be able to post some pictures again. I'm really looking forward to it. There will also be Ithiel-centric fic writing. And another Ikea trip to buy a decent mattress so I can sleep. :P

I went and picked up Bianca, the Power Subaru, from Repair Right Auto this morning. I'm no longer intimidated by the bus system, and thankfully, they are right on the line. I even left them a review at Google, as that was how I picked them in the first place. They even cleaned her, inside and out. She looks gorgeous.

I'm still sniffly, and will probably spend the day writing and reading. But I feel that I have much more equilibrium now. And I have social events this weekend! I'm so excited! :)