roseyviolet

I had this dream last night that I was pregnant. Not just that I was pregnant, but that I experienced pretty much an entire pregnancy over the course of a dream in which all kinds of other things were happening, that were more-or-less the focal point of the dream at those various points, except that in the background, sort of peripherally, I continued to become increasingly pregnant. The last part of the dream was me being driven to the hospital to actually have this baby. I was in the front seat of a minivan, being driven by my mom, with my sister and her fiancé in the back seat. And as we were driving along, I actually found myself thinking: Oh. Huh. I’m actually about to have a baby. Like, there will be a baby. I had not given this fact any actual consideration at any time up to this point. It was just sort of, something I was vaguely aware of. I hadn’t done anything in preparation. I hadn’t even gone to the doctor.

So I said, just generally to the other people in the car: I don’t think I’m in any way ready to have this baby.

And my mother said something completely random and useless, I think it was something like: Well, you’ll have to at least repaint the bathroom.

And I was like, um. I really don’t think the paint in the bathroom is the issue here.

And she started to argue, and then my sister and her boyfriend started to argue with her, mostly along the lines of, “just let her say what she’s trying to say,” but it just turned into this whole thing and I decided it was easier to just let it go. And as we drove up to the entrance to the hospital I thought, Am I completely sure I’m going to have a baby? What if it’s just, like, a hysterical pregnancy or something? And I remembered something I had seen on like TLC or the Discovery Channel (not for real, just in the dream) about some mentally unstable woman who had everyone — including the delivery doctor! — convinced she was in labor until they realized she wasn’t even pregnant. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought, maybe I’m not really pregnant. I think maybe I’m just fat. I should probably just go home. And I realized that that was the most sensible thing to do, so I just decided to drop the whole baby thing and go on as if nothing had ever happened, and hope everyone would eventually let me live it down.

Then I woke up.

I think this may have some relevance to things that are actually happening in my life right now.

Mary Worth (1998) full version

Fencepost Frank | Myspace Video

So I’m probably going to have to repaint my whole living room. This isn’t actually a bad thing so much as (a) an untimely one and (b) a ridiculous one, given the reasons.

A few years ago, I painted the whole room kind of a pale blue. It’s a really pretty color, but not as bright as I would like, given how dingy and dark the room is (the whole apartment, really. It gets zero natural light). More recently, I painted the kitchen a very pale, soft aqua, and I really liked that. It’s much brighter, and also works much better with the accent colors in the living room. So I was in no big rush to do it, but I figured eventually I would paint the living room either the same color as the kitchen or a very slightly lighter or darker version of it.

So anyway, the one other problem in the living room was that there was this pair of wall sconces flanking the windows which I really, really disliked. I know they’re “charming original architectural details” and all that, but they were quite unattractive, and because everything else in the room now is basically mid-century modern, they looked really out of place. I’d been buying table and floor lamps, even hung a ceiling swag fixture in anticipation of getting rid of them, but I didn’t want to try disconnecting myself, partly because the wiring in this apartment dates back to shortly after the Civil War and I had no idea what to expect when I actually unscrewed them from the walls and partly because it’s electrical and I didn’t want to be alone in the apartment when I did it, for safety reasons. When I painted the room, I already knew I would eventually be removing the fixtures (although I didn’t realize at the time that it would take so damn long). So I didn’t bother to paint behind them; I just left an unpainted section around them, figuring I would touch it up after they’d been taken out.

Well, this past weekend I finally managed to get the stupid fixtures off the wall (long story, with the help of my sister’s BF). I capped off the wires and taped and spackled over the holes. And last night, I went to get the sanding block out of the cabinet where I keep that stuff, to get the wall nice and smooth before painting. And as I’m looking for the block, I notice something odd. There’s this little metal cylinder that I don’t recognize in the cabinet. It looks almost like one of the little metal cans I store the leftover paint in, except that instead of having the kind of top where you press it down from the top (like a regular paint can), it seems to have like, a screw-on top, except that the “top” is three times the height of the actual can.

Then I look a little closer, and this is what I see:



It’s the touch up paint that’s been sitting in the cabinet for years. Apparently, it’s just corroded it’s way through the can at the level that the paint came to inside the can.



And of course, that’s allowed air into the can. So the paint that remained inside the can hasn’t just congealed, it’s actually kind of … weirdly petrified into this shiny, glassy puck-like object that’s welded into the bottom of the can. I have to admit, it’s actually quite fabulous. Sort of like a science experiment gone wrong.



Anyhoo, if I want to touch up the area around the light fixtures now, I have to go out and buy all new paint. And I can either buy a quart of the existing blue for like, $11, and then still have to paint again at some future date when I change the color, or buy a gallon of the new color for $15 and do the whole room now.

I’m thinking it’s gonna be the second thing.

ETA: I'm not sure how to make the red x's turn into actual photos, so you can just see them here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2087986&id=1169854531#!

So, does anyone remember this?
I have to admit, I was just assuming that what I wrote to be true. And you know what they say. When you “assume” you make an ass of you and me .

Or sometimes not.

These are now my two new favorite places in all the internets. Don’t you think they should be yours, too?

http://catalogliving.tumblr.com

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com

http://scifiwire.com/2010/06/four-labels-from-the-bruc.php

So, like a year or so ago, the company I work for gave us all $15 amazon.com gift cards for Administrative Support Appreciation Day, or whatever you call it.

Now, I don't often use Amazon.com, because I don't use credit cards, and they don't accept PayPal (which I do use). And of course, once you added in shipping and tax, there was nothing on the site I needed or wanted that would come out to just under $15, so I never used it. Then, last November or December, I realized I could use it to download MP3s, which I set out to do. And anyway, it didn't work. It wouldn't let me download the songs I wanted and moreover, when I tried to use the card again, it said the card number was "invalid." So. Okay. Eff You, amazon.com. You steal from me mah moneh! You still from me mah fifteen dollah! You not mah fren no more!

Well, lalalala. A couple of weeks ago, I started looking around -- mostly in department stores -- for a piece of costume jewelry. Maybe earrings or a bracelet or something, but anyway the point was I wanted something red. I have a lot of black and white clothes, and especially several things with sort of black and white graphic patterns, and I recently bought this really nice faux-alligator handbag in a bright, crayon-y red, and I thought the bag would go well with the black and white stuff. Anyway, I have almost no jewelry, so I've been buying a few inexpensive pieces here and there, and most recently I was looking for red. And of course, nobody has anything red, and I guess maybe because it's not really a summer color, but whatever.

Then last week I was in Macys and saw these really nice earrings, but of course they had no visible price on them, and they were locked in a case, which is usually a bad sign. But I asked the lady, and she said eighty dollars! For a pair of sterling silver earrings, which just happened to have little bits of red jasper in them. So I said no thanks, but I did like them, so I looked on the internets and found that several places had similar pieces, including amazon, which had almost the identical earrings, with a matching pendant for twenty-eight dollars for the set. Which, at least compared to Macy's was a pretty good price. Also, it happens that I have one of those "vanilla" MasterCard gift cards, with about fifty bucks left on it, and amazon accepts that, so after my usual amazon routine of having to remember which email address my account is under, and then having to re-set my password because I've forgotten it (which, like, seriously? Every freaking time), I order them.

And when I go to pay, there's a little prompt ... asking me if I want to apply my fifteen dollar credit! Which apparently has been there the whole time! So I said yes, and after taxes and shipping and all the other whoop-de-hay, with the credit I got the earrings and pendant for like, twenty bucks, as opposed to eighty for just the earrings at Macys!

So thank you, amazon.com. You no steal from me mah fifteen dollah! You only hole mah fifteen dollah until I want it! I misjudged you. And hate you slightly less now than I did ten minutes ago.

The end.

Edited to add: AND!!! I just received email from amazon saying that they couldn't process my order. And all the information I gave them is correct, so I'm guessing it's the absence of a cardholder name on the gift card, because (a) I've had this problem before and (b) you'd really think, wouldn't you? That MasterCard would have something about this on their website? Especially if they know damn well that you can't deal with a human on their phone lines?

So eff YOU, Vanilla MasterCard people. Because you suck, and you're leaving me and Amazon to work out the problem you caused with no input from you.

An amusing idea from fengi:

“Next Thursday will be Self Fan Fiction Day.

Participants will post an entry as if they were a stranger attempting to write in the style of themselves, about events which are invented but generally adhere to canon (i.e. your real life). Bonus points for inserting a mary sue of the non-existent stranger in the post.

Even better - and far more irritating - participants should comment on entries in other journals as if they were critiquing fan-fiction featuring the journaler. Even better if the journal belongs to someone not participating.

Come on, it'll be fun. No, really! If you have a partner with an LJ, you can even write some slash!”

I think this might be fun. Not sure I’ll have time to do it, but I think I’ll try. You should too! Especially those of you (and you know who you are) who actually know anything about fanfic.

I just want to keep this playing on an infinite loop in my brane for the next six weeks:

So, someone on my facebook friends list referenced this film earlier today:




Apparently, he said, in this production, after Hamlet dies? He comes back to life, but now he's played by Matt Smith.