rachg82

( Rizzoli & Isles )

I don't have much else to talk about today, so let's skip right to that meme now.

( The X-Files and Community )

Things that happened today:

1. ( My sister and I spoke )

2. I spent four hours on a round-trip bus ride to nowhere, a.k.a. Hillsboro. A+, self, for catching the wrong bus AND failing to write down the actual ADDRESS or NAME of the place you were going.

Seriously, if I'd been on time, I would've just looked for a church near that cross-street & figured it out (it was an ACA meeting)--I had directions, just not the damned address/name of the building--but getting on the wrong bus in the first place put me back by like twenty minutes, and I am not at all familiar with that part of town or super comfortable with wandering through it in the dark, clueless. So by that point it was already a lost cause, and I was like, "Fuck it. Let's turn around." SO RIDICULOUS. Ugh.

I'm committed to making it to a Saturday meeting if possible, though (it'll take place downtown, where I'm used to going). I really want to make ACA a priority again, even if I can only swing one meeting a week or one every other week. Just as long as it's at least semi-frequent & consistent. My goal for the next meeting is to share at least once & to stop & say hello to people after, rather than just walking out immediately when it ends.

3. I got out of work at 1:30, but still got paid for the full eight hours (tomorrow & Friday won't be paid, but hey, small favors). Oh, and: my manager gave the okay for me to change my schedule on Thursdays to 7 am - 3:30 pm, allowing me to continue seeing my counselor on a weekly basis. He said it may have to change if it becomes an issue (i.e. an inconvenience to others), but I think it'll probably be fine. At least for now. BIG RELIEF. Like, I was just shy of a panic attack while waiting for his response.

4. This should be included in "things that happened yesterday", but hush: I made gluten-free, egg-free chocolate chip cookies. And my beater broke half-way through, so I had to mix it all by hand, which was a ~big production~, what with the pouting & wrist-flapping & soreness & all (in other words: first world problems). So good, though.

5. I got an early Xmas present from Jen, including season 2 of Community, season 6 of Bones, and a tiny stuffed Yoshi. YOSHI IS OBVIOUSLY THE MOST IMPORTANT PART. Hee. But seriously, yay-ness. I have the bestest best friend ever.

For my Vid of the Day, have some random outtakes:

I'm sleepy & have already been on my computer for too long (blame Text Twist & the neverending about-to-end fic of doom), so this entry will be quick:

-( Psych )

-( Community )

-( Parks & Rec )

-I feel like I have more things to say, but again with the sleepyness. I had an appointment with my counselor today, which I'll probably talk more about later. For now, I'll leave y'all with a Vid of the Day. This one's by Jarisafia:

This whole waking up with a killer migraine that lasts for hours deal? And having it happen multiple days in a row? Not a fan. Like, I'm just gonna go out on a limb & put that out there. Call me crazy. *rolls eyes* As if the normal daily headaches aren't enough of a pain already. LIFE. WHY.

Anyway. At least there's new TV:

-( Community )

-( Parks & Rec )

Aaand I think that's it for tonight. I don't have anything else super exciting to add. In honor of Community's return, though, here's a VotD by sisabet:

1. The job is a go, people. I'mma make it rain! (In Portland! Which neverrr happens otherwise. Y'know. Heh.) ( cut for more boring job stuff )

ETA: Ooh! And I almost forgot, the job includes free cell phone service (not sure if they literally give you a phone, too, or if you pay for that. We'll see). Kind of hilarious because, really? A free cell phone was probably the only possible way to make me willingly own one.[/curmudgeon]

2. Speaking of money, buying a blender is probably one of the best things I've ever done. SO MUCH FUN. Even when I was a kid, we didn't have one; my best friend & I would hand-stir milkshakes, haha. We thought we were brilliant at it though, like we were gonna go out & have a milkshake stand & get filthy rich or something.

3. I put season 3 of Friday Night Lights on request at the library yesterday, so I should be getting that soon (it needs to be moved from another location). Fingers crossed it arrives today. I need some Eric & Tami Taylor in my life.

4. Current has been airing some of the docs from that "50 Documentaries to See Before You Die" series I mentioned the other day, and yesterday they played "One Day in September" (about the 1972 Munich games/attack), which I'd never seen before. I have to say I agree with its placement on the list. Tense, disturbing, & frankly heartbreaking (the Philip Glass music doesn't help, heh. My tear ducts have like a pavlovian response to him). The whole thing is up on YouTube, too (Part One), in case anyone wants to watch. Here's the trailer as well.<--I know, I'm so helpful.

5. My sleep schedule is getting closer to normal--I'm going to bed in the evening, not the morning--but I keep waking up way too early. Like, 2 or 3 in the morning, completely opposite to my normal problem of konking out for 10-16 hours at a time. Cut it out, body!

And that's it. For my Vid of the Day, here's some random funnyness:

1. ( I finally talked to my aunt today. )

2. June-uary is officially over. It's supposed to get up into the eighties over the next few days. I'd really like to go buy some new capris or workout pants (my old ones are too big now. I have to fold the waistband down to keep them up) so I'll be more comfortable going for more frequent jaunty woodland walks again, but it'll have to wait after the chunk of dough I just spent on those prescription sunglasses. I mean, I COULD afford it--pants aren't that expensive--but I'd rather stagger out the spendyness. I have other things I can wear in the meantime. Still, it's on my mind. One way or another, I'd like to take advantage of the weather with some tree-huggin', especially now that I'll have sunglasses to protect mi ojos from ~el sol diablo~. Heh.

3. I watched the prosecution's rebuttal case today in the Casey Anthony trial, & can I just say--that is some slam-dunk shit right there. Homegirl is guiltyyy. I do feel bad for her though. She's clearly disturbed (regardless of guilt or innocence), going by her history of lying if nothing else. I don't mean that she's criminally insane--she's been found competent--but no one creates the kind of lies she did, taking them to the extremes that she did, without there being at least a few squirrels jugglin' knives in their head. Know what I'm saying? She's off. If she indeed was abused as a child, that would help explain things, but unfortunately imo that doesn't negate the evidence of her killing her daughter. It's a sad case no matter how you look at it. Utterly fascinating to watch from an objective standpoint though, especially for all the back & forth intensity between the lawyers (Ashton does not fuck around, seriously) & the forensic testimony. The Bones fangirl in me gets excited whenever a forensic anthropologist is called. Heh. I know, I have issues.

4. Let's talk about TV, y/y? As promised, I still plan to talk more in-depth about my BSG rewatch again soon, but for now here's a few other misc. tidbits:

-I know that Community is far too meta to warrant serious shipping, but I can't help it: in my mind, after the series is over? It'll be Britta/Jeff, Annie/Troy, and Abed/Robin (the Secret Service agent, hee. I ♥ them!). Troy & Abed will still be epic BFFs of course. Abed will totally be the cool uncle who teaches their kids about Batman & Kickpuncher. You know I'm right.

-What is up with Nigel & Mary on So You Think You Can Dance? Is it just me or is he being awkwardly flirty with her lately? I'm not just talking about the kiss.

-Kristin Chenoweth is my new fave guest judge, along with Debbie Reynolds. You know how I said recently that I like to imagine Cat & Mary as besties behind the scenes? From this point on I'm gonna create my own fantasy world where Kristin Chenoweth, Debbie Reynolds, & Debbie Allen all get together every Wednesday night & watch the show together while braiding each other's hair & sucking on Ring Pops.

5. Seeing as how effing fab SYTYCD was the other night, I'm gonna share my favorite five dances with you all now from the last two weeks as a VotD. ( click here for flaily hands )

It's been a couple days since I updated, so I feel like I should, but I'm having one of those issues where I can't think of what to write & everything I CAN think of sounds boring. So I end up just sitting & staring at the computer screen all "BLAH" like a human question mark. "Entry! Why won't you write yourself? Be a team player!" I hate that.

Anyway, I'll just ramble for a minute & we can all pretend it's interesting.

-I had a really bad migraine the night before last, and as a result I've slept more than I've been awake the last two days. I still don't feel quite "over it" yet--my limbs feel heavy, my stomach is frakked, it's hard to read things, when I went to the store yesterday I had difficulty talking (words came out wrong/stilted), etc. Immediately afterward, I felt simultaneously exhausted & yet extremely relaxed/almost good (migraine euphoria, in other words), but then (and now) I just came back to feeling out of it & vaguely depressed yet not. I'm used to all of it, but it's strange, especially because I don't always experience the postdrome phase so severely. It really depends on how bad the migraine itself is, usually (in this case, it was pretty bad). It's good to know there's a reason for all of it though. I find it comforting when I can understand what's going on with my body. It's kind of interesting, almost. The brain is an odd thing.

-During the few hours I was awake yesterday, I watched a couple episodes of some ghost show on cable (I always end up watching the most random crap when sick, I swear). It was your usual fare of sillyness--every ghost in the world apparently wears white dresses circa the Victorian era--but I heard a quote from one of the women that I liked: "God's delay doesn't necessarily mean God's denial." She said her dead father appeared to her & said that, which--whatever, who knows--but I don't think it matters whether it's true or even whether you believe in God. It's still a nice concept.

-Speaking of things I've heard lately that I liked, here's a few more:

"You make your choices and you live with them, and in the end you are those choices."-BSG

"Sometimes we have to leave people behind so that we can go on--so that we can continue to fight."-BSG

"Success is not a goal. It's a byproduct."-Friday Night Lights

"A friend once said, and I found to be true, that everyday people--they lie to God too--so what makes you think that they won't lie to you?"-Lauryn Hill

The last one is a line from a song, and I've of course heard it before, but it had been a while. I've been talking with jasminelily about some of the things my mom said to me in those emails, and the likelihood that she was lying about what my nephew said, so that lyric resonated with me.

-Parks & Rec this week was freaking hilarious. "I'm gonna make out with him. On his face." HA. Also: everyone drunk. BEST EVER.

-Community doesn't know how to be anything but awesome, I don't think. ABED WAS HAN SOLO, Y'ALL. HE MADE OUT WITH ANNIE & THEN WAS JUST LIKE, "COOL", AND WALKED OFF. Hahaha.

-I continue to enjoy Friday Night Lights. If I had Netflix, I'd stream it from the beginning, but I prefer living in the 20th century so I don't. Okay, so that's a joke, but it's not far off from the truth. Heh. I do want to rent the first season though. I suspect I will over the summer. There's a few other shows I plan to check out, too, most likely. Probably Farscape, Castle, and maybe Dr. Who. Maybe. I've seen a couple episodes & really didn't get sucked in, but I know a lot of people who are into it, so I'm open.

-Lastly, I'm still slowly but surely working on my fic, though this one has been giving me a hard time. I talked about it with keenai the other day though, ( which I'll include here, 'cause that's how I roll )

For my Vid of the Day, I'm gonna get my convert-powerz on. It's come to my attention that some of you are still not watching Community. This simply won't do. Hence, I shall provide clips to help make it right. You're welcome.

1. More photo meme funtimes, ahoy! Here's torigates' request: "I'd like to see your kitchen and inside your fridge", and ( here's the oh-so-fascinating result )

2. My dreams continue to be wack-ass weird. I mean, on one hand I'm still getting the predictable family dreams, so that part's sort of status: normal, but on top of that they've just been so damned ODD lately. I found myself in some cheesy horror movie last night, and the baddie was a green-skinned (like the Wicked Witch) chick who would pop up out of nowhere and, like, stab you with her nails and shit if you didn't do whatever she wanted. Plus she had some magical power to make men obsessed with her. That by itself wouldn't be so weird (for a dream), but then guess how I convinced her to chill out & leave this one kid in my mom's family room alone? Why, I brought in Freddy Krueger of course. And she was all, "I'm not like that, am I?" And I was like, "Well, you're kind of a jerk. I mean, no offense." Hee hee. Then she felt all bad & let the kid go.[/clearly I'm a hero in my head]

Oh, and I totally hardcore made out with her afterward. HAHA. I think she had normal skin by then though.

What the fuuuuuck.

3. I've been working on my fic more, and I'm having a much easier time with it now. It's good to have something positive to focus on.

4. You know how you have to choose a mood for each entry? I keep running into the issue lately where I don't know what mood I am. There's honestly so many different things I feel about various parts of my life right now, and sometimes it leaves me feeling sort of…~nothing~ all over. Like, a big question mark. I just don't know. I do know I feel a bit lost regarding what to hope for & do with everything right now. There's still a lot of hopelessness & disillusionment in me, which I just sort of try to ignore. There's pain & anxiety over family stuff. There's a sense of failure, and the rut I feel stuck in when it comes to jobs & schooling & RL friendships & weight loss & self-improvement and…yeah, pretty much everything. But there's also, hey, at least my living room & kitchen are clean. Like, that's good. And fic writing also makes me feel good when it's going well, and I have a new candle lit in here that smells nice, and the weather's finally becoming spring-like, so those things are all positive. I've gained weight, which bothers me enormously, but I'm still rational enough to know five pounds is not the end of the damned world, and it could quickly be lost by walking. I don't know, whatever. Some of you know my depression has been pretty stealthy lately, getting much worse at nighttime/when I'm not distracted, but I'm still here, aren't I? And I'm trying to figure out how to find a balance between cheering myself up & not pushing problematic feelings down so that they'll just inevitably come rushing up later, like, "Surprise! Thought we were gone? THINK AGAIN. NOW WE'RE EVEN WORSE." You know? Oy, stupid FEELINGS.

Okay, ramble over. I will add though that I would really like to try & go to an ACA meeting this weekend. I'd also like to take a walk in Forest Park. I don't know if I'll follow through though (largely because my new jeans still aren't hemmed, and my other stuff is crappy looking. It's hard enough getting myself to walk anywhere nearby right now, let alone go downtown where people look nicer. Common sense would tell me "just go freaking get your jeans hemmed then! And do some laundry, stupid!" but it's like RIDIC levels of hard when you're depressed to get off your ass & do anything physical, especially for me if it involves possibly seeing other people). So, I won't say I'm doing it for sure, but I'm at least thinking about it. If I can just get myself to bring those jeans to the cleaners, that'll probably make other things easier & provide more motivation.[/ramble over for real this time. Don't mind me as I write think outloud about stuff no one else in their right mind probably cares about.]

5. My DVR failed to record Parks & Rec + Community AGAIN this week. WTF, mate? I changed the settings though to allow for reruns as well now; maybe it was marking new eps as repeats & then ignoring them or something. *shakes fist*

( It did however record Bones, thankfully. )

For my Vid of the Day, here's a fun Community tribute that I found today by bopradar. Makes me want to go rewatch all of season 1 all over again.

1. I have a new musical obsession. I was watching clips on YouTube of Portlandia & Thunderant, and I came across St. Vincent (she performs live in one of the Feminist Bookstore skits--here). Whyyyyy have I not heard of her before? Please tell me I haven't been out of the loop on this one, because if she's not already huge, she should be. ( three examples of why )

2. I'm very behind on my flist at the moment, just as a heads-up. I've been sleeping a lot the last few days. I have skimmed some entries, but I need to go back & comment on quite a few.

3. I wish prescriptions could be delivered. I ran out of my anti-depressant and didn't feel like going out, so the refill is alllll the way…two seconds from here. Yeah, it's basically in the parking lot behind my apartment complex. THAT'S how lazy I am. Also, I need to do laundry & still haven't gotten my new jeans hemmed so that I can wear them. It's a problem. The pharmacy is closed today anyway though, so I just have to deal. I'll try to drag myself out tomorrow.

4. Rewatch update: I'm done with season 3 of BSG. I've had "All Along the Watchtower" stuck in my head ever since. Three things: A. I ♥ Romo, B. Lee, you break my heart when you sell out Roslin, but your speech is win, & C. "AND YOU MISSED! BUTTERFINGERS."

5. FU, holidays. Bite me.

6. Turns out my DVR did miss both Parks & Rec and Community (I've since watched them, no worries). Nothing to say about the former really, but re: the latter? Way to do a flashback episode consisting solely of things we've never actually seen on the show. Ha. THE HAUNTED HOUSE. Also: way to make fun of retcons in absolutely brill fashion, not to mention your own tropes. And? WAY TO MOCK THE EVERLOVING CRAP OUT OF SHIPPERS & FANVIDS, hahahaha. The slow-mo & Sara Bareilles! BEST EVER.

7. I haven't worked on my fic in a really long time. Insecurity, frustration, and apathy are such mojo-killers. I'd like to get back to it though. Perhaps new music will help.

8. I love LJ, but sometimes I feel like I'm talking into a void on here. I get sad when people don't comment/aren't around, and I feel very uninteresting & lonely. It's just the nature of the medium, I know, but it still gets to me occasionally. I need the outlet, but I hate feeling attached to the outcome. Or people in general.

9. Since I finished my tedious tagging project, ( I thought I'd share a couple humorous findings )

10. In honor of my rewatch, let's have a Vid of the Day that focuses on season 4.0. This one's by aguid23:

I've already polished off the first two discs of season 1. Considering I slept 14 hours last night, & all of my TV watching was done before going to bed? That says a lot. It has been such a pleasure catching up on all the episodes I missed last year. THIS SHOW IS SO GOOD, Y'ALL. Seriously, I'm not exaggerating at all here. It makes me crack up so hard that I have to wipe actual tears from my eyes, & I frequently have to press rewind because I was laughing too loud to hear the next thing they said. It's just hysterical and so, so clever. Especially if you enjoy the use of meta, pop cultural references, & smart, quirky humor like I do.

Also: ( cut for flailing )

Moving on, I thought I'd share some pics with you guys. I noticed another flistmate post stuff from her scrapbook, and it made me remember the one I created as a teenager. It includes some of my happiest memories, and it's kind of a time capsule unto itself. Those of you who've known me since the meta boards (i.e. since this journal first started in '02) will remember some of these pics, since I posted them on the old yahoo meta photo album, but for the rest of you these will be mostly new.

Also, consider this a reminder, huh920, that I'm still stalking you. Heh. I want everyone to post pics, damn't.

( Scrapbook pics: Let's party like it's 1999 )

Before I go, I also came across a poem dosidella wrote & sent to me for my 21st birthday (a.k.a. in 2003), which was with my scrapbook but not pasted into it yet. For the sake of posterity, I thought I'd include it here as well. Best BFF ever, yo. ( excuse me while I get verklempt )

For my Vid of the Day, let's show some love to Troy. This one's by shoopdancer2504.