amatyultare

ETA I posted a better picture, so go look at the Super Effective Expansion pic again! :)

Holy crap, heat wave. I like warm weather, really I do, but I don't like feeling like I'm stepping into a sauna every time I go outside.

But that's not why I started this post. The point of this post is: makeup geekiness.

The other day, I referred to myself as "a bit of a makeup geek" to a friend. His half-incredulous response was, "makeup geek?". Which, okay, touché. ( But... )

See? Makeup geekery and just plain geekery, all in one place! I love Shiro Cosmetics already.

That turned out much more tl;dr that I had intended. Short version? The Super Effective Collection is awesome and I <3 it, and I think this post qualifies me for makeup geekery automatically. And now, I should be getting to bed. Next time, a PortCon 2010 roundup! Maybe!

Scientists have gotten one step closer to artificially-created life. Amazing, yet somehow frightening.

If I wasn't firmly saving my money for (a) an apartment (still searching) and (b) stuff for my apartment (like kitchen stuff...furniture...a bed...you know, those little luxuries) I would be all over this. A Pokemon-themed mineral makeup eyeshadow collection? Sign me up! (Also, sounds like Aromaleigh may be coming out with a new eyeshadow line that is steampunk-inspired? Fantastic.)

Apartment hunting is ongoing. Everyone is telling me to have fun with it, which is good advice, but I just find it stressful. I'd much rather spend my time pretending to furnish and decorate my still-theoretical new place. (If she sold prints of it, I would buy 'Why Do Robotic Octopuses Cook?' in a heartbeat.)

So, yesterday evening I lost my phone somewhere between my car, the Biddeford Hannaford, and Jason's apartment. After much checking and attempting to call it, I concluded it's lost forever and bought a new one. Now I need to recreate my address book. Everyone, text or call me, please? My number is the same; if you don't have it, let me know.

I am fairly pleased with my new phone (QWERTY keyboard FTW!) and it wasn't as expensive as I feared due to the niceness of the Verizon store folks, but I feel slightly disgruntled and somewhat guilty that I was so careless.

In other news, work stress is gradually bleeding over into life stress, primarily because of Christmas. I'm averaging about nine hours a day at work now, not including lunch, which is lower than the average 10 hours a day a few weeks back but is still a long day. And I'm so behind on everything that I am constantly fighting mental inertia - I have no idea how I'll ever get caught up, so it's easy to slow down and just get the minimum done, and I really have to push myself to do more. This all equates to little time and less mental energy to think up and shop for Christmas presents. I still have several people to buy gifts for - this is by far the most down-to-the-wire Christmas I've ever had.

Eh, enough whining. My life is actually really good - I'm having a lot of fun, my friends are great, and Jason is amazing. I'm just a little tired, and therefore grumpy. But it will pass. More importantly: PHONE NUMBERS. And I shall venture out of Panera on what will hopefully be my last shopping trip of the Christmas season.

I am sort of in this happy yet weirdly anxious mood where I feel so grateful for my friends and their awesomeness, and am concerned that I will never be as good a friend to them as they are to me.

THANK YOU, EVERYONE. You rock and I <3 you all.

Still on a bit of an adrenaline high after dancing (it's been so long! and it was so much fun! definitely needs to happen again) but I think it's bedtime. Later, all!

Stolen from virgoslaw: Tights are Not Pants. Possibly the best grass-roots social action movement in the history of the world.

Today was a good day, for no particular reason - I just found myself smiling and being bouncy and cheerful. After last week at work, which was full of small frustrations, I really appreciated it. (I have to add, though, that last week outside of work was great. It was so full of awesomeness that I can't even list it all, in fact.)

This weekend Mom is having a 'harvest party' up in the DFC, so I'm heading up Friday night. I'm not entirely certain what she has in mind; I know she had some grandiose plans when she first came up with the idea, but she's been pretty busy with work.

I forgot to post and commemorate it, but last Monday was the one-year anniversary of me moving to P-town. Last Tuesday was the one-year mark for being at my job. It's gone by quickly while at the same time feeling like it's been forever since I didn't live here. Life is strange sometimes.

My 24th birthday is rapidly approaching. I told everyone I wanted us all to go out dancing. We never do, and it's one thing I really miss. But now, I need to figure out what dance clubs in P-town (a) exist and (b) are decent. Hmm.

(One suggestion was a gay club - which would be fine, gay clubs are generally more relaxed than straight clubs in my experience - called Styxx. Which amuses me because our favorite club back at 'Gate was also a gay club called Styxx. Small world...)

I need to get up early tomorrow, so I'm off to get ready for bed. Night, all!

The move to the new office is scheduled for this Friday and looks like it will go relatively smoothly, knock on wood. Packing is going to be annoying, but what can you do? I'm looking forward to the new space. Also, my annual review at work was today (I actually haven't quite been there a year, but they apparently do everyone's review around the same time for convenience's sake) and it went well. Yay!

...holy crap, I've been working at this place for eleven months. I mean, I like the company overall and I'm glad I'm working there, it's just a weird thought. I've been in P-town almost a year. Huh.

Which reminds me, tomorrow is the first day of September. And you know what that means? NaNoWriMo is only a couple of months away. Yes, I am absolutely doing it again. (How can something so seemingly masochistic be so fun?) However, I have not yet come up with any idea of what I'll write - no plot, no characters, nothing. In lieu of planning, I've been popping over to the NaNo forums, which is nearly as entertaining. I'd forgotten how amusing the NaNoers are. Especially the LitFiccers, for some reason - perhaps because their genre is so serious but they don't take themselves at all seriously, leading to hilarious contrast. Like the writer who summarized his/her entire novel as: "A man walks around feeling a bit sad".

(Of course, the Plot and Character Realism forum takes top billing during the actual event, as it hosts gems like mystery/suspense/horror writers who realize their entire intricate plots rest on such questions as "how much volume would a human body take up if one were to blend it into a liquid?")

There was a point to this post, I swear. I just...don't remember what it was. Ah well. Off to bed. Perhaps in a day or two I will write up my percolating rant about Piers Anthony (which was not the point of this post, but deserves ranting about). Later, all!

This is my first summer completely detached from the American school schedule (I was working last summer, but also living with Mom so I was aware of school breaks, when 'summer' started and ended, etc.) and it's very odd. Things seem to be going both faster and slower than usual; the week flies by but then I had to remind myself today that it's not yet August.

The BBQQ this weekend was wonderful. Awesome people+tons of delicious food+crazy card and board games+hilariously srs bsns whiffle ball+swimming+hanging out=good times.

I think I know all the words to all the songs on the album 'The Fame' by Lady Gaga. I am slightly embarrassed by this.

I keep meaning to type up a description of the work drama in my office, but more keeps happening. Luckily I am (mostly) out of it. In positive work news, my boss is actually in-state all the week, plus we may be getting a new mid-level manager for our office so I don't have to wait three weeks to get my boss's signature on a receipt to get it paid. Also, I *think* we are officially moving into our new office by Sept. 1. It'll be crazy, but what else is new? And choosing carpet and paint colors is fun. ^_^

You know you've worked in an office for too long when you attempt to use paper clips as bobby pins. Protip: it doesn't work.

I am also starting to suffer a return of the Ominously Aching Wrists. Note to self: buy new wrist brace, as my old ones are missing and were really uncomfortable anyway.

PCM is less than a week away, oh my goodness! I'm fairly caught up so I'm not freaked out. (Julie - let me know if there's anything you need me to do/help with!) But I'm excited! Also, as per usual, I suddenly decided to attempt a costume less than a week before the con. Go me. On the bright side, it's fairly simple so I might actually be able to pull it off?

Anyone have any ideas on what I could use to make a halo that actually looks metallic? I was thinking plastic but I can't think of where I would find a head-sized plastic ring. Hmm.

Off to put my laundry away.

So of course, after more-or-less successfully fighting off a cold ALL WINTER, I actually get one now that it's spring. Felt sniffly and icky on Wednesday but tried to go on as usual; woke up on Thursday with a raging sinus headache and my throat so sore and swollen-feeling that I could hardly talk, so I texted my boss to say that I couldn't come in to work. I spent the majority of the day sleeping, and felt good enough (although still very stuffy and headache-y) to go back to work on Friday. I was, of course, very much behind since I had missed a day, but I'm ALWAYS behind and pretty much everyone else in my office is, too, so what can you do?

Friday night was the new episode of Dollhouse - is anyone else on my friendslist watching this? I sort of want someone to squee with. I almost didn't watch this episode because I was feeling tired and sick and the preview from last week had made it seem, I don't know, villain-of-the-week-ish. A bit of a throwback to earlier, less awesome episodes? But I dragged myself upstairs to watch it anyway, and HOLY GOD, it was fantastic. Also highly disturbing - I am amazed that I didn't have nightmares about the Attic afterwards.

I considered going in to work for a few hours again this Saturday, but instead spent a lot of time laying around trying to encourage my body to get over this cold. It was a very lazy day, but pleasant.

The weather was so nice out today that I decided to take a walk. I've lived almost my entire life in very rural areas, so I consider being able to 'walk to places' to be the best part of city living. But since it was fall when I moved here and winter by the time I was settled in, I haven't done much wandering of the city, even the part of it right where I live. I set out to rectify that a bit today, and it was fun (even with many places being closed for Easter). I found the 'Two Fat Cats' bakery that one of my coworkers told me about and saw a lot of other neat boutiques and restaurants that I want to check out again when they're open. I ended up eating lunch at a Thai buffet place on Congress Street - I wasn't at my absolute best for appreciating food, being somewhat chilly and wind-blown and with my sinuses complaining, but it was tasty anyway.

This evening, I gave in to curiosity and went to watch 'Dragonball: Evolution'. It's, uh, yeah. I went in with extremely low expectations, and therefore was vaguely entertained without being disappointed. I just have three brief comments:

(1) In this, granted Western adaptation, of a Japanese manga and anime series, which itself it based on a traditional Chinese legend, with a movie cast heavily weighted towards Asian actors, the main character is played by....an extremely Caucasian, Canadian actor. Huh?

(2) It's at least nice to see that Emmy Rossum is trying to make sure she isn't typecast after her role in Phantom. This isn't the way I would go about it, but hey...

(3) If nothing else, the price of my ticket was well worth it just to see actors seriously, non-ironically, screaming 'Kame-hame-HA!' on the big screen.

Bedtime! I'm crossing my fingers that my cold meds last until morning.

One of the things that I kind of like about our neighborhood is that there are several slightly-wild cats wandering around. They aren't dangerous or anything; mostly they are just unsociable and will run away if you get too close. We didn't see them much this winter - they were probably indoors with whoever actually owns them, or at least hiding somewhere warm - but now they are popping up again as the weather gets nicer. They seem to like sleeping on cars, probably something to do with how the metal retains heat from the sun, so I often go out to my car in the morning to find little dusty cat footprints all over my car. ^_^

One of my goals going forward is to make both days of my weekend at least moderately productive. Usually I will get some stuff done on Saturday, and then laze about all day Sunday. This week it was reversed - I didn't even get out of my PJs until 4 PM yesterday, but today I've gotten a bunch of stuff done. I like it when my days off are moderately and pleasantly busy; otherwise the hours slip by and I hardly feel like I've spent time away from work at all.

On the bright side, I went to see the new Witch Mountain movie yesterday. It was...interesting. I never saw the original Witch Mountain movies, so it didn't have the nostalgic aspect to me. It's by no means a great movie, but it's entertaining (and sometimes unintentionally funny).

Speaking of new movies, I recently discovered that they are making a movie out of Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging, although they have inexplicably renamed it 'Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging'. In any case, those books are possibly my biggest guilty pleasure, so I am definitely planning on going to see it. My one burning question is, have they cut out Dave the Laugh? Because DtL is by far my favorite character.