i do not like your tone. it has ephemeral whingeing aspects.

unecessary note re: this journal -

some things are locked and some are unlocked. if, for some peculiar reason, you are interested in the things that are locked, let me know in a comment.

Exhibit A:




Exhibit B:
"The captain's lovely daughter
Liked swimming in the water
Delighted squeals came when some eels
Found her sexual quarters"

Loudon Wainright III - Good Ship Venus

(and for completeness, this must be Exhibit C)

Ayyyyyooowwwwweeee. Urf. This is the noise I find myself making because, no word of a lie, I have spent so much time sat in front of a computer for work and study purposes this past month and more, combined with getting nowhere near enough exercise because the weather and the dark and the work and the studying keep intervening, that my BUTTOCK MUSCLES have lost tone and now my arse is sore. From being sat on. Oh the indignity. Oh the discomfort. Ohhhh so the perfect solution is apparently not to inexpertly attempt yoga stretches (not least because the cat comes and rubs against my face - itchy - or climbs me - claw-y), so I am thinking that after this large glass of red wine I should go out for a relaxing stroll, as it is crispy clear and frosty dark outside with a bit of a moon. Hopefully will not get eaten by trowies*.

Oh - yes- now I remember why i was livejournaling at all tonight: because I am DOOMED. I let the cat sleep on the bed. Several times. And now she thinks she's supposed to sleep there. I AM STILL ALLERGIC. And I am not used to other live things in the bedroom, so sometimes when she walks about on me while I'm asleep I wake up in insta-terror, convinced that an INHUMAN THING is attacking me, when in fact it's just an inhuman feline wanting food/let out of the house, usually at three bastarding AM. I should put a stop to this, but she has taken to walking up the bed and collapsing with a sigh, legs stuck out, and head on the pillow. I don't know how one defends against that.

*trolls

Wheeeeeeeere is my new letter rescinding the IN ERROR (bastards, you ruined my weekend!) pay offer for my job-becoming-permanent? Fretting shall not ease till I have received it and checked and double checked that it says what it is supposed to! Er, thank you people who were supportive as I freaked the fuck out. It is possible I am prone to catastrophising. A bit. (Yes, I need the therapy. It is on my to-do lsit?)

In not-going-to-MJ-news, I see panel lists are up. And one is titled COME HERE, WATSON, I NEED YOU

I NEED THIS PANEL. BALLS TO EVERYTHING!

I also need several other panels, including the Avengers one (MORE BALLS) and and and and and - basically, testicular disgruntlement, I express it. Loudly!

 Just emailed heironymousmosh (why does the name go away when i use the lj user code? I just get a wee lj person symbol and no actual name. Annoying!) to bewail lack of wine in the house. Then realised I do have wine, but swore to self I would write at least 500 words of dissertation draft and read at least one chapter of Culturing Wilderness in Jasper National Park: Studies in Two Centuries of Human History in the Upper Athabasca River Watershed. I really, really hate being responsible, guys.  (Yes, 500 words is responsible. I am an amazingly slow writer of academic papers and the like.)

( Collapse )

I think I might go and re-read hieronymousmosh's outline for a Rupert Giles-centric Buffy/Merlin crossover. Repeatedly. The more I re-read it the more parts of my brain think it might be a good idea. This helps to stop me thinking. Presumably because important parts of my brain have given up on the other parts.

In random footwear news - I got these excellent Rocket Dog plimsoles in the sales when I was south. I like them! Totally suitable for work, right?


 

I think my hormones have travelled back in time to the very late 1990s/early 2000s. All they want is Rupert Giles and/or Anthony Stewart Head. Nrrrrrrrg.

Can't stay, too busy cursing AO3 for having exactly one ASH RPF thing, and that in Merlin fandom. (My sister made me watch some Merlin over Christmas. I did actually enjoy it, but... not because it was good.) 

first birthday with a dead dad tomorrow. so i have taken thursday off work, and tonight i am sitting in my living room drinking malbec, eating home-made rice pudding, and rummaging about in the cath kidston website for a present for my wee sister (birthday three days after mine). too many overpriced oilcloth items with floral patterns on them, noooooo.

next plan: another glass of wine and some investigation of the memory stick received in the post from heironymousmosh - it has no cap (due, apparently, to lokis) and bears a scrawl in red permanent marker: "Kpop - come to the ~ridiculous side - there are pretty people". if i am not back in an hour, i have been seduced by giant hats. or i am applying crayons to the MIGHTY AVENGERS COLOURING BOOK - there are three excellent pages of Confused Tony needing you, the colourer's help with very simple problems. he has a nice suit on, though, so that's okay.

rereading the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde. and, oh boy. youthful exposure to calvinism, do i see your influence? 

"that that insurgent horror was knit to him closer than a wife, closer than an eye; lay caged in his flesh, where he heard it mutter and felt it struggle to be born; and at every hour of weakness, and in the confidence of slumber, prevailed against him, and deposed him out of life."

via thesme_01 &  lazy_hoor (also, someone, what article or thingy is this from? i saw it somewhere recently pre-memeification but cannot recall where) (oh wait. the hoor's entry is even TITLED "guardian kitchen meme. good reading, eyes, brain!)


Bold the ones you have and use at least once a year, italicize the ones you have and don't use, strike through the ones you have had but got rid of. And (my suggestion) add any items that you have that aren't on the list:
______________
I wonder how many pasta machines, breadmakers, juicers, blenders, deep fat fryers, egg boilers, melon ballers, sandwich makers, pastry brushes, cheese knives, electric woks, miniature salad spinners, griddle pans, jam funnels, meat thermometers, filleting knives, egg poachers, cake stands, garlic crushers, martini glasses, tea strainers, bamboo steamers, pizza stones, coffee grinders, milk frothers, piping bags, banana stands, fluted pastry wheels, tagine dishes, conical strainers, rice cookers, steam cookers, pressure cookers, slow cookers, spaetzle makers, cookie presses, gravy strainers, double boilers (bains marie), sukiyaki stoves, ice cream makers, fondue sets, healthy-grills, home smokers, tempura sets, tortilla presses, electric whisks, pineapple corers languish dustily at the back of the nation's world's cupboards.

also tupperware/things not by tupperware but that are plastic with lids (I LOVE TUPPERWARE), an apple corer (i like baked apples! and if i core them with a knife i near fillet myself), cookie cutters in various shapes inc. lobsters, a cafetiere, quite a lot of silicon bakeware, giant wooden salad tongs with zebras on the handles that were a gift from someone i like very much but that i will almost certainly never use.

i want a fondue set. and i would use it!

hmm. it seems i am not a hoarder of kitchen items. suspect it is because for the past three years i have had a very small kitchen and before that a quite small kitchen, and not because i am in any way immune to the siren call of lovely cooking stuff. (when rich, will buy all the le creuset EVER.)


ION: should be studying (argh thesis argh still no real topic) but instead, am rolling about in anno dracula (thank you lazy_hoor: DO LIKE) having zoomed though professor moriarty: the hound of the d'urbervilles last week, and on the side re-reading & filling up the gaps in my victorian fiction relevant to the universes in these books (so long since i read any r.l. stevenson, and it turns out i had never actually read the war of the worlds, i just thought i had due to cultural osmosis. must re-read bram stoker's dracula next as i think i was about 23 last time through. also, raffles & bunny, it is time we were reunited!)

ION ION: it is a pity there's no real hound of the d'urbervilles fandom, because i would read (and possibly even write) the stuffing out of the further adventures of sebastian 'basher' moran. and, as usual, i would like some crossovers. i mean, unlikely ones, rather than the sort that the book is thick with.

i had a work meeting the other week down in the central belt. it was, for reasons of proximity to the site we were visiting, & because the local community are invested in attracting tourists to this part of the antonine wall*, held in a miners social club.

nowadays, of course, there are no mines (and little work), so the miners social is a community-run trust that provides a social space for an increasingly aged clientele. the main public area is a large beige room with a bar (only open at night) at one end and a low stage at the other. during the day there are tables set out. a kitchen can provide soup and sandwiches. so, we held our meeting at one of these tables. with soup. and sandwiches, and tea, and cakes (many cakes - hurrah for the catering lady who "just thought we might like them"). only after beginning our our meeting did we discover that we had been booked into the room at the same time as another group.

the afternoon bingo session.

twenty odd elderly and very elderly ladies, and one bingo caller.

(actually, it was surprisingly restful, but a little distracting. we ought to have asked if we could join in.)

*most of which is more of an antonine ditch, to be honest - no hadrian's wall type impressive horizon-spanning stonework here - though a lot of that was, uh, "restored" by the victorians.