#gravy moves

[gravything]

yaaaaaay

Turns out moving screws up everything. Mail forwarding is no kind of fast so I have a medical bill, marked a month ago but just showed up in my mailbox today, that was supposed to go through my student health insurance but has apparently missed it entirely, and is due in four days, and where is the money to pay it? Ahahaha. That'll teach me. 

[gravything]

Updating instead of sleeping!

Because I've had a couple of days of more caffeine, sugar, and grease than I'm used to (I know, right). Also opportunistic nap-taking.

Friend from undergrad came up from where she's visiting her family (she now lives a couple thousand miles further away) and spent a couple nights with me. We walked around campus -- I told her the stories of everything that's changed in the couple years since she's been here. We watched movies while working on our research on the same futon -- ahh, like old times, when we'd both be in the living room of the apartment we shared for three years, with something vaguely sciencey or, like, Smallville, on TV as background, where she'd be doing her diagramming and math on her tablet and I'd be shaking my head at my code and we'd sometimes talk over IM and giggle at each other from across the room. None of that furniture has survived -- most of it was crap that we rented as part of the apartment, and one was a couch that my dad took a sledgehammer to last week because it was so broken it wasn't worth moving over to my new place. Not much of those couple of years has stayed the same. Skater is a lot happier about reminiscing there than I am, and than she was even a few years closer to when it all happened.

We ate hot sandwiches from our favorite weekend place (where the staff knew us, a few years ago, when it was a five-minute walk from our apartment), and burgers from her favorite burger place, and sushi rolls from our favorite sushi place, and giant crispy -sweet apple fritters from our favorite donut place, and got huge cheap sodas like we were in undergrad again. And we took a bit of time today to go see a mutual friend (Aim) and watch her newest daughter while she went and scoped out a daycare for her. Babies are still weird and I still don't want any. Luckily both Skater and Aim are pretty fine with me being Aunt Gravy, specializing in wrangling pets and older children, and occasionally willing to stare at an infant skeptically while parents take showers or naps or essential errands. Well, okay, one time I succeeded in distracting Aim's older daughter from screaming for, like, ten whole minutes. It was an Accomplishment, and I am perfectly willing to amass such skills for my friends' use.

  Cat is being incredibly demonstrative and I think it's related to having the friend over. Not that she hid much, but for some reason she is all over tonight.

  Working on a new playlist. Keep getting sidetracked into dubstep-flavored electronica when that's not the feel I wanted for this one. Might have to work on two.

  Not writing anything, still. I have a fic-thing (courtesy of Bronze -- she handed it to me like a sacred duty) that I was raring to go on a couple days ago, but I'm going to have to sneak up on it again. What helps is figuring out (like half an hour ago!) that a non-standard headcanon I have on one of the characters will actually make it easier to work with. I have an angle on my thesis that I should probably pursue soon before it cools off and starts to look like something my inner editor hates on sight. But at least I mostly have a handle on how the rest of the PhD stuff is going for the next year or so, which is better than I could have said last week.

  I have batteries! And baking soda and baking powder, now, so I can make bread and waffles and stuff.

  The third constant from that apartment a few years ago, Bones, is inexplicably in Hawaii right now with her boyfriend-type-person. It's odd. Skater and I suspect engagement, which is also odd. The boyfriend-type-person makes moderate money, but Bones is more skint than either of us, but she does run off to climb mountains. Two weeks, though. Probably some of my confusion is that my friends are 'growing up' even though it feels like only last month that we all moved into that first apartment. 

[gravything]

My dad is now active in a racing game fandom, and it's adorable how he fans: every conversation has a sly (or not-so-sly) reference to things he's learned or in-jokes he now has with his fellow forumgoers. This is my dad. And yeah, this is probably why he understood when I first started talking about online fandom and the friends I'd made there, and trying to explain jokes that were, like, three layers of in-joke and a couple more history and literature references. 

But the story over lunch was about how the fanbase was pitching a fit over how the designers had resized the moon in the background (this game's photorealism is pretty incredible, so I guess it's a thing to notice), and how a graphic designer had exaggerated the reaction with a truly ridiculous resize edit, and then came the "that's no moon" jokes and now it's vids full of Star Wars stuff pasted on real life. But, like, fandom. Yes, let's go a little overboard about minor tweaks and features, and self-reference, and mash things up with other pop culture items. 

Oh, and several weeks ago I very casually dropped a not-so-subtle hint that I am also into women (I kind of surprised myself -- it's a line that I use with my friends, and only afterward did I realize what I'd done) and they continue not to make it a thing. I'm real lucky -- that I was comfortable enough to accidentally do it and that they literally didn't even blink. Not sure that I'd have had the same luck if I'd done something like that in high school (not that I really knew then). 

[gravything]

Audience Participation Time

I need a clever name for my new wifi network (I HAVE INTERNET YAY). 

Winner gets... I dunno. A really shitty MSPaint drawing, or a custom pun, or I dunno, a drabble? 

[gravything]

Moving stuff, again (still?)

I now have my chairs, my table, the rest of my standing shelving, all of my clothes, all of my pillows, my TV, my PS2, all of my computer stuff, and all of my cat stuff (cat in question is attempting to burrow under all of my pillows; it's adorable and... misguided). Maybe left a couple of things behind. But, it's done. I now have my own place, where my cat can headbutt all of my pillows off my bed in an attempt to burrow under them. My 'fridge has food. I sort of have internet. 

It's weird how sometimes being with people can just make you more lonely? Like, when they just don't listen to you. I know why they don't (mine, anyway): I have spent years reporting in single sentences and silences. So I'm going to find other outlets for my enthusiasm and that's okay. But it's not all bad: mine brought me candy, and a kind that I remember being obsessed with, so either really good memory (and thoughtfulness) or really good luck. But still thoughtfulness in the gesture. 

I have my light-up painted paper star, that I got years and years ago, that is torn half to pieces but is still gorgeous. Not sure where to put it, yet. Happy to have it, though :)

Now to get on with my plans! Tomorrow. Maybe. 

[gravything]

Yeahhhh

In the new apartment. Cat is asleep next to me making licking noises (cat, what are you). I don't properly get internet access until next Friday when someone comes to install it but I occasionally come hide in my office or in the corner of a coffee shop (no, shh, I'm not giggling, don't look at me) or, as I have discovered lately, I can occasionally log in on a wifi network that my previous provider has out for some reason. It's been nice to read and just hang out, I guess.  Not all my stuff's moved, and not all of the boxes that are are unpacked, either. It's just across the complex; I can go over any time, but I don't want to intrude. And the idea of being outside is just, no, even though I've had the windows open for a few days so it's not a temperature thing it's more like a being-seen thing. 

Parents come with a pickup tomorrow so we can move the really big stuff. I might not-so-sneakily sneak by before they're supposed to come so I can see if he's still there and if he's not I'll go in and try to get the last of my stuff.

Other than the internet, I miss my sound cable. But only one of my monitors even has speakers and only one of them works so maybe I should troll the salvage/refurb store for some cheap speakers. So I can watch my movies & shows on the computer that (1) has a DVD drive and (2) can actually handle moving images.

I didn't open this to complain, I swear. I had a sandwich earlier with almond butter (it had crystallized ginger in it!!!) and amaretto/cherry jam, on pumpernickel bread. And that was really really good; I want crystallized ginger in my nut butters forever. My sister sent me this stuff as a sort of care package. She knows food, and she knows me. But I was going to talk about that sandwich. 

Someone here has unprotected wifi open. Hmm. 

[gravything]

BY ALL MEANS, use the account with my legal name all over it to get caught downloading copyrighted material. 

BY ALL MEANS, let it be porn. 

I am, like, preemptively drained for tomorrow -- medical procedure which is not exactly a big deal except it is, because it won't be fun at all but we might get one more clue as to what's wrong with me, and then I start moving my stuff into another apartment. My dad is coming up, and bringing their truck, and a little bit of furniture so I'm not sitting on the floor (most of what I have is bookshelves, I feel like that's all you need to know about me).There's this huge pile of haphazardly-bagged stuff in the living room right now, that I really meant to move over tonight before I lost the light or the will to do anything. Then I had one of the new pains! It was so not fun! I am not looking forward to additional pains!

But I don't get internet installed in the new place until next Friday. I guess I'm hanging out here a little more than I thought for a while. 

Awkwardness with the leasing office means everything is even more awkward. 

Oh my god, money. I'm on my slightest margin in years and I don't like it. 

Hopefully Mace has made it home by now. I miss him already. We had a good day in The City -- walking, espresso, tea, Special City Food, weather. We relaxed, which we both needed, and it was easy to do it with each other. 

Two other people (who will come back around for the semester) have gotten back in touch with me within about twelve hours of each other. The handful of students I had this summer are sporadically pinging on GroupMe, which is also a comfort. People. 

[gravything]

I'm moving.

Time to be an adult!