This was a busy weekend, but SO MUCH FUN. I had Friday off for Independence Day (but the Initech University Library was open Saturday and Sunday, like, whose damn stupid idea was that? Who was actually going to come to the library on those days?). Anyway. So I spent Friday driving all over the place and visiting friends and having lots of fun!

( cut for length LIEK WHOA )

So that was my weekend! How was yours?

On Easter Sunday, etumon and I met in Ardmore and hung out, and it was awesome. (Even though there's very little to do in Ardmore, since there are 13 people who live there, all of whom are named "Frank." Even the girl!) I even brought my new digital camera, to record our exciting adventures! Unfortunately, on every one of those exciting adventures, I inadvertently left the camera in the car. Or forgot it was in my purse. However, despite those seemingly insurmountable problems, I am still able to provide a photolog of our meetup. Get ready for some exciting shots, folks!

We met at the Love's station on I-35. I was suitably impressed by the beigeness of etumon's new car, though I toned it down so as not to disturb the other people about, as you can see:

( look, look! )

Now, don't you feel like you were there?

So, this weekend? Fucking awesome.

Saturday picara and I took Daddy to see Live Free or Die Hard for Father's Day. God I love that movie. Die Hards are the perfect action movies, I think. Lots of things blow up, there's a few jokes, and the good guys win. Also, it has Justin Long, the completely adorable Mac from the Mac/PC commercials. Who is completely adorable, as I may have mentioned. Also, Tuvok. Yes, I know. Tuvok! He's getting work! And Governor Devlin from OZ, who appears to have a contract requiring that he be in every movie ever at this point. And playing a good guy, which was, um, disconcerting. Anyway, I very highly recommend it and will go see it again with anyone who wants to. Yes, I am just that cool.

We took Daddy to dinner for Father's Day after the movie at Garfield's, which was really fun. They have awesome taco salad there. And we shared chocolate cake, which was yay.

Saturday evening picara and I watched like 10 episodes of Supernatural. We finished Born under a Bad Sign at around 11:15, and I still had to drive back to the City, but. The next episode was Tall Tales! So we totally had to go ahead and watch it, because it is the most completely awesome episode EVAR. Dean! With his cheeks all puffed out! Sam hugging the frat guy! Wrestling! On the BED! So that was also yay.

Sunday I had dinner with a couple friends from high school, Hannah and Julie, whom I hadn't seen in ages, and we had a great time. It's so cool to me how the fundamentalist Christian clique (or whatever you want to call it) from high school have all become so much more liberal. It gives me hope for this country. So, yay for all of you, because I have totally awesome friends, who were awesome in high school, and are even more awesome now. And I, while also awesome, evidently have a very small vocabulary.

Yeah, I know, I never write anymore. I'm going to try to do better.

Today, acostilow came over and we totally watched Blade Trinity, which sucked way more than I remembered. At least CKR and Ryan Reynolds are pretty. Now that I think about it, I probably wrote an lj post about that movie the first time I saw it. In the theater. (God.)

Spring break is almost over. I have to go back to work tomorrow. I missed most of Monday and all day Tuesday. I went in Monday morning, but I felt sick to my stomach and ended up leaving after about an hour and forty-five minutes. Then Tuesday I had a terrible migraine. We ended up going to the AM-PM clinic around 12:30. It totally sucked. And H just called to tell me that the network, which was taken down Thursday and Friday, still isn't up and probably won't be until tomorrow afternoon. So when I go in in the morning I get to just tell people that it's not working and there's nothing we can do about it. Wonderful.

I've been extremely irritable for a few weeks now. I don't know what it is, but practically every night I get to a point where everything people say, to me or to each other, and everything they do annoys me.

I got my hair colored yesterday! It's awesome, three different colors. Lori is completely awesome. The underside is really dark brown-red, which they call Cherry Cola. Then the top is chestnut and blonde in chunks, sort of. I completely love it. No picture yet, unfortunately, but I'll try to get one for you soon.

The Tour de France so far this year has been incredibly weird. Most of the leaders were out before it started, and now even the presumed favorites aren't doing that well, except for Floyd Landis, whose team strategy isn't making a whole lot of sense to me. The yellow jersey is getting passed around a whole bunch to people no one would have expected to get it. I just don't know what to make of it. It's not really as compelling this way, I can't help but feel. However, I do have a new Tour boyfriend, Yaroslav Popovych of Discovery Channel. He's 26 and from the Ukraine and completely adorable. So far this year we have learned that Iban Mayo completely sucks and Floyd Landis' hip is dead. Don't forget. There'll be a test.

I've been working a bit at my old job at SNU in the IT Department. Not full-time, but I am getting a lot of hours. It's not going to be forever, though, so I'm still looking for a real job. *sighs*

Today picara and I hung out with acostilow. We got to cuddle her adorable new kitty, which has been the highlight of my week. I am such a sucker for kittens. She's so small! And soft! We also watched the premier of SGA and Serenity, which I continue to love. acostilow made cherry cheese cake, because she is made of awesome.

Tomorrow I'm not working, so I have my counseling appointment. I think I may possibly have convinced the counselor I'm not seekritly a lesbian. Then again, she may just be biding her time before bringing it up again.

Um. I might have to start watching 24. This is entirely etumon's fault.

Let's see, what's been going on?

Dr. Jeng is trying to fire me because I'm only registered for six hours instead of the supposedly-required nine. I'm still trying to sort this out, but it's freaking me out. It will probably work out, but that's not very comforting to me right now.

etumon is a sweetheart. She let me come and hang out with her last night to take my mind off my problems. We ate at Bennigan's and watched Ruthless People, which I had never seen. Then I came home and read fic all night because I couldn't sleep. And now I'm at Panera Bread, trying to get a handle on my various school and work problems and totally not looking at my friends list because I don't have a work-safe (restaurant-safe?) filter.

I applied for graduation this morning. I will be graduating this summer, hard as that is for me to count on.

Today is Tuesday, and there's no new Supernatural or House tonight! That is wrong on so many levels.

I absolutely love listening to it rain. I even like when there's thunder and lightning and it feels like the storm is going to shake the house down. I hate going out in the rain, but it's wonderful to be curled up inside, listening to the rhythm and knowing you're comfortable and safe. It's been raining for a couple hours, and I'm loving it. I went out on the porch for a minute just to watch, because it hasn't rained in so long and I can hear it better out there. Mostly I've been reading a wonderful long SGA fic, The Hostage Major by Frostfire and enjoying the sound of the rain.

There have been many happy things today. The rain, of course, and some excellent fic, and an SVU episode about a dead guy who had been sleeping with another guy named "Bull Dozer", and lunch at El Matador with Mary Beth.

Last night was cool. picara and I went to the City to meet acostilow and see Brokeback Mountain again. We got to Quail Springs Mall about 5:30 and kind of wandered around a bit. I got some chicken nuggets at Chick Fil A and we picked up the tickets. acostilow got off work at 6, then we went to the Gap for awhile before the movie started.

I was so excited that Brokeback Mountain was actually showing anywhere in Oklahoma, let alone a major theater like the AMC at the biggest mall in Oklahoma City. And it was on two screens! The theater was packed--I'm pretty sure it sold out. We sat around and made comments about other people in the theater. We busted out the sodas we'd smuggled in before the lights even went out, because everybody else was waltzing in with outside food in front of god and everybody. picara made a list of the food she wants to eat when her jaw isn't wired shut anymore. We saw a preview for Thank You For Smoking, which looks like it will be hysterically funny and has Rob Lowe, J.K. Simmons, Sam Elliot, William H. Macy, and Adam Brody in it.

I love this movie so much! It was even sadder the second time through, because I knew what was going to happen. Um. Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger are really pretty. The audience was really weird; they kept laughing at inappropriate times. Like when Geary sees Jack and Ennis rolling around together on the mountain, I was all "Oh shit," and most of the audience burst out laughing. I mean, WTF?

All in all, it was a pretty good night. I enjoyed getting to finally meet acostilow, and I fell even more in love with the poor doomed gay cowboys. The end.

I was frighteningly domestic yesterday. I made Virginia Beach Chicken, rice, salad, and raisin bread. None of them are hard to make, but, you know, cooking! Way better than peanut butter sandwiches or sitting in front of the TV with a box of Wheat Thins. Then etumon and I took turns playing Karaoke Revolution, which was fun. We had all the windows open, so my neighbors had the privilege of listening. Nobody complained, anyway.

I want donuts now. This is picara's fault.

I'm considering dropping one of my classes, Library Management. It's stressing me out a lot, and I haven't done quite a bit of the work. I don't really need the class, but if I drop it then I'll have to take three more hours next semester. I have to decide soon, because the deadline for dropping a class is November 3rd. Next semester there are several classes being offered that sound interesting. One is Systems Analysis, which is being taught by the same teacher I'm taking Internet from this semester. She's pretty well-organized, so I don't expect it will be a hard class. Dr. Martin is teaching a special topic called Library History, which has both a face-to-face and an online component. That one sounds like it might be hard, though. Also, there's Advanced Cataloging, which I've been interested in for awhile. An adjunct professor is teaching it, so I don't really know what to expect there. I'm afraid it'll be hard, too, but I enjoyed Cataloging.

I didn't make it to the library yesterday, so I'm supposed to go tomorrow to work on Reference. Mary Beth works till 10, so she'll be there to help. I really don't want to do my Reference stuff, but I know I have to. If I can make myself do it tomorrow, I can hopefully get it finished or close to finished.

Whee! Today is my LJ anniversary! I have been on LJ one whole year. This time last year I was on pins and needles about the election, checking polls and blogs every five seconds. I created a Livejournal mainly for my own benefit, to write about how I felt about the election and what was going on in my life. It's kind of morphed since then, as I was persuaded to give the link to my friends and slowly got comfortable friending people in the due South fandom and in others. Now, of course, I'm relying on LJ for everything, from fandom to political news. If a website doesn't have an RSS feed that I can pull onto my flist then I probably won't visit it. Um. All that to say...LJ is life? I guess?

Still no indictments. Come on, Fitzgerald! We're waiiitttinnng.

I bought books yesterday! Books I probably shouldn't have bought, since they're in hardcover, but I've been waiting for them for ages, so. That's my excuse. I bought Al Franken's new book, The Truth (With Jokes), the new Honor Harrington book, At All Costs, and a paperback called Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity by Bruce Bawer. So, I have way more books than I have time to read. This is news to nobody.

I haven't done any work on Reference, the class I took an incomplete in this summer, since the fall semester started. (We're not telling my mother. I'm "working on it." In a way that looks like not working on it.) Mary Beth has offered to help me finish stuff, so we're supposed to go to the library on Friday to see what I can get done. Maybe we can get it all out of the way. And then I can go back to worrying myself to death over Library Management. Why did I ever think graduate school was a good idea?

(Words in this post the LJ spellchecker doesn't recognize: LJ, blogs, Livejournal, friending, fandom, RSS, flist, waiiitttinnng, Franken's, Bawer, spellchecker.)

I've been feeling quite a bit better recently, not nearly as depressed and so forth. I stopped seeing my counselor, because we decided I didn't really need it. However, the last few days have been a little worse again. I was feeling a little down anyway, but then it all blew up on Wednesday. Several of my friends are having crises, and it's way more depressing than I thought it would be to have people around me upset. I don't blame them at all--it's definitely not their job to avoid having problems so as to keep me happy. (So if it's you and you're reading this, don't apologize!) Part of it is that I can't do anything to make things better for them. Part of it is that unhappy friends don't want to spend time hanging out, or if they do we're both kind of down. It took me a few days to notice, but I'm spending more time than I used to lying around at home, bored and not interested in doing anything. I'm also, stupid as it sounds, depressed that I'm not going to get to see Serenity the day it comes out.

I'm getting more and more frustrated with my computer. I think it's the router, making the computer run reaaaaaalllllly slow, to the point where it takes it ten seconds to notice when I've clicked on something. When I disconnect from the Internet it's usually fine (though it still has trouble playing videos), and when I use someone else's router it's fine. I have a DLink router, which is supposed to be relatively good, according to the research I've done. I don't know what to do about it. I thought about getting a different router, but I don't want to spend that kind of money unless I have to. At this point, though, I feel like throwing the computer down the stairs several times a day. Oh, to top it all off, the computer has taken to getting too hot often and shutting itself off, even though I'm resting it on a book instead of directly on my lap. At this point, I think I hate everything about computers.

Sharon, Mary Beth's roommate, has her sister Corliss visiting for a few days, so I was over there tonight to kind of hang out and sort of party ("like old people party," I was assured). Oh my god. I smell like cigarette smoke. I think they smoked an entire carton of cigarettes tonight between Corliss, Sharon, Mary Beth, and the 10 or 15 other people wandering around. We were sitting outside the entire time, because they can't smoke inside, so it was annoyingly hot and sticky. And there was beer. Lots of beer. Corliss bought two cases of beer and put them in a cooler so we wouldn't have to go inside to get it. I bought Diet Dr. Pepper because I knew I wouldn't want the beer. And, you know, Mary Beth's the youngest of them, and she's 46. Corliss is fifty-something. So I didn't figure on this being a "peer pressure can make you dress and act in strange ways" kind of situation. But no. Corliss was just sure I needed to have a beer. I've never had beer, so I don't even know if I'll like it, and I didn't want to try it for the first time in front of them. And it's not like I make a big deal out of it or anything. I just drink my own thing and they drink their thing. They don't have any reason to feel uncomfortable. Leave me alone about beer, people! Plus, there was dissing of Democrats, and Cindy Sheehan, and war protesters, and people going to Crawford. Grr.

Okay, so it wasn't all bad. There was a lot of funny, and I met this really cute guy named Demetrius, who was soft-spoken but polite and cool. There was making fun of people, and demonstrations of how one golfs with boobs. Sharon's not-boyfriend Curtis stopped by briefly, so we got to tease her about him for awhile. (He sells cheap jewelry on the side, and is only too happy to produce it so we can look at it. And when I say cheap jewelry, I mean CHEAP jewelry. Tacky, crappy, hideous stuff, mostly. I did get a couple hemp bracelets from him a few weeks ago. Other than that, I wouldn't wear this stuff in a million years.)

The problem, I have decided, is that, while I like hanging out with people, I don't get any energy from that. Some people get energy from being around other people. I get energy from being by myself, so being around other people gets exhausting after awhile. I feel like I need to recover. I seriously feel like I need to go be by myself and regroup before I'll feel like myself again. So I'm going to go read for awhile, and then sleep. Tomorrow I need to do laundry, seriously, and get ready for school to start on Monday. I'm actually kind of ready for school to start, which is good. Once it actually starts I won't know why I ever felt that way, but for the moment everything's copacetic.

Mary Beth's roommate called me last night and told me Mary Beth's birthday is on Saturday. (Mary Beth OMG totally didn't tell me, BTW.) Sharon is putting together this book where all Mary Beth's friends write how much they like her and stuff, which she is so going to love. Sharon dropped it at the library this morning so Mary Beth's coworkers could sign it, and I've got to pick it up before they close because Sharon's at work and can't get there in time. I'm trying to decide if I should get Mary Beth anything else. She took me out to eat for my birthday, so maybe I'll just offer to do that for her too. She is seriously such a sweetheart, and she deserves to have a special day.

I went on Monday to see Mary Beth's new apartment, which is beautiful! It's brand new, and it came furnished, which is cool. It's not the best furniture ever, but it's pretty. They each have their own bedroom and their own HUGE bathroom. They also have a huge kitchen. Mary Beth had been to the grocery store, so she made dinner for her and me. She has this recipe for little pizzas that you make with tortillas, tomato paste, oregano, ground beef, and mozzarella cheese. It was very very good, and I'm going to have to try to make it myself sometime. She also bought stuff to make chicken fajitas, so she's thinking about making that for us sometime next week.

Well, I am off to take a shower before I go pick up that book from the library. Peace out, yo.

I'm at the TWU library, using one of the laptops you can check out (wireless Internet!). They're for research purposes only, not for "word processing personal email and chat." So naturally I'm updating LJ.

I've just finished the assignment that's due at midnight. I had to make a webpage telling a class how to do a research project. (You can see it here if you care. And it's damn beautiful, so you should care!) I was feeling really depressed and having absolutely no success getting started, but Mary Beth and I got together and worked on it, which helped. We also went to eat dinner at Black Eyed Pea, which was incredibly fun.

I will be getting a tax refund this year, for the first time ever. And. Um. I've already spent part of it. On this and this. And I am so very excited! As soon as they arrive, I will naturally have to watch TV for approximately 37 hours straight, squeeing delightedly every few seconds. I should probably get around to actually sending in my tax returns, so I can get back the money I've, um, already spent. Heh.

Ooh! Congratulations to Guy for getting promoted! You rock liek whoa.

I got my big College and University Libraries paper written, ten minutes before it was due! :-D I think it turned out pretty well, actually. I was surprised, when I went to reread, how good it actually sounded. Yay! I win at life!

So that was due Thursday, and I felt like I'd been living that paper for months by that time. So Friday I wanted to do something fun, so Mary Beth and I decided to go see a movie or something. We were just gonna figure it out when we got there. We went to the mall here in Denton, since I'd checked the listings for, you know, real theaters, that show new releases, and nothing jumped out at us as something we wanted to see. We decided to see Ocean's 12, as the best option there, so we hung out and window shopped and ate at El Chico before the movie. I have to say, Ocean's 12 does not stand up well to repeat viewing. It was funny the first time. The second time it wasn't nearly as good, and the annoying parts were way way WAY more annoying. I had the dubious privilege of seeing that messed up icky wrong homoerotic Brawny paper towel commercial on the big screen. And if you haven't seen it...you really really have to. I promise, there is no way I can describe this that you will actually believe. It's the second commercial down.

I went to church again this morning. I'd decided to visit the college department, and...I don't know what it is about college departments, but I never seem to find one I like. Maybe it's because they feel temporary. Like, all the people in the class are only even in town because they're going to school, and they'll stop being in town as soon as they finish school. They don't really seem to be a part of the church, or even that connected to each other. Have any of you had that experience? People were friendly, anyway, which was nice. It was kind of amusing, in an annoying way--for the lesson the teacher handed out outlines with blanks to fill in. I wasn't going to fill mine in, because, you know, whatever. I'll just throw it away afterwards. Everyone around me started falling all over themselves to find me a pen when it looked like I wasn't going to take notes. It must be against the rules not to take notes on the Sunday School lesson. *rolls eyes*

I'm kind of depressed, or gloomy, or whatever. Mary Beth is the closest friend I have in Denton, and she's never willing to do anything with me. Last night I asked her to come make Christmas cookies with me, but she was busy being alone because her roommate was out of town. Then tonight I asked her to go to the mall with me, cuz I needed to look for a present for Matthew, and she was working on the finals that aren't due until Thursday. Every time I ask her to do something and she says no she always tells me not to stop asking her to do things. But it's really frustrating, because I feel like she's never going to be not doing something. She always acts like I have tons of friends and I'm doing her a giant favor to be her friend. I've tried to let her know that I really value her friendship, but she's not getting it. She doesn't seem to understand that I really don't have that many people to do stuff with, and that I'd really like to hang out with her. Then I worry that maybe I'm suggesting things she's not interested in, but she won't ever suggest anything because she doesn't have a car and she won't ever ask me to drive anywhere. So I don't know what I'm gonna do. We won't have any face-to-face classes next semester, so we're going to have to do other stuff if we want to see each other. I'll probably have to keep suggesting things and hope she says yes one of these days.

I emailed Laureen and asked her to go to lunch with me sometime. We've made plans for the 17th, and she's going to ask Christy and Candice to come too. I'm really excited. I miss SNU, and it'll be nice to catch up. So that finalizes it. I pretty much have to head for Oklahoma Thursday night or Friday morning. I'm worried some of the Christmas presents I ordered won't get here by then, though. I may end up having to come back to pick them up. :)

Well, I'm off to do the Christmas cookies. I'm craving sugar cookies anyway, and I got some cookie cutters at Walgreens and some colored sugar at Kroger. I'm hoping this'll cheer me up, too.

Or whatever. So, I didn't go to sleep at all last night. Mainly because I slept till freakin' six pm Friday. Then I stayed up till, like, 5 squeeing over Due South fic with Erin and speculating on whether James Dobson is a closet homosexual. (I know. But he's really weirdly obsessed with gay people. YOU tell ME why.) So, since I was up, and since I hadn't done laundry for a MONTH (ruining my rep as Neat Organized Person here), I went to the laundromat at 8:30 and did laundry. And it was totally cool, because there's practically no one there at 8:30 on Saturday morning. So I used five washers at once and got all my laundry done in an hour. It was, like, quiet, because the TV wasn't on and there weren't small children running around. So I got some reading done for Technical Services. And the lady who works there gave me a pastry. Yay, all my clothes are clean! *does a happy dance*

I talked to Erin a couple hours ago, and we were wondering about the Daily Show episode that aired right after September 11th. So I looked for it, and Comedy Central has clips up on their site. Wow. Jon talked for about 8 minutes, just about how he felt about the whole thing, and how he found hope. And he cried. On camera. Have I mentioned that I love him? Woobie!Jon.

Of course, then I needed something happy, so I pulled up the other Daily Show clips they have. My favorite? A really young-looking Jon flirting with Miss Piggy. She was stumbling over saying something, and he ACTUALLY asked her if she had a frog in her throat. Like, dude. I can't even tell if he meant to say that. Jon Stewart is totally my boyfriend.

I can't get away from thinking that, even though I know several Republicans. I'm having trouble not biting their heads off, especially since the stupid election keeps coming up all the fucking time. My mother voted for Bush, even though she isn't happy about the war in Iraq, because Kerry never made it clear what he was going to do about Iraq. Gah. Yes, I'd rather vote for Bush, who's clearly going to start bombing the whole freaking world one country at a time. Of course, I was annoyed with Kerry for being less than clear about Iraq, so it's partly his fault too. And Mary Beth apparently voted for Bush because her boyfriend's in Iraq. How that makes sense, I don't know. I've been trying to leave it alone, because that conversation can't lead anywhere good. She lives in Texas, at least, so Bush's win isn't her fault. Ditto for my parents.

I've got a horrible headache right now. Since last night, really. And I'm out of Migrin-A. Now I have to decide if I'm gonna go back to the doctor for more or not. If I still have a headache tomorrow I'm gonna try to go in and get that shot they said they could give me.

Mmm, chicken stew. I'm gonna try to get Mother to make some more at Thanksgiving.