1. I'm sad because of a pending loss and have been crying a lot. It will pass.
2. I'm drinking coffee.
3. I had an enjoyable evening out last night. Went to bizarre art installation where a friend was lying under a white sheet (as were others), a craft* fair thingy at this local awesome "creative reuse center" and a couple of other art exhibits.

*more art than craft, actually

((((( Stewie )))))

1. I have been in a bit of a funk because I have been sick and overworked.
2. Think I am going to be able to get caught up this weekend, which gives me hope.
3. Anxious because my cat is getting old and I am going to leave him for 3 months in January.

1. I hate cold weather.
2. Everything is very expensive, especially . . .
3. the kind of dental heroic efforts one needs when reaching the age when the warranty on one's teeth has expired.

1. Tonight I'm going Speed-dating, followed by salsa dancing - first time for both. I've been strong-armed into it by a couple of women at work. The upper age limit for the dating is 48, so I think the woman who booked it for us has lied on my behalf. I'm worried I'll be the oldest one there and/or that I'll tread on someone's foot and injure them. But I have a new, flared, swingy skirt to wear and a nice sweater and I'm going there with the attitude that I intend to have fun.

2. Tomorrow I'm meeting a friend from NYC who is in London for a few days on business. We're going for lunch in Chelsea. It'll be a goatfuck trying to get to central London tomorrow as most tube lines are suspended at some point for engineering work but I can drive to Blackhorse Road and pick up the Victoria Line, I think.

3. Yesterday I was looking at a file for work where the customer lives in Condom. The next file I picked up, the customer lives in Wetwang. I sniggered. Sometimes I am still 12.

Wetwang made me giggle. Salsa dancing is fun, hope you have a good time!

1. I got a call about a great job that I would be perfectly suited for. They want me to interview on Tuesday.
2. I'm having surgery to remove my thyroid on Tuesday.
3. I'm hoping for an awesome surgical scar.

Is a goatfuck a good thing or a bad thing?

1. Wetwang, hahahahahaha
2. Had a great date last night with a really smart and funny guy. Jewish to boot!
3. My favorite cousin just got engaged and I am soooooo excited! This will be her 2nd marriage and this guy is way better for her and really sweet. I can't wait to see her happy face in a wedding dress :) She might be moving out of Manhattan, though, which would make me sad.

(((((stewie)))))
EJ - Goatfuck, wetwang, you have brought out my sniggering inner eleven year old.

1. I am going to do something today that I rarely do, and go clothes shopping. I am going to NYC at the end of the month, and my current clothing situation is dismal. I can't hang with all those stylish New Yorkers with my present duds.
2. I have a date to go out to dinner at the restaurant of my choice this evening. My man INSISTED that I stop cooking and let him take me out to eat. I actually resisted the idea for a few minutes (because I want to make a yummy stew), but then my sanity returned and I happily accepted.
3. After dinner, instead of the traditional date night movie, we are going to come home, light the fireplace and watch the first few episodes of Season Five of The Wire. That show is so so so so so so so good, I had no idea that it was going to be soooooooooooooo good.

1. Enduring some routine and some not so routine tests on various body parts last week and next week.
2. Contemplating a drastic work change.
3. I see the sun poking out of the clouds. Back later.

1. Cake for breakfast from a get-together last night. My friend makes AWESOME cake.
2. Sunset Rubdown show tonight! I get to see my imaginary boyfriend! Very excited.
3. It needs to stop raining NOW so that I can take my newly fixed bike out. The cold I can deal with, I just hate the endless rain.

1.essexjan, I once visited a town in England called Cockermouth. Because of course, it was located near the mouth of the river Cocker. Still, though.

2. plans for flu shots for the family were scuttled by a cold in the smallest member. plans for parade attendance were scuttled for related factors. Bummer.

3. tomorrow is wiener dog day! I will remember my long-departed family dachshund, Pepsi, especially when I hear all the wiener dogs yiping.

1. I got my new car last night. Her name is Ms. Rosalie Hale. (Yes from Twilight, but it's funny to me. The car is bright red, over 100k, the passenger door jiggles a bit and doesn't shut up, and it's an old ass car that was busted in the front. Also, it was from Jersey, which is close enough to NY. And the lovely phrase 'oh haaaaaaaaaaaaale no.') It was brought back to life using parts from Prissy, my previous Civic. I want to go outside and take pictures but it hasn't stopped raining since last week.

2. I've been doing really well on cleaning my house and I've washed all my windows and put things away and now I just have to scrub the toilet, the shower, run the dishwasher, wash some dishes, and go through my papers. I thought I was making good progress on all this adult, professional, being-on-top-of-stuff, but I'm not sure just how well I'm doing when all I really want to do is lie in bed, cry, and watch shitty television on my computer.

3. I'm just feeling kinda overwhelmed. People seem to think I can do all sorts of AMAZING SHIT when it's like 'wha? I like fluffy kitties' and I'm thinking about scheduling some 'burnout vacay' days except that the semester is starting to kick into high gear and there's Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years coming up and my homie wants me to go up there for Halloween and I was all excited because I have a cute costume but no shoes yet and all I can think about is how long of a drive it is and how I'm just going to be even more exhausted and I've been sleeping between 10-15 hours a day and it's just not enough. Plus I have several fever blisters that have popped up this weekend so I know my immune system is hanging out in the shitter but I'm not actually sick enough to justify staying in bed all day.

1. Had a good violin/viola lesson today. Am determined to master the Theme from Schindler's List.

2. Every year, when I go for my annual automobile inspection sticker, they always seem to find additional stuff that needs repairing. Don't think they're lying, as repairs need to be done, but I dread the financial hit every October.

3. Reading two new books that have come out about Rose Wilder Lane and her mother Laura Ingalls Wilder. So far, little new information, they're just saying "their relationship was complicated," which I already knew.

1. Just wasn't able to get out of bed to make bento today. EM is waking up too often again because it's getting colder yet he'll scream blue murder if you try and put a blanket over him or HEAVEN FORBID more clothes. So he was waking up frequently from 2am and when his Dad woke up at 6 I just crashed. Still had to get up properly at 7 though.

2. Getting frustrated with a necessary but evil part of a project.

3. I'm gonna make French toast for brekky - who's in?

1) Bought appliances for the new house today. Yay spending 4 grand!

2) Think I've talked a pal into being willing to drive about 1200 kms to help me get a free couch. (it's a longer story than it sounds)

3) Cut off all my hair. I think this is the shortest I've ever had it.

(((Stewie)))

1. The end of the world is nigh - a very loud thunderstorm with really heavy rain just hit. Power has flickered a couple times.

2. Saw Law Abiding Citizen earlier today. Pretty good flick, very graphic violence.

3. Stopped at the library and picked up both the book and dvd of Into the Wild. Looking forward to reading/watching.

PS to Melismata: do you have links for the RWL and LIW books? Pretty please!

1. Got a crappy cardiologist who basically said, "Call me from the ER or in 6 months, whichever comes first."
2. Got a decent GP who knows cardiology and psychiatry meds, and she isn't afraid to change them around without consulting specialists.
3. I now have the strength to stand and walk for almost 45 minutes. Hoping to hit a full hour by the end of October.

1. For the past few days, my back pain has abated, and I've been able to stand and walk for longer and longer periods without my now-characteristic zombie gait. I even feel pretty good!

2. I got a little cocky tonight and decided to have a celebratory one-minute dance party. I shook it like a Polaroid for well under a minute before realizing what a premature and foolhardy this was.

3. It was almost totally worth it.

deborah: "Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane" by John E. Miller, and "Little House, Long Shadow: Laura Ingalls Wilder's Impact on American Culture" by Anita Clair Fellman. They're both brand new; just started the former, which again doesn't say anything (IMO) that hasn't been stated elsewhere. Holz's biography "Ghost in the Little House", tho exaggerated in parts, is still the best biography there is about Lane and her role in helping with the books.

I really liked "Ghost in the Little House" and found it illuminated a lot not only about Laura Ingalls Wilder, but also journalism at the time of Rose Wilder Lane's career (and her influence on the development of Libertarianism). Fascinating stuff.

Oops. Format.

1. Just back from Horace Rumpole's MeFi meetup at which he toured us through his new exhibit on Samuel Johnson at Harvard's Houghton library. Grub and pub followed. A really nice evening.

2. We're supposed to get up early tomorrow and go close down our community garden with the rest of the gardeners, which means a bunch of shoveling, raking, and cleaning. There's a chance that the weather is going to be too crappy to do the work, and I'm really rooting for that, since I'd rather sleep in.

3. Looking forward to making chicken pot pie tomorrow evening.

1. We got apples! Soooo many apples. Half bushel. Cannot WAIT to start cooking and eating and eating and eating and EATING apples!
2. Congregational meeting tomorrow after church. Hope we get decent attendance.
3. In one week, my dear friend Jess will be married, and we will have been there! Can't wait to leave Friday for that.

1. Had an extremely nice day, which included a hike through the hills and then along the ocean, and then a dinner at a really nice seafood restaurant, all with ikkyu2.

2. Am watching "Say Yes to the Dress," which ikkyu is voicing his displeasure with by playing his guitar, which is fine because I've seen all these episodes before and it's giving TLC kind of a punk-rock edge.

3. I had calvados after dinner, which I don't normally order. It was yummy yummy yummy.

Oh! And pumpkins! 1a. would be that we also stopped on the way home from the hike and went to a local pumpkin patch and picked up two (locally grown!) pumpkins for carving, as well as a bunch of (locally grown!) sunflowers.

Thanks for the info, melismata. Both of those titles look interesting, I'll have to buy them at some point (local library doesn't have them). I read Ghost in the Little House a couple years ago, but don't remember my thoughts on it.

Thanks, as well, Melismata. I'll have to pick up a copy of Ghost in the Little House; I haven't read that one yet. I've always enjoyed the stories of Laura and Rose, so I look forward to this as well.

1. Missing Mr. V. It's terribly hard knowing that it's best to end it all between us when I just don't want to give it up. Nothing bitter between us; just he wants to play around and I won't share.

2. Wishing this rain would end. All my Halloween decorations are down, well, most of them, as they are blowing around the neighborhood. It's a little disconcerting for the neighbors to find skulls blowing around.

3. I'm reading a good book; it's called The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, written originally in 1860. It was the first thriller; according to the information on the cover, it was the prototype for a whole new genre of fiction: the "sensation novel". I find it hard to put down, even given the eloquent, and wordy, speech.