Uh-Oh

When the compressor in the bedroom air conditioner kicks on, all of the lights in the entire house flicker.

All of ’em.

The Struggle for Relevance

There is a great deal going on, and there is also very little going on, which is a difficult prospect to explain, as the Great Deal and the Very Little are intimately connected in ways that defy the sort of compartmentalization I usually adhere to regarding this space. Read the rest of this entry »

Mabon

Got to participate in my second-ever Wiccan ritual last night, celebrating Mabon, the American Neopagan autumnal equinox and second harvest holiday.  As Wiccan holidays go, it’s apparently a light one (a few quick web searches turned up one disavowal of it having any historical precedent, and the consensus that it was named in the 1970s) but that didn’t make it any less real, or any less wonderful.    The initiates, many of whom were new to their practice, were all thoroughly gracious to me.  There was room for humor, and for fun.  And the celebration was chock-full of symbolism, much of which I already understood, but some of which I didn’t find about (or grasp) until I sat down to research it this morning, when I discovered with surprise how terribly appropriate it all was to my inclusion.  Being as how I have that whole autumnal Libra pomegranate harvest fire good food and wine thing going on…

I feel…  balanced!  That’s one of the points, you know…

Super big thank yous to the Empress for inviting me.

All My Life, Why?

Now If Only I Could Do the Same Thing To My Brain

Picked up a razor blade the wallpaper hangers left behind in the stairwell of my apartment building, took it outside, and used it to peel the Sealand residential parking permit sticker off of Gloria.  It came off in one piece, and left the glass clean, as if it had never been there…

The Swamp Owns My Soul

“…I took my old way home one Friday evening to explore what kind of options it gave me: walked to the Grey Street station, took the Wayfare over to Hubtown and then got on the same train that taken far enough would’ve dropped me in Ivory Grove.  Thus under the spreading vault of a clear night sky did I at last set foot on the platform of the Sealand Exchange Station, and from what little I saw of it, I can say that it is an odd place, one that doesn’t seem any better integrated into the environs of Sealand than I am.  It had a quality at once both hallucinatory and desolate, like an amusement park just before opening, or a mall at midnight:  grand gleaming corridors and smooth escalators, unhampered by people, clean glass doors, silent red LED displays ticking off mute welcomes, and low tables full of schedules and pamphlets, all arranged in neat piles, without any takers to set them in disarray.  The few employees I saw at their posts regarded me strangely, as if they were surprised to see me.  And perhaps they were; full service stops by all the train lines the Exchange connects won’t be running until the end of the year…”

-The Book of the King, “Sealand (part 3)”, October 17th, 2003

—

If you want to travel from Shadetree to the southern end of the City of Mists, you can take the State Transit train down to Hubtown, and then ride the Wayfare from Hubtown into the City proper.  But if you want to go from Shadetree to the middle of the City of Mists, as I normally do, every day, you have to change from one State Transit train to another.  And guess where you do that?

Uh huh.

Best Quote of the Weekend III

“I got a leg cramp so bad this morning I thought I was gonna pee myself and then die.”

-me, to Jack (and then Jack, over and over and over…)

SL: Hollow Earth Underdark

We’re gonna need a bigger boat.

As the Dust Settles

CLUTTER

The number of boxes has diminished to a manageable level, but I have maxed out pretty much all my available storage, and there are still plenty of things I don’t know what to do with.  For the moment these things are mostly strewn around the walls.  There are snow shovels and vacuums, brass mugs and cider bottles, boxes of unwanted kitchen implements I’m trying to hand off to niece Kate, boxes of Jack’s old toys that need to go up into Weaver’s attic, boxes of tools I need out right now, giant piles of folded-flat boxes destined for the Empress’ storage unit because I don’t want to throw them out in case I have to move again…

HARDWARE

I now have a toliet paper rod.  Oh, wait, a toliet tissue spindle.  Excuuuuuuuse me….

There is no screen in the kitchen window.  That was supposed to be put in Monday (which I knew it would not be, Monday being Labor Day,) or failing that, yesterday.  This wouldn’t be terribly critical, except that there is only one window in the kitchen, and no exhaust fan, so it is unnecessarily punitive cooking in there without it open.  If I do open it, without the screen, I get flies.  I have averaged about 1 fly in here per day.  Which is quite a bit, compared to what I’m used to. Read the rest of this entry »

MOULa: Gahreesen

Believe it or not, she jumped down there.

And As A Result

…I will definitely be streaming tonight.  Program starts at 8 PM Eastern and goes until at least midnight Eastern.  Playlist is below.

Use the link in the sidebar for Amber Horizons radio if you’re interested. Read the rest of this entry »

Motherlode!

There was this stack of discs lying on the kitchen table at work.  Burnable computer CDs.  They had a handwritten sign next to them reading, “FREE MUSIC!  Take me!”,  so I picked up one or two of them and checked them out.  They looked like the CD equivalent of mix tapes.  I recognized a few artist names, enough to make me interested, but I had a lot to do, both at work and at home, so I put them back down and went on my way.  I figured someone else would be glad to have them.

A week later they were still on the kitchen table.  I hadn’t seen anyone take any of them in the intervening seven days, or even touch them.  I figured that if no one else was gonna take them in that span of time, I couldn’t be considered a swag hog, so I wrapped the whole stack in a piece of paper and threw them in my backpack.  When I got home, I took them out of my backpack, and threw them on my computer table.  And there they sat.  They got packed up for the move in Sealand, and unpacked here in Shadetree.

I just sat down to look at them and sort through them now.  And as it turns out, the titles that I took to be track names aren’t track names.  They’re album names.  The discs are full of music, in some cases entire discographies of the artists in question.  And all in mp3!

Score!

Victory

Widow Heathcliff returned my entire security deposit to me, plus the $1.08 interest it accrued.

Score one for taking the high road.  Now let’s all get on with our lives.

Restoration

The poster I bought when I was sixteen and have kept in “my room” ever since fits perfectly inside the paneling of the bedroom door.

What a wonderful omen!

But She Fell Off the Music Box

D’s no slouch in the graphics department herself.  And she does better sepia tone than I do.

The key must be an upgrade.