Haven't been here in a while, so...meme time!

1. Elaborate on your default icon.
It's Delirium from the Sandman comic series by Neil Gaiman. From the storyline "Breif Lives" in which she features prominently.

2. What's your current relationship status?
I'm dating someone, going on about a month now. It's been so damn long, but I'm willing to see where this goes.

3. Ever have a near-death experience?
No.

4. Name an obvious quality you have.
Intelligence

5. What's the name of the song that's stuck in your head right now?
Flexible by Depeche Mode

6. Name a celebrity you would marry (assuming age is not a factor and they were single, right?).
Really don't think there's anyone famous I'd marry. Or let's say even a long-term relationship with, since I don't know that I'll ever get married.

7. Has anyone ever said you look like a celebrity?
Nope.

8. Do you wear a watch?
I used to, years ago, but not anymore. Who needs one? There's clocks everywhere, on my cell phone, computer, TV, car dashboard, etc.

9. Do you have anything pierced?
My ears, twice in the lobe.

10. Do you have any tattoos?
Yes, one. Working on a second

11. Do you like pain?
I go to great lengths to avoid all sorts of pain.

12. Do you like to shop?
Yes, even though I hate the mall.

13. What was the last thing you paid for with cash?
Dinner tonight

14. What was the last thing you paid for with your credit card?
Kettlebell class

15. Who was the last person you spoke to on the phone?
My dad, who wanted to inform me that there was pop and water available in the garage for my friends who were working on the deck today. He called from Texas to let me know this.

16. What is on your desktop background?
One of the ones that came with the computer. It looks like a fairytale version of a dandelion field gone to fluff.

17. What is the background on your cell phone?
Maleficient-the-dragon from Disney's Sleeping Beauty

18. Do you like redheads?
Considering I want to dye my hair red soon, I guess I do.

19. Do you know any twins?
Yes, friends of mine have 6-year-old fraternal twins )boy and girl).

20. Do you have any weird relatives?
*I* am the weird relative!

21. What was the last movie you watched?
Pulp Fiction

22. What was the last book you read?
"Equal Rites" by Terry Pratchett. Trying to make up for missing out on him for so long.

I've been trying to avoid posting about how mom and I clash all the time ( and it is *all* the time) but i surprsied myself with the vehemence with which I reacted today.

The backstory is, I'm addicted to Pepsi. It's a 20-year habit that stretches all the way back to highschool. I've been cutting back, and at the beginning o the year, I was drinking a 12-oz can when I was getting ready for work, and then another 12-oz can first thing when I got to work. Over the past 2-3 weeks, I've changed this to 1 16-oz bottle, which I start at home and finish at work. This is all the pop I have all day. After the morning pepsi,I switch to water or tea. I'm fairly proud of myself for cutting back that much.

However, when I told mom, her only comment was "Hm." Then went on to lecture me how I should switch to 1 12-oz can a day, and how it should be so easy. Well, I've tried it that way, and my habit went up, not down, so weaning myself it is. I've been at this for months, and she can't even trust me to know what I'm doing. Which is what I said when I blew up at her. I am so fraking tired of her treating me like a kid.

In high school, there were a couple girls in my group of friends who continually got pissed off by my grammar-Nazi-ness, and decided to dump me as a friend. Surprisingly for groups of high school friends, not everyone followed suit, and I remained friendly with some of the other girls until we graduated, went to college, and developed our own lives.

Twenty years later, through the wonders of Facebook and reunion-generated nostalgia, I reconnected with those girls who stayed my friends in high school, only to find they are still friends with the ones who "dumped" me. And every so often, I will see a reply, by one of the "dumping" girls, that shows that she has become just as much of a grammar Nazi, and that is annoys other people.

Haven't posted here in a while, so, here are a oouple things.

I am getting a tatoo. And my hair dyed. Mom is gonna flip, but you know what? I'm friggin' 39. She can deal with it. There's things moving in my life right now in my relaationship with mom, and I'm drawing a line in the sand. We are going to have to redefine our relationship as two adults, instead of mom and daughter.

The "number 1 record" meme that's been going around: Mine is January 17, 1971, and it's Knock Three Times, by Tony Orlando and Dawn. I'm not sure if that's pushed its way past lame into so cheesy it's awesome territory, but there it is.

My thoughts on Valentine's Day: I used to be one of those wear-all-black people. I've never had a SO on Valentine's Day. But I've gotten to the point where I"m OK with that. Love should be celebrated. All the same though, I think that the holiday itself is a bad excuse to go buy things to prove to someone you love them. If you love someone, show them that all the time, not just on one day. I've been equal parts amused and disgusted by some of the jewelry commercials lately. There's one where the tag line is, "he went to Jared." As if it weren't enough that he loves you, or asked you to marry him, but that he bought you something at the (way overpriced) jewelry store. Or the one where the woman freaks out over the rainstorm? Ugh. Just ugh. And lest we forget, this all started with an ancient Roman fertility festival involving public nakedness and flogging with goatskin whips, so all the trappings we put on it now seem a little...Victorian, maybe?

My dad said something to me yesterday that makes a lot of sense: "There are a lot of angry people out there right now."

You'd think that would be obvious. But it's little things that suffer, like common courtesy. People deliberately cuttingyou off in traffic; not holding the door for the person behind them as they enter a shop; grousing at cashiers, servers, or CSRs for things outside of their control. It's really ugly. It's no wonder I've been bummed lately, it's like a fog of angry surrounding everyone.

I am seriously, seriously bored. I've been sick since probably Tuesday, I kinda felt crappy then. Although I thought it was just a cold, it has turned into laryngutus or something. Basically, I ache and I have no voice to speak of (hahaha). My sister's fam is in town, and they've been running doing things, and me? I can't even get my butt to the store to get padded envelopes. I'm just bored, stuck at home with nothing to do. Everyone's just left to go to IHOP for Shannon's b-day.

If I don't feel any better tomorrow, I'm gonna have to go to urgent care, cos at least then if I have to call off Monday, I'll have a note or something. I haven't gone up to this point because if it's viral, there's nothing they can do for me anyway, so it's kind of a waste of money. It's really unusual for me to be this sick.

My brother is spending time with his wife's fam, and Kris and her fam don't get here till tomorrow night, so it's been a very sedate Christmas Eve.

Went to go see Avatar. Had to seek out a place where it was playing in 2d, cos of my vision problems. 3d is completely lost on me, and makes me get a massive headache anyway. Honestly, didn't dettract that much from the movie. And yeah, there's been a lot of flap about the "white guilt" thing, but I liked it.

Happy Solstice (a day late)
Merry Christmas (a day early)
and Joyous Feast of Cthulhu to you all!

I had a date today. A kind of a date. I don't know. A friend of mine said he thought that this friend of his and I should meet. Te guy in question is an ovcer the road truck driver, and he happened to be intown this weekend, so after much back-and-forth we settled on meeting over coffee this afternoon.

It seemed to be going kind of OK, except we were both a bit nervous, and his reaction to nerves was obviously to talk too much; mine is to talk to little. I honestly was trying though - he seemed like a nice enough guy.

But after about an hour and a half or so, he was kind of like, "tired now. Kthxbye" and said he had to get going. To his credit, he did say he'd been up late last night and early this morning, but it felt kinda abrupt, and I wonder if I came off as uninterested, or if he really didn't like me, or what. Anyone who's read my journal for any length of time knows I haven't had a date in any length of time, so I don't know how to read this.

Today I heard a jazzy, flute-y instrumental version of "Gangsta's Paradise." o.O

You know how sometimes people on your friendslist post about stuff going on in their life, and all of a sudden you think "Wait a minute? Since when were they working THERE? Since when were they dating HIM/HER? Since when?" And then you wonder how you could have missed all that seemingly pretty standard information, but somehow you feel too ashamed to ask for clarification because it seems like info you should already know? It happens to all of us sometimes.

Please copy the topics below, erase my answers and put yours in their place, and then post it in your journal!


NAME: Susan

AGE: 38

LOCATION: south of Detroit

OCCUPATION: I'm a legal assistant in a workers' comp/social security law firm. Yay for gainful employment at last!

SIGNIFICANT OTHER: None.

KIDS: None

BROTHERS/SISTERS: I have an older sister, Kris, who is married and has 3 kids, Shannon (7), Nicole (5) and Eric (3). They live in Louisiana at present. My younger brother is also married and lives about 5 minutes away from me. No kids for them as of yet.

PARENTS: My parents, Tom and Kathy, are both still with us, and me with them (ie, I live with them).

PETS: None right now. I have a cat who is nominally mine, but really, she's made herself at home at my friend Bob's, and it's kind of up in the air as to whether she'll move back with me when I find a place again. It's a long story.

LIST THE 3-5 BIGGEST THINGS GOING ON IN YOUR LIFE:

-Work. I finally have a job after almost two years of being unemployed (better yet, it's in my field) so I really don't want to blow it.

-Dad. Has leukemia. Since I don't have a family, much of the support for mom falls on me. Which I don't begrudge, though it is hard sometimes.

-Personal development. I've been really focusing on feeling better about myself this year, and for the most part, I'd have to say I've succeeded. Some things I'm concentrating on include simplifying and cleaning out clutter, physical, spritiual and emotional; self-esteem issues; being open to relationships of all kinds; and losing weight. There's other things I know I have to work on, but this is a good enough list to start from.

-Moving out. I had my own place a few years ago, but had to mave back home when I lost my job. Now I've got something solid again, I want to start putting feelers out. It's be nice to have my own place before I'm 40.