I haven't posted any poetry here in quite some time...I put this one up last week at Presque Vu but never put it here. It popped rather randomly into my mind last week, I found it amusing, as did Gavin :-)

An Open Invitation from Tartarus

Dear Sinner,
Won’t you come dwell in my stormy pit,
far below Gaia’s deepest depths?
I have tortures here
you could never imagine
and an eternity in which
to inflict them upon your soul.
My gift to you for your crimes,
and I am most pleased to give it.
Drop in any time, I have a place
already reserved just for you.
No need to call ahead.

In other news, I pulled a muscle in my back the other day or something. The lower right side of my back hurts. It was improving yesterday, but has since gotten more painful again.

Also, I met the folks who were looking for knitting. They gave me some yarn on Friday and I have one scarf made, two in progress. (I'm crocheting one, which I have to keep putting down and picking back up...the yarn in question does not lend itself very well to a lot of chain stitching, but I had gotten too far to just rip it all up when I decided this and so am just working on it a little at a time. Thankfully, chain stitching goes pretty quickly. As soon as I use up the yarn, I'm supposed to give them a call so we can meet, they said they would pay me then and go from there. We'll see how it all works out.

I had an email for a job interview the other day with a staffing company. The place is over a mile's walk from the nearest public transportation. Unfortunately, the job was in-house and while I'd be willing to walk that far for an interview, I would just not be able to take a job that required me walk that far to and from the transportation point- it's up in Sparks and it's winter. One thing to have transportation available and choose to walk that far when it's nice. Whole other ballgame when it's your only choice. And you know, night time out in the middle of nowhere where if anything happened to you, there's a really good chance no one would ever know. So they said they would keep me in mind for future not-in-house positions.

Not particularly exciting, but it was quite good. I just made lamb chops in olive oil, asparagus with butter and garlic, brown rice with garlic, scallions and crumbled feta, and heated up the last little bit of couscous left over from dinner yesterday.

I like cooking. Being unemployed isn't the best situation, but it means I have plenty of time to cook good food (I made raspberry pancakes for breakfast this morning!) and what I get in unemployment is more than enough to keep us able to buy good food, so we're not stuck on ramen and mac and cheese (okay, so we eat mac and cheese once in a while...but it's the good kind.)

If things have gotta change,
well that's cool with me,
we'll just light the fuse and then get away,
hell yeah...

Things are just...happening lately. In addition to losing my job back in August, and being just a step ahead of the mass pagan exodus in the last week or so when I left the grove last month, I am now going to be leaving Neos Alexandria and Neokoroi, and my ADF membership, which runs out this month, will not be renewed.

After a whole lotta whathefuckery and some really appalling moments last week (if you know what I'm talking about, you don't need any more explanation. If you don't know what I'm talking about, trust me you're far better off that way.) I think things are calming down.

Also, I've pared my friends list way down. For the most part, people that I cut were either people who haven't posted in over a year, people who I haven't talked to in a ridiculously long time, and a few folks that I couldn't even remember who they were. I will probably eventually shave a few more off, but things stand as they are for the moment. If I've kept you around, it's either because we have a lot in common, you're otherwise interesting, or my own diabolical reasons (or some combination thereof).

I'm mildly surprised to find myself pretty much stress-free over all this at this point, aside from a lot of eye-rolling and restraining myself from giving a few people a piece of my mind. (Well, job search stuff aside, but even that could be a lot worse.)

On a slightly happier note, replacement of the confiscated Leatherman will take place this weekend. I found a site that pretty much only sells Leathermans (Leathermen?) and is having a huge sale right now. I could buy the model I had for about twenty dollars less than I expected I would have to pay. Or I could buy the next model up for still about ten dollars less than I expected to pay for the other one. Which I think I'm going to do. Hell, I could get the top one in the line for only a few dollars more than I expected to pay for the lower model that I used to have.

I think I'm going to go with the next one up from mine. I had the Leatherman Juice S2, I think I'm going to grab the CS4. It includes all the same stuff as I had...but it also has a saw, an awl and a corkscrew- it's the addition of the corkscrew that really made me decide on that one. The C2 also has a corkscrew, and costs the same as the S2, but it doesn't have the scissors.

Gaaaah I've been practically lost without the Leatherman. I use it for everything. I had to hunt down pliers the other night to try to re-bend my original nose ring because it's practically impossible for me to put it in once removed. And cutting an apple with a plastic knife like I end up having to do at work is such an unbelievable bitch.

Also, I think I finally need to replace my phone- said this how many times now? Yeeeeah. Now the sound is going bad. I think I'm going to go with the same phone I had...there's nothing better and it's a good phone, aside from having gotten stuck in the rain with it- and really, it's lasted a lot longer than I expected it would after it started to go downhill.

Last night, grove solstice ritual. I wouldn't call it my ideal ritual (No one's fault, really. while some have come much closer in the past, I would highly doubt that any collaboration would be. But it's a grove ritual, not mine.) but it wasn't bad. Maybe it was because I've been largely uninvolved since the fall, Or maybe it's me overall, or maybe somewhere in between, but it wasn't quite the same. I wasn't quite as in it as I've been in the past. There were some moments of annoyance (Kids in ritual not usually a big deal to me, but if they're not going to stay reasonably under control and make a whole lot of noise about it, it's probably best not to have them right in the middle of things. Kids do that, they make noise.)

All told, it went mostly well, but I just wasn't able to be in it spiritually. The only points where I was really wholly into it were when I made a quick offering to Apollo, and a little later on, a silent request. And that really wasn't so much being in the ritual as it was being in those moments (ha, how ironic, the ritual was about living in the moment....)

I did write a couple of off the cuff, short hymns for the ritual patrons, as well as a brief poem. Not my best work, but I wanted to have a few things prepared because it drives me crazy when a majority of the offerings in a ritual completely ignore the deities to be honored. I'll probably clean them up, maybe expand them a bit and post them. either way, they'll go into the book of hymns that I've slowly been writing to the gods, which I started "officially" as an offering to the Greek gods at the fall equinox. I read those, and sang a song that I had suddenly remembered from back in girl scouts that I had forgotten until just then.

At the moment, I'm feeling slightly blah and ambiguous about a lot of things, a whole lot of "I don't know"...but there is a lot that I've found of late that interests me greatly, so hopefully that won't last long....

I know, I've been kinda quiet lately...not much to write about at the moment really. Life is mostly amazingly quiet right now, and after the last several months, I'm all for that.

Going up to PA tomorrow night to bum around Lancaster for the weekend. Girlfriend's gonna meet the 'rents. I took off work for my Thursday evening shift as well as next Monday night (that means I'm going to miss out on a few hours of holiday pay...ah well. Fourth of July isn't that far down the road...)

Last weekend Gavin and I were in Lutherville coming back from Towson...were headed to the Giant by the light rail stop to pick up a few things when I decided that we had to stop in the pet store and look at little fuzzy critters. Chincillas, bunnies, assorted rodents...there was a gorgeous albino corn snake (shades of bright pink and coral....absolutely beautiful. Ok, i know, not a fuzzy critter, I get it.)

While checking out the rodents, Gavin I dunno, soul-bonded or something with a little loner of a miniature rat. (No, not mouse, miniature rat. Who knew?) After inquiring with the store clerk, finding out that their care and feeding is pretty much the same as that of mice, we ended up bringing two home. I'll post some pictures at some point in the near future. Adorable little things, they are.

Got two new people at work. Have been working with one of the last night and tonight. Last night was...uhg, a nightmare. anytting that could come up did- we only seemed to get calls in multiples so while I was trying to help her, more were coming in. Oh and then there was the really obnoxious guy calling from England..had the worst time determining that yes, he did in fact have a 24-hour support contract. Luckily one of the guys in Colorado happened to be online at the time and I got some help from him in fining the info...though he then took it upon himself to start helping with the issue...by getting me to relay instructions to the guy on how to reboot his video bridge remotely. (I've never done this, I absolutely do not touch the equipment he was calling on, I've seen pictures of the stuff, that's the extent of my training on that.) So that was a slight moment of being uncomfortable, but he was really cool, assured me that he would take full responsibility if anything goes wrong (and I had that saved in a chat file and pasted into the notes, damned skippy.) and it was actually really easy and fixed the guy's problem...but then I had to go and write an email explaining all this to the head guy in the EMEA office and ask him to have someone follow up to determine the cause of his alarms. Good times, I tell ya.

And in between all that, I had to show her how to do stuff, take calls, log information, all that rot.

I fell on the bus coming to work last night. Got on the bus, and just as I was getting to a seet, the bus sorta lurched back into motion, I was just taking a step...my foot slid out from under me and I ended up on the floor with my right leg bent awkwardly beside me...got a bit of a bruise on my rib where I hit the corner of a seat, my knee is sore- I think a ligament might be slightly strained, my lower back hurts a little- I landed kinda hard on my ass, think I might have jarred my tailbone a bit (though, after standing up and leaning over and just letting my torso and arms hang down until my spine cracked multiple times, it hurts less than it did)

I've reread Kushiel's Justice and am back to climbing walls in anticipation of Kushiel's Mercy being released in about three weeks.

Giant in Hampden has not had the Red Sauce Of Awesomeness (That Kitchens' Sweet Red Chilli Sauce) for two weeks now.

Amy's Kitchens spinach and feta frozen pocket sandwiches are the best things in the world. Well, maybe after the Red Sauce Of Awesomeness. (The cheese pizza pocket sandwiches are good too.)

Vegetarian-type people...If you've never tried Amy's Kitchen brand frozen food, I highly recommend. It's all organic vegetables and whatnot, and is really good. This coming from a non-vegetarian.

Other than that...just waiting to go home and sleep.

This now concludes the post of completely unrelated stuff.

I think life is pretty decent at the moment. Aside from a bit of an issue with Dominic yesterday which is an inconvenience but not the end of the world, things really are pretty good.

The "OMG I've got a girlfriend!" dust is settling quite well. We haven't killed each other anyway. After being roommates for a year and a half, if we haven't by now, there's a decent chance we'll make it a few weeks at least before the murdering starts. Well...there was some talk of knife violence last night... (All in er, fun, I swear! Uh, yeah that's it....hehehehehe) Nothing too crazy has happened since Tuesday/Wednesday two weeks ago.

Reading (okay, re-reading) some fiction in the form of Kushiel's Justice, also now have a copy of Iron Angel up next. Can't say it enough times....just cannot wait for Kushiel's Mercy- got about a month to go now.

Finally figured out how to assign different colored lights to individual contacts on my phone. Feel a little irked that I couldn't figure it out without looking it up, but it was kinda non-obvious. So...whatever. it was pretty simple once I found it. I also found out that there was a bronze version of my phone available, but AT&T doesn't offer it. I might have gotten it instead of pink otherwise. Oh well, I'm cool with the pink.

Oh, and my nails are growing again. There are actual white bits on the tips. I should paint them so as to keep from biting.

And work is good, only a very small handful of emails in the box. Otherwise, things are quiet (Including Tiffany's normally incessant yapping. Sorry that she's sick, not sorry that it's keeping her quiet.)

Other than that...things really are quite uneventful. No complaints here.

I think the weather definitely has an effect on my mood...I'm feeling a lot better in the last day and a half than I have in a while. I wasn't miserable to be sitting at work the other night with no one to talk to at four in the morning to distract me from my thoughts.

Don't worry though, life is still in a state of flux, I still don't know what's what in a lot of ways, and while I thought when it happened that dropping clergy training was The Big Bomb, but now, I'm pretty sure that it wasn't it, but was leading up to something else. (No, I don't know what. It hasn't happened yet.)

In other, somewhat related news, (Some folks already know this. I've been talking selectively about it. And by "selectively", I mean everyone but you. You just aren't good enough to know until I make the public post, bitch. Neener Neener Neener.) I'm looking at moving to the west coast, probably in about a year or just over that. (Oh yeah, Gavin's going too :-P ) I'm hoping to go out there sometime this summer for a few days, we're interested in Eugene, Oregon and I'm also hoping to harass my brother in Portland. This all came out of one of our long, ponderous conversations about how nothing seems to be right anymore. She asked if I ever thought of just leaving...which I had a million times. A week later, we were actually and seriously discussing the possibility. I took some time, gave it some serious consideration to be sure it wasn't just a "really cool idea, woohoo!" and the more i thought about it, the more concrete it became, and I realized that it fit a pattern with my life and if that pattern hold true, I'll be there in about a year.

Anyway...time to be getting going. Need to go to the post office and various other places.

I just got a brand new LCD display for my work computer a minute ago. Is quite pretty.

I also found out last night that they're going to train me next week to do work for another client *cries*

Oh well it'll just be email, I still won't really be dealing with people. And once we get past the backlog, there won't be unreasonable amounts of work to do.

it's that backlog I'm worried about.

It is now Thursday.

Meaning that in about 24 hours, I will be home and it will be the weekend again.

I am now registered for the WABA-PLC.

Annnnnd I got a big envelope-o-stuff today from the LASIK plus people. Should probably look at that.

And fuck if I didn't forget to call and cancel my Friday appointment with Katzen. Oh well, will do that later in the morning.

Oh and my mom called me today, apparently AC Moore was having a huge yarn sale last week and she bought me like a dozen and a half balls of yarn that she hasn't sent me yet.

I'm seriously thinking of giving up on Walden. for the moment anyway. Me and Henry just ain't getting nowhere. It's a losing battle. Perhaps if I were to just give it a break and move onto something else. Like In Search Of The Indo-Europeans (hahahahahahahahahahaha...I know.)

I should probably try to remember what I did with my copy of the Mabinogion too.

I feel like a nap.

Having a blissfully boring night. Despite drinking coffee (Trader Joe's Bolivian, ground up really fine and brewed strong), I will probably be going to bed pretty soon. I'm currently listening to music that I haven't listened to in a long time. It's amazing how different music sounds on headphones as opposed to speakers....I'm resisting the urge to turn it up ridiculously loud because well, that would be bad for my ears.

Borrowed a copy of High King's Tomb today from dcnblus...now on my way to fulfilling part of my plan to read some fiction this year. Alas, but I think I may have to track down my copies of Green Rider and First Rider's Call and reread them first. At the very least, First Rider's Call.

(Well, found First Rider...was sitting in a box right next to me all the time. If I can't find Green Rider, it'll be ok. I've reread that one much more recently than First Rider.)

Started knitting a nice warm wrappy-thing since it gets chilly in the office overnight lately, and I don't have much thermostat control. I have so much in the way of extra recycled silk right now that it's going to be nice, heavy, warm...and stripy of varying widths. Have I mentioned lately how much I love recycled silk?

I've decided that it's time to make the hair pink again. No more bleaching. I've got two and a half bottles of pink dye left...the shop where I had been buying it has closed down. I know where I can get the same stuff at other places, but after this, I will probably just dye it brown again and then let it grow out for good. I have decided that I do like having brown hair.

time to sleep.

Well, my voice sends like hell and I'm getting more stuffed up but I don't feel like I've been gargling coarse sand anymore, and any soreness in my throat is relegated to one side, and only really felt when I swallow...and is fading fast, thank goodness.

Unfortunately, I woke up at three and wasn't able to go back to sleep. I guess in a few minutes here I'll go take a shower and look at wandering off for an appointment. (I found out at work last night that Dave decided he didn't feel like dealing with me making a schedule request every two weeks and there's no way in the system to put in an ongoing biweekly schedule change so that I can come in a little later so he's just given me authorization to come in as late as 10pm on Tuesday nights without penalty. Convenient. Once in a while, Dave is less irritating.)

Now, off to showerland and hoping that some nice hot steam is good for my stuffiness.

My new glasses are in. I picked them up today. They look so different than my old ones (well, duh. They're rectangularish purple plastic frmames, as opposed to roundish gold metal frames.) chironcentaur said I look like a "classy nerd"...not really sure how to take that one.

These thins have kinda fucked with my depth perception, but I'm getting used to them. I think they actually look pretty good on me, and I don't usually allow people to take pictures of me with glasses, but I might get someone to take a picture this weekend.

I picked up a copy of Burkert's Greek Religion tonight, so I have that now, as well as the Kalevala...which I thought I'd bought before, but if I did, there's no evidence of me having it now. Stopped at Michael's to see if they still sold the wine rack-tables...unfortunately, they don't.

When I wake up in the morning, I'm going to call the Baltimore Tattoo Museum and see if a piercer is available and go do the nose-pokey-hole-in-flesh thing instead of waiting til Sunday.

Soon time to sleep.

Hmmm...so if I set up one of those flexible spending account things with work to pay for laser surgery, a high end estimate is that it will require $70/paycheck.

However, the reduction in taxable income will reduce my net pay by less than $40/check. However...I can't set it up til April if I want to actually be able to cover the surgery with it because of when the plan year renews. Though, the full amount of the yearly contribution is available for use up front (I'd just be screwed if I were to leave the job.)

Wow. So I was seriously thinking about getting contact lenses after the holidays. I need to find out if I can really do this, medical-wise...but if it were possible to have the surgery only six months or something like that down the road, it seems like it would be pointless to spend the money on contacts.

However, I can also use this to pay for a monthly transit pass pre-tax...so I'm looking at setting it up awhile to account for that and modifying accordingly come April.

I am ok with who I am and what I am.

I am not ok with a lot of the things that got me to where I am.

I had a perfectly fine night until a conversation about college turned meandered into stuff about my family. A little bit after it was over, I just started feeling like nothing has ever stopped and I've never gotten away from it. I had a perfectly absurd and utterly useless conversation with my mother. I may have had a nightmare after I went to sleep but I don't remember. I know I woke up a few times while it was still dark out, and then I overslept my alarm.

As a result of this, I did not get to finish a Lampteria ritual outline...but have it with me to take to the grove and plan to finish it up today.

Speaking of which...off to the grove.

I got a new backpack this past weekend because I have really missed having a backpack since the zipper on the burgundy Timberland that I've had since 1997 bit it.

I picked up a Jansport backpack. It's mostly dark pink, with some light pink and grey trim. Has an elasticized side pocket which actually holds my coffee mug (woohoo!) plus four zippered pockets- including this little one right on top which is SO perfect for holding my bus pass, keys, lip balm, a pen etc.

Currently, I have a binder, two dvd's, two notebooks, four or five books some knitting, my dvd player (in its case), wallet, coffee mug plus various and sundry other items and there's still room. So happy.

*looks at her leatherman, looks at the screen, looks at her leatherman, looks at the screen...*

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,312483,00.html

ORANGEBURG, N.Y. — You wouldn't want to use it to carve a Thanksgiving turkey, but if you need to push a cuticle, measure a tire tread, clean a golf club or adjust a bicycle spoke, this is the knife for you.

No registration needed to read.

Hey chironcentaur have you ever seen so many implements of pain and torture in a single neat little, slightly-more-than-pocket-sized package?


The former Girl Scout in me says "Wow...shiny. I could take that to camp!"

The realist in me puts in one of her rare appearances and says "Um...who needs that? and how in the HELL would you hold it to use it- it would require both hands! I'll take my leatherman, which ONLY has four screwdrivers (one phillips, three flathead), a knife, scissors, can/bottle opener, needlenose pliers and two types of wire cutters. And I can use it with one hand."

Thanks be to saratoga80 for posting this first.

Going to Caryn and Will's tomorrow for Thanksgiving...in between working. I work til 8am, come home, go to Caryn and Will's for dinner, then go back to work...for three whomping hours. It's going to take me that long to get back home *sigh* Oh well.

I likely will not leave the house on Friday...or if I do, it will be as a result of people going to work at the grove, or some other thing that does NOT involve any sort of shopping. I may very well just stay in with my dvd player (I have two netflix movies scheduled to show up on Friday, not to mention still having the Criterion Collection edition of The Double Life Of Veronique) or a couple of books. (I ordered a couple from Amazon recently and picked up the Mabinogion at B&N this past weekend. Oh, and there's Kerenyi's Dionysus book. And a couple of Marquez's novellas and...and...and... der, I read. I aer smert.)

( Friday, Dionysus, at home, Shiraz )

( Saturday, Apollo, at the grove, Sauvignon Blanc )

And that, folks, was my weekend. Well, the major happenings of it anyway. Minor details include overhearing a story about someone named Shaqueesha (Taking a guess on the spelling. Where on earth do they get these names?) Having two people simultaneously back into me, one on each side, at Barnes and Noble- I swear, it couldn't have been better-times if it was choreographed. Smacking my elbow into the living room wall (Okay kids, stucco bits in sensitive elbow hurt) and getting headbutted in the boobs and then in the nose by Chrissy. Oh, and making smores post-ritual on Saturday night.

I am debating going back through my journal and deleting some of the more "useless" entries- stuff that I look back on now and have no clue what I was talking about or wondered why I even bothered to post it because it was that inane.

I also do plan to start going back and tagging my old entires. That could take a while.

Best fortune ever to come out of a fortune cookie...

"May be you can live on the moon in the next century."
(The usual fortune add-on doesn't really work too well here though..maybe in the next century you can live on the moon in bed?)

If one more person asks me if it's ok to move stuff around and delete it from their system folder, I swear, I'm just going to tell them yes, go right ahead....

Update from Mom is that they're working on getting Anthny into rehab.

Random near-panic attack at work on Monday around 1130...went home nd slept most of the day.

I have several pepsi iTunes caps that need to be redeemed. 6 to be precise. Now...In what direction do I expend my music selection? I'm leaning towards either Adam Cohen or David Garza.

Speaking of new music...anyone ever hear of Denali? Someone at work was listening to them last ngit waiting for the light rail, let me listen. Sounded good so I got him to drop a copy to my computer. Good stuff.

I live with Strange People.

...and we'll end with a little therapeutic letter-writing...

Dear El Creepy Guy At Work,

Stop sneaking up on me in the middle of calls and then just standing there. Yes, I realize you have a job to do and have to get in monitoring another one of my calls. If you want to know when I take lunch, wouldn't it be more time-effective to oh, I dunno drop me an email, instead of just standing there and creeping me out? And dammit, stop telling me to behave myself. K?

Thanks. Now go away.

-Renee

Hmm...ok...time to go find more coffee before my lunch is over. And what's up with this working 1030-730 and not having lunch til 330? When did they change my lunch time?