The Desert Mermaid

Aww. I'm sad now. Summer is finally ending for Phineas and Ferb.

Seriously, y'all, that show is brilliant. Check it out if you haven't already. It's like Animaniacs once was--in 20 years the kids who watched it and loved the jokes will go back and finally get the REST of the jokes. And it's so good-natured. Excellent show.

Curious to see the next thing Dan and Swampy do, too. They've earned my loyalty with this show, dangit. I hope they've earned yours, too!

But at least he DID Live Long And Prosper. What a life.

Robin Williams was great. Sometimes he was annoying, sometimes he was sappy, sometimes he was coarse, but mostly he was fucking hilarious and awesome. Also, he was the Genie.

We don't think of depression as a terminal illness, but way too often it acts like one. I'm sorry, Robin Williams, that even with the science we have we can't cure it or even manage it all the time. I hope the science continues to improve, so that we don't lose more awesome people to it.

I gotta say, the Annual Xmas Plumbing Disaster is the WORST holiday tradition this family has ever invented. Even waiting till it's closer to the Feast of St. Emo doesn't make it a good tradition.

At least all the water in my closet was from the water heater, and thus was Before water, so my shoes are only wet. I am just glad my shoes weren't bathed in, y'know, AFTER water. That would have been an even BIGGER disaster.

I have nothing useful to add to the Boston business except more of the same "Damn, that is not awesome" and "But it's nice to know that most folks are not so much the blowing-you-up type as they are the type who will run alongside your wheelchair holding your arteries shut after an explosion."* I just need to get it off my chest that, you know, randomly and anonymously exploding people seems to be a poor way to make whatever crazy point you want to make.


*Although some people around here are of the "exaggerate the shit out of things" type. We had one lady in the office yesterday claiming authoritatively that it was a country-wide attack. The way she was telling it, every major landmark and city in the country was being Emmeriched into shrapnel by The Terrorists.

Today is a sad day.



Farewell, Gobo, Count, half the Two-Headed Monster, and so many others …

The weird thing about a car accident is, while actually crashing, my brain goes completely deadpan. I’m not thinking “OH GOD I’VE CAUGHT THE SLUSH I’M SPINNING OUT,” I’m thinking, “Oh, great. I’m spinning out. Damn this is going to change my whole day—oh, that crunch sounded like my headlight hitting the barricade. … And now I’m facing the wrong way. But at least I’m I’m on the shoulder. Now. I suppose I should turn on the hazard lights and call someone.”

The irony of it is, I was going home early from work because it was looking ominous and snowy for once.

Anyway, yeah, so I’m okay mostly. My knee was braced against the dashboard and got whacked, the headache I’ve got is probably an indication that my brain got rattled around in my head a bit, and as the panic hormones wear off I’m sure I’ll notice a few more dings and bashes. But I’m not dead, so that’s a plus, anyway.

Thanks, all, for your concerns and sympathies. I’ll keep y’all posted if any new developments develop.

Ahh, post-holiday crash time. It was great to have my brother here, but when it’s for a visit, and when it’s the holidays, it’s also exhausting. (He seemed pretty tired by the end of the week, too.) On the other hand, going back to routine means going back to getting yelled at by angry patients or showing clueless patrons how to use the Scary New DVD Dispensinators.* Maybe I’ll stick with the exhausting holidays.

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MY SISTER: Whoa! Where’d Christmas go?!

ME: I don’t know. I woke up this morning and it had vanished. It’s like we got the Grinch a week late.

MY SISTER: Dude, if the Grinch had waited a week to steal Christmas, can you imagine how much those Whos would’ve paid him to do that very thing?

ME: Sure, the business is seasonal, but it’s quite lucrative!

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At least I can get the sewing machine up and running again now the tree is down. Rocket needs clothes—and fortunately, I have a whole wardrobe planned out for her. I may have to start with her nightshirt, since it’s pajama time at the Treehouse. But I’m looking forward to making her a flight suit. Not to mention shiny clothes. Lightning bolts all the way, baby!

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Speaking of dolls, I hereby decree that American Girl needs to quit bundling accessories in with big old furniture items. 2012’s unappealing Girl of the Year has a whole batch of little thingy-things that can only be gotten if you drop a chunk of money on her big loft bed. This time around I’m not really devastated—none of those items really catch my interest—but it’s an obnoxious trend. And it was rather frustrating a couple years ago when you could only get Lanie’s nifty cooking gear and food items if you bought her FORTY-POUND TRAILER CAMPER. Yeah, I may have a strange love for doll-sized accessories, but give me a break here.

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Just found out why that sad bloodhound next door hasn’t been howling lately: she fell over dead a couple weeks ago. I’m gonna miss that dog.

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Aside from the epic movie-watching experience of both Real Star Wars and Dumb Star Wars,** my brother finally got me to watch Memento, the inside-out and backwards movie. Stylistically it was a fun movie, enough to get past the idea that Everybody Is An Asshole just because figuring out the precise nature of everyone’s assholery still made it entertaining.

But the part I had really wanted to see was how they portrayed the concept of an acute case of anterograde amnesia. Leonard keeps insisting that he doesn’t have amnesia, but what he means is he doesn’t have Hollywood amnesia. Science-types note that Memento is one of just two movies that accurately portray a real form of amnesia. (The other? Finding Nemo.)

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I haven’t forgotten that y’all want the recipe for the awesome pizza I made the other night. And as soon as I figure out how the hell I made it, I’ll let you know.

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Fortunately, I have saved Skyward Sword for the post-holiday crash. Off to start that now.


*My sister has convinced me to watch Phineas and Ferb. That show should NOT be as damn entertaining as it is. I feel like some kind of Brony now.

**Mom on Emperor Palpatine in Return of the Jedi: "He reminds me of a lot of the nuns I had in Catholic school."

OKAY, I think we got LJ all working nicely again. What’d we all miss?

Me, I had quite a week. Rich and full experiences, that’s my life: futzed around in the garden, got bossed around by my micromanager, lost another coworker to the deep discontent around the library and the lure of Living Free And Easy, lost a favorite patron to That End Which Awaits Us All, finished a necklace and made an earring, gave up on the X-Files, started Fringe, and wrote a bunch of OGYAFE stuff.

Oh, and also there’s the whole, y’know, SURGERY business. That’s going on.

Seems that while I was away I picked up some kind of gallbladder inflammation. It announced its presence in the middle of a cart of books I was shelving on Saturday. It felt like this:


An apt metaphor for so many of life’s little golden moments, this.

So I mentioned this to my supervisor, who ordered me to get rid of the stupid thing. Sounded like sage advice, but I figured I’d get a second opinion from someone who was not a librarian. So after a few days spent curled in a fetal position cursing the cold unfeeling universe, I went to see Dr. Hyper, a woman I’ve always liked but whose actual name I could never spell.

DR. HYPER: So it hurts more whenever you eat anything?

ME: I’m down to dry Cheerios. Nothing makes you feel more like a three-year-old.

DR. HYPER: That is the right thing to do. Now let’s see if we can get this solved.

ME: Good, because I’m really hungry.


Then she poked at my abdomen.


ME: *squeak!*

DR. HYPER: I haven’t even poked you yet. My hand is still a foot away.

ME: I can’t help it. It was a dark day when my friends found out that even poking in my general direction makes me the Pillsbury Doughboy.

DR. HYPER: Okay, now I’m going to poke your back.

ME: But the pain isn’t in my baaAAAAAAaack—well, what do you know.

DR. HYPER: The pain does refer sometimes.


After that I went to get an ultrasound, which didn’t show anything,* and so I got to have another test: the Making You Lie Perfectly Still In A Tube For Two Goddamn Hours While They Blast Radioactive Dye Into Your Veins Test. Your job is to lie down and try not to think about just how much your nose itches. It itches a lot.


RADIOLOGIST: Okay, you’re all done! How are you feeling?

ME: … I just got out of the TUBE, man!

RADIOLOGIST: You’ll get the report from your doctor in a bit.

ME: Just as long as it’s not a queen.


And yes, I did get the report, just a few minutes ago, and after analyzing it carefully to see the cause of my distress, Dr. Hyper concluded—let me tell you, modern medicine is great—“Fuck if I know.”

So my gallbladder looks fine, but let me tell you internet, it does not feel fine. Doctor Hyper’s got some other options, such as Taking An Antacid For A Couple Weeks or, if that doesn’t work, Carving Out The Damn Thing Anyway, Because Often That Does Seem To Fix Things Even If Nothing Else Shows Up On The Test. So depending on how things go in the next couple of weeks, I either get better, or I get surgery. Either way, I plan to whine about it quite a bit.

Aren’t you glad LJ’s back?


*But it was more pleasant than the last ultrasound I got checking for ovarian cysts, since this time I didn’t have to drink a quart of water half an hour before the scan just to make my bladder visible. Especially obnoxious when you’re in eighth grade and “half an hour before the scan” is “math class.” I damn near exploded before I even got all gelled up.

MOM: Your dad and I can’t stop reading about and watching footage of the Japanese tsunami. I don’t know … I guess in some way it feels like, if I worry about it, it will help somehow.

AMELIA: And thus was prayer born.


Anyone have any links to somewhere I can send money? The Captain Atom Containment Fund, perhaps? Or just Food And Blankets For Just Such An Emergency Foundation? I want to do more than just sit and worry, but it's hard to be useful from half a world away.