Oh, Muire...

You know, the handling of Kurt's father on Glee is really well done. He's not comfortable with his son being gay and doesn't know how to relate to Kurt at all, but he's as good a father as he knows how to be. He tries.

It's good to see.

I don't remember where I was the other day, but I heard "Nightshift" playing in the overhead music / muzak.

Wistfully, I jammed a little to the music. Quietly and softly, because the song makes me think wistful, quiet, and soft thoughts.

It's right up near the top of my list of the all time most beautiful songs ever.

Ever.

It's one you want to turn down the lights, maybe close your eyes, and just listen. Let it soak over you.


Gonna be some sweet sounds coming down
On the nightshift
I bet you're singing proud
Oh, I bet you'll pull a crowd
Gonna be a long night, it's gonna be all right
On the nightshift
Oh you found another home, I know you're not alone
On the nightshift

That was the sound I made in appreciation of Steven Brust dropping a Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference into Yendi. Naaaah!


Well played, sir. Well played.

Went bowling Friday night.  Another solid outing. 

For as much as I don't really like organizing things, I got an excellent turnout.  14 people.  Much better than what I got for the tennis events.  A good time was had by all.

My scores: 118 - 135 - 96

Compared to previous events:

2009
January: 96 - 113 - 134
March: 94 - 120 - 108
November: 118 - 135 - 96

Yeah, fairly consistent.

this bridge was written to make you feel smittener
with my sad picture of girl getting bitterer
can you extract me from my plastic fantasy
i didnt think so but im still convinceable
will you persist even after i bet you
a billion dollars that i'll never love you
will you persist even after i kiss you
goodbye for the last time
will you keep on trying to prove it?
i'm dying to lose it...
i want it
i want you
i want a coin operated boy.

-The Dresden Dolls: "Coin Operated Boy"

That is all.

I expect I'll have some things to say about the weekend trip to see V in SC and the corn maze (a REAL corn maze, mind you), but I also got paid this past Friday.  Payday means throwing the budgeted amount towards my savings account...growing it slowly while working on the other things I need and want to work on. 

Got my first thousand bucks. 

It's not where I want or need to be, and the pay cuts this year have really slowed things down, but it's a start. 

One down, sixteen to go. 


The 101 list is updated. 

Morgan holding a baby! 

Hotch cracking the teeniest of smiles and THEN cracking a joke. 

JJ: You're smiling
Hotch: Gas.

That was delightful. 

I went to a new eye doctor today.  A year or two ago my company switched vision insurers and delightful doc at the Wal Mart optical I had gone to for 5 or 6 years was no longer covered.  Oh noes!  Because I tend to do my appointments in September, I had a full year's worth of contacts which I apparently stretched into two years and I didn't go last year.  I was too lazy to find a new doc while I had plenty of contacts left. 

Plus, last year X went to a new eye doctor in the Galleria in Edina and I remember stuff cost more than we originally expected (probably because it is the freaking galleria), even factoring in the insurance.  I figured the new insurance plan was just crap. 

Well, now I'm on my last pair.  I was well overdue.  Found a place in Chanhassen.  Got my eyes dilated (which led to an inability to see my cell phone for about an hour+, but left me okay to drive home), and I have a trial pair.  It's a different kind of contact from what I normally wear, so they want to see if I like it before I order new boxes. 

I figured out the insurance end of it, though.  The co-pays are the same as the previous policy.  I think X had something funky when she got a glasses AND a contact exam - which is kind of the same thing, except that the Galleria place probably just listed them differently than the average place.  Regardless, I specified contacts only.  My glasses are fine. 

The deal is that I get $120 towards exam and contacts.  $39 is the exam, so the rest is contacts.  The box of contacts of the trial pair (and we'll see how this goes) is something like $55, which doesn't get me very far.  I normally ordered a year's worth at a time.  If I order all four boxes, I'll be out quite a bit, but supposedly there is a mail in rebate of $60.  X and I did well on rebates in the past, but if I can confirm what my old style costs in Chan AND at Wal Mart (and what the new stuff costs at Wal Mart), I can probably just get a box or two under insurance and then hopefully pay $20-$30 per box as needed at Wal Mart.

That's the tentative plan.  I've got to check on the cost breakout, though. 

I do sort of miss the old days where for $35 I get the exam and twelve pairs of contacts.  

Hmmm!

The things you overhear at work… 

I heard a story being told over the cubicle walls of a guy who went on a trip to…somewhere in California.  I don’t remember where, I missed the beginning of the story.  I guess he was on some beach just having a relaxing good time when he sees this camera bag on a bench.  Nobody is around it.   

You see where this is going, don’t you? 

He looks around.  Waits.  Doesn’t see anybody looking for it.  After a while he goes over, checks it out.  It’s a digital camcorder of some sort.  Looks semi-expensive.  He leaves it, but continues to eyeball it for another while.   

Eventually he goes back to it and picks it up, takes it back to where he was relaxing.  Waits for another half hour or an hour.  That’s storytime.  Real-life time is probably eight minutes.  I’m not feeling charitable right now.  Maybe five minutes.   

Regardless, he said it was about an hour of waiting.  Nobody came looking for it.  He said that there was a restaurant nearbyish, but not really, and he *thought* about bringing it in there for the lost and found, but how would he know the person ever went to the restaurant.   

So he takes it. 

Brings it back to his hotel room and checks out what is on the camcorder.  Oh, it’s nothing important.  Just a dad and his kid.  The kid is jumping on a hotel bed, having fun.  He deletes the video. 

The end of the story finds this guy explaining that….finding...the camera is like the vacation almost paid for itself.  Plane tickets were $XXX.xx, and hotel, but then finding(!) the camera almost made up for what he spent for the vacation.   

Finding the camera…

The justification of it… 

I am absolutely disgusted right now.  I don’t know how you justify that to yourself, how you think that doing that is somehow okay because you “waited”. 

I barely know the guy, just enough to know who he is, but I know enough now to know that he is nobody I want to know. 

Today has been a double shot of "Oh Reid" and "Oh Reid's mother" on Criminal Minds today.  That would be "The Instincts" and "Memoriam", for those keeping score at home. 

And then I noticed something that I didn't pick up at first: The woman who plays Reid's mother is the crazy coach of the Cheerios on Glee.  One might guess, but she's quite a bit more sympathetic on Criminal Minds. 


Earlier today I went to the Twin Cities Book Festival.  I wanted to go to Alison McGhee's reading.  It was for one of her children's books, but McGhee is one of my favorites and even though I'd really like another adult (or young adult) novel from her, it would still be cool to see her do the reading.  Yeah, I was late for that.  Completely missed McGhee.  I *think* I saw her walking out, but I wasn't quite sure so I didn't say anything.  A little bummed about that.  Not that I really have anything to say, ever, to anyone, but it's McGhee.  Probably just would have said how much I enjoyed her books, Rainlight and All Rivers Flow the Sea especially.  All Rivers Flow to the Sea is quite moving and heartbreaking.  

I did get a chance to chat up Alan DeNiro a bit at the Rabid Transit table.  Seemed like a nice guy.  I bought one of the chapbooks, but I'm really looking forward to his debut novel Total Oblivion, More or Less.  DeNiro was chuffed that I paid for the chapbook with six James Polk dollar coins. 


In other news, I spent two hours in a "Virtual Waiting Room" this evening in order to buy some Twins playoff tickets.  I finally got through, so I'll be going to my first Major League Baseball playoff game tomorrow night.  Twins v. Yankees.  Two of my three favorite teams.  It'll be really tough for the Twins to sweep the next three games and make it to the ALCS, but if they can win tomorrow night I'll also be going to the game one Monday since I had to buy a two game block. 

Sadly, I couldn't get a three seat block of the $12 seats (upper deck outfield), so I had to pay a bit extra and get $30 seats (lower deck, left field).  It'll do. 

I'm rather excited. 

I reserve the right to change my mind about how I feel, but regarding this, I didn't notice on Thursday that it would have been my anniversary.  I noticed a couple days before, and a couple days after. 

Weird.

I don't have the foggiest about what I think about not thinking about it. 

Morgan: Garcia...I'll tell you what you are to me.  You're my God given solace.  Woman, you promise me one thing...whatever happens, don't you ever stop talking to me. 

Garcia: I can't right now cause I'm mad at you.

Morgan: I can wait.  

Netflix is shipping me that first disc of Criminal Minds Season 4 and it is set to arrive tomorrow.  I had about a week left on my patience-o-meter before I would have to decide how I felt about using alternate means to watch those first four episodes.  Now I don't have to.  

But - thank you for the two of you who DID offer me those alternate means - because I really had no idea what a good option would be. 

Today is apparently Joe-Day at Fantasy Magazine. 

I've got two articles up.

The first is the article on the season finale of Eureka.

The second is on the season premiere of Flash Forward.

That's crazy talk!

I’ll tell you how I feel this week by the end of the week.  Unlike that Wallflowers song, I really do feel nothing.  This Thursday would have been my five year anniversary, and most of the time I don’t think about it and most of the time I feel nothing…not empty, just…I don’t feel anything about it.  It’s neutral.  In the past the way the past should mostly be.  It’s mostly how it should mostly be.  Does that make sense?   

And yet…I haven’t heard from X since…July?  She didn’t respond to a request for a Roo-port, or to birthday wishes in August.  That’s a move-on thing, I imagine, but we had occasional communication up until that point and then abruptly nothing.  Shrug.  Thinking about certain things does still hurt.  About Balou, about trying new burger and pizza joints, about Disney.  About the comfortable home existence.  The routine.  It wasn’t fulfilling (except for Balou), but even typing this does hurt.  A bit.  Which means that I lied in the first paragraph because it’s all tied together.  Right?  Not feeling anything about this week doesn’t mean that I don’t feel something.   

But I don’t feel lonely.  I have a good long-distance relationship with V, and I’m comfortable figuring out my new routine and figuring out what and who I want to be.  That’s probably what that 1001 day list is about, too.  It’s just… 

I don’t know.  Depending on the year we’d either be just leaving for Disney, at Disney, or preparing to leave for Disney.  Looking at the calendar, we’d probably have left this past Friday and stayed through the following Friday (the second), so we don’t leave on our anniversary.  There’s a chance we’d have left as late as Sunday depending on schedule and budget.  So, I think this is one of the things I need to get past, get past the first year in five years I’m not having the Fall Anniversary vacation (this would be trip #6, if there was a trip).   

The year has gone by fairly fast.  In just three months (or so) it’ll be the annidivorceary.  Weird.   

So…yeah.  I don’t know how I feel about this.  Generally healthy, not torn up, but there are moments… 

Ask me about this on Sunday.  I might have an answer.   

Then again, maybe I won’t. 

In other news, I rather like the daleks and will be quite happy every time they happen to show up on Dr. Who. 

Exterminate!  Exterminate!  Exterminate!

Or, my new favorite...

Do not blaspheme!  Do not blaspheme!  Do not blaspheme! 

I need the next disc of Criminal Minds NOW!!!!!

Aaaaaah! 

Oh.  Hi.  I just watched "Lo-Fi", the third season finale of Criminal Minds.  That I knew what the major event of that episode was in no way lessened the tension and the impact of said event.  That was a damn fine episode.  I also don't know the fallout, though I'm fairly sure everyone survives...well, everyone actually on the team.  I'm less sanguine about JJ's baby daddy.  Or about the state of JJ's fetus.  

This is also the last point I had any spoilers about.  I knew certain things in advance because I never thought I'd watch the show.  So Gideon leaving and Garcia getting shot and Elle shooting a suspect and leaving the team and the van explosion were not surprises.   (Sorry if I just spoiled stuff - but trust me, knowing doesn't lessen a thing!)  But now I don't know.  And it's not on Hulu. 

The next disc is #1 in my Netflix queue, but it is currently at Long Wait.  This doesn't really mean anything because just before they shipped Dr Who instead it was at Now, so maybe when they get the disc back on Monday they'll be ready to ship me some Criminal Minds. 

I don't want to wait, y'all. 

Aaaaah!