rainbow sparkle pony explosion.

 Ah, DW/LJ.  Just because I don't post doesn't mean I'm not around - I STILL haven't decided where to blog for good, so there's that.  Although I like my Tumblr.  

Speaking of Tumblr - my new favorite one ever: Unfuck Your Habitat.  It's unbelievably motivating.  It's also given me less threatening, more forgiving language to use when I'm facing the chaos that is my home - the house is fucked, and I need to unfuck it.  Unfucking is a gradual process, but the best part is that every little bit of unfucking helps.  Also quite motivating for homework, so I hear.  Go check it out!  The person who runs it has the BEST GIFS ever.  And that's saying something on Tumblr.

Meridan and I started watching Supernatural.  Well, I started, he allowed it to distract him from League of Legends, and now he's even more obsessed than I am.  God, I love that show.  The men are pretty, and the gore is gory, and the angels are mostly downright SEXY.  Oh, Castiel.  I heart you.

Suffice to say, our Roku has become our new third partner in the relationship.  And every threesome is better than the last, yo.  Netflix & Hulu for TV shows & movies, Crunchyroll for anime, Pandora for music to clean to, and Plex for watching things off of our computer on the TV with its fancy media server thing.  It's a good thing.  

We're working at Emerald City Comic Con this year.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to attend, but I still wanted to be part of it, so I figured this was a decent idea.  We get in free the whole weekend, and all it requires is a 6 hour shift each day.  No biggie.  I've done worse at other cons and still had to pay to get in!  WTF.

My whole life has become paperwork.  Seriously.  It's a pain in the ass. 

I still miss my mom.  Some days I walk out into the backyard with Meena and I look outside and think, there's no way in hell she's actually dead.  She's just... gone.  Missing.  Absent.  The overpriced box on the dining room bookshelf would beg to differ, but it's still not real to me.  Speaking of boxes, are you aware just how hard it is to decide where to put an urn?  Are you also aware that it's just damn weird to have an urn in the house?  And you have to be reverent, but you don't want to call attention to it too much - it's fucking weird.  Also, I didn't even want the urn.  My stepmom bought it, so I'm using it, but what the hell do I do with it after I scatter her ashes this summer?  Makes no sense!  Why couldn't we just keep the ashes in the box they came in?  Jesus.

Yeah.  Weird.

 Being a homeowner changes your perspective on things.  Now, the house is full of broken shit.  Well, it was full of broken shit before, but now I'm way more aware of it.

Part of the deal with my father is that he will supply all materials to fix whatever's broken in the house.  We just have to either fix it ourselves or figure out whether someone needs to be hired for the work.  The biggest job that I can see that needs to be done this year is the bathroom - the floor is sinking in underneath the toilet, and the shower is missing tiles and looking disgusting.  We already know what we want to do to fix it, but since it's a big job, Meridan is reading up on plumbing to prepare.  

Our first thing to tackle is the broken oven, I think.  It needs a part that's about $150, my dad is going to get it and Meridan has to install it.  Meridan is being really awesome about all this - I think he's enjoying feeling like a homeowner and feeling like he can help my dad out, who has helped us so much in the past. 

I never really liked this house growing up.  I hated the little bedrooms and the broken shit.  But I feel like, now I can redecorate entirely, and it'll become like a new house.  And we're going to sell it as soon as the market improves, anyway.  Meridan and I definitely don't want to stay in Lacey for good.  Noooo.  But while he's going to school, it's a great place to live.

I hope I get to start my bachelor's in the fall, too.  I've been putting off taking this one last class for so much time, and for so many reasons.  It's time to just get it done.

In exciting gadget news, we just got a Roku player.  We got the new teeny $50 one, and it is FANTASTIC.  Not only can I do Netflix and all that other jazz with it (Crunchyroll anime, yay!) but you can use it as a media server to stream from your computer.  It's really easy to set up.  And because of the connectivity, it works with new or ancient TVs all the same.  The picture is really great.  I'm thinking about getting one for the living room and dumping the cable entirely.  I highly recommend this little thing.  The fancier versions have USB slots and extra memory and stuff, but they don't need it.  The cheapest one is perfect.

Also, we're going to Sakuracon.  I am pee-my-pants excited - it's been years.  And I miss my Shen.

 DUDES.  Meridan is at the bar watching a football game with his dad (go Huskies) and I have no current work assignments due.  I also have little to no crafting lined up, cause I'm waiting for the big Joann's yarn sale next weekend.  Guess what I have planned?

I'm gonna play WoW ALL BY MYSELF.  

This is quite the moment for me.  I hope I can handle it.  Yeah, I totally can.

Then, later, more romance novels and ginger ale.  

You wish you had my life.

 Y'all might as well get used to the fact that I only show up here around deadline time.  It's impressive what you can come up with to do when you're busy trying to not do work.

So, I'm on my second freelance assignment.  I can pretty much just keep doing this until I die, it seems - I got excellent feedback for my work, was paid promptly (although waiting for money to clear through oDesk is like waiting for paint to dry), and they handed over a new assignment almost immediately.  Work work work.

However.  I am lazy.  So there you go.

Do I actually get to call myself a freelance writer now?  I was wondering that earlier.  I changed my Facebook profile (you know that makes it official, yo), and it made me feel a bit shiny, but I just don't know if I can go that far yet.  Depending on how long I do this, I will have to claim it for tax reasons - maybe that makes it official?  I dunno.  I'm a dork.

God, shut up Moni, go back to work.

Who doesn't love lists?  For serious.

- My mom broke her foot.  She can't put any weight on it for at least 4 weeks.  I'm entirely sure I will kill her out of frustration before that, though, so that's all good.  It's pretty fucking clear at this point where I got my stubbornness and pigheaded independent streak from.  Yeah.

- Meridan and I are STILL playing a lot of WoW.  It has been well worth the subscription so far, and I plan on continuing to pay for it, at least until January.  They just introduced some option where you can make a piece of armor or a weapon take on the physical characteristics of another item, meaning that I can finally put pretty robes back on my shaman physically while getting to keep all my sweet mail stats.  It pretty much solves the only problem I had with the game.

- Since I quit my job, I've been pondering the whole money thing.  We're going to be fine what with financial aid, at least for the rest of the year.  However, I really wanted to come up with something to do with my time.  I thought about getting back into the whole KGB/ChaCha thing, and I looked into it, but the pay had gotten even shittier since the last time I did it.  Not worth my fucking time.  After some research into freelancing, I became a contractor with oDesk, figuring I could do some data entry or transcription at home.  There are other freelancing sites out there, but the feedback about oDesk was overwhelmingly good, and I gave it a try.  So far, so good - I've actually found out that I'm pretty qualified to do most of the writing jobs - after only about a week as an active member, I got offered a SEO web content job writing blurbs for Ask.com.  The pay is actually not all that bad, either.  We'll see how it goes.

- Related to that new job offer - apparently, it usually takes people months to get that first oDesk job.  So I'm feeling pretty fucking proud of myself at the moment.  I knew brushing off those writing skills could come in handy.

- Yet another thing related to oDesk - it's pretty damn nice being a contractor instead of an employee.  I'm self-employed, I'm my own boss, and I have clients rather than employers.  I really, really love working from home - my social anxiety has gotten worse over the years and my ADHD really benefits from being able to isolate myself while I work in comfort.  

- The last thing I'll say that's oDesk related - it's really pretty sick how many people are out there looking for outsource work, willing to be paid $1.00 an hour for things I would never take less than $10 for.  It makes me sad, because there are clients who target people like that - they specifically look for contractors in East Asia and list horribly low suggested bids.  Fuck that shit.  

- My baby brother turns 17 on a week from Tuesday.  SO OLD.  I changed that little punk's diapers.  YEARS of summers sacrificed to free babysitting.  And now he's 17 and in college.  Fuck that shit.  He has to write a little blurb for his English portfolio about someone who's helped him through his life, and he picked me.  Goddamnit, I love that stupid kid.

- Meridan has all the way been accepted into his pharmacy tech program.  He will be a certified technician by the end of the summer!  Basically, this means that by the fall, he will likely have a good full time job with benefits.  Poverty Time is nearly over, and it's awfully nice to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  

List over.

 SHEN.

You.  Me.  Any other weirdos who want to join in.

MY LITTLE PONY COSPLAY.  EMERALD CITY COMIC CON.

I am for reals, I will make Meridan dress as Spike if I have to.

DO NOT FUCK WITH ME ON THIS.  YOU WANT TO BE PINKIE PIE.  YOU WAAAAANT IT.

Mkay?  Mkay.

It's not as if I was busy anyways, what with the college and the job and all.

Bring it on.

LJ Idol - Season Eight Signups

 ALEPH OH MY GOD.

Natalie Portman is fucking naming her son Aleph.  THIS IS FRIGGING AMAZING.

Link HERE.

The best part is, everyone's gonna be all 'oh man, another celeb comes up with a crazy-ass name for her kid', but for those of us who know you, it's like, yeah!  Plenty of people are named Aleph!  

The closest I get to such fame is when people mispronounce my name and call me Madonna.

 Well, this is weird.

We're mostly moved into my father's house now.  We slept here last night - well, Meridan is still sleeping, but I had to give up on account of having really weird dreams and terrible allergy issues.  I think it's having to do with sleeping on the floor... cause guess what?  Had to throw away yet ANOTHER bed.  We tried to move it yesterday and discovered that the entire underside was moldy, wooden frame and all.  We had two futons stacked up, and the top one was fine, but the rest had to go.  I'm displeased.

That's what I get for living in swampland, I suppose.  Ugh.

Anyways.  I have to make the best of it, I guess.  Other than the bed issue, it's really nice here - it's a split level, and we have the majority of the bottom to ourselves.  I have no oven or stovetop down here, and no freezer, but other than that, it's really nice.  Far nicer than any apartment I've ever had.  I guess we'll see.

Finn has to go to my mom's, and I am insanely depressed about this.  I don't even wanna get into it, so I won't.  Suffice to say, when we get our trailer, hopefully soon, she can come back.

It's really squeaky and noisy when people move around upstairs.  Awesome.  I bet it's my dad clunking around up there.

Graduation is this Friday.  I chose not to walk, owing to the fact that I technically have 4 credits left to do in the fall and it also felt a bit silly to walk for an AA, even though I worked hard for it.  I'm glad it's pretty much done, though.  On to the BA this winter.

Loves, my dears.  I will likely be updating a lot more this summer, seeing as how I finally frigging get a break.  Only work!  What a luxury.  :)