I am part of the first generation that grew up with computers. Even in my ghetto Northtown elementary school we had Apple IIs to play Oregon Trail on. Hell, I've been online for almost 15 years. Yet, I also remember using a typewriter. When I was in fifth (sixth?) grade, my title page - Bats by Me - took six pages to type! Oh how I love the word processor. I also remember learning how to navigate a library with a card catalog. I loved those golden wooden drawers stuffed full of cards - ever so slightly musty smelling even in the desert.

So it should come as no surprise the way my birthday wishes came in. My husband e-mailed me at work. My mom called me at home - her cell phone to my digital answering machine. My little sister sent me a text message. My older one tagged me on Facebook.

I know I'm supposed to be too young to marvel at how much the way we communicate has changed, let alone quickly those changes took place. But I do. Of course, I'm young enough to enjoy it too.

The best part of my birthday was my honey coming home with these:



Have I mentioned I love this man?

Thank you, leianora and melusinahp. I am feeling much better now. What can I say? How can you feel down after getting a bouquet like that?

Today is my birthday and I am feeling like crap. Just down and grungy and ignored and unloved. And since I have an LJ, I thought I'd whine here.

Feel free to skim right on by.

I had to work today (and tonight!) so that dictated my day. A massive downtime on a major application that got jacked twice overnight is the perfect way to spend my b-day. At least I'll be on vacation next week when shit really hits the fan with that bugger.

And, you know what, I want to whine more, but I just don't have it in me.

Belated happy holidays, early mass happy b-day to the f-list.

I'll find another outlet to entertain myself.

Look, I know most of you dwell in places that have actual winter weather. I don't. I *like* that about living in Vegas. I didn't see snow - real snow - until I was 19. I made a trip to Mt. Charleston to see what the big deal was.

I should have just waited a decade or so.

This is the view from my patio over the last hour or so:

( Read more... )

Weather is now dominating local news. According to the talking heads on NBC, it hasn't snowed like this in my lifetime. Median snowfall of three inches across the valley, some parts to get 6 inches.

What. The. Fuck.

I don't have the coping skills for this.

Update - they've closed McCarran Airport. Again, WTF?

Update 2 - CCSD is actually considering a snow day tomorrow if the snow keeps up. A snow day! Again, not in my lifetime. And some guy on the news was (successfully!) making a snowball.

The last time it was fully assembled was in 1996. It's so large, so massive, that now, only pieces can be seen, be comprehended. I remember seeing a piece when I was in high school; I was 15, just shy of 16. My mom was involved with AFAN and made sure to take the time to see the quilt when it came by. It made the impression, I suppose, it was supposed to make. Each rectangle a life. Highly stylized, highly individual. And yes, I cried. I cried over patches of cloth made by people I didn't know for people I never knew who were dead. It was so inadequate; I think it was one of the few times I can recall being so moved, especially in the expected manner.

It's comforting to be deluded into thinking that because I no longer see or hear about AIDS all the time that progress is being made, that the stigma of being HIV positive has been overcome. I know better. It's not Mbeki's claims that washing after sex will prevent infection or anything like that.

It's remembering how people whispered at my last job about the two transsexual women who worked there, crude comments dissecting their sex lives, like only GLBT get HIV. It's every person I used to get high with, sharing needles with some, but not others, like selection will keep you safe. And it's being quietly thankful that Obama won because abstinence-only education doesn't work.

I'm young enough, old enough, to have grown up with AIDS as a real, constant threat. I want to have hope. And so I remember, this day and all days.

Is realizing that the topic you've chosen for your regression analysis paper - the one that you're struggling to find a working model for, the one that has almost convinced you that you're too stupid to study economics and statistics anymore - is a topic that your professor wrote and published a paper on five years ago.

I'd scream, but that would be counter-productive at this point.

and gave me just what I needed, when I needed it.

I was walking to class this morning, angry and depressed and drained, muttering about how much I hated the world being able to slack off while I nobly carried on. Alone. In the cold. With the wolves howling at the door. Yeah, pretty much a self-indulgent (not totally unearned) pity party.

It was a bright, sunny morning and you could just feel the clouds of aging angst I brought with me.

I was upset about work.

I was upset about my group projects.

I was upset because I haven't read for pleasure in two months.

I was upset because I haven't had the energy to write for two months.

My life had lost all its fun - and perspective.

-cue dramatic rumble of thunder and sobbing violins-

To myself, I moaned, "I feel like everything bright and sparking has been taken out of me."

-crash of thunder and a quiet chime-

My inner child, in adorable toddler form - complete with pigtails - holds up her hands. She's holding a small crystalline cluster with the points tinted a pale blue and every facet shooting rainbows.

I'd been given back something bright and sparkling.

One of the classes I'm taking this semester is marketing. For the record, I'm an MIS and Econ double major. Neither of these majors really prepares me for a career that invovles dealing with other people in any way, let alone selling them shit.

That's part of the joy. I like computer. I like IT. I even like troubleshooting. I also like research and analysis and wading up to the hips in data.

In my stats class yesterday, I was all bouncy and happy as my professor went through the proofs on basic statistical formulas (and, sadly, confirmed I really do have to take calculus somewhere down the line, even if it's not required). The rest of the class - bored, irritated, confused. Me, enjoying the light bulb sensation and a little let down when he promised not to do proofs anymore.

But I digress.

Marketing. The American Evil^TM. The ultimate flaw with a market-based economy - we have to consume a variety of things. In order to know what to consume, we have to know its out there. Hence, marketing.

No matter how many times I am told that marketing is about customer orientation, I will not believe. Commercials that insult my intelligence, condescending sales people who assume I do not met their demographics, and tray-liner ads that simply waste space in my mailbox, newspaper, then landfills do not speak to me as a consumer.

So, no, I'm not really enjoying the whole Marketing experience.

Still, learning how it all works does provide some amusing links, like this one, the world of white trash dolls. I wouldn't go quite that far, but it always amazes me the shit people buy.

Or this one, featuring bad translations from international marketing efforts. I was a bit disappointed that Chevy Nova turned out to be a myth, because it's such a fun little story.

Anyway, I have more reading for the most disorganized class ever - that would be Business Writing, which gives it the win just in case another, equally disorganized class comes along - and 5 *cries* episodes of Naruto on my hard drive now that I'd like to watch this weekend. And laundry. And bathrooms to clean. And dinner to cook. And I still haven't watched the Aussie Open Men's Final.

I need a break and it's only three weeks in.

Or, alternatively titled "Sheepage come hither"...

I missed the whole "36 questions" thing, but I've done one similar to that in the past and, since it still holds true now, use that instead.

(side note - can you recycle a meme like that?)

And, yeah, I signed up:


Get your own valentinr

Other than that, I'm afraid I work too much, spend too much time cursing the volume of reading I need to do to stay caught up for all six classes (how did I fall behind in the second week?!), and wishing I could do the whole academic thing without the full time job. Even if I wasn't working and studying too much, well...wishes, fishes, Bubba Gump shrimp. Little things do bother me, though; I'm very sad that I cannot do the omniocular challenge this month. I had this awesome bunny forming for Ocean's Eleven and how Ron *had* to be Danny Ocean...

Then I humanely released the bunny into the wild. I had to read 12 chapters for different classes this weekend, take notes for about half of those chapters, work through hours of finance problems, and take an online quiz. I don't have time for nifty bunnies.

So, yeah, what little remains of life, she is good.

Gods above and below, I miss playing video games. And watching anime. I have a freaking month of Naruto fansubs sitting unwatched on my hard drive right now.

*weeps for what is lost*

For those who've forgotten, I live in Nevada and yesterday was our presidential caucus. As this was a new experience for me (and Nevada), I took the opportunity to chronicle the experience. Below the cut: an in the scene look at caucusing.

( Beware the caucus-y goodness contained within )

Title: Circle and Spiral
Author: deianaera
Rating: PG
Characters: Dudley Dursley, Vernon Dursley, Petunia Dursley, Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley
Warnings: None
Summary: What happened to the Dursleys after the end of Deathly Hallows?
Length: ~9500 words
Author's notes: Written for omniocular's August challenge - prompts 141 and 184. Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy.

( Part I )

( Interlude: Letters )

( Part II )