On West Egg

So, um. Things have happened again. I'm in Pennsylvania now, looking for employment because the boyfriend got an amazing job offer as a pastry chef making 30K a year with lots of room to move upwards. The apartment is way better than the one in Sandusky (better than the Orphanage, even, if just for the lack of any corners that aren't right angles, but for plenty of other reasons, too.)

So, yeah, there's some stress, but generally things are going well. Finally got my course credit transfers from BG to work out, and I actually have officially completed my degree at Miami. It's for Spring of '10, but it's still official.

Also, there's fic coming! I signed up for lbgtfest like two months ago, and I'm finally putting the story I have to post Monday (though there is one last amnesty day the Wednesday after) to the page. I mean, I was thinking the thing over and doing mental drafting the whole time, but I forgot that my stories always expand when I actually start writing them. I'm less than a thousand words in, and I've already created a minor subplot that I hadn't even considered before today.

This is probably going to be the longest story I've ever written (and in the Power Rangers fandom, of course), but it's also definitely getting me back in the swing of writing. Which, considering I intend to eventually go the the school in this town to get a grad degree in creative writing so I can be a professor, is definitely a good thing. As is the minor beta work I did for second_batgirl's story (Also MMPR, also going up Monday. We're excited).

So, flist, what's been going on with you that you think I should know? You can pretend I don't read LJ (even though I do) and go over things you've written about if you want, but I'd like to hear new stories, because stories are fun.

Hell, you can just tell me what you did the last time you had an interesting weekend, if you want. I just want to un-disappear from LJ (even if I have been commenting places, at least, even while I don't post)

Between the clock change last weekend and putting up Walking Theater's show this afternoon*, I'm kind of in disbelief that it's only 7PM right now. It's going to be so long before I go to bed...

Come over to the Orphanage, people!

*OMG THE SHOW WENT SO AWESOME THROUGH FROM BEST/SHORTEST TECH EVER THROUGH BOTH PERFORMANCES YAAAAAAAAAAAY!

Tonight was amaaaaaazing.

No details for you.

Yesterday was amaaaaaaazing.

So, work ends with a half-hour office meeting that, while fairly standard, was still a half hour of pay off the phones.

Anime was full of win, except for technical difficulties preventing Kino. Instead, Ashley was planning for a double bill of Gurren, but when we saw that Ghost Hunter was actually getting interesting, we decided to watch two episodes of that instead, to finish the arc.

Then the group all travel up to Phan Shin for our usual dinner, and something prompts me to tell someone about the time I played Apples to Apples as a drinking game. So it gets sort-of-decided that we're (all 11 of us at the table) heading to the Orphanage to play, and so we go. By way of Iggie's.

And we get there, and play (we lost some of the group on the way, but it's okay) and have fun, but aren't playing as a drinking game since shots of rum really don't work for most people without chaser, and there's none in the apartment.

Now, when we arrived at the apartment, Erick immediately yelled for me to come to his room, and I'm all "I have people with me" and he yells that I have to come there anyway. So I do, and he,Marie, and Jen are sitting on his bed, with a microphone attached to his laptop, recording something or other. Erick makes me say something. I have no idea what to say, say something stupid. Then they want to see who I have over. So I call the group in and all three go HOSHII- SO MANY PEOPLE.

At some point Ari shows back up and I miss it behind me, so I spazz a bit when she comes out from Erick's bedroom. All my guests are LOLing at drunk Erick because he is HYPER.

When the lost people arrive later, there's that mass confusion moment when people are having ideas of where to go and telling them to whoever's nearest, so nobody knows exactly what all the choices we're trying to decide between are.

Eventually, the tired/working-in-the-morning people head out to catch the last bus (meaning we're nearing 2:30 AM here), and the rest of us head to Kroger so I can buy stuff for other people and pick up some cola for my rum. This one guy whose name I cannot remember because I heard it not very much at all gets Sunny D just to have Sunny D. We don't know why.

As I unload my bag-'o-alcohol at the self-checkout, the night-shift guy (whose name I really need to learn - I see him all the time) just kinda nods and asks "Stocking up?" I just kinda laugh back, and when I scan the first bit, it of course asks me to show my ID, so I turn to walk over to him. "Nah, gotcha already."

Which is kind of weird, because I haven't really bought many drinks at Kroger over the summer, and usually, I do while the curly-haired girl is manning the self-checkouts. And I definitely do not look old enough to not be carded. I still get carded for cigs sometimes, and I only have to look eighteen for those.

Anyway, we get back, but a couple of the group lagged because one had a hurt leg, and there's some drama as she thinks we ditched her when it was more that we'd forgotten she wasn't right behind us. The Sunny D is with us, even though Sunny D guy was with the lagger.

So, we start drinking, decide to play Brawl. It's working out. I make raspberry rum and cola for a couple people who want to try it. They like. This reminds this one guy that he wanted to try the Sunny D with the raspberry rum because it would either be amazing or total shit.

IT IS AMAZING. I'M SORRY ASHLEY, THERE IS A NEW NECTAR OF THE GODS.

So we pass it around, so that everyone can try. It tastes familiar on top of the DELICIOUS and nobody can figure it out until Warren goes last and goes for "popsicles? No... PUSH POPS"

Everyone cheers massively, for he is right, and I barely hear the knock on the door.

It's a cop.

I shush everyone (quickly, since they see I'm about to open the door), and open the door.

"So, what are you guys doing?"

"Playing smash brawl."

The cop looks in, can see gamer-looking-types and controllers with cords stretching from couch to tv. "Good way to pass the time. Just keep it down, okay?"

"Alright."

Cop notices an empty bottle of club soda on the floor (It's been waiting to be recycled for bout two weeks at this point, but he doesn't know that.) "Just take it easy on the caffeine."

"Will do."

"You have a good night."

"You too." I close the door.

We brawl a bit more, drinks run out, it's getting late and most people want to go home, though the Orphanage is always open for guests to crash, so everyone heads out. Jen has been passed out in Erick's room since not long after we got back from Kroger (She didn't go with: Erick-Marie-Jen-Ari was a separate set from the rest of us until Ari joined later on), and Ari stays 'cause we've been chatting.

I turn on the oven for some fries, share some drama with Ari that I might not have shared totally sober (it's nothing I was told in confidence or that was based on supposition or anything, mind, just I usually suppress my more gossipy urges, I guess), and we have a nice discussion before she goes to bed on the couch and I head back to my room and, as I finish the fries, figure out what has been making my computer suck lately and fix it.

Oh, and over lunch I stopped at Kofenya and discovered what may be the most amazing fall drink ever. They call it A Walk in the Woods; it's a chai latte with a shot of espresso and Kahlua syrup and it is DELICIOUS.

To summarize: Discover awesome coffee/tea drink, get a half hour's pay for nothing, normal-but-still-epic anime club funtiems, SPONTANEOUS PARTY COMPLETE WITH COPS, fixed computer. Nice.

And these past couple weeks, The Orphanage has finally started becoming the place to hang out I'd hoped it would be from the start of the year. I've had people over as many nighs as not, so that's cool.

Erick just scurried into the living room, exclaimed that "JEN JUST DRUNK DIALED ME! OMG I HAVE TO CALL HER BACK," scurried back into his room, and is now talking to her.

I... I think I might have my very own R.

So, I've been working at RDI for about a month now. It's pretty easy, time-passing work, and I get 9 an hour for it. People are cool, too. Last paycheck all went to rent and barely-sustaining food, so having got this one today means I AM NO LONGER DIRT-POOR. (I am still poor)

People are back in Oxford. I helped people move in over the weekend, and not Marie has gone from the Orphanage. I mostly just spend time away, since the living room has been rearranged now that her sleeping space is no longer needed, so the whole apartment is kind of different. The big gaping hole where the microwave used to be doesn't help matters, either.

The other effect of people being back in Oxford was that Uptown is no longer peaceful. All of a sudden a get a bit of why townies come to resent the university.

Oh, and the saga of the run-down house just before Uptown continues, with is having WHOLESALE DISSAPEARED over the summer. The vegetation is now working its way back to the height it once had, my first year, but it's a way to go.

Marie (to Matt, out of nowhere): You said she was sixteen. You lie!


Later:
Marie: It was that girl from Pokemon!

M: So, why did Rita never enlist Bulk and Skull?

[pause why this is pondered]

T: Because... because they're the only people more incompetent than she is?

"You know how people make more people and it's all just one giant person? Well, when the person who made us all dies, we're fucked."

"They day god is in everyone. God is in that old lady down the street. God is in Britney Spears. God is in Michael Jackson. God is in Aretha Franklin."

"[Pretend that] your foot was asleep and they knew that and that's why they were torturing you."

Okay, so.

First: Awesome things are shaping up in the apartment for base camp tiem during Kings Island. Tiny preview: Toku OPs.

Second: OUR TOASTER OVEN MAKES EXCELLENTLY NOMMABLE QUESADILLAS (CULTURAL AUTHENTICITY=VAGUE BUT STILL).

Third: I, completely randomly, decided that what I really need to do is watch every episode of the plot-continuity-present seasons of Power Rangers, so I've got a torrent of the first six seasons (through In Space) including the two movies (even though the first is totes AU and only the Turbo one, which I haven't seen, is in continuity) plus another of Lost Galaxy (which was a weird transition season between polot-continuity and sentai-type resets each year). I told the torrent to only download the rist season and the movies to start. Naturally, the movies, the LARGEST FILES BY FAR HOSHII- were the first to finish.

Also, Power Rangers seasons are ungodly long. Sixty episodes in the first season you guys. Sixty. And the Green Ranger shows up in ep 17. I recall it having taken longer, but apparently I'm mistaken.

...Once I'm done with this I'm probably going to wind up grabbing Lightspeed Rescue (First America-only ranger. I have to look at that now that I know) and Time Force (Last season I saw any of, and there were totally some serious subexts going on, and having the whole season as well as more advanced ability to examine texts will make for an interesting intellectual exersize).

And then once I get there, I'm probably gonna be like "eh, might as well check out the New Zealand seasons."

It's hopeless, innit?