so sleepy. so very very sleepy. i’m in dire need of more caffeine. jolt would be ideal, but i wouldn’t turn down [for example] a can of whoop ass, i have to say. speaking of jolt: check this out - select ‘true love’ from action shots, and then tell me who yo daddy is. er, momma. or something. i think it’s an indication of just how undeniably geeky i am that i’m so much more psyched to be on the thinkgeek site than i was to be on, for example, gothic babe of the week.

speaking of geek, james [this is yet another different james, now - that makes three] and i had a bit of a copyleft shopping extravaganza last night - i’m getting this shirt and this one, while he’s going for this sweet thang as well as this classy number. how much does that rock? and yes, i still plan to get a couple of pictures taken in my chicks dig unix shirt. oooo, and it looks like thinkgeek’s just added some new features - i’m seeing a wishlist option here that i haven’t seen before. where’s my debit card?

heehee. so i work in this big open office space which i share with like four other people [on this floor]. but what’s cool is that my little corner is all kind of separate and everything - i’ve got like i’ve got like three walls, with the open side being behind me, but the only thing back there is a door to the fire exit. so for all intents and purposes i have my own little officelette. and what makes it even more rakwin is that the light over my desk just went out, so now my corner is all dark and gloomy. w00t.

i redownloaded aim the other day - i don’t remember if i mentioned this yesterday - and it’s cool because i’m finally getting in touch with a bunch of people i haven’t spoken to in a long time. becky, most notably - my best friend from high school, but we’ve sort of lost touch a bit since we graduated. it was great talking to her again, and it looks like we’ll be hanging out when i go to massachusetts to have thankgiving with my dad, so yay. the downside of course being that, like most aol products, aim is annoying as fuck. but ah well. i’ll probably deal with it for like another month or something and then get all frustrated again and delete it.

other cool tidbit from last night: jamz0r and i went to generation records after we got coffee and munchies at reggio, and i finally picked up a copy of vnv nation’s advance and follow. i’ve had it on mp3 for a while but it’s nice to have the actual cd, finally. i also got that skinny puppy singles collection that was released last year, just cause like… i can. heh.

i’m listening to the cure - boys don’t cry right now. it reminds me of high school; i’m not sure why. possibly because it was on so many of the mix tapes i made to listen to in my car when i was driving to class in the morning. absurdly early in the morning, mind you. i had classes starting at 6:30 or 6:40 senior year so that i could fit more courses into my schedule. i seem to recall liking senior year though, in general. but that could just be because now that i’m out of school it doesn’t seem nearly as bad. having a car was a big plus, even if it was that shitbox of a volvo.

i didn’t really do anything last night, which was actually kind of nice. i haven’t had much free time lately and what i have had has been fairly planned out - not that i dislike that so much as it’s just cool to take a break once in a while. after work i went to bloomingdale’s [ugh, but it's only a couple of blocks from my office and i needed to go bra shopping] and then headed home. talked to people in #thorns and on aim for a bit - i just re-downloaded aim yesterday and everyone’s been like “whoa, where the hell have you been?”

i actually managed to get some sleep last night, which was reeeeeeally nice, although i don’t seem to be any less tired this morning than i usually am. for whatever reason. the office is eerily empty this morning - it’s working its way towards ten am, and there’s only one other person on this floor, whereas there’s usually like five. my boss is on vacation this week, too. not that i’m complaining.

um… yes. i’m not very talkative this morning, sorry

so i have this apartment in brooklyn, right? and my rent is really low. even for brooklyn. and while i’m all for paying as little as possible, there are [unfortunately] specific reasons why my landlord doesn’t take more of my money every month. one such reason lives in the apartment directly below me - this rancid hag known unaffectionately as ‘the crazy lady’. not that kind of goofy harmless crazy that one often encounters in the outer boroughs [would that it were so!], this creature is downright obnoxious. examples, you ask? oh baby, don’t let me commence. it turns out she’s the one who’s been stealing my mail [if you recall the saga of cdnow, the reference there should be clear] - except that she won’t admit that she’s stealing it. she gives it to me weeks later, opened and/or damaged in some way and spins me a yarn involving her heroic [if by heroic you mean "crazy"] self beating off a pack of russians who just would not take no for an answer as far as my copy of the soundtrack to the nightmare before christmas was concerned. yeah. that’s what i said. but so then also she’s taken to cornering me as i leave my apartment every morning to go to work - she hovers around outside, waiting for me to come out. there’s no escaping her vile clutches, and she doesn’t seem to understand the phrase “i can’t talk to you right now, i have to catch my train or i will be late for work.” the most recent of these little encounters was this very morning, and during our chat i was, among other things, accused of a) being a prostitute ["honey, you always got some guy comin in and out and i tell you this house just ain't like that. people round here starting to think maybe you're a professional or sumfin, you know what i'm sayin?"] b) practicing some sort of arcane and sinister ritual [the result of her going through my trash and finding the jack o lantern i threw out a few days ago, which apparently indicates that i'm involved in some kind of "crazy-ass voodoo shit"] and c) not appreciating all the trouble she goes to on my behalf [this one was re: the pack of russians, i think]. this grotesquely trollish specimen of humanity [in terms of providing some sort of mental image here, i'm just going to leave you with the phrases "badly-cut mullet", "horrifying teeth upon which most of her lipstick is smeared", and "animal-print clothing"] is, and i kid you not here, part of the reason why my landlord can’t charge much for my apartment. and the sad part is that if i killed her, i would be the one to go to jail.

i think i need to make a more concerted effort to actually get some sleep when i know i have to go to work in the morning. it’s becoming quite a challenge just keeping my eyes open enough to type, and i’m already on my third cup of coffee. and my socks don’t match! gasp!

re the whole webcam question: i think i’m going to go for it. yes, i’m getting a webcam. mail me if you have brand suggestions or anything.

yes, yes: i am aware that i didn’t update over the weekend. spank me, i’ve been bad.

saturday was rather epic in the scale of its debauchery. after the usual quake-and-distinct-lack-of-working at the office during the afternoon, spencer and i headed to the party laith was having because meg/shefell was in town for the weekend. laith’s apartment, let me just say right now, is to die for - it’s only a couple of blocks from where i used to live in union square, which is a gorgeous neighborhood. it’s a huge space, with this little lofty-upstairs area and one wall is completely taken up by a window overlooking this cool church on broadway. it must be horrifically expensive, but i’m terribly envious.

so meg was there, yay, as well as naomi and dino and a bunch of other people i know from when i used to go to nycgoth. we all [well, not spencer] got rather drunk just in time to head over to batcave. i was rather stompy and rivet, for a change, since i usually tend towards long swishy skirts - saturday i had these big clompy boots, blue tights over black fishnets, a black kilty-schoolgirly-type skirt, a black fishnet shirt under an einstürzende neubauten shirt, and my hair in braided pigtails with blue streaks and goggles. spencer took a polaroid that i forgot to bring with me today but i’ll get it scanned tomorrow, maybe.

batcave was fun, rather surprisingly since i usually don’t like it that much. meg and i got even drunker [woo, intoxication], and i also ran into sean for the first time in ages. and james was there, in an i heart linux shirt [how fucking awesome is that?], so that was wicked cool. he was also armed with lollipops and penguin mints: james is, quite obviously, da man. when the club closed around 4:30, a bunch of us headed over to yaffa for breakfast, and by the time i got home it was well after seven am on sunday morning and disgustingly bright out. i slept most of the day and did a little cleaning of my apartment when i woke up [emphasis on the little]. talked to tycho and james and hep and all those crazy kids, then spencer came over to crash as he’s kind of a refugee from his place right now.

rowr. i am sleepy.

rowr. i’m running on… oh, i’d say about two hours of sleep right now, but i’m actually in a really good mood. i went to lbv last night for the first time in a few weeks, and it’s always entertaining but this week was particularly so. it took me forever to figure out what to wear - i ended up going all rivet and stompy with absurd quantities of blue accessories to go with the whole blue hair thing - and then of course there was the whole unaccompanied-scantily-clad-goth-chick-taking-the-subway-late-at-night thing, which was topped when i got to west fourth and some guy actually tried to fight me for a cab. maybe the boots scared him off?

so i met up with rich [who was hella cute last night] at the club at like eleven thirty or so. i saw john on my way in and he said krystal would be over later to say hi, and indeed she did show up around twelve thirty which was yay because i hadn’t seen her since the last time i went to lbv. obi and venus and syren were all there too, the recurring theme of my conversations with them being along the lines of “where the fuck have you been?“. yeesh - that’ll teach me to neglect my clubbing for a few weeks. so rich and i ended up leaving around two or so, i think.

ohmigosh, i completely forgot that meg/SheFell is coming to new york today, and i get to see her at laith’s party tomorrow night, woo! there was talk of a big shopping trip involving me and meg and naomi but tomorrow is looking pretty busy for me during the day, so i might have to bow out of that one. still, it will be cool to see her.

rar. i’m in a rather good mood this morning - remember how yesterday i got turned down for that raise? well, i had another talk with my boss and we’ve come to a compromise, where i’m getting not quite as much as i wanted but will be reviewed again in a couple of months. which seems reasonable to me, so yay.

if you’ve been reading this site on anything resembling a regular basis and harbor any sort of inkling intrest in american politics, it might have seeped into your awareness that i’ve been distinctly silent on the subject of the rapidly approaching presidential election. this is very unusual for me - i come from a politically vocal background, and i’ve been campaigning in support of a candidate every election year since the tender age of three. a series of excellent history and social studies teachers in high school instilled in me the sense that it’s my responsibility as a resident of this country to be aware of what’s going on in its government, however much i disapprove of it. that said, the machinations of both major parties this election year have more than ever both dismayed and disgusted me, and i’ve been really puzzled as to what to do about it. i’m very liberal, politically, and i’ve always supported the democratic party, but i’m having a hard time bringing myself to vote for gore. he and bush just seem like two sides of the same remarkably unappealing coin, when it comes down to it. nevertheless, if you’re eighteen or older and an american citizen, please vote. i don’t give a flying fuck who you vote for, but apathy is the worst possible method of expressing your displeasure with the system.

in other news, one of my co-workers this morning brought me in this little plastic jack skellington figure. it rocks - it’s jack standing against a metal fence with zero. it’s sitting on my monitor even at this very moment.

i think i’ve expressed previously my affection for orange juice, but i’d just like to take a second now to sort of reaffirm that affection. few other beverages can be consumed on such an unerringly regular basis and yet not grow unappealing or dull. i have a single-serving carton of oj every god damned morning and i have yet to grow sick of it. is this not remarkable? plus don’t even get me started on the vitamin c: suffice it to say that as far as the big c is concerned, orange juice got it goin on. oj could announce without stretching the truth even a little that it has c in its hizouse, so to speak. are we clear on this? i dig orange juice in the very most enthusiastic way.

gooooood morning, me little droogies. and how was your halloween, hmmmm? want to know how mine was? i’ll tell you: it was exquisite. i decided to forego the joys of the limelight for reasons of finance and laziness and instead hit the parade with rich. though the evening started off as a truly unique marvel of bad planning - as in, we agreed to just meet up on a corner where there were already several hundred people just meeting up - we nonetheless did run into each other, eventually. we meandered around the outskirts of the mob till we found somewhere that was both still open and selling hot beverages - cocoa, in particular - and partook of that refreshment for a bit, then headed back to the madness. being undeniably not tall by any standards, seeing anything was for me a bit of a challenge, but a worthy one nonetheless. some of the costumes were really impressive, though for the most part they consisted of either a) men in remarkably awful drag, b) people dressed as tigger [seriously! we're talking dozens of tiggers of varying heights and ages and sophistication of costume, but all individually and unmistakably tigger!], or c) people who used the parade as an excuse to dress really badly and go rollerblading. we were keeping an eye out for voltaire and chi chian, as the sci-fi channel’s site mentioned they’d be making an appearance to celebrate the new animated series to be broadcast on sci-fi, but both voltaire and his creation were noticeably absent until the very end of the parade. we spied his unmistakable figure trailing along just as we were about to leave and called him over to ask what had happened; he simply described it as a “long story” and directed our attention to Baby Dracula [his son]. we noted that voltaire was armed with garlic, presumably for protection against the fangéd youngun. later, as we were making our way back to rich’s car though the remains of the parade, we ran into chi chian herself, who seemed thrilled at our recognition. and then of course, there was this guy who was just inescapably a dork.

so after all the wandering and gawking in the brisk night air, we were a tad chilly to say the least and decided to seek warmer environs. this ended up being the raven, where the music was heavy on the rocky horror soundtrack and the crowd - well, they were drunk, and rightly so. after some guinness and not-being-outside, we called it a night and headed homeward, given that today is, after all, yet another of those days that requires me to actually go to work. or something. is it saturday yet?

on a slightly more somber work-related note, my request for a raise was, this morning, turned down. looks like i’ll be dusting off the ol’ resume and taking my text editor elsewhere. the last thing i want to do right now is look for another job, but i’m getting so obscenely underpaid here that i really don’t have a choice. woe and grief and other such things.