Huh.

No plans for tonight. Oddly, I feel like this is some sort of failing, because I SHOULD have a social calendar marked up for New Year's Eve at the least.

Instead, I'm sitting here in my bathrobe, writing and doing nothing especially productive (the writing isn't even very good, however entertaining), and I'm seriously debating how long I can put off getting showered and dressed because that takes work and effort and NOT sitting on my butt.


New Year's Resolution: Get out of the house for more than class and work. (Also, find new jeans that make ass look fantastic. This may be an ongoing project. Men's loose-fit stonewash in size 34x34 is NOT a flattering look, however comfy.)

==

Oh, L_S -- Rhapsody expects me to DL stuff, and you only get 25 songs a month for free. Given that the album(s) I was eyeing are 20-odd tracks EACH, well... maybe another time. Also, I don't think it will play on iPods, if their list of compatible devices is any indication. (Or it will and they're somehow legally required to Not Mention The Competition. I have no idea.)

Google ads. Phooey. Also, New Year's drabble.

This is what google ads suggested to me. You'd think that the silly things would get smarter - not only did I recently post about wanting fant-ASS-tic jeans, but that I'm on a tighter-than-a-jar-lid budget. One of these things is not like the other. :P

They're awful pretty, though. o.O;

I recommend National Treasure: Book of Secrets as long as you don't get too picky about plot continuity and have a healthy suspension of disbelief. It's entertaining, and Nick Cage mocking the police in a British accent is hilarious to watch. Lots of visual comedy in the middle of the movie.

=== 2007 in review ===

I'm doing MUCH MUCH better than I was last new year's eve, and while my resolutions never change so much as break apart and are forgotten for eleven months of the year... I still resolve to get out of debt and lose weight. (Trade pounds for money; I suppose the RBS doesn't really cash in on that sort of thing.)

This year, I'm in a job that not only has options and a functioning HR department, I am no longer a temp. I get PTO, and between on-the-job training and education options, even if I don't stay with the place I'm at now, I will be emininently more employable within the next 6 months by ANY insurance company. Foot in the door even with a worst-case scenario. [Which means that I may work for a good long while, earn a designation or three in the insurance world, then see if I can't drop to part-time (say, 25 hours a week?) once I've saved some money, so I can go back to school for a masters in something-or-other. Haven't decided what, yet, but I intend it to be obscure and more or less prior to 1600. So. We'll see where that goes, when I get there. Long ways down the road, but I've circled it on the map.] My job has a low turnover rate, and even in soft markets (where rates go down because there haven't been any recent catastrophes to pay off - it's an insurance thing, rather like the bear/bull setup of Wall Street), they don't dump employees to save money. Which is incredibly reassuring (though it does mean more work for less money. Ah well).

This year, I'm OFF my anti-deps (as of September, I think - I rather quit gradually, and I was more or less done by that point), and other than finding that things get to me a little more easily and/or quickly than they used to, I'm not STAYING mad or depressed or upset the way I used to. I can cry at movies again - you never realize how much you miss stupid little things like that until you can't do them anymore. Books and television are entertaining again. It's fantastic. I'm still not ready to let go of a lot of things (especially Dad's old belongings, like his shirts and barbershopper hats), but I am slowly coming to grips with the fact that there is a great deal of other stuff we just don't want or need, like his old bathrobe and polar fleece everything that kept him warm when he was too sick to be comfortable even during a summer evening without them. "The Burden of Things" Mom calls it - she's not wrong, but she has a better memory than I do as well, and she can remember trips and events and people, where I remember textures and colors and fine details that don't matter to a bigger picture outside my brain* (hence not wanting to lose the shirts and hats and things with colors and textures and scents that matter to me so goddamned much). It may have been more than three years now, but I spent two and three quarters of those years on enough medication to keep a raging bull stoned, so it doesn't feel like nearly enough time. Even with being prepared on some level for his death throughout my life, I'm still finding it hard to distinguish between what needs to be let go and what I need to keep and/or internalize somehow. It's like shopping in a foreign country without a currency converter - you're never going to know what you've spent until you're out of cash or the credit card bill comes in the mail, and it can either be a pleasant surprise or a nasty one.


* Like the Indian restaurant in London that was not only walking distance from our B&B (through a park that had some red picket fencing but hell if I know what it or the nearest Tube station were called) but had an internet cafe next door. It had pink wallpaper and off-white tablecloths, but I have no idea what we ordered other than naan bread. I don't know what I was wearing. I only know who was there with me because it's the default setting for vacations - Me, Mom, Dad. Mom still raves about the food there. I DO know I wasted about $25 on internet access over the course of the trip, and the way the roller ball of the computer mouse felt, and that it was rather neat to eat at a place that had red and white checkered tablecloths but didn't serve Italian food. I don't have complete pictures of memories so much as fuzzy snapshots, as if someone was trying too hard to be Georgia O'Keefe with a zoom function on their camera. It sucks mightily, actually, because I WANT to remember these things, and can't. And there's no way to get any of those experiences back.

Ah well. I get maudlin more often these days, which is a step up from inexplicably furious or sad, at least. In the interest of not emo-ing y'all to death, I'll just stop while I'm ahead.

===

I didn't get any planning done for the holidays this year, but one of my penciled-in resolutions for '08 is to do more for the holidays (especially at work), starting with Valentine's Day. I have an Oriental Trading Company catalogue just itching to be used, with obnoxiously pink-red-white stuff to pass out to the rest of my coworkers, and decorations for my cube. I already have a plan to figure out the best way to tuck a rubbermaid tub for the seasonal decor somewhere under my desk. It'll be awesome. :D

. . . And I've just made myself a grande-sized sake margarita (which really needs a snappy, tongue-in-cheek name, involving either sexist, racist, or anime-otaku connotations between the Far East and Me-hee-koh, but I'm not really coming up with anything at the moment. Naamah, I solicit your expert advice on these matters), so I'm off to see what drivel I can manage under the influence. We'll see how it reads tomorrow afternoon. Cheers, all.