To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive

Maybe it's time for contacts.

2014-01-05T23:14:05Z

Yesterday I managed to open my car door into my face, because I'm coordinated like that. It was hard enough to make my jaw click together and send me back into the house to make sure I wasn't bleeding everywhere. I have a thankfully small, not-very-noticeable bruise on my cheek right under my eye that hurts if I move that area of my face too much. I also managed to send my glasses slightly askew, to the point where they don't quuuuuuuite stay on my nose anymore.

I think I'll hold off on walking all the way across campus to the eye clinic for an adjustment until Tuesday, though, when the temperature will climb (barely) into the double digits. They've revised us down to a low of 8F tonight, with a high of 9F tomorrow and a low of 2F. Hooray.

Frankly, it sounds like getting to work tomorrow at all may be iffy, if the flash freeze warnings they're bandying about turn out to be true. Apparently the streets will turn into solid sheets of ice if the rain we're getting now doesn't have time to run off before the cold front gets here.

...Maybe I should skate to work tomorrow?

(Especially since it looks like the practice session I was planning to attend tomorrow is going to be a lost cause.)

comments

Writing

2011-12-30T02:38:06Z

Today I dropped the kitchen timer in my bowl of soup. It still worked...for a few hours. Now it is dead. Sigh.

I downloaded this very cool freeware screenwriting(/storyboarding/lighting and stage diagrams/god knows what else that has to do with pre-production, plus templates for live theater scripts, audio plays, and novels) program* yesterday for writing MY MUSICAL, which apparently I am doing. Actually, apparently what I am doing is writing scenes in script form and then writing them again in prose form. Gah.

I'm much more comfortable with prose, and to be honest I think I'll probably end up writing this that way once I get all the scenes that are buzzing about most vividly in my head written in Celtx, but the writing in script format has been instructive. (Far more so than the one I wrote for the screenwriting class back in undergrad...perhaps because that script was so terrible that I've tried to forget it ever existed.) I'm much more aware of needing to transmit information to the audience when working with only what can been seen/heard on screen than I am in a prose work, where it's all much more, hmm, organic, maybe? In the first couple scenes, for example, I was constantly aware of having to have someone say the characters' names, because otherwise no one would know what they were, which is obviously not a problem in prose.

On the other hand, things go a hell of a lot faster in script form, especially when you're me and like to write paragraph upon paragraph of description when given the opportunity. Also, I have a three-page outline to work from, and I've...almost never written fiction from an outline before, or at least not one that was more than a dozen words. (Admittedly, it helps that this is not shockingly original. It's basically an excuse to screw around with some romantic comedy tropes I enjoy, so there aren't a lot of hard decisions to make or resolutions to agonize over.) I need to see if I can try to take some of that mentality of being driven by what information needs to be revealed at given points along the timeline over to my prose-writing, because it seems to be a good way of keeping myself on track and maybe finishing the damn thing someday.

* In what is possibly its best feature ever, it also allows you to copy and paste between it and Word and respects the formatting of both programs. Amaaaaaazing.

comments

Play ball! Or, um, not.

2010-07-17T23:06:53Z

Dear Brain,

Why do you insist on coming up with fic ideas concerning subjects about which I know nothing? Kidfic is bad enough; adding in baseball and hockey just magnifies the torture.

I have already written about my lack of experience with kids. My relationship to team sports goes something like this:

In high school, I earned the ire of everyone on my team in PE because I would duck rather than try to bat the volleyball over the net.

In fourth grade, I managed to kick the kickball into my own face, nearly break my glasses, and then quickly get tagged out by the unsympathetic hooligans I was playing with because I'd stepped off the plate.

We're not even going into the time in high school when someone backhanded me with a badminton racquet and knocked a lens out of my glasses, or that other time when a low-flying frisbee smacked me in the teeth, because at least those were not my fault.

Let's just say I'm probably lucky that HS only required a year of PE, and that I could substitute dance classes for it during much of middle school. So brain, why are you doing this? At least the idea doesn't require extensive knowledge of either sport to pull off, and I can cover the gaps with research, but...argh. You can't pick something I know about, or at least could lie convincingly about?

With raised eyebrows,
Me

comments

My non-emo pain part 3

2010-07-09T06:24:30Z

Because I know you're all so interested in the saga of my burnt finger, here is an update.

I somehow managed to get to sleep last night, and when I woke up, the pain was entirely gone. It was like magic. (Well, okay, it's not too happy when I move my finger.) I...am hoping this just means it's healing rather than that it has progressed into a third-degree burn with associated nerve damage. I figure if I still have feeling in the fingertip, it can't be that bad.

So all was going well, and then I smacked my hand against the wall in the shower and boom--no more blister. Yeah, I'm brilliant.

The blister was pretty disgusting, but I think it looks worse now. Well, it does when I can see it, which is rarely, because I have packed this thing up under two layers of gauze and...you know, at the moment I think there's more Neosporin (antibiotic ointment) on my finger than there is finger. Despite my precautions, my inner hypochondriac is exercising its right to go crazy at two in the morning, and is screaming about sepsis and tetanus.*

Please, please heal without further excitement, little burn. Srsly.

* Yes, I know I will have plenty of warning before sepsis sets in. I will go to a doctor if things get red and painful.

comments

My non-emo pain part 2

2010-07-08T06:36:10Z

Gaaaaaah. This is seriously rivaling that time I threw my back out for most painful experience I've ever had. How does a blister about 1 cm wide manage to hurt SO MUCH?

At least it only hurts that bad when I take it out of the bowl of cold water. And the lidocaine/aloe vera gel I luckily saved after my last really bad sunburn lets me keep it out of the water for almost ninety seconds before the pain comes back. But however nice they are, these remedies do present certain problems with, say, sleeping...which I guess I won't be doing tonight. *sigh*

Thank you all for the lols; individual responses coming either when I get bored from my pain-induced all-nighter or regain the use of my right hand for typing, whichever comes first.

comments

MY NON-EMO PAIN

2010-07-08T03:22:51Z

OW OW OW OW OW OW

SECOND-DEGREE STEAM BURN TO INDEX FINGER OF DOMINANT HAND OW OW OW

MADE MORE PAINFUL BECAUSE HAVE ONLY SELF TO BLAME FOR OWN STUPIDITY OW

OW OW OW OW HAS NOT BEEN GREATEST DAY OW

SEND LOLS?

ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow...

comments