It’s Furious Balancing

There should be some Rule of the Universe that allows do-over days when you’re sick on your vacation. Those body aches on Tuesday weren’t from schlepping my books around, but were the onset of a terrible cold. I’ve been feeling like crap since Wednesday afternoon (and it’s now Saturday morning). Someone somewhere owes me those three days back.

But, ever the optimist, I have today and tomorrow to get healthy and get rested and return to the office on Monday with a Smile on my Face and a Song in my Heart. I have the expansion to Oblivion (Shivering Isles), a 7th level Ranger on Florendyl (the Vanguard RP-preferred server) that needs some tradeskilling and diplomacy attention, and it’s time for me to convince the Telvanni to name me Hortator in Morrowind. Lots to do that doesn’t involve moving around, much, unless you count coughing up a lung as moving around.

As to the cat picture, that’s my Gregor KafkaCat, post-sink. I haven’t been the the bathroom by myself in ten years.

A much more laid back day today. I must confess I’m still achy from moving books all over the house yesterday. It’s time for more gratuitous cat pictures, and gratuitous pictures with captions. Just because I can.

Lovely weather. Too bad it has to turn into summer. If God had meant us to live in hot weather, He wouldn’t have invented air conditioning.

When you find yourself looking at your books on death and dying, and:

decide that it’s time to divide them into three categories (general, forensics [anthropological and psychological], and those relating to prisons and the death penalty);

realize that forensics should be divided further between physical forensics and psychological forensics — e.g. rates of decomposition vs. profiling unsubs — and should you shelf them that way?

realize that “general” includes everything from societal attitudes towards dying to end-of-life care to early 19th century resurrectionists;

and further realize that you should include Lynch’s book Bodies at Motion and at Rest: Essays;

and that you knew who Lynch is;

and that you didn’t have enough room on one shelf for all the death books;

and that the graphic/comic The Big Book of Death was one selected to be shelved flat on top of the others, together with The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers;

It gives one pause. I paused for five full minutes staring blankly at the bookshelf.

I’ve decided that there’s no way I can deal with all my non-fiction in one day.

I’ve decided that curling up with The Worst Journey in the World or Scott’s Last Expedition — The Journals and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s sounds mighty good right now.

I’ve decided I should post that quote from Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the one that ends his book:

And I tell you, if you have the desire for knowledge and the power to give it physical expression, go out and explore. If you are a brave man you will do nothing: If you are fearful, you may do much, for none but cowards have need to prove their bravery. Some will tell you that you are mad, and nearly all will say, “What is the use?” For we are a nation of shopkeepers, and no shopkeeper will look at research which does not promise him a financial return within a year. And so you will sledge nearly alone, but those with whom you sledge will not be shopkeepers: That is worth a great deal. If you march your Winter Journeys you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin’s egg.

Another Emma picture.

I’m testing out adding a 1-pixel border to my photographs so they stand out better on the web page. Not terribly exciting stuff, but I think it works fairly well. [Yes, I know Emma is fat. Yes, I know her health can suffer because of it. I'm trying to do my best by her and help her lose weight, but it's a slow, slow process.]

Thomas is very busy this Saturday, as you can see. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING can be done in this household without appropriate Cat Supervision. Thomas decided that since this was a larger photo, it needed a 3-pixel border. All of a sudden this cat is a graphic designer…

Three Things I Do Well

1. Fill out forms. Federal income tax forms. Probate Court forms. Questionnaires of all types. I’m currently filling out forms to open education savings accounts for one of the firm’s clients. Now, while I balk at doing this sort of menial labor for coddled rich people, I do find a certain enjoyment in telling them that every box and line must be completed, and there’s no getting away with this “using a business address or P.O. Box as their residence address” nonsense. My own special brand of passive-aggressiveness – just another service I provide.

2. Word games. Scrabble, crossword puzzles, that sort of stuff. I have no skills whatsoever in the visual or performing arts, but I know and love my words. It’s a very strange place I inhabit, and I’ll have to write more about it one of these days. For the moment, I’ll leave the description of my internal landscape alone.

3. Procrastinate. At this I excel.

Three Things at Which I Absolutely Suck

1. Sports, especially team sports. I was always one of those kids picked last for the team in gym class.

2. Math. The math part of my brain reached it’s limit my junior year in high school in Algebra 2 with Mr. Bomeli. I got an “A” the first semester, and a “C” the second (with a “D” on the final exam). My little head just couldn’t hold any more than that and just gave up, I suppose.

3. Keeping up with High Maintenance Hair. I keep my hair short for a reason. All those clips, combs, braids, up-do’s, ribbons, mousses, gels, and sprays simply don’t work for me. My only styling product is water. I think that any woman who spends more than 10 minutes on her hair in the morning (including drying time) is a few sandwiches short of a picnic. That time could be used on many other productive activities. Sleeping, for example.

Three Things I’m Trying to do Better.

1. Develop a “poker face.” My role model for this is Bud Cort in Harold and Maude. I’m setting the bar pretty high. I want to develop the perfectly affectless look. I do pretty well at not laughing at the absurdities I hear almost daily at work. There was quite the pot-kettle-black thing going on at lunch the other day, but no details here. Who knows who reads my blog? (/wave at Queen Frostine).

2. Stick to a budget. I decided that it was high time I brought down my credit card debt. I’m not going to say exactly what that amount IS, but let’s just say I’m above the average amount reported in the news stories cropping up these days about Americans’ problems with credit. I’ve got an above average FICO score too — 800+. [I've always had to be above average. /sigh ] In any event, I copied the budget spreadsheet from Crazy Aunt Pearl‘s website, and plugged in my own amounts and categories. I like to think that I’m the only person in the world (well, the only person in my immediate neighborhood) who has a budget with line items for “comic books,” “yarn,” and “Sweetwaters’ coffee cards.” The simple fact that I have a budget is already limiting my spending. It’s like keeping a food diary when you’re dieting. If you have to write down every bite you put in your mouth, you don’t eat as much. If I have to record every spontaneous purchase, I don’t spend as much. I spent many years without credit cards and bought everything with cash, including a trip to Paris. If I stick to my budget, I can get rid of all my credit card debt in two and a half years.

3. Design mods for Morrowind. Like I said somewhere up above, I have no “artistic” type skills, so I’m not doing new meshes and textures; I’m not designing armor or creatures or weapons. I can, however, write dialog and journal entries and quests and similar things. The strange top-down dialog trees make sense to me (most limited entries first down to the most generic). I can’t remember which modder in the online community — one I respected highly for her excellent visual mods (armor, housing, texture replacers) — wrote that dialog intimidated her. I was stunned. It seems so easy to me, but I know I can improve. I want to finish the “Cats of Ulthar” while I’m on vacation next week. I have one more quest to go. I finally found a texture for Carter’s silver key.

Sometime on Sunday afternoon, Queen Emma decided that Kitty Pi 2 was somehow acceptable to Her Royal Self. I think her foray into Kitty Pi-ness lasted all of 15 minutes, but I have photographs! Proof!

I’ve claimed all along that I have three cats…

I apologize for the quality, or lack thereof, of my photograpy. I apologize for the mess that is my study. I never pretended to be Martha Stewart, and only dull women keep immaculate houses.

But, pictures are worth a thousand words:

The “Before” Pictures

The “During” Pictures
The “After” Pictures

Oh, to hell with the idea of blogging any post with any type of SUBSTANCE to it, cats and kittens, let’s just post some pretty pics of Vvardenfell, m’kay?

This first one is of me on the Bitter Coast near the Sixth House Base Illinubi, fairly early on in the Main Quest. I’m still wearing the Dark Brotherhood cuirass lifted from one of the assassins sent after me from Mournhold (Tribunal). Mods in the screenie include Vibrant Morrowind, the Domina mesh for the female cuirass, Westly’s Wood Elf head pack, Rin’s hair, and I can’t remember who’s armor for the female falconer leather pants. Some people complain that the Dark Brotherhood armor is game unbalancing since it’s so “uber” for a lower level character, or you get far too much gold for it if you sell it. Bull. Do you know how expensive enchanting, training, spells, weapon repair, etc., etc., is in Vvardenfell? Through the roof. The armor early on helps pay the bills, I will tell you that.

The Bitter Coast is one of my favorite areas in the game. Soggy, swampy, rainy, but downright gorgeous in its own melancholy way. The Ascadian Isles would be a close second, which includes Vivec, the City I Love to Hate.

It’s huge. You have to run everywhere. When you’re at a level in the single digits, this is a true PITA since you barely have enough endurance to run more than 30 seconds at a stretch without plowing through all your fatigue points.

On the upside — It’s huge. There are a ton of quests. It’s the home of the Morag Tong, one of my all-time favorite guilds, and Uncle Crassius Curio, the House Hlaalu pervert with a love of underwriting terrible stage productions (Dance of the Three Legged Guar is supposed to be a big hit, though.). I doubt any of the other Great Houses have someone as…”colorful”…as Uncle Crassius. Yes, the Telvanni have Mistress Therana, but she’s just an insane, old Dunmer who lives in a giant fungus tower. Blech, don’t get me started on the Telvanni. Nutters, slave owners, finger-wrigglers. Once I’m Nerevarine, I think I just may need to remove, or at least decimate, a certain rival House. The only good Telvanni sorceror is a dead Telvanni sorceror.

Why so much time on Morrowind? Real Life is dull. It’s allergy season. Work is uninspiring. I have far too much spring cleaning to do. I can’t seem to get motivated to get back on a healthier eating or exercise program (Pilates once a week and Cadbury Creme Eggs are about where I’m at right now). Pain. Insomnia. In Real Life, I’m a probate and estate planning legal secretary. At night, I’m Laiane Wolfsong, ranger, opportunist, and somewhat-lovable rogue. I never have a bad hair day, a zit, or intestinal… um…distress. Who wouldn’t rather be in Vvardenfell?

I’ve been burying myself in Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind once again. You know that despite all these years of my owning it, I have never once finished the main quest in either the initial game, Tribunal, or Bloodmoon? I seem to recall at one point that I had a level 40-something character, too, and I hadn’t even started looking for Dagoth Ur (the main quest bad guy who needed his comeuppance).

I treasure this game. There is so much depth to it, and it’s so open ended. Contrast this with Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and the latter game is sorely, sorely lacking. I’ve looked over a few posts on the forums for the upcoming expansion to Oblivion, and if you wade through enough of the X-box-overdosed, 13-year-old, fanboi comments, there might be a few reasons for me to get the expansion. Well, (1) it’s set in the realm of the mad Daedric prince, Sheogorath, which should make for a lot of giggles, and (2) I can see if the devs have listened to any of us “old guard” Morrowind players who were so disappointed by the depth, or lack thereof, of Oblivion. Hope springs eternal, and all that.

For some reason or another, this has been on my mind, and I had to dig out my copy of The Annotated H. P. Lovecraft just for this footnote:

Adventurous Expectancy: A central element in Lovecraft’s aesthetic of the imagination, and a concept to which he attached particular significance.

“What has haunted my dreams for nearly forty years is a strange sense of adventurous expectancy connected with landscape and architecture and sky-effects…. I wish I could get the idea on paper — the sense of marvel and liberation hiding in obscure dimensions and problematically reachable at rare instants through vistas of ancient streets, across leagues of strange hill country, or up endless flights of marble steps culminating in tiers of balustraded terraces. Odd stuff — and needing a greater poet than I for effective aesthetic utilisation” (Selected Letters, III, 100).

I know this feeling, the sensation that “there is something more” behind the veil of reality I work with on a daily basis. Mine isn’t so much from “vistas of ancient streets,” but through the way light will slant through the trees, or the way the night air in the summertime smells so cleaner right before dawn. This needs a greater poet than I.