Not a whole lot to say, actually, but I’m trying to get back into the habit of posting regularly again. As far as the Internet dating/socializing goes, I’ve found a site that looks like it might be a good fit for me — veggie-oriented, international, and not obscenely expensive membership. It also allows you to look for people just as friends or penpals in addition to dates or serious relationships, which is ideal because I find the whole flesh-market approach at other sites to be really quite scary indeed. (I suppose the veg*n equivalent of a meat market would be . . . seitan market? Perhaps a tofu pup or melon market? Hmm.) Anyway, the idea is just to maybe meet some people outside of work — delightful as my work friends are, of course; no slight is intended toward them — and expand my circle of friends/acquaintances. If one of the people I meet happens to be a guy who seems interesting, and who happens to find me interesting as well, then that would be a pleasant bonus.
At the moment, I’ve just got a temporary photo up as my ID, but Cindy has kindly agreed to take an actual, proper photo of me on Monday. This, of course, means that my hair will of course explode into a giant fuzzball, or decide to collapse into some sort of flat, stringy mess more appropriate to a zombie fresh from the grave, but whatever. Many thanks to Cindy for consenting to help with this.
Other than that, there’s not a whole lot to report. We’ve got a Green Team (formerly known as the Recycling Action Committee) lunch meeting coming up this week, which means I’ve got to get off my posterior and actually write a draft or two of our next newsletter article — something I’ve been meaning to do for weeks now.
I also got my copy of the last Harry Potter book, and finished it Friday. The good thing is that it arrived from the U.K. several days earlier than they’d estimated. Unfortunately, I’d accidentally ordered the children’s cover instead of the adult cover, so it doesn’t match the rest of my collection; I also forgot to bring it home from the office the first day, so there was a slight delay before I got a chance to read it. Overall, I’d give it a B, maybe a B minus; my tolerance for Harry’s adolescent whining has dropped significantly over time, and the weird pacing in the first half of the book got on my nerves a bit. I’m okay with the ending and the deaths, but I would like to point out a couple of minor, general things (no specific spoilers, because my mom reads this and she’s making her way through the series for the first time right now; if anyone wishes to comment with spoilers, please e-mail me directly through the contact link):
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For some reason, WordPress is acting up today and keeps repeatedly jumping to the top of the post entry form when the paragraph gets longer than two lines, and it hides whatever it is I’m typing. Most annoying. I’m trying to keep an eye out for typos, but if I’ve missed any, that’s probably why: I’m typing blindly, for the most part. If this keeps up, I’ll have to revert to composing offline and then pasting text into the posting screen.
It seems that, every couple of years now, the spectre of Internet dating raises its rather scary head. I’m not comfortable at all with the process, and indeed have a horrible record of keeping up with social networking sites anyway,* but I keep thinking I should actually give it a try. I generally only meet people through various aspects of work, which means that the options are pretty narrow and would be complicated and/or messy in the case of someone interesting popping up. My attempts last year to get out on my own and do things in the evenings were pretty miserable, expensive, and uncomfortable, and I’m hardly likely to strike up worthwhile conversations while walking the dog (whose hearing remains dreadful, btw, but I’m getting less freaked out about that) or poking through the veg section at R2E. Thus, the only other option I know to try is the Internet.
I can deal with the photo requirement; given enough time, I can often luck into at least one photo of myself that doesn’t make me look like I have three chins or a head that resembles one of the more esoteric dice from D&D. (I also find it helps if I remember to clean my glasses beforehand.) This one might be okay, if I bump the brightness levels up a bit — need to re-download Picasa for that, though. (I’m still gradually recovering from the Great Computer Splattage of ‘07.)
Still, the hand to the face is a little coy and posed-looking, so maybe not. Hmm.
In the signup stage, though, what really stymies me is the “tell us a little about yourself” bit. How the hell are you supposed to summarize yourself truthfully in a little paragraph — especially if you’re as long-winded as I tend to be? If you’re accurate, don’t you come off as a little scattered, at best? I mean, just to take music interests as an example, if you look at the top 25 playlist on Fenric the iPod, I’ve got songs from Rise Against, the Dead Kennedys, the Smiths, the Decemberists, Old Blind Dogs, and the soundtrack from BtVS’s “Once More, With Feeling.” That’s not exactly consistent.
Anyway, this is about the best I’ve been able to come up with so far. Anyone have suggestions, edits, or complete rewrites?
“I’m a kind of bookish thirty-something vegan editor, with particular interests in environmentalism and energy efficiency, ‘green’ engineering, sci-fi, British history, dabbling in languages (mainly German, Swedish, and a little French), and occasionally messing about in the kitchen. (I do a pretty mean cupcake, but have yet to master the fine art of cupcake decorating.) Travel to Europe is admittedly a very guilty pleasure, but for me it’s such a necessary reminder that it is possible to run a country in a more environmentally responsible manner, and that societies can be structured in a way that balances the rights and needs of both individuals and the society as a whole.
“Favorite authors include Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, Margaret Atwood, Ben Elton, and P.G. Wodehouse. Favorite music includes Rise Against, Loreena McKennitt, and the Pet Shop Boys. (Yeah, no inconsistencies there.) Favorite dog is a 12-year-old beagle who is fond of tofu, wrestling, and endless games of fetch. Favorite color is black (surprise). Favorite season is winter, which of course begs the question of why I’m living in a preposterously hot and humid city like Atlanta. Favorite punctuation mark is probably the parenthesis, judging by how often I seem to use it; second favorite is the semicolon.
“Warnings: in restaurants, I am something of a pain when ordering, but I try to be very polite about it. I also obsessively proofread menus and will probably announce, in incredulous tones, every single typo I find. I also have the bad habit of quoting from Pratchett books, which often annoys people who haven’t read them yet and don’t know the characters.”
Horrible and pathetic and blithering, I know. I just hate having to summarize myself. It just underlines how boring my life really is. Any ideas for improvement are welcome, please!
Seriously: I need help. This is way harder than it should be.
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*I’ve been mostly inactive on Flickr for ages now, largely because my desktop’s built-in slot for my camera’s memory card has stopped working, and I keep misplacing the USB card reader. I joined Shelfari, which has the benefit of not requiring photographs, but I find it annoying when I can’t find the correct cover for my edition (I am very particular about some of them; hardcover Pratchett books, for instance, that I’ve special-ordered from the U.K. — or the copy of Wintersmith I got in the sci-fi bookstore on Gamla Stan last year); it’s also overwhelming trying to catalog my entire library, and quite frankly I’m not convinced yet that I really care what total strangers are reading. I’m probably just cranky and haven’t spent the time exploring the system.
Sorry for the long delay between posts; it seems as though, when I haven’t been hideously busy, I’ve been in serious hermit mode, which is not conducive to blogging. Still, I need to get back into the habit.
At the moment, I’m winding up a week of vacation during which I went nowhere of interest and got only marginal amounts done; basically, it just let me recover a bit from the recent annual meeting, which is very rewarding but also very exhausting from all the running around and constant high adrenaline levels. (I usually lose about 5 pounds in the week or so around a meeting, but unfortunately it’s a short-lived loss.) Next time, I really should go into training about a month beforehand, and also bring a pedometer so I can see how much I walk.
The time off has also given me the chance to hang out with Nigel more, and I must say I’m getting rather worried about his hearing. If he’s paying attention, he seems fine, but if he’s distracted or asleep, he misses a lot of things he normally doesn’t. For instance, if he’s napping on the futon and I get up to go into the kitchen, he normally will wake up and come into the kitchen with me, on the off chance that I might prepare, for instance, a baked potato and then accidentally drop it face-down on the floor, leading to a serendipitous snack for him. (Hey, it’s happened. Once is all it takes to reinforce his hopes, it seems.) At the very least, he’ll raise his head and look at me inquiringly, which is my cue to tell him whether I’m making lunch or just making a cup of tea. Lately, though, he doesn’t seem to notice nearly as much. I can even open the refrigerator sometimes without him coming into the kitchen and half-climbing into the fridge to see what’s in there. Unless he’s expecting them, he seems to miss lower-decibel sounds like that, though he still responds to louder, unexpected sounds, and even to quieter ones when he’s paying attention (which suggests that his hearing is now actually a bit worse than my own is).
There have also been several times when I’ve returned home at an odd time and surprised him — as in, opening the door and having the dog not notice I’m back. Once he was looking out the window, probably at squirrels, and it look me several attempts to get his attention. That’s a little scary, particularly when he’s napping on the floor or on his blanket, and I’m roaming the flat calling out to him but he can’t hear me. Until I find him, I worry that someone’s come in for some reason — to fix a pipe or something — and accidentally let him out and he’s gotten hit by a car, or that he’s had a heart attack or seizure or something and died while I was gone. His vision and hearing have always been rather good, and it feels off-kilter for him to have cataracts and somewhat muted hearing.
He doesn’t seem to be particularly bothered by it, at least, and is otherwise in good spirits. It just bothers me when Nigel shows signs of his age, which I acknowledge is unrealistic: he’s 12, and is generally in good health and doing pretty well, so I shouldn’t freak out over things like this. I’m grateful that he is still healthy, friendly, and reasonably energetic (though thankfully less hyperactive than he was when he was 2 years old). It’s just that, in my head, he’s always about 5, and I want to slap the people we meet on our walks who say, “Oh, he’s really old, isn’t he?” Bastards.
Anyway, the issue seems to be more mine than Nigel’s, but I’ll still ask the vet for ideas when we go for his bloodwork in a few weeks. (Unless he becomes distressed or lethargic, it’s probably not necessary to take him in specially.) The vet’s always said that his cataracts aren’t bad enough to warrant surgery, but maybe it’s time to reconsider, and there may be some sort of canine hearing aid I could get for him. Hmm.
