I was the shadow of the waxwing slain

God I love the new Scary Go Round spin off so much. http://www.scarygoround.com/index.php?date=20091117

My crazy family is down and they have just spent collectively ten minutes flipping their shit about whether or not my aunt is lost, whether or not they'll get here on time, because god forbid they be out together enjoying themselves.

They just showed up, EXACTLY ON TIME, and guess what, you guys? THEY WERE HAVING A GOOD TIME, they weren't lost. JFC.

LOL HOLY SHIT http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-ZjOEk4-dI

His diction is terrible, but the audience's reaction is priceless.

*swoon*

Moar coherence later.

Okay, okay. ( CUT! )

Free of jury duty! I was picked as juror 1, we broke for lunch, and when we came back I was excused.

Oh god it's so hot out. And I either have allergies or swine flu. Also, maybe my dad has swine flu. It explains why the last time he had this weird illness (1981), no one knew what it was.

Caught up on FMA Saturday night, so now that's that. I'm depressed, I miss reading it.

jaina and I went to a horse show Sunday, and I got a sunburn on the tip of my nose. Also a picture of being snuffled by a horse. There was a chestnut there that cribbed in the weirdest way - he'd rest his chin on his stall gate and stick his tongue through his teeth and crib that way.

Now I just have to hope I can get off Thursday and Friday from work so I can go to Maine.

So on Tuesday I had jury duty. For the first time! I got out of it once before, as I was in college and therefore out of state.

It was...kind of interesting. Our courthouse is in this weird little town that's rather retro. The old courthouse is quite old and pretty, but a lot of new buildings relating to government have sprung up around it, and I wasn't in the old courthouse, anyway. I did get to wait in this converted church they have. It's about 100 years old and has four Tiffany windows. You can't see the Tiffany signature because the reconstruction boarded over it, but I am assured it's there. It's hard to get a good look at them, though, because there are tables up against the wall.

Anyway, I was really proud of myself, as I made it through the wait, up five flights in the back of an elevator, and onto a jury without a panic attack. I ended up getting excused from the jury.

It was actually kind of funny. It was a criminal trial (that part wasn't funny), but they'd already picked 13 jurors, and just when I was letting out a sigh of relief, I was #14. At least half the courtroom was excused, though. I think it was because the trial involved some DUI/DWI, and lots of people either have those or know people that have those.

I didn't have to go back today, but I do have to go back tomorrow.

Then last night, a crazy thunderstorm moved through. I went to check on the plants we are starting outside, and had to grab them and bring them in. It was absolutely pouring rain. I missed the hail we got, but when my dad and I were downstairs watching the storm from the garage, we lost power. It didn't come right back on (we seem to periodically lose power for a minute or so out here), and I was beginning to wonder how we'd get out of the basement without lights. We managed to get upstairs, and I was complaining that even with power outages, the sky still glows orange, when I realized the sky was pulsing. I had a moment of terror, and tried to figure out how best to welcome our new alien overlords, when I realized that it wasn't some ungodly creature but a fire. If you crowded up against our treeline, you could see glowing spikes extending into the clouds up the street. Best we can figure, a huge transformer must've gotten hit with lightning, but the news has been reticent. I guess if it was an electrical fire it wasn't actually a severe fire; those seem to fizzle out as soon as you cut the power. But the fact that we could see it made us think it was a truly gigantic fire, and we really can't see how anyone could ignore reporting on that.

I'm about 2/3 of the way through FMA.

Man, I fell so hard for NPR's April Fool's Day story. /o\

http://www.princetonfestival.org/ChoralWorkshop.html

*swoon*

OMAG LEONARD COHEN ON TOUR?

Where the hell have I been???

AMAZING.

http://www.deadbeat-scans.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=291&p=1673#p1673

Well, I mean, of course. But made of so much awesome.

I only just recently caught up with Pluto, and haven't finished catching up on Monster (/o\), so getting to read this is so exciting and totally up to my expectations. Absolute win.

It strikes me that I need to write more about horses.

BUT NOW IS NOT THAT TIME.

Because I just finished reading Koukou Debut. And guys, seriously...I turned into a sappy pile of mush.

I love that series so much anyway, and this was just a really, really well-done ending. It was so realistic, I kept getting all these flashbacks to high school and graduating.

&haruna;

So it looks like I'm up for another medication change. Well, first we're going to try to just reduce the dosage, see how that works. It feels like it took a ridiculously long time for the desipramine to start working, when I was getting started, so I'm a little concerned lower doses won't work very well.

I end up getting blood pressure issues on some antidepressants, it appears. Did with Zoloft, now with the desipramine. I just got it checked at 90/50. Oddly, it's not positional - there wasn't a significant drop when I stood up, although my head felt like there was a significant drop. I've been on the verge of passing out at voice lessons, too. So we'll see how this month's detox goes, and we'll either stay with this lower dose or go for something else.

Something else distresses me, since I was such a basket case when I was getting on this, but at the same time I know it'll just be a few weeks of being a basket case, then back to normal.

/OT You'd think the Dirty Jobs crew would put it together that, when they do a sea episode, they should take some motion sickness meds.

It's just that I don't feel like committing anything to paper (print).

So last night, about 3:30am, I wake up to the sound of Cagney puking. I love her to pieces, but the upstairs carpet, despite being StainMaster, does not handle cat puke well. I hurried myself out of bed, grabbed the cat, and put her at the top of the stairs - it's not ideal, but it gets the majority of the vomit onto an easily-cleanable surface.

In passing, I note that the downstairs lights are on.

My dad comes round the corner, mumbling, "It's okay - oh, it's the cat." I roll my eyes and throw myself back in bed. Entirely too early for this.

"...Em?" I yawn. "Em?" My dad's at the top of the stairs now.

"What?" I snap.

"Did you see what's happening outside?"

I sit up. I turn my head to look out the tiny window over my bed. The next door neighbor's house is illuminated in orange. "What the hell?"

"There's a fire right outside our back door."

It took me a considerable amount of time to wake up fully. I still didn't know what time it was, and I'm trying to reconcile what has just been said with what is possible: what looks like a big fire cannot be, as we are not rushing from the house. No explanation from my dad was making sense; I threw on a robe and came downstairs.

Our neighbor has a large oak tree in the upper corner of his property, where it meets ours. We have a large oak, as well, mirroring it. The power lines run along the road, through the branches of the trees. Last night, one of the wires suddenly snapped free and came to rest on our neighbor's oak. The entire front of the trunk was in flames. Periodically, the wire would spit white sparks on the ground, catching the brush. We were lucky it had rained heavily the day/night before - none of the small fires caught long enough to do damage.

The firemen were out, of course. The problem was, the downed wire prevented them from doing any firefighting. Eventually one of them came to our door - good time, too, as dad had obviously been about to go outside and see what he could see. He said there wasn't a problem, but if something came and we needed to get out, they'd come and tell us, and we had to evacuate on the road on the other side of the house - there were downed wires all along the front of the property. I saw our across-the-street neighbors' lights come on, so he doubtless went to tell them the same.

Eventually, they got the power off. The fire immediately went out - the oak is big, and living, and with the rain, it was only the extreme heat of the electricity that was keeping the fire going. Despite the length of the fire (an hour, easy), no further fires were started.

I like fire. I think it's an amazing thing, and I like working with it and controlling it. I dislike fire when it's wild. I'm glad the tree was living enough to keep it from going up in flames - it was entirely too close to home.

So I went to bed last night all aglow with happiness, and I come home today and see two full pages of international friendslists just as joyful.

I turned in after 11, after I was sure the Daily Show wasn't making a joke, after I checked every news station to ensure it was happening, after I dedicatedly focused on Ohio and Florida and Virginia and Indiana's votes, after I was surely sure it was real.

I am just so damned happy.We did it. We can be proud and happy and good and hold our heads high again. I am excited for the next four years. I cannot wait to see what will happen next, because I have a lot of faith that it will turn out differently this time.

Virginia >:(

Big flip flops do not please me.

T-minus five minutes to election coverage.

We had no waits at the polls, but it's a small town and we went in early (made dad go at 6, we went at 7). Some people had long waits (Flanders, Montclair). Others (I presume small towns) came to work early, because they'd voted early fearing lines that did not pan out.

Ann Arbor, MI had a two hour backlog early this morning, so that's how cities went. Local NPR reported a three block line at open at one poll station.

Animeme died today, most likely due to flail.

So the election is getting bitchy everywhere, but I heard a proof-of-bitchery story on NPR that had me laughing.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96187963

Listen to the audio of the surveillance. It's hysterical. She is so horribly appalled!

I love all Harunas, and though on the one hand I wanted some sort of culmination, on the other hand, this chapter was great the way it was.

And moast epic of cockblocks.

A rundown on Sarah Palin: http://www.politico.com/static/PPM106_palin_doc.html