Donna’s blog

And then, she smiled.

nobody@vox.com(Donna) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:33:37 -0400

The Universe has smiled on me.

I HAVE A NEW JOB!

I will be reviewing claims for this agency.

It will be a standard workweek (8-5, M-F) with appropriate holidays. I will be able to carry over my vacation/sick leave and retirement benefits with OPERS. Also, this position offers a SUBSTANTIAL pay increase over my current position. I will start August 18th.

*throws hands to the sky* Thank you, Universe! And THANK YOU ALL for your positive energy over the past year, it has meant the world to me. \:D/

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Portusdammerung!

nobody@vox.com(Donna) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 16:04:06 -0400

Warning: this post will contain massive amounts of squee and snark and mockery of organized ~~religion~~ christianity. Please consider yourself warned.

I am super-tired and super-happy to be home at last! Not sure what is the lesser of two evils - having a noon flight and getting back in the evening, or getting up at 4:15am to catch a flight in order to be home before noon.

Either way, I'm beat.

So, Dallas! Was awesome. I got to see the "Dallas" skyline, which I was excited about, LOL. Our hotel was blocked in by the interstate, which meant expensive cab rides for things like...decently-priced food and grocery items. Boo.

The hotel was ginormous, and kinda cool. I forgot to take a picture of the "atriums", but you can see pictures here. What was NOT cool was having a conference of BAPTISTS come in on Friday morning! Not only Baptists, but ~~food for dignity~~ Missionary Baptists. D: Whoever the event planner for the Anatole is, they might have informed one party or the other that their ARCH NEMESIS would be in attendance for half of their respective conferences.

Baptists + Harry Potter fen = holy hell. Of course, the first thing that happens? Some of our fen get kicked out of an area for posing in front of the Baptists' mock chapel (dumbarses). Then a married pastor starts making unwelcome advances on a young HP person. *eyeroll* I'm sure he just had some pamphlets that he thought she should see.

Moral relativism still reigns supreme in the Southern Baptist Convention. The dirty looks! The people telling me they would pray for me (UH NO KEEP YOUR KARMA TO YOURSELF KTHX *seethe*). Being smiled at and helloed to during my morning run, but sneered at when I was wearing my name badge.

ANYWAY. Was tackle-glomped by Libbie upon arrival Thursday, handed a drink, and sent to my room. A very nice room, to be exact. Yay! Met up with roommates, headed down to ~~dinner~~ the Welcoming Feast. Libbie was wearing some awesome boots, which brought her almost to chin level LOL:

We met up with Sara, Megan and Penny during dinner, and met to discuss our Saturday panel presentation. Diana brought her Harry and Hermione dolls for inspiration:

Since these are the dolls for PoA, we kept it PG. :)

Thursday night ended with, what else? DRINKS! Sedona sunsets = Skyy melon vodka, Fresca, and a splash of cranberry juice. Tasted like watermelon, mmmm. And a not-so-rousing viewing of PoA (wtf people, you're with your PEEPS! On with the inappropriate comments!)

Friday I got up and went to the gym early. The gym was very nice, and there were cute guys working out there - bonus! ;-) There was an outdoor and indoor walking track, indoor and outdoor pools, a spa. I could have stayed there another couple of days just for that.

The first panel I went to was "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: A Look at the Life of Severus Snape." Maybe I'm a t00b, or just a snarky mean fandom person, but if you're going to do a panel on one of the (if not the) most popular and discussed characters in a fandom, you might want to prepare what you're going to talk about ahead of time. There were about 65 people in the room, and the panelists' plan had been to "have you [the audience] ask us some questions." *headdesk* Admittedly, the panelists were not experienced HP fandomers, and I felt so so bad for them. We got up and left about 15 minutes into ~~people shouting over each other~~ it.

At least it was assured that our panel would be better.

The second panel was titled, "Harry Potter's Post-Modern Popularity" by Ed Kern, who wrote The Wisdom of Harry Potter. I enjoy his view of Harry as a Post-Modern, Stoic kind of hero; Harry is such a popular figure precisely because he fits the new archetype of morality - that there is no One True Path. Also, that you shape your future and your past is only one part of that - and let us hope that that crappy Baby Boomer "blame your parents for everything that's wrong/that you do wrong in your life" mindset is fading into the background of the collective psyche!

After that, Shannon and I went to the Sixth Floor Museum, which is the former Texas School Book Depository in downtown Dallas. It was an audio-guided tour, and it was awesome! I'm not a big history person overall, but this tour did a great job setting up the milieu of the Kennedy administration and the world after the assassination. We couldn't take pictures in the museum, but we did get shots of the Grassy Knoll:

View from the Grassy Knoll:

The Asian tourists in the foreground kept crossing the road - which is an on-ramp to I-35. D:

The red brick building in the background is the Old Red Museum, which is a Dallas/Texas history museum. We went there, too - it's been open a year, I think. It's funny to see information on the Civil War in the south - they call it the "War of Northern Aggression" and in Texas, it's "The War Between the States."

Okay, people, the US won the war a hundred and forty-three years ago. GET OVER IT. :-P

A big tourist score was finding out the Taste of Dallas festival was going on nearby. I had gator for the first time...eh. Not like chicken, not like clams, I dunno. Just eh. But, I realized that I am spoiled because there were no craft beers! It was Bud, Bud Light, Heineken and Dos Exxis. Wut.

Later Friday, we went to Diana's book repair workshop, which was well-attended, and fun as usual. I was tired and cranky and had some quiet time to recoup.

That's probably one of my few fen-like indulgences - I need to regroup and recharge alone. However, I go to cons to see friends (not sit at my laptop like I do at home, ignoring the people beside me), to sightsee (instead of bragging that I'd spent 4 days in Dallas/Orlando/Las Vegas/Salem/NOLA without leaving the hotel), and to eat locally (rather than fast food or the overpriced hotel food).

Friday night - SNARRY meetup! I am such a n00b lurker in this particular section of fandom; I never feel worthy. But it was fun, especially having a couple incarnations of the potions master pose:

Snarky!Snape and Dead!Snape (SPOILER!)

To complete the evening of snark, we hit the Snapecast! You can listen to it when it is posted here.

My favorite "Snape":

(Nick's new pornstache doesn't lend itself to being a mental!Snape, but let's not let reality invade my Harry Potter weekend, eh?)

Friday night's movie watching was much improved by our arrival (Sedonas in hand) to watch OOTP. I had to tell the people in front of me to leave if they didn't like our ~~potty mouths~~ comments - as if they'd never seen the movie before.

Saturday was another morning of running (outside this time, with the ~~nutty christians~~ other health-minded folks), then I took a taxi to the nearest grocery store. Which was right next to the library, where I asked about getting breakfast. The librarian told me to walk down to Cafe Brazil for food. He looked at me kinda funny, and I figured out why: I was in the gay/barrio/ghetto area! Wherever this area is in a city, I will ALWAYS find it, without fail. I sat down to write my panel remarks (because even if only 5 people show up, you still need to have something worthwhile to say), and ordered this:

Mexican omelet, rosemary potatoes, cuban bread, and jalepeno jelly. Heaven.

Whew.

How did I know where I was? This was the store next to the library:

And near that, the STD/HIV clinic:

Our panel was in the early afternoon, so I grabbed a few things from the grocery and high-tailed it back to the hotel to ~~frantically re-write my comments~~ get ready.

I believe we ended up with 14 people, a feat considering the relatively small number of people who conceivably would be interested, and the fact that we were up against one of Ed Kern's sessions.

The consensus was that it went well. Admittedly, it's a very niche subject with a large amount of splinter factions, but just talking about it in a constuctive way...the comments I got were "cathartic" and that it "was nice to be able to hear about it from people who aren't looking to make fun of you or try and 'convince' you that you're wrong."

Maybe we Pie-ers need a support group (other than alcohol). :-)

My last panel was a discussion about "fic warnings" which taught me a few new acronyms that I'd never heard before. Eep!

I pretty much crashed after dinner on Saturday...I don't do the Ball (even less so that I had to travel with all my luggage due to having 15-20 minutes to change planes in Memphis and thus no room to store dressy clothinks), and I sorta conked out.

Things that were super-cool:
--Seeing Maddie again; she is a very nice girl
--Everyone else, in general! Yay!
--Snapecast!
--People liked our panel and it was well-attended
--Getting people into the audience participation aspect of the movies
--The dry dry heat of Dallas - 102* and it felt no hotter than 85*. Dude, I'll take it!
--The hotel gym and spa, and it was only $10 for the whole stay!
--The vendor room had a great jewelry maker, and I got a nice bracelet - yay supporting local folks rather than B&N!
--Plot bunnies plot bunnies and more plot bunnies
--I watched Eli Stone, which was good TV (but I will probably never see it again due to my TV ADD)
--My doggie was so happy to see me, and every so often he looks up from his bone to smile at me

Things that were not super-cool:
--That the hotel was blocked in by the interstate, and you couldn't walk ANYWHERE
--Which led to taxi drivers trying to take us for a ride
--Almost 8 hours on the trip west without food due to those short layovers
--Which led to me to nearly lose the 4 Wheat Thins I ate on the plane from MEM to DFW (I had the barf bag in my hand urk)
--That "jalepeno" in Texas means "one step up from bell pepper" - they weren't spicy anywhere I had them! :-\
--The extremely expensive restaurants in the hotel, forcing one to a) pay ridiculous prices (which I didn't) b) take a taxi to get food (still cheaper than the restaurant) or c) eat Pria bars (which I did) to get my nutrition.
--A horrible smelly guy (seriously looked and SMELLED like a hobo) on the plane from MEM to CMH. His seatmate asked to be moved, because he was ready to vomit from the stench. Ew.

So I have a month before Terminus, then Azkatraz next year, and Infinitus in '10, which will be my fandom (or at least my con) retirement. Maybe I can get a gold watch or something. :D

God, I don't want to go back to work. Ever.

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Headwinds

nobody@vox.com(Donna) — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 23:42:18 -0400

I'm dragging...I rode the Path today and the headwinds on the return trip were just evil. My chain kept falling off because I changed gears so often. There was just no way to gather energy, so I didn't get the second wind that usually kicks in around mile 20. Ow. My butt... :-(

There was a doe and fawn in the middle of the path right at Bethel Road. I live in the city because eek! Nature is best when it's behind a fence/glass/in the wild. I would have screamed but I was too damn tired. I just wanted them out of my way at that point.

Dinner was excellent - fresh blueberry pancakes! :-9 I will be having a very yummy breakfast for the next couple of days with the leftovers, too. Yay.

For the ladies: I have an on/off ~~fetish~~ ~~lust~~ thing for Shia LaBoeuf, but damned if he doesn't look nummy here:

This angle/lighting makes him look older here, methinks. You can see the huge scans from Nylon Guys magazine here.

Still not seeing Transformers, though. Do not want.

What I do want:

--My brain to quiet down enough to match my physical fatigue so I can sleeeep

--My blood sugar level to be miraculously normal tomorrow morning (not likely considering the blueberry pancakes)

Hope you all are planning to have fun this 4th of July!

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Keepin' Goin'

nobody@vox.com(Donna) — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 03:23:58 -0400

Did you know that McDonald's puts nutrition information on the bottom of its burger boxes? It's REALLY depressing to look at that after you've finished a fast-food meal. That's a paddlin' (and a long hour of running flat out at the gym today)!

We took Bernie to the vet - they were worried and wanted to see him ASAP. So, we girded up our checking accounts and headed in. Man, Bernie was stinky, and he kept trying to put his butt on me (ew)! But we have a gastrointestinal antibiotic, some soft food (which has giving Bernie a whole new world of culinary nirvana), some gel-based earwax emulsifier and the okay to give him rawhide bones once he's better. The vet also told us about an otoscope procedure that's now available - they can dig out the deep-seated earwax plugs and check for middle-ear infections. They do have to give the animal twilight anesthesia, which means big $$. Boo. Hopefully, though, it will give Bernie more relief from his near-chronic ear infections.

After rushing through that, we went to see 1408. **SPOILERS**

I would only recommend this movie to folks who a) are hardcore Stephen King fans, b) have read the story or c) are cognizant of the term 'multiple realities'.

Even though I'd read the story, I was still cowering and burying my head in Andy's shoulder through most of the movie. It was really sad, as well - there is a dream sequence with his daughter that was a lot like the dreams I'd had after my mom died. Poor Andy, he goes out to the movies with me and about half the time we have to sit in the theatre until the lights come up because of my emo ass.

Those dreams I had - they were cruel; I would be at my parents' house and my mom would be there. I would feel this intense rush of joy to see my mom alive again, to hear her voice and see her smile. In some of the dreams, she would rot away when I touched her, or she would shake her head and tell me, "I can't go with you, I have to go now" and disappear. Each dream left me devastated and I would be near-hysterical when I woke up. I still don't know why those were the dreams I had. Maybe I needed to miss her more in some way, or remind me that there was loss inside of the relief of my mom's death. I don't know.

Also, there was another theme running through the story, dealing with atheist thought vs. the "comfort" of the afterlife. What do you tell terminally ill people to make them feel better? What belief about death gives you personal comfort? I know I'm in the minority when I say that the idea of some place with pearly gates and, like, good stuff is the least appealing thing I can think of happening to me when I die. The idea of my body returning to its natural state in the ground, the immortality of the soul resting in connections to other people, sounds much better to me. I die; my story ends, but there are threads of me woven into the mesh of other people's stories.

I dunno, I'm feeling introspective tonight. And I've not had even a single drink to make me this maudlin. I'm naturally emo like that.

I didn't get to Comfest, but I did get a nice, long nap in, and cleaned at the Temple, so I have all of tomorrow free, free, free! So maybe North Market, maybe Noodles, definitely a bike ride.

And later, possibly a picspam post.

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Got a brain like bubble gum

nobody@vox.com(Donna) — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 02:28:40 -0400

Trying to cram life into 24 hours is exhausting. Heh.

Trying to walk on rest days = FAIL. Who knew that I'd actually prefer to run? Insanity, I tell you.

Bernie is still not 100%, so we will call the vet in the morning. Poor puppy; I think he had some bad food rather than bad rawhide - Andy said that Bernie was having tummy trouble before we gave him his bone. So, my fault. :(

Went to Dayton tonight to see Renee, Manda, Beckie and Matt, and to listen to Homeland (a Celtic-type pub band) play at Dub Pub. V. fun! Met a vegan, buddhist, meditation-practicing AF engineer, which was interesting. Forgot to pay my bill for dinner, though *forehead slap* before I went home.

There is nothing so terrifying than driving on I-71 at midnight - the sheer number of drunk drivers - I'd wager at least 60% of the cars on the road were being driven by intoxicated drivers. I just tried to look alive out there.

I have been a witness to three accidents since Wednesday...I feel like the CPD knows me by name when I call...I think I've given reports on 6 accidents this year alone! Be careful, people - I'm so attractive that people crash into each other when I'm near! LOL

Karen showed me these two pictures, mainly her before and after (but I think I'm about 10# lighter in the second one):

In Vegas, last July:

And, in NOLA, this past May:

Karen has lost ONE HUNDRED POUNDS! No surgery, either. She rocks.

I went wall climbing with Martie from work. Note to self: do not ride your bike to Vertical Adventures again. Those two miles home will seem like ten when your arms feel like ground beef! Martie is a really good climber, though, so hopefully she'll be willing to go with me again. She's also not attached to the notion of sticking too closely to the marked routes, so I didn't get yelled at today. :-P

Actually, several people at work have expressed an interest in it, which is pretty awesome. Who says library folks are milquetoasts?! AND, if any of YOU locals are interested...wall climbing is FUN! You don't have to be in great shape, you don't have to be a skilled climber (or else I wouldn't be able to do it).

You know you wanna!

Tomorrow, the gym (ugh, won't be getting much sleep), then we're going to see 1408. I love seeing horror flicks in the theatre, and I think this is the scariest thing Stephen King ever wrote. So we'll see how it translates to the screen. Then...maybe I can convince Andy to go to the driving range or something. Or I'll head down to Comfest. Hm.

Hope you all have a GREAT weekend!!

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Hooray for Summer!

nobody@vox.com(Donna) — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:29:06 -0400

I got my vacation time approved, so I will be NYC-bound at the end of July to see The Colbert Report! We'll be in NYC July 24th - 26th and going to the taping on the afternoon of the 25th.

Hotwire has a sweet deal for airfare and hotel, and we've already figured out what trains we'll need to take to get from the hotel to the studios, etc. Never let it be said that I don't cover all the bases!

Hopefully we will be able to meet up with a couple of people while we're there, too.

This is the first time in ten years Honeybunch and I have vacationed overnight together. We stayed in Biloxi and NOLA back in late 1997 for a Sugar Bowl game...we missed our honeymoon b/c I was deathly ill...and the rest of our vacations have been to visit non-mutual friends (for him) and HP conventions for me.

Either we'll have a wonderful time, or we'll want to kill each other before the first 24 hours are up!

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Hooray!

nobody@vox.com(Donna) — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 17:19:31 -0400

Updateyness!

Worthington PL has been chosen as Library Journal's Library of the Year, which meant an early press conference this morning. Some of our patrons have no clue how good they have it in this state/area, so maybe this will jog their sense...wait, no, nevermind. LOL

Thing the second: remember those callouses you would get from riding your bike/climbing trees when you were young? I've got them again. Bought a month pass to Vertical Adventures and have been going twice/three times a week. Not much in the way of cardio work, but it's doing me good just to feel accomplished at doing something sporty.

Third, this email:

You are now booked for The Colbert Report

Show Date: July 25, 2007

Showtime: 6:30 pm

Number of Tickets: 2

Name Tickets are held under: Donna Kestler

Ahem.. I AM GOING TO NEW YORK TO SEE STEPHEN COLBERT.

Now, to find a way there, someplace to stay and a way back. Money would make this easier, but alas, I have very little to spare right now.

Also, I have to be sure no one else is on vacation at the same time, because I don't want what happened to me post-vacation to happen to anyone else. Boo.

I found some really yummy strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and ripe (not hydroponic!) tomatoes at North Market. Too bad my meter ran out and I got dinged $20. Drat! But there will be yummy BLT sandwiches at some point this weekend. (Not that I can eat either tomatoes or bacon, but just one bite should take care of the craving!)

Thing the fourth: for you swimming fans, and fans of ~~the male torso~~ Michael Phelps -

I'm not so much with the abs, but check out the shoulders and the lean biceps...*swoon*

And darned if Ira Glass isn't still giving me a little jolt over here...

You know, I really AM too young to be having these crazy middle-age surges of lust for people who are just too pretty. I mean, it's obviously in the realm of possibility...here's Clive Owen and his wife:

Good thing I have Honeybunch to keep me from prowling the streets, LOL. 'Cause I think I compare favorably to Ms. Fenton-Owen!

I was planning to take a nap...I guess it'll still be daylight if I lay down for an hour before I take a ride.

Have a good weekend, everyone, and Happy Father's Day to you lucky daddies!

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QotD: That's Just Cruel

nobody@vox.com(Donna) — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 21:58:13 -0400

What's the weirdest baby name you've ever heard (or considered)?

I'm kind of two minds about this. I don't think any name is weird, but I think sometimes parents forget that their child will be stuck with a name forever, not just when they're kids.

Names influence people and the self. The most common name of incarcerated men? Wayne. Is that a coincidence or just bad luck? I think anyone who's a Junior is destined to be an underachiever or have a dysfunctional relationship with their father. No one wants to be second. For boys, I think traditional is best. Or something traditional with a unique middle name, which is interesting but they don't have to explain it all the time. My dad's name is Donald Reuben, and my grandfather's name was Ezra.

If you're gonna name your girl something uncommon or unusual or familial, I would hope you'd give them a decent middle name so they could go by that if necessary. Sort of the opposite of men, I'm thinking. Moon Unit Zappa - there is NO way out of that. I know a woman named Doris Irene - not much choice for mainstream there, although both names are unusual.

Maybe that's just me. I love non-traditional (but feminine) names for girls. Apple is cute, and what about Chrysanthemum!? Bindi Irwin - another cute, unique name that works. I put a young girl named Rosemary into the system today; her nickname is Rosie. She was very sweet, just like her name. Flower names are what I like - Rose, Daisy, Violet. And seasons - Summer, Autumn. I actually think Pepper is a cool name, too. Yeah, good thing I'm not having kids, eh?

That being said, my kids names would probably be very boring - Susan Elizabeth and Justin Patrick.

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The Zoo!

nobody@vox.com(Donna) — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 22:02:37 -0400

Mal and Natalie took me to the zoo today. We walked around for almost four (!) hours and saw:

A rhino peeing
A elephant peeing, pooping, then sniffing the piles with its trunk (euwww)
A gorilla peeing

It was a glorious day to see nature in all it s...natural state. We also saw lions and tigers and bears...pink flamingos...and penguins...and otters. The crowds weren't too bad today, which was conducive to Natalie being able to park herself wherever and watch the animals do their, uh, thing.

We also rode the carousel:

DSCN0549.jpg

And sat on rocks (she actually hugged this rock before climbing up on it):

DSCN0548.jpg

All in all, a very fine day.

In random postingness: My sidebar ad on Vox has a picture of Ira Glass. I never realized he was so ~~nerdy~~ hot! Wow. ;)

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