I woke up on the wrong side of my head, converts the day into search for awake until I go to bed

Yesterday afternoon [meooooow, meooooow] I ventured out to the convention center [meooooow, meooooow] in Rosemont to see for myself the lame [meooooow, meooooow]"Everything to do with Love/Sex" convention sponsored [meooooow, meooooow] by Mac cosmetics and Lover's Lane [meooooow, meooooow] or whatever. I was at one point [meooooow, meooooow] within six inches of Ron Jeremy [meooooow, meooooow] which wasn't as exciting as I thought it might be [meooooow, meooooow] versus the British porn star who smiled at me [meooooow, meooooow] in a somewhat genuine way. I decided to wear my leather cuff [meooooow, meooooow] and a butt plug to the convention, to queer it up [meooooow, meooooow] even if just for myself. [meooooow, meooooow] I was glad I could be a friendly face for the performing Kings, [meooooow, meooooow] since they had a rough weekend of [meooooow, meooooow] performing to a small and often perplexed or even unwelcoming [meooooow, meooooow] audience.

[meooooow, meooooow] What was that? [meooooow, meooooow] Is it annoyed to be constantly interrupted by a crying cat? Yeah, well, try having to hear it ALL NIGHT. From midnight to 2 am it felt like she was in my ear, wailing. I was so close to the verge of falling asleep. I was begging my brain to go under, so I could shut it out. But it didn't work. It also didn't help that the cat wasn't even talking to me, but to the person fast asleep next to me in the bed. I finally got up and put her in the bathroom and shut the door. But I swear she continued her meowing throughout the night and it managed to permeate my dreams, no matter how faintly.

This morning I wanted to kill every living and non-living entity in the house. I say "non-living entity" because the leaking coffeemaker made it on to my deathlist.

[meooooow, meooooow]

CANCER (Jun 21–Jul 22): You may feel as if you’ve been here before—and maybe you have. Still, things are new and different. Perhaps your maturity has changed the way you look at it all. Even if you feel capable of expressing what you would like, remember that this logical analysis doesn’t truly reflect your heart. You might speak all the right words, yet the interaction still may not nourish your soul.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

Solitary Man.

I'm feeling better. Getting work accomplished improves my mood (go figure) and makes the time go by quickly. Being able to chat with one of my favorite headquarters co-workers who's in town for the week helped tremendously. We have a date for fish&chips later this week. Soon I'll be eating lunch, which always cheers me up and I get to do it with drinkasyoupour which is even better. At this rate, I'll be in a good mood by the afternoon. Hello, week of full moon!

I've been spending a lot of alone time lately which worried me at first, for some reason. I was concerned that I was hiding, holing myself up to retreat and avoid contact with people or dealing with others, that I was depressed about something I was ignoring. But no, I just have needed some me-time. As well as some reading and writing time. I think my perspective gets skewed because I spend time with dommeyourass who has 12479038 hobbies and projects and meetings and groups that she participates in on any given day. Plus, my craft is a bit more solitary than hers. It's sort of a fine line I'm trying to figure out right now, the balance between being out in the world to absorb things to write, but also not spending so much time socializing or just thinking about what I could write and not actually doing it. I might become that weirdo who's constantly pulling out a notepad out of my pocket to scribble things down, because lately I find myself greatly inspired while out in the world but then drawing a total blank when I sit down in the lab (with a pen and a pad, trying to get this damn label off? I ain't having that, this is the millenium of Aftermath, so give me one more platinum plaque and fck rap, you can have it back...) Sorry, I digress, as usual.

There's more, including thoughts I've had since finishing Lullaby on Saturday about the difference between having a distinct, specific style versus being stuck in a rut and/or recycling the same techiniques, but lunchtime is arriving and I could probably just sum it up by saying the lesson I learned is I'm not sure one can write one novel a year and expect it to be groundbreaking and limit-pushing or even completely fresh. Next on my reading list: Mating.

There's no theme.

I'm waiting for a check to get cut, so I did something I haven't done in quite sometime. I made a poll.

[Poll #177803]

I know that you think it's just a fantasy

Before I get to the poll questions, I should say I think I made a mistake. I should have been more explicit on the Bond question and reminded people that the song from "The Spy Who Loved Me" is Carly Simon's Nobody Does It Better. Feel free to go back and change your answers accordingly. For some reason, I'm having a hard time believing that Die Another Day is winning right now.

Now, some answers to the first batch of questions. I'm having fun answering these between doing the work that I, you know, get paid for.
( see your answers here! )