Right in the middle of some gratuitious snuggling

MY WEEK IN PICTURES

ahem...

Snowday!


Unchartered amounts of fanfic reading!


No more epic fanfic reading.

Thanks for nothing, Webroot.

Looking for: someone who uses fabric softener

Yesterday I went down the hall to do laundry, and, as occasionally happens, someone had left their wet clothes in the washer. I took them out, left them in a pile, put mine in, then came back half an hour later to discover that they'd moved their laundry to the dryer and left a note. No one ever leaves notes; everyone in my apartment complex ignores each other at all times, it's like a rule. The note apologized, explained that the person had fallen asleep, thanked me for moving their clothes, then was signed with a guy's name and his apartment number.

When I was in the dorm, I'd get a bit irritated when someone moved my clothes, and the note came from an apartment of college students who like to party -- not an environment I'd expect to produce an overly-polite note apologizing for being inconsiderate. So obviously this was a bit unusual, but I responded with a nice but brief "sorry to have moved your laundry," tried not to think about the fact that he'd probably opened the washer and seen my underwear, and went back to my apartment to wait for the dryer to be free again.

Which was the end of that, until about 15 minutes ago when he sent me a facebook message that said,

"hey"

Not "Hey." Not "Hey, I live down the hall, remember me? You moved my laundry." No punctuation, no capitalization, just... "hey"

In retrospect, I acknowledge I was asking for something like this. I could have not responded, or at least not included the phrase "handling your wet laundry"... signed with my first name and last initial... with my apartment number at the bottom. (What? I was being neighborly!) He's actually pretty cute, but he's young, goes to CC, wears his baseball cap backward, and is the kind of guy to send facebook messages that just say "hey" to people without knowing anything about them except what their wet laundry looks like. He lists just about everything possible under what he's "looking for," and his likes include things like "anything funny," "anything interesting," and "Theres Alot of Them." His profile picture looks mildly smug, but not too gross or douchey. I dunno, guys -- he doesn't actually seem that creepy once you look past the laundry thing, and probably he's just being friendly, but I tend to draw the line at friending complete strangers. I don't think I'll respond, but that's the problem with neighbors -- what if I run into him in the hallway and am subsequently identifiable only as "that girl with the striped underwear who wouldn't even respond to my facebook message, bitch"?

I think I can handle being the building bitch. Either way, I am tired and way overdue to go to bed. The befuddling conundrums of social networking can wait until morning.

The cats just sat and watched through the window

I've been meaning to call in a few maintenance requests around the apartment: a little plastic decorative piece fell off one of my bathroom faucet knobs, the sliding glass door's lock is broken and keeps falling into the shut/locked position, Gracie has completely shredded the door jams and they should probably be fixed.

Because cats know how to be obnoxious. Yesterday during my lunch break, I was going to pop home for something to eat before stopping at the bank to make a deposit and heading back to work, but alas, when I walked in and put my purse down, I heard Garfunkel scraping at the carpet ...burying ...something. Not only had Garfunkel defecated in the dining room, as he is wont to do when the litterbox is full, Gracie, it turned out, had also peed on the couch.

I love cats.

Any dreams I'd had of making it to the bank dissipated quickly as I cleaned up after the cats, sprayed both spots with stain remover, then went out on the balcony to water my plants while I waited for the stain remover to sink in.

Whereupon, without thinking, I closed the sliding door behind me and locked myself out on the balcony.

Which is how I discovered that you can call for help all you want in my neighborhood and it'll do you no good if everyone's got their windows closed and their A/C on.

Miraculously, my roommate happened to show up only about 20 minutes later, before I had to decide between lowering myself to the ground and waiting for someone to eventually wander by who could alert the apartment office. I was glad to be back in before I needed, say, a bathroom, but a little disappointed that I didn't get to take an impromptu few hours off work. I've got very straight priorities like that.

A Lesson in Doing Your Research

Submission to my POB (a Calvinist publishing company):

Calvinism: A Road to Nowhere
This book is needed because more and more Christian churches, seminaries, and individual believers are under pressure to accept the doctrine of Calvinism. This theology is more philosophical than doctrinal and lacks the scriptural support that should be required of a system which distorts the very Person of God, restricts the gospel message, limits the atonement of Christ, eliminates a real response from man, totally undercuts the worth of a man, and imposes unsubstantiated divine imperatives such as irresistible grace, effectual call, and saving faith as gift from God….

Not even a Methodist assistant's gonna save you here, buddy. This submission was officially Stupid.

We strive for accuracy

Most people, when they say their phone charger is broken, mean it has stopped functioning for an unknown reason.



Mine is broken. Precision of language, people.

"It looks like it's been through the Civil War."

Dear Author:

Thank you for submitting your manuscript on the Civil War for consideration with our publishing house. I'm afraid that we need to be looking for something more ...cohesive in the area you propose, but we do appreciate your considering us at this time.



Cordially,

Us.


(In the guy's defense, I think his manuscript was in the right order and pointing in the same direction when he first mailed it, but the original package had been torn to shreds in transit, and this was the state it was in when the shipping department delivered it to my office. No two pages were in the right order; it took me about 20 minutes to find a sheet with contact information on it.)

Weekend Update: non-sequential edition

-I started an art class this week! I've been angsting up a storm trying to figure out whether I should just take a night class here and there or whether I should go back for another bachelors (full time students can get financial aid!), but while I'm trying to figure it out, I'm taking a continuing ed course. It's very basic so far, but it's also about a tenth of the price of a normal studio art course, so, yeah. Yay!

-I love that it's been warmer, but warmer does mean more ice. My weekend walks have gotten significantly more perilous. I haven't broken anything yet, but it's only a matter of time.

-I've been really getting into Battlestar! Yayfun! :) However [dramatic pause, tragic sigh], I was hunting around on Youtube the other night for interviews and clips, and I came across one labeled "last scene of [thus'n'such episode]" and thought, hey, sure, I'll check that out. It wasn't until too late that I realized it was the last scene... of the last episode... of the last season. [Facepalm] I screamed a scream of despairing agony and swore a blue streak. I ...I now know what happens to a couple of very key characters. I've been enjoying the show a lot though, and despite this tragic, torturous slip, I'll probably see it through to the end. The last episode on the first disk (you know, where I actually am) is a cliffhanger, so I've been extremely twitchy all day, seeing as the branch that has the next disk available isn't open on Sundays. Will Starbuck be rescued from her post-Cylon-ass-kicking-session viper crash? Will Adama forgive her for her role in his son's untimely death?? WILL MY POOR SHATTERED TV SCREEN EVER RECOVER FROM THE SEARING GAZE OF ANGRY!EDWARDJAMESOLMOS?????????????? I can't stand the suspense. *EDIT*: Spoilers in the comments

-I can't believe how short weekends are. I have to go to work tomorrow? Seriously? Big!Christian-publisher-in-town gets MLK day off, so, um, why don't we again? Boooo.

Situation Normal All Brian'd Up

Dear Gmail,

No matter how many times I change the "Appear in Chat List" setting from "Auto" to "Never," my ex-boyfriend continues to appear in my chat list. Please fix. This most undesirable occurrance has been an issue ever since he was turned down by another girl last week and emailed me on the pretense of clearing his Itunes authorization off my laptop, only to spring old pictures of the two of us together on me in a morose attempt to make me feel guilty. I do not feel guilty, Gmail-- I feel like I stepped in something smelly and cannot get it off my shoe.

Whatever he is paying you to do this to me, I will double it.

Much thanks,

Holly

P.S. New themes soon pls?

Signed, Stupid

From our website:

If you wish to submit a manuscript to us, we ask that you send the following:
-A query letter telling us what the book is about.
-A prospectus, table of contents, and perhaps an introduction and sample chapters. Or you may elect to send the entire manuscript. All manuscript material should be typed or printed out, double-spaced, on one side of the paper.
We will not accept or respond to manuscripts, proposals, or queries sent by e-mail or fax.


Received in the mail today (hard copy):

Dear Editor-in-Chief:

I retrieved your "Book Proposal Guidelines" from your website and I have a couple of questions:
1) Is it correct for me to say that you will respond to no email, even a letter such as this?
2) I have a formal book proposal of 78 pages and 17,994 words. It contains the information you list in paragraph two of the "Guidelines," including four double-spaced samples, fifty-seven pages, of the manuscript chapters/sections. The first seventeen pages of the book proposal are single-spaced. Will a printed copy of the book proposal accompanied by a cover letter meet your "Guidelines" for submitting a book proposal to PublishingCompany?

Thank you for your kind consideration.

Sincerely,
Author, PhD.


How I wish:

Dear Author,

We don't actually give a shit about spacing.

Sincerely,
Me

P.S. PhD.? Really?

In which I am pathetic

Aww, I fail at blogging, guys. I'll post something substantial either tonight or tomorrow night. I've got like three ideas in my head, but taking the time to type them out is completely beyond my grasp/outside of my range of priorities. You know those 9 yr old girls who confide every detail of their angsty, giggly lives to their diaries and/or long desperately to be a writer? Yeah, I was never one of those.

Oops

Good thing it's December, because I completely forgot to blog last night. I've decided to keep my blog, but I'm not sure how often I want to post. Every day seems like a bit much, but I'm pretty sure I'll stop altogether if I don't set myself a schedule. I'll be thinking about that.

It's funny that earlier this year (or whenever it was) I was arguing in the comments on Catherine's blog that technology makes me feel more distant from people, because keeping a blog and exchanging comments with you has made me feel much more connected and close. I think it's all in how you use the technology -- without the back-and-forth in the comments I do just feel like I'm shouting into space, which is worse than not shouting at all, but the exchange is kind of like having a mini chat most nights, which is very nice. Ohio and Kalamazoo (and ...Shannonland. Kansas? Yeah, Kansas. Right? Totally right.) don't seem so very far away.

...Aaand now I'm late for work. Laters!