Live action Sailor Moon

Didn't get much sleep last night; I went to bed around 2:30 and got up at around 8:20. Sure, that's plenty of sleep for the normal, aren't-enough-hours-in-the-day American...but it wasn't very much in Heather terms. I'm thinking about going back for a bit of a snooze, but I wanted to mention that I did play tennis today (missed it on Tuesday; slept in...ugh), and also that I really, really, really like the new Sailor Moon live action series. It is so much fun! Basic plot elements and character developments are the same, but how they come out is different. Crown is a karaoke place instead of an arcade, and Motoki has some weird sort of affection for turtles. (I don't know.) It's cute and funny and also serious, and I have no problem taking it seriously (unlike the vast majority of my friends...okay, 100% of my friends...did I mention that they are all male?) So yeah...really enjoying it so far :) I can't wait for episode 8!

今日、テニスができました！

I was able to play tennis today with Paul. I went over to his apartment complex and we played in the newly-resurfaced court just beyond the parking lot. There is only one court, at least on that side of the complex, but it was okay; no one else was around or wanting to play. We managed to hit the ball out of the court and into the forest several times, but it was easier to weave through the trees to get to it due to the fact that the forest is apparently thinned out and cut back by whoever does the excellent landscaping at the complex. Unfortunately, there is no gate to exit on that side of the court, so we had to walk all the way around to get back there.

Still, it was a lot of fun, and my knee doesn't hurt at all anymore.

I do, however, suddenly have allergies. A severe runny nose and lots of sneezing. It started sometime during tennis and has lasted all day...ugh. I've taken allergy medicine twice, but it hasn't seemed to help much. The first time I took it, I took a nap immediately thereafter; I recently took the second dose, and it's making me drowsy again, so I'll probably go to bed soon.

I need to get started on my housecleaning schedule thing from FlyLady, at some point...I'm not "behind", per se, but I haven't begun, either. I did, however, shine one of my sinks tonight.

OMG! Today was Wednesday!

For some reason, when I got up (the second time) I was convinced that it was Thursday and that I had missed tennis with Paul. But it wasn't Thursday!

If my knee feels okay tomorrow, I will play tennis. Maybe I'll even try it if it doesn't feel okay :P

A normal day...plus TMNT

Knee...still...hurting! ARGH!

I actually took three Advil and went back to bed after making my blog post this morning. I couldn't concentrate, and I knew I couldn't get into any housework, so I figured I'd try to rest and relax and see if it would get better. It did, seemingly; I mean, I can move without wanting to cry, but I still tend to make "Aaah!" and "Ugh!" and "Grah!" noises. Having sex with knee pain is no picnic, I can tell you.

I got up from my nap at around 3:30 or so, struggled out of bed, and got dressed. I fully intended to limp down to the car and drag up at least some of the soda, when it abruptly occurred to me that the soda is in Sean's car, which at the time was with him at the fort. Well! So I didn't do that, but I did put the dishes away and mess around online, and then at 5 I asked Sean if he was hungry, and since he was I went ahead and started on dinner (crab alfredo with salad and garlic bread--my home-made [read: buttered, garlic salted regular store-bought wheat bread] garlic bread is pretty good).

He came home and took the garbage out (two bags sitting in the kitchen since yesterday! O_O!), and then we sat down and ate at the dinner table. It was the first time we'd done that in awhile; usually I just bring his food to him at the computer. We chatted and flirted and ate, then cleaned up and settled in at our computers for about 15 minutes, and then ran off to the bedroom. Knee pain be damned!

Bellsouth is having weird DNS issues, so Sean started messing with the settings when we got back online. This meant that I couldn't surf the web (I'd been reading the archives of PartiallyClips, a webcomic I discovered through Sluggy), and downloading pictures from Prince of Tennis.com), chat, or download anime...my only reasons for using the computer. So I went to the living room and cracked open Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

As Kevin knows (since I keep telling him), I used to have that movie memorized. I could watch it in my head, seeing everything play out in real time. So watching it again was kind of neat. I hadn't seen it in years, so it wasn't completely fresh, but at the same time I anticipated every line, every sound effect. Some sound effects were too quiet on my TV to hear, so I turned up the volume to correct the experience. Rather bizarre.

What was nice was that the DVD worked on my DVD player. A lot of the newer DVDs don't. Another nice thing is that the DVD is double-sided, containing both pan-and-scan and widescreen versions. If you are a true friend, you know which one I chose. ;)

Sean has hopefully worked out the issue with Bellsouth, so presumably our service will be back to normal within a day or so. That would be good. In the meantime, at least I can surf and post and stuff.

Still have a lot of 2go-Box work to get done...ugh.

Shopping, getting reacquainted, knee pain, and FlyLady

I was supposed to pick Sean up at the fort whenever he got in last night. Figuring that he would get back at around the usual time for leaving work (why I assumed this, I have no idea), I drove out that way to the oriental market on Lumpkin (two exits past the one for Fort Gordon on I-520). I got a little turned around on Deans Bridge Road, but ultimately found my destination, and ended up going to the little store first.

Though small, the place seems to have some of everything, including European chocolates. I was mostly interested in the Japanese items, like the rice cookers and water heaters (for tea) and the dishes and the porcelain dolls in glass boxes. I didn't buy any of these, of course, but I did browse!

Finally I selected three packets of miso soup mix, a box of curry mix, and a bag of rice. I was about to leave when two Japanese ladies started speaking in Japanese to each other, standing around the big bags of rice. I halfway understood what they were saying, but not really, which was annoying (though they might have wanted it that way). What's important is that I noticed the fridge behind them, and checking through it, I found a little box of red bean cakes.

YUM!

So I bought those too, up at the counter manned by the cute little old man. I don't know what his name is, but I guess his family owns the store. The last time I was there, I was with Sue (Paul's mom) and Trisha (Paul's mom's brother's wife), and I had a brief conversation with him and his Japanese wife about the fact that I had been to Kyoto. I'm pretty sure he didn't remember me from then, but I remembered him. (As my friends know, I have a thing for old men. They are just so cute!)

I had assumed that Sean would call for a pickup while I was out, and so it was with a bit of consternation that I left the store. Driving back on I-520, I kept slowing down more and more as I neared the Fort Gordon exit. I think I was actually going (gasp) 55 when I finally passed it, and still no call. So I resolutely went forward, stopping at the bank to make a deposit before finally going home.

I was wearing my new pair of brown leather high heeled boots (I love boots!), and as I climbed out of Sean's car I whined to myself about having to climb the stairs...but it really wasn't that bad, and soon I was eating a red bean cake and puttering around online. I left the boots on, expecting to have to leave at any moment...and besides, they were making my knees feel better.

I woke up yesterday (and today, for that matter) with horrible pain in my left knee. It doesn't seem to like to bend or straighten in certain positions, but in other positions it's tolerable. Going to bed with knee pain was, well, a pain :> It was hard to find the best way to lie there that provoked the minimum amount of ouch factor. This was obviously a problem last night; the night before, I didn't have the pain until I woke up in the morning.

It was brought on by me actually getting up and doing stuff on Monday, I suppose...my shins are also sore, probably both from walking and from wearing high heeled boots yesterday. It's the good kind of sore that means exercise...the knee pain is not a good kind of anything. I was hoping it would be gone by now, but alas.

This knee thing has happened to me before, though I'm not sure if it has been the left leg every time. I think it has happened to the right one too. The first time it happened, I believe, I was down here visiting Sean, and I had to drive home with it. It was really, really obnoxious. Since then I've had it crop up a couple times. I'm not exactly sure why it happens, but I would really like it to go away.

So I was messing around on the computer, waiting for Sean to call. It got later and later and later. The sun went down. Finally, after much consternation, I ate a pimiento cheese sandwich; I was hungry, and I thought maybe Sean would be really late, and that he would eat with his coworkers.

It wasn't too long after that that I suddenly heard a loud thunk coming from the living room. It took a few seconds for it to actually register; then, worried that something had fallen over or someone was doing something suspicious, I limped as fast as possible out there...to find that my front door had come open and then stuck on the latch. Had I left the door unlocked? It was a good thing I'd bolted it, then...

I approached warily to close the door, and suddenly there was knocking. At once I knew it was Sean, yet felt worried that it might not be.

"Who is it?"

"It's me," came the familiar voice.

I relaxed in relief as I went to work the bolt open. "What are you doing here?" I asked dumbly, since of course I was supposed to pick him up.

"I live here. At least I think I do," he joked. I finally got the door open and he exchanged pleasantries with someone I couldn't see, someone who had obviously brought him home. He then strode in with his bag; I picked up the laptop case and followed him, closing and relocking the door.

We kissed for a long time after that, then moved to the bedroom.

It was really nice. I don't want to get into specifics about my lovemaking on a public blog, but I do want to mention that it was especially loving and tender this time. We did a lot of snuggling, and, strangely enough, talking. We'd never had a conversation during sex before; it was kind of neat. It was like we were reconnecting not just physically, but emotionally. I told him everything I'd been doing, and we flirted and teased each other.

When we were finally finished reacquainting ourselves, I moved to the kitchen to make some curry for my poor husband who hadn't eaten any dinner yet, while he got comfortable at the PC. It took awhile to get done, but it turned out fantastic. I especially loved eating rice again...I really missed it.

The kitchen was fortunately clean for my dinner preparations due to a tidy-up bent that hit me before I went to the oriental market. Faye recently told me about FlyLady, a resource site for housewives who need help sticking to a routine and managing their clutter. I signed up for the list, and since then I've been receiving numerous peppy emails telling me to clean things. I ended up cleaning the kitchen and the toilets, though those actually weren't on FlyLady's schedule. They were just things that had to be done. I may adapt the FlyLady schedule, but for now it's just enough that I feel motivated to do anything at all.

After getting back from the oriental market, I cleaned up some more, moving the laundry off the dining room table finally (I'm so bad about that recently) and finally into the closet, putting my new shoes away, and organizing my 2go-Box paperwork into two of the shoeboxes. And after Sean came home and we ate dinner, I received another email from FlyLady, ordering me to go do the dishes and "shine the sink". So I did.

I have no idea how to shine a sink, and I didn't feel like checking her website for directions, so I just used Formula 409, and I think that was the wrong thing to do. It doesn't look particularly shiny, though it is clean. I'll do a little research later and see what I should do next time.

One of FlyLady's mantras is "get dressed down to the shoes", but right now I'm still in my Dog Tired nightie. The only reason I'm up at all is because of my knee pain; Sean and I didn't make it to bed until 3something this morning, and typically under those circumstances I would snooze for a few more hours. But at 7:20 I was in pain and had to go to the bathroom, and the idea of lying back down and trying to get my leg comfortable was intensely unappealing, so I just stayed up.

I'm moving my leg around, trying to work out whatever it is that is making my knee hurt, but I don't know if it's actually helping. It seems that keeping my leg in one position only makes it hurt more when I finally have to move it, so I'm hoping that more constant movement will diminish it...but who knows. I wish it would just go away!

The kitchen is still clean. According to FlyLady, this week's target area is bathrooms, and my task for today is the countertops and sink. I suppose I can deal with that. I'm really happy that I finally cleaned the toilets; they tend to get a ring around them very easily, and I'm not sure why. I meant to pick up 2000 Flushes at Wal-Mart on Monday, but I completely forgot.

I did, however, finally clean the bar top/counter thingie that separates the kitchen from the living room and dining room. I've dusted it before, but this time I removed everything, washed the counter, then cleaned everything and put it back. It looks nicer, at least to me. That and the cleaning of my washer and dryer and the organization of my pantry are the crowning achievements of my day yesterday, since I've never done those things before. I feel a nice sense of accomplishment.

Due to my knee pain plus the fact that I got up a little late, I did not play tennis with Paul yesterday. I hope the knee pain goes away soon enough for me to play tomorrow. I would like to get tennis back into my routine, and not just because I really like Prince of Tennis. Tennis is the one sport that I ever actually enjoyed playing. I never played for school or on a team or anything, but I did take lessons once, a long, long time ago. I'd like to get back into it, since it's something I enjoy.

Speaking of tennis, the other day on IRC I was joking (yet again) about how Carver and Foreman are joined at the hip, and Foreman remarked that they were "the Golden Pair". This led to a discussion of who was Oishi and who was Kikumaru...and it turned out that Foreman matched Kikumaru quite well. I commented offhandedly that Foreman must do "acrobatic tennis" and he responded eagerly, "I DO!!!" He then explained that back in high school, he was on the tennis team, and when playing doubles, he would always dive to get the ball. So that he wouldn't fall and hurt himself, he would tumble into a somersault after making the return, then be up and ready after the roll to hit the next ball. He really IS Kikumaru!!!! (I should make sure he starts saying gibberish phrases like "Hoi hoi" and calling Hyper "ochibi"...)

I think that's all I have to say. I love rambling, so I'm sure I could think of something else, but it's time for my short attention span to be directed elsewhere. Until next time, adieu, adieu, to yuu and yuu and yuu.

A better day

Two and a half hours ago I was going to bed, but before I did, I wanted to inform all three of my readers that I had a good day today.

That, at least, was how I started out the blog entry that was lost by my net connection suddenly going down.

Oh well.

I wanted to say that today was good. It had its bittersweet moments, but it was good. Getting out of the apartment and doing things was nice. I rode up with Sean to Fort Gordon and then took the car on errands to the oriental market (unfortunately closed), the mall, Best Buy, Allstate, and Wal-Mart. I bought four pairs of shoes at Payless for $54. I bought Top Gun, Army of Darkness, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on DVD. I had McDonald's for lunch, and I did quite a bit of 2go-Boxing. I made a video for Connor and then talked to him on the phone. And while waiting for my net connection to come back up, I finished reading Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card.

All in all, it's been a pretty good day, and, most surprisingly, I was in a pretty good mood for most of it.

Sometimes I felt sad. In Wal-Mart I almost exploded into tears upon sight of a pregnant woman packing receiving blankets into a cart laden with goodies for newborns. Talking to Connor, and hearing him say most often "I wish you could stay here" and second most often "I really miss you", my eyes stung, and I felt just as lonely as I ever have. With Sean away in North Carolina on business--to pick up his RTI name badge, he says--it is a far more direct aloneness. Feeling this pining for companionship, I have to shudder at the thought of how I keep leaving Sean alone here for weeks on end when I go home to visit my family.

On another day, the sad things would have dominated. But somehow, today, they didn't. I feel good, and wholly satisfied, even though I lost my original post. I've recreated the important parts here; if I think of something I missed, I can always tack it on later. But in truth, those were the things that were on my mind; rewriting does much for concision.

I don't know why today was better...but I like it!

Give up writing?

Writing is the one thing that everyone has always told me I'm good at.

That's why I'm so unsure about giving it up.

I signed up for NaNoWriMo, but here it is November 8 and I haven't written a thing. I have nothing to say, no stories to tell. I feel as if everything that could be said or told has been done, or will be done, by someone with far more talent than I possess. I am so easily critical of other people's work, but the truth is, I don't know if even I meet my standards. Sometimes I do. Sometimes there's a flash of brilliance in what I write. But I've never maintained it throughout a work. I've never completed anything worthy of being published, or even really of being shown to others.

This is not humility. This is fact. I have a dozen false starts saved on disc, and I have a handful of completed yet shoddy short stories. That's it. I'm not one of those brilliant writers who's written pages and pages of material but refuses to show them out of fear of rejection. I have nothing, really.

I don't write.

I don't write...I don't do anything. I've tried to motivate myself, but all this motivation has done is make me feel worse. I don't know what it is I want out of life, other than to travel, to try new things, to eat, to have fun. When I think of the things I want to do, it seems like they all have a cost, and none of them will benefit me in any way other than enjoyment.

Was I ever excited about the prospect of working, of learning something, of growing as a person? Or have I always been as superficial as I am now, regarding with distaste the activities I feel I should leap towards?

Meaningless

I want to care about something. I want to have a goal.

I feel like my life is meaningless. Life has only the meaning I give it, and I haven't given it anything in months. I'm not working towards anything, and I can't think of anything that I want to work towards.

I thought signing up for National Novel Writing Month would help, but it only gave me a temporary euphoria. Now that reality is setting in--I have no idea what to write about, while all my friends have started already--I find myself seeing NaNoWriMo as just another burden.

I want to cast it all off...but if I do, what will be left?