Okay. So it's been a while since I've posted, LJ. I'm sorry. I was broken up about Cat for a while.

I'm at college now! William & Mary is awesome; I know I made the right choice. Even if I do kind of suck at Econ. I'm in ROTC, too. Tomás is in his little tank behind me. My roommate and I are practically the same person. I've been writing more. Life is aight.

...except that I have sprained my left wrist and ankle, burned my right thumb really badly, and have a ridiculous amount of chigger bites all the way up my legs. I swear, worst itch in the world.

I'm having fun overall. I miss the cats. I've been here for almost a whole month...I think as of today it will have been a month. Either today or tomorrow.

There's really been too much gone on in the past two months since Cat died for me to recap properly. I mean, I went to the zoo before we left. I now have a stuffed red panda. I went to the White House the Thursday before I left. I realized that I spent more time with the White House Press Corps that summer than I did with most of my friends. It was depressing.

College is pretty cool. Like, REALLY cool. I'm not really a party person though. To pass the time, I've even started watching The West Wing again. (Shut up.) Waiting on the person who has season 2 vol 1 to return it to the library.

I go to school the same place Jon Stewart did. This makes me far too happy.

Later gator!

I was going to do an entry about seeing the new Harry Potter movie twice, and why I enjoyed G-Force but had some issues with the writing, and why Torchwood: Children of Earth is excellent and also makes me want to hurt something. However, that has been superceded by what has to be one of the worst 24-hour periods of my life.

I came home from G-Force to find Cat, my 15-year-old cat, panting on the floor. The A/C had stopped working properly. Fearing he was dehydrated, we put him in the tub with a half-inch of water to cool his feet, and he drank for ten minutes straight. His breathing was wheezy and not at all good. So we took him to the emergency vet at one in the morning. "Come on, Cat," I said, without really knowing why. "We're going on an adventure..."

He had lung cancer that had metastasized. We were going to have to put him to sleep. I was up 'til four in the morning crying and praying that he would be okay.

He wasn't. Poor little man, he was so miserable, they had to keep him in the oxygen cage and his breathing was still awful...he was in so much pain. We sat with him and talked to him and told him we loved him and cried and pet him for about a half an hour before the vet came in to give him the shots...

...and I saw my furry brother die.

We opted to have him privately cremated, since he deserved better than the mass cremation for the pet cemetary. (That was all my push - it was more expensive but I would have paid for it on my own.) So his urn is getting shipped to us in about another week or so. I listened to "Bright Eyes" and "The Day Before The Day" in the car on the way back and cried my eyes out.

I miss him. I miss the way he'd always come up and beg for food in the kitchen. I miss the way he'd try and steal some off my plate. I miss giving him his thyroid pill. I miss how loud and energetic he was. I miss the particular way he trilled when he meowed. I miss the way he came trotting down the hall when we called him, the little pouch he got when we neutered him swinging freely. I miss his cute little paws and his horribly dirty little ears. I miss his patches above his eyes that were practically bald. I miss the way he smelled. I miss how he was always purring.

I miss Cat, god damn it. More than words can express.

Merlin Dulles "Cat" Villanueva
April 4, 1994 - July 26, 2009
"Bite; bite hard, and find the tenth life."

Dear Livejournal: Salutations.

I'd tell you what I've been up to for the past month and a half, but you would never believe me. Oh, fine, I'll tell you anyway.

On June 5th, I got to take the train to New York City with Jabari, to celebrate his birthday. It was pretty chill - we got to go to Coney Island and the Nintendo Store - and we returned on the 7th.

I also attended MHS graduation 09, because the speaker was Colin Powell and how could I pass that up, I mean really.

Then my life was mostly boring, and then this happened. No, I assure you, it's real. I was there. I have pics. And it was awesome.

On the 22nd, I flew to Peru with my mom. Well, really, in no sense did I fly 'with' her. We left on different planes, from different airlines, from different airports, to different stopover destinations. All would have gone well except my American Eagle flight to JFK was delayed for two hours, forcing me to miss my connection - and the only direct flight to Lima out of JFK for 24 hours. After some arguing with the night counter guy, I managed to secure a reroute to Lima via Miami for no additional charge - however, it was gone midnight and my flight to Miami wasn't until 6 AM. Under New York law, I was forbidden from getting a hotel room as I am not yet 21, so I stayed up all night, talked to a British girl named Sammy Jo, and caught a few restless winks on the plane. Once in Miami, I secured a day room at the airport hotel (since Florida doesn't have that idiotic law or anything resembling it) and got a shower and two hours of sleep.

Did I mention that my Miami layover was nine hours? Because it was nine hours. Once I was on the plane to Lima (finally), I was seated next to a nice Peruvian lady named Veronica and we chatted. I got through customs with no problem and took the cab to the hotel. Overall, I was travelling for 28 hours. And that wasn't even the end of my soujourn.

Since I missed an entire day due to air traffic control fuckery, I didn't have too much time in Lima before we went to Cusco. I spent most of my days in the open-air shopping mall across the street, Larcomar, and went on a bus tour of the city. Cusco followed on the fourth day after a one-hour plane ride. Cusco is actually quite beautiful, and I wish we'd been able to spend more time there, but it was arrive on Friday, go to Machu Picchu on Saturday, depart on Sunday. Alas.

Machu P was cool. Except for the bureaucracy. Oh, the bureaucracy. But it is quite cool overall. And I got an Indiana Jones hat! \o/

Sunday I flew from Cusco to Lima with mom, and then she had to take her plane, which left - you guessed it - nine hours before mine did. Again. WTF? I read and wrote and played Audiosurf, then boarded the plane. There were seatback screens and I honestly spent more time watching Witness than I did sleeping. I arrived in 'Nueva York' and hopped my flight back down to DCA with no problems...but I still spent 27 hours in transit. Repeat: The hell?

Then my life was quiet for a while, up until the fourth of July, which I spent at cookouts with Jabari, and the tenth, at which point we went to the Video Games Live concert in Wolf Trap. Also with Jabari. The VGL concert was actually quite rad, and Grant Kirkhope (the sound designer for Perfect Dark and GoldenEye 007) signed my poster. It was a good day. (They turned off the lights as Kirkhope was signing my poster, and he took out his cell phone to have light to finish. :D Ilu Grant Kirkhope.)

Aaaaand I'm typing this from the White House Briefing Room because I have an hour before the briefing starts. So...feel special, guys. I can't post from here because there is no WiFi in the briefing room (weird, right? But that is how things are).

...I'm gonna play Audiosurf now. *shrug* [Note from the Future: Playing Audiosurf on a fast, metal Muse song is not exactly conducive to calmness.]

Oh yeah, and happy Bastille Day. Also, Resinthing turned two on the ninth. Weird, right? Who knew I could keep a hobby up that long? GUESS WHAT, I CAN.

I've seen the new Star Trek film three times in the first week since it came out. And the third time was even kind of an accident. ("What, how do you see a film by accident, I don't understand, Alex, did you trip into the theater or something?" No.) I went with lyriael's family, and I didn't realize we were going to see the movie. So. The first time was for Mother's Day - a family of dorks are we. I even went out and bought the soundtrack immediately. The second time was on Thursday, since Tommy Christopher was in town and we decided to see it together and be total Trekkies about it afterwards, arguing about when the Federation canonically became aware of the Romulan Empire. (Seriously.)

Friday was, actually, pretty chill. Meredyth/lyriael had just come back from school literally the previous night, so we decided to hang out. Her dad picked me up at 11 AM, and drove us to the Metro station. And we got there before we realized we had no idea what we were going to do or where we were going to go. We rode the Orange Line all the way down to Eastern Market, and then we found out that there was nothing going on there since it was not the weekend. Undaunted, we headed into the nearby Dunkin' Donuts to regroup and procure some delicious cool drinks, since it was crazy-humid outside. I got a raspberry iced tea, which for some reason tasted of pecan. Meh, it was delicious. And apparently Obama and Biden had visited that Dunkin' Donuts, since there were pictures of them with a box of donuts on the wall. (The pictures were on the wall, not the donuts. Anyway.)

Once we were fueled with cold drinks, we headed out into the bright, hot day, going up to Capitol Hill, since Meredyth's mom works in the Longworth building. We walked for a while, and her mom let us into Longworth's cafeteria. They had some epic Cajun cod thing with sweet potatoes as their lunch-of-the-day, so we picked that. Let me tell you - the Congressional offices do not skimp on the portion sizes.

After that, we had no idea what the hell we were going to do, and there was some epic fail with trying to get a hold of a congressman to interview for Tommy...anyway, yeah, we walked to Union Station for shopping purposes. We spent about an hour in there, and then walked past the Newseum, and finally to the Smithsonian Metro station.

( The route map )

So yes, the new Star Trek film is wicked awesome, and I will definitely buy the special-edition DVD or whatever when it comes out. Because damn. And Zachary Quinto is perfect as Spock. Perfect. And new-Chekov is my fave, with his overwrought accent. Hahaha. He's so cute.

Saturday I was babysitting until I managed to get out and go to McLean Day, which I've missed every year for the past, uh...five years. So I got to see Sara, Rachel, Christine, Stephanie, Marisa, Nikki, Rhiannon, and the freshman horde that Christine has accumulated and drawn into her life of crime. (I am, however, the undisputed leader of the cult). Let me just say this: There's something a little weird and surreal about a town fair that has a CIA booth. No, really. The CIA's Office of Public Relations was out in full force, with a bunch of random free stuff. I am now the proud owner of a CIA pin, a CIA frisbee that folds up into a cool little pouch (really), a CIA plastic bag, a couple posters that say "I spied the CIA at McLean Day" (seriously), some CIA OPR post-it pads (no, really!), and a couple of little booklets about the OSS and intelligence during the Revolutionary War. And an awesome booklet about the CIA where you pull this little tab and it turns the pages. Oh yeah, and a couple CIA K-9 unit trading cards. (I am not making this up - it's kind of fucking awesome.) For someone who's as interested in the Agency as I am, this is a windfall of...random stuff. :D

I hung out with Sara and Rachel for most of the day, and bought two bracelets from Stephanie's mom. Then Sara and Rachel helped me win a goldfish! His name is Tomás. Or Tomásito, if you're my mom. (It's a long story, but it has to do with The West Wing and this crackfic that's been stewing in my headbox, wherein Gail gets a fishy boyfriend named Tomás, who is a calico, just like RL Tomás. Seriously it is wack, and that is not even the wackest part.)

I spent most of Sunday watching season 7 of The West Wing, which was so therapeutic, you do not even know. And today I found out some pretty gonk-worthy news that mixes religion and politics in the worst possible way, so I'm trying to calm my brain before I fire off a post at Daily Dose about it. Going to chill with Meredyth tomorrow, too. In the meantime, I'll just watch old Star Trek episodes on Youtube. Woot!

Got in off the waitlist at NYU, too. No way I can afford it, and I've fallen too hard in love with W&M. Maybe for law school, though!

Also, Zetapets is closing, possibly forever. I has a sad. :(

Been working on The Complete Idiot's Guide to The Bourne Betrayal. The parody is now fifty pages long and I'm not even a full third done with the book. The other parody was about ninety-six pages when complete. Yeah, this book is worse. By about a factor of what the fuck.

So I seem to have become a blogger when I wasn't looking. Like, an honest-to-goodness cub-reporter-type blogger. Huh. It's pretty chill, actually. Neglecting the Spy Hat Zed, but, whatever. On that, since it is my own site, I will be more of an insane person.

Anyway, I got to meet Reza Aslan when he came to Politics & Prose on the tour for his new book, How to Win a Cosmic War. Also I spent about fifteen dollars on really awesome stamp bookmarks, including three from former Soviet republics with dinosaurs on them, one from another former Soviet republic with UFOs on them, one from Equatorial Guinea with US Presidents on them, and one from São Tomé and Príncipe with blimps on them. I am not making this up. Man, how come we only get lame stamps here? It is a mystery. Anyway, that place is the cradle of my childhood, and I blew twenty more bucks on Tintin: The Land of Black Gold and Tintin Aux Pays du Soviets...in ENGLISH. I have Aux Pays du Soviets in French, but now I have the English version! Now all I need is the English version of Tintin au Congo (which I have in French, and you apparently cannot get it outside the UK) and Tintin and Alph-Art, which I don't have in any form at all. Obviously you can see where my love for journalism came up - I was raised on Belgian journalism comics!

I spend Wednesday and Thursday working at NAWC again, setting up Vista and applications multifarious on the new computers. Dell XPS = love. (Sorry, Liebchen.) Past three days I've spent at home to avoid bacon flu (ostensibly) and I spent all of yesterday watching three versions of Pride and Prejudice (1980 BBC, 1995 A&E, 2005 film)...just because I felt like it. Yeah, boyeeee. I love the A&E version the best, but I just love the visuals in the 2005 version. And Matthew MacFadyen. Yum.

Just watched The Candidate, and now I'm watching Nothing But The Truth (another journalism film! Hilarious to me as a WW fan because there's a right-wing President Lyman and Alan Alda is in it). Both of them are excellent moviefilms.

Oh! And I sent in my housing deposit for William & Mary! Woo! No progress on anything I've been writing, though. Too busy cleaning out the Tivo late at night. Speaking of which, if Chuck doesn't get a third season after that finale, there is no justice in the world.

Happy Earth Day, all! I brought you some environmentally friendly macros and also some fic. No, no - it's not what you're thinking. It's PPC fic. Using prompts from the 1sentence challenge. And I wrote it all while trying not to fall asleep, so hey, you know, it's probably better than the mess I churn out while awake.

( Three incredibly silly (and lazy) West Wing macros. \o/ )

And now, the minifics, from 1sentence prompt set Beta! (Why I decided to do this for PPC and not Pandashipping, well, I am not sure. This does not preclude me from doing it for Panda, of course, though probably with a different prompt set? idk.)

Warning: These are all incredibly disjointed and most of them make reference back to Valcentica or the long and complicated romantic breaking-every-rule-in-the-book-and-some-rules-that-had-to-be-created-because-of-this-madness backstory between Alec and Samantha Carter (yes, that Sam, from Stargate SG-1)...and really, you don't want to know. And a couple refer back to Undeserving, which is a rare Alec's-POV fic I never posted on LJ. (I find it horribly cheesy now, but, THERE'S YOUR CONTEXT.)

Title: Snapshots
Characters: Kitty Callahan, Alec Trevelyan, Samantha Carter, Rena Chang, Patrick Koster (mentioned), David Toombs (mentioned)
Pairing: Sam/Alec
Rating: PG-13 for swearing, violence, drug and alcohol use, and wacky hijinks

( Snapshots in the lives of two overworked and underpaid PPC agents )

I've also started on The Complete Idiot's Guide to The Bourne Betrayal, and by 'started' I mean 'typing up the portion that I'd written down already'. Twenty pages in and I can feel my brain cells boiling away.

Hello, internet! Sorry for the scare - I am, as you can probably tell, alive and well. Got my Tea Party coverage on my spankin' new issue blog (and I can cross THAT one off my list of resolutions if I can maintain it), except I left out the part where I met this AOL News reporter because he had an awesome jacket. His name is Tommy Christopher, and he let me tag along as he interviewed the leader of the counter-protesters (which is where I got my quotes from). Yes, I got permission to interview the guy, too. I have standards! I got to chill with him for a while and see how professional (read: paid) bloggers do their thing. And I got a shout-out in an article, so.

Thursday was uneventful for the most part. Friday we hopped in the car down to Williamsburg for the William & Mary info session. Of course, as we were driving past about Fredericksburg, Mom noticed a weird sound coming from the car. Turns out two of our tires were about ready to bite the big one - treads flying off and all! Luckily, we were able to get them replaced quickly enough and made it down to W-burg in time for the session.

Sweet fancy Moses, but I love W&M. Didn't take any pictures - too bowled over by the WIN. The next day we went shopping and I got some decent summer clothes and a pair of nice new shoes for teh cheap! Outlet malls enable me. And I had my heart broken by a Liz Claiborne vest that was just a liiiiittle bit too friggin' big around the EVERYTHING for me. Shed a tear. (And this is the most I shall gush about clothing.)

Sunday was the GMU admission event day. And, foof, I hate to say it...but GMU is really just disorganized and discombobulated and not at all fun to navigate. I love the location, but the school, not so much. And they have some great academic programs, but I don't think I could live there, and commuting would be a bitch and a half. (The bathrooms are fail and the freshman housing is claustrophobia-inducing.) The only great thing about the day was that I got to see Markoff and meet his mysterious father for the first time. Afterwards, there was a reception for those accepted to the Honors College...and I was not impressed with that either. Bleh. So as of the now it looks like I will be attending W&M in the fall. Just waiting for the financial aid info and looking through the papers and such I got while on the trip. Just...W&M seems like they get me, and I think I get them, too. It's a match.

Finished the library at work, so I am done with that! \o/ It is now organized and pretty. Of course, I'm going to get called in to configure the new computers that'll be in next week, but I have a very long weekend in the meantime. So this, I can get behind.

Got to go see State of Play today, and let me tell you this: I am in love with the cinematography. The rest of the movie in general, too, but especially the cinematography/editing (oh God the thirty seconds of epic Metro footage made my entire freaking life), the establishing shots - so different from the usual shots of the Capitol and Washington Monument! - and the geographical accuracy (I am looking at you, West Wing, it's quite a detour to pass by the National Cathedral on the way to the State Department from the White House >( But I forgive you because Two Cathedrals was just that awesome). I love it all. And of course Helen Mirren was excellent, and Russell Crowe's long hair made me lol because he kept brushing it back like a supermodel. Oh! And the writing. I love the writing. It's all very good, but I'm shy of seeing the original BBC series, 'cause if I remember right, Marc Warren is in that. And as longtime readers of this journal (a couple years back longtime!) might know, I am not a fan of him so much, due to his piss-poor interpretation of Teatime in Hogfather (unforgivable!) and his quite frankly disturbing Dracula. Oh God I still have nightmares about such. Syphillis.

I'll be doing up a full review of the moviefilm probably in the morning, because I am le tired, and it will likely go up on Spy Hat Zed...that is, my new issue/random crap blog. (Shameless self-promotion ftw!) I also have a really longwinded and rambly rant about racial identification and just how being an ethnicityblender makes focusing on race seem really, really inane, but I have to compile that from about twenty LJ comments of mine, and I just don't have the energy right now. To wit: RACISM IS STUPID, INTERNET, CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG. As well as some thoughts on being an ethnicityblender.

Uuurrrgh. Speaking of geographical accuracy, I actually went on Google Maps to diagram a sequence out for Wilderness of Mirrors. I even have dialogue in my head for that scene - even in my non-Ludlum head Conklin and Panov have great conversations/quips/banter. Great, now I need to fuckin' write it. But tomorrow. If I go to sleep now, I'm only going to be getting about seven hours, since I'm waking up at 8:30. Tragedy! And yet it is now that I want to write. Ain't that always the way?

That's a full lid, y'all. 'Night, and stay frosty, scumbags (and I mean that in the most loving way possible)! ♥

HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY, SEAN BEAN! KEEP ROCKIN' HARD!

...yeah, I'm done here. :)

We ended up going to Great Falls on Easter. But that's not important right now. I'm going to be attending the DC Tea Party protest - not as a protester, but as a reporter. I will be Livetweeting, taking pictures, and pen-and-pad reporting for the Huffington Post and Teablogging. So yeah. Wish me luck, and if I never post again, I have been destroyed/trampled/ripped apart by angry conservatives who attacked when I said, "Yes, I'm with the Huffington Post, and I'd like to inter--NO NOT THE FACE!". Know that I have lost my life in the noble pursuit of the truth. I would just like to say that I love you all very much, and that even though it is raining today, this is gonna be totally worth it.

Except that my tape recorder is a giant prick.

Anyway. I will be wandering around by the Lafayette Park/Treasury Department protests, wearing my favorite self-defeating hat (the one that says SPY all over it in huge letters). Because, idk, I'm crazy. See y'all on the flip side!

How Alex Celebrates Easter Zombie Jesus Day: Doodling on hard-boiled eggs with markers, eating a metric fuckton of candy, and watching old Biblical movies (Ben-Hur, Solomon and Sheba, King of Kings - the one where Jeffrey Hunter shaves his armpits to play Jesus, etc.) on Turner Classic Movies. Why don't we make sword-and-sandal epics anymore? Gladiator was the last of them...and we are not counting Alexander, hell no, that movie does not exist. Sword-and-sandal epics are great. Maybe we'll watch Monty Python's Life of Brian later.

It's a nice day, so maybe we'll go outside, too. The week was okay - I got off work on Friday so I could help mom babysit Josie. We took her to the mall, 'cause there's a playground thing there that she loves and never gets to go to. Aside from her almost killing herself by climbing up onto the railing, things went well. I picked up some new clothes for Julian - hey, remember Julian, my stuffed Build-a-Bunny? - at Build-a-Bear. The clothes are super-cute; camo shorts and a "World Peace" t-shirt. Of course, since Julian is four years old, he needed a bath and brushing, since his fur was all nappy and gross. He has to be all gussied up for Easter Zombie Jesus Day! So I spent yesterday on and off cleaning my stuffed bunny and fluffing out his fur. And trying to play Fusionfall. And watching The Wind and the Lion. Fun Fact: It is actually possible that I could maybe be related to Raisuli. \o/ But I love The Wind and the Lion, aside from the Epic Win that is Sean Connery playing a Berber general and Brian Keith's best portrayal ever of Teddy Roosevelt.

More dreams...night sixteen of them. It would be seventeen, but I don't think there was anything related to West Wing or even politics on Friday night. (This is beginning to freak me out.) Thursday night I dreamed that the Secret Service kicked my ass as I was trying to meet the President and also that I walked up to a bunch of senators at a picnic table talking about Eye-rack and called them all douchebags for not pronouncing it correctly. And last night, I dreamed that I was in a meeting with Obama in the Oval Office and trying desperately not to freak out in my own mind, and then most of my friends were there too, and after the meeting we went on the President's secret Metro line (seriously) to work on a problem, and it took us to all these stations with secret, hidden entrances all around DC. (Holy run-on sentence, Batman!) Actually, it was pretty chill. I wish it had really happened.

I have finally broken down, and, after having The Bourne Betrayal in the house for three weeks, I am finally going to write the Idiot's Guide for it. That's another reason I have so much candy - to dull the pain. And part of a bacon-cheeseburger pizza from Domino's. Mmm. Heart attack. (There is also The Bourne Sanction, but I will leave that be for now. Because augh.

...haha, I can't get over how my tag for all Bourne-related entries is "May I suggest 'Bitchy von Crypants'?". I love you, RiffTrax. Except maybe I will save this tag for the Uncanon Sequels and use something like "Bob...Notaspy" for the main ones. Who knows? Certainly not me.

Still haven't decided which college to go to, GAH.

My recent entries have all been WALL OF TEXT-like. Huh. I am longwinded.

Guess what I got to do on Saturday? Being that this is the Year of Astronomy and April 4 was the 400th anniversary of Galileo looking through a telescope at the heavens, the U.S. Naval Observatory was having an open house for the first time since 2001. (Read: When ick-Day eney-Chey moved in.) So what did I do on Saturday? I hung out at Joey B.'s house. (Joey B. being Vice President Joe Biden, of course. No, rahmbamarama isn't ruining my brain, what are you talking about.) And the USNO has an epic library. It is a library that I would like to move into with a blanket and some cats and a keg of Earl Grey. I will post pics later (really!) of the ~epic library~ (tildes totally justified) and Joey B.'s house proper. 'Cause I'm that much of a fan. Also, the Navy was selling hot dogs and hamburgers and BBQ chicken and coleslaw, there was a cookout on Joey B.'s back lawn. So that was awesome.

Sunday was cool too - somehow, no babysitting at all worked out (tragedy, I have no cash), but we got together with Uncle Carlos for the first time all year (outside of work for me, lol). We saw The International, and it was fantastico, and I upheld my strong moral position that I will never leave the theatre during a movie, even if I have to go to the bathroom. (Yo, that ticket was ten dollars and I am getting my money's worth.) This posed a problem, for long movie is long and constantly plot-advancing. And very, very, very good. And Clive Owen is also a yummy badass. Afterwards, we went to Silver Diner and I got the Ultimate Strawberry French Toast (with a side of bacon. Mmm). And I ate it all. Somehow. This is more lulzy when one realizes that I had just learned that Rahm Emanuel's Secret Service Code Name is...(wait for it)...Strawberry. RAHMTOAST! \o/

Monday. Monday was made of epic fail. Epic, epic fail. It was one of those FML days. I had been at work for about thirty minutes when I started noticing problems with my vision. Sometimes it goes away if I ignore it, so I tried that. No such luck, amigo. Fifteen minutes later, I was definitely seeing scintillating scotoma and zigzag lines and half my field of vision was useless. Ocular migraine. Or a migraine with aura - I really don't know, but I think it's an OM. Anyway, these fucking suck and I hate them (as tagged above). So I dimmed the lights in my office, turned one set off, got an extra-strength Advil to head off the inevitable headache, and a can of Coke (which I have been trying to avoid, even though only Diet Coke has aspartame, which is what I am really trying to avoid as it may have totally fucked up my system) for the caffeine to open up my brain's blood vessels as I mostly hate coffee, and sat on my office couch and waited for death or relief, whichever came first. I am one of the unlucky ones - problems with vision are supposed to last from five to thirty minutes. I trend towards the upper end of the scale for these fuckers. And then came the headache, creeping slowly like a creeping thing, so I had thought I'd gotten lucky and avoided it, as sometimes happens. No dice here either. I was in pain - I could work now because I could see (and ignored repeated requests to go home from bossman aka Uncle Carlos), and I knew my body. I even ran down to the Chinese place around the corner and picked up lunch, though I could only stomach a few bites because my sense of smell is greatly enhanced when I have a headache. I even got queasy and a touch of the dry heaves a little bit when I was working, another symptom of the complete and utter neurological bullshit fail that is my life. I also got in a fight with the packaging for my new wireless work mouse. I won (after like fifteen minutes, but that is far too long to spend trying to open plastic packaging and retrieve a fucking mouse), but at great cost to my hands - I have plastic cuts, which are in their own way worse than papercuts. Logitech, you suck at existing.

And then, just when I had gotten mostly over the headache? The fucking fire alarm went off. And it is loud, and clangy, and even more annoying than the McLean one, if that were possible and I found out that it is. The crepe place downstairs had a small fire...but at least I now know that there is a crepe place downstairs. I hate writing about all of this headache crap, because even thinking about it makes me feel awful (so does smelling coffee, but that is neither here nor there - more neurological bullshit), but it must be done. Why? Obviously I am a masochist. Anyway, Carlos and I went down to the Borders to wait while the fire crews did their job. Suffice to say, I did not get a ton of work done yesterday. But mom and I went for pho when I got home, so I guess that is an improvement. (But there was mold on the delicious Arabic rice pudding when I looked in the fridge, so I had to toss it out. Sadface.)

Night ten of West Wing-related dreams, even peripherally. My dreams usually are never consistent across nights (unless they're intermittently recurring), so this is...odd to say the least. Last night's dream involved two WW SNES ROMs (!, why SNES, I do not know) that I found on the internet - sadly, they probably do not exist. I don't remember one of them, but the other had a ridiculously long title and required you to be a random assistant who had to contend with both office gossip and a crisis in...I'm gonna say Bolivia, because that was in the episode I saw last night (365 Days). This has inspired me to see if I can nab a Windows copy of RPG Maker 2000 for cheap and make a WW game. (Like this will ever happen, but I HAVE TO TRY DAMMIT. I mean, I could just do it with the PS2's RPG Maker 2 or 3, both of which I own...but then I cannot share. And I am not quite that selfish.)

And speaking of 365 Days, I have come to a conclusion.

Aside from being in fucking love with Leo McGarry and John Spencer in general, I am in fucking love with Leo's smile. Much the same way that people are in love with Joey B.'s smile (or his teeth, rather). I...I see Leo smile, either just a little smile or a gigantic grin, and I melt like chocolate in the sun. I'm pretty sure there's a mathematical/physics formula for this: where x is the size of Leo's smile, y is how fast Alex turns into a puddle of goo (in nanoseconds), and c is the speed of light/speed of smiles:

y = (x^{[degrees of x]} + ([length of time shown on screen in seconds]*42))
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(0.[squee factor]*c))

Solve for y, motherfucker!

I don't even fucking know if this formula is valid or not, but it's the truth! So, for your viewing pleasure (and possible conversion), I present to you: Leosmile, The Picspam!

( Warning: May lead to blindness from smiles, dangerously toxic levels of SQUEE, and fancying John Spencer. )

Phew. Yeah. I have a thing for silver foxes, apparently. No idea why...but oh, do I love it. This may mean that I will be picking boyfriends in future based on a careful extrapolation of what they will probably look like forty years from now. Usually, I am okay, but when I see that smile, well, my little heart goes pitter-pat. Is there something wrong with me? Probably. And I love it.

Got waitlisted at NYU, and that's it for the letters! Four rejections, two acceptances, two waitlists.

After seeing how much fun the tags are at rahmbamarama, I've spent the last couple of days going back through all six-hundred-something of my old entries and tagging them! Every. Single. One. The tags "fail at life" and "ramblings of a diseased mind" get a lot of use towards the end. The journal should now be easier to navigate - just another service we provide here at Alex's House of Useless Knowledge. I was twisted back in eighth grade and freshman year. And by twisted, I mean obviously eating lead paint chips like candy.

My life is still sunshine, and will be for the foreseeable future (read: forevermore). Because I am still wondering if Tuesday was a delusion/hallucination/dream, due to amazing. I have to fix my Photoshop, though, so I can kill the blur on that one picture of me and Martin Sheen! Blur is not my friend.

I will try and actually, you know, write this weekend. Been too tired to for a while. Except I have to finish my Landel's application first (!). Exile or Blitz, Exile or Blitz...either way, I still have to do the history. Ugh faaaaail. Will do it in the morning.

Had some weird dreams for the past week, all of which involved, in some way, The West Wing, and specifically, Bartlet. (Starting the night after I read that EFCA article, in fact.) They're all very weird - and pretty much in no way related - except that he is always the president. And one of the dreams had Charlie knowing both Zoey (in high school!) and Bartlet independently, and not knowing they were related...my mind is a wack place. And another one had the cactus that I'm going to get when I go to college in it. (Yes. I'm getting a cactus since I can't have a pet. A little cactus. I'm going to decorate its pot and everything.)

So speaking of college, I now have to decide where I'm going. Obviously I have to look at the curricula for both where I've been accepted to and where I've been waitlisted. American and GMU would probably be better for studying PoliSci, but I have an odd attachment to W&M. They've been the only school to accept me in two years, no drama, no strings. Just "Welcome to William and Mary. Jon Stewart went here, you know! We hope you'll go here too. :3" And of course NYU is NYU, which would be epic. I don't know. Thoughts?

As of 2 AM, Photoshop CS4 is cooperating...somewhat. Am removing blur manually (!) with clone stamp. You go with what works. But I am le tired, and going to bed now, because I have been working on this image for about four hours. FOUR HOURS, AND IT BARELY LOOKS DIFFERENT. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS. (Okay, so I spent two hours trying to use Focus Magic on it, which failed miserably, because the blur is going in all directions. The awesome broke my camera.)

Also, it is Cat's birthday today. He's turning fifteen! This is old for a cat. And he is still mostly healthy!

I got waitlisted at American and rejected from Tufts. BUT WHO CARES, that's not what this entry is about!

( This was THE BEST DAY EVER. )

And also, there were pictures. I took about fifty...no, really, fifty...so I'll pare them down to the ones with the least amount of blur, because my camera is shit at not being blurry and my hands shake when I'm taking pictures normally, never mind when I'm excited/freaked/delighted to be in the same room as awesome people...man, it was an off-chance that we'd even get to see them at all, so it's just way too epic that what happened, happened!

( Super special awesome picspam ahoy~! )

Also, I'm addicted to Pokémon Diamond and it's kind of ridiculous how much fun it is. My Chimchar is named Rahm (although a Piplup is more likely to bequeath upon you a dead fish) and I caught a Bidoof and named it Biden. BECAUSE OF THE TEETH. (Joey B. has awesome teeth...Bidoof has awesome teeth...Bidoof sounds kind of like Biden...there ya go.)

OH MY GOD DID CHRIS MATTHEWS JUST PLAY A CLIP FROM LOVE, ACTUALLY ON HARDBALL, HE DID, OMG. "David Beckham's right foot. David Beckham's left foot, come to that..." He's referenced it before, so I think he just really likes that movie. xD Hey, so do I...and I'm glad I'm not the only person who thought, "Obama's going to London? Like in Love, Actually? Except he is not a jerk?"

I woke up this morning and felt like something had changed. 364 days ago, I was depressed and crying - April 1, 2008 was when I got all my rejections. Since then, I've felt cursed, in a way...but I think that's over now.

To reiterate: BEST DAY EVER OMFG. \o/

We had a power outage for an hour last night! Very exciting. I went and got my Arc reactor from Halloween and changed into my Landel's shirt for pajamas...and we had demon cats running around. Well, normal cats that make you trip over them, anyway. But that is just like my life, isn't it? I get rejected from Hopkins, then the power goes out as I try and watch my recuperative West Wing, and it cuts out half of my Tivoing of The Rachel Maddow Show. It is an obvious metaphor for being powerless, as I so often am. Typical. Even the symbolism in my life is lazy.

Also, Martin Sheen, Richard Schiff, and Bradley Whitford are going to be on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to talk about EFCA hahahahaha. AND I HAVE OFF OF WORK ON TUESDAY. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. 8D Too bad I do not have any West Wing anything to get automagraphed, if possible. PICTURES WILL DO ME JUST FINE. That reminds me, I had a dream (inspired by the article, obv.) that I got to meet Martin Sheen, and my camera was out of space...which it actually is, so it is my subconscious telling me that I HAVE TO CLEAN OUT MY CAMERA BEFORE TUESDAY. (Also in my dream was a whole bunch of wack crossover novels, like - seriously - James Bond and Jason Bourne crossovers, the one I had picked up was book three in a series of Bond/Bourne crossover books and it had an awesome cover and I read some of it and it looked really really cool so I'm sad it doesn't really exist. Also I had a dream about a house fire, and something about unicorns...? But I digress.) Because getting my picture taken with them would make my LIFE. *_* And it would also be my Facebook profile picture FOREVER.

CAPSLOCK WHOO.

So, yeah. I'm over Hopkins, for the most part - it still stings, and it'll sting for a while. Curiously enough, I think going outside, turning around three times, and spitting (and cursing) might have had something to do with it; I felt better afterwards. I mean, I'm already into two very good schools...but I really wanted JHop, and it's like a slap in the face after getting waitlisted last year. Oh well. Mustn't dwell.

...what's next?

Didn't even get waitlisted at Hopkins this year.

It's not meant to be.

Gonna go cry now.

Colleges Applied To: 8 (JHop, NYU, Swarthmore, Georgetown, American, George Mason, William and Mary, Tufts)
Total Replies: 3 (George Mason, William and Mary, JHop)
Colleges Accepted To: 2 (George Mason, William and Mary)
Colleges Rejected From: 1 (JHop)

To prevent this from happening again, and due to my growing conception that The West Wing is the source of all human knowledge, I went outside, turned around three times, and spat. (And cursed. Spit and curse. Go. Go! Go!)

( And speaking of WW, this is what I wish was actually going on in my head. )

Over my (five-day) weekend, things were pretty chill. Did not get a lot of writing done, except for about a page of backstory/exposition on my FusionFall character, who is still nameless because all of the preapproved names are lame and my two picked names so far (Zed Bartlet [YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE, I combined my less-often used username of Zed and Jed Bartlet, I am so awesomely geeky], Zed al-Qutt ["القط" or "the Cat" in Arabic but God knows I have seen like fifty billion other transliterations and don't actually speak Arabic, though it is a goal of mine]) have fallen through. So now I will try for Zed Altair, and I wonder if that will somehow be found offensive by the Cartoon Network Oberführers.

We went to Gravelly Point on Tuesday and watched the planes come in and take off. There is some crazy optical illusionry because, if you're standing close enough to the edge of the little marshy bit that separates the runway from the park, you'd swear that if you just stretched up your hands you could skim the bellies of the airplanes with your fingertips as they pass by. I always get a little melancholy when I hang out there - how long has it been since I've flown? Three years already? - but it's a strange sort of melancholy. Bitter happiness? Who knows.

I was surprised to learn on Wednesday that I got into William and Mary, which means I now have something in common with Jon Stewart, aside from being short, of course. (More surprised that I learned on Wednesday than surprised that I got in...you know what I mean. Usually they release decisions closer to April 1...but maybe the college community at large realized that is a cruel joke?) So, app status as of the now:

Colleges Applied To: 8 (JHop, NYU, Swarthmore, Georgetown, American, George Mason, William and Mary, Tufts)
Total Replies: 2 (George Mason, William and Mary)
Colleges Accepted To: 2 (George Mason, William and Mary)
Colleges Rejected From: 0

Let's hope that last stat holds up!

Stuffing a doner (beef and lamb) sandwich into my mouth at what could charitably be called my desk but is actually a hard counter with steel drawers that I have banged my knees into several times, plus a laptop. My office now has a floor, mostly, and I have freed up the coffee table. We've also managed to throw out half the library's contents, so yay for that. Drew a comic about the state of my headbox right now, which is currently festering in Photoshop at home (the comic, not my headbox). Screw coloring at this point, I'm just going to add the text and have done with it. Photoshop and my machine, they are not pallies no more. Sad.

I have also just discovered the magic and wonder of iGoogle...Alex has a new homepage! \o/ I took the "Which West Wing guy is right for YOU?" quiz, and am pleased (and disturbed, and confused, and amused, etc.) to discover that my ideal match is...wait for it..."President Batlett". President...Bat'leth? What the hell do you call a West Wing mini, anyway? I stretched Bourne enough with the mini-Jackals! But a "Batlett" does sound pretty cute. Like a teeny tiny little bat. A batlet!

Finally, this made me have a laugh attack: The Air America White House Briefing Drinking Game. Oh, Gibbsey. Never change.

ETA: Holy crap, Matt Parkman Greg Grunberg is in town! and not to be captured or framed for terrorism this time

So I've been working my new job at NAWC (National Association of Water Companies) for the past couple of days - I have a passkey and everything. It's really an internship, I'm in charge of reorganizing and cleaning out the library, and it's a hell of a lot of fun. Also I need kneepads, since I use up all my table/counter space so quickly, and thus am reduced to spreading out and organizing on the floor. I'm enjoying it, though. I put my Last.FM on quietly and organize and pare away at the old files, and it quiets my brain.

Also, I got a letter today! My first thought was, "Oh, look, a letter." My second thought, verbatim, was, "Thank fucking Christ, I got into George Mason." Profanity, blasphemy, and all. Okay, and then I bit the envelope. I...lick or bite things I'm happy with. And I wasn't going to lick that envelope, it had gone through the US Postal Service, hahaha, zing. (And I have a song by the band The Postal Service in my head...freaky-deaky.)

...I was going to say a lot more, but I can't think of anything. It's weird, but I'm barely relieved. My first college acceptance letter...and I'm numb!

I don't know. I guess I was setting myself up for failure so much - and the SAT snafu from last year means that I could have gotten in if it hadn't happened and gone through a year of my life that was lost to fucknuttery - that I can't take success. I'm just kind of floating here...haven't had dinner but I'm not hungry, and I want to write but I can't find the words. I can't even describe my past week. It's just...meh.

Stupid brain.

...what's next?

The Fairfax County DMV can bite my ass, because it made me lose a day and a half of my precious life. Thursday was pretty much epic fail, 'cause we'd gotten a ticket for our registration tags being out of date ($40...egregious fee, I know!), so we went to the DMV.

Well, that's a lie. First we went to the auto shop across town to get our emissions inspected...except the place we went to didn't actually do emissions inspections. Then we were informed that the Sunoco across the street from our house did emissions inspections, so we left the car there and got some pineapple Fanta from the nearby 7-11. And apparently...we hadn't needed to, because when we'd taken the car in to change the headlight bulb last month, they'd done the emissions inspection already. That two hours of wasted time over with, we finally went to the DMV.

And waited. And waited. And waited. A086? Finally. Up to the window, where we were informed that there was a stop on our account because we hadn't paid the property tax on our car, and we would have to get that taken care of before we could update the registration. So we drove all the way back home and made the call (because we needed some papers that were at home), paid the balance, and drove back to the DMV. Except...although we had paid the balance, the stop was still on our account! We tried calling the number to speak to a human - closed. It was 4:30. Yes, it closed before 5. Yes, that is lame. I had wanted to go to the Best Buy and use my gift card, but no such luck. We went home, thoroughly discouraged.

Next day! We got up, and somehow managed to waste three hours in between waking up and getting to the DMV. Fail. We got the person on the phone to remove the stop, and finally, finally, finally freed ourselves from the tyrannical grasp of Fairfax County's DMV. (Aside: Mom kept saying "DMZ"...it's easy to tell where she grew up.) I was finally able to get to the Metro to go and see Jabari before he left back for Gettysburg College. So I got to West Falls Church, grabbed an Express and a copy of The Onion, and went through the card-readers. Nothing was on the arrivals board, so I thought I'd take my time. Then I saw a commercial pilot (must have been fresh off the Dulles shuttle) running out of them, and if I have learned anything in my life, it is that when a pilot is running, you follow him. So I tore down the escalator, and saw a train with its doors open, waiting. The display said 'Special', not 'New Carrolton' as it should have, but I didn't care, and got in a couple of seconds before the doors closed. I was so pleased with my awesomeness at catching trains that I almost missed the announcement - the train was going to stop at Foggy Bottom and disgorge all passengers, due to an incident at McPherson Square.

Dammit, why is McPherson always the problem stop?!

This, of course, was a problem for me, because I had to get to Metro Center - the stop after McPherson, so I could transfer to the Red Line. So I called the relevant people (i.e. Jabari and mom), and rode the train to its new terminus. The lights flickered on and off in the train itself to warn everyone that they should leave, which was seriously creepier than it should have been. There was a line outside for the shuttle to Metro Center, which of course hadn't arrived yet, and I ended up somewhere in the middle of the gigantic line. I called Jabari to tell him the situation, and his mother kindly offered to pick me up. I accepted, because it was damn cold. So after a two-day ordeal...I finally got to hang with Jabari again.

It was a mess of Burnout and Guild Wars and Spore and Cold Winter, which was fantastic fun. We devoured an extra-large pizza, and he rode almost all the way home with me on the Metro to protect me from things that a lone female must be protected from. Even one with a multi-tool and who doesn't actually dress like a girl. That was very sweet of him indeed.

Saturday had awful weather, much like today, and mom and I proceeded to depress ourselves horribly by watching the HBO original film Recount. It's quite good, although horribly depressing, since not only do you know how it ends, you know what it causes. Namely, a seven-year-long war and quite possibly 9/11 itself might have been avoided had Gore been the President...but we have Obama now, so maybe, maybe things will be all right, and if we had Gore, we might not have made history on November 4, 2008...but it's a hefty price. There's really no way to win here.

Lots of babysitting this weekend...joy. Still, I'll make some money from it.

Matthew McConaughey is NOT sexier than Daniel Craig, and Christian Bale is not sexier than Matt Damon. This list is made of lies. Oh, TV Guide...it's fun to see what you tell people to think. I CALL YOUR BLUFF. Your move, TV Guide, your move...

Monday was fun - I got to see Jabari, who is down from college this week! We played lots of Guild Wars and Burnout 3, and walked to Baja Fresh and Ben & Jerry's (mmm...Yes Pecan...), and I only left at about 10:30 in the evening because mom was a little worried about the Metro at night and me being a sole female. I tried to reassure her that I had my Swiss army knife and thus could shank people, but she was having none of it. So, sadface. But there was some awesome graffiti of Obama and the Joker on the way over, which was pretty damn epic.

And it seems that everybody and their pet chinchilla is back from college, because Meredyth called me on Tuesday, and we decided to hang out as well! We ended up at the National Museum of Natural History, which is known colloquially (at least by me) as "DINOSAURS!!!!11``one". We spent most of our time in the new Oceans exhibit, which is actually pretty cool and has live tropical fish (!) and a whole bunch of pickled specimens, models that hang from the ceiling (GIANT LION JELLYFISH AAARGH) and epic sections about fishcreatures that live where no sunlight ever touches. Bioluminescence is pretty damn spiffy. After finding ice cream to temporarily sate our hunger, we walked up Constitution and 15th past the White House (because that is what I do, okay, it is where I hang out and contemplate my future), and I'm pretty sure we weirded out a bunch of staffers who were congregating by the gate, because we were being our spazzy selves. I also got to give the Grand Tour (read: "And that is the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building, formerly known as the Old Executive Office Building, which I still call the OEOB because, let's face it, the DDEEOB is...a very cumbersome acronym. And also there is the White House on your left."), and that was amusing. The weather was creepily nice, too...it was scary.

After our wacky hijinks, we drove to Chipotle for some delicious food. (Ice cream and chicken tacos seem to be my diet of choice.) Then we made things with felt, played Manhunt 2, and watched the first half of Patriot Games...which seriously made an impact on my brainbox, if my dreams are any indication.

( Sweet dreams are made of thi-is, who am I to disagree~ )

I went home, half-collapsed on my bed, and had a tuna sandwich for breakfast (at 1 pm) - oh, my glorious life. And then tilapia fillets for dinner. I seem to have transitioned to a fish diet instead of tacos and ice cream. I am not sure if I am pleased by this turn of events. I have started watching Dollhouse, and I have to say, I like it. It is strange, but I do enjoy it. And on top of that, Guild Wars has me in its delicious, delicious tentacles once more. I finally made it to Zen Daijun...which means I will soon be off of Shing Jea Island! (It only took me what, like two years.)

Also, I am putting bets on Matt Damon coming to DC in the next month to hang out with Nancy Pelosi...perhaps to do some location scouting for the fourth Bourne movie. The Bourne Legislation? Mr. Bourne Goes to Washington?

...I'll get my coat. (Wait, this is my blog...)

( Jan-Feb Review of Resolution Progress )

Analysis: Not great. Granted, most of my resolutions are qualitative, not quantitative, or haven't yet occurred (e.g. NaNoWriMo). It's just...God, what am I doing with my life? Answer: Not a hell of a lot. But that's going to change, I hope. The waiting for the letters is killing me.

Also: Man, it is really hard to find either one of the SNL West Wing parody sketches. My Google-fu is failing me. But this...oh my God, it is, how you say, AMAZING.

Oh, and Daylight Savings Time can bite my ass.

Today, I woke up at almost noon (this is why DST can bite my ass) and we went into DC. Once there, mom had to get things from her office and I was not allowed up, so I walked on down to the White House and had an interesting debate with a crazy person protester who was saying erroneous things about Obama's birth certificate. I wonder if he knows he got his ass whooped by an 18-year-old girl?

Afterwards, we had lunch and went to the Kennedy Center's Arabesque festival to take pictures of pretty Arabian bridal gowns and other such lovely things. Little did we know that (Sir!) Ted Kennedy's birthday party was being held there! I got pictures of some people as they came in, though my computer refused to take a picture of John McCain. We did not get to see Obama, though; I think he snuck in, or as much as the President of the United States can sneak into anyplace. But he was definitely there. Yay, I was in the same building as the President and also less than 10 feet away from Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry and Chris Matthews at one point, so \o/!

Yes, my life is fascinating. And I am not a dork at all. No, sir. Nooooo, sir.

(And adding to my not-dorkdom, I also just re-watched "Bartlet For America" and I swear to God, that is the episode where I fell in love with Leo, for serious and for sure. The drinking, and the MS attack, and the napkin - oh my GOD, the napkin made me almost cry and it made Leo almost cry and and and and I love Leo.)