I did it! Ack!

I finished the letters.

I checked the box.

I stuffed the eveloped.

I put it in the mailbox.


So I am officially moving to Virginia, and starting classes at William and Mary School of Law on August 15th.

I don't exactly feel calmer about anything at this point, but at least I didn't try to climb in the mailbox after the letter. Which is something.

Now I just have to sort through all my wordly goods, and plan a pretty major move, and try not to think too hard about what I may be leaving behind...

Too many question marks

Ugh. My head hurts. This is turning into another crazy week at work, and I still can't bring myself to actually check the "yes" box on the letter of intent for William and Mary. At least I managed to not only check the "No thanks" box but also mail the letter back to Santa Clara. That was something.

Anyway, I'm freaking out about this. Why is this so hard? All I have to do is write a couple of letters about fellowships, check a box, and that's it. Decision made, life progressing, time to plan this move thing. It's the box that I can't seem to get past.

I'm scared. Frightened out of my mind actually. It's sad to admit, but there it is. The check box means I'm leaving everyone and everything I know and turning my back on what could have been a really amazing relationship. And for what? Right now a big scary question mark. How much am I really giving up? And do I really want to know the answer to that?

In the mean time, I'm trying to write statements of qualification for a couple of fellowships. How is one supposed to open one of these things? Clearly, "You should give me money becasue I look good in ruffle-butt pants" is right out (Thank you D, for that example).

It's alive!

The mac is alive! Sort of. It's had a total lobotomy, but it works, and latter this afternoon I will have most if not all of my data back so I can get on with backing it all up to CD. Hurray! Whatever was wrong with it was causing numerous "overlapped extent allocation" errors. A quick search for this term on the apple support site turned out one, count 'em, one page. With only a cryptic mention of the error and something about corrupt directory systems. Which sounds pretty bad, right? So maybe they might want to go into more details, right? Wrong! Oh well. I found the information I needed, found a nice boy at the help desk at work to salvage what he could, and erased everything and started fresh last night. And it's alive! I just to make sure the iPod stuff is all installed right and find a couple of other upgrades, and I don't have to worry. All I'm using this machine for is playing music and watching videos while commuting, so this should be ok for now.

I'm looking forward to having my brain back. All of my updated Palm files were on the mac, all of my personal email was on the mac, I feel like I'm hobbling along with a bag over my head or something. take, for example, this weekend. I have no idea what I've already committed myself to doing this weekend and am having a hard time coming up with plans. Oh well. It'll work itself out one way or another. I might even end up working! Woo.

Actually, my main goal for the weekend is to decide once and for all where I am going to law school and get the appropriate response letters and deposits in order. Scary. I can do this. It's a big, scary step, but surly I must have the courage to take it, right?

And behold, there was root...

The FreeBSD install went remarkably well last night. Whatever was preventing the boot disk from ejecting so I could put the install disk in the CD drive on Friday was miraculously resolved (possibly due to some intervention by M. over the weekend), and everything went quite smoothly, for a unix install anyway. I now have root! And user accounts! And hopefully today I can figure out why I can't get the machine to talk to an FTP server. Not having a functional web browser (or email) while trying to set up a new system really sucks. But oh well. As long as I remeber the root password I'm all good.

K. is going to help me fix the POiS iBook sometime soon, so that's a good thing. We love K. I found all of my install disks at home last night, like I really want to install an old version of OSX and then have to make a mess out of the system with multiple upgrades again but whatever. As long as I can keep the stupid thing hobbling along long enough to replace it and then put *inx on it, I'm good. Any suggestions from the peanut gallery on a good flavor of unix or distribution of linux to run on a G3 iBook? I understand there are several that will work well.

My financial aid packages from Albany and from William and Mary have shown up. No word yet from Santa Clara on the FA, and no word from the other 7 schools I applied to about acceptance. So, my options at this point are to 1 - Go to Virgina and embrace a known quantity of debt in exchange for an excellent legal education and fresh start on life 2 - Go to upstate NY, embrace some debt and a large scholarship, and be stuck in upstate New York for at least 7 years or 3 - Go to Santa Clara, embrace an unknown quantity of debt, and spend 3 years battling with Stanford students for jobs. Tricky. For all that leaving the state has become emotionally ddifficult in the last few months, I still think this is probably the best idea. Besides, in Virgina, I still have the fall back butter-churning/ale-wife options.

Rage!!

crap software + crap hardware + PMS = RAGE!!!!

I am too pissed off at the world in general to deal with this. Or write a meaningful post even. My stupid iBook (peice of iShit that it is) has decided to go on strike or something and refuses to boot. After much swearing, fsck'ing, and searching for ideas, my only option at this point is to pray I can salvage some of the data on the hard disk and reimage the damned thing. How lovely. My linux box work has crashed, the network is being burpy, and I am cranky and achy and tired, but I don't get to go home early becasue they have decided to move our proposed launch date up a week. Yes, they are moving a launch UP. WTF? No one moves dates up. That's just insane.

I want to go home and finish trying to install freeBSD on the new server. But this is going to difficult, as the install directions are all saved on the useless POiS iBook. Hopefully I need no more data than what I manage to print out at work. blegh.

Who'd have thought?

Honestly, who else could I have gotten?


You're Bettie Page!


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Don't Panic...

I am highly amused. Someone has already offered to buy the beautiful perfect Peter Fox boots I won on eBay. For a pair of shoes I now refer to as "My Precious" whilst clutching them to my bosom, I don't think the woman has much of a chance. Hear that world? You'll have to pry my precious boots out of my cold dead hands!!

Ok, enough of the shoe lust. In textile related news, I am finally done with the latest round of stuff for Rainbow. Hurray! One hideous dress project out of the way! I have to make a couple of skirts for the woman to go with the awful top, but what is needed for the immediate term is done and she'll be picking that up tonight. I managed to cut out and assemble the pieces of my 1901 corset over the weekend. Hurray! Well, it's not exactly assembled all the way, it;s still in 2 lining pieces and 2 cover fabric pieces, but that pretty decent progress for a mornings work I think. I could not sleep at all Saturday night, so I ended up getting up at 4:45 AM and sewing all morning. I worked on the Rainbow dresses, finished the curtains for the living room, and got the corset cut out and put together before deciding I really need a cute flippy skirt for the spring, and quickly making one. I need to put it on a waist band, but it's basically done. It's cute. Kind of an a-line wrap skirt with a cute pleated thing in the front where it laps over itself. I'm going to get some matching ribbon and make a bow to go at the waist. Pictures will be forthcoming! I promise!

On the school/personal front, things are not feeling so great. I'm having a hard time finally coming to terms with leaving, but I think this is what I really need to do. Either way, I'm going to have regrets, which is the worst of it. I keep trying to tell myself that everything happens for a reason and has a way of working out for the best in the end, but I'm not doing a very job convincing myself that this is so. I just have to be strong, and trust myself to make the right decisions.

Eck. Being a grown up sucks.

Geek out!

I so totally need one of these to chase my cat.

oh my...

Friday night I got home from to work to find a large envelope from from my first choice law school stuck in the mail slot. I treated it rather like an unexploded bomb, before I decided it was probably some financial aid package stuff, and opened it.

I got in. Eep! I got in to the William and Mary School of Law. This is a very good school, top tier, and has one the best Constitutional law program in the country. I've wanted to attend this college since I was in junior high.

Clearly, this is the offer I should accept. It's a big move, it's far away from everything I know, but that's half the point. I've spent my whole life within 10 miles of the Pacific. It's time to open my eyes, experience something different, and take a chance. Being ready to make the decision to leave is a very different thing than actually making the decision though, and I now find myself hesitating.

My focus for the last six months has been on resolving things, cleaning house emotionally, and freeing myself of unnecessary ties. I was doing well with this, but in the last month or so, this has gotten a lot harder. So now what? Do I doom this new thing just as it's starting to get interesting? Or let it be, go, and hope for the best? I was supposed to be freeing myself from heartbreak, not chasing after it. My head and my heart want two different and totally incompatible things. How am I supposed to decide this now? When I have so little time, and so much is as stake?

This is not the art you're looking for...

Am I the only one who thinks the new De Young looks like a Jawa transport?

The Boots have landed!

I ordered a pair of Peter Fox boots on eBay and they arrived yesterday! I got such a killer deal! For anyone familiar with these shoes, they are Victorian style lace up boots, have hardly been worn (once for a fashion show), and I paid $100. Yay! They are most similar to this style but have more elaborate tooling and a pointier toe. I'll post pictures soon. Love these boots. They are beautiful, comfortable, perfect sexy boots that I will cherish for a long time to come. I could carry on about the boots and wonderful shoes in general for days, but this article pretty wells summs it up. To quote:

If you try out a spectacular pair of shoes and show them to a man, you'll likely receive a heavy sigh that means "Now I have to find parking right in front," when what you really want to hear is, "My God, I will die of pride to be seen with you in those magnificent shoes." Try introducing the same pair of shoes to a female friend: She will spot them in a crowded convention centre, which she will fly across to clutch your arm and gasp, each word given its own full stop, "Look.at.those.SHOES!"

And they will look fantastic with my 1909-ish dress, if I ever get off my duff and make it!

Which brings me to the weekend! Hurray! It's Friday! And I have a whole day and a half to sew sew sew! It should be enough to get the latest Rainbow stuff knocked out, and hopefully at least start looking at making the 1909 dress. I've decided to cannibalize the old teens corset, so I don't have to go spend half the day traipsing over to the East Bay on BART to get a busk. I think I may eventually alter the black and gray silk gown, but I don't know. We'll see how that ends up going.

In non-sewing plans, I'm taking M. on a picnic in Golden Gate Park on Sunday, and am going to try to get up to the the Sutro Baths to watch the sun set. We've have some lovely sunsets this last week, as long as the weather holds it will be beautiful. Saturday, A and S (her new boyfriend! yay!) and I are going to a wine club party in Napa. I'm terribly excited. It's my favorite wine from my favorite winery, and should be a nice event. I wish M. was coming with us, but he's not that in to wine so it's ok.

I'm feeling a whole bunch better today too. It's amazing how fast antibiotics will work. It turns out I felt crappy because I had a UTI, so I looked pathetic and talked to the doctor at work, and she gave me a prescription for cipro. Scary stuff, cipro, but it gets the job done. After one dose my fever was mostly gone. I'm still tired and feel kind of weak, but that's ok. It'll get better.

Updates for today

1 - I got rejected from Georgetown. Not too tragic, all things considered. I just really hope that I hear back from a few other places this week so I can make a semi-informed decision about Santa Clara next week.

2 - My order for DSL has been placed! Finally, I am entering the 21st century and leaving 56k modems in the dust, where they belong. This will be a good thing as the house server is supposed to arrive on Sunday (thank you M!), and I can start wiring the house next week. I find this all very exciting. God, I'm such a geek.

3 - I have officially given up on ever getting hired at work. It's a little sad, I really like the people I work with and the work I'm doing (which is saying a lot since I loath doing QA in general), and I think I could really contribute a lot here both in engineering and in legal eventually. Oh well. It'll be easier to focus on school if that's all I'm worried about I suppose. This is only the 2nd job I've had that I will be really sad to leave.

Overall, I don't really feel very well physically for some reason and I'm alternating between quietly sad and a sort of snuggly happy. Tonight I need to get some stuff sorted out in the basement, and figure out what all I need to take with me to work in the morning. At least I'll be able to sleep in some Friday morning. Hurray! It's a wonderful thing. One day a week of not getting up at 6 am is such a lovely thing. I really think I do ok with less sleep as long as I don't have to get up so damn early. I'm just not a morning person.

Perchance to dream...

My commute officially sucks. Even watching the Dr. Jackson show (SG-1 for the rest of you), I can't seem to stay awake on the bus or once I get home. I passed out last night sitting on the futon talking to A. and watching Dr. Jackson while we were discussing the finer points of negligee selection. How truly pathetic. I mean, really, I should be able to stay awake latter than 9:15 on a Monday.

I don't seem to remember getting this exhausted when I was carpooling. I can't think why that would be, I got up at the same time in the morning, and didn't get home that much earlier. I did have time to eat breakfast and maybe make coffee though, which is something. Having a more leisurely morning makes a difference. As it is, I usually hit snooze one too many times, have to rush through getting dressed and ready, and then run out the door with an apple in my mouth like a suckling pig, if I'm lucky. By the time I've made it to the bus I'm all sleepy again.

It occurred to me this morning that my coffee machine has an auto-on timer. Why do I never use this wonderful and convenient feature? Probably for the same reason that I have yet to pry the porn out of the VCR.

I've also decided that I really need a new laptop. The sad little G3 iBook is totally inadequate to the task of running more than 2 applications at once, watching movies, burning CD's, or really doing anything at all other checking email, maybe some lite web surfing, and holding down papers. Editing pictures is a joke, and trying to watch the Dr. Jackson show gets kind of painful whenever the action is too fast and the audio track gets out of sync with the video. Ok, I knew Herodotus's days were numbered (Herodotus being the iBook, and also the Greek historian) way back in October when I was finally got around to upgrading the OS, but this is getting silly. It needs the following:

More RAM. Lots more RAM
A DVD/CD RW
A larger hard drive (that 15 gigs is pathetic is scary, my first computer had a 256MB hard drive, I have that much RAM now, and that's not even close to enough, and this makes me feel old)
Better/faster graphics processor
An Airport card
Another OS upgrade I now have to pay for
USB 2 (which I can't fix, but hey! There are 2 useless old USB 1.1 ports! I should be glad)

So I think, once all this gets tracked down on eBay and various other places, I might as well just buy a new machine with all that extra cash I have lying around (heavy sarcasm here). I want a PowerBook. In fact, I want this PowerBook but with more RAM and the SuperDrive.

Hacking together some kind of system that will work for most things is very geeky and will just have to do for now. There are enough people with old hardware lying around that I should be able to get something reasonable put together to solve at least some of my storage problems, but I doubt there is much to be done about the Airport card or crap graphics. The real question is how much money I should sink into getting more RAM for a machine I intend to replace within the next 6 months.

No more news from any of the law schools...or from work. Eck. So far, I've pretty much decided to go with Santa Clara. Of the available options it will probably cost more out of pocket but the school is better so I'll be able to repay those loans faster.

Whoosh!

Yay! I went skiing! M took me skiing with one of the guys from my team at work and his friend on Saturday. What fun! They all are actually very good skiers/snow boarders. I suck, so mostly I spent the day on the blue and some green hills, trying not to get killed by out of control snowboarders, while the boys (heh) were off jumping off of things on the harder runs. In spite of losing a ski getting on the lift, falling off the lift, getting run over by several snowboarders, and getting run into a tree, I had a blast. The guy from work broke his foot jumping over a mogul so all things considered I did very well.

Snow is good. I had forgotten how much I enjoy going whoosh down the side of a mountain (ok, a hill, if that, given how well I ski) and just being up in the mountains. I'm not really good enough to have "good days" or "off days" at this point but I think if I manage to actually go more often next year I'll be in pretty good shape. I just need to get over the fear of breaking myself.

Sunday was quite nice. I went home for a few hours to sew, be at home with my cat in daylight, and get some laundry done. I did mange to get the latest hideous Rainbow thing cut out, so that's something. I should be able to get some work done this week, I don't have quite so many after-school activities planned, except for sewing and financial aid package type stuff. M and I are supposed to go take an Argentine tango lesson on Thursday, which should be fun, but that is the only concrete plan I have this week. Yay!

Anyhow, J, one of mt friends from the GBACG, come over to sew on Sunday. Her husband was coming back from Iraq last night, so she was pretty excited and nervous and needed some distraction. We both got our latest projects cut out, and had a nice time with the nervous chatter and planning outfits for the eveaning. Why I was so nervous I really don't understand. I cooked dinner for M at his place, it's not like he hasn't eaten my cooking before, but for some reason I was terribly nervous about it. As it turns out, I had no need to be. Everything came out quite well, even if I did slightly over-salt the spinach (which wasn't entirely my fault, I was using a new seasoned salt blend I'd never tried before and it turned out to be more salty that I had expected).

I actually feel pretty good this morning, fairly relaxed and rested, and ready to face the week. Not getting up at 6 AM really helps. Also talking to my landlord about the whole stuck with extra rent again problem was really a big relief. He's a wonderful man, and gave us a nice break on the part the we got stiffed on, so I'm feeling much better about that. Plus we might have found someone to take the extra room for at least a few months. Which would be a brilliant thing. Getting someone in there to cover things while we look for a more permanent solution is a brilliant thing.

Oh sweet lord!!!

In 18 months and 2 days I will be 30. This is tragic and awful. My mother is picking out flowers and centerpieces for my wedding, I'm turning 30 in 18 months and 2 days, and I feel like milk in the dairy case that is approaching it's expiration day. Will I suddenly go rancid on that awful, black day? Is that what she's worried about? "Never mind the groom honey, lets just get these centerpieces figured out!" I feel like I'm about to be auctioned off to some hypothetical husband. Does she know something I don't know? It's very bizarre.

You would think that having my brothers wedding to work on would have distracted her from me and my looming induction into the old-maid/rancid milk club. But no. Why plan just one wedding when you can do the work for two at once! I wonder if she has the dress picked out too? Why can't she just focus on finding me a nice doctor or something like other mothers do, instead of picking out floral arrangements? I know you have to order orchids 50 years in advance, but I don't even want orchids!

Besides, it seems somehow wrong to get married after my baby brother. Or at lest to have a big over-done meringue of a wedding with 6 foot floral centerpieces. Me and my silly Victorian novels again, but still.

The weekend looms, my official un-birthday is on Sunday, and I think I'm cooking dinner for M. Which should be fun. Since my actual birthday is usually over labor day weekend, and hardly anyone comes to my birthday party (what's up with that? you people show up in droves to other parties, what's the matter with my birthday?), doing something nice on my un-birthday is always a good thing. Not that M knows or cares that it's my un-birthday and that I therefore get to wear a silly party hat and eat cake and turn into the Mad Hatter, but it's still nice.

Ugh. 18 months. And 2 days. What a tragic thing to have thought about this morning.

Flambed

Weird head space today...and I can't really figure out what has triggered it. Last night and this morning were lovely, I stayed at M.'s and didn't have to commute all the way back up to the city, so I actually got a half-way decent amount of sleep for a change.

I'm just feeling rather overwhelmed by all these decisions I have to make and the conflicting time lines I have to make them in. Where to go to school isn't so bad, but the questions around work, time lines, and now a certain level of emotional complication make it a bit overwhelming. I think part of my problem is that I am really afraid to trust myself to trust/care about M. I want to, but I'm afraid, partly because I've been burned pretty badly (and rather recently), and partly because I know I have an expiration date. How can I really deal with my own feelings honestly when I know my time is running out? Really, it has run out. I have to make a decision towards the end of the month. What chance does that the possibility of an "us" with?

E. says I need to chill out, slow myself down, and not worry about him or us, and focus on what I need to do. She's right, of course. "Crush Flambes," as she put it, are fine and ok and worrying about forever can and should wait.

I'm also feeling all rejected about work at the moment. I can't get any kind of straight answers about the possibility of getting hired full time, and moving on with my life just makes it look like I'm not interested, but I don't honestly know what else to do. If they can't commit to me, why should I sit around committing to them while the rest of my life passes me by (and why does this sound so familiar, but so out of context? gee.)?

Anyway, it looks like I should finally have a weekend to focus on sewing. No luck on the skiing, or any other real plans to go anywhere, so I'm going to get some work done and knock this last commission out so I can get on with my own work without feeling guilty. Between sewing stints, I need to photograph and measure some costumes I'm planning on selling, and sort through some other stuff to see if I have anything stashed in the basement worth putting on eBay. Might as well work on lightening my material load while I try to scrounge up extra rent/tax money.

Feeble sleepy happy dance

The evil house mate is gone, the locks have been changed, his mountain of shit has been cleared away, and the floors have been scrubbed. We're going to get screwed on the rent and utilities this month, but somehow that's not so bed. Stressful, scary, and just not fun, but not so bad. The house simply *feels* better without that huge ugly stinky wad of negativity sulking in the back room. Hurray! Now I just need to find something to sell so we can make up the extra rent...

In other fantastic news, I got another acceptance letter. This time from Albany School of Law, and it came with a $20,000 a year scholarship! Woo! I really need to do my FAFSA stuff this week so I can get all of that business moving along in the right direction. I've now been accepted into both my safety schools, and only rejected from one school, so I'm feeling pretty good about this. I actually have options! And decisions to make!

Sadly, I owe an absurd amount of money on my taxes this year. WTF? I was unemployed and didn't even get to collect unemployment for 4 months. How can I owe them this much money? Not having any real deductions kind of sucks but oh well. Not much I can do about it now. Next year should be better and at least I'm working so I can figure something out. A huge tax bill plus extra rent for 2 months is just lame though. No more shopping for me for awhile.

It funny, even facing another poverty-stricken month (well, several of them but whatever), I feel so much lighter knowing that the toxic ass is out of my house and that I have someplace to be come the fall. In fact, I have several places to chose from, and that is a wonderful thing. Things in the rest of my life are shaping up to make the decision a little harder than it might have been, but it's all for the good. I may not know where I'm going yet, but at least I know that I'm going someplace.

Pictures from the Gaskell have been posted.