Wondrous Apparitions, Provided by Magicians.

1. There is nowhere in Kansas City (with the possible exception of the airport) where one can get one's shoes shined on short notice. I have noted before that Midwesterners generally dress badly, and I'm adding this observation on to that one. Wear crappy shoes, Kansas City, it's okay, everyone else is doing it. NOTE: I am actually pleased that Midwesterners dress badly, because that makes one less thing that I have to worry about in life. And, in the unfashionable, slightly autistic heart of my heart, I really prefer to wear black t-shirts and jeans all the time anyway.

2. As I feared, the weight-loss is returning me to previous comic-book proportions. I tried to buy a new bra on Saturday, and was measured out as a 34DDD. 34DDD, children. You cannot buy anything for this off the rack. For those of you for whom buying large bras is not an everyday activity, the alarming part of this is that you can't really buy anything larger than a C cup in anything smaller than a 36 band. A 34DDD is probably the equivalent of looking for men's pants in 28 waist, 38 inseam. Or some such thing.

3. The me of six months ago was clever, and the me of today is still listening to that old me subconsciously. Having failed to put the end-of-EiR events on the calendar, I look at the next few weeks and discover that I don't really have to reschedule much of anything to attend them, yay, and that we were smart enough to split out 'critique of final ritual and review of test' from 'graduation ceremony'. We are smart.

I will be the first to admit that my grasp of the rules about socialization, and especially those about romantic/sexual/marital relationships is not very solid. So I was hoping that you lot could give me some sort of feeling for the question in my brain today. The question has to do with how to deal with the ex-whatever of someone who is your friend. If you are friends with someone, and they break it off with a person they are dating/sleeping with/married to/whatever, is it okay for you to pursue their ex? If you are the ex-whatever of someone, are you offended if they date/sleep with/marry/whatever someone else?

I'm not asking this because I'm interested in pursuing anybody's ex. I'm not interested in how I should be relating to the people who are currently hooked up with any of my exes. I'm not passing judgment on anybody's behavior, or inviting others to do so. I'm just curious, and I don't know what people percieve the rules to be on the thing. Please help?
( Behind the cut, there is clicky. )

I'm having a conversation with lexpendragon about "stuff". How much stuff do you need? How much do you have around even though you don't need it? I'm in a pretty loose phase about stuff right now. My general tendency is to minimize the stuff, but at the moment, I'm living in a house that also serves as a prop and costume closet, a working art and jewelry studio, and a gathering-place for several groups. This all contributes to a vastly increased level of 'stuff' about. Still, I do the best I can. (Note: I never count books in my considerations of stuff I don't need. All books automatically make the cut.)

One of the places that I fall down in my quest to minimize the useless stuff is with gifts. Of course, people give you things that you wouldn't buy yourself. That's the whole point of gifts. And many people give me things that fit very well into my concept of things I need or can use, which is great. On the other hand, some people, notably my mother, give me lots of 'home decor' sorts of knick-knacky things, which aren't really good for anything, except making the place look nice, and even if you count that as useful (I waver on the subject), there's only so much stuff you can have out making the place look nice before the trick begins to backfire, and the place begins to look cluttered.

And once someone gives me a thing, I keep it. I will keep it forever (or until I can't remember who gave it to me, which is Like The Same Thing), in large part because I don't want to hurt the feelings of the person who gave it to me. Or because it makes me think of the person who gave it to me. Either way, it's there, and I will never get rid of it.

Also, I am told on a regular basis that my model of what is and is not offensive to other people is way off the mark most of the time. If that's true, it may be true that getting rid of gifts is not necessarily going to offend people at all. Hence the poll. Please drop a vote, if you would. Also, obviously, the answers are somewhat broader categories than they may seem, and still cannot possibly cover the entire realm of human behavior, so I would deeply appreciate it if people who wished to vote would choose the response closest to their actual feelings on the subject. Thanks.
( On to the clicky part! )

It's important to note in dealing with my family the following things:
1) We are all Southern.
2) There are two kinds of Southerners, those being:

• Southerners who spit; and
  
• Southerners who do not spit.
  

3) I am a product of an intermarriage between the spitting and the non-spitting tribe.
My sisters, however, are the offspring of a proud spitter and a spitter-pretending-to-be-a-nonspitter, which makes their approach to the world a little different.
( Read more... )