Wondrous Apparitions, Provided by Magicians.

I'm home from the Northwest. I have lots of pictures. The best of the set are uploading as we speak. I should label and tag them all, but kids, I am tired. The trip was completely amazing. It was a little like this:


Tomorrow, I'll post more coherently. Right now, I'm going to bed.

Sooo.

triadruid left at the inhospitable hour of noon on New Year's Day (having been at agrnmn's poker, singing, and silly hats party the night before), on the road to Florida. We drove across Missouri to St. Louis, a trip that is interminable on the way out to anywhere, but somehow seems quick and refreshing on the way back. Southbound on I-55, we discovered Callahan's Place, and then headed into deepest, darkest Arkansas. In Arkansas, we were greeted by an amazing variety of small towns just off of 55, and made up stories about them to alleviate the sheer, butt-numbing boredom of the trip. We imagined a circus: Victoria Luxora, the high-wire artist, twirling a flaming baton while crossing the highway at the towering height of 100 feet; Keiser Wilson, the ringmaster who speaks only gibberish, communicating more clearly with gesture and the occasional shot from an incendiary flare pistol; Marie Lepanto, the delicate, harlequin-painted dog trainer, parading about with her fuzzy charges; and Joiner Tyronza, the strong man with a heart of iron. Thankfully, we soon passed into Tennessee, and then Mississippi, where we stopped for the night.
( More travel ahead! )

triadruid and I are home, shaking the dust of 8 states off our feet. Thanks to zylch, popefelix, ruisseau, and anyone else who kept the dogs fed, the plants watered, and der Fractalhaus from generally burning down while we were gone. Soon, there will be a post-trip post, and also pictures. Now, though, there is a warm bath and a bottle of good tequila calling my name.

(Also, I haven't read lj since early New Year's Eve; did I miss anything important, interesting, or fascinatingly explicit?)

I got my air purifier about two days ago. Set it up next to the bed, which drops the sexiness of my bedroom setup significantly. On the other hand, I can now breathe, and I have pretty much stopped coughing, so I've stopped losing sexy points based on snot and hacking. I'm calling it good. The air purifier is not the Tesla Roadster of air purifiers, but it might be the Infiniti G Coupe. It has a remote control, which is necessary to switch between several different operating modes. There is an owner's manual which is not as large as the one for my car, but larger than the one on the last audio equipment I bought. It has an automatic mode, in which it senses concentration of crap in the air and responds. Like most people probably would be, I said "Yeah right" about this. But lo, if you stand next to the machine while it's on auto and fart, it spins up to a higher mode. Little things impress me.

In other news, I still have no test results. I do, however, have an appointment with my doctor on Friday. Perhaps by then, they will have resolved the records problem. Or, you know, not. Since my initial episode, I've had about three more, though none were nearly as severe as the first one. I have some remaining concern about whether I'm having small strokes, or perhaps a brain tumor, or something similarly awful that will either kill me soon or render me some sort of vegetable. I'm particularly concerned about the vegetable part. triadruid offered to take me in to have "DNR" tattooed on my chest, if it would make me feel better about things. Which, of course, it bloody well would.

Other than that, I'm just freaking busy all the time. I get to go to Nebraska next week, woo hoo. Actually, I am pretty excited about that. I've never been to Nebraska, so I get to mark it off the list of states I've never been to. And, if that weren't enough, the Omaha zoo has the world's largest indoor swamp. I absolutely must see that. Strangely, though, it's not generating much interest in my traveling companions.

In reaction to Rabbit Hole Day, ceruleanst says, "Fuckabunchathat. Go *DO* something surreal, instead of just making it up." As a card-carrying Erisian, I support that. Of course, I support the making it up, too.

So anyway. This weekend, I went to Iowa with zylch, to talk about fund-raising and church stewardship in the UUA. I think that fulfills ceruleanst's requirements. *boggle* On the one hand, we told them all about the God Auction as a fund-raiser, and fully half of them thought it was a good idea (although they were initially suspicious of the mention of gods). On the other, the painfully earnest quotient was high, and we were, of course, the youngest people in the room by at least 15 years. Mildly trippy on both counts.

But I'm back now. Did you miss me?

Saturday night, after seeing Zumanity, kittenpants and I went to Nine Fine Irishmen, which is an Irish pub in New York New York. They had a pretty solid pub band, extremely tasty food, and cute waitresses in itty-bitty tartan mini-skirts. Good times all around.

And we were in a drinking sort of town, so we were drinking. When the waitress came round for drinks orders, kittenpants orders a martini cocktail (served in a martini glass) that is composed of Bailey's, Kahlua, vanilla vodka, and butterscotch schnapps. I have noticed that they also have a pretty solid selection of Irish whiskeys (and no whiskys at all, so bonus points for that), and so I order a Black Bush, neat. As the waitress is walking away, kittenpants says, "Well, now she knows who's the butch and who's the femme in this arrangement..."

What makes this particularly funny is that on Saturday night, two time zones east of us, triadruid, allegedly the most masculine of our household, was in another Irish pub, drinking practically the same girly-girl drink as kittenpants. I love that.

What happens in Vegas allegedly stays in Vegas, but I fail to see how that's at all entertaining to anybody. Anyway, kittenpants got back to good ol' Flyover Country about 2 a.m. on Saturday, and are all back in our own beds (and offices) now.

I managed to survive the Vegas experience without any anxiety attacks, claustrophobia, need to retreat to a corner and hold my head and rock, or anything like that. I also managed to do this without staying drunk for the duration of my visit (which is how I functioned last time I went to Vegas). I consider this to be a victory. Brain re-wiring is going along well.

Overall, the trip was alternately amazing and awful. Highlights in each category are below the cut, if you're interested.( Read more... )

I don't usually get all excited about tourism. I like to go places, sure, and I like to see things I have never seen before, but I generally fail at the variety of awe that one is supposed to have when confronted with the world's wonders. Mostly all you get is a "Hey, that's neat!" and then I go on.

And then, there's The House on the Rock. I am in awe of this. I must go there. If I do not, I am certain to wither away and die.

Anybody want to road trip to Wisconsin? Seriously, I'm having a religious fit over here.

So anyway. Dallas. We drove down to Dallas Thursday night, as soon as I got home from work. We knew the drive was going to suck, but wanted to do it then so that we'd have a day to kill in Dallas and do some touristy shit (you know, see things, take pictures, have fun) before we had to be at PVUUC for the start of the class on Friday night.

This did not go down at all as we had planned. We got into Dallas at 3 a.m. Friday. We caught the change-of-interstate to go to the hotel we'd reserved and almost immediately ran into standing traffic. There had been a multi-fatality wreck on Dallas' 635, and the entire highway was shut down, with all four lanes of traffic being shunted off to a single-lane exit, at which there was a traffic light. We finally made it the 11 miles further to the hotel by about 4:15. According to the news, they were still cleaning up the accident at morning rush-hour.

This was to be a theme of the weekend. ( Read more... )

I'm home from Dallas -- did you miss me?

Did I miss anything exciting?

I'll post the LJ-balderdash stuff later today, right now, there is a sea of paper that must be parted.