I'm Not Dead -- I Swear!

[rachelleneveu]

You know, I thought that with school letting out, I would actually have time to do things outside of sleep and work, but in the past week I have:

 

 

- Passed (all but one of) my exams, which means that I’m free! Free until the end of January! *dances*

- Worked. Worked. Seriously considered stabbing my manager in the eye. Worked.

- Been working on my Secret Santa Christ gift-fic. It’s almost finished, and I hope my person likes it. This is the first fic-exchange I’ve done, so I’m very curious as to what I’m going to be getting in return. I’m excited, though! Excited! :-)

- Driven to Syracuse with my dad to pick up my sister. On this rather unexpected trip, I:

           + Fully realized the fact that the New York State highway system is a barren arctic wasteland. Also, there are a lot of cows.

           + Learned that my dad is a secret fan of Glee. He claims that as the holder of degrees in both music and music theory, he enjoys it objectively – although, his ranting for half an hour about Puck/Rachel being considered a viable pairing kind of nullifies his point – but still. My father – the trumpet-playing music snob I inherited my temper and my weird sense of humor from (and who also scares the hell out of Forest Ranger McBuff, for some strange reason) – really, really likes Glee. To me, that’s…that’s kind of weird.

           + Got lost in Syracuse. Do you know they have more than one mall? Because Tessa certainly didn’t.

           + Found out that Tessa not only knew that her ride home from Potsdam would only drive her as far as Syracuse, but she actually requested that he leave her at the mall and not, you know, somewhere safer…like his house. Or a bus station. Or somewhere that wasn’t the food court in a random effing mall three hours from where we live.

           + Finally decided that, yes, my cell phone is indeed a Communist. That’s the only way I can think to explain the fact that despite having a full battery, it continually dropped every call I made to Harper on the drive home under the claim that the battery was dead. It’s been doing this for over a year, cutting off calls and dying unexpectedly, and I’m sure that if I could take it apart, I’d find a tiny portrait of Mao Zedong taped to the back of the battery case.

- Decided that I need to have something resembling a life and went out with Harper and some of her other friends to the Sterling Tavern over on Hertel. I had a good time, though; her friends were really very nice, and bar hopping with them was kind of fun. I also ran into my English teacher and his wife (the one I’ll be doing my independent study with next semester, not the cute, young, funny one who taught my poetry class and quoted the Robot Devil when defining “irony”…dammit) when I tried to steal a chair from his table, and he bought me and Harper our drinks before he left. For the record? Great Lakes Christmas Ale is delicious, but it’s even better when I am not the one paying for it.

- Been told by my doctor that I have officially stopped growing. I will be 5’1” forever, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing! Sure, there are six shelves in my house I still can’t reach without a chair, and just about everyone I know (who isn’t my sister) is a good deal taller than me, but do you know who else is only 5’1”? Amy Poehler, Ellen Page, Lady Gaga, and Joseph Stalin, that’s who. Also, Yoko Ono!

- Celebrated my birthday with my family on Sunday. My real birthday is on Wednesday, but this was the only time the family could get together and, surprisingly, it was kind of…nice. Sometimes it feels like my family is a bunch of circus freaks (I worked this out once: my mom’s side would be the barkers and the carnies, and my dad’s family would be the sideshow), but people actually behaved themselves, nothing caught fire, and nobody had to be rushed to the emergency room. With the exception of my dad accidentally dropping my cake, this actually turned out to be one of our better family parties.

- Tried to catch up on all the stories and videos I’ve fallen behind on. I’m saving the Donation Drive for the weekend – speaking of which, does anyone know what order the videos are supposed to go in? I’m a little lost on that one – but I’ve finished my archive binge and am going to start fics and whatnot very soon. Gaaah, I hate being behind, because there are so many good stories and I feel awful about not commenting on them sooner, but I’m trying to catch up. I am.

 

So, to recap: I am alive, I am still writing, and I am back for all the fun things I’ve missed in the past two months. I promise. :-)