Same story -- snowed in all weekend, ISP troubles, yadda yadda yadda. Now I'm trying to get caught up on stuff. To any fan-boys & -girls who are having conniptions over the recent lack of updates over at Joker's Realm, I plan to redo the links page by the end of the week, and I will add your link then, so stop pestering me, dammit! I'm going to redesign the whole thing eventually, and I'd like to say that it will happen soon, but I'd be lying. I just don't have a whole lot (or even a little bit) of time to spend on it right now. Right now I'm busy trying to get my first commercial site finished and online, plus finish up the redesigns to this site, plus I've got writing commitments, and that's all in addition to my "real" job and whatever delusions of a social life that I'm still hanging onto, so my tribute to the Man Who Laughs just can't be a priority right now. So sorry.

Snowed in!

I'm sitting in my window seat, listening to Peter Karrie and watching my mom's cocker spaniel. He's just standing there, looking at the snow with a "What the hell?" look on his face. He's not a very bright dog, God bless 'im.

I'm procrastinating. I found my old MS Works CD, which I just installed. Now I'm supposed to be setting up an editor database so I can print off a bunch of query letters. I just realized, though, that I haven't bought a new non-fiction Writer's Market since 1996, so all of my contact info is way out of date.

Peter Karrie just turned into Sarah McLachlan. I have got to get some new CD's.

I've also been having ISP issues all day. I can't maintain a connection for more than 5 minutes at a time, which is particularly frustrating because I thought today would be a good day to catch up on all of my personal e-mail. So if you haven't heard from me in a while, sorry! It's the damn snow!

We don't get snow here very often. We don't tend to handle it very well when we do.

Anyway, I'm actually handwriting this on paper. I'll blog it later [I'm blogging it now! --J.], if I can manage to stay online long enough.

I just realized I have wax in my hair. Joy. I have candle sconces hanging on either side of this window. I figured lighting all of my candles might make it seem a bit cozier in here, so I did. Then I went and sat beneath one of the sconces. Brilliant, Jean.

I'd better write these queries before I forget all of my ideas. But first I need to go pick dried wax out of my hair.

Quitting time. Time to go diddle with my book for a while, then home to watch Buffy & Angel (oops, did I actually just write that? Cat's outta the bag now. My guilty pleasures. I love those shows. I'm still pissed about Doyle, though) and work on the site. Got some complaints that the text on "dreamer" is too small.

Trying to stay busy. Trying to find some direction for this site. Trying to find some direction for my life, for that matter. Do you ever feel like you've got too many options and yet not enough options at the same time?

Tomorrow's the day my dad was killed. Today was a bit of a struggle not to be all weepy. Tomorrow will probably be tough, too. I can't really predict how I'll feel tomorrow, actually. I may not be up to doing anything, web-wise, so don't be surprised if there are no updates. Then again I may feel like spilling my guts all over this page.

Gotta go write. Sorry about the one-liners below, I didn't have time to elaborate.

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I think I'm developing a crush on Handy Andy from Changing Rooms.

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I should start drinking less coffee and drinking more tea.

I'm not too thrilled with the bangs. They're just the right length that they curl right into my eyes. If I cut them shorter they'll look spastic, so I'm pretty much stuck with them this way until they grow out. I think I liked my hairstyle better when it had no style.

Why do they call them "bangs," anyway? If you know, please tell me. Or maybe that's a question for Cecil. Or maybe even Marbles.

I had lunch with my friend Steph today, which is nothing new. We amused ourselves the whole hour by acting like kids, which is also nothing new. We were trying to remember our 8th grad origami ... you know, the paper things we used to fold in class when we were kids? The paper pacman, the fortune tellers, the neatly folded notes with the little "pull me" tabs? We figured out the fortune teller and the notes, but we couldn't remember how to make the pacman puppet. I'll probably obsess over that one for a while. If you know how to fold a pacman, I'd appreciate it if you'd tell me that, too.

I love Steph. I never tell her that, but I think she knows. I hope she does. Maybe she'll read it here, but if she does I doubt she'll mention it. She's more like a sister to me than either of my sisters. She's the kind of friend that, no matter how down either of us feel, when we get together we always end up laughing. More often than not it's the gut-busting, tearing-up, physically painful, can't stop kind of laughing. We can crack each other up over the most gooberish things. I love that. Sometimes I get down because I don't have more friends, people I can just hang with and go do stuff with ... but when you have that kind of friendship, one is really all you need. I think it's a blessing to experience that kind of friendship and to have it in your life. Not everybody has that. Some people never have more than acquaintences. I really am blessed to have a friend like Steph. I just never want to forget that.

It was a weekend of change. I started a new church today. Nothing wrong with the old one, really; just that I've gone there since I was fourteen and only a handfull of people ever bothered to learn my name. To everyone else I was "Kay's daughter" or "Liz's sister." I'd had about enough of that and decided it was time to leave my mother's church and find my own. I like the new one. It's really big, but I kind of like the anonymity. Not to mention the fact that there are single people there who actually fall into my age group. All of the singles at my old church were either still in college or they were my mother's age.

Saturday I cut my hair. Yes, I cut it myself. I'm broke, I can't afford a good haircut. Nothing too drastic, I'm not that stupid. But I did give myself some bangs. I still haven't decided whether I like them.

Saturday night my friend Steph and I saw Supernova. It was okay, better than the review I read said it was. James Spader was looking mighty fine, which for me made it worth the ticket price, but as far as plot goes, my dream was more interesting, and a lot scarier.

Better get back to my laundry. Later.

Forgot to add ... to the guy who tailgated me with his brights on this morning on 169: Hey, genius, didn't you see the fifty or so cars in front of me who were all driving at the same speed as we were? Flashing your brights at me and almost rear-ending me a couple of times wasn't going to get them out of my way any more than it was going to get me out of yours.

Last night I couldn't access my web host, so I couldn't upload any pages. As if that weren't frustrating enough, as I was about to post to a discussion forum my ISP kicked me off and then I couldn't get a decent connection the rest of the night. Finally I gave up and went outside to watch the eclipse, but it was too cold to enjoy it so I went back inside.

I had very strange dreams last night. Something to do with the movie Supernova. Specifically, the bad guy from the movie was after me, which is odd because I haven't even seen the movie yet, and from the previews I didn't think it looked all that scary. I can't remember any details, naturally, but it was a wierd-ass, complicated dream. Maybe it was the full moon's fault. Or maybe it was the chilli-cheese nachos I had for supper.

YAY new toys! I just found out about blogs, so of course I had to get one to go with the new format. I think I'll like this. The site's coming along, slowly but surely. I only seem to squeeze out time to work on one section per night, but hey, it's still progress. My apologies for not having the non-frames version up yet, by the way, but then again I haven't officially launched the revamped site yet, so if you're here it's because I told you about it and I'm pretty confident you can navigate it okay.

Here's a link. Enjoy.