Got up thanks to alarm beeping at me. I'm still having major Apathy Moments. I managed to get my laundry nicely laundered, though, and hiked to SAS, the awesome fabric shop just up the street from me. (I seem to have gotten over the thing where I complain about the tiniest little incline given that most of Phoenix is flat.)

I acquired ten new handkerchiefs, another veil (I may experiment with going out veiled to see if I like the modesty/privacy effect), and about three yards of black slinky fabric that's just about right to make skirts to replace certain of mine that are on their last legs (maybe).

I had some Bad Bus Moments, but wound up safe, sound, but still breathing funky at the plasma place, where I proceeded to have bad pulse moments. Note to self: racing madly after bus will result in throat wanting to close up; throat wanting to close up will result in bad breathing, and all of that will result in a pulse rate over the limit for the next hour or so.

The movie of the day was Ladder 49. I wound up missing most of the first part because I was having my pulse and all taken, but I wound up sniffling and leaking tears, because that's what I wind up doing about sentimental movies.

I was late to writing group, of course, and in getting there on the bus, I met some of the fresh spring crop of cleavage oglers. I am proud of myself in that when the one asked me my name, I was able to say, "I'd rather not say, thank you," and leave it at that.

Writing group wound up having me write a quick little blip about that incident that Figment ran into on his mission (sometimes it's fun being a cleric of a chatty deity) and then shared poor Beatrice's worst childhood memory. The group is liking how I'm tying the story together at the end with actual home movies, and thinking about how much worse all those other events would have been if they'd been caught on tape. Hmm, perhaps I should introduce a few film students, some security cameras, and a few other things? Or perhaps that would be overkill. Actually, yeah, if I were writing it up for a movie, I'd have the conceit be that the whole thing is seen through various cameras, and even though we'd eventually go beyond the scope of that camera's limitations, it would be a clever conceit. (Well, sort of.) After I get out of the home movies, it'll be the home stretch!

I haven't had time to write much lately.

Aftermath was off at Cafe Fiat again; tonight there was a lecture on icons. We wound up out back, because it was a full house. V said something that could have come off as dreadfully insensitive about Figment and his wife; she just keeps forgetting that Figment's a widower, because his wife is still such an active force in his life. M. Schell was holding forth on the dreadful state of children's education today; I was glad that I knew it was perfectly possible for an active five/six-year-old like the Little Fayoumis was to sit still through a three-hour college lecture and be near unto perfectly behaved. This was able to be accomplished because at the ten-minute hourly breaks, I'd take him out to the courtyard to "run [his] wiggles out" -- he'd zoom around at top speed and do everything necessary to de-energize him, we'd take a bathroom break, we'd make sure we had water and he had paper and working writing/coloring implements, and then we'd go back in ready to face another hour of lecture. He'd wind up either drawing, playing some obscure game on the paper, or playing rockets/cars/guns with the pen ... all quietly, because he knew that if he got too noisy, he'd be sent to the corner.

Figment wound up over at trystan_laryssa and dustraven's place this evening. Yay friends! I'd suspected he was over there, but couldn't call and check and see if I could come hang out too because their phones are down, and dustraven wasn't responding to IMs. (It's an instant-communication-dependent culture now...) I left a message on Figment's machine, and when he finally got back in at 1:00am, he called back. Meanwhile, I'd been chatting happily with amberfox.

trystan_laryssa and I decided that if I get married to someone other than Darkside, the perfect person to "give away the bride" would actually be Darkside. I can't think of anyone with greater right to do so, genetic relations included. It's also a very good safety check -- if Darkside thinks I'm doing something stupid, he'll not only say so, but he wouldn't lend his aid to an effort that he deemed bad, wrong, or even just plain idiotic. amberfox concurred. Darkside's a good man.