Cleanliness Is Godliness

So Ben's parents are coming over at some point this weekend to drop off an armoire, and I have thus spent an inordinate amount of time cleaning the past few days - up to and including getting on hands and knees to scrub shit. I've also spent some time working on schoolwork, but that's neither here nor there, really.

Earlier this week I made beef stock with a bunch of bones we got from the DeKalb Farmer's Market (which was awesome, because the guy literally grabbed some cow femurs and took a bandsaw to them for me). After it cooks a few days you strain it into bowls and refrigerate it so that the fat all comes to the top and solidifies, and then you skim it off and do whatever you want with the stock. I was reminded forcibly of Fight Club as I did this yesterday - something about rendering fat, skimming it off the top, and glycerin (didn't help that the stock, when cold, has the consistency of jello). Regardless, I now have a lot of really good stock and a lot of free space in the fridge thanks to the cleaning required to fit two huge bowls in it, so I feel it was worth the grossness of dealing with the stuff.

In less gross news, writing night last night was actually very productive. Michelle and I managed to sit down and hash out a rough, working timeline for the entirety of my story, which is a feat I had until then despaired of accomplishing. Looks like the whole arc of the main plot will encompass about eight years, which is about what I expected (although Michelle kept saying 'everything happens so much faster than I thought').

Also, considering tattoos and where to put them. SRS BSNS.

I Want Your Love And I Want Your Revenge

Time to try this in a different format. I think I have too many bad associations with LJ (not to mention its interface is obnoxious) to really use mine well, so I'm going to make an attempt over here. My day-to-day activities are not incredibly epic as a rule, so expect a lot of discussion about grad school (and why this semester is obnoxious), video games, music, and writing, which eats up the bulk of my brainpower.

Ben has been in some kind of fanboy fugue state for the past few days thanks to FFXIII, which is ridiculously pretty and fun and full of really dysfunctional and increasingly traumatized (poor Hope) characters. I haven't played it much because I keep finding things I need to do (like be a housewife, apparently, and write) instead of playing it, but one day soon here I'm going to haul on that bitch. The battle system is quite engaging and the character development is FFX-inspired but a bit more well put together from the brief time I've spent with it.

My job at the med library is actually not at the med library - I'm working for a small special collection of disability-related resources within it. Family members and professionals from around the country can go through our catalog online, then email or call us and we will send them any books they request as well as articles or general information. Family members get free postage, professionals pay return. So work for me is talking to patrons, taking requests, checking in any books that have been sent back, packing up books to mail them, managing patrons in our catalog software, and keeping the library blog updated. At some point I'll also be updating the HTML in the webpages, but until then I usually finish these tasks within two hours and hang out (and occasionally do schoolwork).

In other news, my Zune died an early death while Ben and I were in Georgia this weekend, well within warranty. So Microsoft magicked me up a shipping label and I sent it back to its God for repair work on its doomed, clicking hard drive. Hopefully they won't try to tell me I abused it; it spent its lifespan in a pretty heavy duty case and was definitely rather sheltered. Also hopefully they will fix it, since they no longer make Zunes with hard drives that large.

Currently reading Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay, which is quite excellent if you're into political intrigue-based fantasy centered on a kind of personal vendetta as opposed to EPIC WAR TO SAVE THE WORLD ZOMFG. Music lately has been all over the map: currently listening to Hans Zimmer soundtracks, but there's been a lot of Lady GaGa and 90's alt rock lately as well.

Over and out, for now. Jeb sent me a writing meme I might do for epic TL;DR.