I'm a little tired today, but feeling better. I had planned to get at least eight hours of sleep last night, since I was so behind on sleeping, but I ended up talking to Kevin for a bit, and what started as an innocuous conversation took an unexpectedly unpleasant turn. It all ended fine; we made up like good children, but it got pretty het up for a while. I actually managed to provoke Kevin enough that he lost his temper, swore at me, and hung up. He's *never* lost his temper with me before.
He called back five minutes later and apologized; I hadn't had time to even get upset about it...I was still stunned. I didn't know that mathematicians *got* that annoyed. :-) It's funny...in some ways, it was sort of a relief. Don't know that I'm going to tell him that, though. Karina understood.
But the upshot of all that is that I got seven hours of sleep and was still an hour late to work this morning. Ah well...
In other news...well, there isn't a whole lot of other news y'all don't already know. Clean Sheets almost entirely up (except for a poem I'll add tonight), check. Mailing list update sent out, check. Plans for dinner made (pasta with red bell peppers and lentils, and a spinach salad with balsamic vinegar-based dressing), check. Plans for reading and party proceeding, check.
Oh, there's a bit of news -- I wrote a new piece last night. I'd send it out to you, except I'm not quite sure how -- it's a slam- style erotic poem for two voices, and I wrote it in two different files and then physically cut-and-pasted them together to get the finished product. Not sure how easy it'll be to get a readable version online, but I'll work on it. I'm going to have Heather look at it in the next day or two, and if she likes it, we might have a go at performing it together Saturday night. We can at least rehearse it a time or two and see how it goes. It's called "Carol Throws a Party".
If it doesn't work, I have to figure out something to read Saturday. It's a bit of a dilemma, 'cause I don't want to repeat from the PPO reading ("A Jewel of a Woman", "Confessions of a 26-year-old Female Porn Writer"), and I only have five-ish minutes, but much of my work doesn't actually read all that well out loud. I'm thinking it'll probably be either "Blind" (old, but reads well), "Kali" (coming out in an anthology soon, so good promotion), or possibly "Letters to Kate" (funny). Ugh. Dunno. And there's another PPO reading coming up in two months...
I'm also spending too much time trying to figure out what to wear. That's why I found Columbine's latest entry so apropos:
"You may wonder why I never say "stockings." Simple. To me, stockings require a garter belt. They don't have a crotch part. And no one ever sells them, because the world is scared of garter belts, one of the most practical and sexual items of underclothing ever made. Bah."
For the PPO reading I wore a black t-shirt, short dark purple skirt with black lace overlay, very visible garters, stockings and black boots. I don't want to repeat the exact same look -- there'll probably be a fair bit of overlap in the audience. But I do want to dress sexy, since that's in some sense part of the job.
I was thinking of wearing my rust-colored Victorian underbust corset, with a black lace bra, black suit jacket and straight skirt, and again, the garters and stockings, although this time the garters probably wouldn't be visible. And probably heels. The difficulties with that outfit are: I'm a little too much of a coward to be entirely comfortable appearing in public in just a bra, even with a jacket over it, and the corset, if done right, won't be all that comfortable (and I'd be hungry, since you can't eat much beforehand if you're going to wear a corset. And you can't really sit down. And you can't breathe). But it would look good. Waffle waffle.
And then there's the problem with garters. Sure, they're sexy. They're totally hot, and if they were easier to wear, I'd probably wear them a lot more often. (You can buy a garter belt at Victoria's Secret, though they don't have much selection. Stockings too. Also at fairly tame fantasy-gear shops). Maybe it's just me, but I have a *terrible* time getting garters on properly.
Attaching them in front is relatively easy, but doing the ones in back are a real pain. And you'd think you could just attach them first and step into them, and maybe that's what you're supposed to do, but somehow mine never come out straight when I do that. And I get so frustrated in the process -- just like when my earring won't go in, or the way I often felt back when I wore contacts. There are little practical things that just drive me nuts.
Someone once told me that I could never be butch (I was duly insulted), but the truth is that I don't make a very good femme either. No patience. My nails are bitten down (very neatly) and bare of polish. I wear make-up perhaps three times a year, and I doubt I put it on very well. I wash and brush my hair and sometimes braid it -- but that's it. Oh, a hack off at the bottom when the ends get too messy, but no mousse, no hairspray (I hate the way that stuff makes your hair feel anyway), no fancy cuts or styles. I trip fairly often when I wear heels, and my heels are low. I can also only stand them for about two hours before I absolutely must kick them off and walk around barefoot for a while. My mother hated that. I wear skirts because they're comfortable, and they're easier to find in my size than tailored slacks (if I hadn't mentioned before, I'm short, 5'0"). And I do like pretty things, like lace and velvet and silk...as long as they don't take too much effort. And lord, if my breasts were half their size, so I could actually run and jump without worrying about them, I'd be really happy.
Okay, I'm not sure what this rant was about really. I think it's just Columbine's bad influence. You can blame her. And if it's not her, it's mouthorgan's fault for talking about breasts. Which is still at least somewhat her fault.