2.28.01
Ok, this is WAY TOO FUN. *howls of laughter* I came into work this morning and six people said, "Oh my GOD!" The comments thus far:

Oh! It's like Catie, with no hair! (Very much like a Catie with no hair, I said.)

Wow. I've always wanted to do that, but I've never had the, ah. Male anatomy parts. To do it. (Said by a man. This is one of my favorites. Hee hee.)

You just *love* doing things to your hair, don't you? Is that your real hair color? You have a nicely shaped head. You are one brave soul.

It's beautiful!

Oh, but now your earrings and your necklace are really great accessories. And you've got this cool, *makes hairline motions*. I could never do that. (Also said by a man.)

Can I touch it? / May I? People always want to do this to me after I've shaved. *fuzzle*

And my favorite so far, from an email from Jai:

You shaved your head!?!?!

well, yes, you know that you shaved your head, since you actually SHAVED YOUR HEAD, rather than had someone else shave your head for you, but what I can't believe that you ACTUALLY shaved your head, and what is even more unbelievable than you actually shaving your head is how good your head looks shaved. (I wish I had your eyebrows, by the way, they're very expressive!)

*howls of laughter* Ok, so every time Andrei walks by, he fuzzles my head (he has nice warm hands!) and when he first came in he came over and fuzzled my head and then stared at me in awe for a few moments, then said, "Okay, I have to go back to my desk now and absorb this." *helpless giggles*

And Oleg, who has taken to calling me Katya (he came over, and from the end of the row said, "Katya?" and I looked up and he said, "You recognize your name?" and looked pleased) thinks it's great. This is so COOL.

2.27.01
I, er, melted my hair last night. It's hard to tell from that picture, but trust me, it's melted.

So then I cut it.

And then I cut it some more.

And then I had a great 80s Punk Rock Londoner Phase, which I foolishly didn't pause to take a picture of.

And *then* I did what I've been threatening to do for years. I'm not nearly as grouchy or sullen as the picture looks; it was just a good picture. AI!

Oh. *How* did I melt my hair? Well, I'd been bleaching it, to do a Rogue hairstyle, but last night I rebleached it and it died. It was Too Much For It To Take. It got all melty and stretchy and gooey, and so I took it off. Alllllll the way off. :)

Ok, there's one other picture which I took because the expression in the other one kept alarming people. Although this one alarmed Trip, too, so what do I know. :)

2.26.01
*tired laugh* We gamed very late last night, due to trying to finish the adventure, given that half the party appears to be moving back to Alaska. Eldrik enlarged Angie and me so that we had +5 to hit and +10 to damage, and we kicked /ass/. There was a thirty-minute combat session, one melee round after another, and the bodies just *piled* *up* around us. They kept coming in wave after wave after wave, and we kept murderizing them. In fact, we emptied the entire dungeon out without leaving the foyer area, except maybe five other monsters. We're so cool. *giggle*

I realized this morning that the natural progression for Jocelyn, my character, would be to grow up to be a paladin of Rao, who is Brad's character's god, and with whom Jos is very impressed. Unfortunately, Jos's stats *suck*, and you need like four seventeens to become a paladin, and Jos hasn't even got /one/ seventeen. So that's really very sad. I guess she'll just grow up to be a devout follower of Rao's, instead. Hnf.

2.25.01
I'm not dead. On the contrary, it's been that there's been too /much/ to write about than not enough. However, my brain is not so very functional and I'm not doing so well writing out details, or something, right now, so I'm going to make vague allegations and indistinct statements and ... yeah. I don't really need more sleep. I just need ... to sit here babbling like an idiot.

Went to Alaska last weekend. The con was great fun. I got to talk to both Anne Perry and J. A. Jance, who were the only two of the er hundred and something authors there whom I had read extensively or um pretty much at all, so that was cool. I got a number of books signed and picked up a few new authors and learned a lot, just sitting around listening.

I also really kind of realized how small a community Anchorage/Alaska is. Because I was bopping around and there were all these faces that I recognized, sort of just off the street, not people I'd ever met, but still. Just faces I recognized from around the state. Pretty cool.

We also, on basically a whim, stopped and looked at apartments to rent, and even a condo to buy, because we've been talking about moving back to Alaska. Ted's decided that he wants to go back to school and get his teaching certificate, and we can't afford to do that down here. CHI will let me work from Alaska, and we /can/ afford to live on my salary up there, so it's become a very real possibility that we'll move back.

The sort of funny thing is that if we move back up there, and I come down every couple months for meetings and the like, I'll see people here as much as I do now. *rueful look* :) Anyway, I hope it works out and I'll keep the page posted over the next week.

2.13.01
Someday, I will grow up to be a school marm.

2.11.01
I seem to have missed an interesting RP session yesterday. I think that Trip's Silkiegame has two different styles of RPers in it, and that in order for the game to succeed one style has to be decided on. It's a D&D game, which has, to me, an expectation of fighting, but there's been a lot of diplomacy and it's all been very different. So we'll see what happens.

Meantime, we accidentally got lost on the way to the theatre tonight, and missed the show. Not exactly our fault; the road forked before the Mapquest directions *said* it did, so we took a fork too early and ended up on Bryant instead of on Mission, and then we got around to the right part of town, but we didn't go straight where we should have (we think) and ended up nearly driving over the Golden Gate Bridge. Instead, we had a nice drive around the Presidio, and then went for ice cream. It was fun, even if it wasn't the /planned/ evening. :)

Aaaaand we're going to Anchorage this week! I hope to go to at least one day of the con; that would be very very cool! But now, I go to bed. Tud!

2.09.01
One of my coworkers just sent out an email asking us to help name the new client site we've signed. Our current sites are mylifepath.com, buildingbetterhealth.com, mylifeguardforhealth.com, and ahealthyme.com. I suggested ourhealthylifepathtobuildingbetterwellness.com.

It's possible I'm not taking this seriously enough. o.o

AAARGH. The Left Coast Crime Conference is being hosted in ANCHORAGE next week! I want to GO! And AUGH! There's FREE BEER! Er. No. Wait. There are, however, Alaska Airlines specials out the wazoo. Maybe we can GO! Eeeee!

2.07.01
Last week, Lynn, the homeless guy, had a really bad cough, and he wasn't on the street corner Monday or Tuesday, so I was pretty worried about him. He was there today, said he'd gotten a cold and with the weather changing from hot to cold he'd just been laid up and nights were real bad, and the Nyquil he'd gotten hadn't helped any. So I was glad he was okay. I'm gonna stop and ask him if there's anything I can bring him, maybe. He's a cool guy. I'd like to help out.

Then at the train station, a tall slender black guy paused in where he was going until I was close enough to speak to, and said, "I love the highlights in your hair, they're magnificent. I just had to wait and tell you." Needless to say, I was tremendously delighted. *grin*

A drunk guy named John, at the Mountain View station, also admired my hair. Apparently, I'm having a good hair day. He, however, wasn't black; he was, er, some sort of Hispanic or Native American person, all of which only bears mentioning because nearly every single stranger who's commented on my hair has been an older black man, and I think that's very curious. The guy today, granted, was only older in the sense that he was probably in his thirties and thus older than I am, but I can think of ... six people who've commented on my hair, 3 of whom were black men, one of whom was a black woman, the fifth being the drunk fellow, and the sixth being another drunk person (I forget which gender, but I believe the ethnicity was white) at Faces, a gay bar in Sacramento. Anyway, so I wonder what it is that makes African-American men stop and comment. Very curious. But ridiculously fun: the coolest thing about this hair style is that people *do* comment. Not that I'm egocentric or anything. *grin*

2.06.01
Oak sings, at the top of his lungs, "And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free to have my vote ignored and free to rely on fundamental Christians for social work and, um, I'll stop singing now."

I love my friends. :)

Liralen had a fish!

Oop! More pictures of Kerry and Rusen! In this one, Kerry's sporting something closer to her real hair color. :)

2.05.01
If you go into the woods today
You're in for a big surprise
If you go into the woods today
You'd better wear a disguise
For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain because
Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic!

I woke up with that song in my head this morning. Not sure why. :) Quite a change from She Bangs, which has been in my head for days because of dance class.

Dance class on Saturday was extra painful. I dunno if it's because it's first thing in the morning or if it's 'cuz I didn't go on Thursday, but man my feet hurt. But one of the girls in the class told me I was doing really well, so that was really nice of her.

On Saturday, Geni and I went to the Winchester Mystery House which was pretty darned neat. I'd love to live there, my *God*. It's so intricate and absurd! So I want to do that again, because it was interesting and strange and Ted ought to see it. :)

Sunday we gamed. Sunday we went up against 6 vampires and my character had a level drained and failed her saving throw for a lightning bolt hit and got FRIED and lost her +2 two-handed sword and ALL her good stuff and only BARELY made her other saving throw 'cuz she was wearing a helm of +1 protection and she got something like 38 points of damage and then she got hit AGAIN for half damage and so there I as at -9 and they healed me back to +3 and I got hit again and went down to -7 and then they healed me back to +3 -- this was literally one round to the next, minus plus minus plus and we couldn't hit the broad side of a BARN and finally Brad narrowly saved our pathetic asses by rolling a natural 19 and STAKING the head vampire *poof*, yee. Hell of a day. :)

2.02.01
Didn't go to dance class last night, because I was very very tired and I thought it was wiser to sleep instead of getting tireder and sicker than I already am. So I went to bed at 9:15, instead. :)

This morning, Rusen, my cousin Kerry's boyfriend, sent me a picture of them!