The Obligatory Post-Gathering Update

Hi, y'all!

Well. Now that I get to this (perhaps earlier than some of you?), I'm reminded of the conversation that Jan and Sunshyn and I were having in the back of the car about what do you write about this? "Had a great time, people ate, people talked, here's links to everyone else's entries which will explain it better than mine, which, coincidentally, are already linked on a main page for this gathering." Good point there. I'll give it a shot anyway, but if you don't like what I wrote, find someone else's ;)

So I went outside to wait for the big honkin' vanpool going to the gathering, since people seem to have a bafflingly hard time finding my apartment in the first place and my being outside to flag them down might help. (I don't really know why, since it's located in the central area of town at two not-that-hard-to-find cross streets, but the pizza guys get so lost.)

You ever notice that when you're waiting outside and you're looking for a particular kind of vehicle, that like, every third car that drives by has at least a passing resemblance to that vehicle and you think it's them, but then they drive by? I spent my entire childhood doing this while waiting for Mom, and I found myself doing that again. There's not a tremendous amount of cars driving around my neighborhood on any given day (unless it's 5 p.m. and they're all leaving town), but yet there were several big ol' vans that turned down my street ... and kept driving on by. By the time Jolene's van did drive by, I was all "Oh, that's probably not it either" (insert nose back into book).

The inhabitants of the vanpool were Jolene, Jake and Jessica, Bev, Sunshyn and Jan, with the J's overwhelming the car...muahahah! In the car, the conversation was mostly those of us in the back chatting about stuff like kids, tongue piercing (ow) and Legos. I just love finding adults who are into Legos, you have no idea.

Jan asked me what my URL was, and I wasn't sure which one to give. I ended up giving her the usual one I've been messing with lately, which has some personal stuff but strewn around willy-nilly in between weird links, and then this one. I may link to this one on the weblog, next time I get around to updating that. The journalers I've been talking to lately aren't exactly used to me having a journal (it's not like anyone reads the Elgonquin ones any more, especially since we all had too much schoolwork and flaked there). Have to break them in gently ;) She thought it was foolmoon at first, which led to some amusement for all. You can see it now, the "foolmoon.diaryland.com" spoof of me, where "I" go on about my mad driving skills!

I won't get into the big listing of who was here because if you went, you know, and if you didn't, you probably found this link off of a list who did go, so why be redundant? It seemed like most of us got there around the same time, or at least there were so many of us piling out of the van that it seemed like we did. Then we started piling out the food. I think I ate some of almost everything at some point. It's amazing how you can take itty-bitty bits of some kinds of food and yet manage to stuff the plate. Yup, good idea to not eat beforehand! Not a lot of people actually knew who I was or anything, and I felt slightly weird about that, but oh well. If I actually did get to reading that entry, I had a bit of explanation about that.

It's kind of hard to describe the idle chatting bits- I can recall some stuff, not others, etc. There were many digital cameras, and while I tried to duck shots when I er, noticed them, I'm sure some of y'all scored some of me when I didn't. I started feeling a bit of that old "I wanna digital camera" stuff for awhile, since it all seems so easy, then remembered the whole money/lack of photography skills/no longer in school and thus not taking pictures of much thing. But you never know, maybe that'll end up on the Christmas list. Back to the actual subject at hand here, we all checked out Bitter Hag's (who, incidentally, is neither bitter nor a hag. Discuss!) lovely backyard view, Karen's Jeremiah and Jessica had some fun with a streamer toy and Jessica really enjoyed chasing after the fake-fish column and the noisy turkey toy. They're so cute. I have seen photos, sure, but so CUTE! I think I prefer kids at that age to infants, come to think of it. They've got it all: cute and funny and active and interesting and cuddly. Rachel was adorable talking to Jessica, especially with regards to Jessica's playing with food in an in-and-out manner. Some journal stuff came up, like Terri's wanting to bow out of the competition, the whole Laurie on 3WA thing (she had cancer, now she doesn't) and the benefits of the Internet community, some newspaper chat, etc.

Eventually, they got around to reading entries. Travis read a love letter to his daughter, Sunshyn read one about her chili (to go with what she brought along to eat), Bitter Hag triumphantly took care of a dead mouse in hers, Terri read her apology after the "Sliding Doors" entry... um, then it got to me.

"Um, I didn't print anything out." (My printer has chewed some paper and I have no idea how to remove it.)

Jolene then reminds me how I wrote that entry (the first one here) specifically FOR this. I mentally kick myself a bit for mentioning that to her last night on chat. "You could go print it out right now."

"But I want to hear Bev's. I'll do it later."

Back to the readings- Bev goes bra shopping, Jolene shares her deepest beliefs, Rachel and her boyfriend describe their days on the bus and flying to Amsterdam, respectively, and we run out of those who printed theirs out!

Trish, me and Kevin go to print some. At this point I finally notice that oh crap, it's nearly 5 p.m. and we're going to need to leave then. I also notice upon printing out said entry it's three frigging pages. I decide if I do end up reading to cut out the big maudlin paragraphs.

So I go, and surprisingly I don't fumble around when reading aloud, which I usually do because the eye goes a lot faster than the tongue. I found myself kinda snarking along and making fun of myself while reading, which made it all much more entertaining ;) Kevin reads his excellent rant on the uselessness of Aquaman, Trish shares the disgustingness of an ex-coworker, and then it's time for us to go.

I'd be up for doing this again!

As for the rest of the evening, well, it's been dull. I have this favorite Internet radio station I listen to when I'm home on Saturday nights. For some bizarre reason, I canNOT get it to work tonight. So I'm sitting there in their chatroom and having no idea why one of the cohosts, a sweet girl, locked herself in the bathroom after someone made a comment about her breasts. Or something. Though by now they apparently have made up and are now asking Satan (i.e. cohost with a voice disguiser) questions. I think. Beats me. If I hadn't gotten a big "HI JEN! *huggles*" response from one of the hosts upon entering chat (I went in to ask if anyone knew how to fix it; they didn't), I would have left because I feel so out of it.

Don't you hate it when something breaks on your computer and you have no idea why? Drives me bonkers, especially that moment where you realize that there is no help for you and nobody available to try to fix it and you're STUCK. (If you called tech support, this is also known as the moment of "Maybe you should reboot again?") One of the annoying things about dropping the general friend group I've been hanging out in: a lack of free, KNOWLEDGABLE tech support. Though since most of them are Linux folks, I doubt they'd really know what I did to befoul a Windows Winamp...

I was pondering going to a fashion show tonight, but given the rain I'm even less in the mood to haul ass down there and go.

It's really weird when the roommate has a lot of people over. I hardly have anyone over because I tend to socialize away from home and preferably involving a good restaurant, theater or store, but she brings groups in for a day or weekend from time to time. I never know what I should do in the situation. Should I go hang out with them? They're nice enough folk, seem to have a good time. Sometimes I choose that option, like with her birthday party last weekend where we played drunken Balderdash. But there can be strange moments. At other times, I feel weird doing that, like now because it's so camp reunion going on. They all call each other by their camp nicknames, etc. and I am not in that loop.

So this weekend I'm pretty much hiding in my room the whole time and feeling kind of annoyed if anyone screams (They are all yelling "PENIS!" in the living room right now. This may be related to the Truth or Dare Jenga game she got for her birthday. We can hope.) and wishing I could go out to the kitchen for a snack without attracting attention. Yes, one of the many reasons I love the Internet: entertainment without leaving the bedroom!

Eh, screw going back to the NaNoWriMo tonight. Let's do some more random facts!

* Most often used word: Whatever.

* Currently reading, though I really shouldn't be reading given the whole writing-a-novel thing: Diana Gabaldon's The Fiery Cross and the Star Wars novel Vision of the Future. (The latter is being read on places like the bus because the former, at over 950 pages and hardback, is NOT portable.) So far both are actually slow going. While there's some romantic dish at the start of FC, it's really starting up slowly for me. Ditto VOTF, minus the romantic dish. Truth be told, it's dull as shit so far, but I'm reading it for the sole purpose of er, romance. Apparently Luke and Mara Jade fall in love in this book, and I'm curious as to how that worked because neither seem like affectionate characters, you know? By page 133, not much has happened beyond him having to put his arm around her a few times for plot reasons. Sigh.

* Favorite snack: Cream cheese and either crackers or chips. I honestly do not know where I came up with this. Dipping food in general is a favorite thing for me, though.

* Favorite food: Egg rolls.

* The decorating scheme in my bedroom:

(a) Right wall: Rainbow colors. About 60% of it is my psychedelic artwork and fabric dyeing projects, with a few moon posters/photos thrown in. I like full moons a LOT ;)

(b) Back wall, much smaller: Poster of Daria saying "Hell is other people" and a moon photo. I cut up a moon calendar for those, by the way.

(c) Left wall: Blues, purples, and black-and-white. As well as the moon/space photos, I have several black-and-white movie posters. Say Anything, William Shakespear's (yup, that's how they spelled it) Romeo and Juliet, and Princess Bride.

(d) Front wall: Closet goes there, so there's not much decoration. A few moon shots and some Mardi Gras beads on the closet door handles. My roommate likes to come in and play with the beads for some odd reason.

(e) Bedroom door: On the front, there's beaded curtains (we have those all over the bedroom area of the apartment), a sign saying "Jenny Ln.", a Doonesbury comic about a pledging to give up searching for love ceremony, a cartoon drawing I did of the back of my head at the computer with books and papers scattered all around me. On the back, a poster saying "My room, my mess."

* Status of the novel: I think I've finished Chapter 5, or at least it's gotten so long that I'm not sure the notify list will handle it all being mailed at once. Eep!

Update on the Girl Scouts: They are apparently playing the same game the roommate had us play last weekend, that one where if you and someone else draw the same number card you have to drink to that number while someone else counts as quick or as slow as they want. One of the GS's got a phone call in mid-count, and she's all "Oh, yeah, hi, we're playing Circle of Death, and I was just counting for Nova and (?), and they have to drink to eight, and I only just started counting..." She continued to chat while they drank... Wicked!

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