Sitting Home Every Night

I am not lucking out on the holiday parties this year. The big organization-wide work party is scheduled for the day I'm leaving for New Mexico, and the small office party is the day before I get back. Some friends are having one while I'm gone.

The apartment complex usually has one, but doesn't seem to have anything set up for this year. Although they'll probably do something at the last minute while I'm out of town. I'm beginning to think people are avoiding my festive company.

What do they say? "Lucky in love, unlucky with parties?"

They do now.

The thing is, with no rounds of parties to attend and remind me how busy things are, I'm not keeping good mental track of how much time has passed this month. It turns out quite a bit. I should have done much more shopping by now.

Catalog, or Devour?

One of the things people tend to ask you when you're pregnant is whether you've had any unusual food cravings.

To which I say, not unusual, no. I mean, I pretty much always crave braaaaaaaaiiiiiiinnnss.

This is the photo that's going on all my forms of ID from now on.

Happy Halloween and stuff.

Sigh...Vacation Over

Gotta go back to work tomorrow.

However much I like my job, it seems like I'm never completely ready for a vacation to be over.

I could use another day, at least! A few more precious hours to sleep in!

Alas, it is not to be. Tomorrow is Monday, and school is back in session. Something probably needs cataloging, and there's the reference desk to think of. There are colleagues to greet and discuss the holidays with. Some things to order, and to pick up for the archives.

Also I have a book in at the library branch near work, so I'll be able to look forward to picking that up. I need to be working on this year's 50 books read, after all.

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Stocking Up on Event-Specific Tunes

If you're in the mood for a bit of Christmas-inspired music, but not in the mood to spend money on it, I recommend Amazon's 25 Days of Free promotion, which promises to provide one holiday song per day, December 1st-25th, as a free mp3 download.

Today's offer is a song called Christmas Tree by the current Queen of Awesome Weird Pop, Lady Gaga, and I cannot sufficiently stress how entertaining this is.

And don't worry, it's not a situation where you have to check in every day to get that day's song, or you miss it: all six songs posted to date are still available for download at the time of this writing.

I have to say that despite general crankiness and lack of divinely-inspired awe, I seriously love the classic carols, so if Amazon just wanted to give away Oh Come All Ye Faithful and God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen all day, I'd be happy. But only if they're sung in the classically approved manner (i.e., the manner I recall from my youth, which may not be the manner in which they were sung when they were new).

I have very little patience for reinterpretations of the classics, in which people take the opportunity to show off their awesome vocal talents by inserting creative warbles into these songs. Just sing it!

Also, if you're going to do We Three Kings of Orient Are, please make it as doleful as possible, and sing the whole thing, because those slow, mournful verses, especially when you get to "sealed in the stone-cold tomb," are truly wonderful. "Merry" Christmas? I think not. It's like a holiday funeral march.

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My Costume

I have decided what I want to be for Halloween, based on a remark from a conversation between a man and two small children.

I shall be Captain Awesome.

I'm not sure exactly what Captain Awesome wears (tights and a cape, probably?*), but with a name like that, you know it's going to be good.


*Either that, or it will turn out that Captain Awesome likes to go around disguised as a mild-mannered librarian. It's meta.

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