The State of the Cleo
Jun. 9th, 2010 01:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cleolindaI am not doing so well today. Well--it's funny, I actually feel really good in writing/working terms. Even though the recap of the new Twilight book ate up two days of my life, I feel a sense of accomplishment akin to the glow you get from a really good workout. I feel limber, in other words. Which is good for getting back to gainful employment. I'm having ideas for a fresh round of novel (re)drafting, I'm moving pretty steadily on organizing links for the Vampires footnotes--and I have a slight tingle in my scalp, which makes me wonder if I'm entering a pleasantly hypomanic phase of productivity. The problem is just that my stomach is really, really upset, and I feel really nervous, but I don't know why. Actually, this might also support the hypomania hypothesis, now that I think about it. I am also super, super behind on Google Reader, Tumblr, LJ, email--pretty much everything you can think of, and also, Twitter is fussy today. And I depend on Twitter--LJ is still my base of operations, but Twitter is a very quick, easy way to keep up with news and friends when you don't have a lot of time to spare. GET IT TOGETHER, PEOPLE.
(I think it also helped to just post something--I mean, not any crappy old thing; something I did put a good bit of effort and polish into--and get feedback. Earning positive feedback from people--anything from outside your own head--helps you get off the hamster wheel of your own anxiety. Or maybe "echo chamber" is a better metaphor.)
(Seriously, though, I am not really having a meltdown over the "dark red hair" thing. It's fun to indulge in "What? What? WHAT?" for a day, and a vehement reaction is more entertaining than "Well, that's a bit odd," but I'm not losing sleep over it or anything. This is not on the level of The Rocking Chair Revelation or Oh My God the Wolf Kid Just Imprinted on a Newborn, What in the Sweet Name of Sparkle Just Happened.)
OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. I'm on the phone with my mother right now--$752 has been stolen from my parents' checking account AGAIN, and it looks like someone from Pizza Hut stole the numbers off Mom's debit card. (The only people she pays in person with a debit card and presents her driver's license to are pizza delivery people.) It was spent at Home Depot in Pelham, which we have never been to, so they're going to pull up the surveillance video there and see who it was. This happened a while back as well, as you may recall (in fact, rather than someone stealing checks, as we had previously thought, it's entirely possible it was Pizza Hut employees back then, too). It's actually Home Depot (or whoever else the thieves hit) that's been stolen from, because they'll then go return the merchandise and get refunds of money they themselves did not actually spend. It's just that now Mom has to close the account, get a new one, get new debit cards, have no way to pay for things for a couple of days, borrow my checkbook and pay me back later, smite down the wrongdoers, see them driven before her and hear their lamentations, etc. Very inconvenient.
Back to what I was saying. Twitter is having issues, so I am cut off from a lot of news. (I wonder if it's being denial-of-service attacked?) Fnarr. Not that it matters, because I didn't check Google Reader at all yesterday in my determination to knock the recap out, so now I have 1000+ items to wade through eventually. It actually stops counting at 1000; there might be 2000 headlines in there, for all I know. I didn't even hear about the latest Joran van der Sloot development until my mother started talking about it.
Let's spend a moment on that. The Natalee Holloway case is something of a local obsession, since she was from here--from Mountain Brook, a wealthy suburb of Birmingham that is right up against my (more modest) suburb. I know people who knew her. We're both deeply invested in it and, five years later, a little sick of it going in these endless circles without any justice or closure. So it is deeply satisfying to finally see this guy get nailed for something, although I wish it hadn't been for murder. I mean, this is a guy who recently demanded $250,000 from Natalee's mother in exchange for the location of her daughter's body (he has been charged this week with extortion). My understanding is that he has currently confessed to the murder of the girl in Peru--a girl whose father is, apparently, an influential public figure. So, whereas van der Sloot's father, a lawyer training to become judge in Aruba at the time, allegedly pulled strings during the Holloway investigation... what goes around comes around, and irony is about to bite this kid in the ass.
On a more positive note,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
brainchild129 writes that a friend of hers is working with the Peace Corps in Niger, and they're trying to raise $1200 for a goat microfinance program, which is probably the most awesome combination of words I will hear today--that is to say, a program that helps Nigerien women learn business and teamwork skills and earn income of their own, by raising goats. Go to the link if you're interested in helping out.
(I think it also helped to just post something--I mean, not any crappy old thing; something I did put a good bit of effort and polish into--and get feedback. Earning positive feedback from people--anything from outside your own head--helps you get off the hamster wheel of your own anxiety. Or maybe "echo chamber" is a better metaphor.)
(Seriously, though, I am not really having a meltdown over the "dark red hair" thing. It's fun to indulge in "What? What? WHAT?" for a day, and a vehement reaction is more entertaining than "Well, that's a bit odd," but I'm not losing sleep over it or anything. This is not on the level of The Rocking Chair Revelation or Oh My God the Wolf Kid Just Imprinted on a Newborn, What in the Sweet Name of Sparkle Just Happened.)
OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. I'm on the phone with my mother right now--$752 has been stolen from my parents' checking account AGAIN, and it looks like someone from Pizza Hut stole the numbers off Mom's debit card. (The only people she pays in person with a debit card and presents her driver's license to are pizza delivery people.) It was spent at Home Depot in Pelham, which we have never been to, so they're going to pull up the surveillance video there and see who it was. This happened a while back as well, as you may recall (in fact, rather than someone stealing checks, as we had previously thought, it's entirely possible it was Pizza Hut employees back then, too). It's actually Home Depot (or whoever else the thieves hit) that's been stolen from, because they'll then go return the merchandise and get refunds of money they themselves did not actually spend. It's just that now Mom has to close the account, get a new one, get new debit cards, have no way to pay for things for a couple of days, borrow my checkbook and pay me back later, smite down the wrongdoers, see them driven before her and hear their lamentations, etc. Very inconvenient.
Back to what I was saying. Twitter is having issues, so I am cut off from a lot of news. (I wonder if it's being denial-of-service attacked?) Fnarr. Not that it matters, because I didn't check Google Reader at all yesterday in my determination to knock the recap out, so now I have 1000+ items to wade through eventually. It actually stops counting at 1000; there might be 2000 headlines in there, for all I know. I didn't even hear about the latest Joran van der Sloot development until my mother started talking about it.
Let's spend a moment on that. The Natalee Holloway case is something of a local obsession, since she was from here--from Mountain Brook, a wealthy suburb of Birmingham that is right up against my (more modest) suburb. I know people who knew her. We're both deeply invested in it and, five years later, a little sick of it going in these endless circles without any justice or closure. So it is deeply satisfying to finally see this guy get nailed for something, although I wish it hadn't been for murder. I mean, this is a guy who recently demanded $250,000 from Natalee's mother in exchange for the location of her daughter's body (he has been charged this week with extortion). My understanding is that he has currently confessed to the murder of the girl in Peru--a girl whose father is, apparently, an influential public figure. So, whereas van der Sloot's father, a lawyer training to become judge in Aruba at the time, allegedly pulled strings during the Holloway investigation... what goes around comes around, and irony is about to bite this kid in the ass.
On a more positive note,
brainchild129 writes that a friend of hers is working with the Peace Corps in Niger, and they're trying to raise $1200 for a goat microfinance program, which is probably the most awesome combination of words I will hear today--that is to say, a program that helps Nigerien women learn business and teamwork skills and earn income of their own, by raising goats. Go to the link if you're interested in helping out. 
