I haven't made a proper journal entry in quite a while, it seems, apart from showing off the bits and bobs of my costumes. (As it happens, the tights for my girl!five thing showed up and they're very cool - they've got a cool cable-knit pattern on them like the sweater. See?)

There's a couple things I've been wanting to mention on here but I haven't really sat down to do it, so:

There's been some business with my grandmother that came to a rather frightening moment this weekend. We learned several months ago that she has a growth on one of her ovaries. As far as they know it's not cancerous and it could have been there a very long time before they even found it. For a while they were talking about the possibility of going in and having it removed. Initially, she agreed, but then after talking with my Dad, she agreed to reschedule to this weekend. The night before last, grandma got a ride up to the hospital to go over everything and then came home. Once at home, she got a call from one of the nurses saying that she could come back to the emergency room immediately because a test had come back showing signs of renal failure. She refused because she felt fine, and called my mom and me to tell us what had happened. It's at that point that I freaked out a bit. It seemed like nobody was caring that something potentially fatal was happening to a member of our family.

However, it turns out that the readings were perfectly normal for her based on her history (she has one kidney, which skews the results) and furthermore, she's decided not to get the surgery at all. This is largely on my Dad's influence, who is extremely suspicious of hospitals. He thinks that once you walk through the doors, you lose all ability to make decisions for yourself. That part is unfounded, definitely. The other side, which I totally understand, is that my grandmother is an 89 year old woman. Surgery to deal with something that isn't causing her discomfort is definitely a risky proposition. Still, it irks me that nobody is weighing the options.

So, she'll be making an appointment to go see a geriatric doctor...who, I suppose will look over everything - and we'll see from there.

The second thing I wanted to talk about is an incident that happened at my mom's work several months ago. A man who had been fired during the holidays came in, shot one of the management, and then himself. My mother wasn't directly involved, though she was in the building when it happened. As far as these sorts of things go, I think it qualifies as "close to home". Though I have the same sort of detachment thinking about it that I get when I've heard of any other shooting. I don't know if that's good or bad, really. People do strange and terrible things that make little sense to me, and I'll never understand that sort of thing, no matter how close to home it is. But...I'm not horrified by it. Just sad for humanity.

Hm.

Anyway. I think my dad's coming down today, which should be lovely given I as good as hung up on him the other night when he was rambling on about how surgery should have never been an option at all for my grandmother. ...and I haven't had any sleep.

Despite the tone of this entry so far, I'm alright. School is going nicely and I'm learning things I'm interested in. On Monday I'm going to go see about cashing in a bond I've got lying around - I have a list of things I'd like to do and most of them require a bit of dosh.

On the left, Damon from Arc of Infinity. On the right, Wilson from House.
Absolutely UNCANNY resemblance here, guys.

Also, looking up synonyms for "reverie" today I thought this was slightly odd:

An antonym of "reverie" is nightmare, but an antonym of "daydream" is reality? Does that mean that, since the definition of "reverie" is "daydream", its antonyms are both "nightmare" and "reality"?

My tenuous Maxil backstory, since a couple of you asked (Sorry, does not include any Bayban references. That's in his future, duh.):
He was gullible. When he was little, he believed every ghost story and legend that his parents told him. He trusted his parents; his father's strict rules and his mother's disappointment, and the last thing he wanted to do was fail in front of them or any other authority figure.

Early on he figured out that he could bully people into doing what he wanted, and so he did. His mother discouraged it, trying instead to get him to reach out and understand people and their motivations, to use manipulation rather than force, but he found that too hard to do. Someone once convinced him to circumvent the rules, but he got caught and couldn't talk his way out of it. He thought he'd failed, and vowed to never do so again.

He never had a gift for understanding people, and so he abandoned the idea completely. Instead, he decided to follow the rules as closely as he could, otherwise he knew that he'd end up failing. When he began to be promoted, he figured that this was vindication of his method and kept to it. He likes the idea of being in authority, because that means he gets to make the rules. As such, he has an innate hatred for anyone like the Doctor who circumvents the rules and succeeds while doing it.

Also:
cosmic_celery (2:00:07 AM): Okay. S'fine with me. But seriously, Fitz and Charley are super adorable. I love it. And look forward to him totally messing things up.
faience(2:01:01 AM): yeah, there's sort of a voice in my head that says i really ought to keep her far, far away from him
faience (2:01:17 AM): but they're far too cute to actually listen to that voice
cosmic_celery(2:01:39 AM): hee XD
faience(2:02:25 AM): i love that he's totally ready to run off for the doctor.
cosmic_celery (2:05:52 AM): He knows the Doctor really well, and definitely knows what gets him distressed. He worries about him. And loves him a bit. But he's not going to run. He'll walk at a brisk pace until he finds him.
faience(2:06:50 AM): *giggle*
faience(2:08:06 AM): well, it might give the wrong impression if he *ran*
cosmic_celery (2:09:34 AM): Yes. He's just looking for his friend. The world's not exploding or anything. This clearly is not a critical issue.
faience(2:10:15 AM): except for the fact that he's leaving a pretty, half-naked girl to go check to make sure his boyfriend is okay, of course.
cosmic_celery (2:11:14 AM): Yes, but she did already agree to go out with him, so he's covered.

So, a minute ago, I was laughing at something...and then my stomach grumbled, but it sounded like an evil chuckle.

Just watched the first two episodes of the second season of Secret Diary of a Call Girl with Billie Piper...and it definitely has it's good points, though I feel pretty ridiculous watching it. It has some pretty good humor, Callum Blue is in it now *undignified geek!sqee*, and...um...Billie Piper's boobs? Callum's character is introduced as random-charming-guy-that-doesn't-know-she's-a-prostitute, and they start dating. But one of his lines messed it up a bit for me: He says something like:

"Sisters: fuck 'em. Send her some flowers. Sisters love that shit, yeah.. florists saved my life a thousand times"

Now, in my brain, for no good reason, HE'S FITZ. Oddly, the Billie Piper character still isn't Rose.

On the more real side of the coin:

I've also been reading the wonderful blog Debauchette, which is written by a woman who was (or is? I'm uncertain on that point) a high-class escort. Her writing is candid, refreshing, and interesting. Also, she apparently shares many of my political views as well as my Meyer-Briggs personality type (INTP). She even made a post about watching Secret Diary a while ago and noted it as feeling both true and false to her.

I've picked some bits from her latest entries to get you an idea of her style,cut for space:

 

( From her recent entry about Sarah Palin... )

( One about scents associated with sex... )( And about writing itself. )

 

Woke up today with some mysterious scratches on my forehead...kind of like shallow cat scratches, but the cat wasn't in my room last night, so I have no idea where they could have come from.