where his civilizations, including our own

Crap! It's our cotton anniversary and I didn't think of getting _hannelore a T-shirt until right now!

This is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside-down, and I'd like to take a minute-- excuse me. Starting over.

It's our oneth anniversary. They (the people who want you to buy presents) call it the paper anniversary. And hasn't this been the year of paper, that which letters are written on?

I have a year to think of something clever to say about cotton.

I guess I was lucky. When I was single it didn't bother me, because I didn't think love was real. I might as well have gotten emo because I could never have a pet unicorn. Purely mythological! Fortunately I was able to recognize it for what it was when I saw it, and not try to convince myself it was really just a horse with a horn photoshopped on. Um... sorry, I'm a dork.

You are my best friend and I love you. I feel very, very lucky and hopeful for the future.

That's about it.

Today is the anniversary of the birth of _hannelore and the coming of the three Wise Triceratops to placate her with gifts of mini muffins.

It is traditional upon this day to eat a mini muffin in her honor.

*

I ventured into the Firefox support forum and found out why the Quicktime plugin wasn't working right; it's incompatible with 64 bit OSes.

( Here's the workaround )

You only get sworn in as President once, it'd be nice if they could not screw it up. Almost as bad as Neil Armstrong blowing his lines.

Aside from that, it was my brother's birfday. He turned 21. This is a perplexing development, as I'm fairly sure he was a small baby yesterday.

And something quite good was accomplished by a person dear to my heart! (I almost wrote that something good "happened to" her, but that would be very inaccurate.) A painful chapter was closed and a new beginning embarked upon. Sorry this is about as detailed as a newspaper horoscope, but I'm not sure if I'm supposed to tell people about it. :P

My sinuses didn't explode. A friend suggested I boil water and put a towel over my head and breathe the steam, which was sound advice. I can sort of breathe now, which is an improvement, though talking is touch and go.

I discovered there is a "low cost" optometry clinic somewhere, which I need because I don't have eyeball insurance and my glasses aren't glassing very well. To sign up for it you apparently have to call on a Thursday between 11:30 and 12:00. To be honest this is not very encouraging, but we'll see. I expect there's a long waiting list.

Well I kept the same job for an entire calendar year, which is more than a lot of people can say, unfortunately. Almost everyone I know, their place of work has had substantial layoffs.

( here are some things in 2008 )

In 2009 I plan to do the following things:

-write more fiction
-paint more pictures
-cook more food
-conlang more... conlangs
-visit _hannelore
-sever my ties to this area (particularly a)ensure my brother is sufficiently independent and b)liquidate my interest in this house) so I'm able to leave here and go live with _hannelore and her son
-oh yeah, and lern 2 be a good stepdad... soon.

...some of these things might be more challenging than others?


also: New Year edition of nedroidcomics

After taking _hannelore to the airport this morning, I came home thinking I would do something in WoW, but instead fell back asleep until 7pm.

Iza tired.

I indicated in my last post and some comments elsewhere that 2008 has been one of the worst years ever. I have never been so physically unhealthy, and rarely have I seen such suffering and misfortune among my friends.

However, in one respect, this year has been the best, and that is because I fell in love with _hannelore and she fell in love with me.

Might come as a surprise to some who have heard my thoughts on love and romance, which have consistently been that they're not worth it and only cause pain. As it turns out, I was doing it wrong.

++

Greeting card fail @ failblog. Since I get paid to merchandise greeting cards in an appropriate way, this fail touches me personally.

I should have gone shopping before I went for surgery, shouldn't I. Now I don't really have any food, and I'm hungry, but I don't want to go anywhere and my brother isn't here. My legs are also getting stiff from not doing anything. I might walk around the block.

I have my ZA raid today, and one of the people in it just ragequit the guild that belongs to some of the other people in it. The drama really has nothing to do with me, and I attempted to make it clear that I expected everyone would maintain a civil demeanor for the duration of this one-hour raid. If I can show up to play the day after I was pissing blood, you can show up and play nice with the guy who tattled on you when you were mean to some other guy, kthx.

Our not-yet-existent guild has a web site that doesn't look like total crap. It's getting exciting and scary as we work out the specifics like web sites and vent servers &c. Like yeah, we're really doing this, not just sitting around saying we should do it.

I've almost finished re-reading The Dispossessed. Le Guin is really my favorite author ever. I've emulated her so much.

The person I'm in love with is going through hell. I'm impressed how she stands up through it. I think her strength is what captivates me the most.

I need to buy a new computer relatively soon. I'm afraid after the bill for my surgery comes I won't have enough money for it.