I'm home from WV... though part of me felt horrible for leaving I needed to come back. I was as strong as I could be for everyone in my family that came to visit us; taking care of food, making sure people had a drink if they needed it, a seat.... I came home to Saishi, hoping I could use that strength to go back to work. I haven't done a thing but cry and sleep today.

Everything is falling in on me and I don't know how to cope with this. I know my dad is in a better place, I know he isn't in pain, I know he has the strength and breath to do what he wants to now.... but I can't stop crying. I can't stop seeing his poor face when he passed or feel his cold hand in mine.

I can't express in words the kind of father you were and how much it meant to have you in my life. You still loved me when I made a choice that I know went counter to everything you believed. But you still loved me and you came to accept the person who became the love of my life. You were everything that is good about a Christian... always willing to share a word from the Bible but never pushy or overbearing with your beliefs; and so incredibly courageous. How many others would be willing to answer a call to preach when they could barely read at a 3rd grade level? I hope that you now have the rest that your body has needed for so long now. We had you for 12 years longer than any doctor promised us. You had a wonderful week with my nieces and nephews and enjoyed being with them right to the end.

I love you, daddy.


I am presently on my future sister-in-law's computer and dial up so my contact with the world will be limited until I can go home. Hopefully arrangements will go quickly and quietly and I can avoid further drama with my extended family.

Of ALL the timing... one of my teeth has come open, the nerve is screaming, and I don't get paid until Wednesday.


T___T


UPDATE TUESDAY AM:

Called the insurance company today since we are none too pleased with Aspen Dental's performance thus far and I found out that I can really go see any dentist I want as long as they are willing to bill my insurance.  So cool.  I called an oral surgeon I had seen back in 04 for an extraction.  They weren't able to work me in today due to heavy bookings, however, they have me scheduled for 9:30am tomorrow.

Note to me I really need to get with fablespinner  to ask what the real deal is with flippers and bridges.  I'm seriously debating having the two just to the left of my front pulled at a future date.  The enamel is completely cracking away, due I've learned to my acid reflux.  Where's the justice?!  I have a bulimic's mouth.  I should get a thin body as compensation.  :P

Tried work for a while but ended up having the nerve flare at my desk.  I never really noticed before how much I tend to clench my jaw when I'm at work.

OMG!
OMG!

*breathes into a bag*

Fecking draco-lich!!!!!!

*passes out*

No not good as in drunk, though that may come later on tonight.  And, it is a bit more good than "hey my head feels about 5lbs lighter".  It's good in the way that the 10 inches of hair I had snipped off tonight that has been contributing to my neck and shoulder pains, numerous headaches, and near migraines when wet is on its way to being a prosthetic hairpiece for a kid in need.

It was a good day.



http://www.locksoflove.org/

For those that don't watch us on Insanejournal, I thought I would make some mention of this here. Yesterday petermaxwell received a call that her father had passed away on Sept. 2nd. Her uncle had been looking for her ever since. Some scrambled finances and calls to her law-knowledgeable mother, and she will be flying down to South Carolina today to go through her father's things and try to make some final arrangements if the crematorium will work with us about making payments.

I can't go with her because 1) we can't afford two tickets, and 2) my employers will only give me one day off work for the death of a partner's spouse... *sigh*

So if petermaxwell is non-responsive to any posts, or I'm a rambling basket case over the next week, now you know.

I'm sure most have heard by now that Pond has been banned and the the Pornish Pixies fangroup has likewise been cut.

While this will not be my last post to LJ it will be one of them.

I hurt for a fellow artist and I refuse to give my time, talents, and most important to them I'm sure my money to an organization that is being cowed by pressure from a bunch of holier-than-thou internet terrorists that feel that harassing people who draw or write about FICTIONAL CHARACTERS (and would more than likely be the first person in line to throw the chair's switch on a pedophile) makes them superior to the rest of us.

I wasn't part of the HP fandom, but I know it's only a matter of time before they move on to the anime/yaoi crowd.

For f@#K!*^ bloody sake people take some responsibility for your kids, know what they're doing online, peer over their shoulders, stop leaving them home alone while you jet off to do whatever and you won't need to worry about the real internet predators and can stop trampling on the rights of those who aren't a bother to anyone.

/soapbox


Those who are lurking around on Insanejournal please feel free to add me:

http://raighne.insanejournal.com/

Interesting thought on Gluhen....

Anyone else amused/intrigued/WTF'd by the fact that Epitath, Estet's supposedly more powerful cloned version of Nagi, had Crawford's coloring?

Despite early annoyances from our old bank and getting them out of our lives finally, I feel surprisingly upbeat today.

^___^


Now if I can just maintain that until 4:30... LOL.

Current song on my Media Player, "Tough" from Yu Yu Hakusho, is performed by Yusuke's voice actor, whose name I don't know off the top of my head. This, however, is the same actor who voices Naoe Nagi. So I sit here amused, listening to this upbeat song, and picturing that image of drunken little karaoke Nagi from his character reference sheet.

I don't need more plot bunnies! I need functional art muses, and correct graphic tablet drivers, and some ink cartridges tomorrow so my printer/scanner will quit screaming error and scan my sketches.

Scared the crap out of myself last night looking for the commission piece I'd been coloring just before my motherboard blew last month. Folders got shuffled around in the move between hard drives and the PSD ended up in my completed stuff folder. I was panicked for a good half an hour before I found it thinking I would have to start from scratch. I had planned to try a test with this picture and use a new coloring technique, however, the person that posted the tutorial on y!Gallery has suffered another severe bout of drama queen and removed everything from his gallery.. including the tutorial. Bleh... Oh well, I was almost done with the skin tones in this anyway.

But at the moment... hopefully exorcising a bunny:



Violet eyes narrowed threateningly as Jarlaxle threw his head back and laughed, garnering the two drow more than their share of attention in the dank tavern. "Oh would that this were some great collaberation between Lloth and Hoar," the brightly clothed mercenary chuckled and wiped a non-existant tear from his visible eye. "It's such an impressive mix of chaos and irony."

"What in the Nine Hells are you going on about?" Drizzt almost growled; not for the first time since the enigmatic Jarlaxle had seemingly appeared on the bar stool beside him.

"I spend the last several years manuvering and guiding Entreri towards rediscovering his humanity," Jarlaxle paused, giving his exasperated companion an overly dramatic sigh. "...only to return and find that the gods have simply switched your hearts."

I can't get this to post to the actual yaoi-con group but I'm hoping that if anyone on the flist has someone looking for a room, or can get the word out, petermaxwell and I will be cancelling a reservation today for a queen or king (sorry don't remember the exact size) sized room in the con block at the hotel.

I know they are sold out and are trying to negotiate for more space of if you know anyone interested give them a heads up. I'll post again in my LJ when the room is offically cancelled.

*headdesk*

OMG... Vonage! WHAT THE HELLZ is this shit you have caused us?!

A few weeks ago our Vonage router started acting up, cutting out, etc. petermaxwell called their tech support and the tech said "Oh let me get a new router out to you. The one you have now is obviously broken." She asked did we have to return the old one, was there a charge and was told "no" to both.

TODAY, on a week when we were playing close to the wire but had all bases covered until payday Friday, a freakin' $64.00 charge pops up on our bank account from our buddies at Vonage. For what? Our shiny new router.

Saishi's on the phone arguing with them as I type but I'm feeling very bleak about this. Reversing an authorization to a debit card is apparently an act of god from what I've seen and they are being completely unresponsive arsehats about this.... saying oh we must have been informed of the charges and the RGA for the old router. BS!!!

However, that does not help us at the moment.... the wench has put us on hold while Saishi has demanded that they correct this or cancel our 3 year old account. Yeah we've been with Vonage pretty much since the beginning. Some customer appreciation huh?

Next step is going to be scrambling for change. We have 2 major things yet to clear our account, my car payment & a surprise tax payment that PA hit Saishi with this month, and by my best calucations if we wipe out our savings account we are going to be short $10.00.

*sigh*

Will update when we've sorted this a bit better.....


EDIT: Well sorted out as best that could be arranged. Vonage cannot reverse the charge to our debit card, however they did put a $40.00 credit on our account. Better than nothing I suppose. The fem-habib we were dealing with in customer service pawned us off in someone in the accounting department who was quite awesome and went out of her way enough to try and help us that we decided not to cancel our service as we had planned.

We managed to cover our overage so all should be well until Friday.

*toddles off to experiment with Adobe & relax*

So ready to go home right now. Very, VERY bad energy and emotions running rampant here today, if you inclined to 1. believe in such things and 2. believe that it affects sensitive people.

My eye has hurt on and off all day and the lid was dark enough at one point I thought people were going to start asking if petermaxwell and I had a fight. Ice pack when I get home.....


On a happier note, hooboy did I underestimate the rabidness of the Thrall/Jaina fandom. It's nuts that I just put that first chapter "on paper" so it would get out of my head and maybe go away. NO... this plot bunny is threatening to expand into a second arc. It's just a logical step that some things I have planned out to occur in this fic would very likely lead to the end of the Horde as we know it.
@.@

Must finishing the reinstalling of software tonight so I can get back to scanning, coloring, and writing.

----------------------

Also, notes to myself, I must contact the others I owe art, except for Sharon & Red... I know where to find you guys.. *grin*, I have not been able to recover my emails lost in the Thunderbird in my old harddrive. That had their email addresses and important details stuff.

Left to download/reload:

- Wacom Pentab drivers (get it plugged directly into a USB instead of the hub)
- Manga Studio add ons
- HP Scanjet drivers (that may or may not work since the printer cartridges are causing the machine to scream error constantly)
- VLC
- Creative Media stuff
- Cool Edit Pro

Exhausted, snarly, trapped at work, exhausted.....

And freakin' muses want me to WRITE?!


**and just when things looked as if they would turn out for the best Sageras stepped through the Dark Portal and flamed Azeroth to a cinder. THE END

-___- ...need a nap at lunch today.

Yet another fustercluck to add to the ongoing drama with my computer. Got up in the wee hours on Friday morning and placed an order with Frys.com for a fresh copy of XP and another 1G stick of RAM to deal with the lag on my computer.

Of course, my great mistake was actually trusting those idiots at Alliance Computers had put the correct sticker on the box that the RAM I purchased from them came in. I bought the wrong kind of RAM.

T_T Still beating myself up royally for that.

Here's hoping things go better with the XP install. I'm leaving that in the capable hands of petermaxwell and keeping my mouth shut.

If it does go well, then I can finally get my art programs & tools working correctly again!

Also, on a World of Warcraft note, I'm still attempting to exorcise this Thrall/Jaina plot bunny. I posted the first chapter to the Revival and they seemed to like it. Debating whether or not to share it more widely..... One misunderstanding from one guildmate's attempt to be funny almost had me in tears. I'm still really wary about my lacking skills as a writer.

My to do list for the evening is done!

- Floors swept
- Furniture & misc crap moved back where it belongs
- New AC units turned on and humming

Excuse me while I now go to relax, unwind, and await the arrival of my koishii.

^____^

Right on our plans for Otakon. :P :P

petermaxwell managed to get a schedule to work in the EShare department for the rest of July (which is excellent for her don't get me wrong). However, this completely changed her days off from the con friendly Fri-Sat-Sun off to a Sun-Mon-Tues off. While at first glance Sunday might still appear to be an option you have to weigh that with the fact her Saturday night shift doesn't end until 2:00AM Sunday morning, putting her home no earlier than 2:30AM if she managed to get out the door right at 2... not a common occurence.

It's disappointing because of the people we had hoped to meet in person and I know she was SO jazzed about possibly getting Tomakazu Seki's autograph on one of her Chichiri pencilboards, but perhaps there is hope for next year if things go better with planning our vacation days.

Bleh.....

Finding a silver lining in this, however. I plan on taking the $120 that would have gone towards our door admission and applying it to a shiny USB external hard drive so I can back everything off my computer without fear of losing anything when I format it for another XP install.