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floatingleafHappy St. Patrick's to all the Irish on my flist and anyone else who celebrates it for whatever reason.:) *waves a shamrock*
I am stuck at home today due to yet another plumbing disaster. This is becoming some sort of a neverending saga: if it's not the tub, then it's the kitchen sink, and if it's neither the kitchen sink nor the tub, then it has to be the bathroom sink. This time, it is the kitchen sink. Completely clogged since last night. As in, standing water that has to be scooped out every once in a while, because yes, the dripping tap that has been "fixed" several times already is dripping AGAIN, and so the water level is actually RISING. When I got up this morning, the sink was filled almost to the brim. No way could I just leave it like this and go to work. So I took the day off (at that rate, I'm going to use up all my personal/vacation time by mid-year :/) and called building management. No one picked up the phone. I left a message. Three hours later, I called again. Left another message. No call back so far. The OTHER number I have for maintenance issues is giving me an automated voicemail saying that they're "not available" right now and that they will respond ON THE NEXT BUSINESS DAY - unless it's an emergency. Which, theoretically, it isn't - as long as I am here, scooping the water out every 3-4 hours. Fun fun fun.:/
In other news, I found this random blog entry about Tanith Lee - a British fantasy author I've been reading, on and off, for the past few years. She was first recommended to me by my sister, who owns a number of her books, and the first series I read were the Scarabae novels - a modern-day saga of a strange, mysterious, powerful and not-quite-human family (they are not vampires by most vampire authors' definition, but have a lot in common with the undead "race"). It was gripping, if rather disturbing at times and disappointingly anticlimactic towards the end (it felt as though the author was tired of the tale and just wanted to conclude it as fast as possible, disposing of characters that seemed to hold much promise for future developments). But more than the story itself, I was fascinated by the telling of it - namely, the amazing way the author has with language. I have always had a "language kink"; I don't much care if the story I'm reading is about drying paint, as long as it's told in a way that makes me wonder if perhaps there is more to drying paint than meets the eye.;) And Tanith Lee can totally do that. So I browsed some more through my sister's collection, and soon found out that she wrote some really dark "gothic" stuff, but mostly pure fantasy, as in her own retellings and embellishments of some classic myths and fairytales. In a slightly ironic, twisted, but still breathtakingly beautiful way. Now, that was much more up my alley. I am only beginning to discover all the riches of her imagined universes (the woman is prolific, to say the least). I don't have any of her books with me right now, except the one I just finished (there is limited bookshelf space at my rented studio apartment, so I usually return other people's books after I'm done with them) - but this blog entry includes a good selection of quotes. Just take a look, and you will see what I mean:
http://www.newsgarden.org/chatters/homepages/alllie/tanith.shtml
I only want to add a tiny little excerpt from Night's Sorceries as a teaser:
The sky powdered her cheeks with rouge, and the forest was mantled in crimson. Then the face of the sky altered, became that of a beautiful black damsel having no wish for rouge, but only for a net of stars and a piece of silver moon to hang on her forehead. And the forest mantled in sable, whispering with waters and the lyres of the grasshopper, and with the turning pages of leaves, and the unheard footsteps of unseen things.
Now, if a genie from a bottle told me that I could have just one wish, I would ask to be able to write like that. *sigh*
ETA: I finally got a call from the building management, sometime after 2 p.m. The plumber arrived after 5 p.m. He brought several massive pieces of equipment, including a gigantic bucket, and cleaned out the mess in record time. The tap's still dripping, because this is old plumbing and the replacement parts are not that easy to obtain at a moment's notice - but at least the water is going DOWN... Hallelujah.:) I can cook now, without having to worry what on earth I'm going to do with the resulting mountain of dirty dishes (washing them in the bathtub seemed decidedly unappealing... *shudder*). So, on to make a delicious Mediterranean chicken salad (with red onion and pear slices and crumbled feta cheese and walnuts and garlic croutons and all kinds of good stuff, yay). *slurp*
Btw... the three pounds I had previously gained in a week? They're gone. Last week's nervous tension ate them. Give me just a little bit of stress, and my angsty quivering burns the calories off like there's no tomorrow. Guess when I had the best figure? Yeah, during that epically toxic saga of my first "romantic" relationship. Not a healthy way to stay in shape, by any stretch - but I certainly hadn't heard of a wholesome diet at that point in my life, and yet I was skinny as a supermodel. As well as severely neurotic, desperately disturbed and obsessively unhappy, but yeah... the looks, I had them. Not that the price was worth it or anything... but it's a fact of life for me. I only have to watch what I eat when I am in a happy, peaceful state of mind. Weird but true. Just saying.
I am stuck at home today due to yet another plumbing disaster. This is becoming some sort of a neverending saga: if it's not the tub, then it's the kitchen sink, and if it's neither the kitchen sink nor the tub, then it has to be the bathroom sink. This time, it is the kitchen sink. Completely clogged since last night. As in, standing water that has to be scooped out every once in a while, because yes, the dripping tap that has been "fixed" several times already is dripping AGAIN, and so the water level is actually RISING. When I got up this morning, the sink was filled almost to the brim. No way could I just leave it like this and go to work. So I took the day off (at that rate, I'm going to use up all my personal/vacation time by mid-year :/) and called building management. No one picked up the phone. I left a message. Three hours later, I called again. Left another message. No call back so far. The OTHER number I have for maintenance issues is giving me an automated voicemail saying that they're "not available" right now and that they will respond ON THE NEXT BUSINESS DAY - unless it's an emergency. Which, theoretically, it isn't - as long as I am here, scooping the water out every 3-4 hours. Fun fun fun.:/
In other news, I found this random blog entry about Tanith Lee - a British fantasy author I've been reading, on and off, for the past few years. She was first recommended to me by my sister, who owns a number of her books, and the first series I read were the Scarabae novels - a modern-day saga of a strange, mysterious, powerful and not-quite-human family (they are not vampires by most vampire authors' definition, but have a lot in common with the undead "race"). It was gripping, if rather disturbing at times and disappointingly anticlimactic towards the end (it felt as though the author was tired of the tale and just wanted to conclude it as fast as possible, disposing of characters that seemed to hold much promise for future developments). But more than the story itself, I was fascinated by the telling of it - namely, the amazing way the author has with language. I have always had a "language kink"; I don't much care if the story I'm reading is about drying paint, as long as it's told in a way that makes me wonder if perhaps there is more to drying paint than meets the eye.;) And Tanith Lee can totally do that. So I browsed some more through my sister's collection, and soon found out that she wrote some really dark "gothic" stuff, but mostly pure fantasy, as in her own retellings and embellishments of some classic myths and fairytales. In a slightly ironic, twisted, but still breathtakingly beautiful way. Now, that was much more up my alley. I am only beginning to discover all the riches of her imagined universes (the woman is prolific, to say the least). I don't have any of her books with me right now, except the one I just finished (there is limited bookshelf space at my rented studio apartment, so I usually return other people's books after I'm done with them) - but this blog entry includes a good selection of quotes. Just take a look, and you will see what I mean:
http://www.newsgarden.org/chatters/homepages/alllie/tanith.shtml
I only want to add a tiny little excerpt from Night's Sorceries as a teaser:
The sky powdered her cheeks with rouge, and the forest was mantled in crimson. Then the face of the sky altered, became that of a beautiful black damsel having no wish for rouge, but only for a net of stars and a piece of silver moon to hang on her forehead. And the forest mantled in sable, whispering with waters and the lyres of the grasshopper, and with the turning pages of leaves, and the unheard footsteps of unseen things.
Now, if a genie from a bottle told me that I could have just one wish, I would ask to be able to write like that. *sigh*
ETA: I finally got a call from the building management, sometime after 2 p.m. The plumber arrived after 5 p.m. He brought several massive pieces of equipment, including a gigantic bucket, and cleaned out the mess in record time. The tap's still dripping, because this is old plumbing and the replacement parts are not that easy to obtain at a moment's notice - but at least the water is going DOWN... Hallelujah.:) I can cook now, without having to worry what on earth I'm going to do with the resulting mountain of dirty dishes (washing them in the bathtub seemed decidedly unappealing... *shudder*). So, on to make a delicious Mediterranean chicken salad (with red onion and pear slices and crumbled feta cheese and walnuts and garlic croutons and all kinds of good stuff, yay). *slurp*
Btw... the three pounds I had previously gained in a week? They're gone. Last week's nervous tension ate them. Give me just a little bit of stress, and my angsty quivering burns the calories off like there's no tomorrow. Guess when I had the best figure? Yeah, during that epically toxic saga of my first "romantic" relationship. Not a healthy way to stay in shape, by any stretch - but I certainly hadn't heard of a wholesome diet at that point in my life, and yet I was skinny as a supermodel. As well as severely neurotic, desperately disturbed and obsessively unhappy, but yeah... the looks, I had them. Not that the price was worth it or anything... but it's a fact of life for me. I only have to watch what I eat when I am in a happy, peaceful state of mind. Weird but true. Just saying.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-19 12:14 pm (UTC)hee, in college i lived in a studio apartment for nine months and did my dishes in (plastic dish tub) the bathtub that entire time. it was... interesting.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-20 01:50 am (UTC)