Yeah. I would do this.

First there was the unpacking. Then the agonizing. Clearly just alpha by author is UNACCEPTABLE. I mean, if I am in the mood for a Steampunk novel, how am I supposed to remember all of the author names in that genre? But then again, what if I want a YA Steampunk? Or a non-series YA Fantasy novel? DO YOU SEE THE PROBLEM HERE?! I kind of a fan of John Green’sof organizing, sadly I don’t have enough shelf space. Also I don’t have my entire library with me at the moment and I am a little hesitant to spend hours setting things up only to have to redo everything once I get the rest of my collection out of storage.

For now I set it up as: Oversized/Art Books, Trade Paper Graphic Novels/Collections, Steampunk, Sci Fi, Fantasy (they are two different categories!), Mystery, literary fiction, Nonfiction, YA. All alpha by author within their subjects though. It just got me thinking, does anyone else obsess over this? Or am I the only weirdo who enjoys sorting and organizing books? I would suppose it’s a by-product of working in bookstores for years, but then again, I met plenty of people who worked in bookstores and didn’t read.

So dear readers, what say you? Organize all the books? Or just dump them on shelves? Do you have a specific order or is it whatever strikes your fancy that day?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I want to do with this site. I kept bouncing back and forth with “well, I love games! IT WILL BE A GAMING BLOG!” and “But COMICS! IT CAN BE A COMIC BLOG!” and “oh wait. MAKEUP!” and on and on and on. Let’s face it. I just have too many things that make me geek out.

So in my usual tradition, I’ve decided to say Fuck It. This will be whatever I feel like posting. That being said you can expect Teh Sillies, video games, comic books, music, books, random tech, pets, rants and all manner of things that make me squee with excitement or rage like I’ve never raged before.

In short, finally Tartdarling.com will be just Tart. In all my nerdy glory.

and I completely forgot what I was doing to spin ’round in my chair squeeing and cursing the fact that I can’t remember my steam password to be able to preorder from work.

fucksticks.

well for the rest of you, what are you waiting for? GET TO PREORDERING. And if you need incentive, check out this video for an example of the AMAZING music in the game.

A day in the life of me:

6:30am – alarm goes off.
6:30 and 30 seconds am – SNOOZE
6:35am – 2nd alarm goes off
6:35 and 30 seconds am – SNOOZE
[Repeat the above steps]
7:30am – stumble out of bed
7:30am – HYGENICS
7:35am – dress
7:37am – wonder where the fuck I threw my bra
7:39am – find bra under pile of books/yarn/jackets/thrown over bathroom door
7:41am – wonder where the fuck the shoes are
7:42am – find shoes under blankets on floor/in bathroom/ under dogs bed
7:43am – wonder why the fuck I don’t use the closets I have. Vow to use them.
7:45am – feed Gem!Rat while yelling at the dog to stop bloody whining for one bloody minute while I’m feeding the rats for the love of all that is holy before I cook you into tacos.
7:46am – grab Quorra!Rat the Neckwarmer.
7:46am – attempt to get the dog to sit down already so I can put her leash on.
7:47am – walk the dog while Quorra!Rat attempts to burrow in my hair/climb down my shirt
7:50am – tell the dog “OMG WILL YOU JUST PEE ALREADY?!”
8:00am – grab something resembling breakfast, lament about not packing a lunch.
8:05am – head off to work. Curse the slow ass cars that will cause me to be lateomgmove
8:30am – dash frantically to the time clock wondering how the hell it took me so long to get to work.
8:32am – start work
8:45am – sign on to trillian. Begin bored poking of people.
9:00am – realize no one is at work yet. Begin bored poking of twitter.
9:15am – wander to the breakroom to get cereal.
9:20am – start scanning ALL THE THINGS.
10:20am – start daydreaming about lighting the lazy bastard who couldn’t even check to make sure things scanned properly on fire.
10:30am – check email in hopes that an order came in so that I don’t have to scan anymore.
10:32am – will the phone to ring so I can stop with the goddamn scanning.
10:40am – grab for phone if it means I don’t have to scan.
10:45am – slack on twitter/IMs
[Repeat 9:20 – 10:45]
1:30pm – OMGLUNCHYAY
2:00pm – joke with coworkers about random crap because we are all bored.
4:00pm – ACTUAL WORK
5:00pm – FLEEEEEEEEE
5:05pm – curse traffic
5:30pm – get home
5:32pm – check food/water for the zoo.
5:40pm – OMG PUPPY I WILL WALK YOU IN A MINUTE CAN’T YOU SEE I JUST GOT HOME.
6:00pm – Get back home for being dragged around the block by the dog
6:15pm – decide to read for a bit before dinner.
9:00pm – wake up from nap that I didn’t intend to take while reading.
9:15pm – make grilled cheese because I can’t be arsed to make anything else because it’s so late.
9:45pm – take puppy out for another walk. Threaten to cook her into tacos when she doesn’t want to pee.
10:00pm – shower.
10:15pm – vow to go to bed at a decent hour so I’m not a zombie in the morning.
10:16pm – WHEEE GTALK CONVERSATIONS
1:00am – realize fuck it’s 1am and I am still awake
1:02am – fall asleep
1:02 and 30 seconds am – wake up when the puppy jumps on me. Realize I didn’t take her out.
1:03am – hunt for jacket.
1:05am – take dog out.
1:20am – SLEEPS.

Repeat.

Somedays there’s library visits. Or waking up earlier to take the boy to work too. But pretty much, yeah, that’s my life.

I’m sure we’ve all been there. That horrible day at work or in your personal life. You just need to drink. If it’s bad enough (or you’re like me and always have to drive home) you may want to drink alone. Also, midweek drinking is not always conducive to social drinking depending on work schedules. So I’ve put together this handy list for drinking during your work week.

Step 1: Set A Goal
Decide your plan of attack for the night. Do you just want to unwind after work or are you planning on being passed out on your kitchen floor? Personally I set levels like this: Buzzed, Tipsy, Drunk, Shitfaced, Blackout. This will help you know what supplies you need.

Step 2: Gather Supplies
Depending on your Goal, what do you need? Beer, Wine, Liquor? How much? Will you need to eat? Do you get drunk munchies? Ice? These things are important! Nothing will kill a buzz quicker than realizing that you’ve poured your drink but have no ice. Or only have 1 shot left. Make a list and grab everything you need.

Step 3: Prep work
This is the fun part. Put anything that needs to chill in the fridge/freezer. Need to make lunch for work the next day? Do that now. Need to shower? Better to do it now than to be drunk and stumbling in the shower trying to shave your legs while swaying and squinting through one eye. Bosses also frown on you showing up for work smelling like a bar room floor. If you get everything done before hand you can drink to your heart’s content (and your liver’s dismay) without screwing yourself over. Protip: Make sure there’s TP in the bathroom. Possibly even an extra roll. Handy for all the increased peeing you’ll be doing. Also handy for blowing your nose if you get to the puking point.

Step 4: Profit.
Drink. Enjoy.

(optional) Step 5: Water.
If your goal was Drunk or beyond, drink water and pop an ibuprofen or two before you go to sleep.

And that kids is how you become/remain a functional, working drunk.

As I’m sure everyone is well aware, Mother’s Day was not too long ago.
/finger twirl. I’m sorry, is my bitter showing? My bad. But this is
not (entirely) about how Mother’s Day turns me into a
pea-soup-spewing, head-spinning-’round, evil bitch from hell. This is
about how Mother’s Day also turns me into a bawling, sniffling,
snotty, non-functional mess. Why the crying you ask? (And even if you
didn’t ask, I’m going to tell you.)

Because people don’t think before they speak.

Shocker right? No, I’m not new to the whole People Are Douchenozzles
Theory. I’ve known this for years. First off, let me say that I have a
LOT of friends with kids. My facebook is littered with pictures of
everyone smuggling basketballs, and auto updates of how many weeks
they are and how their big their little Cthulhus are getting. I don’t
mind. Really I don’t. Most of the time I’m downright excited. More
kiddos for me to play with and spoil. But the thing that most people
don’t realize is this:

Seeing all that? Fucking hurts. BAD.

There. I’ve said it. Let the floggings begin. There is a reason
though. See, I have PCOS. This means that my likelihood of getting
pregnant without IUI or IVF is very slim. So while everyone is dropping shorties, I get to sit and watch with the realization that it may
never happen for me. And that it won’t happen without much planning
and timing. No little “oh we just started trying” or pleasant
surprises. No. It will be calendars and Basal Temperatures and cycles
of Clomid and peeing on sticks everyday and “OMG NOW I DON’T CARE WHAT
YOU ARE DOING” and heartbreaks of seeing a single (or no) line. But
I’ve accepted this. And to an extent I’ve learned to live with the
pain of it all. Because trust me, I don’t care how much you love your
SO or you know they love you, having to look at them and say “you do
realize that no matter how much we want it some day, it may not
happen, right?” is like a knife to the gut. It’s an almost crippling
fear sometimes.

The thing I wasn’t prepared for was this year. I’ve been struggling
with Mom Issues a lot this year. I just turned 27, she was 27 when she
had me, I’m getting over a marriage that failed spectacularly and
dealing with the fact that even though my mom would ADORE The Boy,
she’ll never get to meet him. But anywho, that’s a whole other can of
worms. Add to all that the fact that one of my FB friends made the
following comment. “Happy Mother’s Day to all the Moms out there.
Until you’ve had a kid, you can’t possibly understand and you don’t
know what you are missing. I feel sorry for people that don’t have
kids, they’ll never know what love really is.” Gee. Thanks. I’m not
proud to say that snark got the better of me in this situation and I
replied with a “well, some of us do know exactly what we are missing
but thanks for the painful reminder!” But now I share with you some of
the /awesome/ responses I got and my remarks to them.

“Infertility is God’s way of saying you aren’t ready for kids.” So,
the fact that I love kids and am awesome with them and have wanted to
be a mom for years now makes me unqualified? You mean to tell me the
12 year old moms of the world are ready, but I’m not? Am I really that
shitty of a person? AWESOME.

“Maybe that attitude is why your marriage failed and why you don’t
have kids now.” No. My marriage failed because my ex-husband felt the
need to fuck anything with tits that hit on him. Provided it wasn’t me
of course. And given his love for telling me I needed to diet and that
he wasn’t attracted to me because of my weight, I could have seen a
pregnancy going over REAL well. NEXT.

“H8R” – Learn to English, motherfucker. Yes, Yes I am a hater towards
people who don’t understand that some of us don’t get pregnant by
sitting in the same chair as someone else. Also, despite my preference
for sunshine and flowers and shitting rainbows, I’ve been through a
lot of very painful things. Not knowing that and assuming that
everyone has had an easy life doesn’t excuse being a dick, and I have
every right to snark back.

Comments like this (and more) went on all day, and meant that I spent
most of the day in tears. Despite what some people think, infertility
is a real thing. And a PAINFUL thing. It is a million slow deaths
every day. It never goes away. Every pregnancy announcement, baby
shower photo, story of your kid, photo of expanding bellies is another
knife added to the collection of guilt that is bleeding me dry. I
don’t resent you anything and am often happy for you and I will never
make you feel bad for being excited, even if it makes me want to curl
in a ball and cry or rage at the world for the injustice of it all.
All I ask is please, please, PLEASE, be aware that the issue exists
and be mindful of your words.

TL;DR: Infertility sucks, be aware that people may be dealing with it
and don’t feel the need to share it with the world and Don’t Be A
Dick. <3

Poking around on twitter while knitting (yes, it’s possible.) I saw a tweet from the awesome Dan about the musical March Madness.

Hm… I’d put up the Disturbed vs. Coheed March Madness link, but I’ve got a LOT of Coheed fans [following me], unfortunately.

It kind of got me thinking, if I had the choice to listen to only cds from either band for a full day, I’d have to go with Coheed & Cambria. This may not seem odd to anyone other than me. See, once upon a time, that would NOT have been the answer. It would have been Disturbed all the way. But I thought about it and lately, while driving around, I’ve had my mp3 player hooked up to my car stereo and I’ve just been playing through my library. When I got to Disturbed? I skipped the albums. Coheed? Listened to all of them. Thinking about it some more I’ve skipped almost every metal album on my mp3 player when it’s come up. I even skipped some Killswitch Engage and I adore them.

I was trying to figure out what had changed. I still think those bands are awesome bands, and there are still a great many songs that I really like, but why did I not want to listen to them? And then it hit me. I’m not angry any more. Sadly, my Google-Fu is not as strong as it could be, and I couldn’t find the exact quote, but there was an interview with Corey Taylor of Slipknot shortly before Stone Sour’s first cd was released. The interviewer asked him why he was going in such a sharply different direction from Slipknot. I’m paraphrasing, but Corey basically said “Because life’s too short and no one can be that angry all the time. I’m not a pissed off kid anymore.” To some extent it’s true. I know this may be hard to believe, but not so long ago I was not this awesome. Instead of being annoyingly awesomely perky and full of rainbow sprinkles, I was … jaded and a bit cynical. I was stuck (or so it felt) in a marriage to someone I cared deeply for, but who talked down to me and cheated on me many times. I wasn’t so much bitter about the situation as I just didn’t see a way out of it, which pissed me off. Metal shows were the place where I could take out my anger and be pissed off and it was okay. But not being in that situation anymore, I don’t need that outlet. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my moshpits, I just prefer them at punk shows now. I guess in a way, I always preferred punk to metal, but my ex was more of a metal head and not always very open to bands so I mostly went along with it rather than listen to the inevitable “UGH.”

The other thing I’ve noticed lately is that while the lyrics of songs have always spoken to me more than the music, the lyrics seem to affect me more now than they ever did. If I listen to songs with a darker content I seem to pick up on that an it will actually sway my mood. So if I’m going to put out the effort of being mad and listening to angry music I’m going to pick angry pissed off punk simply for the mentality of “ok, I’m pissed so I’m going to DO something about it” rather than the “I’m pissed so I’m going to be angry and wallow in the anger” mood that metal seems to give me.

That being said, I’m glad I can get my dose of Corey Taylor via the much less angry Stone Sour. ;)

6. A piece of literature is being written that will eventually change your perspective on life.

This proves to be a good segue. I’ve been reading a lot lately, especially since I’ve discovered that the public libraries here in town offer the ability to “check out” ebooks and audio books online. Go to the website, check out what books you want, download and the licenses are good for 7-14 days. WIN. Audio books are a love of mine. Well, the good ones anyway. As a knitter, I love being able to queue up a book and work on a project while I get lost in the story. This gets me into trouble though as I now have SO MANY books to listen to in addition to my never ending pile of books to read. I have been on a huge YA kick lately though. Both my To Read pile and my To Listen To pile are full of YA goodness. (even if a few are re-reads) I just finished listening to Beautiful Creatures and am starting Beautiful Darkness. It’s made me pick up my physical copies of the books as well just to go back and highlight/note sections. Yes, I am one of THOSE readers. If it’s something that I will lend someone at some point I try to just use post it flags, but often my books wind up with highlighted sections and notes in the margins, along with post-its everywhere or folded down pages (I know, I KNOW. Sue me, my books are well loved, ok?)

To Read (the current pile, subject to change on a whim):
People of the Book – Geraldine Brooks
HORNS – Joe Hill
Mistborn Trilogy – Brandon Sanderson
The Stolen Throne/The Calling – David Gaider
The Graveyard Book – Neil Gaiman
Eyes Life Stars – Lisa Mantchev
A Map of the Known World – Lisa Ann Sandell
(Plus a handful of grammar and writing books such as Eats, Shoots & Leaves and On Writing)

To Listen To:
Beautiful Darkness – Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
If I Stay – Gayle Foreman (re-read. I’m curious to see if it’s as powerful in audio)
White Cat – Holly Black
Delirium – Lauren Oliver (re-read)
Incarceron – Catherine Fisher
Sapphique – Catherine Fisher
Will Grayson, Will Grayson – John Green & David Levithan
Wonderland – Joanna Nadin

Really looking at my lists has brought a few things to light. One, I really, really, really enjoy YA books. Two, Though I am not the biggest fan of fantasy novels, I always try to read them. I feel, for some reason, as if I should enjoy fantasy novels, yet I often don’t. braces for the outrage I try, I really do, but more often than not I just can’t do it. Normally I can breeze through a book in a day or two. Fantasy novels? WEEKS. And that’s assuming that I don’t give up part way though. I’ll often start one, read 100-150 pages and walk away from it for a few days or a few weeks and try again. I loved what I played of Dragon Age: Origins and the books came highly recommended by both The Boy and Roger. My secret? I own both novels, but haven’t finished either. Warbreaker? Completely adored it. Mistborn? Can’t get further than 200 pages. I just don’t know what it is about them! I’m hoping that maybe the audio book thing will help. If it’s something in the written word that I can’t get over, perhaps listening to it will help? I’m just worried that if I hit that point where I would have walked away from the novel that I will just space out on listening.

What about you? Any genres or authors you feel like you SHOULD read, but just can’t get in to? Or am I the only crazy one?

]]> http://www.tartdarling.com/2011/03/29/day-6-wherein-i-ramble-about-books/feed/ 2 http://www.tartdarling.com/2011/03/25/project-good-day-4/ http://www.tartdarling.com/2011/03/25/project-good-day-4/#comments Fri, 25 Mar 2011 17:11:26 +0000 tart http://www.tartdarling.com/?p=354 4. Somewhere on Earth a double rainbow is stretched from one end of the horizon to the other.

Ok, this one just makes me laugh. Everyone’s seen the double rainbow video (and if you haven’t, really how are you on the internet at all?) and it still makes me laugh every time. Though I don’t really feel like this is a post in and of itself, so today will be a twofer!

5. One of the next Billboard chart topping musical artists is patiently rehearsing in the garage.

As a very musically inclined person I like this one. So many people now assume that because of the way younger artists are marketed (I SEE YOU THAR BEIBER) that there is no work involved in becoming a Pop/Rock Star. Generally though, this isn’t the case. More bands have made it by sheer determination and playing free and/or low paying gigs in shitty bars for two people than simply being in the right place at the right time. Again with that whole hard work thing.

<3

3. A small group of people are building something that will soon make the impossible possible.

This is kind of a crazy thought for me, especially right now. I’m trying so hard to just keep my head above water that the thought of building something that has lasting meaning/power is just unfathomable. But alas it’s true. Somewhere someone is working on something that will changes lives forever. mind = blown. There is still so much innovation left in people and sometimes it’s hard to remember that amidst all of the horrible things we do to each other. Hopefully one day I’ll have the focus to create something like that. Until then though, there’s always hope!

<3