A Whole New World

So, unforgivably, it's been almost three months since I updated this blog. And as it turns out, quite a bit has happened. Let's start with the big things.

First, there was Halloween. I spent eight hours at work in a fabulous 16th century cream brocade dress with boned stays and ten yards of skirt. The shoes pinched, my hair spent all day slowly escaping its updo, and the corset-style bodice was not conducive to sitting in an office chair for that long. I looked fabulous, and won nothing. The prize went to my coworker who came as a giant can of Red Bull. To add insult to injury, they forgot to send out an email when they began the luncheon/prize-giving, so a third of the office (including me) missed half of it. Not good form at all.

I then went home to change into my Rogue costume and head out to a party. Note to anyone else who likes dressing up - changing costumes halfway through a day is always a good idea. Sure, you might have to start over on the hair and makeup portions, but it's a basic truth that good costumes are almost never comfortable. Changing costumes halfway through is like trading shoes with a friend when you're walking around Europe: sure it still hurts, but in different places. It doesn't sound like much comfort, but trust me on this one. You'll be grateful.

Anyway, my boyfriend and I hopped in the car and drove over to pick up another friend who lived on our side of town, knowing that parking sucks in Hollywood. I was driving, since that meant it would be my bf's turn to drive back and I could drink. Now, normally, it takes half an hour or forty-five minutes to get to the apartment where the party was. On Halloween, it took two and a half hours to get there and find parking. We could have driven to San Diego. On Hollywood Boulevard (several miles from the famous, glitzy section of it, I might add), traffic was moving approximately ten feet every two minutes. Once we'd discovered how bad it was, we couldn't even give up and go home, because getting out was just as bad! Never again. Needless to say, we were in a foul mood by the time we arrived, and not even booze could fix it.

Luckily, the next night was another Halloween party, much closer to home. Someone came as Captain Hammer, which was awesome. (If you don't know who that is, shame on you.) Someone else came as Slash from GNR, but he looked more the the Guitar Hero version than the real thing, which I thought was hilarious. And I contributed Slayer Cake, which was super-cool, if I do say so myself. (Well, it looked super-cool anyway. It tasted disappointingly generic.)

After Halloween came my birthday. It contained nothing geek-tastic to report, except that we did play HeroQuest on the hotel room floor and D&D in bed later. I heart geeks!

Note: I just realized that "playing D&D in bed" might mean something different to some people. Just to clarify, I did mean the actual game, with character sheets and dice, etc. What went on afterward in the bed had nothing to do with D&D.

We got back to town on Tuesday the 4th, in time to watch the election results roll in. When CNN called it for Obama at 8:01 PST, I turned to FOX News to make sure they agreed. Then I switched back to CNN and cried. I know lots of people who said they cried tears of joy when it happened, but that wasn't me. I didn't expect to cry, and for a moment I couldn't figure out why I was. And then I realized it was relief. I had been so terrified that we as a country would continue in the same stupidity we'd espoused for eight years. I hadn't known how afraid of that I was until I didn't have to worry about it anymore. And so I cried. Then we opened a bottle of champagne.

I also had a fantastic birthday party at the Edison, my favorite bar downtown. Everyone got very dressed up, and I got to have a little Cinderella moment as I descended the steps to the bar in a slinky black dress and a host of tuxedo-clad men looked up at me (we later discovered the British Embassy was having an office party there that night). Good times.

And that was November. The rest was work, and putting away the sewing stuff for a while. Our roommate moved out, so we redistributed all the furniture. On Thanksgiving, my car failed catastrophically on the way to dinner with my bf's family; I spent the majority of the day driving and riding around Southern California, getting my car towed, getting to my parents' house to borrow a car, getting back to dinner in Lake Elsinore, and getting home.

Car trouble proved to be a theme of the Christmas season. Once repaired, my car developed a mysterious ailment that caused it to die and strand me at stoplights for minutes at a time. Subsequent trips to several mechanics failed to address this tendency, and I've been borrowing my mom's car for three weeks now. Combined with all the usual Christmas activities and end-of-year craziness at my job, December passed in a long, stressed-out blur that I'm only now recovering from. It definitely had its bright spots, but sadly, they weren't enough to elevate my memory of the season.

All right, enough of this diary-style rambling. I sucked, I'm back, and we can return to business as usual - rants, geekdom, costumes, and absurdities. Did I mention that the other night I dreamed I was a Jedi, with the face and body of Mila Kunis, having an affair with Bale Organa from Episode III of Star Wars?

SemiGeekGirl wishes you all a belated Happy New Year and best of luck in 2009!