Oop.

[kungfuwaynewho]

Okay, so things haven't been that bad, but September wasn't the greatest month for me in a lot of ways.  But they're all kinda boring ways, and to enumerate them would be to throw myself a pity party which eh, so onwards!

The one good thing that did come about last month was that we finally replaced our basement stairs.



Our inspector had told us that they weren't the best, but we kept putting it off because it's quite an endeavor, especially for a bunch of people who have never built stairs before.  In taking the old ones down, we realized that the bottom of the stairs wasn't even attached to the concrete floor; the whole staircase was just resting on the ground.  Three nails were holding the stairs up at the top.  That was it.  So now at the very least we're not facing our deaths every time we go down to do laundry!  As you can see, we also put up some paneling between the stairs and the basement wall, where we wouldn't have room to put up a real framed-in wall and drywall and all that jazz.  The eventual goal is to finish two rooms in the basement, but we need to put a wall on the other side of the stairs so we can put in a railing and finish that up, first.  Then comes replacing the wiring and tearing down the last of the half-ass rotted out walls that are down there!  Yeah!

The other item of note this past month was our trip to St. Louis last week to see Sigur Rós in concert.  The concert itself was fabulous, but I ended up with a migraine that very night, which is just profoundly and cosmically unfair.  I ended up going to the concert anyway, after my sisters and our friend had already left.  I had the front desk at the hotel call me a cab.  And then I got to cross something off my bucket list!  "Throw up out the open door of a moving cab."  Such fun.  But I got there and I didn't die and I did get to see the show,  which was perfect and flawless, as one would expect.

Continuing to work on my novel, printed out last year's script for a revision, and starting work on a new script.  That about sums it up.

Comments

[hollywobbles.livejournal.com]

I am impressed by your staircase building abilities!

And snaps for getting to the show anyway -- your commitment also impresses me.

If you want to bitch about September, I'd be happy to listen/read!

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

I think it was less "commitment" and more "paralyzing inability to speak up." By the time I was in the cab, no matter how bad I felt, I could not bring myself to tell the driver to turn around and take me back.

I'd say 50% of what made September so awful was the weather. We'd had a really mild summer, and then most of September we were in the 90s, and I just don't deal well with extreme heat. It literally depresses me. Also, none of my screenplays went anywhere this year, and September was the final nail in the coffin as I got my rejection letters from AFF; so I've been pretty bummed about that, too. So basically just the weather and existential non-career angst. Blergh.

[hollywobbles.livejournal.com]

BAH, sorry. Within 24 hours of you posting your response, I came down with the nastiest cold/flu-like virus and spent the next 2 weeks in bed feeling totally shredded and unable to focus on anything more complex than 3rd Rock From the Sun and shitty Law & Order spinoff reruns. Needless to say by the time I got better I'd completely forgotten this was here.

That sucks about the heat (which is loooooooong gone at this point, brrr). I don't handle the heat well, either, and my roommate loves it. We don't pay for heat in our apartment, but we do pay for electricity/AC -- plus our AC wasn't working well, which drove the bill up -- so there were a few nights where I literally took an ice pak to bed wrapped in a kitchen towel and slept with it pressed up against my stomach. I kind of wanted to murder things. I don't get depressed though -- that *really* sucks. (I save my depressive episodes for January/February -- kill me now.)

And that really, really sucks about the AFF. I HATE career angst, it's just the worst. Any grand epiphanies in the last month? (...Just don't want to talk about it?) But seriously... the worst. I'm having to face the fact that I've spent almost an entire decade waiting for the perfect career solution to land in my lap and it never did, so I'm trying to figure out which of my non-perfect options I'm going to spend a shit-ton of time and energy and risk shooting for next, or if I'm just going to settle. Urg. LIFE, Shannon. WHY.

Anyway, I hope your October went better. Do any fun/crazy things for Halloween? I went all out and dressed up as Starbuck, w/Sharpie tattoos, official double-tanks, and everything. I need to upload pics -- I have one from my ipod of just the tattoo, but the full costume pics are still stuck on my camera. How's the basement going?

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

Hi! Aw, I'm sorry you had the flu. That's the worst. I've been very lucky the last few years that I either haven't caught it at all, or my flu shots have worked.

UGH, that sucks about your AC. We had a window unit in my apartment in Los Angeles, not even in the bedroom but over in the living room, and there were three of us in the bedroom and three computers, and it would get so hot I would just lie there for hours, gently sweating. Now I'm like, I don't even care how much we have to pay to run the AC, I will not sleep hot anymore.

Now, of course, I have my space heater going and my electric blanket and I'm toasty-warm, and I don't understand why that's okay in the winter? It must be a humidity thing.

Nah, no career epiphanies. I'm really busting my ass on this novel, though, as I think I have a better shot breaking through with that than with a screenplay. I'm kind of over the whole bullshit film industry set-up anyway. Like, you could write the best movie ever but if you're not ~connected no one will read it, and it's just so stupid I can't even think about it.

AAAAHHH your costume sounds amazing! I went as my coworker Joe, who is notorious for wearing all black and having his long hair pulled back into a ponytail at the base of his neck. So I just wore black, did my hair, and then taped his picture over my ID badge. One patron got it, but my coworkers loved it, and it was easy and cheap, heh.

Laura ripped out the last walls in the basement, so we're still slowly moving forward!

[la-loony.livejournal.com]

That staircase looks good, well done you guys :D

Yaye for making it to the show!
Also lol that you had "Throw up out the open door of a moving cab." on your bucket listXD I was sick one time during my AuPair year and in a cab with all three kids and their mum and I felt horrible because I threw up IN the cab (I managed to open the window and stick my head out, but the damage was done). I still feel so sorry for that cabbie and my hostmum who cleaned it up because I just couldn't do shit once we got out of the car.

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I know, you feel terrible asking someone for help with your vomit, but what are you gonna do? I threw up at work once, tragically, and cleaned up as much as I could, but ended up having to call the custodian. And I felt AWFUL, especially since I work with the guy every day and now every time he looks at me he gets to remember cleaning up my ick.

[la-loony.livejournal.com]

Yes all of this so much. It's one of the things I admire my mum for, cleaning up after her sick children (and there was a time where my siblings seemed to catch something where they threw up at least once a year).

[ghanimasun]

Very impressive work!

Also sorry to hear your concert experience was not awesome overall. Glad you weren't so sick that you couldn't stick around and enjoy it!

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

I mean, of all nights to get a migraine! Just dumb. But I decided that yeah, if I was going to be in pain, why not be in pain listening to great music instead of in pain by myself in a hotel room?

Man I am so ready for Orphan Black to come back.

[mac-beth13.livejournal.com]

*hugs* Sorry the month didn't go as well as you'd planned. I am very impressed by your basement endeavors though!

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

Hi! If we didn't have bad months, though, how would we appreciate the good ones? That's the way I make myself think about it, heh.