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June 14th, 2012

01:27 am - I haz new car..... This isn't mine, but it is identical. Well, the clutch died on the Dodge in April so it was replaced. Today, the first day of my "weekend" I was going grocery shopping to Walmart and got exactly 200 yards down the street when the clutch went again - stick went into the gears but no power. Thank the gods it went then and not on my 22 mile trip in the dark at 10 pm at night back from work last night!!! Long story short, I found a firm willing to finance me with no down payment and in the job for only 1 month! So I now have a nice Toyota Corolla from 2007. It does 38-40 mpg on the freeways and as the only way to get about this area is to ride the freeways, that is awesome. I was getting 16mpg. It also has heating, and AC, bliss! And a CD player. It's an automatic. It is nice, and pearl gray in color. Took me from getting picked up by them at 6.30 till about 10 pm to get it sorted. It isn't what I want, but it is what I need right now - dependable wheels to get me everywhere. And in 9 months I can go back with a deposit and get what I want. Banner said the price I am paying per month is actually a very good deal. I have never had a car this new before so it is all a novelty. No chance of getting a wheelchair in it as it is a saloon, but the trunk is extremely roomy. No ashtray but I intend to talk to Doc about quitting smoking. All in all, I am very happy, Now all I need is an explanation WHY my collector copy of Mass Effect 3, ordered from a store in Oceanside to be sent to a local one on May 27 and take 4-5 days is STILL not in! And go see Prometheus tomorrow..... Right now, after mooching about a car lot and freezing my ass and arms off, and finally just having eaten my dinner at 12.30, I want to sleep. All the stress has been enough for me.. I need to curl up with Amelia Peabody in Egypt of the 1920s in my little bed with at least 1 of my kitties beside me! I will NOT have a migraine tomorrow! I want to enjoy my day, play with the car, and see the movie! Current Mood: tired

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June 11th, 2012

01:23 am - First work evaluation passed! At work we have monthly evaluations of the tickets we answer from the players. 3 chosen at random are gone over in fine detail, and 10 from the rest are glossed over. The 3 are scored out of 25 and the 10 out of the last 25. Noobs like me get it done weekly for the first month to help us learn to improve what we do. I passed with flying colors except I missed doing 1 thing in one of the 3 - the other report we write when we do something to an account, like reimburse an item lost in a bug in the game. Normally that would mean that ticket would be graded at 0 out of 25, but I just lost 10 for it because it was my first week doing them solo. I even earned 1 point for my creative answer! We earn points for various things, like good attendance and extra good customer replies. Mine had been for answering well in the character I chose for my referee - a pirate one. :) We can redeem the points for all kinds of things, like swapping a shift day because of say a friend visiting form another city, or in-game stuff for the games we play. Everyone is pleased with my progress and my supervisor said not to worry too much about the missed report, it happens,. He missed 2 of those reports in his first month. I said I even worked out I had missed it out, so he said to tell him and I could re-edit the Ticket, adding the missing internal report and not get marks deducted at all because I had noticed and corrected it. We can go over our week's reports on a Friday, he said. This is meant to help us, not pick holes in us. We also get rated on spelling and grammar - mine was OK obviously, thankfully! I mean, with the spelling check, it isn't difficult to get spelling right! But we get graded on good grammar and good answers, being in character, using the under 13 filter for answers when needed, all that kinda stuff. I said I was worried I asked too many questions, but I wanted to learn and get it right, and was told, no, I asked them and that was great! I was also told that the other staff have been sending emails to him (the supervisor)saying I ask good questions! So I am doing well and obviously fit in well too, and I really felt boosted by the praise. :) Me happy. :) Current Mood: accomplished

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May 30th, 2012

12:53 am - Beginning of week 2 in new job The folk I am working with are really nice, I couldn't be with nicer, more helpful folk. Awesome free coffee - Keurig stuff and 2 different strong brews, plus vanilla and hazelnut creamer... Job itself is interesting. Game Master means keeping the kids safe online, and dealing with ingame problems like scammers and bullies and all that stuff. I really feel I am doing something worthwhile. Apparently I am doing really well - all I did was make a cheat sheet for the basics for answering Tickets, and follow it. This week it is getting more difficult - finding proof of scamming when one player accuses another, answering quest or player questions, like how to finish a quest by going in game and doing it myself so I can tell them. Not so easy to do cheat sheets for. But I look forward to going in and learning more. Plus there is a good chance of getting to do in house Alpha testing. We have folks in our area doing 1 hr testing a couple days a week on an upcoming game. Plus I meet the Devs at the picnic/smoking tables area and can chat to them about the games.. Me happy. :) Current Mood: happy

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May 19th, 2012

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March 29th, 2012

12:51 am - 3 weeks and several migraines.. Yay, I got healthcare, Low Income, aka no income health care, but the first health care in 3 years. I spoke to this new Doc about migraine pills, showed him two old pill packets to prove I have been prescribed Imitrex, told him I was diagnosed originally with them when 23. He asked what they were originally like, I said, dark room, no sounds and not moving, agony for up to 3 days. Now? Um, one every 4-6 weeks and not tat bad now. Some i can even get rid of with coffee and Naproxen, but they are rare. So I get Imitrex. Pharmacy is denied it by my Insurance, so to cut a long story short, I am back and forth between the pharmacy and surgery trying to fix it out. Last Friday I even turned up suffering a migraine, got yet another prescription for Imitrex from the Doc, that again the pharmacy could not dispense unless I paid for it. Which I can't having no money. So I have to suffer with no treatment, Luckily it was fairly mild. Of course we have had 3 Pacific storms the last 3 weekends, with attendant barometric pressure changes, which are a migraine trigger... bleh. Finally yesterday the surgery lady in charge of getting meds passed by the Insurance company tells me they want me to try something else first - a med NOT FDA approved for Migraines, but a narcotic and acetaminophen and caffeine pill for Tension Headaches! SO last night I spent a couple hours going through my medical records from UK and writing down every migraine med and the year it had been prescribed. I could go as far back as 1977. Man was treatment back then archaic! I got so mad that I phoned the Insurance company this morning, to be told to phone the Appeal office, and there I finally lucked out. The lady there was wonderful, especially considering I was blitzed with yet another migraine because of all the stress. Seems the doctor, despite me showing him the old prescription packs as proof, taking my med records from the UK with me, which he didn't want to see, had written in that Imitrex was a NEW med for me! WTF??!!! The nurse I was speaking to agreed I had really tried everything, and as I had also pointed out, been on Dihydro-codeine for several years for back pain while still having unrelieved migraines, so obviously pain relievers were not appropriate, and obviously I had real migraines not tension headaches. I also told her I had seen the top UK expert on Migraines in Harley St in London back in 1987 and been allergy tested and had no food triggers for migraines. She said give it 2 hours and she would set it up so my Imitrex denial was overridden and I could get them. All they wanted was to know other meds had been tried before resorting to them. So I got them this afternoon and promptly took one. I am still blitzed as the pills knock me out for 12 hours, but that is waaay less than being blitzed for up to 3 days the way I have been lately... Oh, I also changed my doctor at the surgery this afternoon, and got the outstanding appointment reallocated to the nice lady Doc I had seen on my first visit. If this wanker of a Doctor can't even be bothered to listen to me over how I have been using Imitrex for 8 years in the US, and show him proof of previous prescription packages, and writes in it is a new med for me, causing me 3 weeks of stress and migraines, then he will fail to listen to me when it is even more important he does! Next fight is overdue too - for food stamps to not be stopped. They asked for my Sponsor's financial details as he "had signed an affidavit of support" for me when I emigrated. Only he didn't according to my Immigration lawyer. There was no need for my Sponsor to sign such a form for my visa category, only a Work Sponsorship. Welfare are stopping food stamps because I have failed to give them that info, saying he is legally bound by the affidavit to give it. Only, he isn't, because he didn't sign it, because he didn't need to. I gave that email from my Immigration Lawyer to a Supervisor at the Welfare place and he stammered over it, saying he'd never come across this before. I pointed out it was probably because of the visa category, a Preferred first choice Immigration one, as my lawyer said. Told him to keep the email when he asked to copy it. Siad it had all my lawyer's details on it, please feel free to contact him. Dunno what they will do about me not fitting into their box. It isn't as if they can make my Sponsor responsible as in law he is not! Not like after 8 years of me not working for him they can suddenly ask him to sign it now. And certainly it will not affect my Permanent Residence status her. I just hope it means I can get the damned food stamps again till I find work! Sometimes the suckage of Life is too much.... Current Mood: apathetic

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March 17th, 2012

03:37 pm - TeLaxaudin personal super arsenals. So I am having fun deciding what kinds of personal arsenals my TeLaxaudins will carry, with some outright nasty weapons for the bad guys. Thankfully I was able to find online a Traveller Ultratech by GURPS I could read as I knew they had some cool stuff in them from reading them before. Ideas are generic, I just need generics to tailor to my immediate needs, decide who has what, what is a general item they would all have, what is the nasty banned stuff. Right now I am looking at James Bond style weapons hidden in apparent jewelry, stuff like banned neural disruptors, needlers laced with drugs/poisons, 1 or 2 shot energy weapons, personal shields, dist-tractor beams that throw folk away. What I want right now is a British Novacon or Eastercon in the UK and friends like the Marquise and others not on LJ to sit in the bar with late at night and BRAINSTORM!!! This lot are loosely based ion the Techno Mages of Babylon 5 or Shadows/Vorlons, so must be really stacked with nasty and useful tech. All my tech is loosely based around the Marc Miller Traveller system, especially designing the spaceships. I have to admit that and designing interiors of ships and buildings I love doing. I can potter away for ages using Campaign Cartographer getting it just how I want it. This novel I need the M'zullian palace above and underground (sketched but not rendered), Kusac's estate as Lord Nayash (mostly done), the Mountain folk camp, a command M'zullian space ship for Kusac as Nayash, assorted space stations, with focus on one main one, and some estates etc for 2 others of the team who will replace 2 other Court Lords as Kusac has done, I hope! Hmm, I could be doing this as I am often too stressed out trying to find any job to write right now. Writing involves so many ancillary needs that's why I love it. There's not just the writing, but on my list in order of importance, Brainstorming, researching stuff I need including weapons, what wounds would look like from any new weapons, geology (I actually designed the M'zullian world using a fractal world mapper that let me arrange all the small land locked seas, the high temperatures, the snowy peaks, the lot which is part of the Campaign Cartographer suite!), mapping places I will use regularly in the novel so the continuity is perfect. Then there's the little stuff like food and drink, flora and fauna on the new M'zull world ... Man, I love writing and all it entails! Current Mood: happy

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March 1st, 2012

01:28 am - Long day. Love hurts It's been a very long and emotionally tiring day, and I am exhausted. Quote from Blade Runner that speaks volumes to me, and kinda sums up my life in a way, though with more earthly analogies. "Roy: I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain." I'm an Aquarian, born February 15th, with an English Mother born on February 17th, and my Scots Granny born on February 16th, and my son born on purpose on February 11th (born an Aquarian I mean.) Aquarians are odd folks, at once both standing back from life and relationships and seeing it all as an observer with an almost alien clarity that I often found frightening, then throwing themselves into the flood that is life with an enthusiasm that others find exhausting. Many times I have been told I give off such an energetic feel that it tires folk at exactly the time I am feeling drained. Confusing. Both Mum and Grandma had similar moments I now realize, when they seemed so detached they weren't of this time and place, just as I still get the odd moment when I seem to step out of my body and stand beside myself like a twin, and observe me and life around me dispassionately. When I was first a mother, I worried I was too uninvolved, too distant, felt as if my emotions were asleep, but that passed. I think it was new Mum tiredness. Suffice it to say, it passed quickly. Love hurts. You hurt when they hurt, you cry with them, you laugh with them, you put every certificate, no matter what for, up in a frame on the wall with great pride. But without it, what are we? Nothing. Empty shells waiting to be filled with emotions that rip through us, tear us apart, and fill us beyond the brim with a joy that is transcendental. It's a force of nature, like a storm at sea. I think the purest love is parent for child. You ask for nothing and give everything you can. You love without measure, and still find more. The fountain keeps refilling, never runs dry. I love my son very dearly, delight in his accomplishments, and cry when he hurts. I will miss him so very much, but look forward to hearing about the new people and places and things he will do and find up north. I am glad without measure that we have each other. My life would have been so much less without him. I ambled out to my favorite 2nd hand bookstore this afternoon and chatted to my friend who runs it weekdays. After chatting about Kai leaving and so on, she asked what I planned to do now. It was what I needed, it grounded me again back to what I have to do. It reminded me what I used to tell Kai when it came up - " We belong to each other, Mum and son, but we don't own each other, we each have our own lives and that's how it should be. But we have parts of our lives we share with each other too." It's keeping the balance, that's the thing. Knowing when to let go, or as now, knowing that his life is still shaping itself without you, as it should, and being strong enough to accept that. Love hurts, but by damn, you know you're alive, that you've done good in there when you were learning to be a parent! Current Mood: tired

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February 29th, 2012

02:13 am - Changes Tomorrow life around me changes radically. It has been changing all week. The other two ladies left last Friday and they lived in rooms opposite me. Gradually the house has been emptying and i have found myself often alone in it. Before Kai has usually been here, asleep, granted, as he worked night shifts as a tech support. Kai is doing his final pack tomorrow and driving off to live up north. I've been down here with him for 3 and a quarter years. It's hard losing him again, though the distance he's going is half what it was when he moved down here. Jackie is also going, elsewhere in the San Diego area, nearer a military base where she works very part time in a games shop while attending college. The other 2 are staying on and their friends will fill up the empty rooms. I don't really know them yet. What will hit hard is having no one I can go to and say, "I need a hug," or being asked for one. :( I will miss going outside into the back yard where Kai did his props work and seeing him working on a new project. Watching sheets of flat white or black plastic get molded into bone armor; see helmets with flashing light strips on them, or space guns with LEDs, being able to marvel at how the family gift for art has taken a totally new yet familiar direction in my son. Still, he's starting a new life for himself, and for that I am happy. Current Mood: sad

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February 22nd, 2012

03:01 am - Stuff My writing is moving slowly. Right now I am describing for the first time the use of at least one weapon in the personal arsenals my alien TeLaxaudin carry on them. Hinted at, but not yet seen, they are based on Babylon 5's idea of techomages, but with less of the magic. Maybe that's why I've been needing to play Torchlight the last couple of evenings! It's a Diabloesque dungeon crawl game, and great fun. It's difficult to concentrate on writing so it kinda gets done as I curl up in bed. Right now I am job hunting, have been since Dec 12th when I finished my Associate's in Administration of Justice, Forensic Technology. Cut backs around here mean I will prolly have to look further afield, but right now I need a job, any kind of job. Which is why yesterday I was out at Seaworld for an interview as a photographer. Could only take a few of my college pix with me as they are all of mock crime scenes! Pictures of inelegantly posed mannequins on the floor, or behind a driving wheel are just not what would give a good impression! Which brings me to something I read in the news - scientists are looking to have dolphins and whales declared sentient non-humans, so preventing them from being kept in captivity, doing tricks - and will put a spanner in their military use too, unless I am mistaken. Call me suspicious, but I wonder why this has suddenly become important. And I don't think it has to do with PETA's latest folly of a court case claiming killer whales are being "enslaved" by Seaworld.. Is this a step toward opening the door to having "rights" for other non-humans? Have my Sholans actually landed?? Dammit, Kusac, you should have told me! :) This all begs the question on how you quantify intelligence, culture, a society that is very different from what we understand those concepts to be. I feel we need to respect all life, but at the same time, there are people needing "human rights" and we should be addressing that first. Where do you draw the line? Ants have communities and a culture of their own - they feed the young, communicate, have a social structure. Cats can recognize themselves in a mirror, chimps too, and can learn human words, and perhaps even sign language, though the jury is still out on that. I used to believe in a global community but seeing the EU in action and how the common currency is doing badly, I think we should concentrate on things like stopping the killing of dolphins and whales. There is the whale/dolphin killing festival in the Faroes. I've read articles where they argue they need to do this as it is a staple food source, yet journalists and photographers have seen them tossing old meat out of their freezers uneaten so there is room for the current year's kills! While we are at it, let's do something about policing fishing styles and nets so fish aren't being fished to death by too small a net, or the wrong kind of fishing. Cod, which was plentiful around the UK has been fished almost to death by EU policies that are wrong. And most important, let's make it painful financially for all those firms who illegally dump waste out at sea and pay the pathetically small fine as it is cheaper than making their industries create less toxic waste! Let's also put real pressure on countries to respect actual Human Rights! Gender freedoms too, women's rights, the right to be gay. Those are all causes more important than granting "non-human" rights to dolphins and killer whales. Current Mood: melancholy

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February 18th, 2012

03:26 am - Exiting the rabbit hole Once upon a time, in a land far away, Glasgow, Scotland to be exact, there was me, a new Art College student, going to the State Bar off Sauchiehall Street, where all the other art students and other people I knew went. One day I realized that I was a small, gray person that if I lay dead in a gutter, people would step over and not notice. They'd say, "Where's that little girl, the one with the long hair? Haven't seen her about in a long time," as they stepped over me. So I decided to change that. And that night, dressed in my shortest mini skirt outfit, I went up to the best looking guy in the bar, who also happened to be over 6 feet tall, said "Hi!" brightly and was ignored. SO I stepped on top of his feet, to give me that extra height, you know, 'cos I AM only 5'3" tall, and reached up to drag him by the T shirt down to my face level. "Hi, I'm Lisanne, who are you?" I said this time. We went out on a few dates, turned out he was a male model, but that's another story! I swore I would never again be gray. Well, I was, for a good few years as my 2nd marriage went west. I had to dress in subdued colors and clothes to avoid being noticed around the house, or at all, by the ex, and it took me a good few years to get back my love of colored clothes. As my son put it, he can always tell me in a crowd by looking for the most colorful person! I like that. :) Now I find I have gotten yet again to the almost invisible state through trying to still protect myself from this ex. No longer! Here I am, out of the private rabbit hole, and into the wide world, guys. As my son and friends have said, I should have nothing to worry about from the ex now. Though he did send me a seemingly innocuous message through Facebook on February 14th saying he thought we'd been introduced and wishing me Happy Valentine Day and Happy Belated Birthday. It wasn't, it was a day early. My birthday is 15th. Nothing he ever did was innocuous, it always came poisoned and barbed. It was like finding the cat had thrown up on my desk chair... so I deleted it, and Banned him. I never really talk a lot about what I lost coming to the USA because I gained a great deal - sunshine and lack of SAD, mobility because of the lack of cold damp weather, and new friends as well as knowing older ones better. I also lost not being hounded every year by the Inland Revenue and Welfare for "anonymous" tips that I was committing fraud! THAT was a big factor in me leaving, believe me! Being investigated by both those bodies every year got very wearing. But I did lose a lot too. My friends in British SF fandom were a huge loss. Just going to the conventions and knowing they would all be there, even if it was only twice a year, was so very precious. I find US fandom out here cold and unwelcoming by comparison. Having said that, I don't have the money to go to local meetings or events, maybe that will improve when I get this elusive job one day and can mix with them outside of cons. Anyways, now I am out of the rabbit hole, making some Public posts like this one, and have even started up a Facebook page, and a Fan page. I spent over an hour tonight trying to work out how to make the pages look more inviting, only to end up creating a duplicate page that I cannot delete! I REALLY hate Facebook, but it seems the way to go to pull in the readers so they actually know you are out there. If anyone reading this knows how to set the pages up, please tell me! Googling for help is no good as I get loads of stuff now too old to be of use, and putting the year in gets me all kinds of crap. Kai said a Fan Page is what I should have, not Facebook. I tried to add "friends" who were actually readers to the Fan Page and they are now on the Facebook one! Gnah! It is so unforgiving, I can see no way to delete things! So next is a Twitter - is that the right word? - account but again, advice sought before I mess that up too! Current Mood: quixotic

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