(no subject)

I'd forgotten, in the years since the dotcom, how much I liked being a nightshift person. I can go to the grocery store at four in the morning and live a life that is in some ways much quieter and more suited to my needs. The only downside at the moment is that I do not live alone, so I can not play my music on the stereo in the living and run around cleaning. I have to settle with listening to the dishwasher and the soft sound of my steamer ticking away.

Because I bought reasonable food, I'm making steamed dumplings right now. I have stuff for couscous this weekend, some oranges, yogurt, marinara sauce and garlic cheese tortellini. And a copy of Vanity Fair just because I know I'll want to lay around on Saturday and read it while I eat my couscous and oranges.

I am tired, but there are many hours to go before I can sleep, and things to do.

The New York Times has a photo series titled Facing Combat up right now. It's a series of portraits of soldiers in their gear, and it's amazing how young some of them arm. There's a nineteen year old girl who looks like someone I knew in middle school, and I forget that a lot of those people are my age or even younger. I wonder what they all are doing, and if they are all coming back. I can't focus on the larger nature of this conflict right now. For me, all I see are these faces. Women and men who look so young, so hopeful, so determined to be brave. And I start to wonder what it looks like on the other side.

War is a terrible thing, even if you're trying to accomplish something good.

There are so many things kicking around my head right now that I can scarely get them out.

I am Frodo

Eating a bunch of fat dumplings at 5am was probably not the best idea. But I was hungry. Though I did burn my right hand with the steam, and that was quite painful. My thumb is painfully red now. It hurts remarkably.

Kevin has always been a good force in my life , even while he is studying at Stanford in the Learning, Design & Technology program. He's brilliant, in the Stanford shelling out six figures to keep him there for his PhD work sort of way.

Amanda: and I keep having nightmares about the nazgul, and I wake up on the verge of screaming
Kevin: you don't have the ring of power on you, do you?
Amanda: no. I am wearing the ring of the kings of gondor though.
Kevin: yeah, but the wraiths don't care about that one
Amanda: right
Amanda: but Aragorn did kick a lot of wraith ass, so they must have grudges
Kevin: na, they're of singular thought
Kevin: no room for grudges
Kevin: guess we could come up with a freudian interpretation
Amanda: I always thought there must be a tiny shred left of the men they used to be
Kevin:nope, none
Amanda: how could you make a freudian analysis of my nazgul dreams?
Kevin: lol
Kevin: depends on which way i wanted to take it
Kevin: the clean way or the electra way
Amanda: hahaha
Kevin: the clean way goes something like, "it's up to you to keep your family from falling completely apart and you're not sure you can do it, and there are these haunting thoughts that chase you in the night..."
Kevin: so you are frodo

(no subject)

Baghdad is burning, and I think it's one of the scariest things I've ever seen.