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AG OVER 18 CARD SWAP FOR COOL PEOPLE

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Does someone have Josefina's books handy? I need some info, and I don't have them. I am trying to figure out two things: where she lived, and where Mariana lived. If there was a map, that would be particularly awesome, but if you could give me any clues as to how close the Montoyas were to Santa Fe (how long the trip there was), what direction they had to travel, and any clues as to where Mariana's family was in relation to the ranchero, that would be awesome.

(I need to get her books. I've never found them at Half Price Books!)

what the hell is up with it being midnight-dark and it's only five o'clock in the evening. that's bullshit man, i mean, how do people live like this?

(mostly i'm just annoyed because i can't see very well when driving at night, so my search for an inexpensive place to get dinner failed because i didn't want to drive too far and get lost and be unable to get back on account of having trouble seeing the road signs and stuff.)


i'm pretty sure that we get sunset around four thirty for a few days in the winter down in j-ville, too. i'm just not used to it yet. and also i'm hungry but all the places i've seen look expensive (i found a panera, I might try to remember where that was and go there, despite the price, actually i think i might be able to find it again pretty easily, it was in a shopping center.)

GUESS WHAT ELJAY.

GUESS WHERE I AM.


Okay, it's not that difficult, considering my last fifty billion posts these last two weeks. BUT I CAN SEE LAKE MICHIGAN FROM WHERE I'M SITTING OH EM GEE.

Recap:
I was dog tired while at MIA and eventually went and got some Aleve and a pastry and sat down and tried to read but was too sleepy to focus, so I curled up in a chair and attempted to rest. Ah ha ha ha, not with CNN blaring and all the passenger alert things on the intercom system. But luckily, despite a packed flight, my row had the middle seat empty and the person in the aisle didn't seem to mind, so I lifted the armrest between my window seat and the middle one and curled up as best I could and tried to doze. I simply can't sleep while upright, but I did get recharged, so to speak. Also? Flying from Miami to Chicago? PRETTY COOL. We had a lot of turbulence because of the funky weather around Atlanta and the Appalachians or something, which jolted me wide awake at one point, but it was fun. I love how turbulence is all "oh noes my plane is falling - ahahaha wait no it's not lol" because aerodynamics and everything works. I can't express how amazing I think airplanes are, you guys.

Also it was pretty neat to look out my window and see the Appalachians, but all the farmland in Illinois is dang boring. It's kind of neat to see the patchwork patterns and try to guess what a particular field is for and to look for schools (because of sports fields, see), but mostly it's dull as doorknobs. Oh, and I was really surprised when we got to the Chicago suburbs by how many houses there are. There are so many houses you guys, it's like looking down at a mall parking lot at Christmas time, okay.

Oh and there was a layer of smog over Chicago and when we landed in Milwaukee later, I noticed that the brown layer was over the lake, too. That's sad.

When I got to O'Hare, I had to practically race from one end of the airport to the other because of course my flights were in different terminals and I couldn't find a frigging info screen to tell me which gate to go to, not until I asked someone, and then I saw there was a bank of them about fifty feet down the corridor, finally. The flight from there to Milwaukee was about half an hour and we mostly flew over the lake.

This is crazy you guys, I expected the lake to look like the ocean. I've seen the ocean plenty. But it's like an uncanny valley version of the ocean. The water's kind of the same, I guess, but the shore is like OH-HO THIS IS UNEXPECTED with trees all the way up to the water line, and not even palm trees or anything, and there's like no beach to speak of. It's so strange. Uncanny valley is how it feels, especially after flying along Miami Beach earlier today - even though both shores have buildings right up next to the water, the appearance is so different.


I screwed up and now I have to pay an extra $50 for my rental car because I didn't know about the insurance thing. I don't think my Geico covers rentals, so I said it didn't, but now I'm told that it doesn't matter. :( And then I got confused when driving downtown because I didn't see a one-way sign and almost got into a wreck in the middle of an intersection, and then I was lost because the one-way streets kept taking me further from the area where I thought the hotel was (and is). But luckily I know how to spiral until I find what I'm looking for (that's how you find things in Jacksonville's downtown, which is also filled with one-way streets).


So now I'm here and I'm hungry but not really interested in eating, and I want to go out and do stuff, but I'm sleepy, and it's already half past four, but it FEELS like half past six I'm telling you I still haven't got used to the end of daylight savings and now I gain another hour because of CST, except apparently the sun sets earlier up here what the hell?! (I got confused because I haven't fixed my watch, neither have I adjusted my laptop's clock.)


I have a king-sized bed in this room but the bathroom is teeny. CRAZY. Further crazy: I've been exaggerating my accent with the service people I've encountered who've needed to see my id, because I think it's hilarious when they do a double-take and go "wait, you're from florida what are you doing in milwaukee dang it's cold here why are you not back where it's warm?!"

Man I really want to go do stuff but I'm so sleepy now, because of the dimming light. :( It's awesome that I can see the lake from my window, though!

Okay so like all of Florida is covered in clouds APPARENTLY because there were huge blankets of them all the way from Jacksonville until Miami, when it got more spotty and less mountainous looking.

But it was SO COOL to see the countours and so on of the clouds while the sun was rising, and the way they looked different as the sun got higher in the sky. Just before we started descending to Miami, the angle of the sun was just right so that the airplane caused the light to refract, so instead of a shadow on the clouds below, we had a rainbow. I mean, how cool is that? SCIENCE IS AWESOME.


You know what else is awesome?! Google is doing this thing where you get free wifi in airports for the holiday season. THUS I get to waste two hours with my laptop.

I'm pretty sleepy, though. It was impossible to sleep on the Eagle plane, and also impossible right now. I should get something to eat, but I don't particularly feel up to dragging my crap back up the concourse to Au Bon Pain for anything, and the other eateries are twice as far away. Also, $2.19 for a 20oz bottle of coke? -.-
They have some yummy looking pastries at Au Bon Pain, though, so. maybe I'll go up in an hour or so when I'm hungrier. (I did eat breakfast, after all.)


Mostly, though, other than sleepy, I'm achey because I was slouching too much on that plain and that always make me ache. And I have a headache from the sunlight and no sleep and the noise of the engines (I was literally right next to the propeller). So I guess I'll have to get up shortly anyway to figure out where I can get some aleve around here, even if it's $10 for two tiny pills.


If I don't sleep on the flight to O'Hare, I bet I'm going to have to take a nap when I get to Milwaukee. That means I might not get to go to any of the museums after all, which is kind of suck. Eh. What a pain.

i'm too excited to sleep or something. :(

i've been lying here wide awake (despite being exhausted) for two hours now, and i have to be up in three-ish to shower and dress and eat breakfast and stuff.

but i can't turn my brain off to sleep!

it doesn't help that my hip is really stiff and kind of ouchy because of walking too much today, so i can't really get into a properly comfortable sleeping position. i guess i'm definitely going to be napping on the flight from miami to chicago, then.


(eta @ 4am ... and i didn't sleep a wink. maybe i dozed off a smidge, but actually sleeping? ha! this isn't the fault of a screwed up sleep pattern, either, since i was up at eleven yesterday and have been going to sleep around 1-2am the last few nights)

• 07:18 Cartoon connoisseur moment: although the quality of SpongeBob itself keeps going down, the music keeps getting better in each season. :/ #

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So, Scooter and I went to Sonic today, and totally lived a Sonic Commercial. Here is the script.

SCOTT: M, 15, Blond, Lots of Freckles, a bit heavyset.
CHRISTINE: F, Mid 2o's blond, Emo bangs, heavyset.

SETTING: A Ford Focus. CHRISTINE is in the driver seat, SCOTT is in the PASSENGER SEAT.

(CHRISTINE hands one Sonic cup, then another, to SCOTT, he hands her a wallet.)
(CHRISTINE looks through the wallet, pulls out a card, and hands it to an unseen WAITER.)
(SCOTT breathes into a sonic cup)

CHRISTINE
Did you just breath all over my ice cream?

SCOTT
(lies) No.

CHRISTINE
You absolutely did, I saw the top fog up.

SCOTT
I didn't.

(SCOTT breathes into the cup again)

CHRISTINE:
You just did it again! (angry) I saw it!

SCOTT
I was just smelling it.

CHRISTINE
You breathed all over it!

(SCOTT looks perplexed. CHRISTINE notices.)

(Beat)

CHRISTINE
Did we just live a Sonic commercial?

END SCENE.

Copy/pasting from last year because that's what COOL people do! It's weird, the dates almost line up exactly again.

It's early November, which means that I want to start getting our Holiday shit figured out. MEANING!

AG OVER EIGHTEEN CARD SWAP FOR COOL PEOPLE

If you want to plan any holiday event, that's cool with me. Just let me know. Hell, you could even reply to this post to let me know! That would be pretty smart.

Meanwhile, I want us to have a card swap. Now you, too, can look like one of the cool kids that has friends and everything with a huge bushel full of cards from AG>18! Hang them in your home! Feed them to your dog! Whatever, I don't actually care!

The basic idea is that you and everyone else send me a bushel of cards, I'll sort them, and then I'll package them up and send you everyone else's well wishes.

In steps:

1. Sign up for the card swap by mailing me with your snail mail address. Don't worry, I won't give your snail mail address to anyone else.

Sign ups start right this second and end November 15th. That's a Sunday.

2. On November 15th, I'll email EVERYONE in the card swap and let them know who signed up for it. You'll get a number of people and a list of names.

3. Start making your cards/goodies. I don't care if you lovingly handcraft each member an individual and personalized wish for this winter season or if you fold a piece of construction paper in half and write "hapy holidays" on it. Your dolls can sign it if they want to, and I highly encourage it, but they don't have to if they don't want to.

(A SUGGESTION: Last year a couple of people took a digital picture of their dolls and took it to one of those places or websites that makes Christmas cards out of family portraits. Those came out really cool, and probably took a good 15 seconds, so that might be an idea if you're stumped for ideas or strapped for time.)

If you want to throw some kind of goodie in there, that's fine, but don't get too big with it. Keep in mind that I have to package these things up and ship them with other people's things! If fifteen people sign up and all fifteen of you send me huge things to put in fifteen boxes to then ship cross country, I won't be full of holiday cheer.

4. Send them to me. I'll give you my address. They must arrive at my place on December 5th. Probably, you'll want to ship them before then.

5. I'll sort them. I'll probably take pictures too because this is going to look freaking hilarious.

6. I'll send them out. They should merrily arrive in your place sometime in December.

7. You'll enjoy them. Hopefully. Or you'll feed them to your dog.

Everything clear?

I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE you to send cards with secular things on them, like jingle bells or snowmen. Not everyone celebrates what you celebrate. However, I'm not going to restrict it, because we've never restricted what holidays we celebrate here at AG>18. Should you get a card with something on it that is a symbol of a faith not your own, I expect you to act like an adult and say to yourself, "This person gave me this expression of themselves because they care about me and want me to feel good this season." If you think that you will die in a lump after coming here and wanking your heart out because you got a card with a menorah/Christmas tree/Kwanzaa mat/Buddha statue/Pentagram/Sarah Palin/egg balanced on one side/cross/ceremonial knife on it, don't sign up. The end. You've been warned.*

If you want to send a specific card to an individual, that's cool, just make sure you mark the card somehow so I know who gets what. I recommend putting the card in an envelope and writing the person's name on it.

If you want to send cards to an individual's individual dolls, that's cool too, just make sure I know what person gets what. I'd put all the cards for that person's doll together in one envelope, then write the person's name on it so I know.

It's free to participate, but if you wanted to toss me a dollar or two for shipping via PayPal or tucked into your package that would rock most hard.

Ask me questions. Or, sign up!