My mind is your prison ..

So much travel! cutenyeboi and I have been here for a week now. Since we're ensconced in Haifa, Israel at the moment with access to wireless where we're staying, I figured an update was in order. Let's see... I'll try this in linear time, but I expect to be diverted by some rants along the way.

When we planned this trip several months ago, it was prior to the Tunisia -> Egypt -> Libya -> Syria (etc) thing going on. I'll spare you the conceit of whatever the media is calling this, as if it's a single thing sweeping broadly across the 'Arab world'; but suffice to say it was calmer here when we planned this out. Once all of that started to heat up, I swung a great deal on a flight; SFO -> AMS -> TLV for just over $1k round trip. The way in, we had a 12+ hour layover from 9am - 9pm @ AMS, but that felt like a decent compromise to save over $1200 on the fare for us both (and it was). The flight on KLM was lovely; it was such a pleasant change from US carriers where every airline in the US has tossed service out the holes in the fuselage in an effort to save a nickel on each passenger.
( Three weeks begins with twelve hours!Collapse )

This is the only one of the seven that sounds funny when you say it. "Gluttony" sounds positively retro when I hear it, like it's the middle ages and someone's shouting at you for eating all the rat and turnip soup in the monastery. It's kind of funny how this is more broadly about guilty pleasures in the meme than food. I have no shortage of guilty pleasures, however, so this should be no problem.

Day 1 - Pride. Seven great things about yourself.
Day 2 - Envy. Seven things you lack and covet.
Day 3 - Wrath. Seven things that piss you off.
Day 4 - Sloth. Seven things you neglect to do.
Day 5 - Greed. Seven worldly material desires.
Day 6 - Gluttony. Seven guilty pleasures.
Day 7 - Lust. Seven sex secrets.

Gluttony:
( Enjoy; that's what gluttony is about!Collapse )

Mmm, greed. I'm no Gordon Gekko, but neither am I a guilty white liberal who is thoroughly and unreasonably convinced that all corporatist greed is bad. Like all things, moderation is called for... but how can one differentiate the desire to acquire more and be successful from greed? Scale certainly matters... I don't need ALL THE THINGS, but neither would I be happy if I never worked to gain more for my life.

Day 1 - Pride. Seven great things about yourself.
Day 2 - Envy. Seven things you lack and covet.
Day 3 - Wrath. Seven things that piss you off.
Day 4 - Sloth. Seven things you neglect to do.
Day 5 - Greed. Seven worldly material desires.
Day 6 - Gluttony. Seven guilty pleasures.
Day 7 - Lust. Seven sex secrets.

Greed:
( This was not as easy as it should have been!Collapse )

Yeah... not very difficult to find things that I don't do. Let's see if I can complete this post, considering more than half the posts I've started in the last couple of years have been exiled to "Private (Just Me)" LJ purgatory. Of course, I'm enjoying doing this series so far and that should help keep me active on this until I get distracted by something else.

Day 1 - Pride. Seven great things about yourself.
Day 2 - Envy. Seven things you lack and covet.
Day 3 - Wrath. Seven things that piss you off.
Day 4 - Sloth. Seven things you neglect to do.
Day 5 - Greed. Seven worldly material desires.
Day 6 - Gluttony. Seven guilty pleasures.
Day 7 - Lust. Seven sex secrets.

Sloth:
( Is it considered slothy that I'm doing this instead of working?Collapse )

This may be the easiest to come up with... but it has not been easy being honest about the things that make me angry. I keep my mouth shut a lot more than it seems, since I'm usually rambling about an opinion I have or the like... but the things that really annoy me that I don't have the power to change? I don't bring it up much. It's unproductive to be that negative, and I'm negative enough already.

Day 1 - Pride. Seven great things about yourself.
Day 2 - Envy. Seven things you lack and covet.
Day 3 - Wrath. Seven things that piss you off.
Day 4 - Sloth. Seven things you neglect to do.
Day 5 - Greed. Seven worldly material desires.
Day 6 - Gluttony. Seven guilty pleasures.
Day 7 - Lust. Seven sex secrets.

Wrath:
( ...breathing; breathless... heaving breaths!Collapse )

Ah, envy.

Day 1 - Pride. Seven great things about yourself.
Day 2 - Envy. Seven things you lack and covet.
Day 3 - Wrath. Seven things that piss you off.
Day 4 - Sloth. Seven things you neglect to do.
Day 5 - Greed. Seven worldly material desires.
Day 6 - Gluttony. Seven guilty pleasures.
Day 7 - Lust. Seven sex secrets.

Envy:
( Not as easy as I thought it would be to come up with seven...Collapse )

It's been awhile since I tackled a meme. The lovely and talented archanglrobriel took this one on and tossed it around like the awesome predator that he is... and I've been looking for reasons to post more.

Therefore, I bring you over the next several* days a series of statements about our good friends, the deadly sins.

Day 1 - Pride. Seven great things about yourself.
Day 2 - Envy. Seven things you lack and covet.
Day 3 - Wrath. Seven things that piss you off.
Day 4 - Sloth. Seven things you neglect to do.
Day 5 - Greed. Seven worldly material desires.
Day 6 - Gluttony. Seven guilty pleasures.
Day 7 - Lust. Seven sex secrets.

Pride:
( ...and not the rainbow variety you see once a year.Collapse )

Here's hoping this isn't another post that ends up with most of the others, in the great "half-finished, private setting" box. Because, yeah... that's where the majority of my rants end up these days.

Apparently we're having Christmas at our house this year. I knew this was an inevitable consequence of owning my own house, but the reality really didn't set in until I saw that there were... lights on the house. And... a tree -- a big fucking tree -- in the great room. I'd like to point out that trees grow outside, where there are things like spiders and monsters and filthy creatures. Sometimes, when you bring a tree into the house? These creatures lurk within, waiting to feast on your sweet, sweet flesh.

I'd direct all of my complaints about this to cutenyeboi but he's too busy ignoring my feeble complaints and chuckling at my neuroses about things with > 4 legs to notice. So, I'm left with the internet. ;)

Speaking of having Christmas at my house, it's come up that my father is closer to me now than he is to my sister, since his move to Vegas earlier this year. This presents the conundrum... go to Vegas and see him, or have him come to my house to see us... which includes cutenyeboi's entire family. My father, for his many faults, is just fine in situations like this. Everyone loves him when they meet him because he's gregarious and socially apt. He has the chameleon thing down pat; he can be anything to anyone, and this is one of the things I learned from him that I've had to wrestle with as I've gotten older. Yes, it's nice to be socially flexible and capable of navigating in different social waters... but it's also way too easy to forget who the fuck you are in this situation, and the lying comes way too easily.

Right, uh, less about my years of therapy and more about the holiday.

I'm not sure what the plan is yet. I've played a little phone tag with him about asking what he prefers to do. He just made an epic cross country road trip to see my sister (he prefers to drive a few thousand miles round trip than fly, I suppose). I don't know when he's home, and whether or not he'll feel up to coming here for the holiday. The added plus is I'd already planned to be in Vegas around 12/27-29, but it does complicate things if I try to split Christmas between locations.

Nrrgh. I'd like to make it be May through October all year, please. There are no real holidays to deal with, the weather here is freaking awesome, and I'd never have another birthday again. Who doesn't love endless summer where you don't get any older?!

What a month; what a two+ month period, I suppose, since my last update was after the epic three day weekend at the beginning of September.
( I thought about leaving this uncut, since it includes Canadians...Collapse )

Wow. Summer 2010 is on notice. This endless parade of suffering around me must cease, or we will have to return to the milder seasons. It's more galling because, well, I'm kind of having an awesome summer full of wonderful things but there are demons gnawing at the world around me. Very displeased, all things be told.

It feels morbid to make a list, but I think it'll help me process everything. I'll try to start from closest to us to the farthest, but that's an unfair categorization since my heart doesn't operate in layers... but again... lists lead to understanding!
( This became much longer than I'd planned..Collapse )