xp_cyclops | Recent Entries

Yes, the eyepatch is quite dashing, isn't it?

No, I will not be doing a Jack Sparrow impression now or at any point in the future.

If you hear me talking about rum, it's because the latest package from my grandmother arrived and includes what we'll call 'cookies for grownups'. (For the grownups reading this, one could get tipsy from being in the general vicinity of these rumballs. I think a warning label was called for.)

Fifteen minutes! I do paperwork for fifteen minutes and I get a migraine. I hate this.

Current Mood: aggravated

... this may seem like a weird and possibly rather perverse question, all things considered, but I'm lying here without the ability to concentrate for more than twenty minutes at a time and suffering colossal amounts of boredom, so I figured I'd ask.

All things considered, what's the verdict on the Seattle field trip? It doesn't happen every day, the chance to be right there when momentous events happen. Okay, we get more than our share of those, but you know what I mean. We don't know what might come out of it yet - it's still too soon, although I think the joint statement that came out of the summit certainly looks promising on the level of general principle - but either way, you guys had front-row seats.

I suppose that means the team was in the mosh pit...

Although I didn't expect to sleep for twelve hours. Especially since I did sleep through most of the flight yesterday. And thank you, to whoever had breakfast sent up this morning... it was so far away from hospital food that it doesn't exist in the same food-galaxy.

I'm supposed to be staying put, mostly, and resting. Kitty, you should open the book on how many hours it takes me to go stark raving insane, just sitting around like this.

She's probably going to scold me. Not supposed to be straining my eye. I couldn't resist, though - I've been feeling so cut off, and it's worse today because I'm not sleeping as much. And because all the news channels are still talking about is the riot. I was there and it wasn't a whole lot of fun, so I'm not really interested in listening to pundits rehash what happened. Although it's entertaining to see how frustrated they are that there's no actual footage of what happened at the monorail.

I'm feeling quite a bit better today. Don't get me wrong, it still hurts - quite a bit, actually, but at least my head's clearer. They're talking about letting me out of here tomorrow, possibly. It would be good to be home. I will not miss the nurses, at all. They do stupid things which cause me to leave holes in the ceiling.

Jean and I, that is. If anyone needs to see me I'll be in my office this evening catching up.

I've already noticed that all of the independent assignments I handed out in engineering were in my box - thanks, guys. I'd promise you all As but that would be highly uncharacteristic, so I'll just promise to be in a good mood while I'm marking.

I am, though I might regret admitting it, more or less reconciled to the fact that there will be clutter and mess of various types in the public areas of the mansion during, oh, exam time, or other periods of high stress around here. Doesn't make me happy to see it, but it's inevitable.

Given this is summer vacation, though, I'm having trouble justifying, let's say, the disaster area that is the rec room. I just picked something off the top of my head, there - there are other examples. Our admittedly highly trained and oftentimes invisible cleaning staff can do a lot, but there's absolutely no reason that they need to be cleaning up after students who can't be bothered to pick up after themselves, rather than dusting the antiques.

So. Stop leaving trails of destruction, or I enroll you all in a compulsory housekeeping course this term. Sound like a plan?

although i suppose i demonstrated that yesterday. moving around more easily today, although i think i will have to pass on the fair tomorrow. the rest of you, have fun. and nate - you're completely insane, by the way. unless this was someone else's idea and you got suckered into it, in which case i just feel very sorry for you and i hope moira will have aspirin waiting when you get back. because you will need it.

speaking of needs, i have a ridiculous amount of paperwork coming up over the next couple of weeks. start of term stuff, mostly. unfortunately i only have one good hand. yes, that's the reason for the lower-case in case you were wondering. so what i'm looking for is a little general office-type help starting the middle of next week or thereabouts. data entry, photocopying, emailing, etc. it's not that i couldn't do most of it on my own, it's just that it would take me twice as long to do it. why be inefficient when you can have a minion, i say.

all right. clearly a little loopy still but don't let that stop anyone from volunteering. should be back to my normal grumpy self by the time the paperwork is actually getting done.

Yes, I know.

I'm also not apologizing. Hah.

But a potential summer... activity, let's call it. A friend of mine happened to mention, in the course of an email exchange on a completely unrelated topic, that he happens to know someone who has a 1921 Ford Model T that he's looking to sell. It's not in good shape, so he's not asking very much for it. Apparently this person was intending to restore it himself, but due to some health problems has decided that he can't take on the project after all.

I won't deny that the idea kind of tickles me, but it's not something that I want to take on all by myself, either. So... would anyone be interested in doing something like that, if I bought the car? I just thought it might be something that could fill up some free time this summer. And the Model T's a pretty cool car, really.

Someone design me a better wobble board? I keep trying to kill myself on the one I'm using to get my knee back into shape. And as amusing as it no doubt is to watch me fall on my face repeatedly, I'd prefer to be making the metaphoric sort of forward motion.

Anyone want one?

Do you think that once I'm off these damned crutches, you and I could put in some serious hand-to-hand time? I have this burning desire to make sure I never wind up hopping along like this again if it's at all humanly possible.

I swear, I'm blasting the damned things into matchsticks as soon as I don't need them anymore...

I'm heading into New York - I'll be gone overnight, back sometime early tomorrow afternoon. This is just me letting you all know, since I don't want anyone heading down to my office and dropping dead of shock when they don't find me at my desk.

You've all been stealing my work again, haven't you? I can't find any work to do. All my marking is done. I don't have any training tapes to review, and neither anything scheduled for myself nor gaps in the schedule I could fill. I have reviewed the files that need reviewing this week so many times that I could recite them. There are people in my garage, and I'm not supposed to be touching the Blackbird unsupervised.

I'm bored, and my head's killing me. Someone give me something to do.

Understanding of adolescent foibles, able to laugh at some of the minor... occurrences around here that would drive lesser men insane.

Yet, stepping out of my office and immediately getting soaked from head-to-toe with ice-cold water by a certain young mechanical genius who appears to have decided to run amuck?

So very not impressed.

This is going to sound very odd, but has anyone seen my turtle?

Horatio does not appear to be in his tank.

ETA: Uhhh... how precisely are Catseye's clothes appearing and disappearing as she shifts? I just saw her do it, in the hall...

So, I'm back. Some of you might have seen me come stumbling in from the airport late last night - it was not a good flight, and that's putting it mildly.

The visit, however, was... quite nice. Alex is going to stay for a little while longer, but I figured it was about time I got myself back here. Not that I don't think the place can't get along without me, but there's a limit to how long I can be comfortable letting it. (That was actually a joke. You can all laugh now.)

Besides. I've always liked spending New Year's here.

Alex and I are leaving on Thursday for Anchorage, and coming back the following Thursday. I figured a week would probably do for a first visit, plus I really don't want to be away from the mansion for too long. (This is where you can all mock my anal-retentiveness. Or maybe just my fundamental pessimism.)

I guess I could tell you all a little more about this, since Alex was pretty unspecific. Phillip and Deborah Summers are our father's parents. They live just outside Anchorage, where they run a charter air service. Phillip was in the Air Force before he retired, and our father followed in his footsteps. So that makes three generations of pilots in the family, which is sort of interesting, I suppose.

The reasons why we're all just reconnecting now are many and complicated. Basically, Phillip and Deborah were under the impression that Alex and I had died in the plane crash that killed our parents, so they didn't know to look for us. Call it bureaucratic incompetence on a grand scale - or at the very least, two bureaucracies not talking to each other. The Air Force never found the crash site, and the local social services where Alex and I wound up never made the connection. It might have been different if Alex hadn't been so young, or if I hadn't been in a coma... I guess there's no real point in talking about what might have been, though.

It should be interesting, meeting them. At the very least they should be able to help fill in some blanks. I've never liked the fact that I remember so little about life before the plane crash. Part of me knows that I was old enough I should have, so it's always nagged at me.