December 27th, 2003
So, a few weeks back, Kevin came in from talking to his mother and announced he’d decided on what he wanted to get me as my big present. He had commissioned his mother to help find it because it was pretty big and he didn’t want to carry it around in his luggage.
Hmmm.
Once we arrived in LA, he went out with his mother to pick up his gift for me; he told me that it wasn’t a mall store and it closed at 7 PM. Very mysterious.
Big and from an unusual store. Hmmm.
Then he wrapped the present and put it under a tree. It was shoebox sized. When I queried him about it supposedly being big, he just shrugged and smiled mysteriously. Oh well; I’d find out on Christmas.
The next day, his mother came home with another present for me– I was told to absent myself and Cathy commented that it was quite large and unwrappable.
Hmm. A two-part gift, perhaps? I was going mad with curiousity! I speculated endlessly on what it could be.
Christmas morning arrived. Other than Kevin’s gift to me, there were only a few other presents– a large box from his mother, and some gifts to Kevin and I from Patrick. Also, a DVD-sized last-minute gift from Kevin I was pretty sure was Super Smash Bros.; I spent all Christmas Eve dreaming of it. I was guiltily aware that in only a week or so I’d be buying myself a laptop. Kevin has good gift fu for me, but surely that knowledge had applied unfair pressure to him.
We had Christmas morning. Kevin had the present for me over in a corner; I practically forgot about it in the flurry of everybody opening up some really cool gifts. Cathy’s big box to me was a combo dvd-vcr, for example. Patrick got a karaeoke machine. We gave Cathy a Tivo and Patrick a printer.
When everything else was done, Kevin pulled out the box. I opened it. Inside was a box. Inside the box was a box; inside that was a box. By the third box I was pretty sure it was jewelry. And sure enough, the final box was a jewelry box. On it was a note:
Chrysoula,
I love you. Hold out this box and close your eyes.
Oh my! It seemed an awful lot like a proposal. I held out the box and closed my eyes, and Kevin said, “Go, mom, now!” She scurried off like a baby boomer special ops squad, and I made a joke about this kind of nervously. Maybe it wasn’t a proposal– maybe my goof of a boyfriend didn’t know how much this resembled one.
But then he said, “Okay, open your eyes.” I did. He was on his knee in front of me– he’d knelt down when I first opened the present. And then he proposed. I don’t honestly recall the exact words he used; I think they were fairly traditional, though. I was pretty dazed. He was holding out a ring.
I hugged him, and only then saw the gigantic vase of roses his mother had procured from her bedroom. I hugged him more. I kissed him. I put the ring on. I didn’t actually ask, “Are you sure, have you really thought about this?” but I did wonder! I think I babbled a bit then and wandered around the living room, until Cathy pointed out I hadn’t said ‘yes’ yet. Which I was sort of aware of; I’d put the ring on as a substitute for words when I was speechless. I thought about explaining that but instead just said ‘yes’, and then I called Kevin a bitch. I can’t remember why now, but I remember Patrick saying, “I’ll always remember that when Kevin proposed to you, your response was, ‘Kevin, you’re a bitch’.” I called him a dork, too, and I told him I loved him, and he told me I had to call Michelle because he’d promised her I’d call as soon as he proposed. I wondered if everybody knew but me and he said no, only his family and Michelle, who had beaten it out of him the previous weekend.
So off I went to make the phone calls.
The ring is pink sapphire, a bit over one carat, with seven tiny diamonds inlaid into the white gold band on each side of the uplifted setting; the four prongs of the setting for the pink sapphire each have two tiny inlaid diamonds as well. t’s gorgeous. It fit almost perfectly.
Two weeks ago, he was dismissing every piece of jewelry I showed him on a site Michelle found as ‘tacky tacky tacky’. I was outraged by this. He was smug. He says he was cutting and pasting all the stuff I liked into email to his mother.
He is such a wonderful wonderful dork.
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December 23rd, 2003
I’m in LA. I guess a lot has happened since since I last wrote, stuff I was looking forward to. But of course, when you’re busy, the last thing you think of is recording the details.
But as a note to myself for later, I saw Return of the King, and I visited Neil and Stacy for their holiday party, where I distributed much loot and somehow walked away with even more.
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December 16th, 2003
I admit, I picked it up from livejournal, but it captured my attention and I want to think about it so I might as well do it here.
Projects: Interactive Fiction competition, website, MUD. Surprise: Nobilis Line Developer! Share car with Kevin, pay off car, enjoying income.
I’m not sure 20 words is enough to capture everything that mattered to me this year. Maybe 40 words. I’d want to add in ‘anime with Kirby’ and ‘Crossroads’ and ‘Hannah’s itchy back’ and ‘tomatoes, peas, pumpkins, herbs’ and ‘brother visit’ and ‘learned t3 and php’ and ‘new clie’ and probably other stuff as well. Books that I read, movies I saw. ’straterra’
I guess if I’m supposed to be more abstract like stuff on the Mayfly site is…
Cry. Try. Succeed, sometimes. Love. Be loved. Better than last year. Perhaps a dawn? Still anxious. On an even keel.
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December 12th, 2003
Poor arrogance! judged by the company it’s found in! it didn’t set out to be the hallmark of darkly handsome villains and men who need to be taken down a few notches! It just wanted to indicate supreme confidence in ones’ abilities. But now, cast as a villain, oft’ associated with noses and aquiline jaws as well as wealthy playboys– it embraces its role. “I am ARROGANCE,” it shouts to the world. “Fuck with me at your peril! I will RUIN YOUR REPUTATION! I and my homies narrowmindedness, inconsideration and bastardy will FUCK YOU UP!”
This is the world I live in. Where words and numbers and even LETTERS have personalities and stories.
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December 10th, 2003
Currency is such a strange and fascinating concept. Well, not currency itself, which is so intuitive it keeps approaching re-invention in every new environment I encounter.
So we’re discussing micropayments, and Kevin proposes ‘microwork’, which leads me to thinking about an entire microcredit system where you can pay for work in microcredits (micropayments administered by a centralized company like paypal– bitpass, for example) and you can be paid for work in microcredits.
At some point there would have to be an exchange mechanism. Which is where my head starts hurting. Because while you’d have to buy into the system with ‘real’ money, as more and more institutions adopted microcredits, you could conceivably spend most of your money via microcredits and what about inflation and so forth? Don’t exchange rates change around based on economies?
My head doesn’t REALLY hurt. But it does feel very crowded.
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December 8th, 2003
This weekend, I played FFX-2 a whole lot, did a bit of dishes, ran my Nobilis game, and did some Christmas shopping.
I meant to work on Shadows on the Mirror, but by the time I finished online Christmas shopping on Sunday, I was pretty crabby and it occurred to me that in the grand scheme of things, releasing an updated version of SotM in the near future was only a tiny bit more important to me than playing FFX-2, and playing FFX-2 would be a good deal more enjoyable.
As it turns out, I actually had to do a couple of stressful minigames, but overall it was still more fun than grumpily working on my IF game, because it was what I wanted to do, and the game brings me so much joy.
I feel like I’ve rediscovered how to have fun. It’s amazing.
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December 5th, 2003
Apparently the Power Outage in November was just a trailer for last night’s Power Outage. We got home from work at 9:30 and the power had clearly been out for a while; the power returned at 9:15 this morning.
I read two volumes of Magic Knights Rayearth II by candle and lamplight. And we had no heat so we had to snuggle under blankets. Hannah kept sticking her freezing nose under our arm.
And it may have a sequel, too: high winds are predicted for today as well.
Mmmm, yummy experience.
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December 3rd, 2003
- Write redirect script.
- Create development database on IFRatings.com
- Create MT-based front page for IFRatings if possible.
- Experiment with style control of colors and redesigned layout.
- Move existing pages over and verify functionality against dev database.
- Design and implement author section.
- Move actual database over and implement prewritten redirect scripts
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December 2nd, 2003
But at least their products don’t suck, even if their product support does.
I signed up with audible.com yesterday even though I don’t have a machine that can directly play audible files. I wouldn’t mind an audible gift certificate for Christmas.
I also went through amazon and added a few things to my wishlist– some for my reference rather than anybody else’s. And I encouraged Rebecca to make a wishlist and Kevin to update his, and now I’m encouraging you, dear reader, to do the same. It’s fun, once you get into it.
I’ve been saving and saving for a new electronic toy of some sort (as well as general savings, of course) and I think I’ve decided what I want to get. Sometime early next year (Jan or Feb) I’m probably going to get an iBook. This is what I was talking about in the xenophilia post below. Me– using a Macintosh!
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