The most important thing

I have a lot I want to post about, but here's the biggest thing first, all alone in its own post.

On President's Day, Millari and I spent the day together. We slept very late, then went clothes and shoe shopping, which is unusual for either of us, so it was good to do it together.

We got home late, and we weren't really hungry, but I had a special dish for Millari that I didn't want to leave on ice any longer. So I set the table with flowers and candles and brought out a covered plate. On it was a small box, inside of which was my mother's mother's engagement ring.

She was surprised. It looks great on her.

And now, I want one.


We'll set a date later, but for now, it's official: we're getting married.

Other things I want to mention

I met with a really cool guy named Dave Cohen from the United Electrical Workers Union on Monday. He gave me a lot of helpful information about union law in the US (which is apparently complicated by being contradictory), and has since sent along model union constitutions and contracts. I think I will be ready to talk to the others about a contract proposal next week, and then bargaining with Lefty about it by the end of the month. (MM's accountant really needs to get us the year-end paperwork soon.)

In the meantime, the store does well, I still like working there, and I had performance review, which went well. I'm getting more hours and a raise. (Which won't be enough to really improve my finances, but it's a great step forward and I'm happy about it.)


I have finally been making progress on the paper, of late. I have decided to concentrate on just fleshing out the structure of my ideas, and not worrying whether I know enough. I think that this has helped me to pull free of some of my 'options paralysis'. My ADD makes it hard for me to make decisions when I have a lot of options without clear criteria for sorting amongst them. When I know what comes next, I'm very good at doing things, and when I have a firm idea of what my priorities are, I can be very focused. Otherwise, it's just a haze of stress.

(Thanks for fuschia for letting me use her office! And to cirrussundog for study help!)

Millari had an MRI yesterday. (It turns out that she's got two herniated disks, which explains all the back trouble.) The receptionist at the hospital gave her shit when she got there. I quote from her LJ:
"You have two insurances? Why do you have that?" she demanded. None of your fucking, business, crone... "Because I do," I replied flatly, and she seemed to back down a little."

There was a time when my sweetie would not have asserted herself so. It makes me want to marry her all over again.

There is an exhaustive discussion going on now in ginmar's LJ about capital punishment. Others will, and I suspect have, said it better (and with statistics, too!), but as a bedrock axiom of my thinking, I don't feel safe trusting any institution, especially one comprised of thousands of people that's been around for generations, with making such profound decisions as who deserves to live and who doesn't. This is why I'm pro-choice, and anti-execution. (I also find the inevitability of killing someone for a crime that they did not commit reason enough to oppose execution.)

Finishing on a lighter note:

I finally saw the Powerpuff girls movie. It was truly superb. The animation, plot, and characterization were top-notch, and the seriousness with which the story-tellers dealt with a basic question--'why are these little girls superheroes?--should be mandatory viewing for anyone who writes superhero comics.

Another surprisingly, gratifyingly, restoring a little bit of my faith in humanity it's so good, TV show: the new Battlestar Galactica on SciFi channel. The original was garbage, but this is smart. It looks good, the acting is sharp, they paid attention to little details and technical points, but the characters are complex and interesting, there's an intriguing moral subtext, and they have clearly thought about, though not-in-so-many-words answered, the basic question that could deflate the whole premise: why are the ceylons trying to kill all the humans? The humans, in the structure of the story, are fighting to survive, so that's easy, but why are the ceylons trying to kill us? After all, they're robots, and can travel anywhere in the universe. Why mess with us at all? There is so much room in this galaxy alone that they need never see us again, so why fight at all? This show has an answer. And it's really interesting one.

Other excellent entertainment: the Daily Show, obviously. I continue to watch this every night that I can. Jon Stewart, at times, seems like the only reasonable public voice left in America. I wish that we had more like him.

The cartoon network has a lot of cool programs, but their recent addition to Adult Swim, the Venture Bros is incredibly funny. It's a take-off on the old Johnny Quest cartoons, with riffs on other shows besides. It has great supervillains and minions, stuff worthy of the Tick at it's best.

Finally, Millari and I listend to Terry Pratchett's latest Discworld book, Going Postal on CD, as read by Nicholas Briggs. It was an excellent performance by Mr. Briggs (especially the subtle Pirates of the Caribbean allusions he slipped in) and one of Pratchett's best in years. If, gentle reader, you are still with me at this point, start reading Terry Pratchett now. You will not be disappointed. Start with Guards, Guards! and work on from there with the other City Watch books. Or, read other discworld books. Do it your way.

(no subject)

More idiosyncratically, I am really enjoying Lefty's D&D: The Fallen game on alternate Fridays at the store. Basically, plague wiped out all but a few of the 'good' humanoids, and now the orcs, goblins, et al rule the world. We're trying to survive and find a cure. Lefty is a good storyteller and he's given the six of us a lot of latitude to create not only whatever characters we want, but whatever background we want, too. I wanted my character to come from a place inspired by the Andes? Poof, it's in the game world, now. This means that my fellow players and I are really getting to put our stamp on the game. They're all creative and interesting, but I'd like to give a special tip of the hat to morlock. Not only is Scab the halfling courier interesting and useful in a tight spot, morlock himself makes interesting role playing decisions. For instance, the other day, I mentioned to him that I was considering taking a new feat that would allow my monk to take rogue levels and learn some of those complementary skills that I have avoided heretofore. Morlock's eyes lit up, and he asked me if was asking him this in character. Uh, sure, I replied. His whole manner shifted. "You want me to train... you?" Scab said, "Yes," Thrawn replied, and we were off to the races. What had been an idle idea now promises to be lots of fun, and may prove to be a major development in my character's life.