One of my scattershot entries again...

[annwfyn]

• I have a date tonight. Go me! Admittedly it's with pierot which is maybe less exciting than if it were with an entirely new person, but does make my future a little more stable than if I were running off with a dashing stranger. I also haven't spent nearly enough time with just Jeremiah in a while, and so am rather looking forward to tonight.



• I am still waiting excitedly for my BPAL. It is also occuring to me that I'm getting hooked on ebay again. I go through phases with ebay - phases which are closely linked to my disposable income. Normally the cycle goes like this.
  
  Sally gets some money in. Sally wanders onto ebay, and finds wonderful and shiney things. These things may be books, clothes, jewellery or (at the moment) BPAL scents. Sally bids on these things. Sally gets very excited, watching her bids creeping up and jumping on those pesky other bids like a terrier on a rat. Sally wins items on ebay, and cheerfully pays for everything with paypal.
  
  Sally waits at home, like a kid before christmas, and lo! Wonderful things arrive in brown paper parcels through the post. No longer tied up with string, sadly, but still shiney and exciting. Sally decides she likes ebay.
  
  Sally goes into an ebay frenzy. There are so many wonderful things there. She stalks through the ebay jungle, a great white hunter in the night.
  
  Something goes wrong with ebay. Occasionally paypal tells me that I've processed too much money through paypal and need to jump through some peculiar hoops to get my account verified, I can't pay for an item, have to jump through hoops and get very vexed. Sometimes something goes wrong with something I've bought, or I have a financial crisis and discover after winning something that my bank account is empty. Sally gets anxious and decides that ebay is bad for her and runs away, ignoring it for months.
  
  Then, the day comes when Sally has money and wants to buy something which is not available anywhere near her, and it all begins again...



• Why is it that I am incapable of putting together flat pack furniture? I currently have two wardrobes in my house. They arrived from Argos last week. ksirafai and pierot put one together last night, while I watched in complete awe. I am now on my own in the house. I have all the tools to put the second wardrobe together, and I'm completely bloody terrified.
  
  Still, at least the first wardrobe is in place in my bedroom, with my clothes carefully laid in drawers or hung up on hangers. I think mine and jez's bedroom is finally coming together as comfortable space.
  
  I just need to persuade jez that it's OK to replace the tatty director's chair with a nice rocking chair, and my life will be complete.



• In general, I'm growing far far happier with my house. The living room is decorated. The garden has been mown and christened with fire and burnt meat, which is what makes a garden part of one's home. The bedroom is slowly coming together into proper living space, and I feel like the threshold is firming up.
  
  The above phrase, by the way, is stolen from Jeremiah who was describing the concept of 'threshold' as it is used in the Harry Dresden books. In the Harry Dresden books there is a magical threshold protection around a home - magical beings can't enter a home without getting permission. Wizards can enter uninvited, but they lose most of their power doing so. This comes from the energy that a home has put into it by the people living there. A family home of twenty years has much more of a defined identity, and as such a stronger threshold, than a batchelor pad which someone uses to sleep in and then ignores. A place of business has no such protection, and combining the two severely weakens the threshold you would have otherwise.
  
  This idea sort of makes sense to me. Objects have identities. Training as a conservator has taught me that, and I think places do as well. Those identities come from the people who live there, or through the use of the place. How we treat something defines it, and my house is increasingly becoming defined as 'home' instead of just the flat that jez and I bought because it was in our price range.
  
  And that makes me happy.



• I am still in the dark as to whether I'll be working at the Cumming Museum next week. And in the dark as to whether I have a summer placement, and what it might be.
  
  Camberwell College of Art confuses me.



• And finally, I don't suppose anyone out there would like to pander to my ego? I think we all know the meme going around - tell me what about me makes you envy me, or what you like about me, or just what you think I do damn well! I'll say nice things back about you in return!