Driving on snow/ice is one of the scariest things ever…I absolutely hate it. When you feel the car start to slide and there’s nothing you can do to control it, the feeling of helplessness is overwhelming, as if you’re leaving your fate open to whatever the universe feels like dealing you at that moment in time. In some ways I’m even more nervous driving my new car in winter weather because it’s more powerful than my old car. The old car had trouble getting to 30mph whereas my new one doesn’t want to do anything less than that. I do have antilock brakes and traction control on my Grand Am but even still…it’s very nervewracking. A work colleague suggested getting snow tires but that’s something I really cannot afford, especially since I needed to ask my parents for help paying my car insurance. :-( So I have to drive about 20 minutes from the country to the city to work each day, and it’s definitely not something I look forward to whatsoever. :\ I can’t wait to move to the Northwest where snow is not an issue.

Well, yesterday found me a bit more cheerful than I’ve been since I got home. The global WoW server was down so I actually got to talk to Ross for a bit during the morning. (But in all fairness to him, he said he’d intended to drop in and have a chat regardless.) He uploaded his photos from my trip, and of those, I’ve found my favorite picture of us together. I must say that in life Ross is an incredibly attractive man, (Rose will back me up on this one) but for whatever reason most photos of him don’t do him justice. This photo in particular, however, seems to have caught both of us looking rather sharp. Just looking at it makes me melt…huuuu. :3 I love Ross so much.

Yeah, also Shaun of the Dead came out on DVD in the US yesterday. :-D To avoid the Christmas shoppers I took an early lunch and hopped over to Target to see if I could find a copy. I was about to leave in defeat when I found a few copies on a back endcap of the DVD section, hidden away. Not surprising, really, considering the pathetic coverage the film got when it was released in theatres here. But I got it! :-D :D I stopped on my way back to get a grinder (baked sub) for lunch and felt rather upbeat as I drove back to work. The sun was shining! The snow on the road was melting! I actually got to use my sun visor! Waaa. It’s just incredible how a little bit of sunlight can bring my mood up. I’ve been in perpetual darkness since I got back, after a month in the Australian sun (even if I didn’t spend much time there outdoors, at least I could see the sunlight.) So the afternoon went rather well; I popped the DVD in the drive and listened to the audio commentary while I worked (two tracks of it!) I also ordered the boxed set of Spaced from amazon.co.uk since it’s pretty apparent that it won’t be released in North America anytime soon (and I have no idea whether Australia will get it either.) With shipping it ended up only being about $34US (converted from GBP of course) so hopefully it won’t take too long for that to arrive.

Speaking of which…I really wonder when Black Books is going to come in… :-( I really want to listen to the audio commentary on that first disc. Stupid faulty DVD set. :-(

Driving home yesterday wasn’t too bad either because the temperature had gone up some during the day. Mom made soup and grilled cheese for supper, which turned out to be just what I needed. She noticed my mood had changed quite a bit and we briefly talked about the horrible shock my body had gone through upon coming back here and how it wasn’t surprising I’d been depressed. But now that my sleep schedule is mostly back on track I’m doing okay…I’m still sleeping a lot more than I usually have because it’s just so damned cold at night that all I want to do is cuddle into my blankets, but at least I’m sleeping at appropriate times now. I spent a good portion of the night playing Katamari Damacy since WoW had to download a new patch and for whatever reason it was going at dialup speed. I never actually got around to playing WoW because by the time the patch finished it was nearly midnight and I was too tired. Meh. I guess it’s inevitable that my character will always be way behind the others playing, but I can’t be bothered spending all my free time trying to level her up.

I had an interesting and irritating glitch happen the other day…I was in a party with AussieWill and we got on a boat. I thought I’d be funny and make my character sleep while on the boat, so she lay down and her pet bear stood over the top of her. Will decided to lay his character over mine so there was just this pile of intersecting polygons that resembled two female humanoids and a bear, which frankly was hilarious. It was all fine and dandy until the loading screen came up and rather than loading the new map, the bear vanished, then my character vanished, and suddenly the boat was gone and my character was in the middle of the water. WTF? She died twice trying to get back to the docks and by the time she found Will’s character in town I was too tired to continue.

In between gaming and sleep I’ve been watching bits of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which I’ve been wanting to watch for ages now. This morning I finally saw the famous “Dead Parrot” sketch which is always referenced (having seen the “Confuse a Cat” sketch the previous day.) Even by today’s standards, these sketches are incredibly hilarious, but given they were done in the ’60s and ’70s it’s even more amazing. I amuse myself by realizing now and again that the young Eric Idle is very attractive to me. Plus Terry Gilliam’s animations are just brilliant…genius in their silliness and simplicity.

This morning was freakishly cold. I have to park my car about 4 blocks from the building I work in because it’s the nearest place to park all day on the street (without paying, of course) so it’s a very trying walk when the temperature is so low. So, for several reasons, I decided I’d jog from my car to the library. I’m not completely out of shape given all the exercise I’d done over summer, so that wasn’t really a problem…it was the frigidity of the air that made my lungs feel like they were on fire when I finally reached the building. Normally when you think of cold air you associate it with “refreshing” and “brisk.” Well, brisk it was…dear god. My lungs felt equal parts pleasure and pain…and I don’t know if I’ve ever felt that wide awake, EVER. It took several minutes for me to be able to feel the skin on my face again. When I got inside and checked weather.com it said the temp was -3°F with windchill factor -17°F. Daaaayam, that air is so FRESH. SNIP!

I really miss everyone in Australia, especially the certain things about each person that made their personalities so alive, the phrases they’d use over and over again: Ross going back and forth from his usual solemn expression to his demented one, replying to obvious comments with “Daaaamn straight!”…doing clever things to cause Rosey to give him her famous Look which inevitably reduced her to uncontrollable laughter near the point of gibbing (to be pronounced ghib, not jib)…Ivan and his ridiculous high pitched “mmm-MMMMMM!” sound and that cute demonic grin he always seems to have on his face (for some reason I can hear him saying “Cashrews” over and over again in my head)…Jules and his half-crosseyed gaze, whispering “Anny, how’re you going?”…the way Siska would say something then click her tongue…Will punctuating anything mildly confusing with “Whaaaaaaaaaat?”…Paul saying “I doaen’t knoaew” over and over (my absolute favorite phrase to be said in an Aussie accent because of the “o” vowel sound)…Reg singing in the kitchen and Ally laughing her giddy and gleeful laugh…Kate talking non-stop between watching horrible Aussie soap operas. These are all things that just resonate with me because they are everyday things that you simply can’t pick up any other way than physically being there in the same place as them. And that’s really what the trip was all about after all…getting to know the habits and everyday personalities of these people in a sensual way, rather than only intellectual. I don’t mean sensual as anything to do with physical intimacy, but in terms of an overall “feeling” a person gives off–the sort of things you take for granted about people you’ve known for a long time in “real life.”