my day

So I went out this afternoon intending to get some new jeans, possibly a couple of tops, and a new earring to replace the one I lost from my right ear.  Got the jeans, found no tops I liked, and I tell you what, do you know how hard it is to find capture bead rings in Cleveland?

I got the earrings I'm wearing now at Spencer's Gifts in Charlottesville (I think) two or three years ago.  In the first pair of holes, I have 16-gauge half-inch rings; in the second pair, 18-gauge half-inch rings; and in the third hole on each side, 18-gauge 3/8-inch rings.  All silver rings with hematite capture beads.  So what I've lost is, I believe, one of the 18-gauge half-inch rings -- but it's hard to say, because I can't tell the difference between 16- and 18-gauge by touch, and any time I've taken the things out and put them back in it's possible I mixed up the half-inch ones.  So what I want is, an 18-gauge half-inch silver ring with a hematite capture bead.  Or, that and a pair of 16-gauge half-inch silver rings with hematite capture beads.  Then I could ditch the half-inch ones I have and start over again.

The Spencer's here doesn't have that, as it happens.  They've got smaller things and different gauges and stuff with silver beads, but not what I want.  Rar.  The only other option I could think of was the neighborhood where, when I was in high school, the kids with the piercings and the hair and (in many cases) the drug problems hung out.  There's construction on every damn street on the way down there, but I got there finally, and the place has been totally de-cooled, man.  Sure, okay, partly it's the intervening fifteen years, but also a lot of stuff has gone and a lot of other stuff has come in.  Fucking Caribou Coffee, dudes!  I went back and forth twice before I found the one place on the street where they have body jewelry, and there, they had a greater variety than at Spencer's -- but still not what I want.

I did come to realize while I was there that the smartest thing would be if I kept the 18-gauge 3/8" rings I have in the third holes, and then got 16-gauge 7/16" rings for the middle set and 14-gauge 1/2" rings for the first set.  They still don't quite exactly have that at the place, but there's a chance their shipment of new stuff will come in tomorrow or early Saturday (I want to replace the thing before I leave town on Sunday, did I mention?), and the guy also suggested that any place that does body piercing would be likely to have what I'm looking for.

Which, hi.  Do I know where such places are?  I do not.  Any Clevelanders have suggestions?

But in other news, I did bring home the first season of House on DVD, and I can't stop watching.  This is what I'm still doing up at this hour.  SO MUCH LOVE.

Hang on, though.  I knew I thought it was weird that Foreman's name is Eric -- isn't Eric Foreman the name of Topher Grace's character on That 70's Show?

hey, neat!

After several weeks of hearing (essentially) "That ain't it, kid" from various agencies and whatnot, and "We'll see -- in fact, actually, no" from some others, I just got an e-mail that said after being reviewed by a rating official I've been rated as a Best Qualified Candidate, so my application has been forwarded to a Selection Official.

Might turn out to be nothing, but groovy!  Someone admits I'm qualified for something!  :-)

sigh.

My father's brother is in the hospital.

He called this afternoon, not knowing my parents were out of town -- so he told me instead of them, and said he wasn't going to call their cell phones because he didn't want to bother them on their trip.  I told him they'd much rather be bothered on their trip than not hear about this until the 11th of August when they get home again, and besides there wasn't really a chance I wasn't going to tell them when they called me this evening, so he might as well call them himself.  Which he said he would.  It was hard to tell what he said he was in for; the connection was v. fuzzy and he sounded pretty tired, so all I know is it's something clogging up his chest and they're trying to solve it medically unless they really have to take him in for surgery.

I'm choosing to be reassured by the fact that he called himself instead of his wife calling to say he was sick.  Even though when I spoke to my parents half an hour ago, they hadn't heard from him.  I told my dad to call his voice mail and see if there was a message there for which he hadn't yet gotten a little notification icon.