Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Okay, so this isn't very upbeat, but it's more so than my previous post...

On the way home this morning, somebody tried to pick a fight with me. (He didn't like my reaction to his parking in a traffic lane instead of finding a parking space.) He started telling me he'd had a really crappy day. I told him I'd had a crappy day. He asked me why my day was crappy, and I told him. I got about 2/3 of the way through the crappy parts and he said, "Okay, you're having a much crappier day than I am. I'll let you go. Happy New Year, and I hope things go better for you in 2003." There's ... something oddly amusing about that, somehow.

Other than extremely poor visibility for driving, being really tired, and that last little exchange, the past five hours were a whole lot better than the previous nineteen. (OTOH, I did realize one of the reasons I see my friends so seldom -- I noticed that driving on my migraine medication is only a little bit safer than driving with a migraine. Bleah.)

Proper summary of the evening and the previous few days later. For now, here are my New Year resolutions, in the hope that writing them in a public place will make me more likely to keep them:

• Be with friends face-to-face more often.
• Take positive steps to get my photos into a gallery or other public exhibit.
• Plan ahead more, looking for opportunities to do thing with friends and asking them early enough to have some chance of making the first resolution work.
• Work on my singing voice.

Wish me luck.

BTW, my aunt and cousins liked the pins I made for them -- the brass project I've muttered about here.

That shape is the island of Cyprus (that side of my family is Greek Cypriot), and the engraving says "Cyprus" in Greek. In normal light, the blue of the letters is much brighter. The pin backs are soldered on. The plan was to make three the same, but I wound up with each being different. The other two are smooth but didn't scan as well (this image is from putting the pins face down on my scanner -- with any luck the conventional photos will come out better). One has larger letters. I made such a pin for Mom last Christmas, and she suggested I make them for my aunt and cousins this Christmas.

I'm not completely happy with the lettering on any of them. I need to practice more with the Dremmel, and I also need to remind myself that it doesn't have to look typeset to be good.

And yes, I do realize that it would've been even more apropriate to make the pins out of copper. I had brass on hand. And I like brass.

And now I'm going to go to bed. The idea of cranking up some Wolfstone or The Clash to pay my neighbours back for waking me yesterday is tempting, but I'll just have to imagine a certain ferret jumping up and down and saying, "Be good!" until the temptation passes.