a bit of this, a bit of that

Just a few random things to put out there before I leave work for the weekend.
While sitting on my partner-in-crime's stoop the other night, I saw two fireflies. They're such dreamy little things, on a humid summer night! I was thinking it'd be fun to get a firefly tattoo. But I'm not sure how I would pull that off, because up close they're not terribly attractive insects. How can they be so ugly but so pretty at the same time?
I've been slowly poking along on my novella, Emmelina and the Rat King. It's going pretty well; I'm loving working on something besides Nor. Soon enough, though, I'll be back to Nor for what will hopefully be my last edit on it before submitting. Crazy!
I found a white hair on my head the other day. It's not the first one. But it's the first one that's been right up front so it's easy to spot. You know what? I left it there. White hair happens. I kind of like it.
I went to the beach last weekend, and went in the water. More so than I intended! I got caught by a sneaker wave; it knocked me over, and down I went. Totally submerged. It was a lot of fun! Except the sunburn, but it's not bad. Not like last summer; that one was horrific. This one is just itchy because it's peeling like gangbusters! Ah well. At least it's going through the healing process quickly. And if I'm at the beach again anytime soon, I'll be under the umbrella the entire day.
A couple recent dreams. In one, I was hanging out with a good friend whose wedding I went to last fall. We weren't doing anything in particular, just hanging out. It was really nice. And then I woke up and was bummed that I can't actually hang out with him, as we're on opposite coasts. A different night, I dreamed that I found a little white kitten out on the street. I picked him up. I named him Mustard, I think. (I know, random! I think it's because there was this stray white cat I wanted to adopt several years ago, and the people who eventually did adopt him named him Mayonnaise.) I was having hard time hanging on to Mustard while I was going about my business, so I put him into a ziploc baggie. Don't worry, I didn't zip it all the way closed! But when I got to the class I was going to, and pulled the bag out to check on him, two things had happened. He'd died in the bag (poor little guy!) and somehow he shrank, as well. Again, I was bummed when I woke up. The third dream I vaguely remember, I was in a house with my mother and siblings, we were waiting for my dad to show up; he'd been gone a long time. (I'm talking months, not hours.) We finally found out that he'd died, and my mother was grieving, and so were us kids, and I asked her if I could keep these bookshelves of his we found in the garage that were Asian-influenced. We were going through boxed and crying over pictures and puzzling over things we'd never seen before, and I remember thinking "This is strange, he was kind of a jerk and didn't treat us very well and here we are, all seriously upset." (Don't worry, the dream family was not my real-life family!)
And on more thing. I learned two new words. First: Jackleg. It means 1 a: characterized by unscrupulousness, dishonesty, or lack of professional standards; b: lacking skill or training OR 2 : designed as a temporary expedient. Second: Bricolage. It means: construction (as of a sculpture or a structure of ideas) achieved by using whatever comes to hand; also: something constructed in this way.
Time to head home. Have a good weekend!