(no subject)

[owlectomy]

Many phenomena--wars, plagues, sudden audits--have been advanced as evidence for the hidden hand of Satan in the affairs of Man, but whenever students of demonology get together the M25 London orbital motorway is generally agreed to be among the top contenders for Exhibit A.

Where they go wrong, of course, is in assuming that the wretched road is evil simply because of the incredible carnage and frustration it engenders every day.

In fact, very few people on the face of the planet know that the very shape of the M25 forms the sign odegra in the language of the Black Priesthood of Ancient Mu, and means "Hail the Great Beast, Devourer of Worlds." The thousands of motorists who daily fume their way around its serpentine lengths have the same effect as water on a prayer wheel, grinding out an endless fog of low-grade evil to pollute the metaphysical atmosphere for scores of miles around.

--Good Omens, Gaiman and Pratchett.

I spent much of the day driving around the Crossroads Plaza shopping center (trying to buy a flatware tray and a screwdriver, mostly). It is Brier Creek on steroids (Brier Creek being the North Raleigh shopping center that still makes me boggle at its sheer size); it has a Linens and Things and a Bed Bath & Beyond, a Home Depot and a Lowes, an Office Depot and an Office Max, two different craft megastores that pretty much just stock scrapbooking stuff and tacky seasonal home decor like fake pumpkins for carving.

And the tangle of streets and highways that surround it surely means something foul in the language of the Black Priesthood of Ancient Mu.

(This is the same tangle of streets I took a week ago on the way back from Cary, which required me to merge onto a very busy highway in about 200 meters or else take an exit going in the exactly wrong direction. I went on it again, and got lost again.)

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Littlest Sister got into college. She is screaming-astonished that a middle-ranked university accepted her. Alas, objective evidence cannot stop the suckmonkey. I should know.

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Speaking of which, I seriously need to get over my financial anxiety when it comes to things that I actually have a justifiable need for. The moving expenses are racking up, but it's not like a lamp or soap or toilet paper are frivolous purchases. (I should mention that my apartment has no installed lighting except in the kitchen and bathroom, just to prove that a lamp isn't frivolous).

The apartment should be marginally habitable by tomorrow night. Marginally habitable is good enough if it halves my commute.