Despertar

a date with art

http://www.notdoppler.com/theimpossiblequiz.php

Is it just me, or is it, like, impossible to clip all the toenails in time?

*

I'm getting that lonely, anxious feeling I used to get before every weekend. I'm trying to imagine what I'm going to do with myself for the next sixty-five hours, before my boss picks me up to drive to Fresno on Monday, and I'm at a loss. What is there to do in San Francisco, alone? Jenn, want to move to Idaho a little early, so you can come play with me tomorrow?

I miss my brother. I miss Justin. I miss sex and my Sims equally. My brother has been texting me all day, trying to recruit me to get me out of trouble with Mom because he's defecting from the family reunion in three weeks to go to his girlfriend's mom's wedding. Bullshit, I never get to pull out of stuff like that for stuff like that. Justin texted to tell me he locked all his stuff in a high-security library at the government building where he's working, and that he couldn't get it till the next morning. Something like that happened in The Time Traveler's Wife, I think.

The ladies in the desks around mine won't stop talking. They wouldn't shut up even when I put on my headset, plugged my free ear with one finger and spoke really loudly to make it clear I was on a conference call. At least two of them don't like me, for reasons having to do with various events that transpired in the breakroom on Tuesday. One is going in my Follow the Leader Leader.

I have a blister on my palate from too much hot tea.

I apologize ahead of time if I turn into one of those people who writes multiple entries in a twelve-hour period.

*

I screwed up Emerald Pointe by reusing the name Beckett on one of the kids from the third generation, which is an implicit no-no. I started a new one. So far, no screw-ups, and I even solved the problem of how every big family ends up with a bunch of clones of their firstborn. It's something to do with clicking the randomize button first, and having all the babies get born in the same round of gameplay. There are some throwbacks to old neighborhoods, too, which makes me feel all fuzzy, like a little inside joke with myself. I'm pretty easy to please.

[arroyo]

Benicio (BRO) (GRA) (M)
Michelle Kato (BLA) (BRO) (M)
Jagger (BRO/bla) (BRO/gra) (M)
Tyler (BRO/bla) (BRO/gra) (M)

Benicio and Jagger are two such throwbacks. Nicaraguan hottie marries man-faced Navajo girl with jet-black braids. The two boys are less cute than they could be, sadly, and the house is a hellhole, because Benicio and Michelle are both in the minimally lucrative slacker business.

[bobowick]

Todd (BLO) (BLU) (F)
Stephanie Childress (RED) (LBL) (F)
Austin (RED/blo) (BLU/lbl) (F)
Cory (BLO/red) (BLU/lbl) (F)

Todd and Stephanie both have, by coincidence, round, doughy pale faces like pancakes. Like Conan O'Brien. It's always a crapshoot, with unsightly lookalike parents. Austin, the older boy, is ugly like they are, looks like a pug with his head squashed in, but Cory, maybe because he's blond, is about twenty times better-looking than any of them. Which I think means he's the one I'll marry off to one of the Marceau girls, if they turn out good-looking.

[boitano]

Emilio (BRO) (GRE) (F)
Ariel Gao (BRO) (BRO) (F)
Arabella (BRO) (BRO/gre) (F)
Isabella (BRO) (BRO/gre) (F)

I think Ariel is supposed to be half-Chinese. She's pretty, but with a bland, washed-out look accentuated by her bland tan top and khaki-colored skirt. Emilio is a mess of flamboyant colors and features. The girls are twins, but couldn't look more different. Arabella is a sloppy combo mess that no amount of makeup can unmess. Isabella is a brighter clone of her pretty mother. Life isn't fair.

[carrington]

Alan (BRO) (BRO) (T)
Claire Hefner (RED) (GRA) (T)
Shaya (BRO/red) (BRO/gra) (T)
Jaid (BRO/red) (BRO/gra) (T)

I think I've got some sort of white-supremacist subconscious thing going on, because I always have a golden family, and it's never one of the ethnic ones. The Carringtons are the golden family. Alan is the best-looking guy in the neighborhood (purely by accident; I put the wrong mouth on him and I loved what it did to soften his cheekbones), Claire is the prettiest woman I could have made without using that Barbie-doll face; Shaya and Jaid are, appropriately, two of the best-looking kids, with two of the names I like best. I've already got Jaid betrothed to this (BLA/blo) girl from a different family, later, because of the genetic possibilities.

[darling]

John (BLA) (BRO) (D)
Hilary Payne (BRO) (BRO) (D)
Joshua (BLA/bro) (BRO) (D)
Ezra (BRO/bla) (BRO) (D)

The Darlings suck. Joshua and Ezra were practically impossible to raise. It was one of those situations where, the first pregnancy coincided exactly with Hilary's days off, so she didn't get any maternity pay, plus John had to stay home with Ezra because Hilary was constantly passing out from hunger and exhaustion after taking care of Joshua all day, so no money was ever earned and they were still living on the shithole front yard by the time Ezra reached school age. Joshua is, if I'm not mistaken, straddling the dangerous school-performance cusp, meaning some shenanigans will be required if he's to survive the four or five days left before he grows up. Pregnant Sims are exhausting.

[dylan]

Jeremy (BRO) (BRO) (M)
Elizabeth Crane (BRO) (GRA) (F)
Donovan (BRO) (BRO/gra) (T)
Emery (BRO) (BRO/gra) (T)

Jeremy's another throwback. The kids born to medium/fair parents are always kind of disappointing, because the tan coloring isn't really a good mix. I had to give Donovan the little short Afro to even remind myself he's supposed to be half black.

[farraday]

Claiborne (RED) (GRA) (D)
Janet Whitley (BRO) (GRA) (D)
Courtnie (BRO/red) (GRA) (D)
Jackson (BRO/red) (GRA) (D)

I thought the dark skin/gray eyes thing would be really exotic and sexy, but it turned out terribly. Courtnie looks like she has cataracts, and her cheeks are way too long.

[jin]

Trevor (BLA) (BRO) (F)
Keiko Hasegawa (BLA) (BRO) (F)
Aoki-Gisele (BLA) (BRO) (F)
Jahiro-Larousse (BLA) (BRO) (F)
Keyomi-Manet (BLA) (BRO) (F)

Every time I play the Jins, I think of O-Ren Ishii from Kill Bill, who was half-Japanese and half-Chinese, yet inexplicably spoke American-accented English when she wanted to emphasize a point. Trevor is Chinese. Keiko is Japanese but looks more Korean. The kids are just incredibly pale and totally bypassed the almond-shaped eyes they seemed sure to inherit. Trevor wears the sexy Eurotrash outfit with his black button-down unbuttoned down to his ribcage. Keiko wears the smoky gray evening gown and her hair in a sleek ponytail down her back. I'm thinking they said screw historic intercultural relations, we are too avant garde for that bullshit, and also, we want our children to have French names. Hence, Aoki-Gisele Jin. Et cetera. Unfortunate-looking kids, though.

[lesesne]

Brandon (BRO) (BRO) (D)
Jane Baxter (BLO) (GRE) (T)
Chase (BRO/blo) (BRO/gre) (M)
Tristan (BRO/blo) (BRO/gre) (M)
Julian (BRO/blo) (BRO/gre) (M)

Five hotties. Jane has a really distinctive upturned nose; Brandon has big, wide eyes and perfect lips. Chase, the daughter, got the best of her father's features; her brothers look just like Jane. The house is to die for but still unfurnished, so they're sleeping on the cheapest beds in a row on the front lawn. They play endless Myshuno and Chase already flirts with the boy she's going to marry instead of doing homework. No one can hold a job.

[marceau]

Keith (BLO) (BLU) (T)
Angelina Escher (BLA) (BRO) (D)
Christian (BLA/blo) (BRO/blu) (M)
Kyle (BLA/blo) (BLU/bro) (M)
Alicia (BLA/blo) (BRO/blu) (M)
Isabel (BLA/blo) (BRO/blu) (M)

Angelina is pronounced Angelina, with a long A at the beginning. Alicia is pronounced A-lish-a, and you are subject to correction if you get either one wrong. They were the family intended to have three kids and try for one more, except I could barey get them to WooHoo because everything was already in such disarray, the nanny wouldn't leave and there were no walls to keep the twin toddlers out; Alicia was on the floor crying, carpools came and left and I was praying the music wouldn't play, but it did. And so, Isabel.

[maxfield]

Reeve (BLA) (GRA) (F)
Natasha Reyes (BRO) (BRO) (M)

The childless couples always have the best houses. I motivate myself to keep playing them (because they're pretty boring otherwise) by promising to let them Try for Baby if they both get promoted to the tops of their respective career fields, but it rarely works out in the first generation, because no one has had the benefit of getting a jump on skill-building in toddlerhood, childhood and the teenage years. Still, I got really, really close with Reeve and Natasha. Reeve was done, Natasha was one Creativity skill point away on the day she hit menopause. It sucked, because I would have liked them to pass that nice black-and-pink house down to a kid, instead of a pair of strangers.

[sakura]

Gavin (BLA) (BRO) (T)
Georgia Bates (BRO) (BRO) (D)
Gabriel (BLA/bro) (BRO) (M)
Gia (BLA/bro) (BRO) (M)

This family was inspired by a family that used to live in our neighborhood. Japanese dad, black mom, and both parents used to always complain about how no one understood their kids were their kids when they took them out separately. Strangers would assume the mom was the nanny or that the dad had adopted or something. Ignorance. Gabriel and Gia are cute as buttons, and each one is a dead ringer for the same-sex parent, so, no confusion there.

[st. john]

William (BLA) (BRO) (D)
Laurel Patton (RED) (BRO) (T)
Jaden (BLA/red) (BRO) (M)

Jaden is who Chase is going to marry, for, again, the genetic possibilities, which excites me more than anything should that isn't an erect penis.

[tetrault]

Richard (RED) (BLU) (M)
Monica Ramos (RED) (GRE) (M)
Eja (RED) (BLU/gre) (M)

Throwbacks all around. Sometimes I get tired of thinking up new names, plus the whole Beckett fiasco really scared me.

[white]

Jonathan (BLO) (LBL) (T)
Amelia diScalia (BLA) (BRO) (T)
Annica (BLA/blo) (BRO/lbl) (T)

This one's kind of a shame. Jonathan's very pretty and Amelia's very eh (weird nose, jutty chin), but Jonathan's genes got seriously outmuscled in the making of Annica, who looks like some sort of animal in Uggs. Still, she's got that recessive blondness in her favor, so she's all Jaid's. (I actually think Jonathan and Amelia are both really close to graduating from their careers, but I forget whether there's time enough to roll the genetic dice again.)

[zorzos]

Christopher (BRO) (BRO) (M)
Andromache Redes (BLA) (BRO) (M)
Persephone (BRO/bla) (BRO) (M)
Calliope (BRO/bla) (BRO) (M)

Throwbacks.

*

Um...relevance, relevance.

Well. In the absence of anything to do this weekend, or anyone to do it with, I have a date tomorrow with Art. I have about twenty old magazines, a sketchpad full of matte paper and some rubber cement. I found a framing store on Spear Street, and I think tomorrow I'm going to turn on cable (this guy has every possible channel; I'm sure I've mentioned that), spread my materials out in front of the television and veg productively till I fall asleep in the exact same spot.

I really hope I have some friends by this time next week. I want to go to Alcatraz.