| The snow plow came by. |
[Feb. 7th, 2010|05:00 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | home | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  nostalgic | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Muse - Butterflies & Hurricanes | ] |
What tops shoveling four feet of plow-packed snow?
Shoveling four feet of packed snow with two cute young guys. Talked about teaching, grad school, figure skating, skiing, and the Olympics.
An offer to help me shovel in the future? Why yes, thank you kindly. |
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| Muse scheduled another concert - Baltimore, March 3rd! |
[Feb. 7th, 2010|11:30 am] |
Muse scheduled another concert - Baltimore, March 3rd!
Uh. I can get there, but I can't get home without, oh, renting a car.
I don't suppose any of you are Muse fans. And would like to go to a concert this March?
Inspiration:
And:
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| Snowmageddon. :) |
[Feb. 6th, 2010|09:45 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | home | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  cheerful | ] |
Snow, snow, snow.
Woke up this morning under a pile of warm kitties and the hush of a snow bound home.
In DC we have snow to our thighs and it's still coming. About 20" so far. Falling 1-2" an hour.
It looked like inside of a snow globe yesterday. The light, teeny flakes filled the air, drifting down from a white sky. The grass coated in white at first, barely sticking. But the trees were frosted.
By evening a thick blanket covered everything. Damp snow stuck to the windows.
Now deckchairs are mounded lumps. Landscaping has disappeared under waves of white. Tree branches bend to the ground. We have to theorize the location of the driveway.
Work is closed today. Looks like my Superbowl plans are off.
Good day to write, eh? |
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| SPN and SGA recs: Suicidal in the Morning & |
[Feb. 1st, 2010|04:09 am] |
I consistently like Musesfool's work, but every now and then one of her stories truly stands out.
Suicidal in the Morning. Supernatural. Sam and Dean, PG
Powerful and simple. The story is exactly what the title says: Dean Winchester contemplates various ways to commit suicide and then talks himself out of it. His self-deprecation and practicality keeps this story from being a bleak trip down a toilet bowl of misery. It's quite clear he doesn't intend to go through with it. But he has to work to keep himself going, every day. I understand Dean at the end of this story. More than that, I respect him.
Now for something completely different.
I asked my f-list for believable MPreg with excellent characterization and a compelling story. (Hey, hope springs eternal.)
Guess what? They found it.
Surrogate by Seekergeek, McShep, NC-17 bordering on R.
We all know John is completely crazy. We also know Rodney, though a egocentric jerk, is more willing to sacrifice himself than he'd ever admit. In Surrogate the two of them play a fine game of "bug on a windshield" for each other. Just when you think John sacrificing his life (again) is big--he sacrifices even more.
Surrogate opens with a tense action-adventure plot, then turns into a warm and gentle romance; MPreg for those who hate MPreg.
Seekergeek slays all the MPreg tropes. She wisely avoids a lurid focus on the baby and instead draws a bead on the tenuous relationship between John and Rodney. The baby is no magic "true love" formula, in fact, there is a considerable amount of denial surrounding the situation. Rather than romanticizing the stages and signs of pregnancy (the bile rises as I recall some MPregs I've read), we see the whole process through John's battle plan mentality. Particularly interesting are Seekergeek's insights into the issues that MPreg would create: she doesn't pan the camera past slapstick reactions but explores tough issues that would arise, the double standards, the say the military has over John's life, the personal exposure this would bring to a very private man.
I chewed my nails throughout and read quickly, on the edge of my seat. How could this ever work out for John? Even as all the typical problems of MPreg (the attitudes of his men, his team) fell away quickly. The big problems that I'd never considered loomed large. Because John is crazy to do this. Absolutely crazy. And I'm not surprised he did. |
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| Merlin fic and cars driving into the Twilight |
[Feb. 1st, 2010|02:43 am] |
I really like this Merlin fic I'm writing for the Help Haiti lightning round. I keep rereading the first section from Uther's POV and grinning. I need to stop reading it an move on to the next part.
Yep.
I read, and reread my first scene of my story, delighting in it instead of writing the rest like I was supposed to.
Not exactly writing the Lightning Round fics at lightning speed. Part of that's due to limited computer time and new work schedule, too. I desperately need the extra work hours, but I realized this week I've only had one day off a week.
So much going on, from the car search (seriously, Maryland has a 6% excise tax on auto purchases - shit), to working around two people's schedules, to the stuff with WG, to school applications, to the work search, to the bloody problems with the bank (don't ask).
God, so nice to have Sunday off though. Milked it for all it was worth. Stayed up half of Saturday night watching Twilight (why do people hate Twilight again? I was just like this as a teenager. Wished that I had magical power over the male half of the species, which seemed both powerful, fascinating, and distant). Now staying up most of Sunday night. I'll get a two-day weekend out of this if I have to stay up to do it. :D
I'm doing research on cars, looking at what's out there.
( Stumbled across this by accident, not in my price range. But I'm in lust. )
But. If I must have a car, I'll take that one, thank you. It oozes sex.
Which I imagine is why we have so many cars. |
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| SGA fics |
[Jan. 29th, 2010|01:57 am] |
SGA fans, I'm on a recs hunt. I'm in the mood for someone who has done SGA MPreg well. No. Seriously. Has anyone managed to pull it off? |
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| New Lightning Round for Help_Haiti. |
[Jan. 28th, 2010|12:49 pm] |
Missed your chance to peruse the offerings at Help Haiti?
Midterm kept you from participating?
Fear not! There's a new Lightning Round to keep the help pouring in.
Help Haiti has been an amazing success, already raising $73,680 in confirmed donations.
And on that note, my Help Haiti Lightning Round fics continue on apace ... and about four times the maximum length, of course. |
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| The story of the stupas in three parts. |
[Jan. 28th, 2010|11:30 am] |
Flashback... The story of the stupas in three parts.
Part one
In 1991, I helped build these. By April the project was far, far behind, tangled up in wrangling over who's in charge of what. I rode with the foreman, Mark, back from the job site one evening, bumping over ruts in the road, the sun low. Temps had hit 100 degrees and the weather was musty-muggy.
He complained about the wrangling. "We have six months to do this. Six months. And they're dicking around!"
I listened for a bit. Finally voiced what I'd been thinking. "We have to get ahead of schedule."
"What?"
"We have to get ahead of schedule."
"We're behind schedule right now. And that schedule's as tight as a virgin's--well, anyway, we're already behind."
"So we have to get ahead," I said with the certainty of John Belushi in the Blues Brothers. "We need to get so far ahead that when all the usual problems crop up we'll have time for them."
His jaw dropped.
"I'll find a way," I said.
He stared. "You're crazy."
"Where there's a will there's a way."
After a moment he shook his head. "I believe you." And laughed. "You're crazy, but I believe you. Which probably makes me crazy, too."
"Everyone knows you're crazy, Mark."
We laughed at our insanity, somehow certain that we were going to put this project ahead of schedule.
Part two tomorrow: Is it broken? |
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| A day in the life of an average Buddhist. |
[Jan. 28th, 2010|10:52 am] |
Been grumpy all week. Predictably. *looks at the calendar and that time of the month*
Had to knock my mind off the angry treadmill last night (WG this, grumble-grumble-grumble, work that, grumble-grumble, mom the other thing, grumble, housing situation, grumble-grumble-grumble...), remind myself that this is just hormones, my mood's not real, this is just hormones, the mood's not real. Switched over to Vajrasattva, my favorite practice. That worked for a bit.
But getting a letter from the university demanding $75 for a book WG kept didn't help. Grrr.
Clicked on Austen's Sense and Sensibility (worked nine hours straight w/o a break, and got home at 10:30 so Obama's speech would've been wasted on me). Fell asleep to the mumble of upper crust Britishness.
This morning woke up to two kitties snuggled close. Patches on top of the covers, tucked behind my knees. Cally under the covers, cuddled close. Did morning practice in my mind, not moving so I wouldn't disturb them.
Kitties know what to do when you're grumpy. |
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| Canned laughter and eHarmony dinged for GLBT discrimination. |
[Jan. 27th, 2010|11:13 am] |
eHarmony settles lawsuit that it discriminated against gay users.
As part of the settlement, eHarmony will no longer have a separate site for GLBT users, which forced some to pay duplicate fees.
Frankly, I don't like eHarmony. The site won't let free users delete photos or their profiles. As a result the site appears huge but in reality has an extraordinary number of dead accounts. And they keep matching people to those dead accounts, on and on.
It reminds me of that canned laughter on sitcoms. It was recorded in the 1950s. The people laughing died long ago. |
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| Dictionary banned. Trying to figure out how this played out. |
[Jan. 26th, 2010|02:13 pm] |
From ![[profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) villainny:
Dictionary banned in California
Picturing how this played out.
Kid: "Vagina, vagina, poop, pee, blow job, oral sex -- hahahahaheehee!"
Teacher: "I am shocked."
Kid: "Yay!"
Teacher: "You may not say such words!"
Kid: "But it's in the dictionary."
Teacher: *bans dictionary*
PTA: Yay! |
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| Stealing minutes for fandom. |
[Jan. 26th, 2010|01:48 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fandom | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  frustrated | ] |
Grabbed as much time as I could on the internet this morning. I have more important things to do (court case things, work things, RL things).
I don't care. I posted fic. Replied to LJ comments. Commented on meta.
I am well aware that I'm both tired and PMS-y today. I am also well aware that I interneted right through lunch. (Given the flexibility of English that's a verb and I'm sticking to it.)
In my own place, I'd just grab some leftovers before work.
Being at mom's, she made lunch. Then came downstairs to tell me she made lunch. I can feel the impatience with my internetting (still a verb).
I don't care if I have food made for me. I hate this. I don't need my lunch made for me.
I feel like I'm just barely in touch with my friends in fandom and I miss you.
ETA: And then mom brings me lunch to eat in front of the computer. You know what? I still want my own pad, my own computer, my own life back. I am so angry at WG for stealing everything I own and making this so much harder. |
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| Snags internet time. Posts fics. Runs. |
[Jan. 26th, 2010|01:39 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | sga fics | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  listless | ] |
Fic posted!
Next: attempt to score enough online time to fix my website.
In the meantime:
Star Drive, SGA, John-centric
Ten thousand years ago, a cabal of militant anti-Ascensionists had a plan to force the Ancients to stand and fight the Wraith. Now all they need is John Sheppard to set it into motion.
The Pandora Effect, SGA, John/Woolsey, others
Richard avoids entanglements by focusing his affections on someone safely out of reach. Usually. But in the midst of a battle with the Wraith, an uncomfortable alliance, and disruptions on Atlantis, he is offered everything he desires.
Ficlets:
The Other Side Of Oblivious, SGA, McShep
Rodney had dreamed of it for years. He and Colonel Sheppard, retired, living together. The fantasy had been so strong, so lived-in -- even before it became a reality -- that it took a while for Rodney to notice. His hot military boyfriend had a definite roll over his waistband.
Toasty Goodness and the Marshmallow Creature, SGA, John and Rodney friendship
The gateroom lights flashed, sirens and alarms screamed over each other, techs raced to fix the iris. All in all it was a pretty good show. It was also pretty damned useless. |
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| Figure skating: yeah, I thought Flatt was a little flat. |
[Jan. 26th, 2010|01:36 pm] |
Yes, I thought Rachel Flatt's gold-winning performance at Nationals was a little ... flat.
How did she win? Apparently there was a long, complicated explanation at Nationals that NBC didn't air.
The new scoring system has many, many critics. How does one score art? I agree with Evan Lysacek that Nagasu (silver) had the passionate firey performance. I blinked when Flatt won. A definite "Huh?" moment.
Still, both Flatt and Nagasu both proved they are the top women in skating, beating the old guard, Emily Hughes and Sasha Cohen, who made a play for the Olympic seats. Sasha's program was not technically difficult enough, and Emily isn't in top form.
I don't follow women's skating but Nationals was a great show. For the first time I think we're sending our best to the Olympics. |
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| Help_Haiti Merlin fic ... featuring evil wizards and sword fights. |
[Jan. 26th, 2010|01:15 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | merlin | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  sad today | ] |
Yesterday I finished writing (hand-writing because of limited online time) my first Help Haiti fic.
It's a Merlin fic featuring an evil sorcerer, a sword fight, and (yes) babies in jars.
What? That was the prompt. It's a very evil sorcerer. The sort of villain you want to die.
Are, um, any of you in the Merlin fandom and available for beta-ing?
Did I just scare you off? |
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| Haiti: going forward |
[Jan. 25th, 2010|01:54 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | politics | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | quiet | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | the sound of the vacuum. | ] |
As we write our Help Haiti fics (the Merlin "Babies in jars" prompt is going along nicely) a few thoughts on the how of aid to Haiti.
Brookings article points out that apparently Haiti's governmental agencies weren't in good shape to start.
Granted, the Brookings Institute is probably more centrist than I am. But the point that we should funnel aid through community leaders rather than Haiti's weak-to-nonexistent (and frequently corrupt) government agencies is well taken.
After all, Haiti's president hid under a bucket after the quake. |
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| Taking the morning train. |
[Jan. 24th, 2010|06:19 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | work | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | peaceful | ] |
At 5:30am Friday morning I slapped my alarm into submission and forced myself awake. No cats in the room. Hmm. Rare. Usually I rate at least one cat. They must have seen me set the alarm.
Checked the weather report. The wintery mix (read: pellets of face-pocking ice) hadn't materialized yet.
By 6:30 the sky was blue-dark, the lake still. Frozen. Caught a brisk breeze heading over the bridge and zipped my coat higher. The train station was farther than I thought.
Deer startled in the brush off to the side, their fluffy white tails like flags of surrender. Then I hit the little lane to the station. The pavement old and crumbled in places. The air peaceful and quiet. Trees lit by the streetlights.
Three or four people waited for the Marc train in their cars, sipping coffee, their tail lights red. A freight train passed, its grumbling racket broken by the trees. After it passed, I stood on the platform next to man who radiated retired military, briefcase in hand. Black tree branches were sketched against the dark blue sky.
The Marc train hooted, that happy sound. Its headlight approached slowly. It was five minutes late. Glad I was late, too. Definitely cold.
The conductors were all in their sixties with twinkles in their eyes. They sold me a ticket on the train and used the old fashioned hole punches. Seemed amused by me. Not sure why. Maybe the beaming grin. I love trains.
I stepped on board in a wash of warmth. Plush leather seats double-wide. Everyone on the train was in a business suit with either a newspaper or laptop. Expensive wool coats and fashionable haircuts, bound for DC. Hushed and peaceful.
I wanted to write but couldn't resist the view.
The train threaded through forest and over a bridge. A meandering river shone slightly more blue than the shadow trees around it. We paused at the next stop, a major one. Here people stood in a snaking line to board. Yes, my little station was definitely the place to get on. Parking was free, too. (Not that I had a car.)
My trip was too short.
I alighted (it's the proper train phrase) at a train station preserved from 100 years ago. The original carved seats and a plaque on the wall honoring a railway man who tried to save a child at this station in 1927 (both perished). A lamp post with a clock that reminds me of an oversized pocket watch marked the station.
Here I pulled out my notebook and outlined my Help_Haiti stories as daylight crept in. The wintry mix began, pellets of ice bouncing off the sidewalk. The rest of my trip would be by bus in an area where bus travel is mostly done by the rough sort that spits on the sidewalk.
I decided to bask in the aura of the train a little longer. Not a bad way to travel. |
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| Help_Haiti fics in the works |
[Jan. 24th, 2010|05:46 pm] |
At work on the Help_Haiti stories (hello, generous donors! *waves*).
The Merlin fic with the Eviel Wizardes of Malbrathe Castle is already three times the planned length.
This may be a trend.
I know, I know. The deadline for the Lightning Round fics was Jan. 22nd. I had them outlined by then. But honestly (Hermione sigh) who sets a fanfic deadline before the weekend? |
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| Why yes, I am still writing. |
[Jan. 21st, 2010|10:42 am] |
Recent conversation about fics and writing...
Friend: You haven't been writing much lately.
Me: What about the 40,000 or so words I wrote in December and November?
Friend: You wrote something?
Me: Two somethings.
Friend: Really? You should post about that.
Thought I had.
But I did spend a couple years dedicated to Out Of Bounds. I can see why we'd be out of the habit of expecting (other) fic.
Plus, usually I post my stories everywhere. I've had limited online time (about an hour or so a day) so I haven't had the time to hit the archives. Yet.
Watch this space. I will post once those stories are available on the various archives and my site.
My massive WIP is done. I'm now editing it down to size ... and writing other things.
Currently in the works:
- An SGA/SPN crossover that starts with a drag race between Dean Winchester and John Sheppard.
- An SGA/HP crossover where a suspicious young Rodney McKay is given his letter to Hogwarts by Dumbledore, and doesn't buy it. He has perfectly logical scientific explanations for all the supposed "magic" around him.
- A Merlin fic where Arthur and Merlin must contend with an evil sorcerer who gains his power through dastardly means.
- A longer Percy fic where Percy's left the wizarding world and Harry has to track him down and convince him to return. |
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still awake, yipe
bouncy
writingwriting