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Someone tell me what I'm building for this year's DragonCon.

This brought to you by the Beej coming over and showing me the costumes she's building, whereupon I went 'fuck, I need to start building for DC.' I know I need to build a new Cheetara costume, which, I might start with just getting some inexpensive spandex and making a mock-up of the design before I start cutting into the actual spandex I have, and then I also need to build a new Silk Spectre costume. So, clearly what I need is some throw-away spandex. Which I guess means I take an index of it tonight and then buy and build mock-ups over the next couple of weekends? ... Which, actually, come to think of it, shouldn't be that hard. Couple months' work all told. But after Cheetara and Silk Spectre, then what do I build? I'm seriously debating whether or not I want to do Tron again, on the one hand I've heard there will be a lot of Tron people, and on the other hand my success with lightwire has been minimal at best. Though I suppose I could at least take the time to build a proper Tron-like base for it this time, not a steampunk one. That went over like a lead balloon. And I do have Abby and, oh. I was going to do Faye Valentine. But Faye's easy. I might try and remember to do that this weekend.

So, help me, Obi Wan F-list. What the hell am I doing this year for Dragon*Con?

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I will soon be done with Chapter 11 in my German book, which is Kapitel Elf. My current Tolkien re-obsession will be sad, because that was terribly funny.

But, there. Redid yesterday's exercises once more with feeling, did an exercise for today. That's my act of virtue for the day, that must mean I don't have to put away the laundry or clean up the office or anything else for the rest of today, right? Right? No? Okay, no. At least there remains the possibility that the office will be easy to pick up and then I can spend the rest of the day doing laundry to the dulcet tones of either Jekyll or Person of Interest. Picking up that show for Murderboarding was one of the best decisions ever. And while I'm thinking of things I should do, actually, tossing a bunch of the trash into the garage to wait for the appointed massive trash pickup time should go in on that list. So, getting home, cleaning trash out of living room, doing Japanese, then cleaning office. Dinner is leftovers, so no worries there. And after the office maybe tackle the ginormous piles of clean and dirty laundry and get my clothes the fuck upstairs and into my dresser which is actually in my bedroom. Because we actually have all our damn furniture which means the house needs to stop looking like a disaster area any time now.

Also I think a broom and dustpan needs to permanently be stationed in the upstairs hallway because good christ it's a freaking ladybug invasion up there. I turn my back for five freaking minutes and fifty ladybugs are scattered all over the floor again. I mind those a lot less than the ants which attempted to take over my kitchen, but goddamn. This is not an insect sanctuary. Get the fuck out of my house. Go live in my garden, I hear that's good for everyone.

(Not that I have a garden yet, but MINOR DETAILS.)

Somehow this morning I managed to get into a brief discussion of how why the fuck is English the only language anyone in the discussion spoke where "to like" is a thing? Because all the other languages we speak either prefer the "X pleases Person" construction or have an entirely other construction. Like Irish. Which apparently goes "X is good with Person," except Irish is a verb-first language (which is WTF all on its own) so that it's more like "Is good with Person X." And then Japanese is "Person (which I am talking about) X (which is the thing in question) good/favored is." As best as I can translate. Japanese is weird because of particles and the way sentences are constructed anyway, and I'm not actually sure of the language family history there, but I'm sure it makes sense in greater linguistic context! And, okay, yes, Irish also has the phrase "X pleases Person" but why is English the odd language out? Freaking languages how do they work. Come to that, I wonder which is more commonly used in Russian, which has both, Person likes X or X pleases Person. I'm just so curious!

Yes, these are the things that occupy my brain while I'm packing boxes/stocking shelves/labeling things. Subject-Verb-Predicate/Subject-Predicate-Verb/Verb-Subject-Predicate ... what IS Irish, anyway? Wiki says it's Verb Subject Object (close enough) language, and apparently that's different from most of the Indo-European languages. It's certainly different from all the ones I know! So, what the hell, Gaelige? Anyway, yes, these are things I think about. I have geeky tastes. Shaddup.

And, you know, this is why I shouldn't be allowed to go through every Tolkien book I can find to cobble together a working knowledge of Khuzdul, Quenya, Sindarin, or any of the other damn conlangs. Seriously. I have other shit to do. Like clean house. And watch Person of Interest. And write. And blog. And soon, edit.

I just want to know what freaking battle cry that was Thorin was shouting at Azanulbizar. Dammit.

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And then I ended up writing The Company Goes To A Brothel. I do not know why. Or how. It just happened. It may or may not turn out to be porny, either. Which isn't exactly what you'd expect of a fic whose sole purpose is to put characters in a brothel, but hey.

This is another one of those times when I'm sure I had something more to say, but I can't remember what the hell it was. Blah blah heading home for putting together bed and vanity and doing blogwork, switching between the last Once episode and the Grimm essay on Wesen biology. I guess that was one of the other things, we had a commenter on our blog today who basically left a long rambling comment that definitely wasn't in fluent English and I'm not sure was meant to be coherent in any language of origin, to say that we were wrong and our blog wasn't very good and how could Audrey be with Duke when she was clearly meant to be with Nathan and the Writers Said So. Leaving aside the language issue (I tried translating it into Spanish to see if it made more sense there), I thought it was clear that we've been trying not to espouse any particular ship in Haven as A Thing That Is Happening. And equally clear about the fact that, yes, we have biases, let us show you them and establish that these are our biases, not Things That Are Happening. Between that and someone else a few days ago commenting "man, I expected better from you guys, you missed this that and the other thing" it left both of us going "jeez why do we bother this isn't fun" and wanting to pull blankets over our heads and hide.

Then we read some more positive feedback on the blog, remembered that we do this because it's fun and we're not terribly militant about EVERYONE READ THIS AND AGREE WITH US FOR WE ARE WISE (or I don't think we are)? And now we feel better.

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Okay. Weasels slain. At least for the moment, they'll respawn eventually. I've got my day job work done, I'm leaving early again today, I've got tasks lined up for this evening, I can do this. Especially with having gotten some momentum in my Grimm essay. Apart from my transitions I can probably actually do this, and what I might do is just write the individual chunks and then try and smash them together, since writing it straight through isn't going nearly as well as it usually does. Thank Thoth or someone for outlining beforehand.

We got the washer installed today! Now we just need to plug in the dryer and the hard part of that is going to be getting it through the utility room to garage door. Which we then need to put back on its hinges or something. Oops. But, apparently the washer? Was teleported in from the future. I shit you not, I mean, I know it's been a while since I've used a new washer or anything but goddamn. Do these things really need 20-25 settings? Steam wash, delicate wash, bleach wash, pre-wash, child safety wash? I don't know, I only remember a small fraction of them, the boy told me that I have to read the manual before I use it and I actually think he might be right. Which is rather frightening because I've been using a washer and dryer since I was a teenager.

Still, that means I can actually go through clothes, sort them out, do some damn laundry which is good because I was running out of clean clothes, and figure out what needs to get packed up for spring/summer and what needs to get packed up for Goodwill and what needs to get sent upstairs to the craft room. Because I think ultimately I'm going to just make a quilt out of my old t-shirts that I can't bring myself to throw away but that really aren't in decent shape anymore. I do want to re-buy two t-shirts, Good Morning Sinners and Gutter Ballet specifically. Those can both wait, though.

And then when all that's done I can actually, gasp, shock, put clothes in my dresser. What a revolutionary concept! Not quite yet, though. At the moment I can only wash as many clothes as I can hang up to dry, since the dryer didn't get hooked up, since the boy was pretty much home on his own and there was no way he was going to get the dryer into the utility room on his own. That's tomorrow, though. Today... well, there's more than enough work to deal with today.

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I would like it noted for the record that today I have done my damn doctor's appointment, picked up my prescription, visited the bank like a motherfucking adult, did all my day job work in good time, did my morning exercise routines, did my morning languages last night in good time, did my afternoon languages, and otherwise have been a goddamn fucking paragon of organization.

Can I fall over now? No? Okay then.

This week is sort of epitomizing the reward for work well done is more goddamn work. I have no idea why I am so spoonless but I am starting to count them like Bilbo after a visit from Lobelia Sackville Baggins. And yes I am still Hobbit obsessed, hence the allusion, but right now all I have the brain for is not so much dorking and reciting the poetry as staring at Thorin pounding something in the smithy. As in forging, you dirty-minded people. I would never set that up on purpose. Never ever. (Though speaking of Thorin, am I the only one who caught some of the long shots of Thorin running and thought, that is the longest-limbed dwarf I have ever seen? No? Okay, good. Seriously, PJ, Armitage, I love you, but Armitage is six foot fucking two inches tall and looks it. Even with camera tricks and CGI.)

I need a nap. I need a good long nap, I need my weekends not to be taken up with unpacking and shit like that, I need sleep. I need a weekend where I can just curl up somewhere in a sunbeam, maybe on the sun porch, and read for hours and hours on end. I'm not likely to get that anytime soon, but I would like that. I suppose it could be worse, I could be in the boy's position of not getting a solid chunk of sleep for two days. Still feel exhausted. I have poached egg eyes. You know that feeling where you're so tired your eyes feel like they're boiling in their sockets or something? Poached egg eyes. I have hit that level of ugh. On the plus side, we have not been yelling at each other or snapping our heads off because we're both overtired, and I consider that a major victory.

... Oh dear lord I just looked at the essay list for Grimm I just set myself up for, including one on Wesen biology and a forthcoming one on the Women of Grimm as soon as the When You're At Home sequence finally gets killed off. What the hell am I doing to myself.

Anyway. Okay, writers, let's get writing.

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My to-write list involves a number of different fandoms including the Dark Knight movies, The Changeover, Plunkett & Macleane, and Darkover. My brain is currently either stuck in Moria or tromping to Erebor with Fili and Kili. Send. Help.

On the plus side, did get Duke's profile done and out on Murderboarding. Slowly getting back into the swing of things there, we're working on churning down the Once Upon A Time episodes we've decided to do (the Pilot, Desperate Souls or Skin Deep, and another K&H episode) and watching a bunch of Person of Interest the better to start posting those. And once Haven's out, we should be in time to post the back episode recaplyses of that as well. And. Okay, most of this is already outlined on the documents we use to keep our drafts, but it's organizing my head, okay?

I need to decide if I want to go out to Knoxville this weekend and hit up the used bookstore and see The Hobbit again at the IMAX. Argh. I mean, on the one hand, 2 hour drive both ways ugh. And on the other hand, life-sized trolls! And 3 more hours of Thorin Smokin'shield. And on the other hand, longass drive. During which I could get knitting done, it's true. Debate debate. I guess it also depends on how much I get done this week, since I won't be able to write on the road or while in K-ville. And on the other hand, bookstore of huge. And I do have a list of books I want to get to study the Greek, Egyptian, and Latin. Whaaaat.

Yeah, still too much to do and not enough brain to figure out what order I'm doing it in, let alone if I have enough time. Which I guess means it's time to just start setting them up and knocking them down. Errands first, and then sitting down and doing computer stuff. Computer stuff that does NOT INVOLVE MORIA DO YOU HEAR ME BRAIN.

My brain isn't listening to me. Stupid brain.

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It is, in fact, so dead at work, that I spent most of the morning with A discussing how we would insert ourselves into The Hobbit to smack some sense into Thorin during the Arkenstone debacle, and then what having a sensible, back to his wise(ish) ruling self Thorin would do to the time between Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Somehow this led to "GET THEE AN HEIR" and which of Kili and Fili would have children most likely to be a suitable heir, assuming Thorin didn't find himself a wife and have lots of little stupidly attractive dwarf children. And sitting on Thorin's head to keep him from going and dealing with Moria. And and and.

I am not writing that one. I have four NYRs to work on and Talia Wayne AU, which is still in progress because Bane/Talia FOR EVER. For various values of Bane/Talia ranging from asexual yet lifebonded to parners and lovers and parents till death do they part or not even then.

Biscuits happened over the weekend, with the discovery that I can in fact make pretty decent buttermilk biscuits and not fuck it up, except for the getting flour everywhere. Which tends to happen during baking. Buttermilk biscuits and stewed chicken, and yesterday grilled chicken with herbs from my garden. You guys I actually plucked things from my windowsill garden and put them onto food! And it was delicious. Om nom nom. There may have to be more baking this coming weekend but today/tonight/tomorrow there will be replacing showerheads and mopping MORE floors (seriously, we mop three times and the water still turns this nasty gray-brown halfway through) and possibly starting to peel the wallpaper off the spare bedroom so we can get that painted up and ready to be moved in. Because Pixie's coming in February and AUGH. My house is FILTHY AND NOT SUITABLE FOR COMPANY.

... Oh, hey, I'm on chapter 'elf.' Yes, Elf means Eleven in German. I'm going to laugh anyway.

... Oh, hey, my Japanese book part 1 arrived. That's timely. I'm supposed to start that tonight. And my base/top coat for nail polish, which means once I get that replacement screw for my vanity I can get all THAT unpacked and do that, even if I'm not feeling the beauty very much today because sharks. Fucking sharks. Eh, another day or two and I should be feeling it more, though, which should coincide with everything being unpacked. Which means that the last of my new courtesanly tools are in, which means it's time to get started on all the projects for the coming year. 2013 I am ready for you. Do not disappoint me.

Just in case 2013 starts off disappointing, I present to you, Thorin Dreamboatshield: An Unexpected Hotness of Dwarves

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Only another hour or so before I can go home and change into sweatpants that don't feel weird on my menstrually bloated body and curl up and maybe sleep until this phase of the biological cycle is over.

So, got home, did some housecleaning and lost and found a cat a couple of times, and now am comfortably settled in watching V for Vendetta, like you do when it's the 5th of November and suddenly a lot of the hyperbole in that movie doesn't seem quite so hyperbolic, and it's not even your own country's history anyway. Well, not directly. And yet I can kind of see things heading that way. Well, the V for Vendetta direction, not the way of the circumstances that led to Guy Fawkes' little escapade.

Of course, now that I have fifty things to write I've been bunnied again for a Talia and Bane and Bruce AU where Thomas Wayne somehow manages to find Talia and Bane shortly after the Pit and fixes Bane up (or at least starts to) and protects them both and starts them on LOADS OF THERAPY THAT THEY SO SORELY NEED and, well, you know. And. Things. And now it's gnawing at my brain and it won't go away.

Nano first, though. Or Anna will kill me.

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Yep! Subjunctive still sucks hate. I suspect I will have this argument every damn time I come across it in any language. Prepositions suck hate too but at least I can practice them with relative ease. La souris est sous la table. Le chat est sur la chaise. El ratón es (de)bajo de la mesa. El gato es encima de la silla. Der Maus ist unter den Tisch. I could do this all day in many languages but I should actually do the damn German exercises.

This is possibly my favorite and, in my opinion, the badassest response to Mourdock's dumbshit quote of the week. Basically saying that you do not know God's will and saying that you do in order to interfere with a decision that is none of your business is arrogant at best and sacreligious at possible worst. If you don't know about Mourdock's dumbshit quote I can give you a precis in comments, but I'm pretty sure everyone's sick of that one by now, too. I will say, reading some of that article and some of other people's responses to it gave me a perspective on the quote that I hadn't considered before. Which did not lead me to think he's any less of a jackass, but some things I hadn't considered.

I've come to the conclusion that when I say 'things and stuff' what I really mean is the stuff needs to stop happening so I can do my things. Spent the better part of this morning trying to be at least two people at once and get both people's task lists done. You can guess how well that worked. Still, it's quieted down some, and it wasn't as busy as it could have been so I managed maybe to be one and a half people at once? Maybe. Took care of contacting everyone about house and inspections and things, so that's done. I got my conclusion up on the latest Haven essay, so that can go up. Preferably early enough for people not to confuse it with the episode analysis/recap. And then this evening there will be errands and TV shows and I actually feel like I have some modicum of control over my life! That never happens! Or at least it hasn't happened lately, with everything that I have to do. And, you know, I still have a pile of unfinished stories, but once I'm home I can tackle that, in between packing. Work's been ludicrous enough that I don't actually expect to be able to get any writing done here. The second I turn my back something will come up, I swear.

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I have no idea why an 'a' keeps wanting to creep into 'Deutsch.' No a, fingers. Learn better.

It's been a day. That morning did not make anything any better, and it's just plain been a day. No sign of anything out of James Purefoy, which means that email that freaked me out this morning was for nothing. Alas. I demand some kind of ego-stroking gratification if I'm going to be diving under my desk, dammit! Maybe that was Twitter burping for some reason, who knows. And there's been some other stuff and all in all, I'm glad it's Friday.

For my own porpoises and other marine life, things I have to do. Well, first I have to finish this order since apparently my shipping is not done for the day as I thought. Then knit that test cuff/gauge swatch for the arm warmers. Then cast on and start knitting the arm warmers. Do some Memrise before going home. Go home, chop up and cook all the chicken, settle in and finish line edits on Black Ice, then start finishing some WIPs. Watch Supernatural season 1 while poking at WIPs. Saturday is all the analysis ever and packing and then WIPs, Sunday is working on the house, pulling down the vines trying to take over the garage, maybe pulling down the icky drywall in the garage too. We'll see. And I need to work out a watering schedule with the boy while workers are still in the house. Which fortunately won't be much longer.

Oh god, that means I get to start spending money on furniture. Eek. Fortunately there's only a short list of furniture and appliances we really need, and the rest we can sort of sock money away for. Plus, Craigslist. And the ReStore. Come on, self, there's plenty of places you can get decent tables, end tables, shit like that. Calm down.

(We now pause for a moment while I freak out over the fact that I am furnishing a house. A fucking awesome house, I might add. Squee!)

Absolutely nothing I have seen so far inclines me to watch Elementary, which leaves me feeling rather sad. The positive fan responses don't sufficiently counterbalance my initial take of with fifty plus stories in the original why the hell did you feel the need to make up a mystery for the pilot?? and at least one review interpreting their Holmes-Watson as going back to the Holmes-Bastard Watson-long-suffering leaves me with I'll take that in Cumberbatch-Freeman form, thanks. At least Freeman's schtick is that he's long-suffering, whether it's an abusive partner or the absurdities of the universe or being hauled off on adventures by dwarves. I'd say this is a plea for people to find me reasons to watch it, only it's not so much that as a quiet whine and needing to go curl up with my Collected Works. Which are packed and in the garage. Fuck.

Still tired. Tired tired. I want my guitar, but it's still tucked behind the amp. On the other hand, the rest of the boxes are out of the way, maybe I should just move the amp, convince the boy we need to take over the TV stand so that's out of the way, and break out the damn guitar. Since that's not going anywhere until we're actually living in the house. Still need to catch up on any of the TV ever. Maybe this weekend will also be Warehouse 13 weekend, after analysis. Someone remind me of that later. When I have brain cells. And am not at work. Mostly that second one.