kittydesade | Entries tagged with language: russian

( Russian: still horrible, and not in the difficult way )

Keep moving. Do the Russian, do the languages, do the writing. Keep moving. Instead of shark week I've hit shark mode. Keep swimming, don't stop. On the plus side shark mode is not like red queen mode, it's not a constant run, it's just a constant keep moving, even if it's crawling on one's hands and knees.

Speaking of hands and knees, I really need to start in on the kink bingo.

Hopefully this upswing is more of an upswing now that I'm away from boy issues (he is getting taken out behind the coal shed and beaten for SO MANY REASONS RIGHT NOW) and have gotten some goddamn sleep. The lack of sleep is not the boy's fault. The crushing disappointment of yesterday is not entirely the boy's fault, though sleeping through what I thought was our intended dinner and a movie date is. Along with the ants. ... Okay, that's really the extent of his crimes for now, but I still ... he is on my last nerve right now, and I don't have many left. But as far as other things go, I may be stabilizing. I just seem to have hit the point where it takes very little to tip me over. Which means at least one extra hour of sleep, being more careful than usual about not overdosing on cheap sugar and eating balanced meals, and getting my exercise. The more physical components of depression I can alleviate the better.

Yes, I said the D word. For those of you in the cheap seats, SITUATIONAL DEPRESSION. Not the fucking other one. I am not ill with a chronic illness, though if that comes to play I will dolefully murder everyone. I have SITUATIONAL depression. Which is a goddamn head injury. Yes, this is a sore point right now, I have not bitten anyone for it yet, but let's get our terms straight. If for no other reason than chronic/severe/etc, long term forms of depression are treated VERY differently than situational depression. And if anyone tries to treat me for long term depression I will alleviate my situational depression by punching them repeatedly till they go away. Treatments or suggestions for situational depression, on the other hand, are much welcome. Money, gifts, chocolate. Booze. Cabana boys. That sort of thing.

.... Okay, so that button's still there. Good to know. The other possibility is that instead of getting better with sleep and minding my food is that I'm on an upswing and will soonish crash, which will suck. I'm keeping an eye out for that.

Um. Okay, no, I have way too much shit to do. By the numbers: Gods and Monsters by THIS EVENING, edit the fuck out of Blood in the Gutters, two Kink Bingos that I have vaguely planned, and one other thing. Clean house, make the boy finish pinning up my goddamn hem so I can fucking hem that costume and finish Huntress and be done with it, finish weeding/cutting down all the fucking pokeberries and ailanthus. Because they're pissing me off. That's not actually a depression related thing either, they've been pissing me off for a while, I'm just now writing about it 'cause I actually cut down the pokeberry that was in my way this morning. Too much shit to do. At least work is slacking up for a day or so. Oh god, and I have a dentist appointment tomorrow morning. Don't wanna. Might actually bite the hygienist.

Crossposts: http://kittydesade.livejournal.com/1118771.html

( Russian still has triggery things. )

I need a hot shower with steel wool now. The hard part about doing these types of exercises is you have to essentially give testimony and ask questions about various types of assault, so you can both ask the right questions and recognize the answers without having to look in a dictionary too much. And ew.

I would like to declare my deep, abiding, and joyful love for John Scalzi. That is all.

Okay, that isn't entirely all. I'm also amused at how now that he's not the SFWA President any longer he seems to feel much freer to call people out on behaving like a sexist/racist/other-ist asshole, on feeling that such behavior is their given right and if you don't like it too bad you're not thick-skinned enough, etc. Really deeply amused. It also makes me feel like the SFWA needs a Blackstaff, someone whose job it is to say all the shit that the rest of us are thinking, like, "You're being a fucking asshole, shut the fuck up and stop treating people like crap you unmitigated dickcheese." Except really, everyone has that freedom, except possibly elected officials who are expected to behave with a modicum of dignity. And most of them do! And those that don't, I think, are most likely to be part of the problem rather than calling out the problem.

Ugh. This weekend will be all the cleaning all the time, and writing when I'm not cleaning. Which isn't actually as bad as it sounds as long as I stay efficient about it and give myself plenty of sit down and rest time. Costume building can wait. I finally gave in and ordered a couple pairs of the black cargo type pants I was thinking about using for a TRON base, because I haven't come up with anything better, and will wear either a jacket with lightwire over a tank top or a leotard, maybe, with lightwire on it? I can't decide. I feel a bit weird for not going with the spandex/latex-and-light-tape aesthetic. Like I'm an inferior cosplayer. But while I can rock the spandex aesthetic for things like Cheetara and Huntress, I'm not sure I can do it for Tron. At least, not yet. Insufficient lightwire expertise, and I'm just enough of a costume snob to want lightwire or lighttape instead of reflective tape. So, fine, paramilitary Tron it is.

But this weekend, cleaning and writing. Writing and cleaning. And editing. I keep getting closer and closer to releasing this thing into the wild, and I keep freaking out about it. More and more. This is ... I don't know what this is, good thing or bad thing. It's interesting, I'll put it that way.

Crossposts: http://kittydesade.livejournal.com/1118449.html

( Russian still has triggery things. )

Not included in today's Russian: "Who's head do I have to smash? Whose bits do I have to stomp? Whose nose do I have to break?" Because in a crisis that is less than helpful. I think the next chunk of Russian I translate, though, will be a list of offenses so that I can recognize them when other people say them. Or say them myself, should I need to make a police report in Russian for some unknown reason, since I don't plan on traveling to Russia anytime soon.

And if someone wants me to translate this into Spanish/French/German immediately rather than when I have some time, let me know?

I finally finished my freaking white stripe down the black unitard for Huntress! That only took forever and a data figure because I had to figure out that I should probably baste it first, then re-position it after I sewed it at a funny angle. Yay. Still, that's done, which I think means tonight I finish the hem on the Huntress cloak so that's done. Finish the leotard, then all I need is to wait for the shipment of leather to come in to see what we have in purples. If I'm very lucky I can make pouches from that (I tried to make pouches from fabric but they ended up not working as well as I wanted, and I'm feeling too lazy to rebuild) and if not, well, I'll make gloves and pouches and everything from the fabric I have. No biggie. And that's that costume done but for the mask. Which I'm paying someone else to do, so. Yay!

At this rate. I'm much less worried about getting my other costumes built in time for Dragon*Con. That's three costumes I've built this year that will be ready in time, one costume that hasn't changed much in the three or four years, and only two costumes to build over maybe the next couple months. Depending on how I decide to do it. I might cut fabric sometime next week and drag Anna on periodic maybe hour long tours of "and this is how I costume!" :P (Translation: I might baste shit together and make sure it all fits properly while we watch TV.) Anyway. I can live with this!

I feel I should have something pithy or angry to say about what's going on in the world, and in my state, but I can't muster up the energy. I think at this point I have to save it for passing on information and doing other daily life things, and I feel terrible about that, but... there's only so much energy I have. I feel like it's enabling those fucking jackholes to get away with it. But I'm not sure what I can do right now, that I have the energy to do. Maybe I'll write some nasty letters this weekend. It won't stop them from voting our rights to unhindered health care away, but at least the truth will be where it needs to be.

Ugh. To do when I get home, because now I'm dripping wet from going out in the rain to deposit the damn mortgage money, and therefore annoyed and prone to forget things:

1. ~~Pay 2 bills~~
2. At least pin hem of Huntress cloak
3. Edits on G&M
4. Edits on BitG
5. Check in
6. Tickets to brothers of darkland county

I think that's it. If there's anything else, I can write it down when I think of it.

Crossposts: http://kittydesade.livejournal.com/1117935.html

( Русский язык )

And today that's all corrections, a few days' worth of corrections, so. I think that's about all I'm up for today, not because of emotional content (though boy howdy is there a lot in that Russian) but because ow fucking menstrual migraine spiking me above the left eyeball. Fuck that, and everything else menstrual or pre-menstrual pain related. Ow.

Picked up what I think will be the last of the supplies needed for costume stuff this year at work. Somehow, despite having thirty or forty spools of thread at home (literally, I have two freaking sewing boxes full), bright yellow thread is not among them. And hole punches for the leather because, despite having found my rotating hole punch, I'm pretty sure it is crappy rotating hole punch and not suitable for leather. So now I have the kind you bang with a mallet. And I have a fuckton of grommets anyway, so that's not a problem. I have... oh, hey, found my sewing awl. So now that I've found that I think I'll get a couple of the small packs of natural/whiteish waxed linen and try and make a better Silk Spectre belt out of that. Emphasis definitely on try. I think that's it, though. I think, amazing as it is, apart from complete costume rebuilds which may go amazingly or may go disastrously, by the end of this weekend I will be fucking done with costume building. Certainly by the time Anna gets here. How the hell did this happen? How did I end up organized enough for this? How the hell am I going to store everything? (Probably in garment bags. Anyone know where I can get a dozen or so cheap garment bags? They don't have to be the thick plastic, they're not traveling anywhere, just sitting in my closet.)

I feel like I had some more to say here about other stuff, but the second I think I have a long entry about everything something comes along and distracts me and proves me wrong. I know I have a long entry about Orphan Black, but I'm going to save that till after I've finished the series. I will say, though, that the next person who tells me I MUST watch it is getting throatpunched in my imagination. No, I MUST do nothing. You can tell me you adore it, you can tell me you think I'll love it and give reasons, you can tell me you think I'll love it and give no reasons whatsoever, you can gush about the actress (though god that's getting tiresome, can we please remember that many other people are involved in production, too? several of whom I feel haven't been getting the attention they deserve), you can gush about the plot, the mind screw, but don't you fucking tell me I have to watch something. And I'm not meaning "OMG YOU HAVE GOT TO WATCH THIS SHOW" once or twice in the first throes of your enthusiasm, I mean people who say this over and over and over again. No. You do not tell me what I must watch. I like you, I consider you a friend, but fuck you very much, that just makes me want to dig my heels in and tell you it sucks and rip it to shreds on general belligerent principle. And I think people who do that are assholes. So stop making me want to do asshole things by telling me what I have to do. Argh. I'll start telling you you HAVE to watch the last season of Heroes, and no one wants that.

Ahem. So, well, I guess that's a paragraph I don't have to write later when I talk about Orphan Black! Writing is happening. More writing would have happened today if I hadn't gotten the headache from hell and spent some time passed out on my shipping cart. And then tonight when I get home there will be making pasta of some kind, I don't have any meat defrosted but I do have a number of pasta sauces and noodles, two of which should correspond nicely, and then there will be the last chunk of Orphan Black and cutting fabric and sewing fabric and then I will have pouches for Huntress and it will be glorious. Yesh. I have a plan. It's better than a gesture.

( I think at this point the Russian comes with general trigger warnings )

Yes, today's Russian is relevant to life. No, I don't want to talk about it. There's not much to tell anyway, but. Nngh.

On the plus side, the Gods and Monsters is chugging right along. Not that, given this section, I had much doubt that it would once I sat down and wrote it, but it's nice to have that confirmation? On the minus side work also turns out to be busy today so who knows when I'll have time to sit and let it chug. Blargh. Maybe dinner will happen/get made quickly tonight and then I can sit down and chunk some out for a bit. I did finish my next Haven episode last night, which is three weeks ahead. At the rate we're working, things might happen that I can't talk about because wrath, high atop, etc.

The more this Snowden shit goes on, the more I want to see proof of ~~life~~ presence in whatever country claims to have him at the moment. Why no, I don't believe that Russia has him or in any way can control whether or not he's extradited on account of they probably don't know where the fuck he is either. I was severely skeptical when it was announced, apparently from him, that he would be on a plane to Moscow. But it turns out he was never on that plane, and now he's in the wind. And the more power to him. I can't say I'm surprised at the extent of the government surveillance, and in some cases I'm not even sure I can argue that it's illegal, depending. But some fucking transparency, please. And/or organization. A lot of the people I know already expect they're being spied upon anyway, but... sigh. Fucksake, everyone. Also, casting that wide of a surveillance net? Means fucking nothing unless you have the personnel with the skills to process it all. Which I bet they don't.

ANYway. On other lines that won't get me black bagged or something. Um. I seem to be having one of those days where I like how I look in the mirror (apart from my apparent inability to do eye makeup. Again. Oops.), I'm discovering I can eat a dinner of pasta and two sizable scoops of grasshopper oreo ice cream and not freak out on the daily weighing the next morning. Obviously, things would be different if I were eating two large scoops of ice cream every night, but somewhere along the line there's been a happy confluence of I'm exercising enough that I've built up enough muscle to handle a greater food intake than I would be able to otherwise (say, if I really were trying to get down to 130 pounds or 110 pounds or whatever I'm supposed to be at at five-foot-nothing), I've gotten into the kind of food habits where the slips I make (big bowl of ice cream, brownie a la mode, pot of fondue all to myself) are minor and have minor effects and are few and far between, and perhaps most importantly, the number on the scale is a source of information, not overwhelming fear and dread and self-hatred. I've been hovering around 12 pounds lighter than I was at the start of the secular year, by now, and I've gotten to the point where if I take three weeks off I can still do 25 push-ups when I get back to real exercising. This is awesome.

And, you know, on the minus side I spent the better part of last week aching from some part of my body. Usually my upper arms, thighs, or core. I couldn't cough or sneeze or hiccup without it hurting in my abs somewhere. Then I took a weekend, that went away, and after increasing my plank time this morning I wonder if I'm in for more of that. Sigh. The things I do to look good in my costumes. (NB: This is not, of course, the only reason. It may be the catalysing reason, but it is far from the only one.) (Being like the superheroes I dress up as, now, that's a bigger reason.)

Crossposts: http://kittydesade.livejournal.com/1115894.html

( Русский язык )

Well. That was fun. And by fun I mean I'm so, so fucking tired of being a woman in a world that traditionally hates, loathes, and mistreats women. On the plus side, even if it's a morbid plus side, if I memorize this in Russian and German and maybe a couple other languages, I can be more helpful in an emergency?

And part of this was started by yet another post by another woman talking about how she is pushed on by men every day, and another part of this was surprisingly inspired by Kickstarter apologizing and making some pretty decent reparations, including a donation to RAINN that almost doubled what the guy got on his Kickstarter. It's definitely a start, and I appreciate that they did the donating thing unprompted and as part of the initial apology; far too often the donation comes after someone apologizes. And it looks like a real apology, too, so. Yay!

God, that fucking guy. I'm assuming you all have heard of this. ( Cutting for those of you who, like me, might be weary of all the misogyny in the world. )

Here, have some song lyrics so you can scroll down past the cut text without seeing it.

o/~ When we grow up will I be pretty
Will you be big and strong
Will I wear dresses that show off my knees
Will you wear trousers twice as long
Well I don't care if I'm pretty at all
And I don't care if you never get tall
I like what I look like, and you're nice small
We don't have to change at all

When we grow up will I be a lady
Will you be an engineer
If I have to wear things like perfume and gloves
I can still pull the whistle while you steer
Well I don't care if I'm pretty at all
And I don't care if you never get tall
I like what I look like, and you're nice small
We don't have to change at all

When I grow up I'm gonna be happy
And do what I like to do
Like making noise! And making faces.
And making friends like you.
And when we grow up do you think we'll see
That I'm still like you and you're still like me
I might be pretty, you might grow tall
But we don't have to change at all

I don't wanna change, see, 'cause I still wanna be your friend. For ever and ever and ever and ever...o/~

And now we feel better. Okay, Free to Be You And Me always makes me feel better anyway.

Slowly ripping this sleeve off for building things, and it's making me realize I'm going to need to attach straps to it somehow. Oops. Straps that can go under my arm and maybe around my neck, I need the internet to help me, I think, so that this sleeve that's suddenly going to be very heavy can stay hooked onto me and not fall off. First, though, I need to see what the shape of the sleeve will be when I'm starting out with it. Argh. I'm nervous and I really want this to work because otherwise I have no idea what I'm going to do. I mean, okay, I do, I'll just do the t-shirt and jeans and cape and do some seriously strung out looking makeup and that'll be it, but still argh! I'm really nervous and I want this to work, okay? Okay.

Well, at least I won't have long to wait to find out if this works or not. There's time blocked out for it this weekend. Tomorrow, actually. So! Progress on all the costumes, it's happening!

Crossposts: http://kittydesade.livejournal.com/1115047.html

( Русский язык )

Fucking Russian goddammit. Today's been weirdly not so much busy but chaotic. And that Russian's definitely going to need to be memorized or something, but hell, it's worth memorizing. If I can remember that in a crisis it might help someone to hear a (poorly pronounced) familiar language.

I'm having one of those weird days or moments where I want to costume all the things, and yet I went on tumblr and looked at the Huntress tag there and am simultaneously having a fit of augh everyone's costume is better than mine! And, okay, in at least one of those photos it's professionally retouched and in one of them it's taken by a professional photographer, but argh! Not to mention the fact that I'm at the lowest weight I've been in in maybe four years or so? And I'd like to drop another five pounds before Dragon*Con, and I've been doing some more toning exercises as prep and so I really hope that not only do I look good because my costumes are good, but I also look good because I am looking good and healthy, too. Yes, here I'm using 'good' to mean 'fit, muscled, toned', maybe not big budget movie I spent six hours a day for four months training to do this, but good. So, yeah. There is simultaneous freaking out and enthusiasm. I'm not sure my emotions can keep up with this.

On the plus side, for Huntress I'm also doing the full bodysuit one rather than the cut-out leotard one. I might someday have the courage to do the cut-out leotard one, but it is not this day nor this Dragon*Con. ... I take that back, I will totally someday have the courage to do the cut-out leotard one, I just don't have the damn time.

I am, however, I have to say, pleased with the way the scheduling for my costuming seems to have worked out. The bulk of everything should be done in the next 10 days or so, at which point I'll re-evaluate what I have as far as costume pieces, check things off on the list, etc. If I can just keep from putting things off out of panic, I'll be great. It's that putting things off out of panic that gets me every year, really. Here's to this year being different.

Crossposts: http://kittydesade.livejournal.com/1114393.html

( Русский язык )

Okay, that translation went a bit sideways. More in the semantics of it at least as far as I can tell, but I think the way I translated it conveyed more the... something. Feelings. I have no idea. I'm losing it, bits and pieces of my brain falling out. I did manage to have a third celebrity interaction for the third day in a row, this one being Rian Johnson retweeted my "Wintermute is coming." Hey, he started it.

I have no idea what happened to me. I started out the day pretty fine, energized, got shit done. Then a little while ago I just fell right the fuck over. And now I'm tired and faintly depressed inexplicably for no reason, and a whole host of other things. Which probably means I should attempt to get more things done. And not curl up in a corner and cry like I want to do for some odd reason. Seriously, self, what the hell. Where did that come from? Because it can go right the fuck away again. Seriously. I have work to do.

(I have no idea if this will actually work. But more than half the time, when I tell the tears and panic and despair that they get five of my fucking minutes before they have to hit the bricks or I will hit them with bricks, it works. So it's worth a shot.)

... and I wouldn't have tossed this on here except I need some place to complain and it's not Twitter. The guy was genuinely trying to be admiring and pay me a compliment. But OH MY FUCKING GOD. You do not DOTH your cap to someone. DOFF. The word is DOFF. D + OFF = DOFF. Just like DUCKETS. They are not fucking called duckets, it is DUCATS. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A DUCKET. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE. What do they teach children in school these days.

Crossposts: http://kittydesade.livejournal.com/1111511.html

( Русский язык )

If I managed to get any of that right with as little dictionary help as I used, I will be amazed. After this I am so going back to short phrases for a bit. Possibly both from the position of "things I use often in fiction" and "things I am likely to say at some point if I have to interpret."

You know, out of everything that happened yesterday, the only things I can remember are that I packed an exhausting amount of stuff, didn't get much writing done, and a snake peed on me. Seriously, the snake peeing on me somehow sticks above an actor I have a crush on tweeting me.

Anyway. I'm trying out the new Dreamwidth feature of actually having readable URLs! The problem with this is that I so rarely talk about anything on here that generates something I'd consider slugworthy. Which is to say, anything I consider memorable or distinctive enough to put in an entry slug. Most often it's just me rambling about writing or my garden, plus a language lesson. So... what, I guess I pull from the most memorable parts of the entry that aren't either of those things? Which means today's entry URL is "snake pee and slugs." You're welcome.

Crossposts: http://kittydesade.livejournal.com/1111035.html

( Русский язык )

Yeah, that was just corrections, and I'm going to indulge for a moment in pretending I never decided to learn Russian and this never happened. Some days I am very eloquent not only in my native language, but also several others! Some days I wonder why I get out of bed in the morning or how I get dressed and out of the house without hurting myself.

And then, you know? I've learned a lot of things about feeling this way. I've learned how to pick myself up and go "Okay, fucker, you are not going to beat me, this is a skill I can learn, now let's go again." I've learned that it's okay to freak out and drop your head and cry for a bit over making mistakes. I've learned that doing so doesn't mean you're somehow then disqualified from picking yourself back up a few minutes later and going "All right, fucker..." I've learned that, for me, it works best if I do it in that order. Life is hard. Shit's hard. There are a lot of mistakes out there to make. I have no idea where I learned how to make mistakes, but I'm pleased and proud of it.

Still need to do more reading in Russian, though. And now that I think about it, I wonder what will happen when I go back to the Watch books now. Preferably with a dictionary.

Back to order of operations. I have no idea when the hell it got so late in the day. Finishing up emails here, then doing ... something. Gods and Monsters seems to have stalled out for the moment, so probably Blood in the Gutters till I go home. Then heating up the pizza and doing a fuckton of Person of Interest till my brain dribbles out of my ears. Also watering plants and such. Later tonight there might be more either Gods and Monsters or White Lightning, but I'm not counting on it, I have all of tonight allocated to PoI.

And as far as the lipstick question, a lovely friend of mine has linked me to this instruction set on how to make your own lip colors with crayons and natural ingredients. And since most of those ingredients (apart from shea butter, which I have since gotten because also good for me) I already regularly get, as soon as I get some lipstick containers and a braintwin I am so fucking trying this. There will be kitchen courtesan alchemy. FEAR US. I haven't necessarily yet solved the problem of the tank tops that don't make me look pregnant, don't come in hideous skinned-a-couch patterns, and aren't see-through or racerback, but I'm working on it. I have some potential solutions on their way.

Okay, yes, on that balance, it's not a bad day, fucking up at Russian aside. I will attempt to unfuck it more tomorrow! Or not fuck up again tomorrow. Or something.

( Русский язык )

It's amazing how much of a difference getting a fucking decent night's sleep makes. I feel much better right now, I feel awake and not yet drained of all life and energy. I feel vaguely positive about the day! And the pile of mistakes I apparently made yesterday oops. Watch your damn correspondences, Jag. And I still need to make with the reading.

And I have no idea what happened but suddenly my brain took a hard right turn for the only focus on one data stream at a time. Probably the throwing up of hands from the Editrix, I was doing fine until the caterpillar tripped and went face first into the dirt! Which just goes to show you that "fine" is not only a relative term, it's a fucking deceptive one. And that said, thank god for coping mechanisms and training oneself to use one's words even though one may feel like crap, in any of half a dozen ways. So, okay, pulling back together with the ability to parse multiple data streams at once.

In completely other news, I need sources of funky colored lipstick. There are so many sources for funky colored nail polish, but I want to do things to my lips too! Non-permanent things. I'd do things to my eyes except I rub my eyes too much for that. Also I want to get my eyebrows sculpted or some shit before I start experimenting with the eyeshadow. What. Whaaaaat. Yeah, I don't know either, this is a change of pace for me, but I'm having fun fucking around with putting funky colors on me. Which actually goes with my tendency to: "It's boring/gloomy/sad/gray out? THROW COLORS AT EVERYTHING." Yarn! Dye! Fabric! Paint! Colors colors colors!

So, yes. Internets! Show me your colored lipstick links.

And then, you know, Mere Smith got De Colores stuck in my head. Which, I guess there are worse things to get stuck in one's head? But I only remember half the goddamn lyrics. Also it's a serious sign of how punchy I am that I went over to that on barely a suggestion.

Anyway. Okay, so, for the rest of today we have banging on the budget, which usually happens Sunday but this weekend has screwed me for mental scheduling. Writing, checking in and tagging that one Murderboarding comment before we acquire a backlog of them again. Then home, weeding, doing the Gods and Monsters edits and not being afraid of them, self, if you use your fear as to procrastinate till the very very last minute I will punch you in the side of the neck. Somehow. And then Person of Interest till bedtime. I list all of this out here because the way my brain is going right now, it will all dribble out my ears before I get more than two items down on my list of things to do. I only look like I have my shit together. I promise. Duck paddling. Anna's going to write a post on it later, I think.

Crossposts: http://kittydesade.livejournal.com/1108778.html

( Русский язык )

I still hate semantics. Just for the record.

I do, however, maybe tomorrow, need to go back to grabbing some Russian books off Gutenberg or Night Watch off that one website that had it actually in Russian. I'd say today but I'm trying to chunk out G&M today so I'm not doing it all last minute again, and also I'm fucking exhausted. I've been fighting poached egg eyes all day and moving very, very slowly.

That said, I am making myself do Russian today instead of blowing it off because I'm too tired and I'll make mistakes. I actually, it turns out, haven't been making that many mistakes when I'm exhausted, which may mean this is getting easier. Probably does. So now I get to look back on this for double positive effect that yes, I did make myself do something when I thought I was too tired to do it, and yes, it turned out pretty good. And it wasn't as difficult as I thought. German today, too, except German today is going to be curling up with a book and reading in German because I don't have the energy to do much else. It's so much easier to go from new to native language than the other way around.

As far as my tomato fears go, I think I'm just going to go under the assumption that I'm not watering them enough, because that is a lot of goddamn plants competing for attention, and so in addition to hose watering I'm going to just dump a couple pitchers HEY ANNA. Or I could be smart about this. Hey Anna, 16 living tomato plants, how many pitchers of water do I need to dump on them? (I can't translate pitchers of water into minutes with the hose very well, but I can fill the goddamn pitchers and just dump them on the plants. PROBLEM SOLVED.) And then if that doesn't work and tossing in some compost doesn't work, then I start eyeballing for rot or pests or something. So we'll try that.

And I also need to haul the chicken wire out and put the goddamn cucumber plants on a trellis ARGH. The next time the boy starts sleeping 10 hours at a time I think I'm just going to go jump on him till he hauls his dumb ass out of bed and does some household chores. I realize I need a stupidly (relatively) small amount of sleep, and he works third shift, but COME ON. That said, chickenwiring a trellish shouldn't be that hard. I think. I think I'm going to go home and have a nap before I do that. Or much of anything. Okay, order of operations, home, NAP. Chickenwire trellis. Chicken on stove for dinner. Person of Interest while edits happen on G&M (hopefully), drop out around 9 or 10, edit G&M. That way some progress is made on all of those things and I don't go batshit. More batshit.

I really hope I get more sleep tonight than I did last night. I keep forgetting that with great gardening comes great allergies. Fucking plants. Literally.

Crossposts: http://kittydesade.livejournal.com/1108416.html

( Русский язык )

Okay. That's the weekend scheduled. Still no phone call from the boy so I have no idea what's going on with the washer drainage problem. I think, though, that we did figure out something that might work. If we run a new drain pipe out from the washer (and it's just the washer, everything else drains fine) and have it collect in a barrel in the small brick patio that's inset there, we can use that for watering the garden if we can come up with a decent filtration system. Or switch over to some kind of organic laundry detergent. And that makes it just a few hundred bucks problem, which is still a pain in the ass but MUCH less scary.

I am also rearranging my patio/garden. Since it's a three day weekend and since (I hope) it's warm enough, a whole bunch of things are getting transplanted out to the garden. Six bell pepper plants of various colors, two cucumber plants will all go out, freeing up a number of large pots. The jade is going to get moved to the upstairs balcony now that it's not frosting out; that keeps it away from excessively curious cats and still getting shelter and sun. And water, when necessary. The table on the patio, since originally it was set up for gaming, will be shoved out to against the glass to give better walking room, and that can be the table of all the herbs ever. The strawberries and possibly the onions will get transplanted to the garden in a couple of weeks, then the amaryllis can stand alone on that little cart where they are. And I still have no idea what the fuck I'm doing with the lambsear and alumroot. They're very pretty! I just have no idea what the fuck I'm doing with them. But the end result of all of this is that I will have herbs on the table on my patio, a fuckton of things in my garden and outside, and all in all, that's actually not that bad. Now that I think about it.

Yes, I'm making a shopping list for Home Despot. So far it's three small items long, but my actual "I want" list is huge. Because somehow I have turned into one of those householding people. I don't understand it either.

Crossposts: http://kittydesade.livejournal.com/1107139.html

( Русский язык )

I have poached egg eyes and the remains of a downpour outside, so I kind of wonder if weeding will actually happen today. Certainly mowing the lawn won't, although possibly the boy got gas for the mower anyway. It's sunny right now though it was downpouring about twenty minutes ago, so who the fuck knows what will be going on by the time I get home. The plan might be to see how dry the grass is tomorrow morning and then cut.

And. And things and stuff. We've launched into the Grimm blogging and I kind of have to say, I am really going to like having the longer deadlines for a few months at a stretch. I mean, yes, that's still about 10k words or more (usually a bit more) that we have to put out every week, but it's not that we have to put it out within 72 hours. Or 24 hours if it aired on Fridays. It's shuffle around able. And that's really nice.

I need to check in. Argh. And I need to get my brain together. And none of these things are happening right now.

Right. Check-in first, and then writing. Something needs to happen here. I might as well start getting things done because if I sit here trying to focus and dithering about not getting anything done... nothing's going to get done. It's all very recursive that way.

Crossposts: http://kittydesade.livejournal.com/1106218.html

( Русский язык )

Doing somewhat better than this morning, at least. Hopefully the internet won't keep crapping out on me tonight while I'm trying to get some writing done. Which isn't so much the writing itself, I can do that out of the cloud, it's tabbing through research sites along with it. And, you know, I'd like to be able to procrastinate my writing with tumblr and pick up my pixel pets at midnight. What. Whaaaaat.

I was going to try to get this week's Gods and Monsters finished early. That didn't so much happen on account of tripping up on some emotional issues my protagonist had not informed me about ahead of time. I swear, you live with a character for years, you think you know everything about her, and then she goes and surprises you. Rude! Still, it should go out on time (and hopefully my Editrix won't kill me) and I should even have Person of Interest out on time and still not have too much to do that isn't chewing on Grimm for the next several days. Because fucking Grimm and its fucking historically linked metaplots and argh. Did I mention argh? Because argh. Complexities.

Which, okay, tonight's schedule, get home, weed front walk a bit. Get in, cook chicken maybe halfway, bake potatoes, cover chicken, let dinner sit till the boy wakes up, do Person of Interest between now and then. After Person of Interest, finish Gods and Monsters. Freak right out till Grimm. Once Grimm airs, freak right out till energy is exhausted and then sleep. And then spend all tomorrow editing G&M until I get home at which point it's all the chewing on Grimm all the time. Because season finales of shows with myth arcs are always full of myth arc.

I've retooled my exercise routine and got four new plants for my garden, which means tomorrow is seriously check-in time. Fortunately I don't think anything major is happening this weekend, which might make this weekend attempt to get ahead on some writing time. Also gardening. Because GARDEN. I now have gone from only picking six plants and freaking out that I would kill everything I touched to having well-growing: oregano of two? varieties, rosemary, basil, bell peppers of three colors (well, one color may have gotten killed by cats, but we'll see), onions all over the place, amaryllises, jade, strawberries, cucumbers, tomatoes, alumroot, lambsear, echinacea, and four o'clocks. ... is that everything? I think that's everything. And parsley. No, that really is everything. And this weekend there will be uprooting all the shit from the raised beds out in the back by the patio, because most of the things that were going to bloom have bloomed, I have no idea what the shit half of that stuff is, I don't care anymore, I want it all out so I can plant MY things. And. And and. GARDEN. AUGH. I need a garden icon. Till then, Rutger Hauer has a pigeon on his head.

Also, someone tell me that just because High Valyrian (I think) has eight cases and four numbers and god knows what the fuck all else (four genders, I think?) that does not mean I need to go around creating a conlang. It is not inspirational, it is headache inducing. Stoppit, Jag. Stop that this instant.

Crossposts: http://kittydesade.livejournal.com/1105825.html

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And lo, I even managed to squeeze a bit of Russian in at the end of the day, despite the day being full of Grimm blog updates and work. Mostly work. But also some Grimm blog updates in the form of how the hell did we get this haphazard about updating the Wesen index? Never mind wondering where the hell we pulled these historical references from, not that they're not probable. The next time we start fussing over historical references I'm writing down goddamn episode citations.

Anyway. Oh! And for my birthday a well I got lambsear, alumroot, and ecinacea! Which has reminded me that it's probably about time to transplant the cukes and peppers out into the raised bed, on account of it's probably done frosting over at night. And that ought to free up at least a couple of pots. Actually that'll free up. Eight pots. Eight of the bigger ones, well holy crap. I wonder what I should start growing in them. Probably herbs, on account of they're sizable pots and I can just pot-grow herbs and pluck from the bigger pots and let them be as they are. This will require some planning and some talking over with the boy. I'm tempted to get broccoli seedlings again and try those now that we've got the fence up and the damn groundhog can't get at them, but at the same time I don't know if it'll end up being too warm for those. Being as that's a cool weather plant. Might have to wait on those till later. As I was telling Anna, I'd say I need a life except this is a damn fine one that I have.

FOOD FROM THE GROUND, Y'ALL. FOOD FROM THE GROUND.

So, this evening I have a Schedule. Because I can be all organized and shit. Gardening work will take up a good 30 minutes after I get home, on account of watering all the things and tying up the tomato plants and figuring out what else needs transplanted into the damn garden. Possibly trimming things, definitely trimming off the leaves from the half-wooded basil. Then Person of Interest and seeing if I can churn out the last 15 minutes of this week's episode in an hour, after which it'll just be working on Gods and Monsters for the rest of the night. And the hell with this, I am ordering food in because I have birthday money and much lighter heating bills now that it's finally fucking spring into summer and I don't want to worry about cooking, which I'd have to do otherwise because there's no defrosted chicken. So, ordering takeout. And getting all that shit done so the only deadline I have to worry about for the rest of the week is Grimm.

Yeah, it's a good life if you don't weaken? But sometimes it's a just plain good life. Like right now. My garden's growing, I've got writing work I enjoy that other people seem to be enjoying too, I hope. Life's doing all right.

Crossposts: http://kittydesade.livejournal.com/1105377.html

( Русский язык )

No Irish today, as it turns out. I really, really need to get back on schedule with languages and writing, it's just been one small slippage after another for the past several days. Fortunately that is only the past several days, and I build a fair amount of slippage into my writing schedules anyway. I'm not entirely sure how it happened, I think I just haven't been as diligent about both working and paying attention as I might. C'est la vie. At least I managed some Russian and some German. And possibly some Japanese tonight if we get through blogging soon enough.

Part two of Gods and Monsters went out! And now I'm too exhausted to be terrified, which I guess is a good thing. I think I would like being less exhausted better, not also not being freaked out is good.

I have the house to myself tonight, which will be nice, and a bunch of small domestic things to do. And some blogging to do but that's actually chugging right along, so that shouldn't even take that long to get done. And we seem to be swinging by the mall on the way home to drop off some stuff for a yarn store event in the area lately, and. And and and. Death by a thousand little papercuts, I swear, but at the same time it feels good to be getting through things? And I'm still really tired. I'm glad tomorrow's Friday.

So. No, let's see if I can get some White Lightning drafted tonight since I need to get back to that, an entire chunk of Gods and Monsters drafted (shouldn't be that hard), and the blog work done. If there's any left to do after Anna's done with it, at the rate she's chewing through. Still, it does all seem backloaded. With tasty Renard. Mmmmm Renard.

Crossposts: http://kittydesade.livejournal.com/1103488.html

( Русский язык )

In the other category of things I need to remember: Never, ever, EVER look at my language corrections first thing in the morning. That said, just looking at what I've done, it almost looks like that's coming along quicker than I thought. Huh.

Well, it seems like we had a decent Sheep and Wool show, at least. A lot of stuff was brought back but a whole lot of stuff also was sold, so that's good? And then most of that got unpacked this morning, which on the one hand means I didn't get many edits done and on the other hand means a lot of day job work got done. Yes, we see where my priorities are. XD

Right, so. Back to edits, Blood in the Gutters, let's see if I can get at least a couple of scenes down including the fact that I'm still on the first one, argh. And Sandborn. Gods and Monsters may happen at the end of the day or may get pushed off to evening with the Spellbound submission and all lyrics all the time. Still mean to weed the front walk after I get home, though. It needs it terribly, and it also needs the grass raked from it. Ugh.

( Русский язык )

I have too many damn things to do and all of them are small and fiddly and it is driving me nuts. Augh. Most of them are work related things, so at least I can put it away when I go home, but still. Augh. There is less writing going on at work than I expected.

I kind of want to throw something at my aunt every time she comes to talk about my friend's death. I don't want to talk about it.

Not much else to say here. I tried the making of the thumb again, fucked it up again, which means I need to learn to make the gusset, which means I need to do a lot of practice things. Only in this case practice things probably means knitting eight rows and going straight into the thumb with a lot of practice yarn. ARGH. Anyone have thumb instructions for me? (I'm annoyed, but I'm more annoyed because of lots of general frustrating things right now than this, at least.

In the past 24 hours I've been dumped by almost 10 Twitter followers. I feel like I should maybe care about this. Except I also picked up two new readers on the mailing list. And a rejection letter for a short story. No, I think at this point my ego/self-esteem is just confused and doesn't know whether to be happy and healthy or woe is me nobody cares about my writings and I suck and am horrible. Which seems to be averaging out to slightly tired but generally content. Sure, why not.

I have managed to organize my weekend to the point where I think I can actually get everything done! I think. Depending on when Iron Man happens, but most of the stuff I want to get done is writing, so that's at least easy to shuffle around on the schedule. I also need to remember that I want to get filing done and everything CS and everything house related put into a file binder or something and stuck in my lovely filing cabinet. I have a freaking gorgeous oak filing cabinet! I should put it to use.

Crossposts: http://kittydesade.livejournal.com/1102560.html

( Русский )

That was less than I wanted; I may try and do some more later tonight.

Rants and ramblings aside, I feel incredibly exhausted for some reason today, despite getting a decent amount of sleep and doing my morning dances and everything else. I haven't even binged on candy today, so it's not a crash. Not that kind, anyway. I think it's really this email serial thing, that's out today and now all of that anticipation and leadup has fallen out and left me drained.

At any rate. Anna is also doing her project which you can find out about here, and you should go and look and listen and help. Totally. I'm not saying this because this involves me getting an Anna for a week. (Technically a couple weeks, but she's going to be learning all day and into the night for one of those weeks, so I won't have her then. Which is cool.) Seriously, this is an awesome endeavor and involves learning Irish fiddle. And everyone loves Irish fiddle, right? RIGHT? (Or possibly my friends group is skewed towards it. or something.)

Stuff and things. Did you know the word for landscape is the same in German as in Russian? Now you do.

Though speaking of German, in addition to the fifty frillion other things I want to do this weekend (seriously, I need to sit down, prioritize, organize, and make a list, tomorrow probably) I need to update the Grimm show pages with the new things we've learned about the Royal Families and that whole history. And then possibly read over some quick wiki entries on Swabia, the 2nd/3rd/4th crusades, and ... I think that's it. For keyword searches. Oi. They dumped some small amount of factoids on us last episode but that turned out to drag a whole other bunch of things into prominence and now we've got a whole bunch of puzzle pieces that fit morebetter in this new way and argh.

I need sleep. No, I need a day or two off. That's not happening, though. Meh. I guess I'll go back to writing and doing day job stuff instead.