Warhead On Legs

( Deutsch )

Short exercise today on account of AUGH BUSY OMFG. Not having Flutter around means twice the work, eek. On the other hand, most of what I've been doing I probably would be doing anyway, so I'd still be busy. Just more annoyed at being chattered at.

GODDAMMIT, WHO FANDOM, STOP MAKING ME CRY (via lireavue) No, seriously, I'm stting here at my desk doing my German trying not to cry.

Ugh. I'm sure I had more to say, but I still need to finish up my CS check-in post and do all my day job work without my head exploding, so I'm going to put on some music and get to it. Raaarrr! Where's a Red Queen icon when you need one.

Oh, right. So I don't forget because with this current frazzledness I totally will (and god I hope this isn't under copyright): Simple lace pattern!
Repeats of 18 stitches
Row 1: Knit
Row 2: Purl
Row 3: (k2tog)x3, (yo, k1)x6, (k2tog)x3 to end
Row 4: Purl
Repeat. (And note to self: You wanted to try this with size 7 needles and either Manos Silk blend or Brown Sheep Nature Spun/Lanaloft/Superwash Worsted)

( Deutsch )

Okay! It might just be a sugar high from the Cadbury creme egg I just ate (last one, I got a couple and saved one for lunch today) but today is going along remarkably well so far. Just in general. I had a good run this morning, I had good German, I had a good morning episode of Scarecrow. I had a creme egg, my legs aren't too sore. I knocked down a bunch of tags that have been sitting. I'm just... really generally happy with the world right now. Of course, this might be just asking for the universe to smack me with something, but, you know what? I'm the goddamn Jaguar, and I can handle anything.

Which is funny, now that I think about it. When I started this whole Courtesan School thing one of the people... two of the people I wanted to be were Eleanor of Aquitaine and Katherine Hepburn, who played Eleanor in Lion in Winter. One of her lines was, in a moment of strength-against-adversity, was "Come, where's that mirror? I'm Eleanor, and I can look at anything." And now I'm saying similar. Now that right there is a good feeling.

So, yes. There's that. My shoulders are down more often, my back is straight, my chin is up, I feel more powerful and more confident. It's a good feeling.

OH! I remember what I was going to ask the internets now. So, I've finally set up that thing I've been meaning to do for ages, which is a calendar-and-star system to keep track of all the fiddly little things that get lost in the shuffle, like vocab quizzes and putting on earrings and scent in the mornings. And every time I accumulate stars up to a certain point I can cash them in for a reward, etc. Tasks range from 1 star (vocab quiz) to 5 stars (guitar and parkour practice). The rewards I have so far are: painted nails (painting my nails, that is, not having it done at a salon), a truffle bar, a new barrette, a new pair of earrings, and a manicure or highlights at the absolute top of the list. These go from about 75 stars (truffle bar or painted nails) to the salon visit being 1000 stars.

SO. Internets. Give me ideas for more rewards. The cheaper the better, but fun little trinket rewards wouldn't be a bad idea either.

( Deutsch )

Thank god I'm doing a review after this. Eek.

Tonight, practicing Wish You Were Here and Beat the Devil's Tattoo and then I need to pick another guitar song to practice. And then probably rotate around those three for a few weeks, the rest of the month, something. I'm getting slowly better at them, and faster, but it's still not quite there yet. But it's still fun, which is pretty much the key point here.

It still kind of amazes me that I'm about to hit the end of chapter 6 in my Russian book; heading towards the next lesson and out of 20 lessons (10 in each book) that puts me at 80% done. With grammar and structure and then there's review and so on, but good goddamn. Probably by the end of the year or so I'll be able to start Irish, if not sooner. That will go by much quicker, because I don't actually have an Irish textbook to work from, it's all touristy books and teach yourself. Which is good, they just don't give me the sentences and practice I'd prefer. Might look into importing some. Irish, and then... What I'd really like is someone with a military connection telling me what they use for Arabic standard. Or Pashto or Urdu? I'm thinking I'm going to stick with Arabic Standard though. Or maybe I'll pick that up next and Irish later... something. Think think. The lack of Arabic languages is a pretty big gap, and Irish is a just-for-fun language, as opposed to a widen-my-area-of-communication one. Why yes, there are methods and goals to my madness. Sort of.

Anyway. Back to work. There's a free shipping sale on, which means things are (hopefully!) going to pick up and be a bit nuts here, and at least for today, so they have. We'll see how long this lasts. Mmm languages. Tastes of... something.

( Русский язык )

I want to say it's easier for me to associate the verb with the right noun or noun phrase because of Spanish, but we'll see if I actually did all that correctly. Hm.

AHAHAHAHA OH GOD HUMAN TARGET. Oh my god. Well, on the downside, they did go exactly where they've been leading up to all season, which made me throw something at the screen. On the other hand, oh my god the Guerrero-Ames bit at the end. And the beginning. Oh god, Winston, I love you. Even Harry came in for some love, which was not expected. And kind of awesome. Now if they would only spread some of the love to Chance I'd be a happy happy person. On the other hand, even odds whether or not we'll get another season, at best, so at least if it does get cancelled we can apply fanfic and RP to fix the damn canon errors. Of which there are many.

Bruce Boxleitner continues to be made of awesome. So, too, really, is Jackie Earle Haley. Lassi experiments with a different kind of fruit juice yesterday were made of win, and I have some icon bases for Elua Bridges icons. Which at this rate might not get done till he stops sneaking up on me from every damn movie I watch (okay, not lately, but argh) but at the same time, Elua as a slightly stoned Zen surfer-looking guy was way too good to pass up. And in the meantime I make Guerrero icons, because Jackie Earle Haley is made of awesome and eyebrow. I seriously cannot think of it as Spock-eyebrow anymore because Guerrero spends half the time with his eyebrow superglued up there. So now it's a Guerrero thing.

Twooo more days. And then I get either a weekend or a game, I'm not sure which. At this point, I'm not sure I care too much if I don't get a weekend because I do feel surprisingly rested. We'll see what happens today and tomorrow, though. It'll be good to see friends? I kind of want to throttle one of them. Decisions.

( Русский язык )

Argh. Brain no worky. And translating to Russian is definitely more difficult than translating back. Which means it needs more practice.

Today, apparently, we need to get more felting pads from a local foam and fabric store, which means I get to peruse fabrics for my steampunk skirt! Yay! I don't know if I'll actually get anything but I get to look at least. Looking at fabrics is always fun. And I have the pattern with me so I know exactly what I need. Which is not 3 1/4 buttons, Jag, what the hell. Oi, brain needs to get online sometime soon.

Did manage to get most of the shit off my to-do list yesterday, at least. And get to bed early, even if I didn't get as much writing done as I wanted to. Today, working on more of my to-do list! And attempting to drag my brain back to the projects I need to be working on. Writing long fiction is hard, yo. I keep losing the thread and not being able to resume it. Most irksome. On the other hand, hopefully... Yes, the UPS widget says today will be a relatively light day. So if no major orders come in, it should be pretty good.

Writing. I need to get back on Sandstorm's Daughter. I'm slowly getting back on International Relations. And apart from that, mostly, it's just much much smaller side projects. Never, ever doing a non-original big bang again. Never. Or at least, never until the next time, because we all know me, yeah?

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No German last night. I is a bad person. And I fell asleep over the textbook and barely woke up in time for Burn Notice and avoiding the fucking over of my sleep schedule, so I deemed myself unable to concentrate. German today! I don't think there's going to be much more in the way of work.

When the hell did it get to be a year since Michael Jackson died? And on top of that, it's only been a year since Michael Jackson died? And on top of that, wait, he's actually dead? I don't even know how to feel about this. I'm not one of those die hard fans, I did enjoy his music, but he'd been so strange I wasn't sure how to feel about knowing all that crap about him, and he'd been out of the public eye for a while. So... bzuh. Weirdness.

(You get babbling on the subject of Michael Jackson in lieu of much of anything serious about the news, because the news is damn depressing. Boy still doesn't have a job and it's been six months. And. Ugh.)

Right. I guess this is where I get ready for work. And by work I mean pack a few boxes and then sit and do some writing and filing for the rest of the day. I've got stories in progress I do need to work on, but I really need to finish this damn chunk of Martine before too long. And then start a more balanced ... thing. Writing regimen.




Other people's dragons who need assistance too!

( Русский язык )

Here's one you haven't seen in a while: Me (Me) and Sam (Also Me)

Me, coming out of the shower: Wow, that only took...
Sam: Ten minutes, yep.
Me: ... so, I just... got up. Stretched, ran, showered, washed my face...
Sam: In an hour, yep. See what happens when you don't get distracted, when you go through all your routine cleanly and efficiently?
Me: ...?
Sam: *baps* You stretch in five, you feed the cats in five, you leave five minutes early. You come back, hop straight into the shower, it takes you ten minutes instead of fifteen.
Me: Oohhhhhhh.
Sam: Duh. Now, do it again, for eight weeks.
Me: Crap.
Sam: *laughs at me*

I get no respect even from myself. I swear.

So, I have this novel. And it's about an angel who doesn't know he's an angel, whose life started about five or six years ago, who has a couple of girlfriends (poly, not cheating) and who has managed to, unbeknownst to anyone in the book until towards the end, knock up one of them. The other one is possessed by a demon who's trying to get him. I forget why, but I'm sure I wrote in a good reason, I remember the outline was pretty tight. Recurring motifs involve mirrors, wings, shadows, and headaches. Sort of. Shadow and darkness, both of light and the kind that happens when you pass out. Main characters are the angel and his two girlfriends. Side characters are another angel who's kind of investigating the human angel (I'm getting tired of typing out amnesiac angel) to see if he's redeemable back to heaven or if he's a lost cause, and the demon who's possessing one of the girlfriends to corrupt the angel. And the possessed girlfriend's girlfriend (see: poly).

The only problem is, this is for novelbigbang and they need a title by the end of the month. And, seriously? I suck at titling things. HELP ME, F-LIST. I also should probably come up with a book blurb and a real two-page-ish plot synopsis for query purposes, plus a synopsis of whatever length they want for the comm, but that can come later. And that, sometimes at least, is easier.



I am so awesome that, would you believe it, I'm almost ready to go by now. I just need to put my chip case (CHIP CASE) and my bento (BENTO) in my pack, grab my sunglasses and iSis and things and go. Which. My iSis is trying to give me a heart attack. I have a flip-closed iPod case, and it was closed, and I wasn't touching it, and it was off, I know because I turned it off when I got in from walkies/running this morning, and it spontaneously turned on. For no apparent reason. What the hell, are there demons about, and if so, why didn't the TV flicker on? What the fuck, iSis?

Anyway. In conclusion, I am awesome, and this better be the start of a fucking fantastic day. Or at least, a day of me being awesome. Like, strangely, the past two days have been. Exhausted, but still Michael Bay.