( Gaeilge )

Still a bit freaked about money, and the amount of it I have to spend. Still annoyed that everything needs maintenance. Still not completely freaked because savings, but ugh.

On the somewhat more amusing side, I managed to sit through the entire first episode of Dominion last night. It was troperrific. I'm entirely certain there was not one goddamn character in that episode who had a lick of characterization beyond the trope/archetype/stereotype. There was the Chosen One, played by Chris Egan who also played the Chosen One in the LAST big budget biblical-based show, Kings. Woo. There was The Aloof And Powerful Mentor, played by fucking Astinos from 300, boy he grew up pretty. There was the Corrupt Politician and the Honest Politician/Nobleman, who was exactly as ineffectual as you might think. The Nobleman's Virtuous Daughter, The Racy Harlot (who is sleeping with the Aloof and Powerful Mentor, because why bother with a whole season of Spocking around when you can just get right to it), the Winsome Waif, the Corrupt Politician's Son who is exactly what you'd expect, both "Dad, Why You So Evil" and "I Will Be Eviler Than My Dad Mua Ha Ha Ha Ha..." ... No, Sebastian Stan did it better in Kings. Which, yes, I am going to compare it to because big budget biblical based show with Chris Egan in it. Chris Egan, who cannot for the life of him play a savior figure because he has the follow-me charisma of a rock. Not even a cool rock, like Gibralter or the Stone of Scone or even the Blarney stone, a beach pebble that gets stuck in your flip flop/thong.

No, actually, I'm not going to compare it because I'm not going to watch it. The only reason to watch it is the Aloof and Powerful Mentor figure, and only because holy shit Astinos grew up pretty.

Right. It seems I have a lot of fiddly things to do at work today, so hopefully I can get writing done between everything. Hopefully I can stay awake enough to do everything with a clear mind. Hopefully I can get shit done? Oh dear god. I am going to collapse at some point this weekend and I only hope I have enough shit done that I don't feel tremendously guilty for doing so. Efficiency will be the watchword of the rest of the week.

( Gaeilge )

Apparently I'm going in to work today because the Guild Show is this weekend, the fiber fair is next weekend, my aunt isn't actually as ablebodied as she likes to pretend she is, and I'm not as sick as I want to pretend I am. Or sick at all, really. And I'd feel guilty if I took a sick day and skived off work on a day when I didn't really need to but I really, really want to. Maybe after the trade shows. Maybe I will get a break ever if I just refuse to go to the doctor ever and break both my arms. Why no, I'm not resentful of a certain ditzy co-worker at all.

At any rate. Gods and Monsters almost finished yesterday, now I just need to finish it tonight. Hopefully. Today, the only thing I'm writing is Nerd Girls, and please dear god let today be less chaotic than yesterday. I think I'm giving up on getting Halloween decorations made until at least tomorrow night, if not this weekend. They're not even that hard! I just have no goddamn time. The gargoyles are still in the boy's car, but those can go out when the rest of the decorations are out. On the other hand, ooh. Maybe if we still have black felting fiber I can make some spiders to go in/with things. That would be at least some use of my time at work, and it's not like we don't have bushes and trees we can put them in. Okay, so it's not that bad.

Nerd Girls, and maybe reading over White Lightning, what I have done of it, and seeing how I need to rewrite the beginning/how much I need to write of the end. If I use what I have already and try and blend the two together, which might work since I don't think my writing has changed too much since I started, or if I try to write entirely from scratch. Nano dictates that I write entirely from scratch, but if I have a Nerd Girls draft by then I might just try to write something else entirely from scratch at that point. It's not like I have a dearth of novels to write.

Feeling less overwhelmed and like I have no goddamn time to do everything I want to do today. I just need a couple good days where I can get caught up on Nerd Girls even though I haven't actually promised that on a deadline to anyone. Because my brain is weird like that.

( Gaeilge )

Suddenly I'm disappointed to find out that the literal translation from Irish for "for example" is not "because reasons".

So at this point I think I should just give up on whatever estimates of writing efficiency I had before because clearly I was overestimating myself. Or I always have been. That is entirely possible. Definitely not getting costumes done before the weekend, though. On the other hand I might actually get them done on the weekend. Or a lot of them.

That said, though, I think the major project aspects are done, which means that today, in addition to writing next week's Gods and Monsters, can be devoted to planning out the Nerd Girls Save The World project. Only now I can't decide between calling it Revenging Angels (or something similar) or Nerd Girls Save The World. Or Revenging Angels 1: Nerd Girls... etc. Nerd Girls Assemble? I should take a poll or something.

So, yes, today will be finishing up Gods and Monsters in the first hour or so and then more Gods and Monsters while planning the nerd girl revenge thing. Tonight there will be all the Photoshop for the Haven tagging contest, which should be fun and hilarious, and possibly productive of something. Between that, I guess, more wrangling of my writing schedule for the next few months/rest of the year, and doing some blog posts. That should at least be do-able as far as that goes. And at some point today or tomorrow I need to figure out a budget for Dragon*Con. I hate budget. Bleh.

( Gaeilge )

My kingdom for a 501 Irish Verbs book. Seriously.

The great bra adventure continues. I haven't told you guys about the great bra adventure, have I? It's not that great compared to some, at least I have a size on the upper edge of standard. But, okay. So I started snapping my underwires on my bras, which is usually a good sign I need to get more. For whatever reason I seem to have been getting them in batches the last ten years, when one goes, the rest usually follow, so, new bras. So okay, rather than go to whatever cheap discount store Voldemart I usually get my bras from, where they still fit decently and last a few years, I decide to go to an actual lingerie store. I get a recommendation from Anna, measure myself once I figure out how the measuring tape goes in ways that will not make me feel horrible about myself, and hey! I've lost an inch or two around my ribcage. Cool, maybe I've gone down a band size. So I get my bras and I order them and they come and first of all, holy shit padding! The other reason I get my bras at a cheap discount store these days is because they are the only place left that doesn't have everything in padded bras. I loathe padded bras on the general principle of, look bitch, I already have enough padding, I do not need more! So what I ordered were bras that I thought would fit and be comfy and what I got were giant turquoise colored foam cups held together by itty bitty straps. The fuck. The shoulder straps were also the shortest I've ever seen. I let them sit in the box overnight and and think about their sins.

Then I got up in the morning and decided it might not be that bad after all, I'll try it. With the sort of reservation I usually keep for poking something that may or may not be venomous/poisonous. So, before my shower, I went and tried two of them on, since I got two different styles. And they weren't bad? But it turns out I haven't gone down a band size like I thought. Which likely only means that the bras I originally bought a few years ago were a larger band size than I thought; all the size info has now rubbed off of them so I'm guessing, and the measuring tape would do nothing since, band stretch. So, fine, I will wear the goddamn padded bras, but I'm exchanging them for the proper band size and we'll see how that fits. I think, actually, once I get to the right band size it'll work out? But fucking padded bras what the hell. I suppose I'll get used to the concept. I got used to putting on makeup! But would someone please explain to me the purpose of padding in bras for women who already have ample shelf space? I hope there is one. I'd hate to think this was some sort of hur-dur big boobies conspiracy.

So, yeah. That's my morning! That and gleeing over the fact that three bowls of pasta alfredo over two nights are not enough to make me gain so much as a pound. I suppose it's a tradeoff for ballet exercises in the morning and building what might end up being ridiculous amounts of muscle. Oops? I will once again marvel at how much more densely muscle packs than fat. Still about the same size I was five, six years ago. Eight years ago? Just twenty ish pounds heavier. Where the hell does it all GO? Bloody hell. I think of all of those weight loss victory stories, the before and after pictures, and I think, I haven't gained twenty pounds! Muscle. Tightly packed muscle. Jeez. On the upside, it's made me not so afraid of the scale.

Right. I almost got all the edits on Black Ice done last night! In between getting lain on by a boyfriend. Finishing that and the goddamn G&M today and why is it that every time I think I've gotten ahead on Gods and Monsters I end up right back where I usually am? Argh. Maybe I can finish that today and start on the next one tonight. Yes. I think between that I will also work on blog entries and get those done. And that ought to be enough to keep me busy for the rest of the day. If I can manage it there may be porn writing, or at least implied porn writing, somehow I don't think it's going to work around to actually being on camera, as it were. But that story's been slowly dying for the past two weeks. Ugh.

( Gaeilge )

So, yesterday was supposed to be a language routines and get some writing done yesterday, but what with one thing and another, that didn't happen. I kind of figured it wouldn't happen at work, but when I got home, oh lordy.

First I got home and found out that Sasha Roiz had replied to my off the cuff Princess Bride tweet. Being replied to by an actor you have a crush on is always cause for a little jolt, but this is three days after the parody Renard (Sasha's character on Grimm) account was making Princess Bride references, so there's a whole load of baggage going on with that. Baggage and mental images. Then I go in and sit down to do caps and order dinner because fuck if I'm going to be on my feet in the kitchen, but the boy wants me to walk with him to the gas station on the corner to get gas for the lawn mower. Okay, fair enough. So we do that, come back, I sit down to do caps. Put in the wrong goddamn DVD the first time and it takes me a second to realize it. Swap it out for the right DVD, take a couple caps, get up, feed the cats. Sit down to do caps, get up about twenty minutes later because he's found a baby snake. Baby garter snake. It's cute! I put it in a marigold pot, take a picture. Go to pick it up and put it back on the ground and it pees on me. I got peed on. By a fucking snake. So, fine, fucker, stay in the flower pot. Go take a couple more caps. Feel guilty, come out, finally manage to get the snake out and onto the ground where it can go find a home and food, go back inside. Boy calls me out front to show me how much he's weeded. What are you, five? Can't it wait? I'm exhausted and trying to finish my goddamn caps for this blog entry. So I go look at his weeding, come back in, do a couple MORE caps, realize I've forgotten to order the fucking food. Go back out, boy tells me to go back in and get a menu. Go back in, get a menu, stand around wait for him to decide. Order food. FINISH THE FUCKING CAPS. Food happens. I eat food, sit down to write, boy decides he wants to watch I Am Legend. I am already tired, I don't want to be exhausted and depressed. Go upstairs. Come back downstairs, get chocolate, put food away, go back upstairs. Write some. Discover that writing on the bed leads to exhaustion becoming come on, just go to sleep already. Buggeryfuck. Discover James Nesbitt is coming to Dragon*Con, well, that's good for a bit of an adrenaline hit? No, that doesn't last. Give up on writing, go to bed.

So, yeah. Very little of what I wanted to do yesterday got done. Though Sasha did tweet me back. And a snake peed on me. That doesn't happen every day. I kind of wonder if it got eaten by a bird, though. There was a bird that came down and started eyeballing the place where I put the poor thing, and then when I ran back up the walk to chase it away I didn't see the snake again. Either it burrowed or the bird got it. Ah, nature.

So, okay. Today's plan is to get G&M drafted at work and get at least one scene edited in Black Ice, maybe two. I have an idea of what's going on in G&M, I just need to have the energy to write it down. I have time blocked off in the evening for edits, too, or rather, time left free. So there's that. Hopefully today will be at least a little less chaotic than yesterday. Maybe? Please?

( Gaeilge )

Oof. No, I was going to do the dialogues but, no. Tomorrow.

My god, I actually slept through the night last night. It didn't result in any more exercise ... no, a little more exercise this morning, but not much, but that's something for check-in. But I actually slept through the night! Apart from one thing that may or may not have involved completely waking up, Murdock was nibbling on me. I think I woke up enough to pet him, but I have only a vague recollection of that even happening, so that might have been more the fact that he was sitting on me as I was falling asleep. That cat, I swear.

And enchiladas happened! Actually enchiladas happened on Monday but out of about ten or so that I made I got to eat three of them. Because the boy ate most of them. Even the leftovers. So I told him that it would be a sweet gesture if he went to the store on his way home from work this morning and got cheese so I could make a new batch, 'cause I had most of the stuff left for it. And he did. And then enchiladas happened.

And the point of all this was sort of, does anyone have an idea for a more reusable wrap for frozen meals like burritos and enchiladas and thing than tinfoil? I was kind of thinking of using the muslin that I have, but I don't know how good of an idea that would be. It would also probably require things to be dry when I put them in, but most fabricy things would be like that. (I was out of wax paper, or I would have used that which is at least more reusable than shreddy tinfoil.) And, god, I need to do all the baking this weekend. I'm thinking lemon bars and spice scones. Sunday is clearly All Day In The Kitchen. And. Something. Oh, and chicken from Saturday if the boy gets more of it.

As you may have noticed, periodically I love fucking around in the kitchen and being domestic.

Still Fuck It's Cold Outside cold, still probably warmer than it is in most of the rest of the United States. Which means I'm frozen and grumpy if I have to go out of doors, but less likely to bitch in public? Really, Asheville is an awesome place to live, weather-wise. The mountains mean we get little in the way of extreme weather at any given time. Of course, if the mountain passes, all of them, get rockslid shut we're ... maybe not so much fucked, but things will definitely slow to a craw. But other than that, we're in an amazingly peaceful part of the country.

I need to essay today, make a grocery list and probably a menu plan, and check in. With luck nothing catastrophic will happen and I'll actually get all of those things done, plus some relaxing tonight. In practice... well. In practice, we'll just have to see, won't we? Also I seem to need some food porn icons. Hurm.

( Deutsch )

( Gaeilge )

FUCKING PREPOSITIONS.

Yeah, I got deeply annoyed at my German yesterday and never ended up finishing it. I should probably do that today, and the next exercise. Meh.

Did have one of those revelations last night that isn't so much a revelation to the world at large as a clicking into place of oh that's how that works. Because I was doing scales on the guitar, got through C and D and started E when I realized that every new "middle" scale I was starting on that appropriate note on the middle C scale. Because duh. So, like I said, obvious (and you'd think I'd know this because I took the freaking piano lessons like Good Educated Girls Are Supposed To Do) but guitar scales are so damn new to me that it took me a couple scales to put it together.

I have no idea why I woke up this morning with this immense feeling of what am I doing with my life, what are my choices, why did I fuck up so badly. It was not fun. Not even a nightmare so much as a general malaise and woe. Mornings like that I deeply regret not telling the boy no you can't take a night job I need you here in the mornings in case I have bad dreams. Ugh. Fortunately the Hamletian feeling went away and now I'm all bouncy happy my house even if it's a wreck, slowly fixing that, languages are awesome and I can speak many of them and I am awesome too and so on.

Richard Armitage remains unfair. Everything about him. I want to curl up on a couch with him and watch all the fun movies and babble endlessly with him. (The most enduring crushes I have are couch crushes. Not, oh this guy's freaking hot, the ones of oh my god I want to spend an entire weekend with this person hanging out and talking about all the things.)

I feel like I've passed a major deadline somehow, and I'm not sure how or why. Maybe just that we've gotten through the Once Upon A Time skewerings and back on to more major blogwork now? Or maybe because it's a week and change till my next non recapalypse post. Or something. Not sure which. Which means it's time to get back to Dwarf porn and Talia Wayne AU (come to me Bane/Talia I have missed you!) and random other things I haven't been working on because unpacking and cleaning and such. Not that I don't have cleaning left to do, but it's settling down again. Thank god. Now I just have to finish all that and keep it clean, that won't be hard right? Right?

( Gaeilge )

My god, there are not enough exercises for all those prepositions. On the plus/amusing side, I managed to string together phrases in something resembling my first coherent sentence in Irish? Or my first coherent translation. Or something. I need a workbook. Or a couple more textbooks.

Three day weekend. Just what the doctor ordered. I even managed to get some writing in on the last day, which would have been more except for the selling bank for the house we want continuing to be a giant bag of dicks. They won't pay for the house to be de-winterized, which is actually less calamitous than I feared; at first I thought they wouldn't let us get a decent inspection at all. But Realty Lady says we can get most of the utilities turned on ourselves, we'll just have to pay for it instead of them. So, fuck them, but I still get my inspection just to make sure something else hasn't gone horribly wrong. Because at this rate we're pushing the upper limit of "repairs we know we'll need to make immediately/in the next five years." On the other plus side, some of those repairs are definitely a in the next five years problem.

Right. Back to the grindstone today. Things to do: Deal with modly things and reply to emails with confirmations and answers, call Realty Lady and discuss how de-winterization and turning on utilities is going to happen and when so I can get the goddamn inspection scheduled. Again. For the third time. Writing! BBMs, check publishing schedule, and do at least an hour or so on website stuff. German, Japanese, guitar, fuck I'm busy. At least the chicken's already cut and I just have to cook it up tonight and then apply sauce. And most of that's writing, and since there's very little incoming the only outgoing I should have to deal with is the usual weekend backlog. Woo! Okay, I can do this.

( Gaeilge )

So, went to look at more houses over the weekend. It looks like the leading contenders now are New and Busted and Old Hotness, thank you Anna for the names. Both are pretty much what they say on the tin, New and Busted needs about six months of work and is as old as I am, Old Hotness is considerably older, needs less work as far as I can tell except for some cosmetic wear and tear on the outside, and is fucking awesome. That said, right now we're back to financing and dragging an inspector out to Old Hotness. If we end up going with New and Busted I know at least several pieces of work that need to be done there, and that all the money we'd save going into that one would go into repairs fixing it up. Whereas Old Hotness might not actually require that much immediate fixing.

Oh Once Upon A Time. Oh you fairy tale people in the real world, why are you made of so much fail. Mary Margaret, why do you make me want to slap you with a dead trout? David, you make me want to slap you with a dead trout in both worlds. And Rumplestiltsfucker, what the hell was with the spontaneous burps of accent? Plucked from your heid? Really? I'd say that doesn't even sound authentic except it kind of does, and, really, he is a native Scotsman, but really? This after half the conversation was conducted with him using a fairly flat near-American accent. Also, the Once Upon A Time writers need to be beaten with every single book on writing dialogue I've ever read, my lord. I am, however, seriously giving this Mysterious Stranger the side-eye. That was an awfully Gold-like conversation he had with Emma. Which then resulted in even more speculation that he's grown-up Bae, which resulted in me shipping adult!Bae/Emma so hard like burning. I cannot even tell you, flist. Of course, I need to finish the Ruby/Gold fic first. Oh, decisions.

Heh. Of course, the other reason I want the Mysterious Stranger to be Bae is for the reunion scene. I know Carlyle can carry it. I'm pretty sure Eion Bailey can. That would be one hell of a scene, there. And no one else would understand, because no one knows Rumplestiltstitter's history. They just know him as the scary, scary motherfucker. So. That could be interesting, too.

One of the randomass things I have decided to do to occupy me while househunting, in addition to filling a hope chest, is planning a garden. Basil, Oregano, and the Scarborough herbs, along with some carrots and potatoes and tomatoes, because it is REALLY HARD to fuck up tomatoes, and composting! I am so excited about composting o my flist, you would not believe. Which probably says something about me. You know, I think if I could get away with it in the city, I would keep chickens in Old Hotness. But I don't think the city's zoned for that.

( Deutsch )

Aww, that's so cute. German has two words for assassin and both of them are gendered.

Dragging out the Faust did help, not only with the learning of the prepositions but also with the realizing, hey, with the help of a dictionary I could probably understand this. Which means it's apparently the day for that because I was really, really startled by the ease with which I read the first Russian email exercise thing. I'm pretty sure it wasn't that easy to look at all those words and understand what they meant the first time! Which, yes, duh, of course it wasn't, I've had two and a half to three years of study since then, but it's still trippy. Learning, not just how to read and speak and write in another language, but that I can.

Ahem. Meanwhile. I have work to do, and cannot glee about the Anne Rice vs Stephanie Meyer catfight that seems to be brewing, so says Yahoo. No, seriously you guys, that is the most hilarious thing ever and I want to make all the popcorn and sit back and laugh, but I have shipping and writing to do. But it's so funny.

Oof. So, right now I have to finish this coda scene in HBB and then go over it all and make sure all my Chekhov's guns are in place. Because there's a couple that could use moving to a more prominent position on the wall. And, you know? I subscribe to the Stephen King archaeology theory of writing. There's a dinosaur there, and if you're lucky you can get 60-70% of the skeleton. You never see the whole thing. But if you're lucky, and if you're careful or if you go back to it and keep working on it often enough, you can get quite a bit. Everything I've ever written in the Black Ice world comes out 80-90% close. It is quite possibly not the best, but the closest to how I picture it series of stories I've ever written. Which bodes well for Nano and makes me feel a lot better about my writing.

So damn much to do. Writing, checking this in, then finishing up what I can in the day before I go grocery shopping. Then, um. Yeah, I don't even know. But my electronic brain does, actually, and that's a big help. I might even manage to get to bed on time tonight. I actually got most of my writing done by now, so that should help me get to bed on time. Get up, start writing, and do it all at the proper hour it's supposed to be done. Woot!