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Wednesday, January 7th, 2009
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7:35 pm
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6:44 am - Don't Lose Me
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| Tuesday, January 6th, 2009
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5:10 pm
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So ... if the lights go off around here and you find that you'd like to stay in touch, here's my email address.
opaltallulah at gmail dot com
ETA: If you are trying to back up your lj using LJ Archive, you will need to go to http://www.livejournal.com/settings/?c=OldEncoding to do the encoding thingy. I had a terrible time trying to find it.
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6:23 am
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| Monday, January 5th, 2009
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9:16 pm
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We are watching True Beauty and goofing on all of the stuckity uppidy folks.
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6:06 pm
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1. Not Quite Dead Enough - Rex Stout
I needed a comfort read and, when that is the case, I usually go to a mystery, particularly a favorite from childhood. Rex Stout and Nero Wolfe are partially responsible for my love of big words and Archie Goodwin shares the credit for getting me into hard boiled detective fiction and Raymond Chandler. I picked this one to reread because I didn't remember it as fully as some of the others. As I read, I remembered why I hadn't reread it as often as some of the others - it just isn't as good. One would think that I'd love the WWII setting with Goodwin in uniform and wartime espionage, but the sad fact is that when Stout's books (except for the one where they go to Montenegro) stray too far from the formula, they just aren't as good. Goodwin wasn't as snappy, the usual supporting cast was mostly absent, Wolfe was OOC (a man of his arrogance deciding he's better off fighting on the frontline than using his gigantic brain?), and Cramer was completely inconsequential.
Don't get me wrong. It was still a good read, but it's definitely not a favorite in the Wolfe canon.
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| Sunday, January 4th, 2009
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2:35 pm
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11:56 am
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Ugh. I feel ill. It could be because I have to go back to work tomorrow, but I still feel icky and have since yesterday. I'm making some soup - comfort food. I just finished beta'ing a really long piece and sent it off so I do feel a sense of accomplishment there. I think I'm going to read for a while and pretend I don't have work tomorrow.
V is at church and having lunch with her mom right now, but she'll be back later. We're both a bit out of sorts because we both go back to work tomorrow. She's a lot more negative about it than I am, but we're both a bit on edge.
I feel like everything is crashing down on me right now. All of the responsibilities of work are reasserting themselves and I feel a bit overwhelmed.
Also, today I start month 2 of the antibiotics and I feel a bit upset about that. I shouldn't be. It's so non-intrusive and I am very lucky, but part of me rebels at the long-term nature of the medication. I just hate taking it, putting it in my body. And although I do feel better, I still am achy and don't feel right. But I'm just being spoiled here. Like I said, I'm very lucky.
The thing that I look forward to LEAST about going back is that the semester still has 2 more weeks. So I'm not going back to a new semester with a new novel and new activities. I'm going back to test prep and midterms. Ugh. Boring and yet stressful.
But I really shouldn't complain. At least I have a job.
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| Saturday, January 3rd, 2009
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6:12 pm
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ganked from ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) snurri :
I died on Moonbase Used SongsI was killed in a spider-webbed tomb beneath the moonbase by Loveslashangst the plasma cloud, whilst carrying... a MUSIC-8800 supercomputer, an Icando26-2 model hazmat suit, a xfileslithium crystal, an WWIDSITH-160 phaser, a gimligirllithium crystal. Score: 152 Explore Moonbase Used Songs and try to beat this score, or enter your username to generate and explore your own space adventure... |
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5:01 pm
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7:02 am
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poisontaster is hosting an interesting discussion over here about whether or not white authors should include characters of color in their writing, even if it means they end up doing a lousy job and employing stereotypes. There's some good stuff going on in the comments.
I am starting one of the books my parents got me for Christmas - Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life by Steven Johnson. It's a little dated (2004), but I've paged through it and it looks as though it will be good. I guess this will be my first official book read of 2009 (although I often read like a magpie, picking up and putting down a multitude of shiny things in one day). I'm going to try to keep a list so I can look back at the end of the year at the demographics.
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| Friday, January 2nd, 2009
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8:37 pm - cephalerotica (nsfw)
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7:41 pm - Don't mind me - just working on my 2009 goals
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Five objects I can see from here and their stories.
1. Photograph of V pretending to push me into the Grand Canyon. That road trip was a turning point in my friendship with her, a point wherein she acknowledged that I wasn't seeking to be her friend - that I wanted her. We learned a lot about each other on that trip, not all of it good. That was the trip where I neglected to make reservations in Roswell on the weekend of the crash anniversary - to the infinite chagrin of V and our friend Paulson. She also learned that I was accustomed to staying in fleabag motels and sleeping many people to a room. She was appalled. I learned more about her religious background. And was appalled.
In the photo we are playing around. She's posing for the camera, pushing on me, and I am in one of my classic don't-touch-me uptight poses. Because she was touching me and it was what I wanted but it was also scary. Because I had never had a serious relationship before and I knew, just knew somehow, that she was the one.
2. Two 1960s fondue sets. I used to give epic theme parties, before I became a teacher and my social circle shrank so drastically. One of the last theme parties I gave, a party V actually attended, was a fondue party. It was kinda swanky as I was living in my circa 1920s apartment back then, surrounded by my vintage furniture and household items. I miss being able to spontaneously give parties. V doesn't like giving parties and she has very different ideas about throwing parties, mostly involving lots of cleaning ahead of time.
3. My hourglass. V gave it to me for Christmas. I have wanted one for a very long time. I am obsessed with time and issues related to time. I find it very soothing to sit and watch the sand run down. I don't especially like regular clocks and I don't collect timepieces, but I have always liked hourglasses and sun dials.
I don't know what it is about time. I wish I could inhabit the past, present, and future simultaneously. It seems unfair that we can't step back in time, step back through that door, the same way we step back and forth in space. I have always liked old things. I grew up listening to old music (jazz, bebop, blues, big band, classical) and watching old movies thanks to my parents.
4. Basket o' porn. V and I made a basket of gay porn for our friend Paulson and his partner for Christmas. It's sitting on the bench waiting to be delivered. V was against the idea at first, but I went ahead and bought the DVDs and, once I had them, she was okay with it and even designed the basket. I hope they like it.
5. Rearview sunglasses. I got these in a toy spykit V gave me a long time ago. They are these groovy looking dark sunglasses, and they have mirrors on the sides so you can see behind you. I really like them, but I can only wear them for a little while because they give me a headache (like most things in life). When we were courting, V gave me lots of toys, silly stuff. She still does.
The rearview glasses are next to the 3-D glasses and V's dark regular sunglasses that I wear when I have a migraine and my eyes are super sensitive to light. Can't tell you how many hours I've spent wearing those sunglasses with a cold towel wrapped around my head trying not to throw up.
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5:57 pm
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10:35 am
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Have y'all seen these? Star Trek mashed up with Doctor Who.
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9:04 am
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Writing prompt from apiphile here
A HAPPY MARRIAGE Describe a happy marriage over at least ten years. You will have to dispense with focused narrative, summarising to a large extent, listing details-- the reasons you think this is a happy marriage. Is a happy marriage an enviable marriage? Can a couple be happy? Inseparable and insufferable? 600 words.
( My response to the prompt )
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| Thursday, January 1st, 2009
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9:17 am - Goals for 2009
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1. I'm going to write more and have the guts to share what I write more often. This includes working on original fic as much as I work on fanfic. Maybe even go back to writing some poetry. I would also like to write lengthier, more interesting posts. I've started treating my lj more as a place for fic and a jumping off point for social contact and less as a record of the things I am thinking and doing. I have been very silent this past year about the stuff that I'm thinking and I want to change that.
2. I'm going to get healthy - follow all my doctors' orders and also exercise more. I'm also going to improve my diet - V and I both eat out too much when we could be eating much healthier foods at home.
3. I'm going to take care of onerous things I hate doing (car maintenance, writing out bills, grading, etc) in a more timely fashion.
4. I am going to make the effort to extend my/our social circle, not just online but irl. I know that I tend to cut myself off from the world and that when I do it just makes me more withdrawn. As a result, even when I'm interacting with people I tend to keep things at a surface level and not get involved. Like I said, I was very silent on a lot of fronts this past year.
5. I'm going to start drawing again.
I think that's it.
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| Wednesday, December 31st, 2008
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8:33 pm
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We are under a county-wide burn and fireworks ban due to drought conditions and high winds. There's a $1000 fine for setting off fireworks in the county. It's been pretty quiet, but I just heard a bunch go off nearby. Are these people stupid? If they were here last year, they know what can happen. Last year, there were hundreds of fires on Dec 31/Jan 1 due to fireworks. I hate them. I just want this night to be over.
I am watching Gordon Ramsey and reading Nero Wolfe fanfic trying to relax and distract myself. I sent off the first half of the Chaucer fic to be beta'ed for the first time - I'm nervous about that, too.
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11:56 am
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Today and tonight will be all about distracting myself. Last New Year's was so horrifying and terrifying that I still look out the window and expect to see flames, so I of course will be staying up all night tonight, dog leashes and important papers where I can easily grab them. So as evening approaches I will be online pretty much continuously (along with sewing, writing, and playing Wii) in an attempt to distract myself.
If anyone would like to join me.
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| Tuesday, December 30th, 2008
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9:09 pm
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We played more Wii, but now V is watching the Spurs game. I've been working on my Chaucer fic pretty steadily, but I'm having trouble with characterization. Also, I am having trouble with the last act. I know how it's going to end, but there's a gap between where I am currently and that ending. If I go with what I had in mind, this fic could easily double in size ... thus relegating the pilgrimage and the tale-telling to less than half of the entire fic. Or I could bypass a lot of stuff and head for the finish line.
I need to finish the entire draft though and get revising. I have reworked the first 4 chapters, but I haven't revised the rest. There's some stuff I need to embed into the narrative and it desperately needs beta'ing. As far as posting it ... I can't see myself posting it unless I know I have the entire thing mostly ready to go. I have been burned many times by WIP that are never finished.
Random Pics
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