Between the good and bad, that's where you'll find me, Reaching for Heaven

A week when everything that could go wrong went wrong. Getting chewed out by a bossy co-worker when I couldn't hop fast enough for her. Bought a new alarm clock to replace the one on which the alarm will not work and then not five minutes after I got it working, it gets knocked off the shelf and breaks. Missing the same bus *twice*, then getting chewed out by a bus driver (do those people have some clause in their union contract where they agree to be as nasty and bigoted against people as they can possibly be or something?!). Customers being generally whiny babies due to the hot weather. Having to pay a library fine from *January* that I hadn't been told about and said fine came to five dollars due to them raising the cost of the fine and not telling me about that, either. And some fannish things I'm not going to get into in order to avoid wank.

The Rei/Lilith icon is used with good reason. I'm rather hoping the loon in Florida is right and the world really is going to end in October

Okay, so I'm not doing such a good job keeping my resolution to post *something* every day. Not even doing that great writing a fic or part of one each day, either, but it's not for lack of trying. Being short on inspiration will do that to you.

So! Inventory at work went well, though not as a good as some years, thanks to some stoopid kid using my neurological condition as a pejorative (Needless to say, I ripped him a new one for that, but still. Nice to know that "Asperger" is the new "retard", dammit >.<)

I was supposed to work on Wednesday, but that never happened, due to it being way too snowy and blowy. The weather reports were predicting white out conditions, and when I got up in the morning, I found that was precisely the case: I could not see the trees twenty feet from my window. I called in to see if they really needed me, and warning them that I might be late, but they told me to take the day off since the store was dead. They ended up closing early as well, which my folks discovered later when they tried to go shopping. I spent much of that day shoveling snow or staying inside, tagging RP posts and watching a marathon of the second season of Torchwood.

I've been watching quite a bit of stuff lately: I've been keeping on top of the new episodes of Castle as they come out, and last night, I watched the new NBC show "The Cape" -- it's a bit uneven, but still cool to watch.

More to come about recent book-buying...

Hooo, where did that week go?

The past seven days have been peculiar: rainy days when I was curled up under the covers with a book, reading and snuggling with the twelve-inch Eeyore plushie which I adopted (while I was shoe-shopping with my mother at Kohl's). Work days when I just felt too tired to post, plus I doubt you really want to hear about the eedjit customers bitching about the rain, even though We NEEDED Rain BADLY. And days when I've been by tagging RP tags and watching marathons of anime.

Finished watching Revolutionary Girl Utena, and I think Ohtori Academy has Gormenghast beat for sheer weirdness per square foot. (Also trying not to crush on Akio; what is it with me and White Haired Pretty Boys??)

Finished watching Black Lagoon and enjoyed it way more than I expected I would. It was one of those cases of watching a series to familiarize myself with one RP character's canon and coming away from it as a bit of a fan. I may even pick up Rock as a character someday, though I know our Eda will be all over him (I love that, though, and hey, she's got every reason to hit on him: he's a good guy and a good catch).

Rewatching Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo, after watching it through once, and I have to say, this is one of my favorite adaptations, right next to the version with Jim Caviezel. The plot pretty much follows the plot of the original (aside from it being told largely from Albert's POV), but the conceits have been science fictionalized and given an often classic anime upgrade as well: the Chateau D'If becomes a futuristic prison IN SPACE, the Carnival in Rome becomes Carnival in a city on the Moon, Haydee becomes an exotic alien princess from a planet in "Eastern Space", and classic anime fans are gonna love the riff on the duel at the turning point of the narrative. And I utterly love the riff on Edmond Dantes (which put me in mind of an explanation I made on a creepy character whom I brought the Mansion); sure it puts it in the realm of fantasy, but hey, there's references to Dantes being somewhat vampire-like in the book, so it seems the writers and the director (who also did "The Animatrix: Second Renaissance", as I suspected, since it has the same 3D CGI background/cel-shaded characters scheme, though I suspect the wacky patterns in the costumes were rotoscoped in) decided to run with the idea. I've got the DVDs on order from Amazon (used), which is sheer proof of how much I love this anime.

Friday, after accidentally getting on the wrong bus, I ended up going downtown and hung out at Brew'd Awakenings, a small coffeehouse I've been meaning to hang out in to get some writing done, though they also have Wifi, which may not be a good thing, since I'm likely to tag instead of write. I did manage to get a couple more Gormenghast fics written there, including a character sketch of Mr. Flay and the Wild Thing, and a Fuschia/Prunesquallor ficlet that I'm still revising, since I'm not sure how well it turned out as I kept giggling and feeling awkward about it.

Have been trying to log onto the pirate signal all afternoon and evening, but it didn't manage to go through until just now at the stroke of ten PM. Odd since this is my usual hour to hop on to tag RP entries, etc.

Two long, tiring days at work, back to back (I specifically asked to work the holiday yesterday, as it's time and a half and I need the cash). Still have not called Verizon as I have just been too darn busy between work, etc. The three of us went to the cemetery last night to put flowers on my grandfather's grave. Dad even went to the trouble of adding a curved stone above the headstone to keep the soil from washing down and filling in the lettering on it (as it's apt to do).

Finished reading the first third of the Gormenghast trio and am quite a bit of a way through book two (whilst waiting for the pirate signal to become clear), surprised at how much I'd forgotten, but then again, it was ten years ago that I first read the bricks, and that wasn't the best time in my life, either so those two years are a bit of a haze anyway (broken engagement, working, etc.). In case anyone's wondering how I first found out about it, it was from seeing the previews for the miniseries on the local PBS station, and then spotting the omnibus edition at the Pollard Library in Lowell a week or two later.

And yes, I was a bit of a Steerpike fangirl from the start.

The night I got the laptop, I'd also hit up the Salem Barnes & Noble, where I'd picked up the first of Richard Kadrey's "Sandman Slim" series, aka "Stark's canon" to the carpe_ho_ras crew. You know you're part of it when you think of something as "so and so's canon".

By some happy accident, my dad left his wader boots at home today, and so he called to let me know that I could borrow them to wear as I went to work; the water on the street is now across the street and over parts of the sidewalk, specifically what we're now calling "the dippy-doo by Dunkin Donuts", where it dips down to admit a drive-thru driveway. So I put them on -- and considering that they were five sizes too big for me, it was like walking with a pair of wastebaskets on my feet. I managed to shuffle down the street to the dippy-doo, and I got about a third the way across before the water started to ship almost as high as the waders, and I still had a ways to go. To say nothing of the waves being made as people driving through crept past me. I finally gave up after three tries and clomped back home to call my boss and let her know that my street was impassible again. I kind of needed the day off anyway, since I need to brace myself for the onslaught tomorrow and Friday.

And so I'm about to start typing one of the Fanfic Roses which I'd finished. Hopefully I can get at least one typed and posted today, if not two of the shorter ones. Maybe I can get one of the story_lottery stories done as well, and there's always the centi_50 fics. I might just slap all of those up here this week and get the dang things out of the way.

None of this is liable to make much sense since I had a cruddy day, up to and including almost having a meltdown because a young man with Tourette's Syndrome was in the lane next to mine and I was overstimulated already. It wasn't his fault: it was the fault of the bad wiring in my head.

Had "one of those days" at work: despite the fact that everyone was going on about how nice it was outside (and it was very nice today: I didn't have to wear my scarf or my thermals for the first time in weeks), they all came crowding into the store. Buh? Shouldn't they be out enjoying the sunshine? (Unless they did that over the weekend and now they need to play catch-up on buying groceries)

( Cut for fandom ranting, with possible triggers )

I could have managed to get by starting at nine this morning, and mind you, I'd *tried* to finagle going in at that hour: the store was dead until then and didn't really pick up till 10.30. And I swear to God, if I heard one more person whinging about the snow, I was about to turn them around and point out the fact that it Wasn't Sticking To The Ground At All (oddly enough, until about now the only place it's been sticking has been in my very sheltered yard).

But enough grumbling about people grumbling. I managed to get a couple more fanfic roses written -- only to have two more decide to tack themselves on to the list, meaning I'm up to fifteen roses. The hard part is trying to stagger them, since a goodly number come from the same fandom: at this point, I've got four "A.I." fics and three Yami no Matsuei fics, besides the assorted other fandoms, so I just have to figure out how to space them. Don't ask me why, I just feel odd about posting fics from the same fandom on consecutive days. I guess it's a form of wanting to spread out the fun. The hard part, though, is the fact that I have to be in the right frame of mind to write in certain fandoms, so sometimes they don't get written out in the order that I'd like to, so making sure I've got them staggered to my liking can be a bit of a juggling act. I'm also finding that, despite the fact that I'm writing shorter fics than I did for Christmas, I'm having a harder time getting them written, though I suppose getting asked to take on extra hours today didn't help (one reason I've been so out of sorts about it). And then there's the nine bjillion prompt comms I keep making the mistake of looking at, when I have yet to finish the centi_50 prompts I picked up, to say nothing of typing up the 30_kisses fics I have in the editing room.

You've heard of the Straw That Broke the Camel's Back, work today was an instance of the Case of Soda That Broke the Aspie Girl's Back. Or caused her to lose her balance and fall on her toushe, then nearly have a panic attack on the floor. Somehow in the process, I wrenched my left shoulder and now it's killing me. :: Growls::

Positive energy, hugs, Internet cookies, fanfic recommendations, cool fanart (with or without sexy death gods) anything you can throw at me would be greatly appreciated about now.

Also, this is the third day in a row I have been unable to get any substantial amount of writing done, and it's making me a sad panda. I have a help_haiti fic to write (two, if you count the winning bid on the main auction), and my brain doesn't feel up to it, even if my heart is.

Or "Is Civilization as We Know It Going to Collapse Because Someone had More Than 12 Items in the Express Lane?!"

About halfway through my shift, two people approached my boss, arguing over the fact that one of them had had more than 12 items in the express lane. I couldn't hear my boss's side of the exchange, since the two combatants were getting loud (loud enough that almost the entire checkout was staring at them with the sort of look generally reserved for screaming/flailing/tantruming two year olds), but I believe they were asked to stop arguing and leave. Either way, it was all I could do to keep from turning around and telling them "Stop it. Right Now. You sound like a couple of kids bickering. How important is it?" But it wasn't my place to intervene; still, I felt bad for my boss having to try and reason with the unreasonable, irrational wonks with the gimmes. And it wasn't like either of them even had more than two or three bags of stuff altogether, between the two of them, so I suspect this was a case of perfectionistic wankery. If it was someone trying to horn through with a full shopping cart, I could understand a certain amount of displeasure, but even then the amount they were displaying -- between the finger pointing and the name-calling -- was disproportionate to the problem.

I feel like biting something right now. Off to find some cranberry juice...

And also planning my week: Mark and Kristin's wedding is on Saturday (who knows if we'll make it, since there's supposed to be a blizzard), so I'm shopping for a wedding present for them as well as a new blouse for myself to wear to said wedding. Though I have a funny feeling we may get snowed out (snowed in?), but... at some point I'll need a nice blouse, so it won't be a total loss, plus I'll likely see them during the New Year, at which time I'll give them said wedding present.

Also have to bear in mind that I have work on New Year's Day, which means figuring out an early Mass to go to. :: Mutters:: I should never have told my supervisor that I took the Pledge when I was in my twenties.

One of the fics I'm poking at for the 12 Days of Fanfic is a Dresden Files fic; one of these days, I am going to write something involving the snarky wizard for hire which doesn't revolve around the holidays, though this year the fic also features his brother Thomas the energy vampire, as well as some ...interesting revelations about who else is on the family tree. :: Adjusts eyeglasses, smirks evilly::

I'm trying to get a fic or two ahead, since I'm mostly drafting the fics longhand during the day and typing them up later in the evening. One or two are actually already plotted out in my head, they just need to be typed up, but I'm trying to stagger the fandoms: I've got three "A.I." fics, two set in different permutations of the Matrix universe, two Neon Genesis Evangelion fics (specifically set in my Neon Enoch Evangelion 'verse), two (possibly three) Yami no Matsuei fics, and one each of the Dresden Files and Trinity Blood. Last thing I want to do is have two fics from two fandoms on consecutive days (not sure why, other than spreading out the fun). Though I may post the possible third YnM fic on the same day as another that I am definitely posting, since one fic is slashy while the possible fic is a het fic for those who don't exactly do slash (and that was me a few years ago, though I was open towards slash by writers I trusted; one of these days I'll post a Teal Deer about how I came to be more accepting of slash pairings).