{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce","title":"Dyce","subtitle":"Dyce","author":{"name":"Dyce"},"link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"service.feed","type":"application\/x.atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom","title":"Dyce"}}],"updated":"2010-08-22T10:56:21Z","entry":[{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:32994","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/32994.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=32994"}}],"title":"Bad and Good","published":"2010-08-22T10:53:11Z","updated":"2010-08-22T10:56:21Z","content":"Bad: The election has been over for more than twenty-four hours and we still have no frigging idea who won. How is that even possible?

Good: Pictures of Kielle, now on Flickr.

http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/53248320@N04\/<\/a>

Enjoy the adorable babiness!


Oh, and in a note to the post below - man, it's been a while - Kielle has now gone off dummies again. Once she figured out how to suck her fingers\/thumb she appeared to lose all interest in the rubber prosthetics."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:32615","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/32615.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=32615"}}],"title":"The Dummy Debate","published":"2010-05-30T23:29:37Z","updated":"2010-05-30T23:29:37Z","content":"Boy, is giving your child a dummy\/pacifier a loaded issue. And heavily skewed to 'against'.

It's bad for the baby!

Bad for her teeth!

Germy!

Fosters emotional dependence on objects!

You're only doing it to shut her up!


No, actually, I am not doing it to shut her up. After some discussion, Eric and I agreed to give her a dummy TO STOP HER FROM PUNCHING HERSELF IN THE FACE.

No, really.

Kielle wants to suck her thumb. She wants to suck her thumb very, very badly. She's been trying since she was about twelve hours old. The trouble is, even at nearly two months, she still can't get her thumb to stick out from the fist, nor can she hold her fist in place properly against her wee mouth. Now, at first she was philosophical about this. But for the last couple of weeks, she's been getting more and more determined.

And that has resulted directly in her bopping herself in nose, eyes, cheek and chin over and over again. Even when she gets the fist in the vicinity of her mouth, it won't stay put. Once it slid up and her thumb got jammed up her nose. Plus, sometimes the thumbnail makes scratches (one about three millimetres from her eye) And the more frustrated she gets, the harder she flails. And the harder she hits herself. And then she cries and cries, and who wouldn't?

So now she has a dummy. After she hits herself in the face a couple times, her fist is taken away and the nice, non-violent dummy is put in place. And I have trouble believing that not letting her beat herself up is a bad thing."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:32295","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/32295.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=32295"}}],"title":"Mary-Sue, what are you doing here?","published":"2010-05-10T02:08:58Z","updated":"2010-05-10T02:08:58Z","content":"I know there's been many a debate on the subject of whether Supremely Perfect Awesome Sunshine-Farting Princessy Characters who are technically original count as Mary-Sues. My position on this is that yes, yes, they so very much do. In some ways they're even worse, because there aren't any familiar and likeable characters around them to take your mind off them!

Anyone who disagrees?

Read 'A Woman of Quality' by Frances Hodgson Burnett, which you can find for free right here --> http:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/etext\/1550<\/a> at Project Gutenberg.

Clorinda is quite possibly the Sue-Queen. It starts with her mysterious strength and charisma AS A NEWBORN and goes on from there. Plus, she literally gets away with murder! Because he blackmailed her and he TOTALLY DESERVED IT and her sister (the feeble, plain one who worships her) literally DIES OF GUILT because she didn't turn Clorinda in but she's okay with it! Because Clorinda got a happy ending! With the Superlatively Awesome Earl and their six perfect and brilliant and fearless children and I am seriously not making any of this up.

I read it all the way to the end, waiting for some sort of twist, but... nope. O.O It was *special*."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:32242","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/32242.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=32242"}}],"title":"Random Awesome","published":"2010-04-23T22:39:48Z","updated":"2010-04-23T22:39:48Z","content":"Moment of Random Awesome:

Finding a large 'BAD WOLF' scrawled on the back of a stall door in a public restroom.

Best graffiti ever."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:31943","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/31943.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=31943"}}],"title":"elidyce @ 2010-04-22T18:08:00","published":"2010-04-22T08:09:08Z","updated":"2010-04-22T09:00:25Z","content":"Long-term sleep deprivation sucks ass.

I have been trying to come up with a post that doesn't revolve entirely around baby Kielle, but have been drawing a blank. She's a 24-hour job at the moment, literally... since Staff is working, he can only help with morning and evening feeds, as he's gone most days and has to sleep at night.

She's going onto soy formula. Maybe that will help the wind, and the endless fussing and refusing to settle. The only times she would sleep today were when she was a) in the pram being walked around, or b) being held. She has finally consented to nap in her bassinet at about 6 pm. I am very, very tired.

Pictures are up on Facebook. I am soliciting recommendations for a non-facebook place to store pictures... I know there are places you can put your pictures up, but not sure where or which are the best\/ easiest for a sleep-deprived zombie to use. Suggestions, anyone?

Breastfeeding hurts. Everyone who was breastfed, go thank your mothers right now. Because they *suffered* for you.

I am still not sure what colour her hair is. It looked dark at first, but as it's growing out it's showing signs of being dark blonde - it goes goldish when the light hits it right. And sometimes a little reddish...

EDIT: The sleeping lasted all of twenty minutes. Shoot me."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:31670","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/31670.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=31670"}}],"title":"elidyce @ 2010-04-20T11:37:00","published":"2010-04-20T01:38:10Z","updated":"2010-04-20T01:38:10Z","content":"Babies are extremely time-consuming. O.O And do not sleep much, and worry their mothers by feeling as if they have a fever when the thermometer insists that their temperature is perfectly normal every single time.

Yes, I took her temperature seven times. I think I'm officially overprotective.

Today we make our first big outing, which is going to feature more walking than anticipated - she needs a blood test, and since the facility within an easy trainride doesn't have anyone on today who can do an infant heel-prick test, so I have to go to the one that's twenty minutes walk away instead. That's by far the longest walk I've done since the caesarian, and I'm a little apprehensive. But there's a shopping centre there, so I can stop and sit down and have some sushi before trying to walk back.

Annnd it looks like rain. Goody. Fortunately, the pram came with a rain-cover."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:31326","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/31326.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=31326"}}],"title":"Midwives Are Boob Nazis","published":"2010-04-12T22:13:39Z","updated":"2010-04-12T22:13:39Z","content":"

I wanted to breastfeed. Never had any intention of letting Kielle even look at a bottle of formula, unless it was absolutely necessary.

It was.

Kielle has a tongue-tie. I had to look this up - according to Wikipedia, it is: Ankyloglossia, commonly known as tongue tie, is a congenital oral anomaly which may decrease mobility of the tongue tip and is caused by an unusually short, thick lingual frenulum, a membrane connecting the underside of the tongue to the floor of the mouth. Ankyloglossia varies in degree of severity from mild cases characterized by mucous membrane bands to complete ankyloglossia whereby the tongue is tethered to the floor of the mouth.

Hers is mild. Her speech probably won't be impaired - well, there's a chance she'll sound a bit like Elmer Fudd just at first, but she should grow out of it. But it does give her trouble with breastfeeding. She doesn't latch on very well, and tends to push away with her tongue rather than pulling in.

And the midwives just kept putting her back on. I told them it was painful, I pointed out the problems, but they just kept telling me to check more carefully that she was latching on properly and keep trying.

So I did.

For nearly four days.

Finally I got hold of a proper lactation consultant, who agreed that I should not be feeding Kielle blood along with colostrum\/milk, and that a nearly-four-day-old baby should not need to feed for over an hour at a time, every time, and up to three hours out of four. She checked, and found that Kielle wasn't sucking very well, and watched and identified the problem I'd been telling the midwives about for two days... although she can latch on okay, she then jerks her head back at random intervals so that she only has the nipple in her mouth, not the areola. Having to reattach the baby 5-10 times in a half-hour feed is *not* normal, especially when she had attached perfectly the first time.

And the midwives were still telling me to keep trying, even though I have a crack the size of the Katherine Gorge in one side and blood dripping from both if they're handled even slightly.

The other thing the lactation consultant confirmed - after having me express - was that there just wasn't enough. Having spent most of the first day in the ICU, away from Kielle, I hadn't had nearly enough early stimulus and was a day or two at least behind her needs in terms of production. So she was losing weight (more than she should have), crying constantly, and I kept telling the midwives that it wasn't working and they wouldn't *listen*. When a baby has actually SCREAMED HERSELF HOARSE, literally, so that even hours later her voice is failing when she cries, something is wrong. Even an amateur like me knows that.

She's been on formula for about 24 hours now. For the first time since day one, she's sleeping for more than an hour at a time, and can sleep without being held and rocked constantly. She's putting on weight again. She doesn't cry constantly because she's hungry and windy and frustrated.

I am going to keep trying to breastfeed. I have a pump, which will put much less strain on my nipples than the sucking, and when the nipples have had a little longer to heal, I'll start putting her on again for a few minutes at a time. She misses it, I can tell - she'll take the formula, but she prefers even sucking on my finger to the horrible rubber thing, unless she's really hungry. Even if I have to keep supplementing with formula, if I can squeeze out at least a few millilitres of milk, that'll give her a boost.

But if I can't do it - or she can't, as the endless reattaching suggests she may not be able to - I refuse to feel guilty about it. I know breast-milk is best, but given the choice between half-starving my baby or giving her milk out of a tin, I know what I'm going to do.

Bloody hospital midwives. If they'd listened when I told them there was a problem the first time, maybe I'd still have enough functioning nipple to keep letting her try. And Kielle wouldn't have spent two days screaming because she was hungry."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:31028","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/31028.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=31028"}}],"title":"We're home!","published":"2010-04-12T21:37:12Z","updated":"2010-04-13T00:34:26Z","content":"So this is what being fully conscious feels like. I'd almost forgotten.

I've been a mother for five and a half days now. Until now, I've been averaging maybe four hours of sleep per day. But yesterday I got to come home, and Kielle and I (and Staff) spent last night in our own beds. It was great - she woke up to feed a few times, but went straight back to sleep afterwards. I'm actually up before she is, feeling rested for the first time since before she was born. It's a good feeling.

Thanks to everyone for the good wishes and congratulations... Staff brought me a printout of all the comments to his announcement of her birth, while I was in hospital, and I got all teary. Thanks, guys.

I will post pictures on Facebook sometime today - can't now, as Staff is still asleep and I don't know where he saved them.

EDIT: A couple of pictures can be found here --> http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/CousinsApart#p\/u\/2\/LGEE3bJjyP8<\/a> in a video blog thingummy done by our friend Gavin (the awesome DM), who came to visit me in the hospital. The mention of me, and the pictures, start at minute 3.07, if you don't want to watch the whole thing.



As Staff mentioned, I had a caesarian. I don't remember a lot of detail, as in the space of an hour I'd been given pethidine, morphine, a spinal block *and* an epidural, so I was a little hazy and shaking like a junkie in withdrawals - apparently lots of anaesthetic in a very short time gives you the shakes and the chills, who knew?

Staff was amazing. Stayed calm through the whole thing, held my hand and told me that everything was going to be fine - we'd both been a little worried that he'd panic if things went badly wrong. Which they did - I reacted badly to the drip portion of the induction and went from one bearable contraction every few minutes to very intense contractions longer than the pauses between in the space of about half an hour. Which pushed Kielle's heart-rate up to over 200 beats per minute and I could still bloody strangle that midwife for not noticing that her heartrate was climbing UNTIL I POINTED IT OUT IN BETWEEN SHRIEKS OF AGONY.

Anyway. Staff was great through the whole thing. Kept his cool perfectly in the operating room until Kielle was safely out, screaming indignantly as she was weighed and measured, and what dad *wouldn't* tear up in relief when he found out we were both going to be okay?

On the up-side, one of the few things that went better than it could have is that I appear to be one of the lucky few who suffer very little pain after a caesarian. The midwives kept trying to give me painkillers and I kept saying 'no, thanks, it doesn't really hurt except for a bit of a twinge if I move around' and they'd look at me funny. Thank goodness for small favours, anyway.

Very rambling, I know, but I'm coming off five days of (occasional) painkillers, hospital food, severe sleep deprivation and an endless parade of bossy midwives. I am so very, very, very glad to be home.


Following post: Midwives Are Boob Nazis."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:30894","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/30894.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=30894"}}],"title":"Induction Time","published":"2010-04-06T18:52:29Z","updated":"2010-04-06T18:52:29Z","content":"In about forty-five minutes, I will be at the hospital.

In a couple of hours or so, I will be in labour.

By this time tomorrow, unless it goes very badly, the baby will be born and I will be mother to an organism outside my own body.

It's a weird feeling.

Prayers, good vibes and positive thoughts are appreciated."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:30484","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/30484.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=30484"}}],"title":"How?","published":"2010-04-02T22:26:51Z","updated":"2010-04-02T22:26:51Z","content":"How does one affix an eviction notice to one's uterus?

(And in todays Mental Images Nobody Needed To Have, what form would bailiffs take to conduct a uterine eviction? I'm picturing tiny dwarves with those hard hats with lights on, atop a cheap but correct suit and a stern demeanour.)"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:30432","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/30432.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=30432"}}],"title":"Sick and sorry for myself","published":"2010-03-28T16:44:34Z","updated":"2010-03-28T16:44:34Z","content":"

I especially hate being sick right now. It's nearly 3 am, I have had about twenty minutes of sleep thus far, and don't anticipate more than a couple of hours worth tonight. Because one of the ever-so-many fun things about being heavily pregnant is that one's lungs are under a fair bit of pressure. While squished into a significantly smaller area than usual, they are required to produce enough oxygen for two people, not one.

Said lungs are now congested.

When I fall asleep, my breathing gets shallower.

Which means, given the congestion and the squishing and all, I'm not taking in enough oxygen.

So I wake up, gasping and sweating, with my heart racing.

Every few minutes.

Even when sleeping sitting up in the armchair.

I am so very, very tired. :( I want to sleep, but I can't. This has happened before, and I know there's at least a chance that I'll get a couple of hours of sleep when I get to the point of exhaustion when the gasping for breath doesn't wake me any more.

Right now, I feel breathless and shaky and anxious about the baby because this is making *me* feel absolutely miserable, and I have no idea what it might do to her. And I have to stay awake, or I will feel worse.

It stinks."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:30162","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/30162.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=30162"}}],"title":"Dead People and the Cops Who Investigate Them","published":"2010-03-24T12:14:31Z","updated":"2010-03-24T12:14:31Z","content":"Staff has had me watching seasons two and three of 'Homicide: Life on the Streets' with him. It's an interesting show, and I'm enjoying it, but Staff occasionally does not enjoy me enjoying it.

For example, this evening we were discussing whether the later-established fact that Bayliss is bisexual has any effect on his relationship with his partner, Pembleton. I suggested that the closeness has less to do with romantic attraction and more to do with the fact that Pembleton *understands* Bayliss. Being understood and accepted by someone is a powerful connection that is completely irrelevant to romantic interest - it can be a massive *part* of a strong romantic relationship, but there doesn't need to be a romantic relationship for it to exist and be important.

Staff chewed this over and indicated that while he could see how this made sense, he felt the need to point out that he doesn't understand *me* a lot of the time, so what did that say?

Obviously, I explained, that's because I'm Pembleton.

\"I am not Bayliss!\"

\"Yes, you are. I'm Pembleton, and you're Bayliss.\"

\"But I hate Bayliss!\"

\"You're the sentimental one. With the feelings and shit.\"

\"You have the feelings!\"

\"Well, yeah, but I'm more logical about it.\"

I think this is the first time we've found a couple-parallel for ourselves on TV. It amuses me greatly that a) the couple are not actually a couple, but a pair of partnered cops, b) that it happened during the same episode in which Bayliss and Pembleton 'break up' when Pembleton temporarily quits, and Bayliss stands there being all EmoTim to the strains of 'I'll Stand By You', and c) that Staff is still sitting there muttering that he hates Bayliss, and me, and he is NOT BAYLISS.

Which is totally what Bayliss would do."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:29930","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/29930.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=29930"}}],"title":"Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief","published":"2010-03-18T01:47:29Z","updated":"2010-03-18T01:47:29Z","content":"Went to see Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief for Staff's birthday on Sunday, with Dia and our mother. It was good enough that I've actually been thinking about it since, which has combined with rereading 'The Hollywood History of the World' by George MacDonald Fraser, a clever and interesting book about history as portrayed by Hollywood to leave me with some thoughts on the subject.

I will note that I've never read the books, although I liked the movie enough to take a look next time I'm in a bookshop. I am going solely off the movie here.



The story itself is fairly basic... modern teen turns out to have Powers, goes on Quest, meets Girl, has Amusing Sidekick, Loses Mother and recovers from trauma within seconds, Saves Day and comes to understanding with Absent Father. Basically generic, although it's reasonably well-paced and does have a few surprises.

It is the incidentals that made Percy Jackson and his movie something more than Teen Action Movie #15309. After Staff decided he wanted to see it, I contacted both sibling and parent to invite them to see the movie with us as a family thing. My opening pitch both times consisted of 'It's a movie about a kid who's secretly the child of a Greek god and it's NOT ZEUS'. Which is, frankly, what first caught my interest.

Percy is not Hercules 2.0. He's not super-strong or the like, although he does pick up the use of the short-sword in literal minutes. Percy is the son of Poseidon, rather than Zeus or Ares or one of the cooler ones. Moreover, he is the son of Poseidon by a mortal woman with whom Poseidon had an apparently sincere and honest relationship. (Wee spoiler: Although we never see Percy's parents speak to each other, we see them speak *about* each other... and Percy's mother knows exactly how to get him to Olympus in a hurry. Since Poseidon is not permitted to see or speak to his lover and child, the fact that he made sure she could find him in a crisis no matter what Zeus had to say about it says a lot for how much they really mattered to him.) Poseidon does what he can to look out for his son, without actually violating Zeus's decree, and generally comes off much better than Zeus ever did in his bull\/swan\/ant\/golden shower days.

(When it was noted that the Big Three, Zeus, Hades and Poseidon, very rarely fathered offspring, Staff was much amused and asked 'since when'. I can only conjecture that even Zeus learns eventually)

Speaking of Zeus, I absolutely loved the casting of the Greek Gods. From Sean Bean as Zeus and Kevin McKidd as Poseidon on down, the Gods are almost all cast as Of A Certain Age... neither old and wise nor young and vibrant, but somewhere in between. They're not young, and they don't look it, but they're clearly in their prime. Rosario Dawson as Persephone looks the youngest, but even she is unmistakeably an adult, long past any dewy youthful innocence, fully in control of herself and her abilities.

The Amusing Black Best Friend, Grover, actually knows *way* more about what's going on, most of the time, than Percy himself. He has his own gifts, comes to Percy's rescue more often than Percy rescues him, and has his own moments of growth as a character. I loved this - for once it's the hero who bumbles ignorantly, while everyone around him (including his mother) knows what's really going on.

The Love Interest (a daughter of Athena, which prompted me to turn to my mother and suggest that Athena had come down to Earth and met a nice girl - she's a goddess with no interest in men, after all, she can do that) was disappointingly standard, but she kicked butt reasonably well, was neither randomly stupid nor inclined to change character completely after Finding True Lurve, and gets to cream Percy a couple of times, which I did like.

I will not reveal the identity of the real Lightning Thief, but it was one of those moments where, when the reveal happens, you're all 'of *course*, that totally makes sense'. In retrospect, given the tendency of the young demigods to reflect the personae of their godly parents, there was really only ever one person it should have been - and fortunately, that's who it was. He also has a truly classical motivation, which was a nice touch.

The use of mythology in general, while imperfect, isn't half bad. Nymphs and satyrs hang around with the young demigods, as they would, and centaurs (including Chiron) are acting as their teachers. While there's no explanation for why a minotaur would be working for Hades, Charon scorns American money and insists on payment in gold, and thank goodness for that. Medusa appears, is creepy as all hell, and comes to her traditional end. Percy pays for his lack of a classical education when he goes for the heads when confronted with a Hydra, and all three protagonists pay for said lack of classical education at the last Plot Coupon stop - suffice it to say that I was hissing 'DON'T EAT THE LOTUS!' at the screen, and did they listen? Of course not.

It's hardly great cinema, of course, but it was a fun movie, much less offensive to the connoisseur of Greek mythology than it could have been, and there were moments that hinted at the unexpurgated mythology and were exactly right. The little touches, especially, made it work (like the moments in which it becomes pathetically obvious that while some of the gods, like Poseidon and Athena, genuinely care for their children and try to protect them, others are entirely indifferent - and the kids know it). Worth the price of admission."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:29520","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/29520.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=29520"}}],"title":"I <3 my DM","published":"2010-03-16T22:43:01Z","updated":"2010-03-16T22:43:01Z","content":"You know you have a good Dungeon Master when he not only schedules games subject to people's work hours, theatre performance times and assorted schedules without complaining about the tortuous complexity of same, but then adds a note to the effect that the game 'will be subject to immediate change, of course, depending upon baby developments'. Because he and the other players have all been interested spectators to the process of baby production, and know it may happen at any time.

I love D&D nights."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:29221","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/29221.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=29221"}}],"title":"elidyce @ 2010-03-16T12:50:00","published":"2010-03-16T02:50:19Z","updated":"2010-03-16T02:50:19Z","content":"I have a definite favourite pregnancy-book. It is titled 'Up the Duff', full of pithy bits of advice and lots of useful general information, as well as a fictionalized week-by-week pregnancy diary written by the author's alter-ego, Hermoine the Modern Girl (who is in a long-term unmarried relationship with that calm but dashing landscaper and nurseryman, Des Tiny). Kaz Cooke, the author, is the sort of person who'll use 'bollocks' in the text and tell you to tell the midwife to stuff it if she's rude to you. I've been a fan for years, and am no less of one now.

Among the actually-helpful advice in the book are several phrases along the lines of 'look, don't stress about labour. By the time you're at that point, you'll be so determined to get the baby out that you won't even care what you have to do to reduce your body to a single-occupancy residence again'.

This is so very, very true.

I am enormous. I look like I'm trying to smuggle a prize watermelon under my shirt. I can feel my pelvis groaning under the strain. I dare not venture more than ten minutes away from a bathroom, except if I am on a train and can sit quite still the whole time. As of Sunday, I am thirty-seven weeks and the baby qualifies as full-term, so she may emerge at any time from now.

I favour tomorrow. Not today, as I don't have my hospital bag packed properly and her bed isn't made yet, but tomorrow for sure. (I have been forbidden to go into labour between Thursday and next Tuesday as my grandmother will be away) She's heavy, she's huge (she's been above-average in size since her first scan), and I am ready to have her out. Of course, when she's ready to come out is a whole other story, and I'll probably just have to wait a while. Although I have baby-encouraging activities planned, starting next week.

1.\tWalking around as much as possible every day without tiring myself out too much. The weight of the baby's head on the cervix apparently contributes to the damn thing thinning down, which will then lead to labour. In theory.
2.\tUse of aromatherapy oils such as Clary Sage, Lavender, and Jasmine. Clary Sage, in particular, is supposed to stimulate and strengthen contractions to the point where it should be avoided entirely until one is at full term and treated with caution then. Lavender, likewise, is supposed to strengthen contractions and is also relaxing, so I won't fret so much over why SHE WON'T COME OUT.
3.\tRaspberry leaf tea or tablets - again, should be avoided until the baby is full term, acts as a uterine stimulant (as if the poor thing isn't under enough stress already) and even if it doesn't actually encourage labour should get things generally pepped up in preparation for the big event.
4.\tHaving a firm conversation with the baby. Letting her know that her lease is nearly up, that her new place is all ready, everyone's dying to see her, and it's no good her arriving in time for Brisbane's one big convention if we're still in the hospital when it starts.
5.\tSex. No, really, everyone says this is an excellent way of kicking things off, plus we may never be entirely rested again, so why not?
6.\tInvocation of Murphy's Law. Getting myself at least an hour away from both house and hospital with no reliable transportation, without telling the nervous father-to-be where I've hidden the labour bag, on a Monday when said father-to-be is working and my mother will be busy, should trigger labour as a matter of course. Will be trying this on Monday, which will have the added impetus of Nana not being in the state.

If anyone has advice on how to get the geekling to come out, I would be very grateful. I am aware that she won't come out until she's good and ready, but a little gentle encouragement can't hurt, and it gives me something to do while I'm waiting.

And since several people have asked now, a gift-registry can be found at BabiesGalore.com.au under Sarah Gratton (http:\/\/www.babiesgalore.com.au\/viewregistry.php?newcustomerid=95197<\/a>) Gifts are neither requested nor expected! Please do not feel in any way pressured to send anything! But since people kept asking and I have one made up for the family anyway...

Also, I have developed tendonitis. As usual, my injury-timing is *stellar*."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:29073","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/29073.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=29073"}}],"title":"Pirates!","published":"2010-03-10T11:11:14Z","updated":"2010-03-10T11:11:14Z","content":"Rewatched Laputa: Castle in the Sky today.

If you don't absolutely loathe anime, or the work of Studio Ghibli, and you haven't seen Laputa, it's definitely one to put on the to-watch list. I will give you the short list of reasons why:

1: It passes the Bechdel test (As do almost all the Miyazaki movies as far as I know). Not only are there two strong female characters in it, but they have conversations about piracy, sensible clothes, what girls can and can't do and having your pigtails cut off, rather than just men.

2: The art is beautiful enough to frame and put on your wall. Studio Ghibli painted backgrounds are the best of the best, and the designs of the floating city, the airships, and the robots are amazing.

3: It has airships! Gliders, little buzzy flyer things, dirigibles, warships, a flying city... half the movie happens in the sky, and without one single boring old plane.

4: The plot. It has one. It has a *good* one. A little far-fetched, maybe - it's a steampunk fairytale, not realism, but it's coherent, with interesting, layered characters and internal ethics that don't make me yell at the screen.

5: It has sky pirates in pink capri-length stretch pants. I mean, what more do you need?


The sky pirates in pink stretch pants alone should carry it, but I'll make another note of the strong female characters. Miyazaki movies feature female protagonists and antagonists ranging in age from six (Mei from My Neighbour Totoro) to Older Than Dirt (Yubaba in Spirited Away), in roles from witch to pirate to mother to rebel to wolf-girl to farmer to lounge singer to aeronautical engineer and I'm sure there are more I can't think of right now.

Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki are awesome. So are pirates in pink stretch pants. :)

In baby news, she's due in three and half weeks. On Easter Sunday, as it happens."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:28812","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/28812.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=28812"}}],"title":"Nothing To Fear But Pain Itself","published":"2010-03-03T05:34:26Z","updated":"2010-03-03T05:34:26Z","content":"I do not wish to have an epidural.

No, really. From the looks I've been getting when I announce this, I might just as well be saying 'I think I'll have some of that bamboo under the fingernails, thanks' or 'I'm planning to name the baby Leni Hitlerkissen, what do you think?'. But I'm quite serious.

I'm not trying to be Wonder Woman here. I know there are no stars given for having one's baby without painkillers, I will not accumulate any Motherhood Points for my stoicism, and the risk of any harm coming to either the baby or me if I have one is minimal. So why don't I want one?

GIANT FRICKING NEEDLE IN MY SPINE!!

I'm not keen on needles at the best of times. Seeing a piece of metal being stuck into me on purpose gives me the heebie-jeebies, which I count as a win in the 'survival instincts' column, on account of until very, very recently, there were very few situations in which someone sticking sharp pieces of metal into your unprotected flesh was a positive thing. (And almost all of those involve acupuncture or body piercing, which are generally optional, plus you can tell them to take it out if you don't like it.)

Now, I have not seen the epidural needle. The nice midwife giving the antenatal classes refused to show it to anyone unless they specifically asked to see it, because there have been faintings in the past. (Faintings! Danger, Will Robinson, danger!) She did, however, show us the rest of the equipment for the epidural, including the little piece of plastic tubing that gets inserted into your spine for the magic pain-destroying medicine to go through. (Tube hanging out of spine! Warning! Warning!) This tube, nearly two millimetres thick at least, goes IN THROUGH THE NEEDLE! (Run!)

Several prospective first-time mothers seemed quite relieved when the subject of epidurals came up. Hooray, they seemed to think, something to get rid of the pain. I was on the edge of my seat, entire body clenched in preparation for flight, picturing an angry cat hanging upside down from the branch of a tree, hissing and spitting and bristling all over the place and thinking that that was me.

I turned to my dear husband and announced in a tense but firm whisper that I was not having *that*. He gave me a funny look and pointed out that there's going to be quite a lot of pain, and I may change my mind later. He got a piece of my mind for not being sufficiently supportive. (I'm pregnant, I'm allowed to do that.)

Fair enough, he did have a point. I might change my mind later. And if for some reason I need a caesarian, as I hope I will not, I am definitely going to change my mind because 'giant needle in my spine' is at least somewhat preferable to 'sharp scalpels cutting into my abdomen'. But right now, I would rather chomp on a stick for pain relief than get an epidural.

Anyone who has known me for any length of time is aware that I am accident-and-injury-prone to an astonishing degree. I have two bad arms (ligament damage), two bad legs (two stress fractures on the left, dodgy knee on the right), weak ankles, a bad back, migraines, an interesting assortment of scars, and a penchant for just falling down for no apparent reason and ripping huge chunks of my skin off. I get bronchitis at the drop of a tissue and have had more burns than many people who work in professions that actually involve fire.

The result of all this has been that Pain has been demoted in my personal pantheon of distress from 'evil bogey thing' to 'that co-worker that really, really annoys you but you're civil to each other because that makes ignoring each other easier'. I can pick hot things up in my bare hands that make other humans shriek about fire and burning. I didn't miss a day of work at the warehouse when I had my first stress fracture, and didn't even bother going to the doctor until the second one started to form and the pain got worse. I am the reigning queen of 'oh, there is a giant bruise\/a two-inch gash\/a mysterious scorched area on my arm\/leg\/face. I wonder how that got there.' (True fact, I found a small burn on my face once and still don't know how it happened. Ants with tiny magnifying glasses, I suspect)

Enormous stabby needles, on the other hand, are still granted bogey thing status. I am much, much more afraid of them than I am of pain. And my entire body tensing up while my brain does the angry-cat-in-tree routine is almost certainly not going to be helpful during labour.

So. No epidural for me, thanks. Now I've just got to convince the obstetrician, the midwife, the husband, and so on.

At least my hairdresser believes me. She didn't have one, either."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:28662","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/28662.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=28662"}}],"title":"Ten whole dollars? My heart ----ing bleeds!","published":"2010-02-02T05:35:28Z","updated":"2010-02-02T05:35:28Z","content":"I imagine that most of you - being readers - know about the impressive Amazon Fail-Again that happened this weekend. (If you do not, may I recommend this - http:\/\/whatever.scalzi.com\/2010\/02\/01\/all-the-many-ways-amazon-so-very-failed-the-weekend\/<\/a> - and this - http:\/\/nielsenhayden.com\/makinglight\/archives\/012156.html#012156<\/a> - and this - http:\/\/www.boingboing.net\/2010\/01\/29\/amazon-and-macmillan.html<\/a> )

These far more informed and articulate people have covered the story more than well enough, so I won't rehash it here.

What I feel moved to comment on are the sheer numbers of commentors to all three blogs asserting loudly that US$10 is 'obscene' and 'a ripoff' for an ebook. Let alone US$15. That is, apparently, as much as TWO real paperbacks.



Maybe in your world, o princes and princesses privileged.

I live in Australia. I am accustomed as a matter of course to paying AU$18-25 for a paperback. Up to $30 if it's a recent release. $35-$60 for a hardcover. You'd be lucky to find a picture-book for under $8, most of the time. (Excluding the extra-cheap ones at the supermarket)

And it's a 'rip off' to pay more than $5 or $10 for an ebook? To pay more than a few cents in royalties to the author? Which is the part that really bothers me. As I understand it, authors are pretty much universally paid in percentage-of-list-price. If the price is forced down to $5, the author barely gets enough loose change to feed a couch. Not enough for a pay-phone. And yet the *customer* is the one being ripped off. Oh, I do not think so.

Listen. Any site willing to allow me, an Australian resident, to obtain a new novel when it comes out in the U.S., (often weeks or months before there's any sign of it here, if it comes out in Australia at all), in a handy-dandy no-waiting-period e-book format, not subject to geographically or reading-device-y prohibitive DRM restrictions for *any price* would be considered to rock hard-core. I'm not spoiled enough to think that I am being in some way *cheated* because a book costs more than a meal. A site that thinks US$15 is the *most it should cost* would be getting one heck of a lot of my money.

Oh, wait. Such a site does, indeed, exist. May I recommend to Australian e-book enthusiasts the DRM-free Baen site, which includes a stack of e-books that are *free* by way of bait? (http:\/\/www.webscription.net\/<\/a>) Also Project Gutenberg and Gutenberg Australia, with their smashing collection of free classics in a variety of formats?

I've never bought an e-book from Amazon. From what I've observed and been told, they don't really want me to. They've only just gotten around to bringing out the Kindle in Australia, well after I went elsewhere for an ebook reader (Go BeBook, who actually want my money!). Their DRM restrictions are, as I understand, punitive. And p&h for paper books is almost as bad, when they're coming here. No, thanks all the same, I'll pass. So aside from a quick cheer for Macmillan on the grounds that they are apparently a lot keener on giving money to authors than Amazon is, I don't really care what Amazon does with itself.

But if I hear one more spoiled-rotten 'reader' bitching about paying more for a freaking *novel* than they would for a large cup of Starbucks coffee, I am going to scream. In the US, you get more books than we do. You get them for significantly cheaper than we do. You get more format-options, variety in e-readers, and PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING BOOK-RELATED than we do.

Be *grateful*, for fuck's sake.

(This rant not actually directed at anyone on my friendslist, who show no signs whatsoever of the above behaviour. I just needed to vent.)"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:28287","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/28287.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=28287"}}],"title":"Heat","published":"2010-01-23T09:08:48Z","updated":"2010-01-23T09:09:53Z","content":"I have never hated the summer heat more.

Summer is bad enough.

Summer in Queensland is bad enough.

Summer in Queensland in Brisbane, home of Random 100% Humidity For Days On End, is bad enough for anyone<\/i>. Even cold-blooded creatures look for somewhere cool.

Summer in Queensland, in Brisbane, home of Random 100% Humidity For Days On End, while carrying around a portable heat generator and a couple of extra litres of fluid<\/i>, sucks ass.

Staff is really gaining some ground in his argument that we should move somewhere cooler. Like Scotland.

Or Melbourne.

It's too hot. Icecream and watermelon for dinner.



The baby has unilateral multicystic dysplastic kidney on the left side. Which basically means that she has a normal kidney on the right, and a collection of loosely-attached cysts on the left. She is otherwise fine, and still big for her age. The possible complications did not eventuate, and so far the prognosis is pretty good. :) She'll need examination after the delivery, but she may not even need surgery - sometimes the dysplastic kidney sort of withers away on its own.

Although in her tradition of Never Leaving The Doctor Without Something For Mummy To Worry About, she's still the wrong way up. She has a couple of weeks to turn around, before she gets too big. If anyone knows any good prayers, spells, or arcane rituals to make a baby turn head down, I would appreciate them."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:28096","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/28096.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=28096"}}],"title":"A bit less depressing","published":"2010-01-16T01:00:58Z","updated":"2010-01-16T01:00:58Z","content":"It seems as if most of the posts I've made referring to the baby, aside from the initial announcement, have been leaning strongly towards the bad news end. So I am trying to post some more cheerful information today.

Fact 1: She's active as all get out. I asked the obstetrician if I should worry that she isn't kicking as *hard* as she was last week. He said as long as she's moving at least ten times a day, not to worry.

So I started counting. She knocked out ten before 8:30 in the morning. Yeah, not too worried. :) Active is a good sign. Although I'm starting to think she's taking solo tango lessons in there or something.

Fact 2: She may be a vampire. Had my blood test for gestational diabetes this week. My blood sugar was fine - up a bit, but barely halfway to the point where they'd be concerned - but apparently I'm sufficiently anaemic that the obstetrician had one of the office-ladies call me and tell me to go on iron supplements ASAP.

I've always been prone to anaemia at the best of times, as I eat very little red meat and I'm not fond of spinach either, so I'm not too worried about that. But the idea of a tiny vampire-geekling strikes me as very funny, for some reason. This is what happens if you watch too much Buffy when your ova are at an impressionable age!

I'm getting an ultrasound next week, and I'm going to ask them to check for tiny fangs."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:27833","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/27833.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=27833"}}],"title":"The hits keep coming","published":"2010-01-07T11:08:17Z","updated":"2010-01-07T11:08:17Z","content":"
I went to the obstetrician today. Scan shows that the cysts on the baby's kidney seem to be getting worse, and there appear to be more of them. I have to go in for an ultrasound in two weeks (three weeks earlier than my regular scan) so they can get a better look than on the obstetrician's little portable machine, which just can't give us much detail.

The phrase 'this is something an obstetrician sees maybe every couple of years' is not reassuring. This is *not* a good time for her to be unusual - the best news an obstetrician can give is 'completely normal'.

Prayers, good thoughts, and the like would be much appreciated. We're pretty worried."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:27434","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/27434.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=27434"}}],"title":"A Whole New Year and New Bad Places To Send Your Brain","published":"2010-01-02T13:29:16Z","updated":"2010-01-02T13:30:51Z","content":"It still doesn't feel quite like 2010... a new year always takes a few days to sink in, for me.

Aside from conceiving just when all hope was just about gone, 2009 sucked fairly major ass as a year. Elephantine ass, even. Several of them. Lined up. All with diarrhoea.

So far, 2010 seems cautiously inclined to be an improvement. I'll be starting a new, low-stress part-time job this week, so money will be coming in again. The kid is, apart from the possibly faulty kidney, doing pretty well. The two cats we still have are young and in good health. Fingers crossed that these positive trends continue.

And for a new Places Your Brain Didn't Want To Go:

I ran across an old 'Dilbert' strip today in which the Pointy-Haired Boss declares \"Hee hee! Evil makes my buttocks tingle!\"

Bad enough on its own, but then my brain decided that what I really needed was a mental image of the Green Goblin saying this. The Norman Osborne version.

Spidey-in-my-head is *so* disturbed right now."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:27256","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/27256.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=27256"}}],"title":"elidyce @ 2009-12-25T20:42:00","published":"2009-12-25T10:42:22Z","updated":"2009-12-25T10:42:22Z","content":"Merry Christmas, Happy Solstice, or whatever other holiday you celebrate to everyone out there.

For those in my own timezone - I hope it was a good one, that you got to spend time with people you care about and that that time was happy.

For those just starting Christmas, may your day be peaceful and joyful, may your loved ones be near, and all be as you'd like it to be.

Peace on Earth, goodwill to all, and be nice to each other.

Happy holidays."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:27088","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/27088.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=27088"}}],"title":"elidyce @ 2009-12-02T09:02:00","published":"2009-12-01T23:02:40Z","updated":"2009-12-01T23:02:40Z","content":"So Staff and I were talking about the sheer horror that has been the life of Alex Summers pretty much since he turned eighteen (decades ago), and somehow we wound up here.



Proof that Wolverine is a Summers!


Yeah, yeah, I know, not according to his latest origin, but seriously, we have a case here. (Although admittedly I so didn't check the details before posting, so we're relying on Staff's memory here)

So, Alex. For those who didn't hear, Alex actually managed to 'seduce' and 'fall in love with' a nurse while he was in a coma. A *coma*. Apparently she just couldn't restrain herself during a sponge bath or something. And he woke up in love with her because his subconscious had been joyriding around loose or... something. I've tried not to look too closely.

This only confirms what has been indicated for some time. Every woman Alex sleeps with goes COMPLETELY FUCKING NUTS... assuming she wasn't already.

And Alex is not alone.

Well, Scott's powers aren't *exactly* the same. But Who Scott Sleeps With seems to be a pretty powerful defining factor when it comes to human history. His kids all time-travel and go crazy on a daily basis. Madelyne nearly fed the whole world to demons, although this was after she'd done Alex 'Penis Of Crazy' Summers, so Scott doesn't get the full blame. His relationship with Jean led *directly* to the whole Phoenix fiasco... all of it. One can only imagine what will happen now that he's doing Emma - either world peace or the apocalypse, one would think. Or both. They might end up ruling the world.

Which leads us to the alleged third Summers brother (I say alleged because this is even stupider than Adam X or the potential 'Gambit is the third Summers brother' thing). Gabriel 'Vulcan' Summers. Whose sheer awesome sexing, according to Falstaff and a brief overview from the Marvel wiki, brought down two galactic empires.

Now, go back to Corsair. Corsair who, as a slave in a mine somewhere in the Shi'Ar empire, still managed to pull the hot cat-girl, and to the best of my knowledge did not go without nookie for long until he died.

Clearly the Summerses have some kind of hereditary penis-based superpowers.

Corsair is like the gamma-level telepath who produces alphas - all *his* penis does is attract blue-eyed women with irresistible force. However, his sons...

Alex's penis makes women go insane. Scott's is a primary fulcrum of history. Gabriel's, apparently, causes empires to rise and fall.

Stryfe, who doesn't seem to have had much of an interest in sex, apparently didn't use his enough to find out its magic abilities, but Nathan... has he *ever* had a healthy relationship? The closest he ever came was with Domino, who was presumably suffiently bad-ass-assassiny that the destabilizing magic penis could only do so much. Like a less focused version of his Uncle Alex's ability, Nathan's penis is a Penis of Doom.

And every woman Wolverine sleeps with more than, say, twice goes crazy, tries to kill him, dies, or all three.

Coincidence? I think not!

Seriously, what are the odds that there are *two* families out there with Penis Of Doom powers?

I mean... they have to be *slightly* higher than, say, the odds of Xavier having a crazy evil psychic twin thing from BEYOND THE PSYCHIC PLANE. And that totally only happened once.

This has been your 'Weird Places I wish my brain hadn't gone' excursion for today."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:elidyce:26870","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/26870.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/elidyce.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=26870"}}],"title":"I won NaNoWriMo!","published":"2009-11-30T23:58:30Z","updated":"2009-11-30T23:58:30Z","content":"I did it! WOOOOOOOO!

50,040 words. Finished at 10:15 on November 30th. But I did it! Me - 8, NaNoWriMo - 0!

I had to write nearly ten thousand words yesterday to do it. My brain feels like it's made of cheese. Squishy cheese. @.@ But it was worth it!

Ugh. Now I actually have to start doing things like dishes and food-shopping again. Why oh why have we not yet invented the self-cleaning dish?"}]}