I'm behind. I'm so behind. I kinda went totally dark during my stay in NJ rather than keeping up or doing anything I'd meant to while I was there.

Before I babble though... I disappear for a couple of weeks and suddenly everybody's leaving LJ? Has the storm passed, now? I do have a DW (same username) but I've never used it and never particularly set it up... Do I need to? :peers into the ether:



Right, anyway.

I love my parents, I do. But... There's something about that house. About the way they are, it sucks out my soul. I've said before I'd rather live on the street than move back, because moving back would be as good as dying, on the inside if not literally. This trip back just proved it.

Not that it was all bad. I adore my brother's girlfriend, Cassie. Adore her. To bits. She was my sanity while she was there.

Mom and I connected about as much as we're capable of, which was nice. Dad wasn't a dick, for once. Well, except for how he had a fight with my brother the day before I left so my brother left to visit a friend in Maryland early. I got to visit with my Auth Ruth and her husband Joe, whom I haven't seen in... Well, for a very ridiculously long time. Since before high school, I think. She had some neat stories about our ancestry, cos she's into doing family histories and things. Maybe when I get the stuff from her I'll share some of the stories she told us. I wouldn't re-tell them very well, unfortunately...

And there's the part where I bought my wedding dress. :g: We had an appointment at Kleinfeld, which was lovely. If anybody watches Say Yes to the Dress, it'll mean something to you to say my consultant was Audrey. She was quite lovely and very attentive. I got a Henry Roth dress (I believe the style is called Camille?)... and he was there doing a trunk show. He poked his head in, and was utterly kind and fabulous and asked all sorts of questions about what I do and what the wedding's meant to be like, and preceded to waive all sorts of fees we would have had to pay (like letting out the cup and the rush order fee...) and let us in on the trunk show sale, so that in the end, we paid half of what we should have full price.

Brilliant! ( Clickenzee for a picCollapse )



So yes. I am still working on things, but of course I have finally given in and gotten sick... Cassie, Dad, and David have all been sick. With any luck, I've been fending it off just long enough that it won't hit me so badly. I hope...

:happy sigh: I had pizza today. Real pizza.

Also? I got new glasses!!

Hahaha, or shall I say HO HO HO. I remembered what I was going to say the other day!

We're coming up hard on the holidays. So I've got a little business. Travel dates. Gift offers.

Oh, and utter silliness:
SADFACE: The Christmas meme is broken! Does anyone know of an active one? Y'know, the kind where you put in your screen name and it gives you friends names with silly results about presents and things? But not the one that plays with your interests, cos you can't refresh that one til you have fun answers, and mine are very dull. (Not even the New Year's resolution part is interesting.) :sighs:

So. In lieu of festive silliness... Have an icon meme: ( after the jump!Collapse )


Right then. On to business.

To claim time:
I'm headed back to New Jersey for Christmas again this year. But unlike last year, I'm not sticking around for new years.

Flying in to NJ: December 20, 2010

Flying back to TX: December 29, 2010

Obviously Dec 24/25 are on hold for family shenanigans, but mom has also declared that I'm not allowed to make plans for Dec 27 because of a "secret family outing!! it will be different!!! I hope it's fun!!!!!!" I'm wary of her increasing use of exclamation points... The only other day that's claimed is Dec 22, which is when I'll be celebrating the hell out of sylk getting married. Hopefully I can get another day in with her as well... we owe each other drinks.

Anyone else want to hang? Comment with a subject line saying Meeting up.



To request Christmas presents:
You know me and writing presents... I love doing them. I'm on the poor side, and words can mean so much more anyway. And the 3-sentence responses is working well as gifts, I think - they vary between 70 and 300 words long (and sometimes you're lucky and get a double response). However, in consideration that there may be things I've been bribed for that may or may not be at a decent stage of completion, I'm lowering how many you can ask for a little. Please follow the instructions, mmkay? I'm not going to say no if you do it wrong, but oh, it's a headache to sort things out.

Comment with a subject line saying Christmas Presents on or before December 15. (The deadline may be extended depending on the number of prompts I have and where I am with other writing projects.) I hope to have them posted just after the new year.

In the comment, include 4-7 prompts, using this format:

fandom, characters, prompt

For example:

Leverage, Eliot/Hardison, let the geek flag fly

SPN/Sandman, Dean + Death, my realm isn't meant to be a rotating door y'know

If you use a / and don't otherwise indicate that you prefer gen, unless you're naming characters from one of my 'verses, I'm going to assume that a pairing is ok. A + will presume you don't want the chance of the characters paired.

If there's something you really, really don't want ending up in the response, or you want a specific range of ratings, please note that in the comment.

If you can't think of all your prompts at once, that's ok - but please comment to yourself or edit your comment to include new prompts so it's easy for me to reference.

I will write in any of my 'verses that I'm already working on (though I may poke you if a prompt goes directly against the way I envision the characters etc). Otherwise, I'll write (in no particular order and crossovers thereof):

Leverage, Supernatural, Angel, Rescue 77, Dollhouse, Justified, White Collar, Castle, Burn Notice, Battlestar Galactica, RPS/F (CW, Kane, Leverage, misc others), Sandman, Dresden Files, Highlander, Firefly/Serenity, SyFy's Alice, Doctor Who (9 & 10), XMen/Wolverine, Inception, Losers

Other fandoms may be considered, but you should ping me before prompting to be sure I can.

To my lovely friends that don't like 3-sentence fic, ping me. Maybe I can make you icons, or headers, or something. Because I love you too, y'know? ♥


Ok. Now I need to switch computers and, y'know, write cos oh god it's 11...

Look at me, bein' all good and not telling you about family drama. (The people on twitter have heard me whining enough, I won't subject them twice...)

It snowed today! I think that's the first time in years that it's snowed while I was here!

I've only got a hot minute, but I wanted to throw up some (crappy, from my phone) photos... There'll be more when I get back and can take a halfway decent photo of my kindle, but...

My shiny new hat from greyrider: http://twitpic.com/ut8am

My new chucks: http://twitpic.com/v87at

My new haircut: http://twitpic.com/vcgls

Christmas schwag, in parts. The fancy stuff is for ConCon too.
http://twitpic.com/vo0jw
http://twitpic.com/vo1l9
http://twitpic.com/voaju
http://twitpic.com/vobqm


The world outside "my" window right now: http://twitpic.com/w1ssu

And then I got ton of DVDs and whatnot for Christmas. Oh, and the Kindle. So much love. Soooooooooo much love.

ETA: The Kindle, it's pretty skin (that was a bitch to get on properly), and it's leather case: http://twitpic.com/w24w4


Ok, I should wander off and get food and things. There's IHOP in my future...

I suppose I should mention that I'm still alive and well. My flight to NJ was uneventful, my stay has been relaxing so far, and I'm terrified to realize that my parents have drunk the Fox News kool-aid. I'm ridiculously behind on reading my flist again, so I apologize profusely for not commenting on things I probably should have...

In other news, my PC has fried itself (I may have mentioned) and greyrider will probably be giving me her old Sony Vaio to zombifie and use to my own nefarious purposes. (Namely, transferring in my harddrive.) I luffs her, I really do.

My exciting Christmas gift this year was a Kindle. Which, dude. Holy shit, a Kindle. :petpets it like Gollum:

Anyway, I'll try and play catch up probably when I get home, but if I'm missing anything important, feel free to smack me around. I do love you all dearly, after all!

Hope the holidays are finding you healthy and loved and happy amongst friends. :smishes:

Twitter is addictive. Very very addictive.

Which is probably bad, considering the immediacy with which Dennis wants me signing up for WoW. Well. I'm signed up, but actually start playing. Thingy.

Yeah, I'm not awake yet.

Countdown to getting home has begun. ::fistpumps::

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised Dad likes Fox News' morning news bullshit. ::twitches:: So tempted to go back to bed.

It's gonna be in the 30s (deg F) in NJ today... High near 80deg F in Dallas. Bahahahaha. Helloooooo TX. Though that makes it a pain to dress for travel. ::ponders::

Will be attempting to catch up with my flist later. (I see the video I want to watch. And the fic I still need to open in tabs. Leverage has definitely claimed my soul. ...... not that Amara hasn't got a larger chunk...)

And with that... Uh. Maybe breakfast. Thingy.

I have two 5 hour energies and a Rockstar. One of the shots is beside me on my bed. Unopened.

I should have been up 5 hours ago.

My alarm never went off. ::twitches::

This has put a serious dent in my ability to finish Christmas stories by the end of the year. I think I can probably do Katje's but I definitely won't be able to do Grey's today. And since I'm trying to hold off on Jaydecrow's til those are done since it's not officially a Christmas present...

Today deralte is kidnapping me. And then I have to be back tomorrow morning for mum to have a girls' day out and do my eye appointment. Tomorrow night chances are good I'll be kidnapped again, either by Ariana or rinchan (I give'm equal chance) and it's all over on getting anything done then because that's a beeline straight through New Years.

... I may not be online a whole lot, heh.

Maybe what I'll do is not be kidnapped the night of the 30th and someone can grab me the morning/afternoon of the 31st and my flight's not til the 3rd so I could hang with someone til midday on the 2nd to make up for it... I like that plan. It means I won't be rushing the writing I need to do now. And I can take a shower. Mmm, shower.

I'm gonna be so exhausted when I get back to Texas....

Nathan Fillion has a new project slated for March 2009!!!





And it's going to be on ABC which means it actually has a shot of staying on the air! (Speaking of which, I really ought to watch the last 3 episodes of Drive...)

On a completely different note...

The person today cut my hair wrong. Well. Yesterday now. I would have thought that when you gave a stylist a picture, what your hair looked like would at least be a crappy rendition of the picture. But no! Long in front and short in back like last time didn't exactly happen. It's a funky kind of short in the back, but short enough (after telling her to fix it) that I can still do the chunky piece-y thing I like. And it's short in the front and... Well. I think it's weird. Mum said it looked good, and sylk and rinchan didn't immediately look at me like I was something to be pitied, so it's probably not as bad as I'm thinking it is. Tomorrow I will attack it with product and attempt to claim it as my own, and hopefully then I'll be happier with it.

It is, however, blue black. WIN.

My nap tonight didn't work as well as I wanted it to. Had nightmares, because sometimes drama sneaks up at you from a direction you weren't expecting. ::sighs:: Been a while since I've had the "everyone I give a damn about is dying/dead and it's all my fault" sort of nightmare. I'd missed it. Really.

But. I have Nutella. And a bagel. So the morning can't suck all that much, right?

And Paradise Lost quotes. But that'll make sense later...

Ok, so maybe not as much punish the internet as punish my parents' internet and cable service. It went down last night fairly late, right when I'd decided to lay down and surf for fic to start falling asleep, and didn't come back for a very long time. So when my alarm went off when I was intending to get up and write, I was sleepy hazy and not thinking, and saw there was no internet and therefor would have no access to any of my friends, and I promptly went back to sleep.

Instead of writing. ::facepalm::

I've got 3 stories and an ending to write now. Well, really 3 stories and 2 endings, but one ending may have to wait because that one's already into 500 something words and the ending is sort of the porn and that could go on for another 300 at least. One of the presents wants very much to become epic, and which I think is going to end up as a series of vignette sort of things like the Elsewhere-verse story Bits and Pieces. One has informed me only that a beach is involved, and the muse is off having a picnic somewhere else. (It really isn't fair, my muse hiding on a tropical island while I'm stuck here in 30 deg half rainy weather. Bah.) And the last one needs the other ending to wrap up its last couple of paragraphs so that it can have a muse at all.

In other news, I should be getting a haircut this morning! Yay! Will try and remember to take some pictures later before I meet up with sylk and maybe rinchan. Which reminds me, when the hour is slightly more human I need to bug her and see if we're bugging Sylk together.

Tomorrow spaltor and I are going to see Avenue Q and get dinner in the city. I'm excited, it's been ages since we've been out properly, though hitting up the diner last year totally felt like old times. Plus, seeing something in a theatre! Which I haven't done since... Well, I don't think I've been to a theater production for anything since I graduated high school. Unless we're counting seeing someone's high school play but no. I need to remember to steal my parents' digital camera, because I realized except for people's New Years pictures I haven't got any photos of me with friends from any time recently...

Past that next week on Tuesday me and my mum are having a girls' day out. I've got an eye appointment that day, plus we Benjamin Button was sold out yesterday and we totally have to make up for it. 'S gonna be awesome. I always like girls' day out with mum, because it's just us being girly and geeky and she finally lets loose for once in forever.

I'm thinking maybe earlier in the day on Saturday going out with Dennis and Cassie, getting lunch and being Jersey dorks and hitting the mall maybe. Or something. She's got a friend coming in from Canada so I really ought to talk to them. Assuming they wake up before I leave.

I foresee the rest of the time being spent kidnapped either by Rin or deralte. Good times, good times.

And now, to toast a bagel and smother it with nutella. Because duuuude I now have a HUGE jar of nutella. Yum. Oh and yogurt. And... Ok, I'm going to go stuff myself and do my best not to kill my father while I'm down there. Maybe if I'm quick about everything I can finish the one story off before we leave.

Have a happy Friday guys!