thorne_scratch

I suspect I might not be able to post an entry tomorrow because I'll be driving around somewhere in assfuck nowhere Virginia, doing a picturesque holiday activity I don't actually remember agreeing to do, but we can only wait. In the mean time, here is one of those pseudo-fics you end up half-outlining and half-writing in gmail chats with a lot of emoticons sprinkled in-- I have so many of these fuckers buried in my archived conversations.

( This is from the last Winter Olympics, when I was venting my spleen about how hockey turned out thereCollapse )

I think I am officially at the time of month where I desperately want to watch all the Muppet Christmas specials, from the Muppet Christmas Carol to the one where they go to Fozzie's mom's house, meet the Fraggles, and the Swedish Chef tries to cook Big Bird. And then follow it up with A Nightmare Before Christmas. 'Tis the season, and all that. Too bad all my damn DVDs are still packed away down in the basement.

Every time I start to write an lj entry about what I've been doing for the last couple months, I get distracted, so instead I'm just going to post some music to try and segue my way back into this whole writing shit again. And then I can work my way up to clearing out the roughly bazillion links I shoved into my "this is interesting" folder, and maybe even post some fanfic. (I swear, any fic I wrote gets down to pretty much the last paragraph that needs to be written, and then I forget it for a good couple of years. There's probably a theory about it that I could parallel to my same practice with collecting wine and/or weird alcohol, wherein I'm always hoping the long periods of ignoring it will help it in the long run. This is a good disguise for what is actually just laziness.)

Because, I mean, things happened! Interesting things, even! Should write about them! I spent a sizable chunk of time in Rome! Things I did there are included but not limited to:

-Was in minor vehicular accident within two hours of arriving in the country
-Ate all the gelato
-Photobombed the pope (current pope, by accident)
-Almost broke the pope's window (previous pope, deliberate)
-Bit a priest (not the pope, by accident)
-Got stuck on a three hours bus ride with forty Minnesotans who wanted to do nothing but karaoke
-Argued with nine different Legionaries of Christ
-Possibly incurred some kind of curse by Padre Pio because of sacrilegious remarks
-Saw enormous, 20 foot high Baby Jesus statue
-Viewed at least three supposedly incorruptible bodies
-Cheated the Roman train system

So it's not like things haven't been happening. It's more like too much has been happening. Also, you know, there is the small matter of the Olympics. I am a fool for the Olympics, both winter and summer versions, though I am finding this iteration more stressful than usual, what with the hockey issues at stake.

But, you can't let crippling fear of potential sports grief or a general malaise in writing get you down. All you can do is half-ass your way around it until you find a better solution, which is honestly how I get through most of my life issues anyway. Hey, we haven't had a music post in a while. Let's have some random music. We even have a theme this time! Kind of. Maybe. Look, it applies to at least half of them, what else do you want from me.

( Music Post: Stop Ruining My Life, DC Sports FranchisesCollapse )

Basically, I had a point somewhere when I started writing this, and that point is that I want Alex Ovechkin to win all the gold medals, even for events that he's not entered in (Alex Ovechkin for ice dancing! Alex Ovechkin for moguls! Alex Ovechkin for cross country skiing! Alex Ovechkin for skeleton! Alex Ovechkin for two man bobsled! …actually, I can kind of see him doing that last one. He would pair up with Semin, their sled would be painted to look like the Batmobile, and it would basically go down a lot like this) and if you're against me or him, I will destroy you. I will leap at you like a spider monkey and rip your voicebox out with my teeth, spitting it across the room with a triumphant animal-esque roar that you will hear faintly through the fast fading thunder of the blood pounding in your ears and spraying from your aorta. The Olympic madness is upon me, and like Bob Costas' pink-eye infection, my bloodlust shall not be easily conquered.

…Bode Miller can win the remaining gold medals. He will then lose them to a street shyster in a fixed shell game, or possibly leave them in the bathroom of a pub while drunk, because that is the Bode Miller way.

I have all my windows open because the weather has gone cooler; it's that glorious time of year when I need neither heat nor air conditioning, and the air smells wonderful. However, at night there's some kind of tree frog or creature that makes this low, guttural, throat-rattle sort of croaking that sounds exactly like the noise you hear in horror films or survival video games right before the protagonist gets messily wasted by the monster du jour. And it seems to be happy hanging out extremely close to my window screen and making this noise in random, unexpected intervals.

It is playing merry hell on my nerves, let me tell you.

Anyway, I'm a little drunk right now for various reasons, so I thought I'd just chuck all sixteen pages of Olympic conversations onto livejournal now before I think better of it. I had to get it down from forty pages. Mostly about swimming, but with forays into other sports, and there's a lot of inexplicable Bode Miller. Also raccoons.

( For the record, it has been over a month and I am still hearing the NBC dun-dun-da-dun-dun-dun-dun music in my head.Collapse )

Well, that's done, that's all done now. Okay, I am susceptible and this meme looks fun. Pick a trope from this list and provide a fandom/pairing and I’ll tell you something about the story I’d write for that combination (i.e. write a snippet from the story or write not!fic or tell you the title and summary for the story I would write)

I, uh, have at least two stories in two different fandoms that are deliberately nothing BUT tropes, so if you hit those fandoms, you may just get chunks of those.

1. genderswap
2. bodyswap
3. drunk!fic
4. huddling for warmth
5. pretending to be married
6. secretly a virgin
7. amnesia
8. cross-dressing
9. forced to share a bed
10. truth or dare
11. historical AU
12. accidental-baby-acquisition
13. apocalypse fic
14. telepathy
15. High School/College AU

The Olympics are over, but I have a ton of links and pictures and a Word document that is thirty eight pages of various gmail-chat conversations with various people that covered the entire span. Which might or might not get posted, because it all depends on how funny I think it sounds out of context, but whatever, I find it useful for tracking what I was doing at the time because that period tends to be sort of a drunken blur. So, below the cut is a shit-ton of links related to the Olympics, if you would like to look at any of them.

( For roughly a month after the Olympics, I continue to narrate everything I am doing in my head using the voice of Bob Costas.Collapse )

Anyway. Adulthood continues to elude me. It is a sad fact that I have been driving for as many years as I have and I still have yet to figure out how to accurately work my car's defogger/defroster. The handle on my driver side door broke last week, and I couldn't get it fixed right away. So for about a week, I was undergoing a highly acrobatic series of maneuvers to get out of the car every time I parked, which either involved:

-climbing out the passenger side.

-rolling down the driver side window while the car was still running, unlocking the car, sticking an arm out the window and yanking the car door open from the outside, rolling the window back up, and then getting out of the car.

-climbing out the driver side window when the previous option stopped working.

-once, memorably, going out the sunroof. Ouch, hot metal.

But now it is fixed, and I can exit properly and with dignity again. To try and gain back all the adult points I lost during the week, I undertook a home improvement project. I simultaneously did laundry and had a go at unclogging the pipes in my bathroom sink (this involved me rushing up and down the stairs and hovering over the sink with a plunger, baking soda, vinegar, and a lot of boiling water, while wearing my laundry day outfit—old high school gym shorts, tanktop with no bra—and elbow length purple rubber gloves, so I imagine it looked a lot like some kind of weird German porno.) The sink began draining properly, but right after that, I did the dishes and managed to cut my forefinger on a paring knife badly enough that I was typing (and trying not to drip blood on the laptop) various combinations of the words "how" "much" "blood" "hospital" "stitches", which… as someone who will remain unnamed pointed out to me, "If you have to ask, it's probably bad."

I was in the middle of making a pie, though. And I really didn't want to leave the pie alone, so… Some blood loss and one potentially blood-containing coconut cream pie later, I got my damn finger to stop spurting, and went to bed. I don't know if that's a minus or plus on adult points. I think we'll call it a draw.

I've talked myself down from sending mailbombs to either Alex Semin or anyone associated with the Hurricanes organization, so that's good, I guess. Still waiting for Ovi to tweet about it. Sounds like he might be crying on Malkin's shoulder. Anyway.

THE OLYMPICS HAVE STARTED. I AM EXCITED. I would post all the crazed things flidgetjerome and I were yelling at each other on gchat this afternoon when she was watching the ceremonies live and I was trying to get home from work, but it's mostly random capslocking, and I have to pace myself for that since I'm sure I'll be doing a lot of it going forward over the next two weeks. Since the last time I watched the Olympics Opening Ceremonies, I ended up passing out drunk, I decided to watch this one while only sipping wine and with no drinking games involved. I'll save that for the closing ceremonies instead.

( Some thoughts on the opening ceremonies. Also, a video and pictures of Michael Phelps for chickpea, because she appreciates this shit.Collapse )

My goal this week, other than Olympic overload and coping with Semin-loss (sadpants forever), is to finally dispatch at least two of the four fucking raccoons that live in my backyard. I have a trap (non-lethal, cool your jets) and bait (apparently they love marshmallows) and a plan (kinda) and everything. It'll be awesome. Or a fiasco, who knows.

EDIT: I CLEARLY JINXED MICHAEL SO NOW I'LL SHUT UP AND NOT TALK ABOUT HIM ANYMORE, SORRY.

First off, ALEX SEMIN, YOU CAD, GOING TO THE CANES. I am going to miss you, and not just because now I have to write like ten more pages to the end of the story I had going. I can't in good conscience wish you any success, but I will miss you. And I hope your first Staal meeting is totally awkward. (I may take this time to buy a discounted Semin jersey, though. You know, just in case.)

Secondly, the Olympics start on Friday, so no offense to anyone, but that's gonna take up… uh, most of my attention for the next two weeks. I apologize in advance. Hockey and (sigh) baseball may be mostly in my field of vision right now, but swimming and diving were my first sports loves and the ones I was raised on and took part in from ages seven to eighteen, and the Olympics—and maybe the first major meet after the Olympics—is the only time they ever, ever get any attention. So I have to make the most of it while it happens, you know? I realize there are non-believers out there who think there is nothing interesting about watching a bunch of really ripped men and women try to get to the end of a swimming pool as fast as possible or a bunch of really ripped (but often much shorter) men and women fling themselves in various contortions off a thirty foot platform, but whatever, dude. Swimming is awesome and if you can't see it, YOU'RE WRONG. Or, you know, you have other things that engage your interest, no worries. (But mostly you're wrong.)

There would be a long entry here on everything I've been doing lately, but I'm too tired to write it right now. Check back later. In the meantime, here is a sort of preview picture of Sasha and Ovi in different uniforms. (Sob.)



Maybe expect some Michael Phelps junk shots tomorrow.

Some time ago, I woke up to find this in my inbox:

( Olympic hijinks and discussion, eventually leading to another rousing email circlejerk with the Great ConjunctionCollapse )

I promise I will stop talking about sports for a while after one more entry on the subject. In fact, the next bunch of entries looks something like:

-Hockey fights
-Memes I said I'd do and then forgot about
-Something meta about Alternate Universes
-WIP amnesty, in form of a bunch of fic excerpts
-Further adventures in buying houses; or, There Are HOW Many Dead Birds In My Walls What?
-I can't figure out what to make of Sarah Monette's "The Doctrine of Labyrinths" series
-???
-Profit!
-Oh, and a music post. And more than likely, some links.

Wow, my tags are a mess. Also, has anyone watched both Generation Kill and Dollhouse and could tell me if I'm out of my mind for a deranged plot idea? (Actually, this goes with the AU meta entry. My Venn diagram of fandom involvement is bizarre and kind of shameful, actually.)

Dick Cheney had another heart attack, wot? One more, and he wins the washer-dryer combo.

The entries I mean to write keep getting pushed back by other things. There's more to say about Olympics, though I tend to shoot my entire commentary wad on those with all the incoherent three line emails I trade back and forth with the Conjunction all day. In fact, I think I'll just do my commentary entirely from our emails. (I think it tends to be pretty obvious which of us is speaking at any given time. If something's funny, assume it is probably one of the others talking.)

( Mainly on snowboarding, ice skating, skiing, hockey, and a little Michael Phelps thrown in for good measure.Collapse )

Little brother came home from Korea today, after spending nearly two years there with his fiancée, teaching English to small, impressionable Korean children. He looked (and smelled) exactly as one does, after flying fourteen hours straight with a fiancée and a very angry cat. He's sleeping now; I just looked in on him. He's been six inches taller and forty pounds heavier than me since high school, but he's still my baby brother. Oh, siblings. I am very fond of all three of mine, despite the fact it's taken over two decades to get to that point.

On a less heart-warming note, stress at work continues to be absolutely batshit insane, and some days I come home from work and have to stand in the backyard and swear at the sky for a good half hour. (This has the added benefit of keeping the neighbors out of my stuff.) If it weren't happening to me, I could find it almost funny—it's like life has become an excerpt from Fear in the Workplace.

After a marathon bitching session on the phone, it was suggested to me by someone who will remain nameless (but we all know who she is, seriously) that I (or, should I not be up to the task, recruit some other obliging soul) should stealthily leave a small amount of urine in the corner of the CEO's office each day, after she goes home at three. "No one will believe you're actually doing it, and eventually she's going to notice!" was how it was brightly framed. While surprisingly pleasant to contemplate, I think the basic mechanics of this plan may need some refining.

I've never actually gone about full throttle office sabotage before; it's rather a lot different than the wordless Cold War spite-exchange I experienced in junior year of college. Has anyone else done this? Would they like to share their secrets to an eager ear?

Has the snow stopped yet? Is life going back to normal? I am having a hard time remembering what day it is.

Damn. For such a short month, February has a ton crammed into it. I think we've finally completed the five back-to-back holidays where we celebrate lunar cycles, lai see, tigers, rebirth, dead Christian martyrs, Lupercalia, flying fat babies, hearts, chocolates, Hallmark cards, dead presidents, car sales, pennies, cherry pie, excess, fat, alcohol, sugar, lust, gluttony, topless girls, beads, meat, ashes, no meat, abstinence, fasting, penitence, and good ol' Catholic guilt. It's like a car crash of holidays, where you can celebrate completely opposite things and values at the same time! Glorious. And of course, there's the addition of the Olympics this year, which is just a cherry on top.

( Speaking of the Olympics, and of excess…Collapse )

I'm in the process of uploading most of my fic to Archive of Our Own, because I think it's good to have backups, and it's a fairly easy and pain-free process. Except for the part where I'm absently rereading all the old fic, and wincing every third word. Obviously, the oldest shit is not going to make it, though I'm not going to delete it off ff.net just yet.

Actually, the thing I'm going back and forth over is whether or not I want to put the swimming RPF up there. It's not a question of shame, precisely; I rather like most of my swimming RPF, and am not hideously embarrassed by it. (Yet.) While I've long gotten past my initial reservations with most RPF, I still feel like I want it more protected than the other fictional stuff. I mean, it's not locked, here on my journal, but I could, if I ever needed to do it. And the actual entries on olympic_slash are locked. I know there are options on the Archive to only make it viewable to registered members. Eh, I'll mull it over some more.

Okay, I have one last question before I go back to trying to catch up on life and work and writing and such.

( BPAL fans and perfume experts, I am at your mercyCollapse )

Back soon with a music post, three recipes, a couple pictures of my sister in law's cats, and another WsIP meme.

Hark, ye vagrants, what is today? Why, it happens to be the birthday of one of my very favorite people in the world, twigcollins! How glorious! Twig, you amaze me more and more each year with your generosity, talent, and willingness to keep taking my calls from Mexican prisons. I am unimaginably lucky to have you as both a friend and co-writer, and I wish you a fantastic year, full of opportunity, luck, and found cake.

I have left you a birthday fic over in pale_sky_novel. I'm sorry it is late and insufficient, but I will do better next year.

Also, because I missed his birthday and because he is a spectacular fellow, my greatest compliments to kadrin. I was stuck on what to give you, since I couldn't write you a Liden/Milale PWP without feeling like I was doing everyone both in and reading the story a great disservice, so instead I've just zipped some music. If you saw the Sherlock Holmes movie and loved the boxing ring scene, well, here's a zip containing that track of "The Rocky Road to Dublin", along with three other covers of it because it is an inordinately fun song. The version in the movie was the one by the Dubliners. If you did not like that scene. Er. I will give you something else.

( Other things: Australia Day, nightmares, the Olympics, Johnny Weir, Bode Miller, Supernatural and the bodyswap trope, and a tiny bit of FF7 fic.Collapse )

The cold, dark, cockpunching month of February looms ahead. Must make plans to cope with this. Plans that aren't necessarily alcohol and hibernation.