amand_r

1. The computer died. I am writing to you from the new one, Toshiko Toshiba, Mistress of the Dark Computer Arts.

a. This means that everything is actually trapped on my old hard drive, including the stories i owe three of you. I have to get ahold of a serial hard drive case, and when I do, I can access the giant vag in the center of the earth files again. I might just have to start those stories over in the meantime.


2. I need german food recipes! I am having the buds over for dinner, and i want to make spaetzle! I cannot get good brats here, sadface. But I was thinking I might try the strip district for some rabbit! Anyone have anything German to recommend?

3. As announced on twitter, I shall be writing a YA novel that is a steampunk vampire rip-off of The Color Purple called, "The Color Vortex" or possibly "The Vortex purple." It might also involve a Danny Glover robot that says "I'm too old for this shit."

Really, most of this stupid shit is on my twitter. If you ever feel the nee to talk to me during the day about lame shit, I'm cerebralcutlass.

4. ALSO--even though I am behind on the stories, I am still sending out the cookies soon! SO! IF YOU WOULD LIKE SOME GINGERNSNAPS OR GARAM MASALA CHOCOLATE GINGERBREAD, AND A LITTLE FICLET, PLEASE SEE HERE: Amand-r's Frabjous Writing Promo. The ficlets are supposed to be 500 words, but as you can see from the first one, I kind of discard that sometimes. BUT 500 WORD MINIMUM!

The first story was for lilian_cho, and was called Registry, inspired by her starter sentence of, "It's not like there's a Chinese gay kama sutra."

5. Soon I shall watch the second half of Torchwood Miracle Day. And then, even thought I have been discouraged with fandom lately, I shall open the las.

6. Highlander peeps, I have not forgot you! Not having the templates on hand makes life slightly more pissy, but I know how to cut and paste, so I'll steal them soon. Sign ups start tomorrow, I think!

today that weren't really that big a deal in an of themselves, but served to make me feel meh about today:

1. Some fandom shit I shouldn't have read. I need to use my filter, otherwise I just get agitated.

2. My doctor's office called and they want to do more blood tests. Apparently, I am anemic. Orly.

3. I sold a whole box of books at Half Price for 5.50. Usually I get about 20 bucks, and I know it's all subjective and shit, and the guy was like, "Well, we have a huge backlog", and also hey, free money, gift horse, me. It was still less than I expected. Likewise at Once Upon a Child, where I got 11 bucks. Still, I don't really know why I should be bitching about this, but something in me was disappointed. They never offer me less than 20 bucks.

4. I'm not going to be finished with the MBABB by August 30. I'm at 111,149, and I'm just about to finish part 5/14. This does not bode well (only 10K of that is forward writing). I don't know what I'll do about it. People don't want to read a WIP, but I don't know if I can not start posting it then. Because so much of it will be done. And they're episodes, so they're encapsulated.

5. My insurance company sent my monthly bill, and there's a note at the bottom saying, "Highmark has submitted a filing to the PA Insurance Department requesting a rate increase." I don't know what that means. It could be routine, insurance premiums go up every tear, it feels like, but this time I just read that horribly.

6. I just keep focusing on all the bad things. None of these things is bad in and of themselves, but they just added up to create a spiral of thinking in my skull.

1. Most Badass alphabet ever. (h/t sivatheminty)

2.


3. adjovi told me about this at lunch Saturday, and Jesus, it's comedy gold: Man tried to revive dead possum; alcohol involved. That last bit—YOU THINK?

4. And because it came up, I remind you once again, LIKE A BOSS.

5. Thursday was cooking night! ( Steamed pork, souffled mac and cheese, etc. )

6. Saturday was the day for shopping in the Pittsburgh strip district. ( I documented for posterity. )

7. Spike? It's you. It's really you! My therapist thought I was holding onto false hope, but... I knew you'd come back. You're like... you're like Gandalf the White, resurrected from the pit of the Balrog, more beautiful than ever. Ohh... he's alive, Frodo. He's alive.

I am going to complain about some things. I'm just talking off the top of my head, and when I feel better, I'm sure I'll be more rational about most of them. Except the play doh one. That shit blows.

1. I hate snow.

2. I hate being tired.

3. I hate dry fucking play doh. Play doh, why are you dry? I just bought you!

4. I don't want to work on either of the things left that I said I would work on this month, fic-wise (secret project one or bodyswap), and lust is too easy for TW, so I'm not interested in it, except to do all seven deadly sins. So now I'm going through my open fics folder, looking for things to play with. I found something, but meh.

5. This morning like three things pissed me the fuck off. They were not big things. And yesterday with the chairs. So I'mma about to work something through here. The following exchange was had as I shoveled snow this afternoon and screamed at the kid for eating snow. (WTF she's a kid, me.).

Me: Jesus, I'm grumpy.
Self: I know! And it happens more often!
Me: It's as if every month, man, things that I would normally lol about set me off.
Self: I know! Every month...
Me: Oh.

I'm a bit of a moron in this venue, because I have been blessed for the most part by the menstruation gods. I never got any physical signs, but you could set your clock to it on a 32-day cycle. And I knew, I just knew the moment it started, and haven't had surprise!menstruation! issues ever. I might have had cramps, but that was because sometimes I aggravated myself with caffeine, and ibuprofen took care of it.

I thought it was having a kid, but apparently this happens to a lot of women in their thirties, this whole onset PMS thing. Sorry, five dudes on my flist, but my breasts get sore a week ahead of time now, or maybe 1 ½ weeks, and I get cramping on the second or third day. It never occurred to me to check my moods.

I don't like this being a prisoner to my brain and what it does. I know that everyone has tics and eccentricities, that's what makes us all different and bizarre, but this knowledge that my body is fucking with my head on a regular basis makes me cranky in a whole new way.

So, are there any things I can….take for it? I'll confess that when I was a pagan, I did a lot of research into herbalism, and I'm not the biggest fan of it, but I'll try to be all…enlightened and shit. I'm not using black kohosh, sorry. I really don't know what I'll do. I guess the best way to do it would to be to make a chart, a spreadsheet, a something.

And if you are one of the people who might have felt my teeth in the past few days, I am truly sorry.

6. Oh look, a Highlander/Torchwood I haven't finished. Hello, lover.

1. Sometimes I say to myself, "Self, why are you not a professional comedian?" And aside from a paralysing case of stage fright, it's this guy. He's already thought of all the funny:



2. Kseniya Simonova does Sand animation on Ukraine's Got Talent it's 8 minutes long and depicts The Great Patriotic War against the Third Reich in the Ukraine. The FAQ of the piece give you a blow by blow of what she does and also the names of all the songs on the soundtrack.

3. IT IS 14valentines! Now I didn't do it this year, what with the MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF CRAP I'M WORKING ON, BUT I have a special love in my heart for 14valentines.

This time last year I was posting the first fic I'd written in AGES. Seriously, I think in 2008 I wrote 2 fics, and the year before that three fics, and they were mostly for fests. The idea of a) having a new fandom and b) writing copious amounts of anything (and incidentally, the idea of meeting/knowing a lot of you) was completely unknown to me at this point.

I said to myself, "You can't get 14 days of fic out of Highlander. You have to write something new. Try every fandom you can think of that has female characters." So I did Angel, Firefly, DCU, Twin Peaks, Torchwood, and Doctor Who. In fact, I did Doctor Who fics four times, and that might very well have been the last time I wrote a Doctor Who-only fic. Despite my best efforts, I fell waaaaay short of the 14 fic challenge, still, I think I did something. I was rewarded with a new fandom.

I hit the submit button on Feb 1 last year and I hadn't even STARTED my first TW fic, which is, incidentally "Necessity → something something → invention (Torchwood, NC-17, Jack/Ianto)". By the end of the month, I had already imagined and written Jack's confessional with the Hoover machine.

Honest to god, I had no idea what I was in for, people, and because of 14valentines, I have a lot of you. I would never have done it, written TW fic, if 14valentines hadn't forced me to branch out and find other fandoms, and for that, I thank them.

THAT SAID. FEEL FREE TO MOCK ME FOR THIS POST MADE ON 1/10/2009, IN WHICH I SAID:

I need fic stat:

Nine/Rose
Ten/Rose
Nine/Rose/Jack
Jack/Jack
Jack/Ten

Notice that I did not say Ianto/Jack. I DID NOT SAY IANTO/JACK. I don't think it can be done.

Yeah. You can AAAAAAAALL MAKE FUN OF ME.

1. I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about this.

2. bluejeanius has created fanart for the great JB VS NPH BIG GAY BATTLE on afterelton. And it's headlining their Wrap-up post! LOL!

3. HIGHLANDER PEEPS! WHEN WAS RICHIE BORN? HE WAS LIKE 17 IN 1992 OR SUMMAT, RIGHT? 1975?

4. Thanks to whomever nommed Gold dust for a CoT award. THREESOME CATEGORY. AWWWW SHEEEIT.

5. I want to do that "What do you think if these fandom tropes?" Meme, but I'm fairly sure that you all know what I think of that shit, and even if you didn't, you wouldn't care.

6. QUESTION: WHAT THE SHIT IS THIS? ANSWER: FUCKING AWESOME.

7. And while we're on the subject, Santa Jaws is coming to town.

8. Took the snickerdoodle to the National Aviary on New Year's Eve…Day. I bet you didn't know that Pittsburgh is the home of the NATIONAL AVIARY, DID YOU? SUCK IT. WE HAVE FREE-FLIGHT ROOMS.

Okay.

( PENGUINS. )

1. I DON'T HAVE TO EXPLAIN MY ART TO YOU, WARREN.



2. husiemama sent me the most awesome Torchwood card, and she was kind enough to scan the image for us all. ( This way for the crimmas spirit! )

3. Thanks, darthhellokitty and qthelights for the spanking cards!

4. THINGS LATER.

1. Okay, here's the deal. I MIGHT have tried the Snuggie out and I MIGHT have fallen asleep on the sofa wearing it. BUT I DID NOT ENJOY IT. I did not immediately upon taking it off, feel a chill through out my body as if my soul had adhered to the Snuggie and been yanked out of my body in the manner of a yogi pulling silken cords from their throat. I did not think, in a moment of weakness, "It's cold, I should put the Snuggie back on."

Nope.

It did smell funny, though.

2. MY SECRET SANTA has written me a gift! The War at Home is a post S2 Torchwood fic, in which Jack and Ianto are having, through a round about narrative way (and a war of silent gifting), their age-old argument, that I shan't give away. Caught in the crossfire is Gwen, and by association, Rhys, who can't get laid while mommy and daddy are fighting at work. It's precious, and awesome, and I haven't left feedback yet because I have tonnes to say about it, but while I am composing my reply, please go over and read it!

There are also at least four other fics by our fabulous Santas, so please go over and read them all.

3. Happy Kwanzaa!

4. How do I tell my kid that Santa only comes once a year? Shitbears. It's that awkward moment like when they ask for the pet you put to sleep last week. No honey, Santa went to live in the farm, until next year.

5. When you have not had any coffee is not a good time to try to put together the vacuum siphon coffeemaker. Strange because I wanted to use it to MAKE coffee. Hrm. The cafetiere is dirty. Autodrip, here I come.

1. So last night we're decorating the tree at my parents' house. My parents' cats have a track record for wrecking the tree, so this year we're just putting crap ornaments on it and hoping for the best. So mom is putting lights on and messing with branches and she distractedly says, "Next year we'll put some real ornaments on. Get some Ketamine and puts the cats down for a week."

Yeah. LOL

2. For all of you stateside who grew up with her, Olivia from Sesame Street has died of breast cancer. I loved Olivia and her rad braids.

3. Sometimes, SNL gets it right.

4. I can only conclude that the Jantoistas didn't like my meagre offering. SADFACE.

5. CARD ROLL CALL: kel_reiley, sivatheminty, miss_winterhill and lawsontl--thank you so very much! J, your squid is fucking awesome. You should do some TW comics. We can collab!

6. Okay, so Dexter season three is not available on netflix to watch instantly (someone write me Dexter Morgan/Hannibal Lecter mentor!fic. DO. IT.). In my desperation for a series to watch while I do shit, I remembered that I haven't finished The L Word, so I started season three. The L World, man, is horrible, but I can't stop watching it. It makes me cringe on the part of all women, and I'm trying to figure out why that is. But I think it starts with the lyrics to the theme song:

( The Way That We Live, by Betty )

7. AWWWWWW YEAH HAAHAHAHAA.

8. HEY! LATER TODAY! DRINKS POST! GET YOUR ALCOHOLIC RECIPES HANDY!

9. ALSO, RPS. WOOT!

10. AND A BODY, DEAD, WRAPPED IN PLASTIC.

11. IF SOMEONE MADE A TORCHWOOD VID TO THIS SONG, IT MIGHT TOP I'M A BOSS. MIGHT..

1. You know what I miss? Witch Hunter Robin. I'd like to see that again.

2. And for those of you who don't believe that Pittsburgh is unique and strange, I bring you the Pittsburgh cookie table, a must at every wedding. I am told mine was good. I wouldn't know because I ate one cookie and when I returned, drunk, it was empty.

3. ( Sometimes it's good to remember what some music and a good voice over actor can do. )

4. You know, if you have time to read and comment on other stories in the fest, you have time to read and comment on your gift, even if you didn't like it. You just say "Oh thank you!" Mention a few things you liked (Jesus, even if most of it is suck, there's always something redeemable. I found redemption in the Biscuit story), and bob is your goddamn uncle.

5. Before I forget, THANK YOU to beeej, bluejeans07, bethcarielle, and solsticezero for the spankin' cards! God we're all so effing creative, and beth, your kind words were heartening, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Beeej! HIGHLANDER CARDS RULE. I wanted to do a post-it HL card, but my creative well had run dry. :(