amand_r

Hello all, it's been a while, so I shall UPDATE BY NUMBERS.

1. Cookies have been awesome. I am taking a break. I have many new things that I want to try, but they aren't going to ship well in this heat. That said, if you ever want some cookies, feel free to drop me a line. I am now making shit on demand. Except the chocolate caramel shortbread. They are a pain in the ass.

2. Kidlet is done with preschool! Well, for this year at least. I have embarrassing video, but I am too lazy to upload it.

3. My computer died recently! It was horrible. I was trying to log on, and it kept telling me my user profile couldn't load properly. After shedding bitter tears, I managed to save all my files from safe mode onto an external drive, and then I had to reinstall the OS from factory settings. Strange how everything runs now. On the other hand, there's something cleansing about getting a fresh start.

4. I have been reading a great deal. You can find my reading on Goodreads. Right now I'm reading about the monster of Florence.

5. I MADE PASTA FROM SCRATCH. IT WAS AWESOME.

6. YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE IS AWESOME? HOT DOGS.

7. Here is the story of how I am bitter:

One day I started watching Wire in the Blood. I watched 2 eps and then forgot. Then a month later I was all, “I should check out Wire in the Blood”, and lo, I already had. I resumed my watching. BY THE WAY the special with Tony in Texas was the best thing ever. I lolled so hard. Anyway, I got to the end of season 6 when [spoiler] and it ends with [spoiler] and Then I click ed the “Next” button on the Netflix streaming screen.

Nothing happened. I looked and saw they only had up to season six. Never mind, I will download the torrent somewhere.

That's right, in my head I had convinced myself that there are 8 seasons.

Oh wait, no, that's Waking the Dead.

It became increasingly difficult to locate the season seven torrent No one had it. I was going to do a shot out to my flist. Then I decided to see when it was released. So I checked wikipedia.

Boy, am I bitter. WHAT A FUCKING WAY TO END. NOT TWIN PEAKS EPIC, BUT JESUS.

8. I read the new Sookie Stackhouse. Yeah.

9. I had so many things to say! I have no idea where they went.

10. Lastly, I have a novella/thing coming out in October, and the publisher, Candlemark and Gleam was nice enough to send me promo postcard things to distribute. I was thinking of handwriting some short short stories and offering to send them to people for postage. Would anyone be interested? Want one? I guess if you sent me five bucks, I could send you the card and a half a dozen cookies. Or something.

Postage has gone up package wise, by the way. That's how they get ya.

Off to read more about excising vaginas.

Which means that everything I know...I know from fandom.

( Someone else wrote a story about it, and I drew pictures. )

**IN THE FRENCH: "IN SEARCH OF LOST GLUTEN-FREE BAKED GOODS"

Okay, so I'm supposed to be doing Nano, and I SWEAR I WILL MAKE IT UP (aka Famous Last Words, copywrite the universe and MCR) but failing that, I do have evidence what I have been doing the last two days (four days, whatever).

( I am virtually incapable of even typing a journal report. For srs. )

That'll do, pig. That'll do.

1. What's with Family Guy's Conway Twitty thing? It started with short clips, and now 7.13 had a whole performance of "I See The 'Want To' In Your Eyes". Not that I didn't LOL, but what up with this? Did Seth MacFarlane get the rights to all Conway Twitty's music or something?

2. The drawback to CLEAN ALL THE THINGS in my house is that I don't want to write. Why does this happen? It happens when I have a shitload of things to do, that's for damn sure. Wholas, kinky krimmas, the twfemfic fest, about six original fic things to do, plus that charity book thing (NO I HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN, TWITTER PEOPLE). I need something to jumpstart my ass. OH AND ALSO I HAVE THAT SEASON OF TORCHWOOD WOT I BE DOING. JESUS.

SOMEONE KICK ME IN THE ARSE.

3. My fried egg fu is sufficiently warmed up, so tonight it's stout and cheddar rarebit with fried eggs and the old stand-by, carrots and leeks. Oh carrots and leeks, why can't I quit you? I am using balsamic vinegar again instead of red wine vinegar.

4. My kid is in preschool! She started Monday, and so far so good.

5. This year she wants to be Snow White for Halloween. See Mander drive from one store to another.

6. I SEE THE 'WANT TO' IN YOUR EYES.

7. Ever look at all your junk and become filled with the urge to see how much of it you can sell? Because I think that might be my new hobby.

8. Writing a short story about a unicorn showing up on a midwest farm, and it's not going to have a happy ending. But all this urban or modern fantasy, I have no idea who takes it. My horror is not going over well with the horror markets. All my rejections are like, "This is good, but it's not us. Do you have anything more us?" It's enough to make a girl turn to poetry. Which, oh hai quiet passion.

9. I keep all my books that I'm currently reading stashed about the house in places. I have, at any given time, about 8 of them, and sometimes I substitute more when I get in a new pulp crap thing that I'll do in three days (or hours). So I finished Wharton, and picked up The Abridged Tale of Genji, like a responsible reader. Then I got waylaid by The Murder of Biggie Smalls. BUT THEN I GOT WAYLAID BY LKH'S NEW ANITA BLAKE BOOK. OH MY GOD IF MY READING HABITS WERE A NASDAQ CHART, IT WOULD LOOK LIKE BLACK MONDAY. With any luck I can skim my way through LKH and back into Biggie and then into Genji and the Burroughs I cracked the other day.

10. Okay, I just want to state for the record that I find it humourous, given the general attitude that the lyrics of Death Row records used to have re: the police, that they would only hire off-duty cops for their security. On one hand it's heartening, because it shows that it's possible to believe in the corruption of some of the police dept and still believe in their abilities or that some of them are good. On the other hand it's lol.

11. I have a mental image of Jack teaching Lois, Maggie and Robert how to lindy hop after hours in the atrium, to this song. They all have their shoes off, and they're goofing off in their stocking feet in the atrium. Gwen and Dee are in their offices pretending they don't hear. But they do. Gwen gives in, but Dee puts her head phones in and listens to Barry Manilow. BEANS AND CORNBREAD.

I HAD SEX WITH GARETH DAVID LLOYD ON A SINK AT DRAGON*CON AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY MANICURE:



( Yes, this sums up my whole D*C experience nicely. )

That was my big fat D*C exp. Seriously, few panels, lots of booze, tonnes of food, great people, EXCELLENT CONVERSATIONS, and a renewed sense of writing. I WILL WRITE THAT FPREG. IT WILL BE AWESOME.

OH AND I THINK I MIGHT HAVE A SEASON TO AIR THIS FALL.

( Oh, and Jack and Ianto's post-it D*C adventure )

BUT FOR NOW, my dad is out of surgery, and I'm waiting to hear how he is, and I have plans to make biscotti with cabernet cocoa powder, and possibly some cupcakes.

I dreamt about biscotti last night.

I made a list of shit to do divided by pages: on page per category, house, work, online, general, errands, etc. IT'S NINE PAGES LONG.

See ya'll on the flip side.

EDIT: I bought their Netherworld Blend and the Reanimator Blend. The latter is great. Haven't tasted the firmer. Go there and browse the teas and coffees.

I SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT. NOT ONLY THAT BUT I WOKE UP AT 8:30 TURNED OVER AND WENT BACK TO SLEEP UNTIL 11 AM.

WHAT CAUSED THIS MINOR MIRACLE? BITE GUARD.

IT IS CONCLUSIVE. GRINDING MY TEETH WAKES ME UP AT 2, 4 AND 6 AM. BASTARDS.

BUT BUT BUT BIB IF THIS MATTERS. NOT ON REX MANNING BACON DAY.

Because emquilxy beats me every time at the gift giving game. LOOK AT ALL THE BACON:



( MORE BACON THAN YOU CAN HANDLE UNDER THE CUT. )

I'm off to read more wholas. And weep.

The first TEN people to comment in this post get to request ~something~ of any pairing/character of their choosing from me. In return, they have to post this in their journal. If you absolutely can't write, you can offer drawings or icons or something instead (meta? picspams? reasons why that character/pairing rocks/doesn't rock?).

They will be fics. They have to fit in the comments to this post, man. You don't have to repost to request. Any of my listed fandoms. Awwww yeah.

WHAT'S BEEN GOING ON IN THE HAUS OF CHING?



( THIS, BITCHES. )

My uh, my doctor might have upped my prozac. I'm just sayin'.

1. I used to get really mad at the administration when I taught, and I used to tell myself that when I was out of teaching I'd write a bald-faced book about what's really going on, and people would read it and say, "Yeah, that’s fucked up." I never did that (though I should. It'd be like the professional career version of blowing up the Bridge Over the River Kwai), but the other day I just realised that I feel the same way about society in general, and I SHOULD WRITE AN ANGRY TELL-ALL BOOK ABOUT IT, and then I realised that since I'd be writing about all of us on the planet, there'd be no one to read it. Like, Maybe an alien or something. LAWL. THAT'LL SHOW YOU ALL. THE SLITHEEN ARE ON TO YOUR JACKASSERY.

2. OMG I MUST SEE THIS FILM.

3. ( photodump and shit )

4. I made pickled red onions. Woah mama.


EDIT: I want to add that my kid just ate three small bowlfuls of these with her lunch. W. T. F. :D

RECIPE: Slice RED ONIONS. I used like one large one. Place in bowl. In a small saucepan bring to boil:

1 c. white wine vinegar
1.c. sugar
3 tsp. Kosher salt
3 tsp black peppercorns
1 cinnamon stick

Stir until well dissolved and then pour over onions. Refridgerate. Chill overnight. THEN CONSUME.

If you are like me, then you have no white wine vinegar and no black peppercorns because you threw them away like a moron. This is okay. Go Asian and use rice vinegar and szechuan peppercorns.

WHO WAS IT THAT WE TALKED ABOUT "I LOVE CORM"? PERSON—IN THE ABOVE THING, I MISTYPED IT AS "CORM" EVERY SINGLE TIME.

I LOVE CORM.

Why was there no corm in this?

I made a corm puree for under my chicken livers with bacon and red onions in a basalmic-wine reduction. NOM NOM NOM.

PHILISTINES.

OMG SO MANY BIBLE JOKES, SO LITTLE TIME.

5. ( A little excerpt from the latest body swap. )