Random Dionysian Fandom Chick

So... i haven't posted in awhile, and I'm trying very hard not to freak the frak out about posting anywhere about anything. I am literally forcing myself to post right now, for three reasons:

First, to let y'all know that I haven't forgotten about pilotsbigbang. I pretty much decided that since sign-ups are running until January I was going to let it sit over NaNo-month. Although I have tried to contact the mods of a couple of comms I want to pimp on, and haven't ever heard anything back, so...

Second, because I don't want to encourage the spiral of "I want to post, freak the heck out, don't post after all" to continue. I can't have that. It will not fit into my world.

Third, to wish all of y'all Happy Thanksgiving from those of us here in the states! Happy Turkey day! (even if the first of two of my Thanksgiving dinners is a pork roast instead. But whatever. :) )

I've had a week. I have a sneaking suspicion the next one won't be a lot better from that standpoint, though it certainly has the potential of being better in some areas. (The part I'm not quite so encouraged about is the part that would be roll-over from this week.)

I washed out of the writing round of startrekbigbang, and am about to do the same thing with the polybigbang unless the word-fairy helps me out with a miracle today. I really hate that, because to me it means I wasn't on the ball and was procrastination girl and therefore it's my own damn fault. I do that with way too many things.

There are big weeks going on over at whedonland and legendland and in both cases, they snuck up on me and now they're in full swing and I don't feel like I have a good grasp of what's going on, how it works, or what I should be doing. Therefore, when I run across those posts, I feel sort of like you would imagine someone would feel running alongside a train who's steadily increasing it's speed as it leaves the station.

The main reason for that is, quite simply, I've had a bad week. I haven't slept well (by which I mean that I've either fallen asleep before I meant to, and therefore in a weird position and done that thing where you keep waking up just enough to know you need to move, but not enough to *actually* move, or I've fallen asleep ok but woken up incredibly stiff, sore, and tired. It's not unusual, but a week and a half (or more) in a row of it is very draining. And when my energy gets low (it doesn't take a lot, I don't have much to begin with) then I get very muddle-headed. Like VERY muddle-headed. Like, I can't read a paragraph (or sometimes a sentence) without fading out on it and not understanding what's going on or what it's saying. I'm in no way, shape, or form a stupid person, but that level of tired makes me into one, and I really sort of hate it. Caffeine can only do so much, and I have to watch how much of that I have anyway.

In completely other news, I'm now the Secretary for the Board of Whedonites United. There's all sorts of stuff surrounding that giving me stress, but I feel a really strong calling to do more in terms of fandom community organization to help fulfill that side of my job as a priestess to Dionysus. I do a lot of the religious stuff already, but fandom community has been neglected for the last several years.

Oh, and the husband just enrolled (today - well, yesterday, now) in Massage Therapy school. I'm really quite proud of him, and overall am very pleased with this turn of events. We have to meet with the Financial Aid office there next week, and classes start the middle of next month. Hopefully he'll be able to get financial aid and hopefully anything that doesn't cover his family will be willing to help out with. But this should - no, this *WILL* open up a lot of opportunities for him both now and for his (well, our) future. So I'm pleased and hopeful.

Tomorrow (Today) is Rosh Hoshanah, so I'll be busy all day helping kadollan get ready, and cook, and so forth.

Fandom lost a great writer and friend this morning. :( simons_flower will be greatly, greatly missed. More info here.

My own memories:

I first met Trisha when I started playing in the HP fandom - specifically when I started looking for Trio fic. Over the years she was one of those authors I got to know on a personal level and who I came to consider a friend as well as a favorite author. Frankly, at the moment I'm still in shock and kind of dumb-founded.

::cries::

Um.  Hi.

I haven't been around much.  And I'm not actually 100% sure that this is a change in that particular trend, but ::shrug::.

I want to write things down and record them.  I want to keep a running tally of my life, online, and use the materials and tools that I have at my disposal to do so... I'm just not sure *how* to do that.

That's not exactly right.  I suppose, in an abstract way, I do know how to do it.  I could write you manuals and papers about how all these things work, but I'm not sure how to apply them to my life.  What things do I want to record?  How do I want to keep up with them?  Like my physical surroundings, if I had a cut and dried system of where things went and how things should be sorted and what kinds of classificiations and distinctions I should be making, then I could impose some kind of order on things.  I'm just not sure what those things are *for me*.

Take ravelry, for instance.   I can record what yarns I own, what projects I'm working on, etc.  There's also a tagging system, that would allow me to organize and categorize and classify my projects, my queue (projects I want to make someday), and my "favorites" (things I just thing are neat) into categories that are meaningful to me.  I know that many people are able to create and use tags in a completely organic way, and that works for them.  I, however, can guarantee you I need a better basic structure than that (because I've *tried* the completely organic thing, and it doesn't work).  So I need to decide at the outset that I'm going to mark all my books with a tag "book" and further that I'm going to call science fiction "speculative" and not "sci-fi", "scifi", "science fiction" and "science fic".  Because I *WILL* do the later if I'm not properly prepared beforehand.

Then there's the age-old question of "what kind of a planning system do I need to be using?  What do I need to keep track of?  I have several little peices and ideas, but I don't know what the picture is yet or even what shape the puzzle is.  I know that I need a hard copy, paper calendar I can carry around, that's small and lightweight, and has the months in it with plenty of room to write.  I finally figured out a year or so ago that I "see" and "think" of time in months, so that's the best way for me to see my schedule.  Daily pages are *way* too excessive, and weekly pages seldom get used.  I know that I need some kind of contact/address book, and it needs to have both a high-tech component and a low-tech (ie, written on paper) component as well.

Going back to calendars for a moment, while I know I need a paper calendar, I also want/need to use my Google Calendar because that's where many of my events and activities first get posted, and I have several friends calendars I'm linked to.

I have my LJ tags where I want them (I think) but none of my others are that organized.  (Also, I feel like I should at some point go back and tag the old LJ entries from the before times when there weren't any tags so that they'll be searchable too.)

Any thoughts/advice/etc would be appreciated.

*****

In completely other news, I'm on Clue 1 of the new Goddess Knits Anniversary Mystery Shawl, and while I can't say that the Knit Picks' Gloss Lace is flipping my switch all that much as a yarn overall, I LOVE the color I'm using (Mango).  It's a nice, cheerful orange-y peach that makes me happy when I look at it.  Which is a good thing, considering how depressed I've been lately. 

I've finished one of two socks for the Hogwarts Sock Swap (5), and I know I need to get cracking on the other one (it's due the 28th).  

My swap-ee for the Reducio! swap seemed very pleased with her package, and I'm pretty pleased with the idea/execution of said idea that I came up with.

*****

The House season finale blew me away and left me climbing the walls for next season.  I still need to go watch the season finale of Dollhouse, but I really liked "Briar Rose".  We're having to wait to watch the last two eps of NCIS because I had to put the Netflix on hold until I can deposit my next check (I was stupid, didn't keep up with my money well enough and accidentally went overdrawn).   Castle was lovely, though, and I'm THRILLED BEYOND BELIEF that it's coming back.  

I'm both looking forward to, and a bit nervous about the new season of Jon&Kate+8 starting on Monday.

I got a look at the 2009-2010 Upfronts at TV.com and I have to say I'm pretty happy with them.  I don't see the House spin-off though?  But there's a bloody lot of genre shows, which pleases me to no end.  And I've already checked out the pilot ep of Glee and can't wait to see more.  

I'm loving the new season of In Plain Sight (Mary/Marshall for the win! though Brandy/Peter are pretty cute, too) and the more I see of Royal Pains the more I want to actually watch it.  

*****

I'm reading New Moon right now, and liking it ok.  I'm not turning into a rabid fan, but I don't think that it sucks, either.
 

Speaking of rabid fan-girl-ness, I want more Star Trek OMGOMGOMG.  I also loved Wolverine, and was quite pleased with Angels and Demons.  The pacing of A&D is much better than it was in The DaVinci Code, I think.  I've finally see the original Night at the Museum, and want to see the sequel.  I wouldn't mind seeing Terminator: Salvation in the theatres either, which is kind of weird since I never liked any of the original Terminator movies.  But Christian Bale is lovely.  Speaking of lovely, "Australia" was lovely - and Hugh Jackman is ::guhdroolguh::.  

*****
WhedonFest is going to eat my brain.  I know it is.  And I'm going on a trip the weekend before, and GI Joe comes out somewhere in there.

Oh, and Skin Trade (the new Anita Blake) is out on the 2nd of June.  Want. Badly.

*****
Finally, I got a Nintendo DS for my birthday this month.  My Brain Age is 42 right now, I've cleared all the Basic Sudoku levels, am on World 6 in the New Mario Bros. and am trying to find all the zoo animals in My Sims Kingdom.

 

Tonight, I happened to run across an eljay comm dedicated to finding really bad bsg fic and (apparently) trashing it.  Now, I am deliberately not posting the name or link to the comm, because a. I don't want to single them out, b. I'm sure there are not alone, and c. I believe that they have the right to do so and will support that right.

That doesn't mean that I understand *why*.  Because I don't.  I just Don't. Get. the "wank" trend in fandom.  I can understand not liking a fic, or a show, or an episode.  I can even understand well-rounded discussion about fics, or episodes, etc. where you might go into detail about *why* you don't like it.  I don't understand out and out bashing things and making fun of them.  I know a lot of people are huge TV w/o pity fans, and I could never get on that bandwagon for the same reason.  It just makes me sad.  

I keep almost wanting to post about RaceFail, except that I have no desire to read any of it, and therefore can't actually speak to it.  I do know that I have serious issues with feminist-critique, and my only experiences with racial/cultural critique really aren't (it consists of an English Prof in College bitching about how Farscape wasn't being "multi-cultural" because they hired a "white" girl to play a grey character instead of someone who might be more ethnically diverse and complained about how they were filming in Australia but didn't have any "native" actors. (I'm sorry, but first off, if Lani Tupu isn't at least *part* Maori, **I'll** eat Crais's pretty-PK hat, and secondly - they're all playing aliens. They're blue and green and purple and orange - and it's not happening in an Earth environment, I just don't think saying that it doesn't show a multi-cultural view of Earth is a valid arguement in this situation.  It's not showing Earth's future, it's showing a completely different galaxy's present.)

Am still planing on a fandom rundown later. 

 I think I may've just blown up my f-list adding comms.  I'm sort of doing that thing where I'm jumping into *everything* headfirst.  

Moving has commenced.  Or rather, the unpacking stage of moving has commenced.  I am inordinately proud of myself for what I accomplished today, and there will be pictures, but not tonight because I'm also exhausted.  And have to go out to the car (which is all the way down the stairs and in the *cold* - wah.) 

But in a nutshell, I drove from the 'boro to my mom&dad's, then decided that I had to rearrange and "sort" all the boxes so that all the book boxes were together, and all the crafts boxes were together, etc.  Then I sorted all the dirty clothes.  (Ok, there's one tub of them left, but I'm going to do that tomorrow morning.  Also, I went through the hall bathroom and threw out all the random hba crap that's several years old and filling up the drawers and shelves.  I still need to do that in the bathroom attached to my bedroom, as well.)

There are apt to be fights in our future regarding how often we go to the 'boro on the weekends.  I don't think (ok, rather, I *know*) that my mom doesn't "get" that B and I are actually clergy in our community (especially B, now) and are very active in our religion and community and have responsibilities there.  And I'll absolutely grant you that she doesn't really have a way of understanding that, since we don't talk about it - ever - but it upsets her and makes her incredibly uncomfortable when the fact that I'm not christian comes up.  So.  Right.

Anyway.

*****

In knitting news, I've started Jennigma's plus 3 gauntlets of warming - but mine are apt to only be plus 1 because I'm using worsted weight on size 3s rather than aran on size 6's.  I'm still not sure if they'll be me-sized or jessofthebugs -sized when I'm done.

*****

If anyone knows how to get deviant art to either export journal entries over to LJ or get deviant art to pick up LJ entries, please let me know?  Also possibly Library Thing.  Is there a work-around involving RSS maybe?  Or something akin to LoudTwitter for other sites?

Btw:

Final NaNo count: 64,928.

As previously mentioned, I learned a few important things.  First, that I should always stick to doing a daily word count when doing NaNoWriMo.  Second, that my place in this literary world (at least in regards to fiction) is writing fanfiction, not original stuff.  I actually had quite an epiphany about how exactly it is that my brain works that allows me to write fanfiction (it's related to mathematics and social dynamics, and came to me via reading this wonderful book (which is well written and quite engaging and not at all about genetics: The Math Gene by Keith Devlin) )  It involves imaginary "furniture" in imaginary "houses" among other things.

Speaking of NaNo stories... I have two needs.  Or rather, I have two stories that I really would like to finish and make into post-able stories, and would like beta-ish help on them.  If you're interested?  Please let me know either via comments or email. (cybermathwitch (at) gmail (dot) com)

Folie a Deux is a BSG Kara/Lee epic-y sort of story involving the two of them "remembering" all sorts of different lives past, future, and alternate present in order to come to a realization about their place in one another's life.  (And doesn't that sound all sorts of philosophical? giggle  Don't worry - there's smut, too.  and Pilot!Babies.)

Fade and Remain is a Harry/Ginny/Luna fic (seriously, check out flamingnargle ) that takes place after the events of Deathly Hallows (it's cannon up to that point, with some supposition about what's going on during the books that we may not see) and disregards the Epilogue entirely.  It's primary purpose is a vehicle for the 'ship, but I'm also trying to work out an actual plot involving the Elder Wand.

Both of these have at *least* 50,000 words in them, so they're already pretty big (and a big mess, technically as they were written in a sort of "free-for-all" manner) - right now what I really need for these is a new perspective about where I might need to go with them, as well as some reaction to what I've already got.  Grammatical editing is always appreciated, but it isn't the primary thing I'm looking for in a beta - *especially* at the stage I'm at.  I'm going mostly for story editing at this point.

So, first off, I has a dragon egg!  Go clicky! 


Beyond that, I am about 3000 words behind on two separate novels, wanna know what I'm doing tonight?

Researching the hell out of the roots and origins of modern witchcraft (as well as the usage of the term(s)) because it has absolutely NOTHING to do with any of my stories.  Catching up on classes at Real Magic School now that they're back up and running again.  Watching The Road to El Dorado with the kids (we're babysitting this weekend while everyone else is at the Gathering Coordinator's meeting.) 

In other words?  Anything and everything to avoid my stories.

I'm actually not minding my HP story, and will probably work on it in a bit.  But my original story?  The one that's on my long-term NaNo account?  Is making me beyond crazy.  

One of the exercises given as a prelude to NaNoWriMo is writing your "Magna Cartas" - lists of (respectively) the things you love in books you read and the things you absolutely hate and despise.  The point is both to help give you ideas of a story you might like to write and spark brain storming, and also to give you a way to check yourself if you start writing stories that contain the very qualities you despise.  Which is a more common occurence than you might think, actually.

I'm not to the point of actively having elements of my second Magna Carta (the bad one) yet, but I am at the point of looking at the story thus far, and where I think it's going, and realizing it's going to be one that I wouldn't be particularly interested in reading if I were browsing a bookstore myself and ran across it.  Normally, this phenomenon is common in week 2... mine's hit rather early in week one.

Sigh.

So instead, I'm going to go finish up the lesson and test for the class I'm on, probably read another chapter or two in Bonewits's Essential Guide to Witchcraft and Wicca (for the record, one of the best sources I've found thus far at discussing the "myths" verses the probably realities and research on both the definition(s) of the terms and the origins of the movement - it is not a "wicca 101" type of book),

That said, can Isaac Bonewits be my anthropologically-perceptive pagan-researcher boyfriend?  I'll take good care of him and keep him with Alton Brown (my kitchen-guru boyfriend).  

I want to know why it is that I get all back into LJ and Ravelry and everything else *when*I*no*longer*have*internet*! 

Really.

I have no idea what we're gonna do for the next few weeks - we have rent due (that we almost certainly have enough for, I think) but there's also the other CSA payment (because back when we signed up for the fucking CSA we were both gainfully employed and it made good sense) that's due and unavoidable/not opt-out-able, and a pair of concert tickets we commited to awhile ago (and I totally thought we could still afford when I talked to them recently because at that point a. Brian still had a job and b. I'd submitted the paperwork for unemployment and it was only supposed to take a week or so to do)

well? *Still* haven't heard back about the unemployment (I did email them today and will have to call them probably tomorrow except that I don't know when or how or who and am terrified), and Brian doesn't have a job anymore, which is a very Good Thing for his mental health because it was making him incredibly depressed and angry (we didn't even realize how much until it wasn't an issue anymore) and there's this absolutely (seems like) PERFECT job for him on campus that he's applying for (I just need to get the cover letter written to go with the rest of the stuff he filled out, and again with the freak out factor) and this job would be *SO* much better for our whole situation and give me the freedom to keep building the rest of the opportunities we're working on.

It's just that it's not happening instantaneously overnight and all this stuff is due pretty much *now*.  ::headdeskconcusivelove::

And wow, this post was so totally not supposed to be about that stuff, it was supposed to be all about fandom-ish things.  Like what rewatching the beginning of season 2 of Farscape was/is like (and DAMN but CDM was dark stuff... I was actually seeing some parallels to the Dark Knight in places - with Crichton as the Joker of all things.  Yeesh.)  or what watching season 2 of Lost (for the first time) has been like so far (DO NOT LIKE ANA LUCIA.  AT ALL.)

So yeah.  But apparently I needed a good rant.

It. Is. Hot.

It has been hot all month. We have had virtually no rain, and even our humidity is trying to go away. This makes me a very, very uncomfortable Koren. Last weekend our AC died (luckily in this heat the apartment complex sees that as a perfectly justifiable reason to use the emergency maintenance pager and it was fixed by Sunday evening) and we spent most of it at wintermoon3 and poetheather's house where it was cool.

It was hot again today.

( Work: )

And I left early to go see...( the Psychologist: )

This also brings me to ( Knitting: )

for lunch there was ( Bento: )

and much thought in general through the day about ( Fandom: )

Also? Totally AWESOME surprise waited for me at the World of Wal the other day. I was looking at the 19.99 DVD case, trying to decide if I should talk my husband into MacGuyver or Forever Knight, when what did I see, lying on it's side (cover wasn't visible) in the bottom far corner?

PICKET.

FENCES.

I do not lie.

It is, in fact, out on DVD. How I missed it on TVShowsOnDVD.com, I don't know, but DUDE! LOVE!

(Yes, Daddy, this is what Mom NEEDS for her Birthday. I'm serious.)

The ONLY reason I do not own this now is that, despite its proximity to the 19.99 DVDs? It was around 45.00. ::is sad:: My friends don't know this show. They have not witnessed the wonder of early David E. Kelly, or the glory of Ray Walston's impassioned speeches, or Don Cheadle and Fyvush Finkel's verbal fencing. (Not to mention Holly Marie Combs's pre-Charmed awesomeness.)

"Douglas Wambaugh for the defense!"

I must rectify this situation.

Did I mention it was hot?


P.S.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just found out that Nickleback, Finger Eleven, and Puddle of Mudd are going to be performing at the GEC (ok, now it's the Sommet Center. Not the point.)

WANNA GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

::cries::