I know I've been absent. There will be fic- actually, I'm writing my ST exchange fic now (yes. It's late. Yes. I know)

Here is what's going on:

Moved back to Seattle. Yaay!

Road trip across rockies. Western South Dakota unexpectedly awesome. Yaay!

Living with parents is much nicer than when I was a teenager, mostly because they've given up on me. No more religious feuding. Cute puppy dog. Little sister much nicer than when I was a teenager too. All good things.

New temp job is beaureaucratic hell which leaves no time for writing, reading, friends, fandom, or anything. I miss you all badly. Boo.

Could not scrape together the money for Comic-con. Terribly terribly sad. Was looking forward to that all year.

Got 179 on LSAT. Law school looking not so out of reach after all.

Torchwood: Children of Earth was sad and cruel and sadistic and horrible and I bawled like a baby and I hated it and OMFG, how awesome was that? (Also, is possible I was overly emotionally invested in Ianto)

Stranger in a Strange Fandom has posted its third round, which amuses me greatly.

Am making a heroic commitment to be online more, do some fandom reading, do some writing, because I miss it, but you know.

Also: Thank you so much to everybody who sent me messages or left comments asking what's up. I didn't answer because I have no gmail or lj at work and because the internet connection at home is down something like 30% of the time, but really, it made me happy.

I am off! Gone! Afk until Thursday earliest. If I miss something good, leave me a note. I will miss you all. On the plus side, I might become an actual fannishly-engaged, interesting person again post-move, so.

Took LSAT.

So, that happened.

People have been defriending me left and right, and I deserve it. Hopefully I will be a, you know, real person again after I finish the move?

In the meantime, there's this vid. And I point this out because... okay, here's the thing... because I desperately want an SGA teamshippy vid to that song. So much team joy! So much dorky silliness! So much minor character love! Is that not the best OTTeam song ever?

Seriously, if Sweet Charity was still running, I would spend money on this. Big money. If you are a competent vidder? I would pay you in fic. I mean, actual fic, to spec and on deadline and everything. Seriously. And also give you my firstborn child, possibly.

That was all.

Point the First: I am having good luck with obscure movies lately. Where the Heart Is was almost embarrassingly adorable (not to mention surreal, bizarre, hilarious, and highly entertaining). Treed Murray was actually quite good- good in a very particular, writerly, theater-feeling kind of way. Actually, it reminded me of nothing so much as Twelve Angry Men, though I'd have a hard time justifying that comparison. In any case, the script was good, I enjoyed the one-set feel, and Hewlett absolutely carried the movie... except for the times when he was outshone by the startlingly magnetic, charismatic, powerful Cle Bennett as Shark the gang leader. And the last Hewlett thing I grabbed, Cube (which has been on my "SF cult movies" to-watch list for years) was creepy as fuck oh my god. So, all in all, I'm liking my movie-picking mojo right now.

Point the Second: In twelve hours, bdblack will be here. With luck, this will help immensely with the current funk.

Point the Third: wyomingnot talked to me about Leverage.

This makes me think: Surely somewhere out there is the crossover/fusion/AU that puts Alec Hardison and Rodney McKay in a room together. It must exist. Think about it.

(Seriously, if Rodney's life had taken only a slightly different turn, he could totally have become a brilliant cyber-criminal. And Rodney would be, like, the old acknowledged master, and Hardison would be the up-and-coming arrogant pup with no respect and they would totally hate each other and then somehow the Leverage team and the SGA team (Spies Getting Awesome! Because John thought the acronym sounded cool. Rodney cannot remember why they ever started letting John name things, but Ronon and Teyla don't care what they're called) end up working the same job. This has the added advantage of having Eliot and Ronon in the same room too, possibly beating each other up. While Rodney and Hardison snark a lot.

If somebody gave me the plot for the job, I would totally write this, but I can't imagine somebody hasn't already)

Every day I think "I've been away from the flist forever! I should post!" and then I don't. Basically, a combination of a particularly bad bout of underemployment and a nostalgic trip back to some old computer games has left me doing that weird hours/sleeping way too much/can't quite manage to do anything/not quite depressed thing.

So. You know a meme I saw going around a few days ago? It was that ( Ten things I assume you know about me meme )

( And this cut-tag is all about Star Trek )

And this one will go outside the cut: There is already K/S porn. It is smoking. In fact, there's a whole huge kink meme but I don't have time to sort through the dross right now. Read this. Read it now. I'll be in my bunk.

* I am online again, more or less, due to the amazing kindness of strangers. Seriously, I am all over lawrence520 and his incredible loaner laptop and willingness to give it to a total stranger, and hilarytamar, who seems to have embarked on a single-handed, oddly determined quest to keep me sane in my time of hardship. Seriously, I have no idea how to pay forward this level of awesome.

* I have gotten so spoiled with phone contact! All I have to say is "I'm computerless and lonely!" and all these people become willing to talk to me on the phone, often at ridiculous length. I don't know how I'll give it up. I am so warm and fuzzy you have no idea. Seriously, I feel like one of those sloppy drunks: "I love you all!" Especially you, bdblack and miriad and hilarytamar.

* Was that Tricia Helfer on Chuck? I adore her so much! If someone had told me that the underwear model in That Dress was going to be my favorite New Actor crush out of BSG, instead of Katee Sackhoff, I wouldn't have believed it, but I am so glad she's made good and is popping up everywhere. That said, I am getting really sick of Ellie being kept out of the loop. The show is just getting meaner and meaner to her, and it's starting to get me down.

* RE: SPN. Entertainment Weekly says "The new brother is a Wincest fan's dream come true!" *boggles* Look, I know fandom became rather blase about incest about two years ago, but in Entertainment Weekly? Bwuh?

It's not like SPN has been My Show since "In the Beginning," and I haven't even watched it since the one with the fallen angel. This is because I was breaking up with it before it could hurt me, because, as bdblack can confirm, I really am the guy in all my relationships. I still may catch up to it over hiatus, but adding a third brother? This show is on seriously thin ice with me.

* And since the computer died I have been reading a book a day. No, really. A little less than five days, five books.

( Reading Roundup )

Oh my god you guys. My life sucks and I want to cry.

( I am computerless )

So that Daniel/Jack/Paul fic I promised? Not coming. The moebius fic? Not coming. The Kings fic? Not coming.

On the plus side, I just picked up the next Bujold book, and let me tell you, it looks hilarious. The back says, "You might thing that an obstetrician on a planet forbidden to women would be underemployed..." The cover art is the most horrible lurid SF pulp looking thing I've seen in a long time. I am reading this on pure faith in Bujold, because it looks like badfic of the highest calibre. Then again, that might be what I need, given that I am stranded utterly alone in a strange city with no computer and no money. But after Cetaganda Bujold pretty much owns me, so.

( In which our heroine whines )

It is truly astonishing that the Great Fail of '09 is still going on. I haven't said anything for a variety of reasons (I'm a clueless white girl; I don't personally know anybody so I'd be just another voice going "me too"; I'm just damn well embarrassed on the part of the SFF establishment at this point; yadda). But, seriously. So, a bullety of links and things that I would think would be so obvious as to be utterly non-controversial:

1. Outing people is bad.
2. Pseudonymous != anonymous (REALLY. When pseudonyms are stable and long-lasting and serve as a person's unique identifier in a community, and when community standards demand that a person take responsibility for things said and done under that pseudonym, that is not anonymity by any reasonable definition)
3. Before this became the Great Outing Soap Opera, let's not forget that there sure was a lot of fail on the race and cultural appropriation front. deepad's Reappropriating my man remains my favorite post from this phase of the Fail.
4. Elizabeth Bear's behavior (especially this post) is like a master class in How To Fuck Up An Apology. (Wait, you apologized because you wanted to seem non-racist, rather than actually being one, but if anyone implies that you were actually in the wrong rather than showering you with cookies, screw them? And it seemed like a good idea to you to admit this on your lj?)
5. cofax7's post On the Sudden Onset of Pantslessness is probably the post I most needed to read here. By which I mean it's the one that made me feel the urge to get defensive, which, in discussions like this, is a pretty good sign that you (meaning me) need to think hard. I link to it in that spirit.
6. That said, after watching all this unfold, I will never again say "I just don't have an embarrassment squick."

I have a new userpic, found when I was looking for Teal'c pics. It makes me happy. I consider this my birthday gift to myself (small pleasures, no?).

Thank you so much everybody for the birthday wishes! Especially wendy and hilarytamar. Shiny!

Nothing exciting happening here. Think I'm going to park my butt in front of Write or Die tonight, because this is getting silly. Have started to have a lot of fun over at Academic Earth, the collection of open-courseware videos from various universities.

Random: While it is perfectly possible to use cooking oil for lube, it is not, in fact, possible to substitute the other way around. Which is another way of saying that I have to go grocery shopping.

Right. *waves* Still alive, etc. That's all.

Put bdblack back on a plane at an obscene hour this morning. Sad to wake up at 4 am, but even sadder to wake up again at 10 and realize he really was gone. Have not read flist since last Friday. Will not be catching up, because skip=860 is a bad place, so you should feel free to tell me if I missed something important.

Strongly suspect that four straight days of sex and chocolate and truly astonishing massages have wreaked utter havoc with my brain chemistry. Neurotransmitters running wild! Oh, oxytocin, you are a cruel mistress. All of which is to say that I have it bad, which I swore I wasn't going to do for a long-ass time to come, but I am too happy to care. Plus, ate at my favorite restaurant in the entire world as an early birthday thing. Mmmmmmmm...

(Possibly just started a vid project. If by "started a vid project" you mean "am poking about at free trial versions of editing software to figure out if this is remotely possible for me." I have the creative attention span of a fruit fly. When did I start thinking about vids?)

( A list of randomalia )

Some little elf nominated two of my stories for a Blue Moon award (including the gen one I thought nobody read!). I am all a-twitter! Thank y0ou so much, little elf! I scrounged around a bit today finding some stuff to nominate. I always feel weird doing that because I know I don't remember the best stories I read this year-- The ones that get nominated are just sort of free-association of the stuff I liked over the last four months or so. (Like how Oscar winners are always movies that came out just recently. Or something.) But anyway. Eeee!

And lastly, there is an awesome Valentine's Day thing hosted here. Simply send an email with any anonymous Valentine messages you want to send to any ljer, and svmadelyn compiles them all.

Apparently it's the Superbowl. Who knew? If I didn't have to go grocery shopping, I would never have known.

Upside to shopping during the Superbowl: all the candy and booze is on sale.
Downside to shopping during the Superbowl: all the candy and booze is on sale.

I'm just gonna be over here, watching Boston Legal and mixing Oreos and fruity wine coolers. I'm sure there were other things I was supposed to be doing-- those baby steps to get me out of that spiral-- but... that's not gonna happen tonight.

Gah. One whole month of the year, just gone.

I've been doing it again. ( The depression spiral thing. )

GAH.

Needing to snap out of it now.

( There are things they never tell you about running your own business )


In more fannish news, Leverage! I am so endlessly, endlessly in love with Elliot and Hardison and their dynamic. SO IN LOVE. Apparently there was a new SPN. I am having a hard time caring. I finished the season of Merlin, and it still is giving me lots of thinky thoughts about why I love shows, which I still do not quite have the energy to type out.

The Flist Knows All: Surely there is somebody on my flist who watched Boston Legal, right? Would you by any chance have strong opinions as to where I should start? Which episodes (or what season, or whatever) is the must-see for my little slashy James-Spader-fangirly heart?

I have the flu from hell. Got five hours of sleep last night, and three the night before. Turns out the only cold medicine I had around had an expiration date in 2006, and I had to work for 10 hours before I could buy more. And I was sucking down cough drops the entire time which, if memory serves, I bought during the trip to NY in '04. *wince* Plus, I made my jello with too much water and it didn't set properly, but by the time I realized that, I couldn't bring myself to go out and find any other food.

Thus endeth the tale of woe. (I am vertical and showered now, so that helps)

I am afraid to watch Vegas. Partly because I heard all about the premise and missing characters, and, you know, that sounds like a sort of awesome mid-season one-off episode... but not right now! Not so close to the end! Also because it brings us one closer to The End, and I can't bear it. It's like last year, when I refused to watch the season endings of Torchwood or Supernatural for almost two months.

( Fic I want more than life itself: )

(Yes. I know. I just outlined the Mary Sue to end all Mary Sues. Don't worry, I won't actually do it. Just... *wistful*)

Firstly, have some humor awesomeness: Dave Barry's year-end roundup. Do not attempt to consume beverages while reading.

Secondly, have some fannish humor awesomeness: The new year's resolutions of Dr. Rodney McKay, and the new year's resolution of Colonel John Sheppard. Similarly, do not consume beverages. Hee!

Everybody is doing year-end fic roundups. I can't, because I wrote so much anonymous Christmas fic and I just have to talk about it. So, tomorrow.

( That said, I am a New Year's resolution ho )

You know, when I put it all in a list like that, it doesn't look like I've totally derailed my life and potential career, stranded myself in a city I hate, and wasted three years, doesn't it? That's because I didn't put "Fix the horrendous mess I've made of my life" on the list. It's all about the concrete, right?

( More life year-end stuff )

Fandom update: ( I have gotten hooked on Leverage )

Now if I can just fend off the inevitable falling for Merlin...

Stayed up till 5 in the morning to get only about 2k more of Yuletide written. To be fair, bdblack was distracting me in a sort of MASSIVE way. Still, have 4k to go. Send help.

Anybody who sees me on chat tonight is perfectly welcome to tell me, "Dammit, woman, write!" Also, you are heartily encouraged to say, "Ooh, copy and paste at me! I'll correct your typos and say helpful things!" Or perhaps that only happens in my fantasies.

bdblack sent me cookies! A huge bag of cookies, more cookies than I can eat in a month, cookies made from three kinds of chocolate! Also a card praying for the Flying Spaghetti Monster to watch over me and protect me in his noodly appendage.

I think I'll keep him.

( Look, it's a TV meme! )

Huh. You know, that's not nearly as many as I expected.

Normally I do all this Christmas stuff the day after Thanksgiving (because that is when Christmas starts. Don't let the damn department stores tell you otherwise!). I write the Christmas list, assemble the card list, and put the Christmas playlist on my iPod the day after Thanksgiving. This ritual is important to me. But it seems that this year I shall not be home the day after Thanksgiving, so I'm doing it all now. Pretend this isn't happening for another five days, because I am not one of those people who starts Christmas before Halloween!

So, a holiday season in two parts:

One, the card list. Please let me send you a card.

Second, the wish list meme. Please link me to yours if you wrote one, as I'm likely to be oblivious about that too.

Okay. Flist spammage done.

*rings the ceremonial gong*

That's it. Holiday season!

I went to Target today. I want these shoes like MAD. Except of course they didn't have them in size 11. But, really, how utterly wonderful is it that the whole Keds/Converse plan canvas sneaker look has come back in? I find shoes very tricky, cause I hate heels and strappy sandals and I think pretty much all girly shoes are shoddy, overpriced torture devices and by god I hate the beauty trap because I do NOT HAVE the money for that shit. But it's nice to have cute shoes. And colorful ballet flats and canvas sneakers seem to be my strategy. Yaay!

Kevin McKidd told TV Guide about the mytharc for Journeyman. I could WEEP. That shit could have been SO GOOD. And Kevin! I miss having him on my TV, but I am sure as hell not going to start watching Grey's Anatomy for him. Journeyman... and then SGA and now Pushing Daisies. What will be left? I could weep. Seriously, if anybody knows of a genre show that actually has a future that I should be watching, please do let me know. Other than the Sarah Connor Chronicles. Maybe Fringe? I'm unenthusiastic about that. Bleh. Why do they kill all the good stuff?

( I've been re-watching The West Wing )

So now I have to plundercrack_van for CJ/Toby. I didn't read TWW fic before, because I didn't think fic could do it justice. I've gotten a lot more confidence in fic since then.

Utterly random: Kavan Smith (SGA, Major Evan Lorne), Colin Cunningham (SG1, Major Paul Davis), and Mark Feuerstein (TWW, Majority Counsel Cliff Calley) make the best sexy clean-cut all-American boy-next-door threesome EVER. Really.  Pretty.