| The crazed post-surgery woman tries to type |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|08:22 pm] |
So I have three small holes in my shoulder. I wasn't supposed to take the bandage off until tomorrow morning but the adhesive was itching and being quite painful. They missed my tattoo, yay. (Dr. Chen had said he would try.)
Today I was more out of it than yesterday even, I think the anaesthesia protected me some. Today it hurt more. I'm counting down to my next meds. Although I do think the anaethesia made me itch. Or maybe I just itch because my body is confused by all the pain.
Oh okay, TMI.
Besides lying around and sleeping, I finished reading Dies the Fire by S.M. Stirling. My father had recommended it to me because one of the post-apocolyptic communities in it is led by a Wiccan High Priestess (a Georgian as it happens). I thought it was an interesting idea and a pretty good read. I also watched the first 4-1/2 episodes of Buffy. And did a short photoshoot in SL with Scarlotti in the wonderful peacock coat from Blakopal (with me in some of my peacock stuff from various vendors, including Blakopal).
Tomorrow I intend to go downtown for the gala for San Jose becoming a partner city with the Council for the Parliament of the World's Religions. Kurt is giving me a lift and I will take a taxi home. I couldn't possibly drive (a) because I am basically one-handed and (b) taking vicoden every 4 hours. But hopefully I can manage to shower (waterproof bandages ftw), get dressed (though I'm a bit worried about that) and be coherent. Typing is showing me how impaired I am. This is hard work!
So I think I shall stop for now
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| Challenge #229 - Consummate Performer |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|07:35 pm] |
Title: Consummate Performer
Author: georgiesmith
Fandom: The Man From UNCLE
Pairing: Napoleon Solo/Illya Kuryakin
Word Count: 100
Rating: G
Prompt: #229 - On/Off
Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction and not for profit.
( Consummate Performer )
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| Progress at last |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|09:03 pm] |
Managed to stifle most of the distractions this afternoon.
Consequence: 3500 words, and quite possibly another thousand or so before bed.
Still writing backwards, from the end back toward the developments that unfold the mystery plots. So far it looks like it will work, at least for producing a draft. Why not? I know how it is supposed to end in this case. Quite precisely in fact. So there shouldn't be any harm in writing the end first, even if it is sort of like eating dessert before the main course. I hope.
Hay supposed to be arriving at 7 am tomorrow. Another distraction, alas. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|04:17 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | food network in background | ] |
"Antipasto" is a traditional first course to Italian meals, composed of hard cheeses, cured meats, and some vegetables, which has properties similar to but opposite "pasta," or noodles. When combined, the two types of matter - pasta and antipasto - destroy each other, resulting in a powerful fusion reaction, which enables faster than light travel. |
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| re veterans day.. |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|01:24 pm] |
to all who serve, to all who have served, to those who have given thier lives in that service and most of all to the familys of those give of themselves...
thank you for all that you have given. |
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| come see the Pretties! |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|11:49 am] |
In honor of... er... everything... Mirth & Reverence is having a SALE!! this week!!! 20% off EVERYTHING in the shop.
YUP - All the Greek , Orisha, Wiccan , Soft form, and Horse dolls!
YUP - All the Mulit-strand, single strand jewelery!
YUP - All the photography!
YUP - All the odd Sacra Kate made!
Came see! Come Shop! Tell your friends!!
Don't know anything about Mirth & Reverence?! - that's easy to fix!
A while back, two friends were sharing some mutually fulfilling crafting time on their respective projects; when they had this wild idea to combine their respective businesses and skills together to create a single company. The idea was to have a forum through which they could bring the best of their individual works, and the best of their collaborative efforts into to the world.
Mirth and Reverence is the multicolored, multifaceted result of that “Ah Ha!” moment between two friends. Founded in May of 2008 by Kate Pennington and Jamie Morgan, Mirth and Reverence is dedicated to life, laughter, and shiny things. We currently sell jewelry and customized dolls, but fully expect that to blossom as the business grows. Jamie lives in North Berkeley with her
daughter and does most of the custom jewelry pieces. Kate lives in Oakland with her wild and woolly family and works on the dolls. Together we write books on ritual as well as collaborate on new projects to drive the other one crazy.
Also---- for later... after the sale...
Artfire now has a link to the Amazon Wish list set up thingiee! Take a look!
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| ONe more |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|12:04 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  contemplative | ] |
A number of folks have written to ask more information about the Highway of Heroes. Here' an Americn news story from last year that explains.
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| Lest we Forget |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|02:13 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | thoughtful | ] |
In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
At eleven o'clock in the morning — the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month". Give them their due and observe the two minutes of silence. For my Great Uncle who served with the merchanct marines and died when his boat was torpedoed by a German Uboat east of Halifax Harbour.
And a tribute song to Ontario's Highway of Heroes.
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| I'd forgotten how much fun volunteering is |
[Nov. 10th, 2009|09:30 pm] |
Tonight I helped out at the Edison Twp flu clinic. I'm probably going to do my fieldwork there and I wanted to meet people and help out. I've helped run a flu clinic before, and of course it's cool to see the vaccination program in action. I was on my feet for two hours and barely noticed, I was so jazzed. I worked out a routine for the kids - "You can do anything for five seconds, right? Well this only takes five seconds." Seemed to get through to some, not through to others, but at least the parents were amused.
Turns out my coworker had H1N1 (fortunately not one who's in the office much) and it was really nasty. My boss was telling me how it hurt to curl his toes. Ugggh. I'm glad I got my vaccination tonight. It was a matter of routine before, but now I have an incentive.
Oh, so you caught that thing about fieldwork? It looks like I'll be working with the township to merge a couple of different data sources and see if I can sniff out some trends among adolescent risk behaviors. I'm also free to do something with the vaccination data, if there's any data and any reason to manipulate it, which is cool, cuz that's what I thought I'd be doing for the first project I investigated, but gave up because there wasn't really a project where I was looking. The timing, location, and analysis all suit me (I'd be starting at the beginning of next year (well after my move), and the twp is right next door to my new place).
Oh, you caught that thing about the move? Yeah, I took that place in Highland Park. I'll be moving in the beginning of December. Now to get organized... |
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| Unorthodoxy |
[Nov. 10th, 2009|07:12 pm] |
OK, so I'm doing something I've never ever done before. I'm writing the end of the book before the middle. Because I know how it's supposed to come out, and I'm having all sorts of blocks at the middle part. Also because I really really dislike Stefan Ulf now and having to write his journal for him is causing brain damage. Really.
Remember the garbage disposal replacement I mentioned last week? The drain started to leak over the weekend, so Gary called to have the installer come back out. Then on Monday the bill came, and had written on it the statement that there was no guarantee against leakage because the drain installation was non-standard and the trap was backward. "Customer refused to allow the drain to be rebuilt." Apparently that's a little more severe than what Gary thought he said, but the result was the same, the drain was not rebuilt.
No word from the appliance store, so this morning he tackled it himself, using his copious collection of spare parts. We managed to get it to stop dripping, though it seemed quite likely to me that vibration from the garbage disposal or dishwasher would eventually loosen it up again. Given the wording on the bill and the fact that the store hadn't called back, we figured they were washing their hands of us.
He went off to a rehearsal. I took Tess out to the pasture at about 2:30 and the dogs started barking while I was back there. When I got back to the barn, I saw that the appliance store truck was in the drive. Sure enough, the installer was back, with the extra parts needed to redo the trap and drain in a more conventional configuration. I didn't want to send him away, even though I know we'll get a second bill for the extra work. So he rerouted the drain pipe in the proper manner, and I'm convinced the problem is settled. We had quite a nice conversation about keeping horses and baking bread, too.
Unfortunately, no writing got done while Gary was clanging about under the sink, nor again this afternoon while Gary's work was undone and replaced. Soooo. Desperate to push the word count, I'm skipping ahead to write an easy part. But that means I won't be posting this new work for a while... |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 10th, 2009|05:03 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | "Love Buzz," Shocking Blue | ] |
The Catacomb Chase scenario;
The player characters learn that an infamous necromancer has arrived at a nearby system of catacombs and tombs, and they need to stop him. There's one catch to this archetypical scenario though; the characters need to go through the tombs smashing the skeletons of the honored dead, quickly, before the necromancer raises an army. And they can't dawdle to loot the place, because the longer they take to do their business, the more undead the necromancer can raise to throw against them. |
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| More distractions |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|09:02 pm] |
Good thing I have that rug on the loom. I can go pound it for a few picks to empty out some frustration. Not exactly writer's block, because I know what I want to be writing. The problem is too many threads at once, and (unusual for me) I'm having trouble focusing on one at a time.
There's also a need to get into the head of a real villain, since he's writing a journal that will be found and read later so the content is visible to the reader. This is not easy for me at all.
I know I can do this thing. Progress is slow, though, and things are not coming out in the order in which they will finally be presented to the reader. That's why I haven't been uploading anything much yet.
There are fiddly details too. Probably don't matter to many readers, but they do to me. For instance, dates. OK, it all happens in the city of Chatton, so we can assume chronology based from the supposed "founding" of the city, three or four centuries earlier. But there are two timestreams, separated by somewhat more than a century. The lunar calendar in use has been "reformed" in the intervening century. This is part of the actual plotline, but it necessitates two dating systems. The old system used an intercalary month just before the spring equinox to adjust new moons to the solar seasons. This month was a second Wolf Moon, so in years when it was used, the Wolf Moons were designated as First Wolf and Second Wolf. The new system eliminated the intercalary month for political and social reasons, and switched to an intercalary period of varying length, inserted every year after the fall equinox, and called "The Stag's Leap." This is a festival time treated as a holiday outside of any regular month or week and featuring celebrations to cross between and level the economic and social classes of the city. It runs from 16-18 days, depending on the lunar cycle in the given year, and has no weekdays at all. So if the last day of the Harvest Moon was a Sunday, the first day of the Beaver Moon is a Monday, and the festival between them is literally "outside" calendar time.
This may all seem like pointless detail, but since we have characters who believe they are transformed into wolves at the full of the moon, the lunar cycles matter quite a lot. The murders in the earlier timestream took place during the double wolf moons, while the crimes in the second timestream happen during Stag's Leap.
Anyway, I find myself getting bogged down in calculating this calendar stuff, which slows the actual writing. I suppose I should just stick in dummy dates and work them out later, but I'm afraid of messing up some key detail that way.
Perfectionism is sometimes a curse. |
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| Wheee.Whee Holiday planning... Winter 2009 |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|06:38 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | holidays, winter | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Alameda | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Cruz playing Wizard 101 in the other room | ] |
Getting this out of my head here in LJ as it will post to my FB notes. I know I have barely posted here, I find the fly-by-night nature of FB currently is more suited to how I can operate. But I will try to be better for longer things.
November:
This past weekend was US time due to our anniversary. And we spent time on the house.
Next weekend is chock full of con stuff (both days) so Friday evening will be devoted to prepping for that.
Third weekend is a little more con stuff (including Friday), a big event for two dear friends and then packing for the trip down south.
We're going to my Sister's in Oceanside for Turkey Day (Since she and I have not had a Turkey Day together in over a decade). And then that weekend is LosCon at the LAX Marriott. It's also the 6 month out mark for BayCon and the just under 3 month out mark for PantheaCon. Really, I am NOT panicking.
December:
The first weekend is some con planning stuff (again both days) and one friends birthday and another friends anniversary. Not that I expect to be doing stuff with either of them specifically, more of a mental note to myself.
Second weekend is the beginning of Hannukah and possibly some con related holiday stuff.
Third weekend is Mother's Night with a friend (I get to use my new chocolate mold that makes skeleton keys) and Yule (I figure there will be some wandering caroling in there somewhere if I don't get a cold AGAIN this year and can actually be outside singing).
And then Christmas, which is just far enough out that I am not quite thinking about it... yet.... but I know it's there. I just wish we had a house where WE could host people. I get so tired of no tree, and no holiday time at home, and having to impose on others. I keep telling myself "someday" but with each passing year I believe it less and less.
January:
It looks like New Years will be up at Greyhaven, which we have not managed to attend in a couple of years. And 12/31 is a Blue Moon on top of it so it could be a lovely night. And then later that weekend more con stuff since PantheaCon is President's Day weekend.
That's it for now. Off to play Wiz 101 for a bit. |
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| 40K filk? |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|05:43 pm] |
You say you want an Inquisition, well, all right,
We all want to cleanse the world.
You say that it's a prohibition, well, all right,
You better cleanse yourself instead.
But if you go carrying icons of Rogal Dorn,
Believe me now buddy you just need better porn,
You know it's gonna be all right, you know it's gonna be all right. |
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| Yang Yang |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|03:52 pm] |
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Again, its been ages. But recent events has stirred a Taiwanese culture Renaissance in me. So i felt a great need to write something... beyond 140 characters.So last night i went to the Taiwan film night festival thing brought on...Continue Reading » |
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