where i'm calling from

12:03pm: [a predicament, dear friends]
i am in need of two kinds of people. they could be the same person! SUCH MIRACLES ARE KNOWN TO OCCUR. but the kind of person i am First in search of is the kind of person who has Safari or other MacIntosh implement for viewing pages on the World Wide Net. Second, i am in search of the kind of person who has a screen resolution that is Higher than the now-standard 1024 x 768. please submit your Name in the Box and i will Provide you with a Link to view; then you may tell me if the page appears at all Disharmonius or Out of Place.

*** i have gotten Answers now, and have a further question: who among this congregation is a CSS doctor?

ELSEWHERE ON THIS DAY, it has snowed a damn lot and my carefully procrastinated shopping trip is now Cancelled by Act of God. i shall rest on this day, as did Our Lord, and like Our Lord shall eat hot soup and toast.

9:11am: i woke up this morning humming "Abraham, Martin & John".

if this is an omen of something, i sincerely hope it is not an omen of being shot in the back of the head.

11:04am: [a cup of ambition]
+ I had, as you do, great plans for my weekend, including rearranging the dining room, sorting through the set of china I have recently inherited so that it can be appraised, piles of laundry, and washing the jeep. alas, I was undone by my own ambition. I got a strong start on Saturday morning then went back to bed, which is basically where I stayed for the following forty hours. the lazy is strong with this one.

+ I hammered on the wip some, revising more than I wrote but there is a bit up over at conjurebag.

+ there are just NINE SHOPPING DAYS left til my birthday. I'm looking at [this] with graspy hands right now, but I'd accept cash in small unmarked bills.

no, I'm kidding.

I'll totally take large bills.

9:22am: from [this article] on Canadian repercussions of the WGA strike:

Other American shows filming in B.C. that will shut down over the next few months include ... Supernatural, four months early on Dec. 5; ... and Smallville, three months early on Jan. 23.

Mr. Vigars said the other real concern is whether, once the strike is over, these affected shows will be able to pick up where they left off. "It's hard to get them rolling again," he said.

Susan Croome, B.C. film commissioner, described the crisis in less absolute terms. She said that while different shows have different numbers of scripts prepared and ready to shoot, no series has reached apoint of desperation so far.

"Some shows are now getting toward running out of their scripts,[but we] haven't had any shows that have done that yet that I know of."

so that's nice. or really fucking bad.

11:34am: [i guess we're going to have to change our honeymoon plans]
sometimes i scare myself.

not like, you know, the haha self-mocking kind of, i can't believe i just, whoo, sometimes i scare myself. but like the standing in the shower expecting the knife at any minute scare myself. i have an overactive imagination. they tell me this is good for my line of work. hopefully it'll pay off soon so i can buy a house with a really good security system.

i spent at least an hour around dawn today laying very very still in bed hoping that the killer would assume my door was just a cupboard instead of an actual bedroom, after all, it is under the stairs. (the 'guest room' where i housesit, true story, is under the stairs.) if i was at home, there'd be several large vicious dogs to protect me, but at n's farm, there's just one rather insipid border collie. he wasn't barking to be let out yet, which he does at five minutes to six EVERY morning. i figured the dog was dead. i couldn't hear anything except this heavy breathing outside the door, and the occasional footstep. if i moved, the bed would creak and the killer would know it was not a cupboard under the stairs but a bedroom. i wondered if i could hit him with something handy, like one of the hideous paintings on the wall.

then i heard a click and realized that the heavy breathing and footsteps were actually the furnace, which is directly below my bedroom.

or WAS it the furnace? i leaned out of bed and checked to make sure that the gaps in the floorboards were not wide enough to get a large pair of scissors through. hideous torture was awaiting me, i just knew it.

then i heard the chainsaw.

FUCK IT, i yelled, crammed my feet into my sneakers, and threw the door open.

the dog looked at me, and scratched his ear with his hind foot. outside the back window, timmy the hired hand waved from where he was cutting firewood.

the clock by the computer flipped over to seven o'clock.

shut up, i told the dog, and went to put the kettle on.

later, while i was sitting in the tub fully expecting to be garrotted at any moment, i was thinking that the only useful lesson i've ever learned from a horror movie is never take a road trip with anyone who's ever starred in a show on the WB.

12:23am: more story, and thank you everybody who said nice things last night and today.

(here)

someday soon i'll talk about real things, or then again, i may just throw bagels at jude law some more. it could go either way.

11:31pm: despite my intention to write quote unquote original fictions for mini nano, i seem to have blundered into a supernatural story. i hadn't written at all for a week, today i made up for it with a little over 1100 words.

(here)

encouragement would be wonderful; it's been years since i tried to write anything longer than a couple thousand words.

9:58pm: [ultimately a hero is a man who would argue with gods, and so awakens devils to contest his vision]
Norman Mailer [has died] at the age of 84.

I'm not depressed about it, exactly, but it's just... it seems that the last few years have been hard on literature, in particular. we are losing the great ones at a more rapid rate, it seems, and there are few I can think of who are fit to carry on in their footsteps. maybe I'm just resistant to change, I don't know.

9:58am: [spiderman is a terrorist]
[ego meme of the day], or, to bastardize Hafiz, the subject today is love. more particularly, love of ME. and some other people.

some of you may've seen this before: [a grid showing the strike effects by network] (thanks, kit). it says SPN has at least 10 in the can, maybe 12, with the possibility of up to five more scripts on hand to be shot, which would make 17. I've decided I will accept 77% of a season if the commies don't get their deal in time to make more show, but less than that is a threat to democracy.

there needs to be more coffee today, not because I was up until three badgering danny for more porn, but because I just want it. give. now.

2:45am: [talking 'bout the bad man]
Fats Domino [Stagger Lee]
The Clash [Wrong 'Em Boyo]
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds [Stagger Lee]
Chris Whitley & Jeff Lang [Stagger Lee]
The Black Keys [Stack Shot Billy]

rightclicksave.

4:10pm: [i taken the last nickel]
home sick today: I've had the same headache and tummy issues off and on since Friday, so tomorrow (it was as quickly as I could get in without going to emergency) I'll be going to the doctor. there's got to be a better way, people. I'm way too young to feel this crummy all the time.

since I'm in between projects (read 'procrastinating on six wips) this appeals:

What would you say are the trademarks of my writing? What themes or quirks or turns of phrase have you noticed? What is it that makes a story by me--well, a story by me?

negatives as well as positives, if you like. the floor is open!

1:55pm: [I anticipate a deeply religious experience]
little admin item: the domain where I host the music that I post has been indexed by a number of streaming mp3 services, and so I'm not going to be leaving musics up indefinitely like I usedta did. it's sucking my bandwidth, and every month it sucks more -- so even though it's not costing me fees yet, I see that day coming. henceforth: musical items will be deleted after a short period. all past musical items have been deleted.

pursuant to last night's SPN, ( but not really a spoiler at all )

people, I feel myself getting a migraine and caffeine and pills are not working. Dean is not working. please make it be 5 o'clock.

7:04pm: ( query about spn 3/03 )
weird.

12:31pm: [with one foot on the platform, and one foot on the train]
I've gotten completely behind on the comments from yesterday's little snit, I thought people were done but I guess it was linked somewhere? anyways, thanks to everyone who weighed in, even if I don't get back to you.

that said: [this comment] is more or less 50% of the problem I'm talking about [here].

( cut for explicit authorial intent, and if such a thing as spoilers for fanfic exist, this is them )

now I'm going to lunch, feel free to flame in my absence.

11:53am: [the category is: wretch fannish neologisms]
I have this problem. I hear the term 'jossed' and I wake up a week later covered in blood and wondering where that pile of ears came from. it's. well. a problem. as I said.

:P

back in 'Nam, we used to just put a line in the author's note. for the purposes of this story, Krycek has both arms. or, I'm considering events through last season's finale but nothing further. or, in this story, the thing with the thing never happened. I don't know if people complained to other writers; they didn't say anything to me. but lately? I get the impression from a lot of people that if a story is at any time contradicted by canon, it becomes worthless. or worth less, anyway. I hear all this talk about, gotta get this done before I get jossed, gotta post this before I can't no more, and I. just. oh god here comes the blackout again.

am I getting a false impression? or do you honestly just chuck stuff you've been working on when something happens to contradict it? do you revise? do you ever put up a story that says, for the purposes of this story, Dean has a back full of tattoos? cos I tell you, when I put up my item of said two years ago, I got a couple of people telling me that, hello, we've seen Dean's bare back, and it was sure too bad how I was dead wrong. frankly, that's shite. I stand by the work. the work stands for itself.

so seriously, what the fuck is the deal? does it "ruin" a story for you if the canon-to-date has crossed it? I think that there are certainly stories where they are so totally unsupported that they're science fiction, but I am absolutely certain that a story can be quote unquote jossed and still be quality. like, it baffles me that people who're reading fanfiction could suffer from such an appalling lack of imagination.

is it really just me?

10:59am: [there is obviously something very attractive about telling other people what to do]
Doris Lessing, as you may have heard, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature this week. I hadn't mentioned it -- what was to say? she is in full possession of what she has accomplished, distant cheers from me were not necessary.

Things here in my sandbox, however, have taken one of those turns where I am rather avoiding the playground. how timely, then, that today the NY Times should reprint an opinion piece of Ms. Lessing's, originally published on June 26, 1992. I'm reposting it here in its entirety for (one hopes) your enlightenment.

in slightly less flowery language: you people are making me fucking bozonko. read this, it could save your life.

( Questions You Should Never Ask a Writer )

11:06pm: [when life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door]
I am tired and emotional, but not in the great George Brown way; I have had two completely shite days in a row and have acquired a truly disgusting head cold and I wish I could trade out the long weekend I just had so that I could use this one to recover. I will totally go back in time and work all day Monday in exchange for being able to sleep all day tomorrow. plis, Allah, if you could grant me time travel for just tonight. really. I'll stop taking Your goddamn name in vain all the time.

big sloppy birthday posts of love are not my thing usually, I'm more the type to send an e-card that says congratulations on your retirement or something jerky like that, but lj user equals dine is the kind of person who deserves a big manwich kind of post, you know, tangy and falling out all over the place. may I remind you that I have a head cold. anyway. dine delights me on a regular basis and she's always first to think of other people and make you smile and help you out, so: many happy returns of the day, deeners. if you get back half of what you've given out over the years, you will be rich beyond measure -- in all senses of the word. ♥

LJ as bulletin board: baiacou, the cop answered your question. it's over there. he's nice.

SPOILERS: Dean is lovely and a bit overwritten lately. Lex is bald and bad.

there's one more thing but I'll save it for now; maybe by morning the annoyance will have faded and I'll have forgotten all about it. it's not probable, but it's possible. sigh.

2:07pm: [because someone might break in and steal my pizza]
my desk is a carpenter's square, not an L, which is to say that the two arms are at right angles and equal. I think it was once two desks, jury-rigged together. uh, pun not intended. anyway. subtracting for my computer, phone, and the Corner Where Styrofoam Deli Cups Go To Die, I have about 8 square feet of files stacked around me. these stacks range in height from a couple of inches to about a foot.

just in case you were wondering what happened to that fic I started yesterday.

fngah.

fun fact for the day: it cost fifty dollars to send UPS from here to Kathmandu. which is only near the destination address. apparently it goes the rest of the way by yak. you know what brown can do for me? they can shove it.

12:40pm: [three for the angels, four for the alamin]
i spent a large part of this morning writing this rumination about death and mortality, but it's not going to make any difference, not to me (my sweet old friend who passed this morning is still gone) and not to any of you (if you don't already understand you're not going to, not from me talking, anyway).

so i think i'll spend the rest of the day writing about Bobby (five dollars to the person who makes me the winning Bobby icon, if by five dollars you mean five hundred words of your choice, which i do).

hello, my children, hello.

clarification: Jim B and by extension Bobby is, as far as i know, still with us; didn't mean to confuse or upset. mea maxima culpa.

9:07pm: if this is a spoiler for spn, it's a minute one, but whatever. ( i stand well corrected )

8:35pm: the direct tv subscription here at N's house includes every movie channel known to man and some only available in outer space, but NOT, in fact, a single CW affiliate. boy am I sure pissed I didn't download that SPN episode!

wait.

:P

11:23am: [nobody's putting up a fight]
i think that. sometimes. fans forget to be fans and start being Fen instead. the disproportion of academics v. real people in our little population, i guess. once in that mode they think far too critically about the stuff they say they are fans of, and they pick and poke and it makes me wonder why they bother, like, i just don't understand how that could be remotely enjoyable. i like talking about a thing but there is a point at which criticising that thing, under the guise of 'meta,' seems to take over and strip all the fun out of it. i don't understand that. the few times that i've done it i've ended up feeling horrible. i've ended up feeling like i've talked myself into hating my show.

it's bad enough that we, i, have to so frequently defend the things we love to other people (friends, colleagues, family), but having to defend the things we love to other people who say they also love? that's kinda crappy, isn't it?

i watched the SPN premiere last night on iTunes because i was excited to get it as soon as possible. (smugly announcing how YOU have the wherewithal to hold out for the broadcast is a whole other stripe of baffling to me, so knock it off, really.) i had a good time. it was the middle of the night because i didn't find out about it until a before-bed flist check. i loved it. i felt like it was kind of dorky, and that that was a good thing. i don't think that the point was ever to top last season's premiere, because who could? who'd want to try?

i am sure, from the reactions today, that tonight and tomorrow will bring yet more criticism. thinking critically is all right to a point. but being a jerk about the show doesn't help it get better, it doesn't make anybody feel good. unless you're the kind of person that feels good by putting stuff down, and then i can't help you.

4:17pm: [document27.rtf]
a complete and unfinished¹ crossover. to those involved: yes. Jensen, Viggo, boom.

( principia discordia )


¹yes, both. there's no more to come, except what Is.

10:39pm: [new SPN fic]
four months since the last one, raising my total posted fictions this year to three. I am cautious about saying my writer's block is broke, but I did manage to put this together in slightly more than 12 hours, and my friends, that's something that hasn't happened in a very long time.

Dean/OFC, NC17, about 2780 words. apparently I have tropes, at least three of which are on display here. *handmotions* for katlike, with great thanks.

( my mother was a tailor )

12:49pm: i love [these] Keira icons but they are terribly dark. or is it me? it could be me. hmm.

anyway, SPN premiere director's cut clip: ( so. )

there was other stuff, but I forget.