Truly. Deeply. Madly

Okay, so yeah. We went to see Zombieland tonight. I was 500 words shy of daily quota (but am still ahead by nearly half of tomorrow's, thanks to yesterday's push,) and I decided that I wanted a real, grown-up date, with dinner out, and nice drinks, and, apparently, zombies.

It was laugh out loud, ridiculously funny, that movie. Predictable leik whoa, and probably the closest America will ever get to a zombie movie in league with Sean of the Dead. Zombies come from eating mad cows, apparently. Who knew?

Look, this movie isn't gonna change anybody's life, but it will make you guffaw at Woody Harrelson fan-humping *Secret Stealth Celebrity Cameo who's name I am withholding*'s leg in an epic geek-out moment. Or the four-gun funeral salute, with pause in the middle to reload the double-barrel. Or the Purel scene. Or the squeaky nose.

I'm just sayin.

And I'm also sayin, for a movie in which The Rules Of Survival play such a prominent role, how the HELL is it that when the Hummer rolls up on the gates of Pacific Playland, and pushes gently through as twilight gives way to dusk, Dominus and I were the ones who leaned over to each other and murmured "Rule one: Don't go at night. Rule two: Don't go alone. Rule three: Save the last bullet for yourself." Sadly, none of those rules made an appearance in this film. Though they should have done, as they were all broken at one point or another.

Still, I believe I will officially add Zombieland's rule two to the list from now on, as it bears keeping in mind.
Double tap. Always double tap.

* 3,000 words today. An entire action scene. I am exhausted, but I still rock.

* I officially adore Hairy Meg. I predict I may have trouble keeping her from upstaging the main characters if she keeps on being so very awesome.

* Cat piss flouresces AK green under blacklight. This has led to some innovative, and infuriating revelations around Mandala House this week.

* No, I have NOT checked to see what other bio-fluids flouresce, thanks, I've been writing, like a good girl!

* Forgot to remind Allyson to come and visit tonight. Woe. Although solitude did contribute to wordcount win, so... *shrug*

* saw Chiropractor. Made The Noise. Now have fierce adjustment headache. (And am planning to raid the final hold-outs from last year's broken-shoulder painkillers, so I'll be able to sleep through it while my neck and back get used to things being where they're meant to be again.)

* Am suspicious that the writers of Criminal Minds are setting out to deliberately nail each and every one of Clue's personal squick-triggers this season. *Huddles under the bed, shielding eyes with fists, and rocking quickly back and forth. There might be keening as well...*

* Brother Godric wishes it known that he is not a fan of NaNoWriMo, as it drastically cuts down the availability of lap and pettins.

* I have a venus flytrap. Alas, I no longer seem to have any fruit flies infesting my kitchen for said flytrap to trap. Hamburger will do for now, I suppose.

* And now, to bed. More words tomorrow. Avaunt.

As a Slash fiction writer, this is a cause I can TOTALLY get behind.
Protect those prostates, guys! We can't live vicariously through you without them!

As a Slash fiction writer, this is a cause I can TOTALLY get behind.
Protect those prostates, guys! We can't live vicariously through you without them!

( Well, I've cracked 4000 as of last night's quittin' time. )

And now, I seem to be reaching the bottom of my chai, and the days' minutes are ticking away while I dither, so it's time for me to Get Something Done, avaunt!

For those following along on cluewrites, I'm posting my daily words over there every night. As expected, I landed on Tempus Fugitive, though for NaNoWriMo purposes, I have not logged the 10,000 words I had done before November 1. All the text is on that site though, so there, at least, it's complete. And yeah, feedback is appreciated -- especially since it gives me motivation to keep plugging away at this day after day, yaknow?

Anyhow; cheers!

We're officially the Too Scary To Ring The Doorbell house this year. And we didn't even have to bring the snakes out or anything!

Seriously, we've had several kids who had to be coaxed into range, and a couple who just Would Not Come up onto the porch at all. And we didn't even dress up! We're just in mundanes. It must have something to do with the Ghost Bride in the turret window, and the giant, glowing golden cat eyes in the two front windows, I guess.

*Evil cackling!*

In Holy Day news, our harvest stew is nearly done -- the ingredients came from the Farmer's Market this morning, or from our own pantry. I think the only things not local were the peppercorns, and the bottle of Sam Adams that went into the pot. The Oban boat is finished, and dressed with a crimson sail for its journey on the Hudson. I've decided to wait until the full moon, on November 2 for that launch, and only part of that's due to the rain tonight. Part of it's ... well. It's a funeral boat, isn't it? I need time to properly observe the wake, and charge the craft to its destination. So sundown on Monday, I'll launch the Spirit Boat, and watch the current take it out to sea.

And now dinner is beeping, and I'm gonna go eat of it.
Blessed be, my Witchkin, and to the rest of ye, Happy Halloween!

So I'm feeding the snakes. I dangle Anya's rat, and in her enthusiasm, she strikes!

And misses.

And bites her own neck.

And now she's wrestling herself into submission, no matter how often I dangle the rat in front of her.

I figure the best I can do is leave the rat in the feed box with her, and hope that once she gets her brain around the fact that her prey is NOT fighting her, she'll find it and eat the damned thing.

And I sincerely hope she does not manage to actually hurt herself before the pain in her neck reveals itself to be her own teeth...

*Touches home, and winks when the umpire yells "SAFE!"*

This is actually a bit of the old 'live like you've got 9 lives' Catt going on here, because I just walked home from the bar. Up Prospect Hill. In just about a half an hour. And lemme tell ya, Ladies and Gentlemens, that ain't no walk of shame there! I have officially EARNED those two beers I had tonight!

Okay, the skinny, since I know someone will ask.

It was a whim to take the bus down to the bar. It happened to be coming down the block when I left the house, and I have my bus pass in my wallet, so I decided, on the spur of the moment, to skip the downtown Troy parking hassle. I was wearing my Sandlars, (for those of the non-rennie persuasion, those are EXCELLENT walking boots,) and aside from a little makeup and earrings, hadn't done the Girl!Drag much at all, so I didn't feel at all hinky about it.

Trouble is, the bus in question only runs about once an hour. And so when I left the bar to head home, apparently it had just gone by.

And you know what? A woman is MUCH more vulnerable waiting around alone at a bus stop than she is if she's walking somewhere. This occured to me when a truck pulled around the block twice to scope me out. I decided I liked my chances of not becoming a statistic (again) better if I hoofed it up the hill, rather than if I hung out there much longer. And as it happened, that truck did come around again, and the driver did ask me if I wanted a ride home... while I was ringing up Dominus to have him on the line with me while I walked home. I told the driver 'no thank you', and then described his truck to my husband, just in case the information should become relevant, and then we chatted about our respective evenings for the next half hour while I hiked home, and he tried to find his way back from the tramway through Excalibur and the Luxor to Mandalay Bay.

And now, to reward myself, I'm going to have an apple, another beer, and then clean the kitty boxes.
SUCH FUN, Y'ALL!

(Oh, and Karaoke? Much better when you've a posse to hang out with. Next time, I'm gonna chain-gang/shamelessly bribe you locals to come along, even if you don't want to sing. You have been warned!)

I am out in search of Human Contact today. The irony thereof being that there's a computer between me and the Java's lunch crowd, and once I left the counter in search of a place to plug in, I had to put my iPod on so that I wouldn't eavesdrop on the business meeting going on next to me. So I'm out in public, ignoring public, and feeling lonely.

Sigh.

This society's really weird.

You know what I want? I want Aadam and Amy and Naomi, and OtherAmy and Sharon and Sarah and OtherSharon and Riki and Allyson and Mary and Michelle and half a dozen other witchkin to come over and hang out watching cheezy horror movies, cooking comfort food, and sewing costumes all day. I want a pajama day, filled with rude jokes, brownies, rolled hems, and possibly nail polish. *BIGheavysigh*

Also, some asscracker stole one of our tombstones out of the yard sometime in the last couple of days. Way to ruin someone's favorite holiday, you idiots! Way to induce me to not put ANY decent decorations out where you can get at them, or to include little bastards like you in MY holiday at all. I hope you get psycosomatic bad luck off that thing every time you lay eyes on it, until you feel compelled to sneak back over and replace it in my yard some night.

Okay, that's enough feeling sorry for myself.
It's time to pay for my breakfast and go get a walk under my belt.
Then I'll go home, write some more pr0n, and then get ready for the SACVAP Karaoke night. (For locals, it's at the Rhuk, in Troy. $5 cover, and a fundraiser for the organization, so you should TOTALLY come!)

Ciaomiao...

Even though a spider just ran out of my keyboard.

While I was typing.

And ended up huddled in the shelter of my mouse.

A big spider. Fast, too. I did not kill her, thanks, but I did trap her under an upturned candleholder. She's currently just to the left of my monitor, daring me to evict her arse out into the rain, while I'm sitting here convincing myself to take her presence in my keyboard as a good totemic sign for future creativity, and not as a call to get up, run flailing around the room, and scream my fool head off.

Y HALLO THAR, ADRENALINE!!!

In other news, SACVAP classes are done! Allyson, wanna go to Karaoke with me tomorrow night at the Rhuk?

Apparently, I would rather chew bees than go to tonight's class.

And it's not even anything to do with the topic of the evening -- it's just the wrap up session, and that's essentially nothing but a review. No, the reason has more to do with just being tired. I'd far rather stay in my pajamas, and watch movies tonight in the quiet of my own head.

Especially in light of some disappointing news I just saw on my flist.

But I've devoted the entire month of October to this, and so I'm not going to drop it here at the 11th hour.

*Sigh*

ANYhow -- Boosting the signal!

If you live in or around Gardena, or you have flisties who do, please boost this farther.
A woman in Gardena has a hoarding problem, and her hoarding problem involves 29 cats who are about to be seized by the authorities, and almost certainly put down TOMORROW, unless someone -- several someones, -- can help to find them homes. There are kittens in the ranks here, and local shelters and rescue operations are essentially unresponsive. The Interweb just might be these kitties' only hope. So help out if you can -- maybe we can engineer a Samhain Miracle for 29 lives in time.

Yyyyyyeah. Give Jamie Hineman a case of duct tape, and what's the first thing that happens? Adam gets a full mummification/suspension scene.

Jamie: How ya doin there, little buddy?
Adam: This is actually quite... surprisingly comforting...
Clue: Oh, Adam you are SUCH a little do-me queen!
Jamie: Well, if we're gonna test the stuff, I figure we ought to really test it... (turns board upside down.) Still okay?
Adam: Oh yeah... I could hang out here all day.

And later, whilst Grant, Karie and Tory are greasing a steel rod with vaseline in order to build their duct tape cannon.
Karie: You know what Jamie'd be saying if he was here, don'tcha?
Grant and Tory in unison: Lube makes alllll the difference.

I kid you not. Guys, the slash just writes ITSELF here!!!

( part 3 )

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( part 4 )

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( part 5 )

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( part 6 )

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( part 7 )

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( part 8 )

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( part 9 )

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There was another segment in the cut of the film I saw last night, which doesn't seem to be in this cut. It contrasted the size of the media projection of "real men" from the 50's through the present, against the media projection of "real women" over the same timeline. Men went from Gene Kelly to Sylvester Stallone, while Women went from Marylin Monroe to Kate Moss. Literally, presenting less space, taking up less room in the media portrayal, so as to be less threatening. I think it's not too great a stretch to draw a corrollary to the current Fat-Hate fad, which, let's face it, is almost entirely aimed at fat women, and not at fat men. As though a woman who dares to be too large to easily dominate is asking for trouble? As if a woman who dares to not make herself sexually attractive to a man is insulting him? I think that bears some consideration, really.

Anyway, having seen the whole video now, I'd welcome some discussion with others, if you've the time.

I highly reccomend watching this. It impressed me so much last night, that I hunted it up on Youtube to see the whole thing. It's well worth watching, and thinking about. And yeah, I'm going to archive the whole thing here, so I can find it again.

( So. )

So... for awhile now, there's been something happening in the Snarry ship that distresses me, and it's only been just recently that I've been able to put words to it; ( Harry has become a moron. )

So all that was in aid of nothing, particularly. I don't expect to stop the trend, or to alter its direction, nor would I want to try -- people write what they want, and that's as it should be. And, after all, the opposite of change is stagnation, which nobody likes. However I am beginning to think that the evolution of the Snarry ship is offering me some motivation to jump ship next landfall. It's not that I think it's sinking or anything... it's just I'm not all that into its current destination, is all.

Ok, this is where I have to cowboy up and admit it: The layout process for Verse Before the Flood has bested me.

I do not know what I'm doing, and I keep on doing it inexplicably WRONG. I get the page sizes, font sizes, and illustrations where they seem to need to be in Word, and then they get hashed when I try to translate the file to PDF, and I do not know why.

So I am throwing myself on the mercy of my flist: If there's someone out there who has the layout skills to actually get this damned albatross into a proper, clean PDF file, could they PLEASE contact me so that I may throw myself at their feet and beg for a deal of some sort? Because I've bothered too damned many artists for this project to have it just sit in abject abandonment on my hard drive because I'm a luddite who doesn't have the right software, and can't figure out how to make-do. That just will not stand.

Help me, Obi Wan Flistnobi. You're my only hope...

*Edit* Tentatively sorted, thankee!

http://www.bunny-comic.com/1430.html

(In other words, this right here is why Catt is not allowed in the room while bread is being made...)

( Y hallo thar, Clue's Particular Squick! )