A Mighty Fine Life

Recs post!

2008-05-14T02:43:35Z

So I was playing with the new random fic feature at the Refuge, and was pretty much shocked when it threw up a couple of fics that I couldn't remember reading (I've read at least 90% of what's there, at one time or another, but had NO memory of either of these). They're both fairly short and extremely sweet, and a few years old, so people who have joined in the past year or two may have missed them.

Stranger Things Than Runaway Dreams by SnarkyBubble
David's dreams have run off to be with Jack's. (Jack/David, ~450 words)
Seasons and Spices by Lyse
The seasons change, and so does Mush, at least a little. (Hints of Blink/Mush; ~1,500 words)

Incidentally, I updated my massive recs list last night.

PS: Spot/Blink/Race. *review whores*

yay me!

2008-05-10T18:04:27Z

I actually managed to fix something at the Refuge without breaking the place further! Two bugs that have been around since the site upgrade two years ago seem to be resolved -- you should now be able to reply to and delete reviews without getting an error message. If you still have any trouble or run into new and exciting problems, let me know.

concert! also, internet!

2008-05-10T05:59:49Z

So I seem to have accidentally gone to a My Chemical Romance concert. Uh, whoops? But it was for Rachel's birthday, and it turns out that I kind of enjoy The Black Parade. The concert was fantastic start to finish! I'm sure there are people on LJ who actually, you know, know what songs were played and will give actual detailed accounts, but yeah. That was my very short concert review. It was good.

And then afterwards Rachel and I went out for late dinner with the Entire Internet. Hi, Entire Internet! You were all very nice!

--

Unrelated, I'm apparently going to see Samuel Beckett's "Endgame" next week. One of my coworkers really wanted to see it and has put together a post-trip group outing. I, uh, failed to mention to my coworkers that the only reason I'm really interested is because Max Casella is in it.

And now I'm going to bed. Because goddamn, am I tired.

Huzzah!

2008-05-06T23:47:32Z

The Refuge birthday stuff is up! Hooray!

it's very Matthew.

2008-05-02T03:14:51Z

So I'm the office spaz. I always secretly knew that, and everyone in the office worked it out when I spilled tea on myself and had to put goo on my thigh, but today was really... wow.

So I went to go get lunch at Whole Foods today, got my salad together, waited in line, went to pay...and realized I left my wallet at the office. Then this afternoon some guy held the door for me so I didn't have to get my keys out to get into my building, which turned out to be a good thing, because I left my KEYS in the office when I left work. D'OH.

Also, because I fall down a lot.

(Um, so my cold? From a month-ish ago? Creeping back. I'm coughing and full of phlegm again. Do. Not. Want. But in good news, Rachel and I are going to see the Yankees again this weekend! Hopefully the will suck less than they have recently. By which I mean all season.)

REMINDER!

2008-04-27T19:11:20Z

REMINDER! There are only a few days left to send me stuff for the Refuge's birthday party! And since I've only had one submission... guys... I WILL CRY. Not an idle threat. You don't want that, do you?

Memes! So many memes!

2008-04-23T02:55:30Z

I've been stepping away from the internet, which means saving up memes. Here, have three.

1) Tell me about a story I never wrote, (ie., "that story about Chad and Ryan and their pet chicken!") and I'll (try to) write you at least a drabble's worth of it. (Y'all know my fandoms, right? Right.)

2) If you would like, please quote a bit of my writing at me. Find that one story of mine that you really like, and find a sentence or a paragraph that presses your prose-buttons in the right way, and comment here with it. I don't care how long or short the excerpt is.
(Links: All my Newsies stuff in one place; everything else.)

3) Tagged by clio21000:
List fifteen ~~fictional characters~~people, male or female, who you would have sex with (in no particular order) and tag 5 people to do the same. (Yeah...I hadn't read the rule carefully when making up my list. Most of them are fictional!)

1)
Christian Bale in any movie, though preferably not one where I'd end up murdered. (No Batman. No American Psycho. No Equilibrium...) Note: Yeah, if it's Newsies, David can come along.

2)
Vickie, Gabe, or Alex of Cobra Starship. I'm not picky.

3)
Damon Albarn. SERIOUSLY. (Graham can come too, if he wants.)

4)
Danny and/or Rusty from the Ocean's movies. Suave men in suits being sexy. Hooray!

5)
Derek Jeter! ILU!

6)
Han AND Leia. HELLS YEAH.

7)
Jason Bourne.

8)
John and Aeryn are the second hottest space couple on this list. But only by a tiiiiiny bit.

9) OR
Kyle Reese OR John Connor (T3 version). But not both, because that would be creepy.

10)
Justin Timberlake. Mmhmm.

11)
Sam! ILU!

12)
Tim Riggins. He hits my white trash, good ol' boy kink quite nicely.

13)
Tina Fey! ♥

14)
Veronica Mars. She's smarter than me.

15)
Westley (Dread Pirate Roberts)

Honorable mention!

Tulio!

Tag: harriet_vane, poisonivory, second_batgirl, harmonyangel, imntsaying, liketheroad. Hopefully I did not misspell any of your names; I didn't doublecheck.

stupid pope.

2008-04-19T13:01:05Z

My favorite conversation from yesterday:

M: I don't get it. Why is the Pope going to Yankee Stadium and not Shea? It's not like God loves the Yankees more than the Mets.
Me: Twenty-six world championships beg to differ.

And now, I am off to see the rents, whose bus will probably only be three or four hours late due to Papal traffic. Stupid Pope.

anyone?

2008-04-15T23:17:09Z

Hmph.

I know many of y'all on my friendslist are much smarter and more technical-minded than I, so out of curiosity, has anyone ever run into an error where your browser tries to download .php files instead of displaying them? And if so, what causes it and how do you resolve it?

(The Refuge seems to be down. I haven't done anything to it, so I have no idea what's happened, but it isn't just me, since I found out about it via my friendslist.)

Thanks in advance to anyone who has any thoughts on this.

ETA: Many thanks to Jon and Nat, who nailed it. Dreamhost has corrected the error, and after I cleaned out my cache it all started working as usual. Hooray!

words are my new fandom.

2008-04-10T02:47:09Z

queenitsy nay. you have a way with words, my dear, that is unmatched. eyeholls aside.
hilaryscribbles awwwww, why thank you.
i am quite seductive to the average "this" and "that"
and also "perfunctory" which is my new favorite word
queenitsy that is an awesome word.
hilaryscribbles isn't it gorgeous?
if it was a man, it would be tall and slender, in a fedora, with a cuban, leaning against the side of a brick building
queenitsy But with like... a beak of a nose.
hilaryscribbles EXACTLY. and oily hair
queenitsy yes. wearing a trenchcoat, too.
hilaryscribbles mmmmmmmmmm, yes. filmed in noir lighting.
his cooler brother is nonchalance
queenitsy perfunctory is a bogart-esque hero; nonchalance is a greaser.
hilaryscribbles exactly.
queenitsy I'm glad you understand.
hilaryscribbles the james dean of webster's
queenitsy yes.
hilaryscribbles their floozy cousin would be careless. she wears a slinky red dress and has bobbed blonde hair
queenitsy I read that as "caress" who is is almost identical to careless, but smokes cigarettes and everything she says is innuendo.
hilaryscribbles ooooooooooooooh, yes. they're sisters
queenitsy careless is the spunky, perky one; caress is the sultry one.
hilaryscribbles caress has a thing for embrace, the blond piano man, but he's gay...who's he got it for?
queenitsy austere, who is lanky and androgynous but very uptight and embrace just can't tell if he's gay or not.
hilaryscribbles good god, that's glorious
queenitsy words are my new fandom.
hilaryscribbles glorious is the heavy-set lounge singer, think queen latifah, who sings at the place they all hang out. she is aptly named.
i like this fandom
queenitsy oooooh.
I feel like perfunctory and nonchalance must have a younger brother who isn't quite old enough to get into the club and is constantly trying to sneak his way in.
hilaryscribbles ahahaha...how about...reckless!
or is that wreckless?
queenitsy ooh, yes!
hilaryscribbles and his twin, rambunctious!
queenitsyyes!
hilaryscribbles yes. and they wear little boy spats
**DIES**
precarious would be the thin, hand-ringing, vaguely schizophrenic owner of their hang-out spot
queenitsy he has an on-again, off-again thing with careless.
hilaryscribbles ahhahaahahahahh! YES
and he answers to his boss, abstruse (whose moll is a brunette named mystery)
nobody sees abstruse, they only know about him
it's perfunctory's job to catch him, but he just doesn't care enough to do it
queenitsy it's a hard word. he's a hard man, though. (embrace would like to make a joke here.)

(LJ-ify your IMs before pasting!)

a post about something other than being sick!

2008-04-07T02:45:02Z

Today was one of the more productive days I've had in awhile. I managed to run laundry, clean the living room, and do a fair amount of writing, including updating not one, but two blogs! (Yeah, I work on too many of those. With another on the way, potentially. Because I need something else to leave gathering dust on the internet.)

At Active Voice, I posted a review of Dragon's Egg by Sarah L. Thomson. Three and a half cupcakes; some high points without many problems; generally cute.

At the feminist nerd blog, A Princess Peach Post, which is thoughts on the female characters in Paper Mario, as it's the only game I've ever played.

In other news, I'm now reading a collection of short stories and realizing that, while I already knew I can't write them, I'm not that interested in reading them, either. Something about the short...thing really doesn't click for me. But I'm going to finish this collection regardless, because I'm reading it for the feminist SF book club I was invited to join. And how fucking cool is that?

a lovely afternoon

2008-04-06T05:07:04Z

I think this is my crazy fangirl face. (More at Rachel's flickr.)

Despite the, uh, part where they lost (eyeroll), it was quite a lovely day. Seriously. The prediction was rain, but instead it was 60 and sunny out. Rachel and I were on the ball enough to bring sunscreen (because we are vampirically pale and would spontaneously burst into flame otherwise), which meant that the sun was quite lovely. And like, seriously, warm enough that we both stripped off the jackets and sweatshirts, which for those of you who know me and that I prefer temperatures approaching jungle-like, was quite remarkable. Our seats were about three quarters of the way back on the third base side; upper deck, but near the front. They were actually damn near perfect, because the lower decks were all in shadow, and from our understanding, it was cold where there was no sun. So ha!

And yes, I kept hydrated.

Also fun was that we were sitting next to the Tiniest Yankees Fan. He was with his dad, and probably about three, and decked out in full, adorable gear. Obviously, being a toddler, he didn't really have much of an attention span, but was adorably entertaining throughout.

The boys lost, but there was an entertaining rally in the 8th that kept it from being a total downer. If the A hadn't been running shuttle bus (oy) even the trip home would have been fine.

I, on the other hand, am still completely stuffed up -- but not sick in the way I was all week. Like, this is clearly still the flu, and I'm coughing, but I feel like a person again, capable of thought and movement and digesting food. So this is all very positive. (Regardless, I'm off to take cough syrup and go to bed. Yay for sleep!)

hooray!

2008-04-05T15:31:50Z

Aside from our defective cat trying to KILL ME, and a couple of ridiculous coughing fits, I feel much better. So we're off to Yankee Stadium!!! HOORAY!!! And hopefully they will be less sucky than last night, because seriously, losing 14-4 to the ~~Devil~~ Rays? Stupid.

But first, a meme.
1. My username is ______ because ______.

queenitsy, because back in middle and high school, my BFFs and I wrote a long, involved series of wacky stories that were essentially our Mary Sues (and poor, lonely, only-guy-in-the-crowd Jared's Gary Stu) in a wacky fantasy land and we married the Beatles and there was time travel and drama and so many in jokes that even I can't make sense of them any more. Anyway, my character was Queen Itsy. (Also the source of the domain name, since that's been around even longer, like, since eleventh grade. Crazy!)

2. My name is _____ because ______.

Ocean Breeze Soap will get you clean. It's a line from The Muppets Take Manhattan! I think Rachel and I were discussing fic summaries or something, and one of us suggested you could just write down what actually happens in the fic, and it was very, "Well...why don't you say what the product does? Like...Ocean Breeze Soap will get you clean." And then we giggled for a long time.

It was previously Cloberella Beats You Up, which is of course a Futurama reference. I love Leela and I really, really love Cloberella.

3. My journal is titled ____ because ____.

"A Mighty Fine Life"
It's a Newsies reference, from the song Carrying the Banner.

4. My friends page is called ____ because ____.

"We goes where we wishes..."
See answer 3.

5. My default userpic is ____ because ____.

, because it's just some newsboys complaining about unfair their lives are. Which...fair enough. And LJ is for whining, so there you go.

phew.

2008-04-05T03:00:59Z

Ha! A few hours ago, I had soup and crackers and felt fine afterwards, and just recently was hungry and actually had a bowl of spaghetti and I'm still fine!

This is particularly exciting, not only because I didn't puke, but also because the last time I had a meal was, uh...Monday. Being sick completely wiped out any drive to eat I had, so I'd been subsisting on juice, crackers, and jello cups. (Strawberry/raspberry is delicious.)

But now I have eaten! And while still stuffy and occasionally coughing, I feel about 85% better! So yeah, probably good that I didn't go to work today. Even though I really, really, really hate missing work. (Seriously, I don't think I've missed four days of work since...ever, actually.)

well, that sucked

2008-04-04T04:44:17Z

So half an ago I got abruptly dizzy, light headed, shaky, and kind of nauseus. I figured this was from not eating much in the last few days, as being sick makes me really, really not hungry at all, so it's been pretty much just crackers and jello. So, assuming caloric intake would help, I hesitantly ate a cracker.

Ten minutes later I threw the cracker back up.

It's the first time I've puked since I've been sick...actually the first time I've puked without alcohol being involved since middle school. So much for how much better I was feeling today. Guess I won't be going to work tomorrow after all. I had such high hopes.

(Rachel was kind enough to get up and sit with me, even though she had a 14 hour workday today, and there wasn't actually anything she could do other than listen to me whine and get me water and tissues. She is genuinely the best big sister ever. ♥)

By the way, I haven't got the vaguest idea how to correctly spell "nauseus." But I'm sick and I don't care.

yeah, again

2008-04-03T15:53:54Z

Yep, staying home again, as per orders from poisonivory. Something about actually sleeping after you've been the hospital (but to be fair, I was only in the hospital for 20 minutes, and that was just to get the x-rays, which were negative! So whatever.). I'll probably go in tomorrow, though, because I hate missing work.

--

As we were getting ready for bed last night, harriet_vane let some of her magical writing approach slip. I thought a few people might appreciate it: "In case of emergency, I always write about how Ryan has a scarf."

--

I am off to drink some juice, shower, and eat some jello, and drink some more juice (I really don't want to get dehydrated again). If you're interested in keeping me entertained whilst I'm home sick, feel free to hit me with the fuck/marry/kill meme...even though I feel genuine guilt at having to kill people sometimes. Sensitive soul that I am.

oh. awesome.

2008-04-02T20:31:20Z

So at 4:15, I arrived home from my doctor's appointment.

The appointment began at 10:20 this morning.

It was a very long day, which involved getting my vitals taken five times (apparently they were that bad), a chest X-ray, several hours spent sitting in the dark drinking juice, and finally an hour hooked up to an IV.

How was your day?

(ETA: It's just the flu, and hit me super hard because of the dehydration. Probably should have made that clear earlier.)

ught

2008-04-01T15:16:35Z

So I didn't feel so hot yesterday. I was up much of the night with rolling waves of nausea and an inability to breathe, anyway. But I finally caught a couple hours around dawn, and (especially given I took a sickday a couple weeks ago) figured that showering to clear some of the gunk out of my head would help. So I got up, showered, got dressed, and dragged myself 140 blocks downtown to my job.

Where I sat at my desk for ten minutes, then realized that this just ain't happening, got up, and dragged myself 140 blocks home (with a quick pitstop to buy more sudaphed and tissues).

I'm disconcerted by how sick I've been this year.

hooray!

2008-04-01T02:08:50Z

I woke up this morning with either terrible seasonal allergies or a slight flu, and I don't generally have seasonal allergies. So...ick. I'm exhausted and stuffed up and heading for bed soon.

But I just need to say, thank GOD baseball is back. Seriously. I swear, it makes me more productive in my life in general, but especially with writing. There's something perfect about baseball, even with a dribbling idiot like Michael Kaye commentating; it's engaging enough to pay attention to whenever I feel like it, but calming enough that I get boatloads of writing done. Seriously, it's the best ever for writing to.

I'm actually not terribly disappointed about today's rainout, though I am very very very anxious to see my boys again. Because the reschedule for tomorrow is happening in the EVENING, when I will be home to see it. Which is a very good thing indeed.

Man, I can't wait for Saturday.

The Refuge

2008-03-31T01:50:19Z

Hey! The Refuge is turning four years old! And we're celebrating! And if you're in the Newsies fandom, you should come play! Or...I'll cry.

(Seriously. Not to emotionally blackmail my friendslist, but if people don't participate? I will be horrifically, cripplingly saddened. So. You know. You should participate.)

ahah

2008-03-30T23:02:06Z

I beat Paper Mario today! Yay me!

Anyhoo. Thing that is making me giggle: Rachel and I were watching Pride & Prejudice just now, which happened to have been on Oh! network. They're promoing a month of movies, which I can't pick out a theme to, but Honey is among them. Which means that skeevy adult David Moscow's "Now that... that is sexy," is one of the taglines in the ads.

Sadly, him being slapped by Jessica Alba is not in the montage of chicks slapping dudes that the ad ends with.

Speaking of D-Mos, his (presumably terrible) made for TV movie on Spike airs tonight. Oh yeah. The TiVo is set up.

yes, I just said this aloud

2008-03-29T23:48:09Z

"You know what happened? The nine-tenths of your brain that used to be taken up by penguins are now being taken up with Ryan Ross. There are homeless brain penguins out there somewhere, and it's all your fault. Won't you please think of the brain penguins?!"

HOORAY!

2008-03-27T02:21:09Z

Rachel and I have tickets for opening weekend! :D :D :D :D :D

In unrelated news, after a week, I did not have to put goo on my head. My scalp is much better; still a bit pink in places, but, like, the spot behind my ears that has been itchy and flakey for, oh, three or four years now? Lovely and skin like. Not scaly at all! Which is good because I am, you know, a mammal.

I'm supposed to continue to use this stuff once or twice a week for... ever? Dunno. Regardless, though, I am pleased with my non-disgusting head.

I'm kind of a spaz. It's a thing I am.

2008-03-22T02:26:20Z

A big hooray at work: I've been allowed to do editorial stuff, finally! I'm editing and footnoting a transcript. This is great, because I've missed actually doing editing things; I like all the webstuff I do, but, ya know. Editing is what I'm actually sort of vaguely qualified for. Not really. But it's what I do anyway and like best.

My work is big on tea drinking. We have a kettle that's used about, oh, nineteen times a day between the eight-ish people who are there daily, and we keep a whole cabinet full of tea. So I was having a long (but not bad, just long) day and decided to grab some tea. It was very hot.

It ended up in my lap. Which hurt. A lot. What with the burning and all.

So I ran to the bathroom, grabbed some wet paper towels, and ran into a stall where I could pull my pants down. (Hawt, I know.) So my thigh was bright pink and hurty, which was not so good; when the pink started to fade I pulled up my damp jeans and wandered back tot he office, where I was greeted by a coworker with burn cream from the first aid kit. So I went back to the bathroom to apply, since, you know, walking around the office with no pants on is generally frowned upon. Bah.

So the problem with this is that, while the burn cream did indeed make my leg feel a bit better, it was kind of thick and lumpy and the instructions said not to rub it in or cover it unless necessary. So then I was just chillin' in a bathroom stall with goo on my leg and no pants on. For like, awhile. It didn't...evaporate or anything. Finally I just dabbed off the excess, winced, and pulled up my jeans. Leaving me with a burned thigh covered in goo covered with wet jeans.

I am SO AWESOME. I'm wearing my shower cap now for the whole headgoo, too. Aren't you glad you know me?

a bunch of things about my hair

2008-03-21T01:06:39Z

So on Tuesday I went to the doctor, despite the fact that I was, you know, entirely better. He concurred with my "I'm actually dandy now" assessment. But does everyone remember how awesome this was? (Explanation.) Because when I lost my insurance over the summer, I couldn't afford to keep up the scalp treatment, which means the horrible disgusting condition is back and better than ever! By which I mean itchier and flakier. Anyway, point is, the shower cap and hair gunk has returned.

I'm so hot, you don't even know.

And speaking of my hair, it's long. I realize that's not the most profound statement in the world, but it is remarkably true. It's long, like, the longest its been since high school, and possibly the longest it's ever been. It's about an inch or two above my butt. It is lonnnnnng. It's also the first thing people comment on when they haven't seen me in awhile ("My, your hair is long,") and also something people who spend a lot of time with me comment on ("Wow, your hair is long, and also, Panic! at the Disco exists, and here are some things about them..." [ilu rachel!]). So yes.

I occasionally entertain fantasies of chopping it off, or dying it blue. I really want to do something with it, but I'm at a loss for what. I'm not exactly a, uh, hair person. (Or makeup. Or clothes. Or shoes. Or... okay, you know that whole performance of femininity thing? I don't do that. I don't know how to do that, but I've avoided learning mostly by choice.) So... If anyone has any thoughts on how to make not-quite-straight-but-mostly-flat, extremely long, basically extremely pretty but dull hair exiting, do feel free to let me know!

(If I weren't far too lazy to fiddle with hair before work, except for getting it dry enough to not freeze in the cold, I would consider Vickie T's haircut. Sassiest bangs ever. Except I can't picture me with bangs. Nnnnnrg.)

So, yes. My scalp: bad. My hair: long. My life: dull.

I feel nervous posting about this, but feel strongly; I respect people who feel like protest-worthy things are happening at LJ Central, but I do disagree. Here is my attempt to explain why.

So here's my thing with LJ. I think there are a lot of reasons to be upset with the company. I don't think the disappearance of basic accounts is one of them. LJ doesn't owe anyone an ad-free, cost-free account; I think it's awesome they've been available for so long, but LJ -- a business -- doesn't owe anyone free anything, and protesting that they do kind of smacks of entitlement to me.

LJ's PR sucks, plain and simple. Or rather... what PR? "Make changes, hope no one notices, cover your ass," is not a great way to handle things. I wish badly that they'd announce things plainly. But they can make changes if they want.

The advisory board advises, it doesn't decide. I think we were hoping they'd have more of a say, and we could feel protected in this space we've shaped -- and more on that in a second -- and not so they could decide that our feelings aren't enough to base a decision on. Unfortunately, well... if the board says, "People will feel this way," LJ can still say, "We'll make more with the ads than we'll lose alienating some people," and do it anyway.

So about the space we've shaped? It's amazing that "we," by which I mean fandom-generally, has seized on this service and turned it into a space we craved. It's a real gathering spot; information gets passed so quickly. It's kind of perfect for our needs and wants. But the thing is, we did that. (Okay, not me. People who are way more pioneering than I am did that. My fandom is still on FFnet and yahoo!groups.) LJ didn't do that; LJ doesn't seem to have intended that, and we showed up as a weird side effect of the service they provided. Now, I think we enhance, and have shown that LJ can be a seriously versatile tool. But... LJ didn't really mean for this to happen, to the best of my knowledge, and clearly doesn't get fandom. Which is fine, and there's no reason why they should, but it does mean we need to keep in mind that we latched on to something not for us, and LJ is not obligated to care about fandom.

With all that said, the censoring of interests -- that's sketchy. If that trend continues past censoring searches to actually censoring content, then I'll have a problem. But at the moment, it feels like the strike is primarily about the basic accounts, and... nope. I see nothing to protest there.