prpl pen

10:16 pm: Okay, people are leaving me happy birthday comments on the one and a half-month old meme that is the last thing I posted, so it's probably high time to actually update again. I've been distracted, what can I say. I have a new power cord again, yes. So that's good! Also, autophanous arrived, crashed on my couch for a couple weeks, and now we've rented a bigger apartment together, in the same building (which reminds me...updated address, again--it's just a different apartment number). So as moves go, it was relatively easy, since it was just down the hall. Still, moving apartments twice in the span of like three months isn't exactly awesome, and I'll be glad not to have to do it again for (hopefully) a good long while. We JUST got the internet hooked up again here.

Ugh, and it's been such a while since I've updated, I feel like there is a lot to say, and yet nothing terribly important that warrants livejournaling. Or maybe it just feels like that because I tend to tweet about things while they happen, and then it feels like I've already talked about them, so I don't in LJ. Meh.

Right now I am trying to decide if I want to sign up for Yuletide this year, and kind of cursing that I didn't nominate fandoms, because a few of the ones I searched for aren't in there. Blast. Kekkaishi is, but so far that's the only one I'd really like to request in (though I'm still making my way through the list). And it occurs to me that the fandom I'd most like fic for is still One Piece, which wouldn't qualify for Yuletide in the first place, so...I may just opt out this year.

I am just kind of generally headachy and anxious-feeling and blah right now. My laptop wasn't starting up properly earlier and it took forever to get it to, and I still haven't figured out what's causing it. Today was really underwhelming in general, which is a little depressing. I dunno. I'm in kind of a funk, I guess.WHAT A GREAT TIME TO CHOOSE TO UPDATE.

Hm. Well. autophanous and I totally saw They Might Be Giants on Tuesday, so that was amazing and exciting. There are probably other things I could mention, but they all slip my mind just now, and TMBG is probably the most important thing anyway, so just focus on that.

Tags: moving, real life, writing, yuletide

10:15 pm: Once again, a month has slipped by without a post from me. Ugh. I kind of sort of have an excuse, as I was busy with moving and getting that stuff all lined up. Here are some bullet point highlights of the past month or so...

• So, the last major non-memeish post I made mentioned my sister having her baby, and my grand entrance into Aunthood. Then on August 7th, two weeks after my sister had her baby, my brother and his girlfriend had their daughter, so I was an aunt again. I have pictures that I need to post of her. It's probably bad form to say so, but I think she's cuter than my sister's baby.
  
  
• I started a new job, sort of. It's temporary, and I'm looking for something hopefully better and more stable, but it's not bad work. And it pays slightly better than my last job, at least, so yay for that.
  
  
• And yes, I did move! To a small efficiency for now (though I'm gonna see if I can get out of my lease early and perhaps split a bigger place with autophanous). It is pretty tiny, but once I got my stuff in and arranged, it's actually better than I was expecting. I have some pictures of that to post as well, once I find my camera cord. ANYHOO, my address has naturally changed, and you can find the new one here in my contact post.
  
  
• Actually I was just at my parents' house for niece #2's baptism over the weekend. Then weekend after next, my sister will be coming to my parents' with her baby, and she'll be baptised then, it looks like. I haven't seen her in person yet, so that will be fun.

That's a pretty half-assed update, but at least it's something. I miss using my LJ. Meh.

ANYWAY. Here's a random meme that looked appealing to me:

Give me the title and fandom of a story I've never written, and feedback telling me what you liked best about it. In return I will tell you any of these from my never-written story: the first sentence, the last sentence, the thing that made me want to write it, the biggest problem I had while writing it, why it almost never got posted, the scene that hit the cutting room floor but that I wish I'd been able to salvage, or something else that I want readers to know.

Tags: bullet point time, meme, moving, real life

04:29 pm: The "You Should Write..." Meme!
my thread here

It somehow ended up being a month again since I last wrote in my LJ. Whoops.

Life has been...challenging lately. I'm trying to stay positive and get through it.

Anyway, I have some memes I intend to answer, but right now, the big order of business for this LJ entry is...

( suspense... )

That's it for now! Though if everything goes as planned, I will have pictures of niece #2 within a week or so.

Tags: meme, picspam, real life, writing

07:17 pm: Why the hell not; let's do some bullet points.

• I disappeared again for a while. I actually had a good reason for it, though! The power cord/AC adapter for my laptop just randomly up and died about a month ago, and I was extremely strapped for cash, so I couldn't replace it right away. My laptop had to sit there and be a paperweight in the meantime. Aaand, I kept meaning to make a post in here mentioning that, but never got around to it. Oops. I think partly because I mentioned it on Twitter when it happened, so it felt like I'd already told everyone about it. Never mind that the majority of my flist are not on Twitter, that I know of. Double oops. Anyway, I've replaced the cord, so I'm back now!
  
  
• ...Speaking of Twitter, if you have one and I'm not following you, feel free to add me. (If you don't mind the occasional extreme late-night manga-reading reaction tweet spam, that is. I think I'm not too obnoxious about it? I hope?) I have to say that another reason I haven't been updating my LJ nearly as much these days is because I will tweet small tidbits and feel sated, whereas before I would save a few of them up for an LJ entry.
  
  
• Quite a few people on my flist were doing cliche_bingo; it looked like fun, so I decided to give it a shot too.
  
  ( my bingo card )
  
  
• Finally, I am in a letter-writing mood lately, so it's that time again: LETTERS! Anyone want a letter from me? You wouldn't even have to write back (though I'll be honest, I would love you forever if you did). If you'd like to get a letter from me, comment in this post saying so, and drop your address in my contact post, if you haven't already. People outside the States are totally fine as well; I have a ton of international stamps that will take forever to use otherwise.

That's it for now.

Tags: addresses, attempting to be productive, computer woes, letters, real life, twitter, writing

09:34 pm: So...
The people who follow me on Twitter will already know this, but I had a...minor accident, I guess? while driving home from my parents' house. ( more )

On a completely different subject... does anyone else have a PS3? Particularly LittleBigPlanet? My roommates and I love it and I just realized that we might be able to play online with some flisters. Comment and let me know if you're interested? :D

Tags: car, real life, video games

04:24 am: Yay, new apartment~

Here's the requested pictures from the photo meme, as well as a small tour: ( image heavy, natch )



Tags: kitties, moving, picspam, real life

05:16 pm: I'm back!
They finally hooked up our internet connection today! YAY!

So, I suppose it's time to run through the highlights of my incommunicado moving-time:

• Originally I had been planning to rent my own apartment, but my friend suggested we all (me, him, & his husband) live together for a year or two to save money, since between the three of us, we can get a fairly nice place without having to pay a ton. It was nice, especially since money would've been pretty tight for me at first after moving costs.
  
  
• We found a nice apartment which is great for us: fairly big, two full bathrooms (I can't even tell you how happy I am to have my own bathtub again; I love taking long, leisurely baths.) plenty of room for my books, an extra bedroom/office room, which we have made into our computer & video game utopia.
  
  
• And, yes, I've finished moving all my stuff here (did it last weekend). Mostly I am very happy because this means I got to finally get my books out of storage; not only did I miss them like whoa, but I was starting to get a little worried about the state they'd be in after being in a storage shed for two years. They weathered it well: only three ended up bent from shifting in their boxes; two (common & easily replaced) suffered a little nibbling from a mouse; and just one had some slight water damage (must've been a leak somewhere? but none of the other books in the same box were harmed in any way). After a year, I was starting to picture horrible things happening to them, so it was a relief.
  
  
• My cat is here, and settling in pretty well. She's a very cautious, nervous cat, so I was a little worried about how she'd adjust, especially since Jon Paul & Randall have a fairly young kitten (who is adorable, btw. They have him wear shirts half the time, which sounded kind of weird to me at first, but he doesn't mind it at all, plus...it does look really cute). The kitties seem to be getting along well, though. Jack (the kitten) is happy to have another cat to play with, and Éowyn tolerates him pretty well, except for an occasional smackdown from time to time when he gets too obnoxious. They sleep next to each other in a little kitty pile sometimes, so that's encouraging and adorable.
  
  
• Not directly related to moving, but I randomly received a free upgrade on my cell phone, so now I have a RAZR which makes texting a world easier. Had my plan changed too, so I now have unlimited texting. Because of this I made good use of Twitter during my Time of No Internet. Annnyhoo, feel free to add me if you've got a Twitter account, or, heck, if you don't have my cell number and want to text me sometime, leave me a comment and I'll get it to you.
  
  
• I plan on getting up some pictures sooner than later, of the new place, and the kitties, and whatever else...ACTUALLY. Why don't I just do that meme, since I'm at it? Comment with something you want me to take a picture of, and I'll post it in a later entry!

Now I am going to attempt to catch up with the flist, though it's been, for all intents and purposes, about two weeks since I've had a chance to look at it closely, so it's pretty likely I will miss out on stuff. If there's anything you want me to know about or link me to, leave a comment, please! I can't guarantee I'll see it otherwise.

It's good to be back! I missed you all! ♥~

Tags: books, bullet point time, kitties, meme, moving, real life, twitter

04:21 pm: So hot. Worse, so humid. No air conditioning. I'm melting. ...It probably feels worse to me too, because I've been spoiled by central air all summer long. </whine>

Anyway, besides that things are going well. I should probably actually make mention of the fact here in my journal that I'm in the process of relocating/moving/whatever right now. I've got some internet access, but I probably won't be around a lot online until things are settled. I'm looking forward to getting my books out of storage, let me tell you. I miss them so~ Anyway, I've got some time right now, so I'm just dropping a line, trying to somewhat catch up on the flist, and maybe commenting around a little. But, basically, I'll probably be extra fail at commenting/replying to comments for a while.

ETA: Scanlations for Kekkaishi have been coming out at a pretty good clip lately. At this rate, it won't be too much longer till we catch up with the Japanese releases. HEARTILY APPROVED. ...That reminds me though; I still haven't done that download post for the manga. Oops. *makes a note*

Tags: kekkaishi, moving, real life

12:04 pm: sjkhasdkj It's official, my two weeks notice is accepted, and I am done with work on the 15th. Then I can finally MOVE! I was starting to think it would never happen and I was feeling lame that I was so behind on my plans. I am excited now! hbfhfkdhffjs YAY!!!

THE CHARACTER RATING MEME

Tags: meme, real life

05:36 am: Anyway. I've been meaning to do this for a while, but I'm gonna spiff up my userinfo at prpl_prose and link to affiliates. So, if you have a writing journal and would like to be linked, let me know in the comments (& your writing journal name, natch).

There is a two-tailed cat here at work. I mean, I'm not sure if he's a stray, or if he belongs to a family somewhere in the neighborhood or what, but I've seen him in the parking lot off and on for like a year or so. Actually, I hadn't seen him for a few months now, so I wondered what happened to him, but he's been showing up again the past few nights. He's used to people, and very friendly. It probably helps that I feed him. And he seriously has two tails. Like, about halfway up the regular tail, there is a smaller, shorter, thinner one that branches off. They move independently of one another, so when he's being purry and lovey, they both twitch out of sync. Hee!

( Writing and Avatar rambling )

Also, here's a meme I stole from bolshevists:

Name a series and I'll tell you the character(s) I would:

1. Bake cupcakes for:
2. Trust with the keys to my car:
3. Put thumbtacks on the chair thereof:
4. Have a crush on:
5. Pack up and leave if they moved next door:
6. Vote for President:
7. Pick as my partner in a buddy movie:
8. Pair up:
9. Vote off the island and into the volcano:
10. Wheedle into fixing my MP3 player:

Tags: avatar, meme, real life, writing, writing journal

02:52 pm: Happy birthday takewing & (a little early) parsnip_chan!!!
If you give me a character/pairing & prompt, I'll do my best to write you a birthday drabble. ♥ I hope your birthdays are awesome!

Talking about animelist the other night with Bri and Meg got me thinking about trying to catalogue my books again, too. I used to use a site to do that, but the interface was nightmarish and I eventually stopped bothering. Anyway, I went looking again and found LibraryThing.com. Seems all right, from what I've seen. I've started entering my library there, but most of my books are still in storage, and it's kind of hard to go by memory. Anyhoo, does anyone else have an account there? Add me if you do, or go ahead and give me your username if you want me to add you.

I'm waiting to hear back on a job, but I'm hopeful. If I get it, that means I can finally move (albeit behind my self-imposed schedule; OH WELL). Granted, I supposed I could crash at a friend's place for a week or two to look for work, but I'd really rather have something lined up before I quit my job here and move to Minneapolis. Eh. I'm just so ready to get back to a bigger town. The place I'm living now is not without its charms, but it's so rural and there's, like. Nothing, honestly. Except nature. Nature is good. I like nature. I just would like some convenience and culture, too. And a new apartment to put my stuff into again. I miss my books. ;_;

I've been talking Gargoyles on and off with shiinabambi lately, and it's making me want to A) rewatch the series and B) possibly write fic again? Dunno. I've been feeling more inspired and productive lately in general, and I think it has a lot to do with doing the writing buddies thing with danbi. Yay! I'm currently working on a Genshiken futurefic. The fandom seems to be just this side of non-existent, but that almost makes it a little easier. Mentioning it here because then I have more reason to actually finish it. Baccano! is a fandom that I love and ideas for, but I feel reluctant to actually write for it, just because...I know there's a ton of canon out there for it that I have no access to (since I can't read Japanese). I wish that didn't bother me, but it does. I don't want to end up speculating on things that may technically already have an answer (or not; but once again, I can't read the novels to find out). I basically have to rely on fan translations for now and hope they do another season of anime.

faemous and I are supposed to be writing longfic this summer, too; Avatar for me, IshiHime for her. Fae, we should totally start on that, y/n? :D

...This turned into a lot of rambling.

Kekkaishi pimp post forthcoming (probably within a day or two).

ETA: Anyone have a copy of "My Sweet Lord" by George Harrison handy? I have the album at home, but I'm not there and I really want to listen to it right now, for whatever reason.

Tags: baccano!, books, gargoyles, rambling, real life, writing

01:39 am: This is hilarious.

I haven't forgotten about those request ficlets! I was just asked to do a pinch-hit for jump_exchange, so I'm working on finishing that first, then I'll go back to them. (Feel free to request something if you haven't, btw.)

Aaaand, speaking of jump_exchange, I totally forgot to link the totally sweet gift I received. [Bleach, Tatsuki/Orihime, PG]. Honestly, if you like JUMP titles ( One Piece, Bleach, Naruto, Prince of Tennis, and some others have been represented already), you should totally check out the whole comm, because there's been lots of awesome art and fic.

WTF, how is it almost the end of May? Still planning on moving, but I haven't been as on-the-ball about that as I should be, honestly. I need to FOCUS and do stuff and make things happen.

ETA: Wait, wait! This is also hilarious, if you know Bleach! O-or maybe I'm alone in finding Ishida and his father's terrible relationship to be comedy gold. >.> By scrawled! (here)

Tags: bleach, fic rec, i am far too easily amused sometimes, real life, writing

01:32 am: ✖ You are my...

In the span of a few days, it went very abruptly from being WINTER--as in snow and ice covering everything, zero degree weather, and having to let my car warm up for 10 minutes before driving anywhere--to SPRING. Everything melted and the weather today was so nice and mild. Normally this is the part of spring that I hate--mud everywhere, everything so wet and dirty looking as the layers of silt and garbage that were buried in the snow are all revealed--but so far this year I don't mind it at all. I am filled with glee, in fact. I mentioned before, about my plans to move in the spring. Somehow, though, they didn't feel really real until now. And obviously it's still not an immediate thing; I have things to plan and take care of before the actual moving. Still, the dramatic shift in weather reminds me it's soon, and I'm giddy and excited.

Random anime talk: started watching Persona -trinity soul-, mostly because I enjoy the game like whoa. I've only seen the first few episodes; no really solid thoughts on it yet. It's sort of different.

I also finally watched the first episode of Mai Otome 0~S.ifr~, which, despite the crazy name (seriously people, wtf) was pretty awesome. Most people know I lovelovelove Mai-HiME, but was severely underwhelmed with Mai-Otome. Like, sure there were a few aspects I liked (Meister Haruka needs her own show likenow), but for the most part it was just a big, frustrating mess. Same goes for Mai-Otome Zwei. So...I am trying not to get my hopes up, but S.ifr looks like it could actually take the premise in Otome and make it work. I dunno, I just liked it a lot when I was watching. We shall see.

Finished Eureka Seven a week ago, but I'll probably talk about that another time.

Tags: anime, mai hime, mai otome, meme, real life

07:39 am: Meh. I'm been having a weird couple of days.

Last night I got a call that my aunt had died. It wasn't a complete surprise; she had cancer and we were all more or less expecting it, just...not quite so soon. I feel kind of awful because I had been planning to go visit her last weekend, but I worked and I was tired so I just said, 'eh,' and decided to put it off till this coming weekend. I don't know. I've pretty much been crying off and on all night and my eyes hurt and my nose is sore. Not just because of my aunt, but the other reasons are more or less silly emo stuff that may or may not be all in my head, I guess.

But. Whoever sent me the LJ valentine, thank you. I feel a little bad that I'm not 100% sure who it was, but it made me feel good and appreciated when I read it and I really needed that, I think. Just. ♥

Tags: love, real life

01:26 am: I got back on Wednesday night from spending a week at fieryfaerie's house. It was awesome and superfun and over far too quickly. The day before I left, I woke up with the beginnings of a nasty cold. I have impeccable timing, clearly. It lasted most of the time I was there, which kind of sucked, because even though I didn't feel too horrible, I was constantly coughing and could hardly talk for a while. I'M SORRY, FAE. I tried not to infect anyone, but...ugh.

Anyway, I got there on the 3rd and left on the 9th, and I've gotta say, it went by way too fast. D: It was kind of funny, because at first we were like "WE HAVE SO MUCH TIME TO DO STUFF, A WHOLE WEEK, YAY!!!" and towards the end there it was like "OH MAN, WHERE DID ALL THE TIME GO, A WEEK IS NOT NEARLY LONG ENOUGH, WAHHH!" ( Some stuff we did, in bullet points. )

That's not everything, and it probably doesn't even sound that interesting, but just getting to hang out with Fae (and Steph and D'Arcy) was amazing, and we definitely have to do it again sometime. ♥ I have some pictures I should upload (most of them are actually of ducks. I'm not even lying.), but that'll happen when it happens.

One kind of sucky thing, not directly related to the actual trip, is my computer started acting up after I got there. It's still acting up, and I can't figure out what the heck is wrong with it, nor can I seem to fix it. Yesterday I figured I might as well just back everything up and try reformatting it, and...whatever is wrong with it, I can't even reformat. It gives me an error message and aborts the procedure. So...I dunno. It's under warranty, so it looks like I may have to send it in for servicing. Which sucks, but at the same time, at least I should be able to get it fixed. Hopefully if I have to send it in, it won't take too long, but I really have no idea. Anyway, if I disappear abruptly (moreso than usual, that is) assume that's what happened.

ETA: Ugh. Case in point. Just as I was about to post this, I lost my connection and had to restart three times in order to get (tenuously) back online. Luckily, a copy of my draft was actually saved, or I'd be very irked right now.

Tags: bullet point time, computer woes, friends, real life, trip

11:19 am: tl;dr
What is this post? Honestly, I'm not even sure. It started out as one thing in my head, something I had a sudden and strong compulsion to write about, and as I started, it just kept branching and growing and took on a life of its own.

( This is extremely long, and extremely rambley. Read if you like, skip if you want. )

Tags: fandom, friends list, inuyasha, rambling, real life

03:15 am: Well, I'm officially out of NaNoWriMo. I basically was as of...a week or so ago now, when I got sick and slept for pretty much two days straight. I'm a little disappointed, but it wasn't worth it to make myself really crazy over it, so instead of frantically trying to catch up, I quietly retired. I am hoping to continue being mildly productive, though. Aaand...visions of epic Avatar fic have been dancing through my head since watching episode eleven. I may indulge it. Of course, if I go with the idea I have in mind, it will be rendered AR as soon as the new episodes start airing again, though that's likely not going to be until 2008, at least. Hmm...

( My weekend. )

Anyway! Holiday cards! Some people maybe just haven't seen it yet, but in case anyone is hesitating because they can't send one in return, or feel like we don't know each other really well, I am completely serious when I say everyone on the flist is encouraged to sign up. It's starting to get closer, and sooner than later I'll probably begin to prepare and send these out, so please sign up, if you haven't!

Oh, and for those who asked about a wish list for me...I'm too tired now, but I'll try and make up one of those wish list posts soon. ♥

Tags: avatar, holiday cards, nanowrimo, real life, writing

11:38 pm: Thanks to everyone that wished me a happy birthday! ♥

I didn't really do anything special; actually, because of my backwards sleeping schedule, and the fact that I worked last night and tonight, I spent most of the actual day asleep. Ehehe. I'm hoping to hear about my friend Janelle soon, too. Her due date was something like the 18th of November, if I remember correctly, but she was really huge and they were going to induce her today. So, she's probably already had her baby, or will be soon. Exciting!

I'm still behind on my goal for NaNoWriMo, but I'm starting to make headway now, I think. Part of me still kind of wants to scrap what I'm writing now and just start a fanfic, though. I think I'm finding it more of a challenge to get a feel for personalities of characters, etc, since they are new to me, while in fanfic there is that kind of safety net of having a lot of the groundwork already developed. Last time I did NaNoWriMo, I seriously did absolutely no planning, on purpose; I had it in my mind to do as a kind of experiment, coming in with nothing and just seeing where it led me. This year, I had a vague beginning point, an idea of where to start, but no real plot to speak of. Oddly, I'm finding it a little harder this year, or maybe it just seems that way. So far, I have one POV character this year, while before I had several and jumped between them from chapter to chapter, so maybe that has something to do with it? I dunno. I'll just have to keep going with it and see where it goes, I guess. If it still seems a big struggle after a few more days, I'll probably just start writing something different.

Tags: birthday, nanowrimo, real life

04:27 pm: Yesterday sucked. Well...not all of it, but taken as a whole, ( it was exhausting )

This would be why I wrote exactly zero words yesterday. Sigh. This is probably making me feel worse than it should. I actually do figure out my daily goal to account for five days in the month where I don't have to write at all. I just. Meh. I feel failuriffic already.

But! I have plenty of time left today, and nothing particular to do until I go to work at eleven, so I'm going to do my best to catch up. I can do it, I think!

Aaand...sorry to have in stuck in such a negative entry, but it is totally shvetufae's birthday today. :D I hope it's an awesome one! ♥

ETA: Oh, and I forgot this earlier, but...for those of you who are posting your NaNoWriMos, I do intend to read. However, there are a lot of you this year, and writing my own must come first, of course. This means I probably will be skimming for now and reading more carefully after November's done, and that I probably won't be leaving many comments. Just thought I should mention that.

ETA2: Oh man, oh man! My NaNoWriMo t-shirt came in the mail today! Any remains of my bad mood have evaporated! I AM TOTALLY GONNA PUT IT ON RIGHT NOW AND START WRITING. :D

Tags: babysitting, birthday, nanowrimo, real life, work

09:07 am: My thoughts are so jumbled and disorganized that I'm not even sure where to start. On occasions like this, bullet points come in handy, I guess.

• I am totally going to try NaNoWriMo this year again. I feel like last year didn't really count, because even though I signed up, I never started writing. The timing was just horrible. I am more hopeful about this year. Anyway, I'm here if anyone else is signing up. Add me if you like. I'll probably be posting it in with_a_key this year, so feel free to friend that if you want to read it. ugh, yes, I am still super-self-conscious, but whatever. I'm trying to get over it.
  
  
• I've decided that I'm going to move to the Twin Cities come spring. This is an idea I've been going back and forth on, but last night things kind of clicked into place for me and it seems like something I really should do, even if it's not permanent. With that decision made, a lot of things seem clearer or easier now, I suppose because I have something specific to be working toward. So for now I'll be trying to organise what things I can at this early stage, and concentrate on saving as much money as I can. I'm looking at some jobs, but I'll work on that more when it's closer to me actually moving, haha.
  
  One of my friends said something not long ago that really struck me, about how I need to realize again that I deserve happiness, and that was something that got me really thinking again about what I want. I don't know. Last year was rough, and I have a tendency to blame that on myself, though I know logically that I couldn't help most of it. After that, I think I kind of got stuck in a transitional part of my life; like, it was never meant to be permanent, but somewhere along the way I lost sight of everything beyond that. Now I can see the horizon again. I'm feeling hopeful right now.
  
  
• I am going to be productive this month, I've decided. Finish things that need finishing. Fics are included in this, as are sketches. I'm not just trying to force myself; I feel like accomplishing things.
  
  
• And, finally, I've been saying forever that I was going to upload this...
  
  
  
  ( Koukou Debut pimp! )

That's all.