Last year's book post was an effective way of keeping track of what I've read, so I'm doing it again this year. Of course, my resolution to read "smarter" books is pretty quickly going out the window, but hey, reading is reading.

( Onward! )

So I finally started watching True Blood (verrrrrry slowly, since I'm Netflixing it and only get 2 episodes on a disc. I really wish Netflix made everything available for stream-instantly).

My thoughts so far: Um, wow, Anna Paquin is seriously not a good actress. Unless maybe the books are so poorly written that she's actually doing an amazing character study or something? Hot mysterious vampire guy is hot and mysterious. It would be awesome to get some plot going (other than OMG-everyone-loves-Sookie and OMG-vampires-exist-here-is-a-pound-of-exposition). I am having major Twilight flashbacks, what with the mind reading and the potential for stalking... too bad there are no sparkles in this. The music in the show is terrible. Like, are they making it that bad on purpose? Not to mention the opening credits; I'm used to much more effort from HBO in its opening credits, these are so bad I thought I was watching Showtime. Nitpicking aside, I am enjoying it and will keep watching. It just makes me long for the days of HBO of yore, when we had Rome and The Wire and Oz.... there is a reason why we no longer bother to pay for HBO with our cable.

Also, this report from a teenager in England really disturbs me, if for no other reason than the line on page 3 that states most teenagers today have never bought a cd. Never?! *shakes fist at kids these days*

That just kind of blows my mind. And here I was listening to NPR this morning (via podcast) interviewing Mac and Laura from Merge on the 20th anniversary of Merge records, getting all nostalgic for the days when I would order vinyl albums straight from record labels. And when I got the latest news on music from listervs. I got my illicit copy of Belle & Sebastian's "Tigermilk" from someone on the indie-pop listserv way back in the day after If You're Feeling Sinister came out...

I can't say enough good things about this weekend. Yay! I spent most of my day off on Friday lazing around on the couch reading a a really good book. Then Drew and I went to Gulu-Gulu for a couple of beers, got a pizza, and lounged at home. Saturday was ms_ntropy's annual 4th of July pool party, and as a special bonus, we got to see the fabulous doplar all day! Sun! Fun! Yesterday Drew & I walked to Beverly, found some secret beaches that will definitely warrant repeat visits, and walked back to Salem to get lunch at a place on Pickering Wharf. It was a hale and hearty walk. By that I mean: my feet still kind of hurt from all that walking. But it was worth it to soak up some sunshine.

Because my brother totally rocks, we are going to see Sunny Day Real Estate (!!) at the House of Blues in Sept. Real emo!!!

Oh my god, this is so me.

Also, thanks to incandes_flower for burning onto a cd a mixtape I made for her in 2001. It is quite possibly the best mix I ever made. And now I remember how good Magnapop was.

Oh, and also, there may be hope yet for some of us with soul-crushing student loan burdens. I'm sketchy on the details, but it looks fairly promising.

Ok, one thing I do miss about living in Davis Square is When Pigs Fly bread. I have a mad hankering for their olive & hot pepper bread, and alas, there’s no way I’m going to get it. We do have an awesome bakery in Salem, but its hours are stupid and foil spontaneous after work bread purchases.

Ok, so getting into North Station an hour late was not the way I would have ideally started this day. My train had to push a disabled one most of the way. Also, the book I'm reading right now is scary and was totally freaking me out on the train ride.

This weekend was pretty amazing, though. I had a birthday and am now no longer a "fabulous 20 something." But lots of great company and good food makes that worthwhile. Yesterday I spent the day at Fenway with my dad. Of course, I got up to pee at exactly the start of the Red Sox's half of the 9th inning, and thus was in the ladies' when the game winning home run was hit. D'oh.

Now to start another week of work.

Is it just me, or does it feel like summer hasn't really started yet?

I need a new summery music album to usher in the season.

So last weekend Mr. & Mrs. thiswakingdream hosted an awesome murder mystery party. I am the worst actress and improviser ever, but I do love an excuse to wear a fancy dress and a wig. Fun times! I also take back most of my recent spate of Maine mocking, Maine is quite pretty when it's not raining.

Also, I can't believe my birthday is in less than a week. I will try to not whine about it too much. I'm a little disappointed because the one thing I really wanted to do for my birthday is not feasible due to the stupid Red Sox having a home game. Maybe later this summer I can drag people to Jake Ivories to get drunk and sing.

How are you all?

Huh. I just walked by Matt Lauer filming part of the Today show in front of Faneuil Hall.

I recently made the mistake of reading some particularly unfortunate books by Meg Cabot. Leaving aside my feminist problems with a character whose defining personality trait is her obsession with the averageness of the size of her pants, these things just were not well written.

Since I've been filling my brain with absolute garbage this year, I think it may be time for me to embark on a reading program. That list is bad ass. I am entertaining the idea of attempting to start a meetup.com book club group as motivation to actually attempt this list. Though being in charge of something like that would make me feel like I should have more of a clue about literature and stuff.

So my contract with Verizon is finally up, and I desperately need a new phone. One that I can, like, hear things on when I'm on the phone. And one that my big sausage fingers can text on without a lot of swearing and hitting the delete button a lot. I'd also like to have the Internets on my phone, but I'm not sure if I really want to spend the money on that.

I'm considering the iPhone or the Google phone, but there are also a lot of Blackberry/Sidekick things that look like they could potentially get the job done.

Question: Do you have a phone that does the internet? If so, what kind, and do you like it??

I think we are going to go to this totally kick ass haunted house tour next Friday (the 29th). Awesome!!!

I am considering whether this coming weekend might be a good time to explore this awesome book store. Or perhaps attempt some geocaching?

I am ready to get some Summer Fun underway!

Words I am very tired of hearing about our house:

"That doesn't look good"

"This would be illegal now"

"You had a home inspector?"

Holy freaking hell.

We had a pretty successfully awesome weekend.

Friday night we went to see Rob Riggle, Eugene Mirman, the Upright Citizen's Brigade, and a few others with starflow and cosmicserpent. Eugene Mirman never fails to entertain, and Rob Riggle was way funnier than I expected (I like to set my expectations low because otherwise I get a big Disappointment Face and get pouty).

Saturday I spent the day cleaning/running errands before the arrival of tenillypo and incandes_flower for Sparkletastic Twilight. Oh, Twilight, you never fail to entertain me. I did not have to set my expectations low for this because I knew it would be awesome.

Sunday had an awesome brunch with the aforementioned ladies and mrs_muffin and aquarianna6. Yay, brunch! Then Drew & I walked from our house to Marblehead, found a fun little bar in Marblehead where we had a couple beers, and then walked back to Salem. It was a lot of walking. It was too nice a day outside to not spend hours walking, though. I am getting excited to get out and do a lot of hiking this summer! I also want to explore interesting old timey stuff around New England. Summer fun! I insist on having summer fun this summer, last summer was lame.

So I recently discovered that Goodreads runs a ton of book giveaways. On a whim I entered for a few books that looked interesting, and lo! I won a free book. It arrived today, so it's totally legit. I just have to review it online once I'm done. Sweet!

Also, this article kind of supremely freaks me out.

I had a fabulous weekend. Finally! We are officially all moved in to the new place and officially totally out of Somerville. To celebrate, I just deleted all davis square related crap from my LiveJournal.

So Thursday night cayetana had the genius to set up some drinking at the Burren, and it was tons of fun. Just what we needed after an egregiously hard week of getting up at 4:30 am and doing lots of last minute moving/cleaning chores.

Friday Drew & I headed down to NYC on a late afternoon bus. We were not wowed by awesome on the Mega Bus this time, as the trip down took about 5.5 hours and involved lots of traffic and slowness. So we straggled into the city, checked into our hotel (a great find, too, on East Houston and much nicer than we'd expected from the price tag- the Gem Hotel), grabbed a couple slices of pizza, and went on our merry way to the Metafilter meet up. I maintained the perfect level of drunkenness, something I strive for on New York visits but rarely achieve (mostly I achieve "kill me now" hangovers that last the entire next day). Is it sad that this is an accomplishment? Anyway, we hung out with a ton of really interesting people, had lots of good conversation, and stayed out until 3 am. Woo!

Saturday we got up too early and obtained the cupcakes I have dreamt about for months from Sugar Sweet Sunshine. I actually now think the cupcakery in Beverly has cupcakes that are even better than the NY place. Trooped around the city in an exhausted haze, got lunch at Burgers & Cupcakes (I have a problem). B&C has changed ownership and changed both their burger recipes and their cupcakes recipes, and I sadly report that I'm not sure I'd recommend going back. Not as good as the last time we went there. After that we piled onto the bus and headed back to Beantown, where I arrived just in time to make it to dr_alycat's lovely and fantastic bridal shower. Fun times!

Yesterday we got a lot done on the unpacking front, and now have a living room cleared of boxes (not that the boxes are actually unpacked, mostly they've been shuffled up to the office and drawing room to be dealt with later). The kitchen is, like, half-unpacked at this point.

Yikes. Interesting reading from Metafilter Also, Sean Hannity is insane.

Half an hour reading in the sun without sunscreen at lunch and I am a summery shade of pink. Time to break out the SPF 40!

Urgh. We still have so much left to do in the Somerville apartment. This week I’m driving in, parking by the old place, and booking some quality time after work cleaning the ginormous dust dinosaurs that accumulated over the past 6 years. That means waking up at 5 am. Fun! I can’t complain, though, as I’m getting a half hour more sleep than Drew this week. Due to this weird schedule, dinners this week have been of the frozen bag o’ people food variety (those frozen bags of stir-fry or pasta with all the meat/veggies/pasta mixed in). On the one hand, thank god for American laziness, you don’t even need to break out [unpack] a pot or pan to cook ‘em, but on the other hand…. I will be happy to get back to my own cooking with markedly less salt and sugar.

Is it Friday yet? I wanna be in New York right now.

Moved!!

Or at least, 95% moved. The bunnies are ensconsed in their new palace, almost all of our stuff is in Salem. I still have to go back a couple of nights this week to grab a few odds & ends and to make an attempt at cleaning.

So tired!

So on May 7 Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter will be at the Somerville Theater. And we will be there! Comedy!

This weekend was so fantastic. Joss Whedon's talk on Friday was surprisingly illuminating and interesting. Saturday we threw a party that I hope was as much for everyone else as it was for me... despite the ill-advised drunken beer run in impractical shoes. Ow. Spilling a 30 pack of PBR on the street is embarrassing.

So the Kindle is making it really too easy to purchase crap books. I just tore through a fluffy chick lit mystery book (Janet Evanovich's One for the Money) and already bought the sequel because it was there and it took like a minute to download it. And now I think I've been sucked into a series that is going to turn my brain into mush. I need to figure out how to get Project Gutenberg books onto the Kindle so I can balance the candy books with actual literature.

Robert Reich has called it: We’re in a depression. At this point, I honestly don’t know how the economy is going to right itself. How bad does it have to get before the government stops handing money over to companies and just starts making up jobs for people?

Meanwhile, there’s an interesting piece over at the New Yorker on potential international torture charges for some of the Bushies.

Went to see Glasvegas last night, and they were totally rockin'. I love a good show. And it was fairly prompt! I love getting out of a show at a reasonable hour on a work night. The drummer didn't have a kick drum and stood the entire time.

So thanks to Netflix we've been discovering comedy that we otherwise might not check out. Our latest discovery is The Whitest Kids U'Know. It is killing me with hilarity. I think about this sketch randomly through the day and get the giggles, though I caution that even though the naughty words in it are bleeped for tv, I don't think it's all that safe for work, depending on your work situation:

Because Drew is totally the best husband in the whole world, I now have a Kindle! OMG, so exciting. I usually lug around at least one, sometimes two, books with me at all times, and I can't quite wrap my head around not having to do that any more (or as much, because let's face it, we can't walk into a bookstore without buying something). I do have some philosophical issues with the idea of licensing books and not really owning them, but... technology! Buying books whenever and wherever out of thin air!

Also, I feel like I have now fulfilled a childhood dream of owning a computer book. As kids my brother and I played Inspector Gadget, as children of the 80s did, and I had a big field guide to birds that I used as a fake computer book. My brother always had to be Brain. No one wanted to be Gadget. I was recently thinking about The Net, and how back in the 90s it seemed like the craziest idea ever to order a pizza online. "Pshaw," I said, "I will never be so lazy that I can't pick up a phone and call for a pizza like a normal person." Today I am willing to sacrifice and not get the tastiest local pizza because I just can't be bothered to order from a place that doesn't take online orders. People, we are now living in The Future!

We have a lot of books. I have learned this by studiously boxing mine up and adding to the enormous stack of Drew's books. I wanted to weed my collection more than this, but I just can't part with books easily. That said, I do have a list of books that I'm going to drop off at goodwill or something soon, but I thought I'd post 'em to see if anyone wanted any free books. I'll warn you that for the most part, there's a very good reason why I'm not keeping these books, many of them are terrible.

( list o' books )

I think I have old people dreams

So with Drew in Salem for the night, I have been left to my devices. My devices were productivity. Got a hair cut, did pilates, made a batch of meatballs (because I prefer my food in ball form), and spent over an hour pouring over our taxes. They are needlessly complicated this year. But I did math and now we get money! I intended to do some packing, but time has gotten away from me and I must now spend some time figuring out what book I want to read next.

My race results:

Net time: 31:56
Pace: 10:17

Sweet!

Also, I have a Netflix recommendation: Peep Show might just be the most hilarious show I've seen since Black Books. Watch it!

So this was a busy long weekend. We officially bought a house on Friday, after many headaches and stress. But it is worth it! We got our first Salem parking ticket during our closing.

We've started cleaning/fixing the place up, and exploring the food and drink offerings of Salem. I think this place is going to be our new favorite place ever. Belgian beers! Good vibe! Cheese plates!

And today, thanks to the cajoling of starflow and cosmicserpent, today I ran a 5k! And it was actually fun! Ok, so I did have to break down and do some walking in bits, but I ran more than I thought I would. Yay! What a pleasant surprise, especially considering the terrible night's sleep I got last night because I had 5k-related nightmares all night (yes, I was really anxious and worried about it, even though as Drew pointed out, all I had to do was move for 5 kilometers without stopping, and when you put it that way, it sounds silly to be scared of it).

What the everliving fresh hell is wrong with our bank? I swear it is run by a bunch of morons. We have tried to be as proactive as possible in this whole house buying thing, and every other day it seems like there's a new problem, one that could have easily been averted or solved weeks ago if they had just told us explicitly what they want/need. Add to that the car that burst into flames outside the soon-to-be-new-house. This entire process has sucked so much, I will cry tears of joy when it's over (which will hopefully be Friday, but at this point I wouldn't be surprised if some new assault on our poor nerves doesn't crop up by then). We just want to give people money in exchange for a place to live, why is this so difficult?!?@!

So five years ago I had a problem. A seemingly insurmountable problem. I had run up one of my credit cards to the limit- $12,000. Seriously. Today that balance is now $0. Woooo!

I still have a really small cc that I'm almost done paying off, and will have student loans until I retire, but I am no longer paying off my youthful indiscretions of cigarette cartons, rental cars, clothes, and booze.

Also, if you are looking for something to read on the internet, may I recommend Michael Palin's online New Europe travel book.

Well well. To make up for the crappiness that has been February, today was actually a banner day. Got tickets to see The National in May. We went up to Salem to poke around and get a lay of the land, and while there three marvelous things happened. One: Went to a couple of bookstores with the vague hope of finding a book that I have been hotly anticipating for a year. Since it's not supposed to hit shelves until March 1, I was prepared for disappointment. But lo! One store had it on shelf early. Then we found a cupcakery in Beverly that has amazing cupcakes. Like, better than Lyndell's. And it was supposed to close at 2:00, but somehow was still open when we got there a bit past 3:00. These cupcakes are so good, seriously you guys. And then, on our way back to Somerville, the radio played a brand new My Chemical Romance song (shut up, I love them). Finally, we topped our day with a Metafilter meet-up and the Cinematic Titanic show at the Somerville Theater. Success!

So a long weekend devoted almost entirely to being sniffly on the couch was good incentive to finally watch Season 1 of Mad Men. ( thoughts with spoilers yonder )

The video of Sam the koala drinking water breaks my heart. Sad, hurt koala! The Australian dollar exchange rate is really favorable to our dollar right now, so donating some money to the Aus. Red Cross and the Victoria wildlife rescue is both easy and cheap enough to assuage some social sadness.

So this week I decided to stop going to kung fu. It's been an awesome three years, and I can't believe I actually progressed as far as I have. But when we move in a few months I'd have to give it up anyway, and for the next few months it'll be cheaper and more convenient for me to hit the gym after work, rather than be beholden to a class schedule a couple nights a week. So I've joined up with Boston Sports Club, and am slowly getting back into the gym groove. I'm still a little intimidated by the weight equipment because it's a total dude zone, but I'm hoping it'll be a bit less crowded on the weekend so I can figure out how the weight machines work without looking stupid in front of too many people. You know I'll totally be getting into the ab machine thingy all backwards and upside down.

OMG. OMG. TAPS will be filming for Ghost Hunters in Davis tonight!


I so totally want to meet the TAPS guys.

I love Boston. Standing in a crowd of pedestrians waiting to cross a street this morning, everyone staring at a snarl of traffic caused by someone who apparently forgot how to drive, a couple of dudes start to laugh and one says "what an asshole." The crowd appears to agree.

When I'm really stressed I dream about the bunnies getting loose and being hard to find/catch. Last night involved such a dream, not only did Robocop escape, but Grendel was hitting Beef Wellington on the head with a briefcase. The briefcase was actually Drew's thingy that he keeps his Magic cards in, which is actually pretty proportionally correct for a Grendel-sized briefcase. I find that oddly hilarious.

So yes, I am a wee bit stressed about the house buying stuff (working around lawyers all the time has made me totally paranoid). But also excited!

I just read what might possibly be the worse book ever: The Last of the Red-Hot Vampires. I can't explain why I bought it other than 1)it was on display in the bookstore in Salem, and 2) it promised a nephilim that gets turned into a vampire with sexy results. The thing makes Twilight look like a piece of art.

Wow, I haven't posted anything here in a while.

House hunting is... going. I do not understand why realtors aren't stumbling over themselves to help us- don't they want to make money?? I want my hand held through this whole process, damnit.

Also, I am effin' tired of the snow.

Also, also- I almost choked to death on my own spit today. Classy!

I am posting this meme that's been going around Facebook, because I don't have much else to post. And I would enjoy seeing other peoples' responses.

( meme! )

Cupcake + Obama! My work rules.

Ahhhh! Supernatural scared the ever living crap out of me tonight.

Also, this whole "buying a house" thing has barely started, and I am already stressed. I do not understand why this process has to involve so many people, all of whom want money. And lots of it.

Oooh, Glasvegas is playing the Paradise in March.

Anyone want to see some Scottish rock with me? Tickets are only $15, but it is on a Tuesday night (March 31), which sucks.

Also, The Main Drag (of Rock Band 2 fame!) is playing on Feb. 12 (a Thursday) at TT's. I would love to go to this, but the band doesn't actually go on until Midnight, which is the lamest thing ever. I like them so much that I'd consider taking the day after off or taking a half day to sleep in.

Another show I'd like to see:

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart- Middle East upstairs, Sunday, Feb. 15

We've been watching a lot of Netflix streaming on demand stuff lately, which I am totally loving. Having it come through the xbox to the tv is fantastic. So for those of you who do Netflix, I have some suggestions for you!

First: Jesus Camp. OMG. I just can not understand fundamentalism/evangelicalism at all. Seriously, the stuff in this movie is nigh on child abuse. I've been reading a book with sort of a similar bent, and I'm interested in learning more about the history of this movement, but honestly, it is so crazy cakes to me, I can't get my head around it. First, the frequent use of Jesus' name weirds me out. Second, the emphasis on "being saved" and not on "being a good person" or good works is so incompatible with my 18 years of Catholic schooling, it just does not make sense to me. I mean, I don't ascribe to any religion, but I have some kind of personal belief structure that assumes that trying to be a good person is more important than what you say you believe. Even Catholic school religion classes taught that just because someone didn't believe in Jesus they could still get into heaven (or whatever they believe in instead of heaven...). Fundamentalism just seems so mean and unloving, and I'm not sure what the point of religion is if it doesn't make you happy. Also, if you believe that much in god, wouldn't you think that he/she/it has enough to deal with, that maybe asking god to bless your photocopier and powerpoint slides and all the chairs in a room is really friggin' annoying? Maybe you should save your blessings for things that actually matter? Anyway, it's an interesting documentary, but I spent most of it yelling at the tv.

Second: Michael Palin's (from Monty Python) travel documentaries. Around the World in 80 Days and Pole to Pole. They were filmed in 1989 and 1991, so not only are they interesting in a travel sense, but also interesting in a recent history sense. The 1991 one especially, he goes to the USSR right before it crumbled, and he's in South Africa a few months after apartheid ended. It's all very interesting.

Third: British comedy! The Vicar of Dibley is surprisingly really funny. Not Black Books level of hilarity, because few things could be as funny as Bernard Black, but still, good comedy. Also, Waiting for God is funnier than I'd expected a comedy about an old folks home to be. Finally, Little Britain is funny enough, though it's very hit-or-miss and some of it is not funny at all. But the funny stuff is really funny.

Augh. On my way to kung-fu (where I learned some bad ass sword skills), some doddering old guy who I suspect may not be licensed stopped driving, in the middle of the street, and proceeded to back straight into my car (which was also stopped, and my horn was blaring in full "what are you doing you moron" style). OMG. Who does that?

Happy new year everyone! It's been a while since I've updated, let's see... we did Christmas in Maryland, which involved a super awesome ghost tour of Annapolis. Ghost tours are the best! Saw Joel McHale on New Years Eve, then made it to a very fun party afterwards. The rest of this weekend so far has been extremely lazy, which is a good thing. I'm pushing through my first edit of my crap NaNo story, and incubating an idea for a new story which will hopefully not suck as bad. Drew got me a thingy that will plug into the computer and convert my old tapes and minidiscs to digital, so that will be a project that will take me a while to get through. Grendel is acting very weird, she wasn't eating for a good portion of the day yesterday, but is nibbling a bit today, though not with her usual gusto. She is being a sullen bunny.

2008 was... weird. But it did involve the best vacation ever, and successes in my hobbies, so hey, that's something. Here's to 2009!

Forwarding dating this so I can keep track of the books I read this year. Because I am a nerd!

( Books I've read this year )

I knew there was a good reason to keep my zipcar membership! I need to pick up laundry and hit the grocery store today, but I don't want to lose my parking spot, considering the likelihood that they'll call a snow emergency for tomorrow. Solution: zipcar! And it's a car parked at gas station, so it should be relatively shoveled out when I get there. Sweet.

The snow filled streets were so quiet and creepy last night, it was like walking in a Steven King book. But we ventured out, and there was partying, and it was lots of fun. I am, however, totally done with winter already. And I'm still stressed about Christmas, I have a list of presents I need to get, but I think the bulk of that will be taken care of with gift cards I can get at the grocery store or CVS.

Note to self: when skin meets jagged edge of tin can top with enough force, you will lose a frightful amount of blood and need stitches. My evening got started last night with a trip to the emergency room! I think I've officially moved past "clumsy" into "hazardous to my own health."

Also: Season 1 of The State is on iTunes! Now they just need to get season 3 up some time so I can see L'il Brown Dog Food.

We're seeing Stella tonight, and I am excited for some comedy.

So the 4 week Treasury bond interest is at 0%? That is crazy.

In less important news, but amusingly dramatic shenanigans: Billy Corgan has officially gone off the deep end. I've been following news of the disastrous SP tour, and according to this recent interview, he's taking his toys and going home with a big middle finger thrust up.

( snippet of crazy )

It's true that the way a lot of people listen to music has changed since the advent of mp3 players, I won't deny that. But to think that there's no place for an album anymore is a convenient cop out when the truth is it appears that the Pumpkins aren't capable of producing a cohesive, strong album anymore. Sure, there's a lot of crap out there, and plenty of people listen to a lot of terrible music, and lots of people listen to only singles they hear on the radio. That's always been the case. It was the case in the 90s, it will always be the case. Not everyone cares about music that much. But to think that no one cares about albums at all any more is foolish. Just because the last Pumpkins album received a tepid reception at best doesn't mean that everyone is stupid for not recognizing its inherent genius, it means the album itself is flawed.

So, NaNoWriMo. I kind of can't believe I did it. 52,555 words, and I have a complete first draft manuscript, beginning to end, with actual plot and characters that are probably too Mary Sue, but they do stuff and say things, and it actually resembles a novel. Luckily for me, average word counts for young adult novels fall into the 40K-60K range. I think I have major problems with my tenses, a bunch of historical inaccuracies that need to be corrected, and some issues with pacing in the middle, but I'm going to let it rest for a few weeks, do some more historical research in the meantime, and then go back to it for a rewrite once I've had a break. After a rewrite I may tap a few people to read it for more editing help.

I grew to really enjoy the structure of writing every day, and I'd like to continue that habit somewhat, though I don't think I can sustain the every day thing without a concrete deadline forcing me to discipline myself. But it's a really nice feeling to know that with some determination, it's possible to pull this crazy thing off. I never got the "my characters talk to me in my head!" thing that real-life authors tend to say happens to them, but I did experience the magic of "just start writing and something will happen" a few times, and I have to say, that was a huge rush. There were also lots of moments of despair and boredom and feeling like I would never slog through to the end.

Ok, guys, srsly. The My Chemical Romance website is hilarious. They are blogging and twittering and posting photos, and... I love this band.

I know I can't be the only one who will enjoy this... ahem... visionofblue and eclecticavatar