I only take advice from 80s songs.

The lovely PA at the walk-in clinic has diagnosed my intermittent-but-getting-worse thumb/wrist pain as tendinitis. Probably it's a workplace injury. As a result I'm wearing a splint for two weeks, and icing my wrist four times a day (though I keep forgetting that part).

Surprisingly painful: folding laundry. As a result my clean laundry is just sort of piled everywhere. I really want this injury to heal, though, because it's starting to interfere with my life and I don't want to end up with arthritis.

I swear, it's always something with me. I feel like I'm never going to be healthy again. I wanted to start doing yoga again, but until my wrist stops hurting, that's not really an option.

There's also a job open at Bryn Mawr for which I am really qualified. But do I want to work in the suburbs? I could always live in Philly and commute. Best of both worlds?

It can't hurt to apply, I guess. They probably won't call. I just want to keep my opinions open wrt making the transition from public to academic libraries. They certainly don't make it easy.

(If this were a tumblr post you could just blacklist my job hunting tag. Benefits of Tumblr!)

It occurs to me that I haven't posted here in awhile. But you know how the longer you go without posting, the harder it is to get back into it? That's why I've been sitting here with this window open for like two hours, staring at a blank box and thinking about how I don't actually have anything to say.

Of course there's a lot to say, starting with I'm sorry that I haven't been keeping up with my friends lists, so I don't know what's going on with all of you. I'm going to try to get back into the habit. Most of my time lately has been taken up with work and also job hunting. I've got a few feelers out about open positions in the greater NY metro area at the moment, though I'm not holding my breath about any of them. Still, if you feel like crossing your fingers for me, I could use the good vibes.

It's funny, when you make a decision to make a major change, suddenly it becomes really difficult to wait for that change to happen. I can't just pick up and go like I used to when I was younger, but I'm ready to move on with my life *now* and I just need a job in order to do it. Of course I have my house here to deal with and everything that goes along with that, but you know. Details. :handwave:

Somehow these things just work out.

You can still find me on Tumblr, though it looks like I'm there a lot more than I am, because I generally just load up my queue in the morning and let Tumblr do the posting for me until the end of the work day. I started another fic last week and wrote 5000 words before I lost interest. Oops. I should be focusing on original stuff anyway. Just another part of my plan to move forward with my life.

A new three-part competition series on PBS featuring Very Dramatic high school theater geeks? YES PLEASE.

Preview at the link. It starts this Sunday at 8:00 EST. I'm pretty excited.

So as it turns out, I am going to have surgery after all. The last week in October will see me in the hospital for a sinuplasty, septoplasty, and a button for my perforation. All of which means that I will be in a lot of pain for about a week. Fun! My surgeon's pretty sure that if I don't do it I'm going to keep having severe nosebleeds, though, and that's a really embarrassing way to die, so I'd just as soon get it fixed.

And that's pretty much all I know. Writing continues to be kind of pathetic, but I'm hoping to get my head screwed back on straight here shortly. Fingers crossed! My outlook is surprisingly better today than it has been in a while, in spite of a morning of bad news at the surgeon's office, so that's something. I still feel terrible, but you can't have everything, right?

I keep thinking about posting, but then I get tired from the thought and wander off to do something else. I also keep waiting to be less tired all the time, but so far that hasn't happened. It's annoying, frankly.

On Tuesday I took my twelve-year-old cat* to the vet and learned that she has arthritis in her front shoulders, which is causing her to have some trouble jumping. She's never been much of a jumper to begin with, frankly, but getting down is causing her more stumbles these days. So they gave me some samples of glucosamine and suggested I consider buying her some stairs to get up on my bed, since it's pretty tall and therefore causes the biggest problem, since that's where she spends most of her day.

So far she has flat refused to eat any food with glucosamine mixed in, regardless of flavor, and she is acting as though the stairs have personally offended her. OF COURSE.

The other cat, who is 5, will eat anything, and therefore will likely never have joint problems, because she's getting a healthy dose of glucosamine every day when she eats the food Annie turns her squashy little nose up at.

This is what my life has become: Regular arguments with my elderly cat about how much better her life would be if she'd just use the stairs. The young cat, at least, enjoys hiding under them. I think she figures she's safe from the vacuum there.

Usually my office slows down during the summer, but this year that hasn't really happened until this week. Partly that's probably because I've been sick so much, so I've been playing catch-up for weeks and I'm finally caught up. School starts again in a week or so, I think, and once that happens we'll pick up again. But for now things are pretty boring around here, and all of us are sort of scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to find things to do.

One would think this situation would translate into tons of fiction writing by yours truly, but of course that is not the case. Mostly I've been spinning my wheels and poking around the internet looking for ways to avoid being a productive human being. Sadly, the internet is pretty quiet these days too, so I've pretty much finished it at this point. When I resort to celebrity gossip to fill my day, you know I've reached the bottom of the barrel.

I'd post some kind of prompt meme, but a) no one's reading LJ anymore, and b) it's not like I can write anything** anyway.

I am failing at convincing myself not to go buy more coffee, even though I know I shouldn't spend the money. Sometimes it's the only interesting thing about my day.

Plans to move continue apace, despite the fact that a) I can't afford it, b) I probably won't be able to sell my house, and c) I probably won't be able to find a job when I get there. But hey, that's all details. They have a way of working themselves out.
_________________________________________________
* In this picture she is demonstrating that she can, in fact, use stairs, whether or not she chooses to.
** I did finish some Glee fic last night, but it's so boring I don't even want to look at it long enough to proofread, so I doubt anyone else will want to read it.

Years ago I bought a copy of this book for two dollars at a church bazaar:



Partly I bought it because it was being sold at a church rummage sale, and that's never not funny. But I also bought it because it was published in 1971, which means it is quaint and has fantastic pictures and very old-fashioned drink recipes. Yesterday it resurfaced while my mom and I were going through my belongings and talking about a plan of attack for downsizing my life in order to fit into an NYC apartment in a couple years, and now I'm having fantasies of throwing ridiculous, old-fashioned cocktail parties* and serving nothing but drinks from that book. Also, I own crystal whiskey glasses (and matching pitcher) so I feel I should finally put them to good use.

Anyway, there's a section in the book that talks about stocking your home bar, including the number of bottles of liquor you should have in order to accommodate the tastes of most guests. After listing about 20 different bottles of liquor, including four kinds of whiskey, the author tells us that our total cost should be about $100. Oh, 1971. How much simpler** life was then.

I can't tell you how much more pleasant my work day has been since I made the decision to leave and put a deadline on it. It's amazing what having a concrete plan can do for your outlook, it really is.*** The hardest part now is not getting ahead of myself. As much as I would love to pack up and hit the road tomorrow, that is not going to happen. But still. Knowing it will happen and within a couple years makes it much easier to deal with the day-to-day nonsense.

I'm feeling lighter than I have in ages, which is how I know this is the right decision for me.
___________________________________
* I also have a cookbook put together by the staff of the library where I currently work, populated by some of the grossest, most Southern recipes I've ever seen, and I'm not above throwing 'let's mock the southerners via artery-clogging hors d'oeuvres' parties, either.
** And less expensive!
*** I don't think I even realized how very unhappy I've been the last couple years. That's sad.

( In which I ramble some more about RL and writing stuff. )

tl;dr version of this post: I have kind of a lot of irons in the fire right now, none of them fannish. Sorry! In a way it's sort of frustrating, but in another way it's a good feeling to be working toward something. I've felt like I'm just treading water for the past couple years, and that's made me really unhappy. Having a plan, however nebulous, feels a lot better.

I did not write a single word today, a fact which is made all the more tragic by the fact that I left work at noon. Oh, wait, that's totally a lie. I wrote some Criminal Minds fic but it's awful and not finished and I can't even bear to revisit it right now, so it'll just have to wait until tomorrow.

It's possible I'm sliding into a little writer's block crisis. Which should come as a surprise to no one, because it's November, and November is OMG TOO MUCH PRESSURE, even though I totally didn't commit to Nano in any real way this year.

Anyway. I left work at noon so I could go to the dentist and get my old, damaged crown replaced with a temporary crown. I think I actually fell asleep once or twice while they were working, which should be impossible, considering how uncomfortable it is to hold your mouth open that wide for that long (I'd make a blow job joke, but seriously, you already made one in your head) but really it just tells you how sleep deprived I am. So maybe the not writing anything decent today thing shouldn't come as a surprise.

After my dentist visit I finally drove to the county recycling center and dropped off a couple old laptops that gave up the ghost ages ago. Which was fine, no big deal, until I stepped into the little trailer where they take computer parts and there was a guy in there sort of leering at me. I mean, he was nice and all, but he was throwing off a vibe for sure. Then the other guy (the one who's in charge of the household waste dumpsters) wandered in while I was getting a receipt so my brother-in-law wouldn't yell at me during tax season, and for a moment it turned into this, like, scene from Criminal Minds or something.

Nothing happened and they were both perfectly nice [read: creepy-nice and too friendly]. It was just a really strange moment. But it's the first time I've felt vulnerable because of my sex in awhile, and it was kind of weird. And also a reminder that sometimes it's okay not to get a receipt.

Then I mentioned having just come from the dentist, because my whole jaw was numb so I was kind of slurring like I'd been drinking, and he said, and I quote, "I hope they didn't have to pull [your tooth]." And then it just turned into a hillbilly tragicomedy and I got the hell out of there.

( Oh, hey, Criminal Minds question for anyone who watched tonight. )

So that was my day. Sorry about the lack of fic. I thought about fic. Mainly I thought about how much I have ruined my Criminal Minds fic (and it had such promise for the first 15,000 words!) and how I can work Kurt topping into the futurefic series. And trying to talk myself out of starting another Kurt/Puck fic unrelated to any of my current projects which spins off from last night's episode. Because I don't already have enough to do.

Maybe I'll write something tomorrow, though I am going to see Social Network, so I'm not guaranteeing anything.

I realize I post here eleventy billion times a day lately, but mostly it feels like I'm not posting at all, because generally all I post is fic. I don't talk about much of anything lately, is what I'm saying. Not that there's much to talk about, since most of my free time lately is spent -- you guessed it -- obsessively writing fic.

I just finished a Finn-centric piece that I kind of want to draw hearts around. I will post that just as soon as I finish typo-hunting. Or maybe after I finish writing the next part. I realize I am being kind of weird about this series. I can't seem to help myself.

RL news: Today is my open house, which starts in two hours, which means I have to vacate the premises here shortly. I have baked cookies for the occasion, and in between writing fic* I have cleaned my already fairly clean house, seeing as I did a full cleaning just this past Wednesday evening.

So that's what's going on with me. Oh! Last night I fixed my hair, which my former hairdresser tried to destroy on Friday. I am once again back to my usual dark brown and I feel MUCH better. I was going to try to live with the color for awhile, but when I got up and looked in the mirror yesterday morning I wanted to cry, so I decided to use a semi-permanent non-ammonia dye and cover the awfulness without further damaging** my hair. It looks so much better, you guys.

Nano is almost upon us! I am obsessively trying to finish writing everything that's rattling around in my head so I will have a clean slate to focus on my novel*** during November.

Speaking of fic writing, does anyone know if they're planning to run another au_bigbang next year? Because I might have come up with a Kurt/Puck AU**** which I am kind of in love with, and I need an excuse to write it.

PS: I have had "Blue Skies" stuck in my head since yesterday, for what are likely obvious reasons. Problem: I don't seem to have this song on my computer anywhere! I probably have a couple versions on CD, but my hard copy music collection currently resides in my sister's garage. Anyone have a favorite version they would care to share?
__________________________________________
* This is why I have so much time for fic-writing lately; my house is always clean because I'm not allowed to let it get dirty.
** I also did a homemade hot oil treatment and a bunch of deep conditioning, which has helped my texture quite a bit.
*** Oh, stop laughing. I KNOW, okay?
**** At least my chances of being claimed would be better with that pairing, right? Right??

Last night I had to stay downtown for a work function which started an hour and a half after the library closed, so I had dinner beforehand with Anna Leah and ophelias_heart. It was really fun and comfortable and there was too much wine, of course. At the event we had to go to I talked too loud and said the words 'fan fiction' approximately 135,006 times and was generally more of myself around other coworkers than I usually allow myself to be.

(Of course in the light of day I feel a little self-conscious about it, which is probably a surprise to no one, because you guys know what a freak I am about these things. I might have also inadvertently insulted Bess' social activity planning skills, and I know we definitely made her jealous, because she's an even bigger freak than me.)

Anyway, I friended someone from work on LJ last night! That's never happened before! It's really nice to talk to someone in RL about fannish things, ngl, and bless Anna Leah, she puts up with a lot of nonsense (like the threesome conversation) without even blinking, but she probably doesn't know what the hell I'm talking about half the time.

So that was fun, even though I expected the thing we had to go to to be pretty lame and boring.

In other news, I have ~600 words of Kurt/Puck fic and no obligations this weekend. Well, I have to work out. And I might have to help my sister with a sewing project. And I should mow the lawn. And clean the bathrooms. And vacuum. But other than that, no obligations whatsoever!

I promise not to spend all of my free time uploading ancient fic to AO3 and ignoring the fic I should be writing. Though I have started uploading some of my ancient BWOC fic that disappeared off the internet forever ago. Ordinary Boy is far too big for a single post (nearly 160,000 words! WTF) so I had to do it in chapters. That took forever. I'm scared to re-read any of it because I know the writing is going to make me cringe. I don't even remember what happens in that story!

ETA: During one of my epic fandom-related babbles last night, I somehow got on the subject of Doctor Who, which led to the mention of Mickey/Jake. (I think it's because I uploaded my sad handful of scandalously PG-rated Mickey/Jake fics to AO3 the other day.) And now I am wondering, has no one really ever written the epic fix-it fic where Jake finds a way back through the rift to bring Mickey home? Because FFS, people. Somebody needs to write that.