I. Ok, I know everyone got upset that Jake Gyllenhall would be playing the guy from Prince of Persia (whose name I don't actually know) being that he's white... But GUYS. I'm totally reserving judgment until the movie comes out. Because holy crap. That trailer looks amazing.

II. I am behiiiiiiind on my word count. Not because I'm running out of steam in writing (which is what would usually happen) but because life gets in the way. While it's a good thing that I'm really in the swing of things writing wise, I want to actually do this thing! Life, why are you so hard.

8122 / 50000 words. 16% done!

III. I wanna read my book. But I want to write too. Why are those two things mostly impossible to do at the same time?

I'm writing again. This is a personal victory for me. I should get drunk and celebrate.

Or, y'know, write some more.

+++

6003 / 50000 words. 12% done!

I scrapped the first 6 days for the month, and then recalculated my daily word count for 24 days and 50,000 words. Appx. 2084 words a day. So far, I'm doing grand.

ETA: P.S. That's yesterday's word count. I'm not done with today.

I had my wallet stolen last night. They took mine and a friend's, but not either of our iPods, her bottle of Valium or her phone. So here's hoping that the none-too-intelligent thieves (who took nothing of any real value, except my passport, which I'll deal with) will dump the wallets when they realize that they only got $21. My wallet, at least, has plenty of contact information in it.

Interestingly, the things I am most upset about losing are the things with sentimental value. My passport will be a bitch to replace, yes, but it has the stamps from when I went to England with my dad to see The Oysterband. And I've had that library card since I was three. That's the thing I'm most upset about losing.

And the $20. But y'know.

I promised pictures from Halloween, and this time I actually made pictures happen. Thus, I present to you: ( Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn )

Guys, I've gone crazy. Round the bend. Off the deep end. Past the point of no return.

I'm going to really try NaNoWriMo this year.

Now either, my new-found school work ethic will allow me to succeed this year, or the work of school will drown me and I will completely forget that I ever had dreams of writing novels.

So hoping for the former.

+++

Oh, P.S. For the next month and a half my boyfriend and I are the same age. Happy birthday, baby. ♥

ETA: P.P.S. Also. There's this contest over here at fangs_fur_fey which could win you a Kindle. The chances might be small, but it's a Kindle. So it's totally worth trying.

It snowed today. And then it kept snowing. I think it has stopped now, but I don't trust it to stay stopped. Somehow I'm always expecting to suddenly be knee deep in snow.

My Halloween costume is going to be amazing. I just wanted to share that. (I swear, this year, there will be pictures.)

Also, I'm now looking for a cheap used car. My aunt and uncle's car would cost too much to get in working order once we'd already spent a ton of money getting it here. So I'm poking around. (Yay Craigslist?) If anyone knows someone who's selling a good used car for cheap (and relatively close to me, if possible) you should let me know. :D

(I want some new icons and I totally don't know of what or really have time for it. Booooo.)

My boyfriend wrote me a love letter. Possibly the sweetest things he's ever done. (Unsolicited. XD)

I have loves for him. ♥

I, uh, might have swine flu. (Or H1N1 or whatever.) My boyfriend was diagnosed as a "might" and he and I are experiencing the same symptoms. So... yeah. All I can do is treat the symptoms and try not to infect everyone else.

Hopefully, I'll kick this thing soon. I have things to do this week.

Totally getting a car. Even better... a FREE car.

(Car is being donated to my pathetic "can't get to work without begging rides off friends" cause by my aunt and uncle. And also because they are getting a new second car, and thus can get rid of their old second car.)

Still! Yay car!

...now we only have to figure out how to get it here from Brooklyn...

4th Pirates of the Caribbean movie news!! Coming summer 2011, Pirate's of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

I haven't even read the Tim Powers book and I still think this is pretty awesome. :D

GUYS.

GREEK. IT WILL KILL ME AND EAT MY SOUL.

If I had known I'd be coming here, I'd have taken Latin and Greek at St. Ann's. Or at least Greek and French (since those are the languages I need here). Luckily, I have three years of French from St. Ann's to supplement Jr. and Sr. year here. I would so not be looking forward to having French kick my ass as much as Greek is now.

Still, I think the fact that my Greek teacher is awesome and fun is the only thing that makes me do even semi ok in this class. Because I want him to like me and not hate me because I suck at Greek. (And also, I want to play with his pet kitties, and he might not let me do that if I start failing?)

Guys, it's weird but oddly comforting to be a college student again after so long. First week was awesome, and highly manageable (so I probably won't die when the work load increases) and that makes me happy.

We're almost through The Iliad. We're reading Aristotle in Lab, going through Euclid's propositions and reproving them in Math, and learning ancient Greek (holy crap is that one hard).

In case you wanted to know what I've been up to. :D

P.S. I'm older than some of the people in grades above me. It's weird.

Oh man. And I thought NaNoWriMo was scary: 3 Day Novel

You know, I've been following the SF/F blow up pretty actively. I'm... well, not surprised, but frankly amazed and gladdened to see not just the readers but the writers of SF/F get into these debates, and become a community.

For those wondering, the part that I've been following, started with the now deleted diatribe against "homosex" by John C. Wright. johncwright has since deleted the post, but it was rather... opinionated. It was harsh. The quote I remember best went something like, "I [John C. Wright] am equating homosexuality with bestiality, necrophilia, pederasty, and other sexual neuroses." There were other things in that list, but I can't remember them all.

ETA: For those really interested, the deleted post was cached. It is not necessary to read this in order to get my post, but if you want to see, feel free. Also, apparently, the quote I remembered is from somewhere in the comments, and not included in the cache.

Hal Duncan wrote an open letter to John C. Wright which is long, but every word of it is a piece of brilliance. Elizabeth Bear weighed in, too, insofar as she says that she agrees with Mr. Duncan. So far, though, yuki_onna (author Cat Valente) has had the best response.

From yuki_onna:

"It's a pretty simple equation, really. Limited lifespan divided by number of books it's possible to consume due to vagaries of money and mortality equals I am not buying your books if you behave like a fuckmuppet in public."

(As an aside, "fuckmuppet" is my new favorite curse word.)

"Guys, learn this rule. Love it. Embrace it.

Every time you bloviate offensively on the internet, a reader swears off your work for life.

It is so easy to lose readers. A cranky day at a con will do it. A single bad book will do it. Insulting an entire swath of readers, calling them evil and immoral, or shouting their concerns down and swearing at them? Especially when SFF readership has rather a lot of the sort of readers you're likely to insult with this kind of nonsense? Will do it so incredibly efficiently it'll make Bookscan spin. Especially if you happen to be a midlist or indie writer, and can't weather decreased sales with a shrug and a grin."

(I have added her to my friends.)

P.S. He seems to be sorry. Though, uh, apparently he had to talk to angels in order to achieve that.

P.P.S. If anyone has any questions about what happened/is happen, feel free to ask. I shall try to answer as best I can.

P.P.P.S. John C. Wright and his wife are both Johnnies (alums of my soon-to-be school). I was slightly sickened upon learning of this.

If mice had an Armageddon story, it would be about The Big Noise (the vacuum), which sucked away all their food and homes, leaving their world scarred with deadly blights (mousetraps) and monsters (cats and other rodent hunters), either killing them or forcing them to flee their home and find a new place to live.

...and yet, I feel zero qualms about cleaning out this room. Mice begone!

Home again, home again.

Monday morning saw me and my father pulling out of South Orange, NJ and onto the highway headed west. Four days in a car later, and I'm back in Santa Fe, NM. It's weird to be here. And I miss my boyfriend. I won't see him until we move into our dorms–26 days and counting.

Plans for the rest of the summer (and into the school year) are beginning to be finalized. The newest–and most relevant–change is that I'll be leaving for Santa Fe a whole month earlier than originally planned: the plan now is to leave on the 26th, about two weeks from now.

For those on east coast, I'll be busy that whole weekend (Saturday I'm planning on working my last day at the yarn store, and then leaving early Sunday), but there's still some time for farewells and all that. For those in Santa Fe (which might be all of one (I'm looking at you blondebebop)), I'll probably be there by August 2-4. And then I'll be there for the long haul. Plans, I'm sure, can be made.

This is a little sooner than planned, yes, but I'm kind of looking forward to having some extra time out there. I'm not looking forward to leaving my boyfriend behind–but it's only a month. And I will have things like getting my drivers license to distract me.

Stolen from tussah:

Think America's got talent?
Think Britain's got talent?

No, my friends.
Україна має талант. (Ukraine's got talent.)

There's a stray cat in the neighborhood. Sometimes, at night, I can hear it meowing. I always try looking out the window for it, but I've never seen it. (Not at night. Sometimes I see it race across the road during the day.)

Alas, telling my boyfriend to "go get it and bring it back for me," doesn't seem to work.

I have no kitty icons. I am determined to fix this.

One year ago today, my boyfriend walked into my life. It's been a wonderful year.

♥

For Star Trek and fashion fans alike: Star Trek corset!

I have only just now noticed that a lot of fanfiction seems to be follow a very particular format:

"Let's explain the circumstances under which we're going to have sex.

Sex. Sometimes a lot of it.

The end."

This seems particularly odd to me, perhaps because I have actually written fanfiction, and yup, that was pretty much the format.

It happened about a week ago, but my puppy finally passed. She was in pain and had stopped eating or getting up and moving, so my parents called the mobile vet who gave her some shots and she went quietly to sleep. They buried her on our land out there, said a little prayer for her.

I'm glad that I got to see her before she passed, and that they eased her passing when it finally came time.

R.I.P Arctic. I'll miss you.

Saw Star Trek today.

Like so many other people, after seeing it the first time, I already want to go see it again.

Every once in a while I hear a song and I think, "Wow, I'd love to base a story on this!" About half the time this thought is cut short by the realization of, "Oh wait, this song is based on a story."

*facepalm*

"Social networking is kinda tired. I wish my generation went out on dates, and called each other, and wrote phone numbers on paper, and wondered where someone else was every once in a while." - my boyfriend

It astounds me sometimes, that even with all the ways we have of contacting each other or keeping up with each other–instant messaging, facebook, LJ and other sites like it, cell phones and text messaging, twitter–sometimes we still lose the people we try hardest to hang on to.

Also, I miss writing letters.

My alarm clock is usually set for 9am or 9:20am. I keep waking up at 7am. This morning it was closer to 6am.

...maybe I start going to sleep later?

I know some of you on my flist have tattoos. So instead of randomly searching google, I thought I'd ask you all: About how much does it cost to get a tattoo? Plain black (probably solid, not just an outline), small enough that it would fit on a business card, but probably not on a quarter.

Today I got a job at a yarn store. I already feel the urge to make a yarn/knitting blog. However will I get through working there without actually making one?

On the other hand, I might end up helping them update their blog/website, so... maybe that'll take the edge off?

Man, people seem to be migrating over to Dreamwidth. Does anyone have a code???

Here are the trials and tribulations of my travels.

See, the thing is, I actually like being places. Not necessarily new places–after all, I went home–but I like being there. It's something new for the moment. Someplace that I might not have been originally planning on being. And I like that. It's exciting.

But when it comes right down to it, I have traveling. (By plane.) The process is excruciating. Added to the already tiresome act of sitting still in an uncomfortable seat for x-number of hours, our government now makes us add 2 hours of time to the beginning of the process (well, they suggest 2 hours), plus however much time it takes to actually get to the airport. A 7am flight means waking up at approximately 4am. Yike!

I can usually deal with all this, though. I've gotten pretty good at the security screening. Fast. Wear certain types of shoes (easy to slip on and off), laptop has to come out of the bag, no liquids, take everything but clothing off your body and stuff it into your carry on. It becomes streamlined by the people who want things to go faster.

But there is absolutely nothing a person can do about TORNADOS.

Yes, you read that right. On Friday I flew out of Albaquerque, NM en route to Atlanta, GA where I would get on another plane that would take me to Newark, NJ. However, there was a tornado watch in Atlanta (or at least, that's what we all heard). The winds were high enough that every plane that was suppose to fly into Atlanta got rerouted. Eventually, nothing was going in to or out of Atlanta. Until 10pm. But not my flight. No, that was canceled. I got stuck in Charleston, SC for the night.

Oh, I got home. And the airlines are obligated to put you in a hotel for free if you get stuck somewhere. And the hotel was nice.

But I still had to get up at 4:30 for that 7am flight.

My puppy just laid down and put her head in my lap.

It was impossibly cute.

I cannot tell you how happy I am that I was traveling on April 1st, and thus cut off from the rest of the world.

Seriously. April Fool's is my least favorite "holiday" ever.

Dudes.

I got a Twitter.

I was absolutely going to make a post before this, but in the time since my last post I have gone to Santa Fe, spent three days there with my dog, and then flown back east again. Additionally, Wed. afternoon I'll get on a plane again, and head back out there for twice as much time.

I'm looking forward to the second trip more than the first, not because of the extended period of time, but because my mother will be back home too, and also because I will be attending an open house for accepted students at my college-to-be.

Also, I will learn to knit socks.

I'm going home on Sunday to take care of my puppy. Just for a week. Then I'm going back again to Santa Fe for an open house for accepted students at St. John's. I shall be quite the jet setter.

I've been scarce online recently, but I'll be even scarcer for the next few weeks.

She's holding on, guys! She's holding on.

Yesterday my mother noticed that my 9 year old puppy, Arctic, was acting a little listless and "not quite right." They took her to the vet, and found several tumors around her heart and lungs. Apparently there's also some blood in her chest cavity. I'm not entirely sure on all the medical details, but she's not doing well. They're not expecting her to recover.

Since she's not in pain, my parents want to keep her on our land (in Santa Fe) until she passes.

I haven't seen her since October.