there will be a fish

Has it really been almost four months since I last posted? Yikes.

Okay, The Princess Bride Life of Lindsey, The Good Parts Version:

1. Acquired new (non-permanent, i.e. for five months) job in January; left the food service industry behind for good.
2. Discovered the joys of an 8-to-5 lifestyle, complete with weekends, nights off, paid vacation time, health insurance, and bus commuting.
3. Got to experience the Wendy Davis filibuster from the inside.
4. Despaired of my state's politicians.
5. Job which was expected to last through May extended through June, and then through August.
6. Started practicing yoga on a regular basis. Have now become that person who goes as often as possible and talks about how great it is to anyone who will listen.
7. Found a psychiatrist, started taking sertraline (aka Zoloft) for "generalized anxiety disorder" and "major depressive affective disorder, recurrent episode, in partial or unspecified remission" (whoo, official diagnoses), and acquired a therapist. Discovered that it's a lot easier to wake up at 6am now, among other things.
8. Job which was originally expected to end three months earlier instead offers me a permanent position, a promotion, a raise, and minions. My granny is possibly even more delighted than I am.
9. Shopping spree ensues. (I have these boots and no regrets. They make me feel like a Star Trek reboot crew member.)
10. Planning for double half-birthday party with my twin sister which looms large next weekend.

That covers the big stuff, I guess. Today, I wrote 1000 words on the epic Ethan/Brandt MI4 fic that Katie and I have already written almost 15,000 words on but has been languishing away in google docs. I'm recovering from my first SRS BZNS yoga class, because I reached a point of fitness where I feel comfortable leveling up like that, and I was poking/helping Katie until she got traction on her POI Regency AU a little while ago. And I have tomorrow off (four-day weekend!), so I think I'm going to eat another fudgesicle and stay up late writing spy shenanigans.

Wow, have I really not posted since July? ...Oops.

Let's see, what's been going on. I went on a long lovely trip to New England at the end of July/beginning of August, and got to see tons of family and old friends and hang out with fangirls in Boston and New York. I really needed that trip, damn. Then there was lots and lots of visiting family here -- my aunt and uncle, and my fabulous older sister. And I moved! Now I am renting with my sister, and we have an adorable little house that will totally host some parties soon, although I am really done with unpacking and cleaning already. I've been working a lot, because traveling and moving are both expensive, and unfortunately the summer busy season just slowed way down.

How about a meme? Taken from celli:

Comment and I will ...

1. Tell you why I friended you. If I remember.
2. Associate you with something.
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.
5. Associate you with a character/pairing.
6. Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
7. Tell you my favourite userpic of yours.
8. Tell you that you must post this in your own journal.

You know what sucks? When you get done with work at 2:30am (12 hours after you started being on your feet non-stop) and start doing your checkout and start realizing that somewhere, something's gone terribly wrong. As far as we could tell, it was nothing I did, and I'm pretty sure I know who fucked it up, but I walked out with NINE DOLLARS in cash tips after a VERY busy night, knowing I made more than that in tip off my last tab alone, and I really was having trouble not just bursting into tears. I'll probably get some of it back once our manager sorts things out, but a lot of I just won't, because there's not going to be a way to account for it.

So I'm going to go make myself a drink and take a shower and eat birthday cake (courtesy of my dad turning 61) for dinner.

And also do a meme:

1. Go to page 77 (or 7th) of your current ms
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines – sentences or paragraphs – and post them as they’re written. No cheating.

From mine and Katie's Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol fic, which is at almost 12k words, thanks to being largely fueled by our frustration with the fandom to provide lots of clever spy shenanigans or awesome team interactions. So we're writing our own.

"[...] .But, it’s just-- Ethan was a big part of why I became a field agent in the first place. After the thing in Shanghai with Julia, I just kept thinking, how what I was doing wasn’t just on the computer or in the lab, that it was people’s lives, and I’d known that before but it hadn’t been real like that, you know?”

Will nodded, thinking about the first time he’d run up against it, the feeling of living something he’d only read reports about before. He’d read the report on Shanghai, as well as Ethan’s personal statements about Benji’s “invaluable assistance and integrity” in an operation that neutralized a highly-placed traitor and saved an innocent civilian life.

“I didn’t know that was why you started training for the field,” he said.

“Well, basically. I hadn’t thought about it before then. [...]"

I'm kind of sad this missed the best parts of this conversation, and instead hits the exposition paragraph I am plan to fix, but damn is it fun writing Benji dialogue. ♥

1. I wrote two stories! There was the Sherlock Holmes (/Due South/Numb3rs/House/Psych/Castle) fic The Sincerest Form of Flattery back in September, and then I wrote Life fic for Yuletide: Taking The Stairs, which has received many lovely comments that stroke my ego. I also wrote a smattering of Twitterfic in February for a whole bunch of fandoms.

Speaking of Yuletide, I also beta'd my sister's Life fic, Precession, which is excellent (and hilariously the only other Life fic to come out of Yuletide other than mine). I also received two gifts: In Uniform (B13) by Val Mora, and A Madcap Proposal (Lost In Austen) by 7iris, both of which are wonderful and make me super happy.

( other things )

...I guess that's it. This year felt like it went by pretty fast, or at least uneventfully. 2011 seems to have been The Year of Mediocrity for me. I'm not particularly happy, but life isn't awful. I'm just sort of drifting, is all.

I think I might take a break from the internet for a while, just FYI. We'll see.

While discussing why I'm sure my interview went fine and people will want to hire me, really:

Me: *blah blah nunchuck skills* ...and I have a great smile. Surely that helps.
Katie: And you have a smashing set of tits!
Me: ...um. Thanks?
K: ...I was listening to "The USS Make Shit Up" earlier! Don't look at me like that!

And then she proceeded to play it for me, because she is a horrible person who never shared this bit of Star Trek hilarity with me. But I am not a horrible person! And so I share with you all: The USS Make Shit Up by Voltaire

Hee.

Guess who has two thumbs and has to be at work from 3:30am until 2pm tomorrow?

...yeah.

Hey guys, you want to know how much of a nerd I am? When ( spoilery things that happened on White Collar )

I remember doing thesis research and reading about the props people for Thunderball getting a call from like, the CIA, asking "So how long does it really work for?" And the props department's all "Uh, as long as you can hold your breath?" CIA: "So...how long?" Props: "*headdesk*"

Man, that was a fun paper.

( and some more White Collar spoilers )

And then we watched the Southland episode (taped on a real-life VCR, because we're old school like that). And then Katie and I decided that we should watch all the rest of the seven aired episodes, so we did. I think this makes this my third full rewatch? Not counting the good-parts rewatches. I really really love this show. *hands*

In other news, I kinda signed on with a bartending/event waitstaff temp agency today! Orientation is tomorrow. YAY MONEYMAKING OPPORTUNITIES. \o/