Talking Soup

Watchmen.

Holy shit, guys.

I finally read it, yeah, yeah, in anticipation of the movie, I know. Bandwagoner here. In any case, regardless of the movie, I'm glad I read it because it is a damn fine example of a comic book, and at the same time is a damn fine piece of literature. And I mean that quite literally. The amount of thought and detail that went into it, the content, the characters, it deserves the title of "literature."

I'm still not sure what I think about the ending, but...well, I won't go into that.

Apparently the movie makes a few changes, probably the most notable of which is that there are no squid bombs. Which makes sense, honestly. UNEXPECTED CTHULHU BOMB WAS UNEXPECTED. Seriously, where the hell did that come from? Still, doesn't get much more awesome than squid bombs. Except maybe dinosaur bombs :Oa (Highlight for spoilers, hooray, I figured out the html!)

Everyone's going nuts over this movie, and yeah, I'm excited for it. Glad I read the book, certainly. In any case, it'll be a good way to kick off Spring break :)

Sweet freaking mercy, The Mirador came out today *squeeflaildie* AHHHHHHH!! Borders! Tomorrow! Buy!

Oh I love how fast these books come out ^_^ Summerdown can't be far away either. Wootstuffs!!!!!!!!

Here's another one I'm gonna tear through about as fast as Deathly Hallows. Hoo-boy.

Very good episode of Heroes tonight. Though I don't have much to say about it, other than you'll start to see Sylar in a different light. And, one way or another, the end cometh.

Finals week has begun. I go to Sociology of Religion tomorrow, though technically I don't have to since I've done my presentation and turned in my paper. Spent ALL of Saturday finishing the goddamn paper, only to find out that the library books were late. Tried to turn it in Sunday and the Soc office was closed, so I finally got it in today--a day before the deadline, go me.

Wednesday is the Grammar final, and is also the day the storage people come to pick up our boxes. So I've gotta pack between now and then, and that includes sheets and my pillow. *sigh* At least I have blankets and the little pillow with the sailboat that is awesome, though it doesn't really support your head well. Thursday is free (probably a packing/writing/working day), and then Friday is Women and Writing, when the powerpoint and portfolio are due. I've got until then to finish up both, though I just found out today that I never got all the information necessary for the powerpoint. Geh. Hope I get it soon, otherwise I'll have to go out myself and snag it all from online.

Think I'm gonna spend the rest of the night working on WW stuff and maybe, hopefully, doing some writing.

I did get a lot of packing done today, woot. Also went and read outside for about an hour, and that was very yay. I've started Trickster's Choice by Tammy, and it's very awesome so far. I think I like it better than the first two Kel books. Aly is absolutely brilliant. And so're George and Alanna, who I didn't see enough of in the Kel books. Makes me want to read the Alanna quartet.

La.

Quite the double-post, innit? I hadn't realized I hadn't updated at all in two weeks.

Anyway, continuing in the amazing story of my life...

So yeah, the last half of break we spent doing the book thing and hanging with my people. I think it was Friday night we went to Caleb and Asher's (the cousins) school to hear a jazz and poetry thing--Caleb plays guitar, Asher plays drums. The only way I can really describe it is that it was very, very New York. It was interesting the way the poems and the music melted together, though I don't know if I actually liked it or not. Though some of the poems were pretty awesome. One was a poem about being in the primordial soup and amoeba love, haha. Brilliant.

Speaking of primordial soup, holy FUCK, Spore is coming out this fall apparently. What is Spore? Spore is only the most awesome computer game probably to ever grace geekdom. Pretty much, in the game you start out as a one-celled organism, and then you evolve. You choose what lines you want to evolve along, giving yourself X number appendages and so on. And according to their new video
you can do a lot more than that. *squee!* I've been anticipating this game ever since I heard about it about two years ago.

The only problem being that I'll need a new laptop to handle this game. Septimus is getting up there, but he still works and he's still mostly reliable, like an old dog. I don't want to get rid of him yet. I'm one of those people who keeps using my things until they fall apart ^.^

Had a bit of a surreal moment when we drove by the World Trade Center. I'm still sort of torn about visiting places like that. It was the same when we went to Dachau in Germany--just the idea of a place of such suffering becoming a tourist attraction. But I did tell myself this time that I wanted to go there, because 9/11 I think played a major role in my anxiety disorder, and I need to start facing that. We never actually made it to the WTC, but we did drive past it, and it was just like, "wow...there used to be towers there. There used to be people there." Ah, man. I dunno.

But, enough with the depressing. I can't be entirely depressed right now because there's an icicle hanging outside my window that looks like an alien's hand, no joke.

Last day spent in NYC we went to the Brooklyn Museum of Art, kind of like a smaller version of the Met, though it was still all kinds of brilliant. We only had time for two floors (there were five), so we checked out the floor with American art (woot) and the floor with the Egyptian stuff (holy crap, Batman!). No mummies, but it was all very awesome.

And now we're back in good old Ithaca and it's cold and wet and there are classes to attend and Julie and I are still sick. *sigh*

And now the requisite reports on the various and sundry things that came out in the past week. Though first, another book I read.

Have I mentioned the Retriever's Series here? The series is about Wren, a Retriever living in NYC. A Retriever is like a Get Backer (lol) in that she "retrieves" things for people, which usually means steals them. Except that in this world there is magic, and it takes a very interesting form. In any case, Wren has gotten up to some shit in the last two books, but the most recent one out, the third, is definitely my favorite. At this point, it looks like war's about to break out between the Mage Council (the organized group of magic users), the lonejacks (the live-free-or-die types of magic users) and the fatae (the non-human people living in the city). It's gotten very awesome, and it's an excellent example of modern urban fantasy. If you like Dresden, you'll probably like Wren, though this series falls a bit more on the female side of things, though not to a chick-lit degree. Wren is an awesome character, and the book has its own voice that is a blatantly New York voice. Love it.

So what have we? No House on Tuesday due to March Madness, but Crossing Jordan and Lost were both on Wednesday, of course, and they were both ALL KINDS of awesome. I'm really impressed with this season of Jordan so far, since it's really branching out and doing some interesting things. And Lost is no longer sucking! It's getting back into the mysterious and strange that made the first season and the first part of the second season so brilliant.

However, there are things I must report and speculate on. For instance, in ( Crossing Jordan...*spoilers alert* )

As if that wasn't intense enough, we follow it up immediately with...

( Lost )

And of course, of course, there were the Narutos that came out, being the latest manga chapter and the latest Shippuden episode.

( Chapter spoilers )

As for the episode, well, it's following the manga, and it continues to be brilliant, although it was lacking on the crazy music front.

Back in my world, in terms of writing, I didn't get half as much done of the rewrite over break as I wanted. Between being sick and hitting a snag that Pat pointed out, it just kind of came to a standstill. But I'm going to get back in it now, and keep thinking about that snag. Mostly the thing is, do I want to overhaul the beginning in order to get things moving faster, or draw it out so things are more dramatic? I'm long-winded, in case you couldn't tell, but that's something I'm trying to fix. So I dunno. There are a few things I'm going to extend because they kind of have to be.

Also, a lot's been coming together for some of my other projects. Mot has been niggling me again. The thing with Ramsey--my white haired, cloak-wielding heroine--is taking shape in my head. Have I mentioned Skye? Skye is the main character of Ramsey's story--I don't know her last name, but she's a snarky tattoo artist in Berkely who was diagnosed with schizophrenia some years ago. This was because she could see the things that Ramsey fights--critters I have dubbed darksouls for now, who are kind of shadow creatures that haunt people at their best and kill them at their worst. Anyway, Skye could see those things, and ghosts and stuff, but it made her a strange kid and she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. She believes now that all the things she saw when she was younger were hallucinations, but when she meets Ramsey she realizes she's been sane all along. Should be fun.

Things are also really coming together for North, though I'm still not sure how far I am from actually starting it. I've got a better sense of what's going on in the Whodden--where the Folk, the spirits and non-humans live--and what's going on in North's own life. I just need to figure out certain things about the beginning of the story.


And now I have to get some things done before Women and Writing. Another long post! Lol, and these two were supposed to be all one. Nya-ha.

I got asked out. By a boy. By Pat, actually.

^.^

Hee. We're going to see "Children of Men" on Friday. Should be fun. It's mostly a friendly get to know you kind of thing, which is cool. Guess we'll see what happens.

So that was the Moment of yesterday. You know how there are Moments of days, when like, you're talking about it later, and you're like "this is what happened today." That kind of Moment.

Today it was my Sociology of Religion teacher telling us, "Guess what, for your final project/research paper, you get to join a cult!" Though in a lot more words. Basically we have to go out and research some particular religion and write a paper about it. 10-15 pages, which is a perfect length. This should be fun. I'm thinking of doing the Twelve Tribes people, which I have discovered is the name of the cult in the Mate Factory. Woot! Apparently it should be easy, because if you just walk in they try to convert you. This should be fun even if I end up just doing some Christian sect, because it's been awhile since I went to church, and going for the sake of research should be pretty neat. Despite my total sense of not-belonging when I walk in a church being, you know, an atheist and all. Catholicism would be easy, since I could just talk to Molly and follow her to Mass.

In terms of writing, Motley Crew and I have had something of a falling out, so I'm going to let it simmer at least for a little while. I'm working on the next chapter of the fic, and I have a thing to write for Women and Writing that I am so totally gonna center around Gecko. Oh dear, should be lots of fun. Spirits is also coming together in my head, as I've sort of settled some characters motives and such. And despite the large cast of characters (ensemble! It's an addiction!), I've resolved to try to keep it to a decent length this time. Give myself limits to work with and see how well I do, since I've got to learn to work with limits. The problem of course with Spirits is that it's still sorely lacking in the plot department. I only really have a general theory of what happens. If I were to sit down and work it out I'm sure I could come up with something.

I'm officially a Soc double-major. Should be interesting. My new adviser (actually also my Social Movements prof) and I worked out some schedule things yesterday. It's going to be tough to fit all the credits in, but I'm gonna try for it. The Writing major is pretty much already in the bag, and a Soc minor won't be hard to come up with, so even if I don't pull off the double major I can still graduate, at least. That's the beauty of doubling-up halfway through.

I've started reading Lady Knight, the last in the Protector of the Small Quartet, and it's pretty awesome so far. Tobe is awesome.

In Trinity Blood, I think Julie has agreed with me that Tres, Abel and Hugue are utterly made of awesome. Tres especially. Because only Tres can say, "Switching to Genocide Mode." I mean, Genocide Mode. It just doesn't get more awesome.

Julie has also gotten me into watching The 4400, which is also brilliant, and more original than I thought it would be. Plus Mya/Maia, the girl who can see the future, is too adorable for words. And Summer Glau was in it (River from Firefly), acting as a crazy person once again, so you really can't go wrong.

And House last night? Fantastic. Easily one of my favorite episodes. EVER.

So I've got a date (or whatever it's called these days...) and I get to join a cult and the muse is much inspired. Woot!

<--New icon! Yay Noein!

Here are piccies of my tattoo now that it's looking better. Check out my madly terrible photo-taking skillzz!

( Cut because they're big...I think )

So Final Fantasy X pwns my soul right now, though I'm still plugging my way through FFVIII and Shadow of the Colossus. I want to finish at least one before I go back to IC.

It occurs to me that I rather like webcomics. Though I've kind of only just been getting into them seriously. I've been reading Ursula Vernon's Digger since it started. This is a comic that is right up there with VG Cats for how popular it is. I'd rec it to everyone, except that the website demands a paid subscription, so your only hope really is to wait till they come out in paper form. Another simply brilliant one is TwoKinds which Julie told me about awhile ago but that I only just found. I spent an entire night reading the WHOLE THING, that's how good it is. And then there's The Awakened, which I've also been reading since it started, and is also brilliant, with an awesome story and really unique art. Oh, and of course Talismen by the ever-wonderful Barbara Jacobs and Steve Jones, which has gone on hiatus more often than I'd like, but is still awesome. And can't forget Lackadaisy because there's really nothing better than cats with guns.

I figure now I'll check out Blackbird, which Julie has also read and says is good, and the rest of Inverloch which I've been reading in paper form.

Woot.

Haven't been doing much else. Finally got The Virtu from B&N as well as a few of the newest mangas. I've told myself I can't read The Virtu until I'm done with Three Days to Never, but the temptation is hard to resist.

Wrote a really *squee* part with Hex and Tag the other night! Yay! Motley Crew has slowed a bit, but is still going strong, and I know where to go next. Tonight will be busy.

Can I just say that the White Album is full of win? Full. Of. Win.

So, no. Today was my last day. No more job. No more money. It's too late to get another job. It'd be nice if they'd told me I'd only be working this long--again. But oh well. $158 out of it, which ain't too shabby. Plus I got an extra $100 from the 'rents, as the leftovers of my cell phone cost (I was supposed to spend $80, only spent $40) and my dad paying me for researching for him. My feet don't hurt as much today.

For the record, the latest manga are pretty damn awesome but dear god, I think Ima have to go find the Fruits Basket scans online. The next one doesn't come out till April, what?!

Bought Serenity on my break today. Because.

Liz gave me a $50 card to B&N, so tomorrow's a shopping day. I saw The Virtu in Borders, and if they don't have it in B&N I shall weep. WEEP. The Virtu being the sequel to Melusine. Which, if you remember, was ALL KINDS of amazing.

Ahh. Much as I hate it that I'm out of a job, I'm looking forward to the free time. XOMG I'll finally be able to get back to writing.

Still sick. My throat feels like an SOS pad.

So I have some things to report on, yuh.

I finished Squire, by Tammy (that is, Tamora Pierce) a few days ago, and it's my favorite so far in that series. Seeing as I haven't yet read Lady Knight yet I can't really say for sure, but wow. Brilliant book. I've been taken with the series ever since Kel climbed that bluff to save some kittens from a giant spider monster. The characters are so awesome, the world setting is awesome, and Julie has told me many times about Tammy's extensive knowledge of all things medieval warfare-ish, and, um, yeah. I didn't even know there were names for some of those things. Oh man. Awesome book, can't wait to read the last one in the series. And then to read the rest of her books.

Also read Invisible Cities by Italo Calavino, lent to me by Molly. I don't know why. I remember it coming up in conversation at some point, I just don't remember the context. In any case, I'm glad she lent it to me, because the book is awesome. It's short, only a bit over 100 pages long, and has no real plot, but it's utterly brilliant. The premise is, Marco Polo is describing his travels to Kublai Kahn in order to cheer the emperor up. He describes city after city in these amazing ways. The cities themselves are amazing. Cities of the dead, cities of deja'vu, cities of memory, cities of desires, cities with oddities in terms of architecture or citizens, cities that aren't really cities, disappeared cities, hidden cities, beautiful cities, ugly cities. Each one is unique and yet similar, and each one is totally fantastic. The book is amazing. Read it. If nothing else, it'll give you some freaking awesome ideas for settings.

Also read The Fourth Bear by Jason Fforde, which is a "Nursery Crime Novel." Pretty much, Jack Spratt is an investigator of nursery crimes in Reading, and with the help of Sergent Mary Mary and an alien named Ashley, he has to track down journalist Henrietta Hatchett, aka Goldilocks, who has gone missing while investigating a story on cucumbers. Meanwhile the homicidal maniac the Gingerbreadman has broken out of prison and is killing people, and Spratt has to deal with all kinds of personal woes including a car sold by Dorian Gray, Punch and Judy for neighbors, and bears making illegal porridge deals in underground parking lots.

It's the most brilliant fucking book ever.

Like, everything in this book is hilarious and yet not. People are getting killed and things are blowing up and children are getting their thumbs chopped off but then you remember just what the hell you're reading and it's like, I don't know. The plot and characters and whole storyline is completely and utterly ridiculous, and yet the author manages to make it serious, intriguing and fun. Everything is accounted for, and by that I mean, there are legitimate explanations for everything, and no plot holes, so the story is entirely un-ridiculous while also being entirely ridiculous. It's a fantasy world, but it's not a complete departure--it's comparable to the real world, which is exactly what you want when writing a book like this.

And the book is just so much fun. It's full of plot twists and nursery rhyme humor and puns and bad jokes and the fourth wall is pretty much nonexistent. It keeps you guessing and laughing until the end. Think of it as a comedic crime drama that happens to include nursery rhyme characters.

Now I have to read the first one in the series. And check out Jason Fforde's other series, Thursday Next. Oh man. So much awesome.

Finished The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya in ASIC last Thursday, of course, and I love it. Definitely one of my top ten. God I wish they'd made more. I loved the out-of-order ness. And like Noein, they managed to combine the kind of la-dee-da life genre with sci-fi action. Though no flying baby machines and guys in cloaks. Oh well. Have downloaded the whole thing and will force Julie to watch it, along with Noein and Gankutsuo, upon my return.

I guess we're watching FMA next semester, which is fine by me. Druther watch something I haven't seen, but there you go. I haven't seen it in Japanese, so I guess that counts--plus it's the second half, which is more interesting.

That's all the reviewing I had.

Have done almost all of my Chrismahanukwanzaayule shopping. I'm working tomorrow and the day after, 10-7, so I'm gonna have to get the rest of it done during my breaks. Had Ben's birthday dinner today, Chinese restaurant, and a pretty awesome cake afterwards. He has school up till tomorrow I guess. Man that fucking sucks. I wonder why? Is every school dragging it out to the last minute this year? It's not like next year is a leap year. It's such a drastic difference from when we got out last year--I mean pretty much the whole of December was break, at least for us Ithacans. Obviously it's different for high school, but the 22nd is still pretty down-to-the-wire.

Haven't gotten any writing done and don't intend to until tomorrow or the day after. Although in a fit of insanity last week, when I'd finished two of my papers and figured I had some time to myself, I did get a bit done on Mot. I rather like it too, though I'm starting to wonder at my portrayal of E. I need to make it so that both of them are falling apart. In any case, I really need to get the next chapter of my fic done, so I'll focus on that first.

Deposited $167 in my bank accounts today, the money from the credit card fuck-up compliments of the Health Center. Fuck yes.

About games. There are a few I've been eyeballing. Okami. Shadow of the Colossus. Thoughts, anyone? Still looking forward to when Spore and World of Mana comes out. XOMG Secret of Mana sequel *flails*.

Things I Miss Already from Ithaca:

1. Friends.
2. The ability to communicate instantly with said friends.
3. Liquid soap.
4. The desk. Damn.
5. My tea.
6. My anime.
7. The view.

But it's not as bad as before. I'm glad for the break, and I'm looking forward to Christmas and to New Year's. And to getting a whole shitload of writing done.

The Good:

So this book. Melusine. By Sarah Monette. It's fucking amazing. I...the...I'm incohrent with my love for this book. The world Monette has created is simply astounding, full of detail, I mean we're talking a world bordering on the Tolkienesque for how much thought she's put into everything. Everything! The story is utterly incredible, and utterly beautiful. The characters, the chemistry, the relationships...I die. You're lucky to find writing this brilliant in this day and age. We get so much slop in the fantasy genre these days, but this, augh, I love it to death.

The story, pretty much, is you've got two intertwining narrations, that of Felix Harrowgate and Mildmay the Fox, two guys who at first glance couldn't be more different. Felix is a wizard, kind of a jackass, and all but a slave to his former master and lover Malkar (*seethes* Think Muraki here). Mildmay is a cat burglar in the Lower City, away from the rich types in the Mirador, where Felix is. They both go through utter hell--Felix loses everything, from his position to his sanity, and Mildmay lives life on tenterhooks, expecting to die at any second.

Thing is, it's all written in first person--Felix and Mildmay, shifting between them.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to write a story with multiple narrators? Do you have any idea how hard it is to write a story with multiple narrators in first person? The thought alone makes me flinch. But oh my God when you find a writer who can pull it off, it's like reading heaven.

You've got Felix's self-conscious, sorrowful, crazy, broken, and often jackassy voice. You've got Mildmay's straightforward, no-bones-about-it, snarky, observant, self-depricating, and under the hard demeanor, compassionate voice. It's not every day you meet such three-dimensional characters. I'm talking about characters you love but also get pissed at, characters you can understand, characters who are completely real. Oh. My. God. Monette does characters like, like Monet does landscapes. Monette, the Monet of writing--pun intended.

It's not till the middle nearabouts that the two actually meet, and when they do...the chemistry between them, their relationship is so fucking well done, so fucking brilliant. I won't spoil anything, but I want to hug them both.

And the richness of the story itself holds firm through the whole book, and leaves you with the good kind of ending--with some things wrapped up, but other things just starting. It's part of a trilogy/series, after all.

In short, the whole book, beginning to end, is pure love.

Go. Read. It.


The Bad:

See, here's the problem with stopping medication. You go back to where you were before you started, only a lot worse.

I have acid reflux, pretty much, which is the kind of thing that people don't seem to take too seriously. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say, "You can't have heartburn, you're too young!" or "I don't think heartburn is real" (I love that second one). Yeah, people don't think it's a big deal, until it happens to them.

Here's what it feels like. It's nothing at all like fire. It's like there's this giant motherfucking vat of acid just above your solar plexus, and all the organs in that vicinity are just boiling in it. Your esophagus wants to crawl up out your throat, your stomach feels rather like the walls are dissolving, and nevermind your chest and throat themselves. It's nothing like fire and everything like acid, cause that's what it is, after all. Lying down the wrong way, leaning backward a little or to the side sets it off like someone's pouring battery acid down your throat, and you start eyeing things like soda and anything with tomatoes as being the spawn of Satan. Oils, spicy foods, chocolate even. On really bad days you can't eat nearabouts anything, and nevermind drinking anything unless it's milk. Hot drinks are hell, and if you forget and drink a glass of juice in the morning you'll be up all night wondering when you're gonna start coughing blood, since that's what it feels like.

So. After years of this bullshit, I go to my doctor, they give me a prescription for Aciphex. Which helped--I mean a lot. It didn't cure eveything, because that's too much to hope for, but at least I didn't have to actually set aside part of my savings for antacids (alright, I'm exaggerating, but in all honesty I probably spent well over $1000 on Rolaids in the last year alone. Don't get me started on Tums).

But then the insurance company comes along, and it would have been nice if they'd been quick about it, but no. A week after I run out of Aciphex (and oh boy, what a week. I've gone through two gallons of milk in the last three days, I swear) they finally say, "Sorry, we're only gonna cover you for this generic shit." Which I would have been fine with, if they had goddamn given the shit to me sooner.

And the kicker, of course, is that I had to wait about a week for Aciphex to even start working. I took my first pill of generic shit today, and of course it's not working yet. I'm running out of Rolaids, I'm spending money I really can't spend on fucking milk, I'm running out of Zantac 150, which only sort of worked. The Rolaids and the milk even have all but stopped working. It says on the Aciphex label, "Don't stop taking the meds!" and this is why--because you fall back to way the hell worse than before you started.

So, thank you, insurance guys. If I get esohpagael cancer, your asses are so fucking haunted.


The JKFDLSAJFDL:

After reading Melusine nothing but a death or holocaust could mess up my day, but this article really set me off. The gist? They want to start gearing abstinence-only education--to people over 18. 19-29 year olds. Since they're so fucking worried about all those single mothers.

....yeah, ponder that for a minute.

It's never gonna pass, but it's shit like this that makes me want to learn how to fire a shotgun.

But it's all good. I've got Melusine and poetry on the brain.

I really like my Fiction I teacher, Fred Wilcox. He talks and talks and talks but he has this redeeming quality of saying really good things. Like he was stressing today to just ignore all the little editors living inside your writerly head, and to just write. Which sounds obvious, but really. I dunno. I just like him for all these tangents he goes off on that don't seem to have a point until you realize what he's saying, and then you're just like..."Hey...yeah!"

I'm craving Froot Loops.

Azar Nafisi, writer of Reading Lolita in Tehran is gonna be here at 7 tonight to talk and sign books. Which is awesome. I've only just started the book, but I like it a lot already. She's got a great voice, with a lot of nostalgia, but she makes it work. Plus the topic itself is interesting. It takes place in Tehran right after the revolution, when the Ayatollah took over, and pretty much Nafisi was a teacher who hand-picked some female students to join her to discuss...well, pretty much forbidden "Western" literature. It's interesting to see the conflict going on, not only in the country, but in the women. Like, all of them seem to want to live their own lives and think for themselves, and yet the answers they give to Nafisi's questions on the texts are all what's expected of them.

House is also on right after that. We don't have cable yet, so we'll have to hijack a lounge. It's awesome, because SVU and CI have also moved to Tuesdays, but there's no time conflict with House. House is gonna get interesting this year!

Tomorrow is my very first Queer Studies class. I'm excited.

Chapter five of the fic doesn't seem to be working too well. As in, when I log in, I can read the fifth chapter, but then when I search for my fic or my pen name, the fifth chapter doesn't show up at all. I'm trying to fix it, but nothing's worked so far.

As for writing, well, I broke through my block in Mot! I'm writing again and trying very hard to ignore the fact that I'm up to 371 pages now (kill me) and still have at least another 100 to tack on. In any case, I should have them out of Tamara pretty soon. I gotta just listen to everyone's advice and "just write."

There's also Fox to think about, though, and Angels is still assaulting my mind. I'm thinking I'm just kinda gonna make up a town in Scotland for Fox to live in. It'll be somewhere kinda south of Alford (small town) and west of Aberdeen (city) out in the green countryside, with a nice little loch nearby. Just gotta come up with a name for the town.

Julie and I are halfway through the first season of Honey and Clover, and I think she likes it as much as I do. It's so freaking college! And adorable, of course. And we're watching Monster as well, which is so freaking awesome. And the opening song is like, the best opening song I've...ever...heard.