I Speak With the Tongue of a Thousand White-Hot Lies!

I posted a Teachout vignette called "The Landlady" over at the WP blog, if you're looking for something to read today ...

So, 2013. For an awful lot of reasons, just a not-good year.

But every year has good things, and this is a list of mine:

1. My lovely husband just kept happily surprising me at every turn this year.

2. Got to go to Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer's ninja gig in Sarasota with jkason!

3. Had a lovely 40th birthday slumber party with doggiesushi, jkason, and my boys. John surprised the hell out of me and prompted the sort of swearing I usually reserve for ... well, actually, I don't know what I reserve that level of swearing for, other than my oldest BFF on my front porch after chatting with me like he was going to the damn store in Michigan. (Special thanks to sugarcoatedlie for keeping the secret on Facebook.)

4. Team Zweeble trip to Legoland! Got the kid on two rollercoasters, one of them four times!

5. Team Zweeble trip to North Carolina, which was, for me, a lovely respite from a really hard time. My in-laws are good people that I like being around. (Next time, though, secret grandkids-generation illuminati dinner out at the pizza place in Murphy!)

6. The boyo loved Peter Pan--he sat through the entire thing, solemn and enthralled, and at the end of the evening he declared it the best night of his life.

7. "The Drowned Man" in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, y'all!

8. So David proposed to Jason, and Scott and I got to be a part of it. I got in so much trouble, but it was totally worth it.

9. NOBODY WAS SICK FOR THANKSGIVING. And we all went to Mote Marine!

10. I love all of my friends, but Jason (and David) gets some extra love this year for being amazing. JC gets an honorable mention, because we both ended up needing some phone calls this year that, really, neither of us wanted. Thank you all, though, for being here for me and generally being lovely.

There were also a lot of stories, and new friends, good music, and a growing boy who also spent the year surprising me at every turn.

Hope you all have a wonderful New Year, and a 2014 that includes stories and art and love and good friends. And pizza, because I'm about to have some.

So I was perusing Tumblr, as you do, and I found some other photos of this charming fellow on seanan_mcguire's blog there (this one's public domain, so I felt okay about posting it, plus it gives you a better overview of the fish).

This is the sarcastic fringehead, ladies and gentlemen (and if that isn't a name to warm your heart, jkason, I don't know what is). But what I thought, immediately upon seeing it, was Holy cats, that's the thing that chews on Corwyn's leg in "The Drowned Man!"

Well, with less color, and you have to take away the fringe. Add a few inches of length and a lot more teeth. But that's pretty much it. And here I thought I'd made it up in my head.

(If you haven't read that story yet, don't worry, that's a very minor spoiler. And you should go read it.)

I'm at work, on my break, attempting to update on my sort of new tablet (I've had it for about a month). It's a Nexus 7, which means we're still not quite an Apple-only family, but overall it works for what I want to do: read books, download apps, occasionally edit stuff, scribble ideas down.  I actually prefer an actual notebook for that last, but when you're out running around, it's nice to not have a lot of extra stuff.

Of course, I say that having been lugging a copy of Salman Rushdie's memoir, Joseph Anton, around for two months (I've been reading that book longer than I've owned this tablet).  It's good, but it's hard to read for long periods. Especially if you want to keep your overall faith in humanity.

I've been hearing good things from people who have read "The Drowned Man" at Beneath Ceaseless Skies, which is nice (and if you haven't read it yet, go read it, this is my unsubtle hint!).

I will say, the cut and paste on this thing is nicer than my iPhone, though touchscreen keyboards remain impish tools of the devil.

And now, back to work I go. Summer in the college library: count the shadows.

So 2011 was the Year of Change, and 2012 was the year of What the Fuck?

So let's do a highlights reel:

Hurrah!

1. I sold "The Drowned Man" to Beneath Ceaseless Skies!

2. I got a new job, which I like, working with a group of people that I like and who actually seem to get my geeky, sarcastic sense of humor. It's a steady paycheck, which is a good thing, too.

3. The Zweeble started kindergarten and has been doing really well. He doesn't seem bored, he likes his teacher, and we really like the school.

(side note: #s 2 and 3 were things I was really worried about before they happened, so there's an extra layer of good there.)

4. I got to see doggiesushi this year! Yay!

5. Went to Disney with my parents, which was, on the whole, a good time. It's a bit of a learning curve, because there is so much there that they didn't have when I was a kid, and Z's interests are different from mine or Scott's, but we had a lot of fun. And people at EPCOT loved my "Keep Calm and Don't Blink" shirt--one girl asked if we could take a picture together; it was hilarious.

6. Got an iPhone, which ... well, the stuff it does well it does very, very well, and that's enough to make up for the stuff the Droid did better.

7. Holy cats, I'm really digging Glee this season. And the Doctor Who Christmas special. And the second season on Sherlock was made of cool. And, oh my god, The Avengers!!! Plus, did I start reading the Toby Daye books in 2012? Let's say I did, because they are really, really good and you should read them.

8. Spotify and I have begun a lovely relationship. Tumblr ... well, I have no bloody clue what the hell I'm doing with it, but my dashboard gave me a lot of stuff to think about this year, a lot of it interesting, and not all of it Glee or Who related. (In that regard it reminds me of when I first got on LJ, lo these many moons ago.) I wonder if there's an official Sherlock Tumblr?

9. Oh yeah, my mom got an iPhone, as well, and has entered into the exciting world of texting. This may be a blessing and a curse.

10. The Zweeble went to his first-ever play, starring the lovely and talented jkason!

11. 21 years of the Scott and Laura Saga. Our relationship is now old enough to drink.

12. Four more short stories, and some odd stuff that might lead somewhere or might not, but what the hell, it's there.

13. My boys were, on the whole and as always, awesome and hilarious. As are my friends.

The Not-So-Hurrah

1. Well, my uncle died. It was not entirely surprising, considering his alcoholism, but it was a really fast decline before it happened and that sort of shocked me, and death is always a shock, whether or not you figured it was going to happen soon.

2. I got hit by a freaking truck! And I still can't quite decide if I like my new car or not.

3. You know, every year I wish I had my life more together than I do. Maybe this year I'll say to hell with that.

Looking Ahead

I have no idea. Seriously. It's going to be an interesting ride, though, because Scott graduates in May and then it's job hunting and paying back student loans. My mother-in-law retires this year, I think, so maybe we'll see the in-laws at some point. I want to see if we can go to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween this year.

I have one more Corwyn story to write, and then I'm gonna embark on another novel.

So last year, I wrote:

I wish for us all some unexpected, but very welcome, stories; the chance to see old friends and meet new ones; good music, books, and TV; funny stories about small kids and/or pets; the pulling off of something cool; and the continuation of something wonderful and true.

I think I managed all that. I'll leave it for this year, too, I think. Happy New Year, y'all.

So my story, "The Drowned Man," will be appearing in an upcoming issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies!

I'm excited! They publish some very fine stuff, so I'm quite thrilled to have my work appear there. Particularly this story--a sea story starring Corwyn and Gwen Teachout, lady adventurers for hire. (Well, they're not that ladylike.)

(Side note: my preschool teacher's name was Teachout, and then years later I met Tiffany, and she has some family friends named Teachout. Those are the only two times I've ever run across that name, but I dug it. Obviously.)

I'll post links and let you all know the date it goes up.

I've gotten a lot of good work done on the story the past couple of days (I'm not sure if the title is "The Wreck of the Leucosia" or "The Drowned Man"), so while the story is still a bit of a mess, I think it's a fixable mess. So there's that ... assuming I can get the stupid draft done. I've been a scene and a half away from the end for about two weeks, it feels like.

I've also come to the conclusion that, at least while I'm working on something specific (as opposed to between projects), it's better to work on it every day because when I take days off, it is really hard to get back into the swing of things.

But as of right now, I have reached the point where I'd better stop for the day because from here on out I'll be bullet-pointing rather than writing.

So, off to find dinner. And maybe read my book, and then Torchwood tonight!

Yesterday, migraine.

I used to get the whole thing: auras, blind spots, monster headache that would make me puke. Over the past ... I dunno, ten years? Maybe less? Well, somewhere along the line, the headache, for the most part, stopped. I still get the blind spot, the aura, the tunnel vision, and sometimes the tingly face deal, but the most headache I get now is an overall achiness that isn't actually that bad--like eyestrain all over my head. I get sinus headaches that are worse.

Anyway, this is an actual kind of migraine, so I'm not crazy. Well, not about that, anyway. :)

So yeah, yesterday as we went to get the Zweeble from summer camp I realized I could see all of Scott's face except his nose--that's always hilarious, by the way--and we began the ODing on caffeine.

I know caffeine is actually a migraine trigger for many people; for me, it's always been the opposite. In fact, I have to be careful about cutting back on caffeine because if I don't do it slowly, I trigger a migraine. (Guess what I've been doing the last week or so without actually thinking it through?*)

So, yeah, I was now chugging caffeinated soda like crazy because I had to work that night (and I forgot we had tea in the house). I actually fell asleep when we got home and barely noticed the boyo settling down with me for his nap. I got to work and was doing better--my face had the odd rubbery sensation I get after a migraine, but that was it. Got through class, got home ... and was so freaking exhausted.

That's the other big issue of my migraines: they wipe me out.

But ... I'd been sucking down caffeine like there was no tomorrow, so I was awake. (Oh, and my stomach was sour. That was nice.)

All of which leads to me being really tired today. Like, so tired that I felt a little sick this evening. I did perk up a little after my shower, so I think I'm also dehydrated. Woot.

---

I have discovered the joys of interlibrary loan, and books are coming in left and right, man! Today Z and I hit the library, and after he was done playing with the computers, I was in the middle of looking a book up. So I told him that as long as he stayed in the kids' section, he could go ahead without me and look at books.

They have LeapPads and puzzles there, and I was expecting him to be playing with those when I went to find him. But instead, I found him crouched on the floor between two shelves, looking at Maisie books.

That's my kid!

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I got some good writing done today and yesterday before the migraine hit, so that has been good. I was at the point where I felt like this stupid story would never end, which really just means I need to start typing it up and de-tangling it. Now I can sort of see my way towards the ending.

I made a joke while I was working on "Items" about a sea monsters in love story, and this one is kind of that. Kind of.

Okay. My hair is drying, so I have to decide if I want to read or watch Farscape for a bit.




*Yes, Jason, not thinking things through has been a theme this week.

This is a seriously crappy draft I've got going. So clearly it's time to start typing up what I've got and finding the shape of it.

I think this could be a good story. Right now it's ... not. Urgh.

In other news, I am trying to sort of let go the worry and enjoy the last three weeks before the fall semester and my heavier course load. We're going to have money problems for the next two years, and there's not a whole lot I can do about it. And the fall is going to be super busy, and I can't do anything about that, either. So I am going to ignore as much of it as I can for the next three weeks, and try not to jump ahead of myself. I don't want to lose the time by worrying about something that'll be here soon enough.

Now, if I could just get this story figured out ...