Love In The Asylum

1. Go to page 77* (or 7) of your current manuscript.
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines – sentences or paragraphs – and post them as they’re written.
4. Encourage other people to do it!

From a short story I finished this summer, now very very slowly revising.


Alex bites his lip. It isn’t impossible that the man he thought he saw ducked out of view before Lauren could catch a glimpse of him. Not impossible.

“Nah,” he says. “Thought I saw something out my window, that’s all. Probably staring at my computer for too long, you know?”

Lauren nods slowly. “Well, I’ll keep a look-out for anything weird,” she says. “Excepting you, of course.”

Back inside his apartment, Alex double-checks the locks on his window and the chain and deadbolt on the front door, and after some thought, wedges a chair underneath the door handle for good measure. He isn’t sure how much good it would do, but it makes him feel a little better. He still twitches at every sound the shifting plaster makes in the wall, every bone-grating scrape of tire treads in the parking lot, until he falls exhausted into sleep.

Bleargh, I still have the plague. I am...not as much feeling better as getting to the place where I can still the possibility of better on the distant horizon. Maybe tomorrow I will start to feel like a human being again. I even begged off the commitment of working for my grandma tomorrow - even if I am feeling better I don't think I'll be up to doing that much, and my uncle would probably just try to quarantine me anyway so I don't breathe around Tiny Cousin. Whatever. I shall continue to lay about and play with my cookbook software instead.

Since I don't have the wherewithal for real content, here's a meme colourofsaying tagged me with.

♔ If you've been tagged, you must write your answers in your own LJ and replace any question that you dislike with a new question.
♔ Tag eight people. Don't refuse to do that. Don't tag who tagged you.

(Not tagging anyone, because that's too much work. Blah.)


1. What song are you currently addicted to?
Jonathan Coulton's The Princess Who Saved Herself. And Shawn Hlookoff's She Could Be You. ...shut up. I marathoned Kyle XY last week and it's a really addicting melody after awhile.

2. What books are you currently reading?
I've been working this summer on reading/rereading ever book Tamora Pierce has ever written. Right now I'm on The Woman Who Rides Like A Man and Bloodhound. I've never read the Beka Cooper books; I like them a lot more than I was anticipating, given that I'm not overly enamoured of first person. But it's good! I'm also reading TA Barron's Lost Years of Merlin series and McKillip's In The Forests of Serre. Non-fiction wise, I'm reading Francesca de Grandis' Goddess Initiation, very slowly.

3. What was the last movie you saw?
Iron Man 2 at the dollar theater on Sunday with my mom and the boyfriend. Still as fun as the first time. RDJ remains painfully hot in little hoodies and elbow sleeves. Before that, Despicable Me, which was precious

4. Anise or cinnamon?
Anise and cinnamon together! Mmmm, bizcochitos.

5. Cats or dogs?
Both! I just love animals, and we've always had both. But I don't think I'm responsible enough for a dog, so I'll probably be a cat person while I'm single.

6. What's your current fandom/obsession/addiction?
You may have noticed, but I cannot stop talking about Doctor Who. Aaaaah, I love Eleven SO MUCH. The new Sherlock series on BBC is impressing me with how quick the fandom's taken off, given we only got three episodes. Wonderful porn, but it needs more h/c. I'm also horrendously addicted right now to a Korean drama called Life is Beautiful - it's about a huge extended family that runs a hotel/diving tours on Jeju Island. There are approximately 11 million main characters and I am massively invested in all of them. But especially the serious oldest son, who is a) incredibly gorgeous and b) has the show's main dramatic arc, which is about the family trying to marry him off while he tries to keep them from finding out that he is gay and in a relationship with his photographer friend. I keep meaning to do an epic picspam post about how Tae Sub/Kyung Soo is the greatest thing ever and you should all watch this, but I haven't gotten around to it.

7. What's your favorite character/band member/actor etc?
Not sure I have one...I don't tend to notice actors or singers much. But I do love David Tennant and John Barrowman. And Sandra Oh. And Vienna Teng!

8. What side of the bed do you sleep on?
I either sprawl across the entire bed, or end up jammed in the corner closest the wall in a little curled up ball. I am an action sleeper.

9. What was the last thing you bought?
shampoo and leave-in conditioner at the health food store.

10. Would you rather date a good singer, or a good cook?
A good singer. I like people to be impressed with my cooking. And I can't sing at all, so I'm always really in awe of people who can keep in tune and have it sound good.

11. If you could only listen to one band or singer for the rest of your life who would it be?
Dar Williams, maybe. Heather Alexander. Seanan Mcguire. Any of my favorite female singers who have written a lot of songs, so I wouldn't get bored of the same songs over and over.

12. What do you do to change your mood?
I bake. Or watch mindless, fun television where nothing permanently bad happens. Or meditate, if I'm really upset and need to recollect.

13. What was the last meal you ate?
Leftover taquitas. I can't usually eat when I'm sick, so I've just been picking at whatever's in the fridge.

14. Do you want to learn another language?
I would like to re-learn Chinese, since I don't really remember any of it. And I'd like to learn Russian. And Welsh, although that will never happen.

15. Five things you can't live without.
books, the internet, my bed, my family, music
16. Find the closest book currently sitting near you and flip to page 54. What is the first sentence of the second paragraph?

"Chuang-tze, a classic writer on the Way of the Dao, tells of the life of a chef."

17. If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would it be?
Right this second? Back to bed. The more general now? I would really like to visit London. I've never been to Europe, and that seems a good (and interesting!) place to start.

18. What are you looking forward to?
getting back to California and seeing my Stanford friends. Setting up house-keeping (and decorating with ridiculous posters!) in my new apartment. The Genre Fiction class I'm taking. :)

19. What is playing out of your speakers, right now?
Futurama clips. I've got too much of a headache still to focus on music, but dialogue is easier for some reason. And Futurama doesn't take a lot of work to enjoy.

(I also got Robert Louis Stevenson, James Joyce, and Dan Brown, depending on which fic I used. I think my love of pulp adventure fantasy is showing, isn't it?)

Year End Meme: The first sentence of the first entry each month of 2009

January:
NEW YEAR'S FEAST OM NOM NOM.

February:
Last Sunday I did this meme! And since my flist is awesome, you guys figured out almost all of the pairings I used.

March:
Have acquired several volumes of Green Lantern Corps. Lingering anger mollified by lots of Guy punching things and/or people.

April:
*flails* Guess who my English professor is?

May:
Whoo, first post from my shiny Open Beta paid account on Dreamwidth.

June:
You know, I distinctly remember when I was back in high school never getting migraines. That was really nice.

July:
Never have I been so glad that I no longer live with my grandma as when I realized that, with a 5-day forecast of 90F as the low temp and a minimum humidity of 25%, I will be in a house with a man who TURNS THE AIR CONDITIONER ON.

August:
Stayed up all night playing Sims and then got up early to go over to my mom's for the afternoon.

September:
They took my grandfather back to the hospital yesterday because he was in a lot of pain and they couldn't deal with it at the nursing home.

October:
I was going to post an exercise I wrote this week about Fox and Jamie, and then I realized no one would know who they were because I never posted the original Fox and Jamie story.

November:
I am home, hanjuuluver is safely on the plane back to NM, and the con is over.

December:
Living in the dorms, I always worry about the protocol for listening to Christmas music early in December.

I haven't been doing a lot of introspection about this year, because, well, this year kind of sucked brass monkey balls. As far as I'm concerned, this summer never even happened. 2009 can kiss my ass, and I won't be sorry to boot it out the door tonight. But, you know, it wasn't all awful. I made some great friends this year, online and offline. I wrote some stuff I'm pretty proud of. I declared my major. I have a better idea of what I want to do the next couple of years than I did this time last year. I survived, and that's the important thing. And hopefully 2010 will be full of more of the good stuff and less of the bad stuff.

Happy New Year!

Meme!

YOU'RE ON MY FRIENDS LIST, I want to know 28 things about you. I don't care if we've never talked, never really clicked, or if we already know everything about each other. I really don't. You are obviously on my flist, so let me know with whom I'm friends!

01. Your Middle Name:
02. Age:
03. Single or Taken:
04. Favorite Book:
05. Favorite Song or Album:
06. What do you believe is your calling in life? Your greatest passion?
07. What's your worst recurring nightmare/biggest fear?
08. Faith, has you any? And if so, what, and if not, why not?:
09. Do we know each other outside of LJ?
10. What's your philosophy on life?
11. Is the bottle half-full or half-empty?
12. Would you keep a secret from me if you thought it was in my best interest?
13. What is your favorite memory of us?
14. What is your favorite guilty pleasure?
15. Tell me one odd/interesting fact about you:
16. You can have three wishes what are they?
17. What is your favorite food?
18. Which country is your spiritual home?
19. What is your big weakness?
20. Do you think I'm a good person?
21. What was your best/favorite subject at school?
22. Describe your accent:
23. If you could change anything about me, would you?
24. What do you wear to sleep?
25. Gender identity?
26. Affectionate/sexual orientation?
27. If I only had one day to live, what would we do together? (If you have no idea, just say something crazy, it'll entertain me!)
28. Will you repost this so I can fill it out for you?

Instructions: Open up your iTunes (or WinAmp, or whatever, though iTunes is easiest for this I think) and fill out this survey, no matter how embarrassing the responses might be.

How many songs total: 1412
How many hours or days of music: 4.2 days
Most recently played: "After the Bombs" - The Decemberists
Most played: Persephone - Vixy and Tony
Most recently added: "I Can't Decide"  - Scissor Sisters

Sort by song title.
First Song: "Aaron and Lesa" - Wicked Tinkers
Last Song: "60 Miles an Hour"  - New Order

Sort by time.
Shortest Song: Captain America Theme Song (00:19)
Longest Song: "Der Abschied" - Placido Domingo (28:16)

Sort by album
First album: Absolution by Muse
Last album: 69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields

First song that comes up on Shuffle: Ca C'est L'Amour - John Barrowman

Search the following and state how many songs come up:
Death - 20
Life -  21
Love -  72
Hate - 5
You - 148
Sex - 3

In other news, I spent all afternoon working on the post-Wrath of Khan Sulu/Chekov fic, which is about half to 2/3 done and will be somewhere between 1500 and 2000 words. Also, apparently I can't write a fic without crying!Chekov in it. WTF self.

*snickers* I think Ted agrees with this.

 

*snorts*

A few weeks ago, I got linked to this comm for something or other that said in their user info they would only approve your membership if your personal journal reflected Christian values and was free of inappropriate language. Mildly amused, I went and checked my journal - I don't think I could find a single entry on the page at the time that didn't have "fuck" in it at least once.

Yeah, I swear a lot. I once had a friend's father tell me I needed to watch my language because it wasn't ladylike. *rolls eyes* Whatever. I was raised by parents who swear and I do it too because it's easy and emphatic and feels good when I'm emotional and gets my point across when I need it to. It doesn't take the place of well-reasoned argument, but it doesn't make me any less articulate and intelligent, either.

masterofmidgets : fucking ladylike, bitches.

ETA: also I talk about gay porn a lot. That probably doesn't help my rating. XD

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next seven sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

Hours and hours she had spent on it and it was nearly finished. Would I be lonely? she asked and I said 'No,' looking at the colours. Hours and hours and hours I thought.

This convent was my refuge, a place of sunshine and of death where very early in the morning the clap of a wooden signal woke the nine of us who slept in the long dormitory. We woke to see Sister Marie Augustine sitting, serene and neat, bolt upright in a wooden chair. The long brown room was full of gold sunlight and shadows of trees moving quietly. I learnt to say very quickly as the others did, 'offer up all the prayers, works and sufferings of this day.'

--The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (reading for contemporary lit class)

Last night when I set my alarm, I set it for Monday instead of Tuesday. On Tuesday I am supposed to get up at 10.00am. I woke up at a quarter to twelve. I missed my morning class and spent the rest of the day in the state of confused bafflement that tends to come from completely screwing up my schedule.

I'll try again tomorrow, I suppose.

Meme ganked from poisonivory : Try to write different categories of fic (angst, fluff, UST, etc) in 10 words or less.
Pairings incluse McShep, Sam/Dean, Boostle, and Merlin/Arthur

Angst

"I don't think you should marry her," John spits bitterly.

AU

Sam Winchester’s first case as ADA is against Dean Winchester.

Crackfic

As a five-year-old, Booster is cute - but very loud.

Crossover

“Yes, yes, we’re all doctors of something here,” Rodney grumbles.

Death

Screw demons; hell is Sammy's blood dripping on his hands.

Episode-Related

Arthur didn’t need second thoughts about drinking from the cup.

First Time

Booster whispers against his skin, “Promise you won’t leave again.”

Fluff

John’s first snowball knocks Rodney’s hat right off his head.

Humor

“Tell me about the pool and the jello?” Ted grins.

H/C

"It'll scar," Arthur says as Merlin winces. "You'll be dashing."

Smut
Sheppard looks exquisite, flat on his back and panting.


UST

Ted's ass in spandex is fast becoming a dangerous distraction.

Also! telyanofcelore  is a fantastic and wonderful person! She sent me books for Christmas! Thank you they are shiny and lovely!