my heart is a glorious machine;

So, I have a confession to make.

I have a massive, irrational, insurmountable crush on Spike.

This goes contrary to all logic! I don't fancy the bad boy character! (shut up, the Master does not count. THAT WAS THE FAULT OF THE SLEEVES AND THE CAPE AND THE CRAZY AND THE JOHN SIMM WHO IS A NEIL GAIMAN FANBOY AND IT WAS A BRIEF FLING ANYWAY WHAT I AM NOT IN DENIAL GO AWAY.) I mostly fancy side characters anyway! I rarely find blond men attractive! Especially blond men who aren't even naturally blond! I go for the awkward tragic bookish sorts with weird senses of nobility; just look at my fictional boyfriend list! Statistically, I should be fancying Giles! (Well, I do, a bit. But that's beside the point.) IT'S ALL WRONG, I TELL YOU! IT'S THE PRETTY ACCENT PUTTING A GLAMOUR OVER ME! AND THE CHEEKBONES! AND THE SWIRLY LEATHER COAT OF AWESOME AND WIN. I AM INNOCENT IN THIS. I AM A FLY CAUGHT IN A SPIDER'S WEB OF...STUFF.

SOMEONE STOP ME BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.

So, I sort of disappeared for a bit, then, didn't I? Well, I went carolling with the girls, and that sort of mutated into me spending the night at Victoria's, which was great fun. Carolling was also great fun, and it motivated me to sew the buttons back onto my tweed coat. Unfortunately it also required me to wear a skirt which is more or less falling apart, which got to be a bit awkward when I was staying over at the Nielson's without a change of clothing. Anyway, it was dark and the snow was glittering beneath the house lights and we all sounded very nice. The residents of several of the houses looked as though we'd made their night, which was heart-cockle warming to be sure. And then there was the teenaged boy who opened the door, listened to us for a while in a very bemused fashion (while text messaging, apparently), and then shut the door in our faces when we were a line or two from finishing. We think he then sat down at the computer, or so the silhouette in the window told us.

We stopped in for a bit at the Husses, and then went to the Nielsons' to hobnob, have very delicious cocoa (the sort one makes on the stove and not from a mix, which I shall have to have a go at sometime, especially after I harangue Mum into buying some whipped cream for the pie I plan to make for Christmas), admire Victoria's lovely Edwardian and very steampunk jacket, and generally talk loudly with grand hand motions and dance round the room and arbitrarily burst into song. You know, those sorts of things. And then Victoria and I decided that I would stay the night and proceeded to convince our mothers of this. (This thing in which spur-of-the-moment ideas actually happen: I am not used to it at but it is rather wonderful, if slightly dizzying.) Eventually, this led to being up at midnight, cutting out gingerbread with cookie cutters. We got a bit bored of the traditional shapes and began cutting out more interesting things, such as the TARDIS and the Sorting Hat (we were trying for a lightning bolt but neither of us could get it right) and a hobbit hole and a wardrobe and a round cookie on which we drew the Serenity logo with decorator's icing the next morning. She also taught me to play blackjack and ratscrew, which was especially interesting when we were sitting in her attic bedroom, hunched over a small lamp, playing cards in the dark. We played quite a lot of games of ratscrew, so that I got better at it, although I really only won the last one because Victoria was beginning to nod off. She also lent me her copy of Sorcery and Cecelia, which is positively delicious and I am halfway through re-reading it. (Hush now; I read very quickly. Which is why I read everything twice so long as it is not absolutely awful.)

In the morning, Alessandra came by not very long after we woke up (which was late), and we made the decorator's icing for the cookies and started decorating them. We'd begun on some gingerbread men when I thought, well, wouldn't it be brilliant if we made all the crew of Serenity out of gingerbread? Which I voiced aloud: so we did it. We used the regular gingerbread cookies for the blokes and snapped the wings off of some angels for the women. Alessandra had Mal, Inara, and Jayne; Victoria took Wash, Zoe, and River; and I did Simon, Kaylee, and Book. Oh, it was lovely. Especially Jayne, who is instantly, hilariously recognisable. And River, who is carrying round a deer's head.  And Mal, who was bald for quite some time ("Wash! I'm bald!"). (And yes, there will be pictures forthcoming.) Then, because we are really approximately nine years old at heart, we took them into the parlour and played with them. Then we watched The Phantom of the Opera, divvied up the singing parts (Victoria was Christine, Alessandra was Raoul, and I was the Phantom, ostensibly because my voice is the deepest, but I am sure there was some darker motive involved), and Alessandra beat me up with a ketchup bottle.

I slept rather a lot today for some reason. Hmm.

Perhaps soon I will stop having a life and begin making proper posts again.

Well, I have been trying to write a fairly gloomy entry about how I do not feel fantastic and circumstances not to mention hormones seem to be conspiring against me and huddling in dark corners with lots of mysterious maps and papers and whispering in code, but today has not been the sort of day that inspires great moaning from me. (Here I could likely talk about how I am nearly as good at suppressing emotions as Ten is, and it would be completely and utterly true. When I have a good day, it is mostly on the surface; there is always some horrid beastie lurking beneath, waiting to spring the very moment it becomes most irrational to do so. Which makes me feel horrid and unstable, but when I have a good day I can mostly ignore it. Which is probably not terribly good for the brain, but I do like moments of sanity here and there.)

Honestly, now that I'm here, I have no idea what to go on about. I haven't posted in a very long time -- anywhere -- and this would make me feel tremendously guilty if not for this strange business of stuffing emotions into convenient drawers bursting with stray socks and things. Mostly I have been reading the f-list rather dimly with that wretched feeling I get where my head feels as though it is sloshing with thick, nasty corn syrup.

(Shut up, self, nobody wants to read about you been unhappy and unpleasant.)

Today I cleaned the bedroom, which looked like a miniature war zone and has looked this way since, er, July. It needs a mighty vacuuming, but I've got muffins to bake for breakfast tomorrow and anyway I have been in that dratted room cleaning things half the day and I want to read a book, gorram it. I also made cookies, because the gingerbread was gone and I was not capable of waiting until tomorrow for desserty things to show up in my refrigerator and cupboards (and anyway you've got to be careful about pies; the nice thing about cookies is that you can eat lots of them without anyone noticing, at least at the beginning when the container is full -- pies in their neat slices do not lend themselves nearly so well to compulsive comfort eaters unless said people live alone). Oh dear, commas, I'm sorry. You can come out to play now, I promise.

Also I have nearly finished all of the library books I got out on Saturday and it is only Wednesday. This is worrying. I might be forced to, er, re-read something. Which would be dreadful. Even if there are bookmarks in at least two books on my shelves that I started to re-read and got distracted by Library Books Which Must Be Consumed In A Week's Time. Also also I would like to make an entry someday about Really Fantastic Films I Have Seen Recently but now that I've mentioned it I will probably never get to it. Anyway it would probably get all geeky and technical in the end, or just odd ("how can he be so worked up about nobody taking him seriously enough and yet flaunt a moustache like that? that is not a Serious Moustache!" -- "he's working on it! he's got a government grant!"). Also to the third power: Time Crash = unintelligable syllables of fangirly glee and Steven Moffat needs the universe on a shiny, shiny platter already, HULLO BBC.

Other thing I keep not posting: philosophical, grammatical, and anthropological musings on Firefly. Because, yes, I actually do spent great amounts of time thinking about these things. (Especially the linguistic aspects! Honestly some of the slang is so right on I wonder if Joss Whedon did a crash course in linguistics or just has an ear for things. I KNOW I KNOW NOBODY ELSE EVER CONSIDERS HOW FICTIONAL SLANG DEVELOPS IN A FICTIONAL UNIVERSE OVER SEVERAL CENTURIES SHUT UP.)

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and the thing about Thanksgiving is that it always seems to arrive when I am absolutely the least ready for it. I seem to always be at my most despondent and lonely and frustrated in November. But holidays are beautiful, and that little sequestering of magic -- well, it's nice. The thing I like about Thanksgiving is that it's very, almost reverently, quiet. I suppose it isn't nearly this way for lots of people, but my family has almost always spent Thanksgiving alone, and there's something very intimate and beautiful about it.

I haven't any idea what I'm even saying anymore; time to fix up some muffins and go to bed.

Oh, I've had such a lovely day, and I'm so sleepy that the wrongest of words are all tumbling about arbitrarily in my head and out of my fingers, but I feel emotionally refreshed. I've spent lots of the day romping with several of my chums; we mucked about at the Goodwill and played a 1980s edition of Trivial Pursuit and gabbed and went to a barbecue and bonfire and I watched red-gold sparks burning through the sky as through a great skein of cobalt silk. And I discovered quite by accident, because we were playing Trivial Pursuit and Victoria burst out with "curse your sudden yet inevitable betrayal!" and I shouted excitedly, "You watch Firefly! I love you!" -- and so that was how I discovered that in recent months they have all been falling in love with Firefly and somehow neglecting to mention this altogether, the twits! But now I've got at least two people who might lend me Serenity, and, astonishingly, a whole lot of people who will understand my nerdy jokes. (I know, it's been, what, two weeks? And yet the nerdy jokes and conspiracy theories are already cropping up like dandelions.)

oh I'm ever so sleepy; if it weren't for this useful spell-checking thingummy you wouldn't be able to read this post at all I'm sure. at any rate there are already far too few commas.

and I shall reply to more of your comments eventually; I appreciate them all so very, very, very much and you lot are marvellous, really.

Right, so, what does it say about me that I have spent substantial periods of time figuring out how best to make a record player work by magic? -- Look, it really wouldn't be that difficult; isn't the main way a record player works is by rotating, and the needle scratching along the surface of the record? (I have not actually seen very many record players in action.) In that case, one would simply have to charm it to go round, yeah?

...Yeah.


In other news, a very happy (and somewhat belated even on this side of the world) birthday to ressie_noldo , who is v. spiffing. ♥

I've written my first entry for rt_challenge and feel the need to exult a bit. Shush, it's my first ficathon. And somehow what I was writing turned out to be a poem, which was utterly unexpected and totally influenced by all of the rain-themed music I was listening to while writing. Well. There isn't enough fandom poetry anyway.

Also, if we all keep our fingers crossed, I may have a fanmix EP out for you lot tomorrow. May. Er. I'm hoping that mentioning this has not just jinxed the poor project beyond all hope. I did make the covers and everything, so. Um. Well. Also because my mind works in mysterious ways, I have just made a sort of gloomy-but-also-hopeful mix at what may be the absolute wrong time. Er. Yes. In my defense, they don't die in my universe.

Which brings me to That Fic I Keep Talking About And Never Producing, which, um. Yes. It is almost finished. Really. It has also been in the same state of almost-finished-ness for three days, but that is beside the point. A certain Eliot-loving bloke is being far too angsty for everyone's good and I am trying to work it out into a proper hopeful ending. And I wrote myself to the end of a paragraph and suddenly realised, um, oh no, I have no idea what happens next. Blast!

My oh my, I've made an entirely fandomy post! This hasn't happened in months, if you don't count the rather incoherent posts written immediately after viewing episodes of Doctor Who. Or the equally incoherent post-Lost ones squeaking "what?"

So, yeah, this is me, back from holiday. REALLY EXCELLENT HOLIDAY. Will discuss this later, but there are much more pressing matters at hand.



Like I said, proper post about more of the things I liked and didn't like later, but I have very very very late dinner to find.

This is the part where I attempt to put my brain back together and say something coherent: i.e., not frenzied angry confused keyboard smashing. Because, seriously, WHAT WAS THAT?


Alternately, ressie_noldo and I are concocting a series of plots, such as rewinding the Universe to last week and stopping this episode from happening, overthrowing RTD's empire and instating the Republic of Moffat instead, and sending pointed cards WRITTEN IN BLOOD:

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker
And in short, I was afraid

No! I am not Steve Moffat, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant chap, one that will do
To create a progress, write a scene or two,
Advise the great; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, there to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of funny sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, mostly ridiculous—
Indeed, at times, the Fool.

We have lingered in the chambers of the TV
By Moffat-episodes wreathed with awesome fully blown    
Till Mr. Davies wakes us, and we drown.

Er, yes, the fancrack helps.:D

Er, wow, Remus/Eowyn? Now there's a crack-ship if ever there was one. I'm not quite sure whether I ought to laugh or cry. So I will just use a lot of italics instead.

The terrifying part is that I can almost see it.