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Today I was attacked by my own bedroom.

Sometimes I have these really stupid impulsive ideas. At about eleven thirty tonight, the stupid idea was: My glasses have been missing for a couple of weeks. I am sure they slipped into the terrible jungle that is under-the-bed and I will find them in two minutes if I actually look instead of shoving my hand down there and waggling it back and forth for a few seconds.

Learned Thing I: Under The Bed is a very, very terrifying place, far more terrifying than I had previously imagined. It is a place of death and I am never going down there again if I can help it. I am afraid to clean under there now because I think it might eat me. 

Learned Thing II: When I was eleven, I fit rather comfortably under the bed. I am nineteen now, have a slightly different bedframe setup, and, more importantly, have acquired copious amounts of bosom. I can no longer get more than my head and shoulders under the bed. At all.

Learned Thing III: Mattresses are really heavy. Boxsprings are even heavier and they hurt when they fall on you. You should not attempt to move them off the bedframe on a whim in the middle of the night, especially when you wear contacts and have done just fine without your glasses for weeks now. (I mostly wear my glasses when I am very headachey, when I am very lazy, when I am in between sets of contacts because I never remember to order them on time, or at night when I am reading in bed, because slipping off glasses is easy and slipping off contacts is not when you are sleepy.)

Learned Thing IV: I have more muscles in more places than I even knew. I do not feel so bad now about not having exercised today.

Learned Thing V: I should listen to my mother sometimes. Here is a conversation that probably happened more than once.

ME: "All of the plastic cups have mysteriously vanished! This is very irritating. Where could they have gone?"
MY MOTHER: "...Are they in your bedroom again?"
ME: "I HAVE NOT DONE THAT IN MONTHS WHY DO YOU DOUBT ME also I can't find any cereal bowls."
MY MOTHER: "Didn't I see one on your desk?"
ME: "YOU ARE SO SUSPICIOUS AND ACCUSING"

Under my bed, nested amongst the mangled remains of many newspapers, magazines, guitar chord printouts, candy wrappers, and scribbled-on pages, were approximately two hundred plastic cups. Fortunately none of them had rotting milk in them. There were also some cereal bowls. I am duly ashamed. But I also blame my bed. It was probably hungry.

Learned Thing VI: It is very hot under the bed. Also, it is far easier to get under than it is to extract oneself. I don't even know how that works. At one point, when I was mostly stuck, the radio went on (whenever it gets unplugged, the alarm resets itself to go off at midnight) and Ominious Monk-like Chanting followed me beneath the mattresses. It was a little disturbing. (It was actually a sort of New Age music programme public radio has on late at night -- and it happened to be mostly the very, very nice, relaxing, and musically interesting sort, not the really lame elevator music sort. And then BBC News came on. Yay!)

Learned Thing VII: Somehow, lifting up the mattress and the boxspring makes the entire room explode. My bedroom was reasonably neat. I spent half an hour or longer trying to make it look mostly the way it had before I pulled up the mattress.

Learned Thing VIII: My glasses were behind the dresser.

I am going to get an ice cream bar out of the freezer downstairs. It is nearly two in the morning. I do not care. I need it.

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I am beginning to feel as though I have done Evy's vampire wrong, because he isn't doing anything, either in what I've written thus far or in my head. I mean, except for this one flight of fancy, wherein I wondered if maybe Mr Caruthers gets misguidedly jealous of the vampire cos he and Evy are kind of secretive and she trusts him and stuff, and Evy's like "are you kidding me? VAMPIRE? EW." and Mr Caruthers is like "LOOK, VAMPIRES ARE PREDATORS AND SEDUCTION IS ONE OF THE TOOLS THEY USE TO ATTRACT PREY AND IT'S NOT COMPLETELY INSANE IF ONE WERE TO SUCCUMB, SO TO SPEAK, AS IT IS A PRETTY STRONG GLAMOUR. NOT THAT I WOULD KNOW." and Evy's like, "Um. I have to go home now." 

Anyway, I think he might actually step back into the story if he had a name -- I've been magnificently unsuccessful in locating one thus far; all I know is that it's long. (I'm also toying with the idea that vampires frequently take new names, especially after they've been vampires for a while, and their old human personality is so worn away that there doesn't seem a reason to keep a name that belongs to someone long dead.) Latin seems a little, um, predictable, and actually I'm kind of hoping for Welsh? Because a Welsh vampire would be awesome. Gaelic could be pretty neat, too, and can get very long: the problem with Gaelic is that pronunciation seems impossible to predict. (And Welsh isn't hard to pronounce?, you ask. Well, it is a bit, but the rules are much simpler, and letters correspond to sounds that make sense, once you learn the few variants and how to pronounce them, like ll, w, and f. Whereas Gaelic, I look at it and there are all these letters, and they could be anything, and half the time it looks like an impossibly long word, but it's pronounced in one syllable. It's a little dizzying.)

But anyway again! Today I became a dark redhead again, after spending far, far too long with already somewhat light red hair fading to the brassy peroxide blonde underneath, not at all attractively I might add. I have been trying to achieve this particular dark rusty colour for a year, as my Very First Dye Job was rust and blonde, and yet when I used the exact same dye back in the spring it did not come out remotely the same, and I was sad. But this time, with a different brand, it worked; heaven knows why. And as I was taking photographs anyway, my outfit happened to be rather nice and simple and casually neo-Victorian and made me happy.


I took this outfit and this hair down the block to Luigi's Ristorante, who are hiring servers, filled out an application, had a pre-interview, apparently shook hands with the owner, and was actually assured of a phone call for once. I made certain to mention pointedly the fact that I live a block away and would be available to fill in and such things at extremely short notice. I daresay I should rather like working there; the atmosphere is very nice, tips ought to be lovely as it is one of the nicer restaurants in town, and I have always wanted to waitress. Also it is a block from my house. Very convenient, that.
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The most glorious mess of a thunderstorm just roared over the hills -- all blinding rain and howls of thunder and the thick scent of sweat and dust rising, expelled, from the earth. The sky's been green. I had to light all the candles I could and shrug into my white lace skirt (to go with, you know, my folkloretastic Vampires Beware t-shirt...), and now I feel rather compelled to share with you the music I was listening to when the brunt of the storm hit, which happens to be this crazy raucous Victorian street punkfolk, with lots of group shouting and singing saw and accordion and stuff. "Honey in the Hair" by Blackbird Raum. This is totally research for my novel. Totally. In, um, a frame-of-mind sort of way? I have to get into young Rue Caruthers*' mind somehow, yes? And this is exactly what he would have listened to. No really. (Also wondering, really, how close might street music have got to this back then? Research topic three hundred and nine: London musical culture, high and low, at the turn of the century.) Also, er, apparently Stuff Mr Caruthers Would Have Listened To As A Young Victorian Punk is my new musical kink (see also: Arcade Fire, Rose Kemp, Pale Young Gentlemen, Patrick Wolf, Dark Dark Dark... are you kidding, of course I'm making a mix).

On the subject of the ever-present Novel, I wrote this bit late last night, and upon waking it seemed awfully anachronistic. Thoughts?

 
   “Your hair,” he said, making a vague gesture with his pen, “is sort of… exploding.”
   “Brilliant,” hissed Evangeline, and she stalked – really stalked – towards the lavatory.

Context: thunderstorm of doom, Evy comes into work soaked and cranky. I think my subconscious is trying to show that Evy and Mr Caruthers have a fairly comfortable, bantering relationship (which they do). But is this a believable exchange between a thirty-five-year-old man and a twenty-two-year-old woman (who works for him, though they are good friends) in 1912? For one thing, brilliant wasn't slang for fantastic the way it is now, yes? (Also, good slang terms for "shut up", both in a friendly bantering way as between Evy and her sisters, and a rather intensely rude way as between Mr Caruthers and Some Buearucrat who's all "so, yeah, Miss Nox, he kind of has this Shady Dark Past which I would be delighted to misinform you about"? I can go to [livejournal.com profile] hp_britglish or [livejournal.com profile] little_details if I have to.) 
 
* I CANNOT ESCAPE RUPERT. I SHOULD HAVE GIVEN IN LONG AGO. also his youthful nickname is so not ironic slightly bad-punly foreshadowing shut up I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH ANY OF THIS ANYWAY.

Er, on the subject of music and also vampires... this is the first song that's properly mine that I've properly recorded. Black is the Colour of My True Love's Heart, in which, as usual, I hear a traditional ballad and just know there's an alternate version out there in which he's a vampire and she has to kill him what is wrong with me. Anyway, there's a flaily first attempt at music production in here, too, consisting of me making weird noises with my mother's African thumb piano and then manipulating and repeating them in two different ways. I don't even know if it works, I've been messing with this song for so long.

well then

Aug. 5th, 2009 05:55 pm
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Talked to parents about The Great Escape last night; it went both better and worse than I expected, but the best part is that it's over and I don't have to think about it (or panic about the bit where I have to talk to people on purpose about a specific thing, which sends me into fits of terror no matter how benign the subject or how intimately known the people). Most of the "worse" was me not being nearly as eloquent or sense-making with my mouth as I was in my head, and my body's inclination to start crying before someone's even had time to drop the proverbial hat. All that to say -- I almost have a plan. I think.

So: parents largely supportive, if somewhat taken aback, I think. Dad is going to teach me to drive, and start investing in the small economy car we've been talking about getting for the last year (cannot learn on Mum's car for it is broken; cannot learn on Dad's car for it is a hippie van of hugeness). I am going to study the driver's manual, and make up catchy songs to make me remember everything if I have to. Apparently one can learn to drive and get one's license in a few weeks if one is diligent and learns well? I was always under the vague impression that it took months. I think having bicycled on main roads so much will be at least a little helpful -- cars are entirely different, of course, but I've internalised a lot of rules and knowledge of how things work.

I am also seeking out-of-the-box ideas for making money; Dad suggests I have at least a thousand saved. This is laughable with my current job or lack thereof (stilllll on the payroll! but aside from my name being on it you couldn't tell I worked there), hence the rather mad ideas I am coming up with, including but not limited to selling plasma to the Red Cross (you can get about thirty bucks in a week) and donating my body to Science. Which, um, sort of appeals to me, actually, in an Adventure sort of way. There's nothing right in town, but I'm looking into Pittsburgh and State College next. Dad did some of that years ago -- he had to wear some kind of patch for some drug they were testing; I don't remember anything else -- and, you know, I'm young and healthy and weird side affects aren't going to be hugely problematic to my life at the moment (I mean, unless they make me go insane or break out in giant puss-filled boils, or both), and I have the time and freedom to stay at a hospital or some such for several weeks if there's a sleep study or some such I can participate in. It is quite possible that this could take care of all of the necessary money in one go: and, as I said, it kind of appeals to me in a weird way. I like new experiences, helping scientific advances is nifty, and money is pretty nice. So, yes, that's what I'm looking into at the moment.

Haven't talked to the other parts of the plan -- relations and Susu -- yet, so we'll see where that gets me.

Am I really doing this? I must be mad.
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Jonathan came to church with us this morning, and stayed all day, though I left at four for Alessandra's bridal shower (which was grand fun), and brought a Hannah back with me, where she & Jonathan & I watched The Curse of Fatal Death and did...stuff like this.
With the exception of Jonathan's awesome 1940s coat, all of this came out of my closet. So, yes. We decided we were actually twelve years old and played dress-up, because verily, we are awesome.

Tomorrow: Hannah & I make cookies and go to Goodwill; Jonathan returns for artsy costume photography in the tree grove up the hill... And now, I am going to bed.
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HELP ME I JUST READ TRAUMATISING EMILY OF NEW MOON FIC. SOMEONE GIVE ME A COOKIE AND TELL ME THAT THERE IS STILL GOOD IN HUMANITY.

*whimpers*
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I don't know what it was, really: some change in the colour-scheme, some brightening or dimming of the lights, but suddenly and astonishingly Christmas spirit burst into me like flame igniting wax. Despite last night's Omen Of Deep And Profound Ill--the Christmas tree toppled over at two thirty in the morning, with one ornament fatality and several minor injuries reported--things seem to be going rather well, and I am--dare I say it?--Looking Forward. (Also, poking at the presents is always good for the mood, unless one is too easily frustrated. Yay, presents. Mum & Dad, in a typical show of Deviousness, have refused to put tags on any of the presents, so we haven't a clue who they are for. Fortunately, there are plenty of presents from other people--grandparents, family friends, and the like--and I've got my own little store of things from [profile] lady_moriel  and [profile] midenianscholar  to puzzle over. [profile] lady_moriel  = BEST PRESENT ADDRESSER EVER. Except for the one time Dad gave his parents a fruitcake 'from Beelzebub'.)

Well, tomorrow morning--today, actually, as it is one thirty in the morning now--we are piling in the Gigantic Van and driving at not-exactly-breakneck speed towards The House Of The Aunt, where my cousins and I will recommence whatever insanity we didn't finish properly with last time we saw each other (which will probably involve making a short film of some kind, likely starring action figures), eat pizza, and commence Not Sleeping At All In Any Way Except For That Brief Bit At Four Or Five When Our Tongues Have Begun To Ache From Talking. 

Hopefully I will have shed this cold by Christmas, at least. I sound like a complete and utter prat whenever I talk and I am beginning to want to rip out my vocal cords and start over again. Also, I have been wearing an inordinate amount of makeup as my upper lip has got a vivid red patch that eerily resembles a Hitler 'stache. ...Which, yeah, wrong

P.S.: D'you know what I want for Christmas? PLUTO. ♥


(AND I SAW TWO EPISODES OF MONTY PYTHON TONIGHT. EEEEE. *goes to bed*)
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Suddenly I am hit with an incredibly urgent desire to write a novel about a group of people with basically useless superpowers.

Because, come on, they can't be conveniently awesome all the time. Someone's got to get stuck with 'oh, look, I can lower prices with the blink of an eye!', or 'I CAN TALK TO GOLDFISH OMG'.

Or, there could be a team of superheroes with literary-based powers: 'I am...EXPOSITION MANNN! (Along with my trusty sidekick...APOSTROPHE BOY!)'

Yeah, going to bed now. Kittyspam will insue tomorrow, especially as Mum and Dad's early Christmas present got here the same day as the kitty: they bought themselves a digital camera. Mine is somewhere in Illinois being repaired, but this one is...basically identical, so far as I can tell, except for a few new features and a slightly different layout. (By the by, the wee beastie still hasn't got a name. I looked through Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, of course, but none of the names suit, except for Mr. Mistofolees, and we already had one of those. It was a Miss Mistofolees, commonly known as Misty, but it still counts. Any other (male) cats in literature? Why am I drawing such a blank? [livejournal.com profile] lady_moriel, because I know you will either suggest it or remember to suggest it in two days time while in the shower/in bed/at school/driving/eating breakfast, Tevildo would be AWESOME. Unfortunately, the parents would not get it. Even if I explained it, my dad wouldn't get it. Anyway, kitty's too cute to be evil yet.)
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Invest in Malden!!


Er...in other news, today was completely rotten, I was irrationally emotional over irrational things, a frantic cycling through the rain and crazy Saturday drivers proved fruitless, and things were generally a wash, except that I did see Master & Commander tonight, and Monty Python's Flying Circus. ♥ (And blimey, I forgot how fantastically pretty M&C is! Can I hang it on my wall?) Also, [livejournal.com profile] avonleigh made a Remus/Tonks mix!! (I'm vexed that she beat me to it, but in my defense, I haven't got a particular song that is pretty much integral to mine. Also, I'm vexed because there isn't any record of Millay's "Dirge Without Music" being...put to music. In which case the title would have to be changed. Ack.)



By the by, the whole music exchange thing of the last post is still very, very open. *is totally not hinting. at all.*
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AAAGGH, [profile] lady_moriel, STOP MAKING THINGS EAT MY BRAIN.

BECAUSE NOW I HAVE TO WRITE ABOUT IAN. AND PEANUT BUTTER. AND IAN AND TUESDAY SHARING PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICHES AND BEING ADORABLE AND WHATNOT. 

I ALSO NEED TO BREAK THIS WRETCHED CAPSLOCK HABIT.

(but, yeah, it might be nice to write something that is not soaked in tragedy and woe. it would be mildly angsty, but not...like what I've been doing recently. Ian would be all, 'I'm feeling melancholy. I am going to make a sandwich, because it makes me feel better. also, making food makes me feel better. don't tell anybody or I will take an axe to you', and Tuesday's all 'yeah, saving the world rots, seriously; I miss being normal, except that I wasn't, so, um...yeah', and Ian's all 'have a biscuit sandwich, Aiken', and then they eat peanut butter sandwiches in cosy empathy, and are darling and suchness. and then Banui's Mum shows up and makes her go to bed and Harry takes the capslock back rather violently.)

actually, I should go to be. I am crazy rambling.
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So, I'm reading about Monty Python's Flying Circus on Wikipedia, and trying not to scare anyone with freakish outbursts of laughter / glee. THE BEATLES WERE ALL MONTY PYTHON FANS. *fangirls* Could Eric Idle being the Narrator / every two characters or so in the brilliant parody documentary The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash have anything to do with this? (Best. movie. ever. Really. My cousins and I quote from it constantly. "Oh, dear, there's a rat up my leg!", and "...very bad Spanish for 'have you a water buffalo?'", and "I've taken tea! And biscuits, too!", and "I'm shocked. And stunned.", and whatever else I've forgotten. At the time I saw it my Beatles knowledge was absolute zilch, other than 'Yellow Submarine' because I'd seen the movie, and it was still hilarious, even if I didn't get all the in-jokes that had my dad and aunt suffocating in hysterics over.) 

Er. Yes. And now I am reading the list of every episode aired ever. Even this is wildly entertaining. 'The Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things'? 

Bother. I want my television and my high-speed internet back.

(LOST in THREE WEEKS! *had weird dream involving Kate and Sawyer playing cards and eating potato chips in the Other camp while being totally not bound and gagged, and Jack moping, and Charlie and Claire showing up at the Other camp, and regrettably No Desmond At All*)

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So, the one thing I should Never, Ever Do Again is this: Sort the apostles during a lull in the sermon. Because then I start giggling. And that's just wrong. (Giggling in church is one thing. Giggling hysterically in church when the pastor isn't saying anything remotely funny is something altogether different.)



(But Peter was such a Gryffindor!!)


*headwall*
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Dear Muse,

I'm really very sorry about ignoring you. I am sorry for refusing to let you have any of my cookies. I am extremely sorry for siccing the cat on you when you tried to jostle me awake at two in the morning with one of your propositions. Even if the cat didn't actually do anything but sit limply on your stomach. Which is about all he's ever been capable of doing anyway. Okay. Fine. Throwing the cat was wrong. I admit it. But you were bothering me. Again. Except that your bothering almost always ends up as pretty decent fic, although it's occasionally interrupted by Mum coming in to find me scribbling away and stealing my pen by way of forcing me to go to bed. (In which case I go against my moral judgement and use a pencil. Ugh.) 

Since I have been all nice and apologised and whatnot, and kept my commas in order, and everything, won't you please come back from wherever it is you've decided to go on holiday this time? (If you are in Boston, England, or Scotland, I shall hate you, or would, if you were not entirely integral to my writing process.)

- - -

Dear Remus,

Look, I'm sorry about lobbing Webster's Third Edition Unabridged at you. And The Oxford Book of American Poetry. And The Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage 1975. [Ohmygosh. I just realised that Remus could have owned that book, except for the fact that it's probably too American. Probably. I don't know. Then again, Dad bought it yonks ago, and if my completely irrational  theory is correct--um. Okay. Yes. I am KEEPING MY SANITY tonight.] I am also very sorry for inserting parenthetical comments into your letter. (FINE. BRACKETED. STOP BEING ALL PUNCTUATIONY AT ME AT THIS TIME OF NIGHT.) Er. And perhaps shining the white light at you wasn't the best move. Because interrogating people is almost never going to get them to let you inside their heads. And I may have possibly been really bothersome with all those hints about things you should be doing and certain people you should be reconciling with properly. (I did this with Abramm, too, and he nearly threw me off a parapet. Especially as Maddie was going red. I suppose if you hang out in the Character Lounge, which I know must exist somewhere, you would know this. I'm sure they tell ghastly stories about me there.)

Anyway. Um. It being too late at night, I have lost all sense of sense and punctuation. Er. Just shape up and stop refusing to be written, or I swear I will find the OED and chuck that at you too. Which won't help matters at all, but it will feel nice.



...Sweet Arda. I've been talking to imaginary people again! *flees in shame*
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I came to an odd realisation in the middle of the supermarket several days ago, and had to control fits of hysterical snickering. Also, this proves that I have completely lost myself to a conspiracy-theory mentality. Eru save us all.

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I do believe that I am being haunted by the ghost of Sirius Black. 

Of course, that would mean that he is actually dead, and I am still clinging to the hope that he is simply lost, hiding, or stuck. Or something. In any case, he is trying to contact me. I am sure of this. 


In conclusion: yes, he isn't dead. But why is he contacting me? I mean, me, of all people! I can't even drive! If I write about him, it will always be angsty! I own a cat! I don't have enough money to ship him off to England where he belongs and hopefully has god-grandchildren. Or something. (Furthermore, what the bloody plague is he doing in my small, insignificant Pennsylvania town? Twice?)

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