LJ tells me it has been 11 weeks since I updated. Astonishing! I refuse to believe it.

Life continues apace. I am still living with my parents in Wisconsin; David is still living with his parents in Tennessee. We are both working at Target for the holidays. I have gone on a couple interviews for more long-term, better-paying, career-type jobs (averaging about one interview for every 25 resumes, which is...whatever). Had one today, for an editor position which included an editing test where I missed misspellings of "consistent" and "absorption." Excellent.

I am almost never online (at least relative to how often I used to be on) and most of that is spent job-hunting and chasing spammers off Grylliade. One computer, six people--it's a fight. I blew my graduation money on a Netbook which should be here soon. Then I can be online all the time again! I'm sure you are all thrilled.

I am particularly excited for the Netbook because I'll be able to do more writing. I basically haven't even started Nano yet. And I've been doing a little freelancing for eHow, which is not going to pay the bills but earns a few dollars here and there. I'd like to do more.

What I have done lately is sell another piece of Twitterfiction (this one to @nanoism) and write a lot of poetry, most of it truly godawful. I also half-wrote, half-outlined that damn time-traveling-serial-killer story I've had in my head since about 2003. It is basically two people sitting in a room expositing at each other, but at least there's something down on paper at last. Something really awful. How is it that even with TIME TRAVELING SERIAL KILLERS, all my stories end up being sad sacks sitting around moping at each other?

Whoops, I am late with Lexicon again. How is it already Wednesday--technically Thursday? JESUS WHO TURNED LIFE ON FAST-FORWARD?

Anyway.

I recently caught up on House, watched seasons 1 and 2 of Dexter, and just started season 1 of Criminal Minds. Is anybody else watching that? I keep hearing such good things, but boy, I don't know what to think quite yet.

Bookwise, I just finished a Dick Francis run followed by a Joy Fielding run. Fielding's stuff does not hold up as well as it did when I was a teenager. I can't quite put my finger on why. Next up is Old Man's War and then some Elizabeth Bear.

But right now, sleep. Perchance to dream of kittens!

I've now had three pieces published in Thaumatrope ("the Twittering e-zine")! Read them here.

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Throw another essay subject on the pile (one day I will actually write some of these, I swear): how serial specfic (Buffy, Avatar, Shadow Unit) tends to use the first few episodes to establish the world and the types of stories they will be telling, and then there's a noticeable (albeit gradual?) uptick in quality as the writers get the real ball rolling. (Which is one way I think Firefly distinguished itself from other episodic SFF -- it dispenses with the setting-up stuff very quickly, even moreso* if you ignore the network-required exposition of the "Train Job" episode.)

Also, I wonder how it ties in with Joanna Bourne's theory (which she paraphrased from somebody else) that, "One problem with story openings is that they are technically difficult, and we write them just when we are least prepared to do so. We write the opening before we know our characters well, before we have negotiated the conflicts of Chapters 13 and 22, before all the 'aha moments' Chapter 8 and Chapter 11." Since the nature of episodic media is that the first ones have gone live before those conflicts and "aha moments." Is there a real criticism to be made, overall, or am I just being weird and picky?

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God, I miss Firefly. Particularly at the moment, for no apparent reason, I miss Jayne and his misanthropy and guns. Oh, I can lust after Lassiter on Psych, but it's not really the same.

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I am ordinarily a happy capitalist consumer, but having to pack up all the crap in this apartment is making me want to pull a Thoreau and go live in the woods and give away all my furniture and sit on a pumpkin.

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* - Ranty aside: I've been watching hours of GSN lately while doing the aforementioned packing and moving. Old episodes of Password (and variants) are driving me nuts. They've claimed that "moreso" and "stormtroopers" are both two-word clues. Curse you, TV shows of the past that have no influence on anything in my life or even history but are still maddening in their inaccuracy!

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Inspiration for the title here.

I didn't mean for my LJ posting to get so light, but I had so many balls in the air and was convinced that talking about anything would totally jinx it. But! No longer!

- I am so so so super loving kirby1024's game of Lexicon. Everybody is so smart and clever and I am having so much fun trying to keep up and play off them. Not everything I write is gold (some of it is really quite awful), but there's always another week and another prompt. It's quite heartening and has led to a few good kernels of ideas on my part. And it is a total blast.

- Holy shit I am so busy this month. We have to have all our crap out of the apartment by Sept 1. In the meantime, I'm still working as an in-home caregiver and technical editor, AND freelancing doing two websites and now a policy manual for my favorite local grocery co-op. If I can keep from going completely batshit with stress, I am going to have so much good experience!

- On Friday I will be a college graduate FOR REALS YOU GUYS.
 

LDS commercial: At chat.mormon.org, we'll answer your questions about life's uncertainties.

Ellie: I kind of feel bad for them. I know you're sort of asking for that when you put something on the internet, and I'm sure some of them just want to convert people and are preachy and creepy. But I bet a lot of them just genuinely want to help people, and then they have to deal with stupid questions.

David: "Will my butt go to heaven with the rest of me?"

 

Alex Trebek: This German physicist had a unit of frequency named after him.

Jeopardy! contestant: Who is Ohm?

Me: No, you idiot! An ohm is a unit of resistance! I know that, and I don't even know what resistance is.

David: That must be why I had sex with you so soon.

 

"There is present in them that, how should I say, hollow isolationism that is so ubiquitous (and often so affected) in today’s portraiture" - Graeme Mitchell

Compare: Elsa Dorfman

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"[In portrait photography] the key things are people, clothes, taste, ideas, light. Concentrate on these. Learn to understand how they work for you and how you work for them." - Graeme Mitchell

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(In other news, I got a parking ticket on the very last day of the semester and now they won't let me see my grades until I pay it. GRRRRRRRR.)

(in a discussion of language variations)

Professor: For example, there's some debate among linguists when people ask, "If I'm going to learn Spanish, which kind of Spanish should I learn?" Some say you should go to Spain and learn Castillian. Some say in America, you're mostly going to be encountering people from Mexico, so you should learn that variety of Spanish. What do you guys think?

Student: Well, I mean, is there a root form of Spanish? You know, that all the other forms developed from?

Me: Latin.

Class: [blank stares]
 

David: Oh, god, Pixel! Cut that out!
Ellie: What?
David: She's chewing on my paper again.
Ellie: Maybe instead of Pixel, we should have named her Pica!


(the next day)
Ellie: [makes a joke]
Joke: [falls flat]
Ellie: Whatever, I'm still proud of that Pica joke! I don't need you! I don't need anybody!

Please drop by this thread and say a quick hello!

OK, I admit that elfy is right --the chances of this sparking an actual Board Renaissance are slim. But who cares, I'd just like to see some of those people again. ... Anyway, tell us a little about what you've been up to since we saw you last.

No strings, no commitments -- just pop in and let us all poing with you one more time!

(I have just put on a cute, tight pair of shorts. David has just woken up.)

Ellie: My ass looks great! Seriously, check it out. [turns around, displays ass]
David: Oh, wait, let me get my binoculars to take a look!
Ellie: That would imply that my ass is very small, and you need to make it bigger to see it.
David: Uh. Right. ... I need a microscope!
Ellie: That also implies my ass is small.
David: ...
Ellie: ...
David: ...
Ellie: You need a wide-angle lens?
David: YES! That's what I need!
[Ellie and David shake hands]
David: Thank you for insulting yourself. Good job.
 

I haven't properly updated in a while. Well, there hasn't been a lot to tell.

Right now I'm working two jobs. I'm doing technical editing half-time for the university IT department. It's a great opportunity, and I do enjoy it, but OH MY GOD it is so mentally exhausting. I'm also still doing in-home caregiving. I have one client at the moment; I stop by five evenings a week to get him ready for dinner, and also give him morning baths on the weekends. His wife is really cool, a spunky New Orleans lady, and we get along very well.

Classes are ... mrrrehhhh. I have two professors with high expectations from their students, which is awesome from the standpoint of "intellectually challenging and engaging," but tough from the standpoint of "I've been an English major five minutes and I'm still learning how to write essays without sounding like a douche." I've been pulling a lot of B-minuses, which I think means "you had impeccable grammar and plenty of examples so I can't quite give you a C, but seriously, learn to construct a fucking thesis already."

Anyway, I'm taking five classes this semester, plus using my editing job as an internship for credit. Women in American Lit is turning out to be really enjoyable. I was expecting a lot of in-class discussion that would make me want to stab myself with a pen (seriously, hell is other English majors.) But it's all lectures with a really funny, smart teacher. Appalachian Lit is okay; I signed up because we were going to be reading Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, whom I love, but it got dropped the first week due to time constraints. Nothing we've read so far has been terribly interesting for me. Also, shut up, Cormac McCarthy. Early American Lit is a sophomore phone-it-in class. Structure of English is AWESOME and I will blah about it more in another post, since I'm working on a big project for it. Finally, I'm taking freshman-level physics which is giving me nervous breakdowns. Science: not that cool actually.

As I mentioned earlier, we got another cat. She is all white and is named Pixel, after Heinlein's cat. (Us? Nerds? Nooooo.) She is really stupid and whiny and I love her SO MUCH.

Ummm. About the only other thing I've been doing is watching TV, and nothing real interesting to report there. I'd like to hold forth at length some time about why Burn Notice is so good. I'm thisclose to breaking up with Heroes but somehow never can pull the trigger. 30 Rock is finally back in stride. I haven't watched PBS in months and I feel incredibly uninformed about the world.

Spring break starts tomorrow afternoon! OH THANK YOU GOD.
 

Ellie: Did you know that Tycho Brahe had a tame elk that lived in his house? It got drunk on beer, fell down the stairs, and died.

David: What? He had a taint elk?

Ellie: I hate you so much, you don't even know.
 

(texting back and forth)

Ellie: When you get off work, will you bring me two large roast beef from Arby's?

David: I'll bring you two large roast beef FROM MY PANTS.
 

The church choir sang at a funeral this evening. I didn't personally know the man who had passed away. All the stories about him were so funny and sweet, and the Episcopal burial service is so beautiful. Plus, I have two people I care about a lot (not that I know closely, though) who are dying. All in all, I was pretty much a mess the whole way through.

It was actually kind of funny; the only other tenor there was Oliver, a guy my age, who is also a crier. We each kept trying to comfort the other, then getting weepy again, then putting on a brave face to buck the other up, and so on.