juushika

How much of a sop am I that listening to The Phantom of the Opera (for the first time in many months) makes me tear up? I had forgotten that music could be so beautiful.

Today is Sunday breakfast, my Papa's birthday, the first night of Hanukkah, and the solstice! Happy whatever to whoever celebrates it! *rushes off*

My back hurts. This is my own fault for working on the laptop in the bedroom (on a mini-bookshelf working as a table, used while sitting on the edge of the bed), but I'm more productive on the lappy, so. Interestingly so, this holds true even with Guild Wars installed—probably because Guild Wars is both full screen and pseudo-real-time-ish, so no multitasking there. And a good thing, too, because Guild Wars is like crack. It's good not to be able to play it all the time.

But more to the point.

Happy very very belated birthday to me! My birthday was on the 18th, although it stretched out on and off over three days, and all of it was wonderful. Saturday the 18th, Devon and I went to Salem for lunch at a real, good Mongolian grill. The food was great, and goodness have I missed it. (There was one in Portland that we loved, but since the move—no good Mongolian). Then we picked up a copy of Guild Wars, then we went to my parent's place for dinner and dessert (chocolate cupcakes, which improved also with freezing). That evening, my first of my two most recent BPAL packages arrived. Talk about good timing. Sunday the 19th we went to see Stardust which was quite good. I disapproved of the little changes from the book (Hello, Captain Shakespeare? What happened to you, man?) but approved of the major changes because, as was the intent, it made for good movie watching. Um. Except that Tristan's mother looked like a cheap whore. On Monday the 20th, we went to Borders to spend the gift card that my grandfather and his wife sent me for my birthday. This gift card purchased:

Persuasion, Jane Austen
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson (three quarters of the way through this book and entirely and absolutely blown away)
The Time Machine, H.G. Wells
Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
The Call of Cthuhlu & Other Weird Stories and Dreams in the Witch House, H.P. Lovecraft (finally! and goodness but he is good)
Wicked Lovely, Melissa Marr
& just enough left over to purchase my next impulse book.

It was one very productive $100 gift card. Between it and the library, I am reading about 4 books a week and loving it. I'm keeping a list of all the stuff I want to read in the back of my moleskine and working off of that. May I say: I have marvelous taste.

All in all, it was a wonderful birthday. I turned 22, for the curious, and I am now a successfully unemployed & unpublished would-be-author & college dropout. Yippee! Also I am well loved and tolerably spoiled, and although 22 isn't a landmark year, it was a surprisingly fulfilling, happy birthday.

I mentioned above that I made a new BPAL order. Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is, for those that don't know, my drug of choice. It is the only line of scents I have ever worn and probably will ever wear. I love them. For my birthday and because I, um, "needed" some warm-weather-friendly scents (most of my favorites are dark, rich, incensey, slightly sweet scents, none of which work for warm days), went and bought some more: one shipment of six imps from the lab, one bottle and two imps from a user through sinandsalvation. These I will put behind a cut, because I know that not everyone is interested. Needless to say, I have now received both packages and am super-duper-freakishly thrilled with both.

( My new BPAL smellies! )

As it goes, that wasn't a bad way to spend $26. It's certainly made me happy (over and over and over again) and I still have scents left to try.

Still writing the book. Working mostly by hand, then typing, trying to catch up with the handwritten stuff. Have been slacking a teeny little bit but aim to change that this week. Am a bit bored with current section, but looking forward to the next, so may get through just by pushing myself forward to the palace. Then comes the time that I need to start plotting the fullness of the journey afterward (I have one section written and vague plot concepts, but no detailed understanding of what after what after what is supposed to happen).

I had a wonderful, involved, complete, even plotted dream that is begging to be another book (it's too long for a short story). Have the dream written down, and refuse to touch it at least until this book is nearly done because, seriously, I want to get something done, not just skip from project to project. But, if all goes well—that dream will make it in full form to paper sometime, even if it is a little too close to The Fountain for my sense of originality to handle.

And soforth.

Wordcount: 56,089 typed, + 4k handwritten.

Previous Accomplishments: Training plus some more training, and managed to interweave some interesting moments alongside. Also caught up with two sections I'd written way early on.

Upcoming Challenges: I'm bored of training, so finishing it up may be a pain. Oh, and, surprise of surprises, characters still do not have names.

Currently Reading: Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson; The Call of Cthulhu & Other Weird Stories, H.P. Lovecraft; The Illustrated Man, Ray Bradbury.