I lose internet for four days and PANIC AT THE DISCO DISBAND???? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!!!

Now I'm parked in some semi-sketchy neighborhood pirating internet. Tomorrow I will have home internet back again, for the price of $95 installation and $56 a month. That's right, AT&T like an abusive drug dealer, will be taking me and my roommate for all we are worth. I hate them with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.

On the bright side, I'm tanner, and I've been in the water almost every day for the past week.

Now I have to drive home and go to sleep.

List 10 of your favorite characters from different fandoms, and ask people to spot patterns in your choices, and if they're so inclined, to draw conclusions about you based on the patterns they've spotted.

1) Brian - Queer as Folk (Seasons 1-3)
2) Seth Cohen - The OC (Seasons 1-2)
3) Jareth - Labyrinth
4) Rose - Doctor Who
5) Dean - Supernatural
6) Jack - SG-1
7) Brendon - PatD/Bandom
8) Fiona - Burn Notice (to be fair, I've barely dabbled in the fandom)
9) Ianto - Torchwood
10) Merlin - Merlin (Choose a favorite between Arthur and Merlin is like choosing a favorite child, so it isn't entirely accurate to say either of them is my one and only.)

Yesterday I lounged around at my apartment until 3 or so, and then THE INTERNET WENT OUT AGAIN. Honestly, I almost think the horrible internet is the doings of some tough-love higher power who is smacking themselves in the forehead going "She's still in her underwear, and hasn't spoken to a single soul or done anything of significance today! That's it, I'm knocking the internet out again."

Because then I got dressed and in the car not knowing where I was going and low and behold I just kept driving until I ended up in Santa Monica again. Well, after a minor car accident. I was turning off the freeway and the car in front of me was NOT TURNING. Inspite of TONS of opportunities. I thought it was some exceedingly elderly person. I was looking at the coming cars OR LACK THERE OF, and I saw a huge opening and I figured the person in front of me was going to take it, and I wanted to take it too, because there was plenty of room. So I hit the gas and slammed right into them because SHE WAS A MORON AND WAS NOT TAKING THE HUGE OPENING. We pulled off glanced at our bumpers and could not see a damned thing. She was around my age. Not old at all. I felt sheepish and apologetic but also I wanted to be like "You should not be driving in LA if you cannot take a goddamned right turn. Do you see how many cars are behind us?"

Anyway, this time I parked ten blocks from the beach where the parking is free and walked over. It was a pleasant walk. I went down to the sand as the tide was coming in and accidentally got soaked up to the waist. Then I sat on the beach and dried, even though it was kind of cold, and everything shifted to me feeling right with the world.

My old need for a lot of alone time has changed: I need to stop letting myself be alone. I get all paranoid and closed-in when I do it for entire days, and everything starts to seem like too much effort again.

Anyway, I had been planning to come to the beach on Sunday because I knew it was going to be sunny again, and since the internet was still out this morning, I did not hesitate. I am at 'my' coffee bean listening to buskers and people watching, and soon I will head down to the warm sand. I find it is quite impossible to be unhappy while sitting directly in front of the ocean, like the sound of the waves crushes the bad thoughts.

I will close with this entirely random seque: I love my refrigerator. It keeps things fresh FOREVER. I have strawberries in there from three weeks ago and while they are a little shrively, there is NO MOLD at all! I love this dry climate. LOVE. I'm making strawberry muffins tonight.

The internet, through a completely unrelated search, is trying to tell me that Neil Gaiman is a scientologist. Is this true? Eep.

Forgive Durden was excellent!

( Read on )

OMG.

( spoilers for The Moment of Truth )

WOULD YOU LAMETARDS STOP HAVING THE CHARACTERS DO MAGIC WITH THE DOOR HALF-OPEN? AND SHOUTING ABOUT IT WHEN ANYONE COULD WALK BY? GOSH!

But please carry on with the extreme slashy goodness.

Also, I would really like it if we could just entirely do away with the retarded "evil enchantress" trope. I am tired of it, it does not thrill me, and mostly I just want to smack a bitch. Have you ever noticed that evil enchantresses are clearly marked by their penchant for red lipstick, and clothes a 14-year-old goth would wear, and a tendency to smirk evily? I think by heeding these clear warning signs, no one need ever get duped by an evil enchantress again.

I love what a dick Arthur is. And I love Merlin's cute little friendly, overly-cocky face. I want to squeeze them BOTH! TOGETHER!

( random spoilery thoughts )

Those of you who hopped on the hot slashy Merlin/Arthur train already have probably read these, but for those of you who have not, but perhaps would like to try it, here are two of the fics I have read so far that rocked my world and made me grin madly and bounce in place making incoherent squeaky noises:

The Crown of the Summer Court by astolat, a story that does an absolutely beautiful job of keeping the tone of the show, but weaves it perfectly into bits of Arthurian legend, PLUS bringing Arthur and Merlin together in a completely satisfying way. PLUS, ELVES! And really good illustrations!

Drastically Redefining Protocol by rageprufrock, an AU in which Arthur is the Prince of Wales, and Merlin is a med student, and they meet by chance and fall in love. This is so, so well-written. And it includes various 'articles' and tabloid snippets that look and read so nicely real.

She sent me ( this! )

I'm keeping up on you people's lives. Just not commenting. If I commented, I'd never leave the Starbucks/library/provider of public wifi.

Today went surprisingly fast. I untangled necklaces for like, two hours, and that took a nice chunk of time off my day. I don't mind that--it requires concentration and I can listen to my ipod for hours.

Speaking of music, the Logan at my work (not my sister) gave me a bunch of music. He's a certified music nerd/snob, so I'm looking forward to digging through it. We talked about bands we mutually like, like Cibo Matto and Lush, and the experimental Genesis stuff, so I'm sure he took that into account with what he gave me.

Not much else to say. I really have to pee, but in order to do so, I'd have to pack all my shit up and tote it with me to the bathroom and then hope that my chair didn't get taken, so I'm holding it for as long as possible.

CURSE YOU, AT&T!!!!111 I think I might get that on a t-shirt, I feel it so emphatically.

This is probably not a good time for me to be between health insurance providers, is it?

But considering I sucked it up and asked my parents for help with my rent until I get my next pay check, I literally can't afford to make a payment to get any.

Also, any talk of a pandemic immediately makes me think of The Stand. *Warily watches out for Randall Flagg*

In other news, it is delightfully sunny and warm, I have a big chunk of smoked gouda for lunch, and I've been actually using Goodreads since without money, reading becomes even more attractive as a leisure activity.

jenepherre and I went and saw Boxer Rebellion at the Troubadour on Tuesday, then Depeche Mode on Hollywood & Vine on Thursday. Both excellent, although I could actually see the former. The latter was just a giant stage with some tiny people on it. Still! I've heard "Enjoy the Silence" and "Personal Jesus" live! For free!

Cross your fingers that I don't get the Swine flu and die a tragic death, just as I've finally become warm.

I'm suddenly in a mood for semi-classical, instrumental music. Maybe some classical guitar.

Something like Uphill Battle by Sarah McLachlan. Anybody have artists or even just single songs vaguely like that?

Eta: song link fixed, thanks katya23

Amazon Rank.

Oh, Amazon.

I'm finally doing it--I'm cutting this story loose. If it weren't so nearly finished, I probably would have just let it sit in a folder on my computer until the end of time, but it has a beginning, middle, and end, even if they don't quite match up, or do what I wanted them to do.

This is actually the first QaF story I ever started, but I couldn't finish it, obviously.

This is an AU. It changes two major events: 1) When Justin runs off to New York, he really does get a job as a gogo dancer, and no one can find him. 2) Brian gets the job in New York, a few months later.

A bunch of people helped me with this story, even if it was just in the form of encouragement or listening to me whine about how the plot wasn't working, not the least of which are superstitiousme (who did a lot of hand-holding and scene-doctoring and cheering), plumsuede, luceononuro, and most recently tamalinn (who you can thank for the fact that there aren't MORE errors and hanging threads).

Anyway, this first part is basically complete, though it lacks the threads that I would have gone back later and added, or hinted at, to connect to the second two parts.

The Second part is the most jumbled and unorganized. I fricking hate writing the middle of stories. It is a large collection of scenes, in the best chronological order I could get them in, and some scenes have more than one 'take' because I couldn't decide which was best until I figured out the rest of the story.

The Third part is also mostly finished, with the same sort of hand-waving there is in the first, with little things I meant to add later when I thought of them. But there is and end, and I feel like it gives enough closure for this to be a worthwhile WIP to release into the wild.

( Wrapped Around Your Finger 1/3 )

( Spoilers for the last two eps )

Okay, now that I've wasted half my day watching Dollhouse in my underwear, perhaps I should get dressed and go forth into the world.

Happy birthday, katya23!!

The Smart Bitches just posted a link to this: http://literature-map.com/

If I'm going to be spiraling out of control with my favorite authors on this thing, you should be too, hence my infecting you all with it.

Hey, my painkiller kicked in! Screw you, cramps! Whoo! Now I can actually have some breakfast and (more importantly) tea without feeling nauseous!! I'm still a little sick, though. It crept up on me Sunday night and has been clinging ever since. It's not a bad sickness, just annoying. The kind where my mouth feels all swollen and gross and no amount of (painful!) swallowing will make my throat feel mucous-free. But I accept the sickness as penance for drinking way too much alcohol and wandering around in the cold all last weekend, and am just thankful it isn't one of those full-on sinus affairs where your limbs feel like jelly and your head feels five times heavier than it should be.

It's sunny-ish and dry, so I can't complain too much.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedishrag/2009/01/kingsford-goes.html

So sweet your teeth will fall out. I WANT A PET BABY PIGLET.

I'm going to be broker than I thought, damn it. Renting a car = ridiculously expensive. But it is very freeing to be able to drive wherever I want. And it is a nice new car.

xlipstick_liesx and I are sitting in some crazy little coffee shop in Los Feliz. Los Feliz really does have a Capitol Hill vibe, but there's no mistaking the Los Angelesness of it all. It's also a lot further away from West Hollywood than it looks on the map, so may I just reiterate that I am SO GLAD I rented a car, omfg. So I still want to live in West Hollywood if I can. People also appear to be friendlier in W. Hollywood. There is a certain amount of hipster distain floating in the air here in Los Feliz. Even the Barista dude was just shy of flat out rude, pft. I probably wouldn't have picked this place if it didn't have free internet and I weren't tired of circling the block 2984302483 times to find parking. Haha, that's like Capitol Hill, too. Tricky parking.

Anyway, we are soon off to maybe go sit in Griffith Park and picnic. With the expensiveness of the car rental, we're pretty much on a forced diet.

Disney was yesterday. Pictures tonight. I crack myself up in the Space Mountain pictures. It was the same every single time we rode it and looked roughly like this :DDDDD

We left Disney at 8, which was so lame, but safeway had hired it for a private party, or something. LAAAAAME. Once again, no Matterhorn, because there was never a time in which it was shorter than an hour and we had better things to do.

xlipstick_liesx would like to say: The bathroom in this coffee shop is disgusting. It was not cute.

Now we have to go see if we got tickets to Jimmy Kimmel tonight. Or something.

Who knows when I'll have internet next, so ta for now.

( A few days ago: )

( tonight: )

noodles_consort would like to add: WTF WTF WTF!!!!