I don't think there's any way I'm going to finish my big bang. For one thing, I'm not sure I like it. I feel like I'm destroying my story by trying to get it done.

I haven't given up, and I'll keep writing until midnight, but I also don't think I'm actually going to make it.

Maybe I'll hit my stride in an hour or so and pull through. It could happen.

Do you ever hit that place in a story where you've lost your footing and you honestly can't figure out how to write your characters any more? My story is purposely surreal and I've gotten to the point where I can't figure out how a human would react to the weirdness, let alone a specific human, and I feel like I'm floundering around in Brendon's POV going "I DON'T KNOW WHAT BRENDON WOULD SAY. AAAAAAAGH."

If I were writing an original fic, I'd ask the dude sitting across from me at the coffee shop about what should happen next. But with this story, I feel like it would eventually come out in the course of summarizing the plot that I'm writing Panic at the Disco bandslash and then he'd be all, "Uh, have to go."

I'm leaving the coffee shop now. I need tea. And possibly some cognac to go in it.

PS: I got my tattoo on Friday. I have to hold my hand at a slightly awkward angle to keep my tattooed skin from resting on my keyboard. Why do I not have my own personal masseuse yet?

ETA2: I sent it in. Two minutes late, and 1,000 words short. Fuck. Adrenaline a little high. I don't mind not getting a story mix, so I hope they accept it anyway. I'm just hugely relieved that it's roughly done except for the 1,000 word resolution of a relationship arch that my brain flatly refused to cough up and has been refusing to cough up the entire time I wrote that story. Anyway. Even if it's not accepted, I still will have a story to post soon. As soon as I get over these traumatizing remembrances of college papers of the past *does dorky martial arts moves like Brendon Urie* *pours a drink*

I CAN FINALLY REPLACE THE RED GLASSES.

LONG LIVE THE RED GLASSES!!

That is all.

amatia linked this. I have to relink it because IT IS SO TRUE.

10 Worst Ways To Behave At Concerts: How You're Ruining It For Everyone.

*Still Bitter About My First David Bowie Concert Where I could Only See Him 0.1% Of The Time*

This article made me laugh so hard I teared up.

Also, FOR THE RECORD. I totally put Ryan in navigator goggles in my big bang story. I'm psychic, obviously.

I'm back. Mostly. I mean, physically, I'm definitely in Seattle. Mentally, I'm still down in So Cal, barefoot and eating outside because the weather is so nice and wearing sun dresses and sipping Italian sodas at this incredibly awesome homemade Hungarian pastry place we found. It had Victorian furniture and smelled like vanilla and pastry and it had Wi-fi. Basically, I'd like to live there.

While we're on the subject of things I'd like, I'd like Space Mountain in my backyard. As sentasimone said, that would both wake us up and make us smile for at least half the day. She was my Disney partner, if you hadn't figured that out. We closed down the parks with aching feet after a long day of displaying our Disneyland-Ninja skills that meant we never waited for more than 15 minutes to get on a ride.

We rode the Tower of Terror five times, because right when the California Adventure was closing, practically NO ONE was on it. We kept running around to the front, looking at the non-existent line, looking at each other, and sprinting for the entrance. I want one of those in my backyard, too.

My mom and I only got snippy with each other twice on the drive and both times were about the other's driving. (She goes five miles under, and you just can't do that in LA, okay?) I count it as a triumph. We read aloud to each other from Christopher Moore's Lamb. I, of course, have already read it twice, but I knew she'd love it and she did.

My only consolation for physically being back up here in the Northwest is that I stopped in Eugene on the way up and bought an obscene amount of my own personal crack-cocaine: Thé Marco Polo. The return of my two-cup-a-day habit of Marco Polo almost, but not quite, makes up for the fact that they've predicted rain/SNOW showers for this late APRIL weekend.

Also, I bought little girls' jellies at Target and they're way more comfortable and cute than the adults ones. I don't know why manufacturers do that, but at least I can wear a size four in little girls' shoes.

Uh, I'm panicking a little over my bandom big bang fic. It's not very far along and I have what...10 days? And no real plot, and little idea of where I'm going. So...shit. Perhaps I should, you know. Work on that.

Oooh, it's WIP Amnesty, isn't it? I'm going to post a few things that dead-ended later, after I weed out the embarrassing ones from the ones that could have had merit!

So how are you guys? I skimmed when I could, but I'm sure I missed a lot.

Panic at the Disco are too cute and awesome and everything for words. I was five feet from Brendon Urie. I hate breathing other girls' hair. BREEEEEEEEENDON.

Artist Arena = HELLSPAWN. I AM WRITING A REALLY NASTY LETTER TO THEM. THEY CAUSED US TO MISS THE MEET AND GREET BY GIVING US AND MANY OTHERS THE WRONG TIME. CUE MY HEARTATTACK. I WILL BE SEEKING COMPENSATION FOR MY EMOTIONAL DAMAGE.

Zach = Something bald and celestial, but scarier. I love him. I hope he works for Panic as long as they're a band.

Shane = HOT. Also, very, very nice. Very very.

Eric = ALSO super nice.

The lead singer of Phantom Planet smiled at me. I like them a lot. I was unimpressed by the Hush Sound. Motion City Soundtrack was as cool as ever.

I kind of dig the bandana hairband, Spencer.

RYAN SINGING LIVE = SO MUCH SPAZZING AND HAPPINESS ON MY PART.

I think the most magic moment, though, was the spontaneous singing of Happy Birthday to Brendon and his little smile and almost-blush.

Now back on the road. Almost to LA, finally.

7 HOURS.

CAN'T BREATHE.

I HEARBY BAN MYSELF FROM COFFEE, BUT COCKTAILS MAY BE NECESSARY!!

They're playing The Pearl the night before Panic! I will already be down there! Whoo!

And then they're playing Bumbershoot at the end of August.

More evidence that the world is spinning explicitly for me.

DEATH could not stop me from getting to Panic at the Disco in San Francisco this week, but damn it, I would so want to go see this Big Boi Ballet. The preview of the dancing fills me with happiness. Seriously, it's looks like getting to see the dance finale of Center Stage, except without the flimsy plot! (I'm not dissing Center Stage, though, I love that movie a lot.)

Larry! You should go so I can live vicariously! It's only running from the 10th to the 13th.

ETA: Ahaah, I'm on crack. I just assume when events are announced in the slog that they're in Seattle. This one is in Atlanta. I got all excited by the youtube clip and failed to read carefully. But like the slog says, perhaps there will be a tour.

Does any one else on here use Twitter, and if so, how do you find people you want to follow? There doesn't seem to be a search function. Am I supposed to start typing in likely usernames and hope they exist?

I'm darksylvia there, too, btw.

I went to Portland with noodles_consort for alwaysontherun's birthday party.

It was quite nice. Plus, bentonlane99 fed Larry and I at his restaurant of awesomeness (awash in hot waiters and super-good Asian fusion dishes omg-the-ahi-tuna). Then we went back to Krista's and ate birthday cake and drank a lot of vodka. Well, I drank a lot of vodka, I don't know what everyone else was having, but I saw about 02948238 bottles of rum and some everclear.

Me and Adam and Heather played some Super Mario World. Then at some point the Wii appeared downstairs and I proceeded to flash back to being ten, and almost beat Super Mario 3 (I gave up after I got sent back to the beginning of world 8 twice), despite being quite drunk and not having played for ten years, while some dude next to me was all "I've never seen a girl who was so good at video games. Wow, you swear a lot."

Swearing is half the fun of Nintendo, in my opinion. It's part of my process. Chanting, "Fuck, fuck fuck, AAAARGH EVIL FLYING FISH, FUCK!!" really helps, okay?

I know we all climbed out onto the roof at some point, which, if I didn't have such excellent balance and a sharp sense of self-preservation, even under the influence of vodka, would have been a bad idea. I know Tory at least, had the good sense not to come out and risk breaking her neck. I know I had a four-way with Tory, Kim, and Larry at some point. I suppose, more accurately, that would be a muted drunken conversation about how awesome we all are, though some guy named Jacob on Tory's phone might not be convinced of the innocence of our laundry room orgy.

I checked Livejournal at some point and was happy to see the HOT HOT HOT Drunk!Panic pictures, which coincided so nicely with my own night, ahaha. Brendon, Brendon, Brendon. How is it possible that you look even hotter when you are super-drunk? He looks debauched. I would do him standing, no waiting, oh my god my blood pressure.

Then we all went to sleep.

On Sunday, Larry and I, like the middle aged couple that we truly are inside, came home, got in our pajamas and worked on our puzzle. And had tea.

I really like this show. I just finished watching episode 6. I'm pretty hooked. The acting is high-caliber and everything is so intense.

I never thought about it before, but it would be hard, as an actor, to be a robot. Summer Glau is doing a really good job. There are so many places in the script where as the audience you're crying out for her to react, to be human and then you remember...oh. Robot. Right. It's so ingrained, those reactions, that I honestly didn't know they were there until she didn't react. And yet, you still believe that she is incredibly smart. Just, you know...a machine.

( No real spoilers, just discussion of the characters. Plus, the season is over. But if you don't want to know who is playing different characters, don't click )

Random hilarious line that I want to remember:

John: "I call shotgun!" *climbs into the front of the jeep*
Cameron: *pause* "I call 9 millimeter." *climbs into back*

It's snowing. A lot. In Seattle. In the spring. After a year of a lot more snow than Seattle usually gets. WTF, Seattle? I hope it doesn't stick.

I didn't dress for snow.

THIS JUST CONVINCES ME EVEN MORE THAT MOVING IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO.

I fought whatever it was off by sleeping virtually all of Wednesday. So I'm down six working hours, but I HAVE MY HEALTH. Aside from a little trouble swallowing, which that's what SHE said I can totally handle.

I braved the insanely windy/cold weather to go get Pretty. Odd., at lunch today. A few days late. So now I'm happy. I hope the Northern Downpour t-shirts are cuter than the box set ones. I might have to perform some alterations if they aren't.

Also, I'm contemplating in a sort of detached way how much I will freak out if I get the Panic Meet and Greet for San Francisco. Probably a lot. I actually kind of don't want to do it because it would be one-sided. It's wonderful that they exist but unless I'm going to actually get to have a worthwhile conversation with them, what's the point, you know? I don't want an autograph. I'll be just another chick parading by their table, and I can't expect them to see us all as individuals because nobody could meet that many people and be enthusiastic about each one. But if I win it? I'll probably do it just because I won it. If you see what I mean. It's kind of a dumb thing to be torn about, but I am. But I'm meeting jenepherre and we will fangirl our little hearts out together, and two days later I'm going to Disneyland to ride the Tower of Terror 20348923084 times with a very cool girl I haven't seen in two years, so either way, I'll be having obscene amounts of fun.

Having nothing to do with my last topic: I wish I could wake up every morning with an awesome idea of something to write--it really gives me a motivation to get up. I got up half an hour earlier than usual this morning, in spite of my sore throat, just to get down a couple hundred words of this little niggling idea, and since my brain was still sort of off, the words just marched across the page like little ants, seemingly requiring little effort on my part.

My bandom big bang fic is suffering from a plethora of possible directions. Every new bit of Panic press that comes out makes me want to incorporate it into this story. My brain is kind of going crazy trying to remember it all. Probably, I just have to relax and let the little details show up where they will. The tone keeps changing with my mood, though, which is probably why I do better with short stories--I can get it all down in one or two sittings and there won't be any tricky mood/style changes happening mid-fic.

My friend schnaucl has a lot of excellent points on this subject. You might be interested in reading her post on the subject.

I'm a little sick. My ears are crackling and my throat hurts and I taste blood every so often. I was doing so well, too! I resisted that mutant cold-cough-virus combo that has been taking everybody down around me. And I'm pretty sure that is not this. Hopefully I can kick it back out fast.

I blame the easter candy. Usually, I consume very little sugar because I have almost a complete lack of a sweet tooth. But just because I don't crave sugar, or seek it out, doesn't mean I won't consume handfuls of jelly bellies and reeses chocolate eggs, and murder a bunch of peeps (after reenacting scenes from 10th Kingdom and doing the Sally Peep voice) when they're right in front of me. And my granny made her yellow cake with fluffy frosting and coconut sprinkles and it's SO GOOD, YOU WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN ABLE TO RESIST IT, EITHER.

In other news, after work today, I'm going to go BUY THE NEW PANIC AT THE DISCO ALBUM, WHICH IS ENTITLED PRETTY. ODD., for you non-bandom people. Brendon is still my favorite, the earth is still round, etc, etc.

Also,
( Muppets at the disco, AHAHAHA )

AHAHA. I took a brief break from my obsessive Pretty. Odd. listening to listen to "Re: Your Brains". It's a funny zombie song:

Re: Your Brains

( lyrics )

Incidentally? This is the same dude who wrote Still Alive for the end of Portal.

And he wrote one about Tom Cruise called "Tom Cruise Crazy".