I figured it would probably be a good idea to set up a permanent list with all my fiction for easy access. So, here goes.

Samurai Champloo( Read more... )

Bleach( Read more... )


This post will be periodically updated with new fic.

My degree is complete. My graduation ceremony has come and gone, as have my relatives.

So this is the next stage of life.

I elected not to do job-hunting during the school year on the premise that given graduating college, searching for jobs, and keeping my sanity...I could only do two out of three at once. And I'm a bit attached to the sanity by now.

Fortunately, I can keep my part-time job for the duration of the summer (and even pick up some extra hours) and that will cover my living expenses at the co-op for that period of time. I'm going to use my spare time to carpet-bomb with my resume in hopes of finding a full-time job somewhere. (And if you hear of any place that needs a librarian, archivist, or records manager, please let me know.)

If I haven't gotten any offers by the end of the summer, I have enough in savings to survive unemployed for several months while I keep looking. Longer, even, if I can find a crappy job to supplement that. I'm probably going to move out to Portland, OR, in that case. The economy sucks all over but in Michigan it's so far down the toilet that I can see Elvis...and as long as I'm going to be unemployed, it might as well be somewhere I like.

And now it's time for me to thank each and every one of you on my f-list for supporting me through my grad school odyssey. It's been a long, tough journey but the end result is worth it and I couldn't have done it without you. THANK YOU.

(My mom's dad used to be a college guidance counselor, he is AWESOME for school advice.) It's the long, slow, screaming tumble of the last semester of a degree, trying to get all the ducks in line to graduate at the same time as dealing with the usual end-of-term crazy of exams and papers and also make arrangements for moving and working and whatever else after commencement. So far, my head's still mostly above water. We'll see how long that lasts.

For my own reference and for anyone who would like to gawp at my pathetic life, a to do list:

• March 30 - Turn in paper to remove last incomplete before graduation.


• April 1 - Finish 8-page wiki article on 'openness' and review of Scott's wiki article.


• April 3 - Turn in final paper summary/biblio for History of the Book.


• April 10 - Turn in last response paper for History of the Book.


• April 13 - Turn in case study for Library Management.


• April 20 - Presentation for Digital Libraries.


• April 22 - Turn in final paper for Digital Libraries.


• April 25 - Turn in final paper for History of the Book.


• April 27 - At-home final exam for Open Textbooks.


• May 1-2 - AUGH NO NOT THE RELATIVES!

Also, I need to buy a hood and tassel for graduation at some point. Library science is lemon yellow. Well, as long as it's not brown like natural resources or pink like music...

Classes have started up again. I somehow manage to make it through lectures and discussions without doing ANY readings whatsoever and still not make a fool of myself in the classroom. I did this all of last semester and STILL had an A- average. Maybe I'm more of an adrenaline junkie than I'd thought.

My uterus continues to be a heinous bitch but at least the Magic Blue Pills (aka naproxen sodium) are enough to beat her into submission.

The heat went out in the entire house for more than 24 hours a week ago Sunday. This lead to an emergency visit from the co-op maintenance crew to fix the boiler while we all huddled together for warmth. Then one of the two dryers broke. Now we are tiptoeing around and eyeing the roof nervously.

Fifth winter in LOLMICHIGAN and this one is making me go WAIT WAIT DID THE TOWN ACCIDENTALLY GET MOVED TO MANITOBA??

Canada needs hugs. Just going to throw that out there and let you question my sanity/go bawwwww/grope Ottawa as you will.

SRS QVESTION. So, there are a lot of fanfic writers on my f-list, even more fanfic readers. For all of you who are involved in the fic scene in one way or another, what do you think the purpose of writing fanfic is? How seriously do you think it can be taken? Is it only valid as a stepping-stone to original writing, or as a crutch for poor writing?

I will tell you upfront that I think that derivative works, the larger category within which fanfiction belongs, can be entirely legitimate artistic endeavors in their own right and that it's no negative reflection on an author to stick with fanfiction if it's the genre they find most fitting and satisfying.

But then, I hug Canada.

My dragon hatchlings and eggs are having a bit of trouble. Would anyone mind clicking on them?

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Hey out there, I hope all of you are enjoying your respective celebrations (or lack thereof)!

Since I suck at writing cards and prefer not to engage in the consumer-frenzy of exchanging gifts, this year I am making charitable donations inspired by and in honor of the people I am proud to call my friends. The three charities selected are all rather topical, related to issues we collectively struggled with in the past year

The first was Planned Parenthood, because women in my life have had to struggle more than they should have with the cost of birth control and with the way the economy is going, more and more of us are going to have to be making hard choices in that area. Planned Parenthood is one of the few truly affordable options left.

Next was Lambda Legal, because we've come so far in the legal battles for queer rights but there's still so far to go. It has hit home in bad ways for people on my f-list. Lambda Legal has been involved in these court cases for decades, especially in the 2003 Supreme Court decision that overturned sodomy laws.

Finally, because so many of my friends are struggling with the costs of education for themselves and their children, the third charity selected is the Harlem Children's Zone (which I first learned about on This American Life). It provides children in an impoverished neighborhood with preschool, community centers, and other programs to give them a real chance to succeed.

Anyway, thank you ALL for being my support and my inspiration. You are amazing and this is the least I can do to acknowledge that and pay it forward.

Peace and love, y'all, peace and love.






(And, if you are in a mood to spread a little cheer, please click my dragon eggs!)
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I know this is something I've ranted about a fair bit already, but to celebrate the fact that it is now less than a month to the changeover, I'm going to give my personal argument against the politicization of government bureaucracy in general and the current fucktards leading the free world in particular. Lotus, Quakey, Alex, and Shayne have already heard most of this one.

( More rant than you can shake a stick-figure at )

LONG STORY SHORT: BUSH ADMINISTRATION DELIGHTS IN THROWING SPANNERS IN FUNCTIONAL GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS. CIVIL SERVANTS STICK PINS IN REPUBLICAN VOODOO DOLLS.

If you've never heard of it, it's a speck of land in the Pacific Ocean. It was strip-mined almost into oblivion for decades, which brought in a ton of money that got squandered in the early 1990s.

So the government went into deeply shady off-shore banking and issuing passports to...well, Al-Qaeda, among other people.

Then they found a new source of money: being Australia's Guantanamo Bay. Thank dog, the new Australian PM shut it down a year ago. (Along with apologizing to the Indigenous Australians for historical abuses. I'm starting to like this guy.)

The US tried to get in on the potential for complete oblivion that being in the asshole of the world's biggest ocean offers. One of the conditions the CIA wanted for their involvement was Nauru signing on to a resolution that exempts the US from war-crimes charges.

Is there any single sleazy act that this country has NOT committed in the past eight years? What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck...




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GET WITH THE PROGRAM AND STOP WITH THE RANDOM JITTERS. CALENDAR SAYS YOU DO NOT EVEN HAVE THE EXCUSE OF PMS.

NOT THAT THE CALENDAR HAS EVER STOPPED THAT BITCH UTERUS-SAN.

OF COURSE, CALENDAR ALSO SAYS THAT IT IS THE LEFT ASSCHEEK OF WINTER AND WINDOW SAYS THAT YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BE GETTING OUT OF THE HOUSE MUCH DUE TO SNOWSNOWANDMORESNOW. PLZ TO NOT BE MAKING WITH THE SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER. THIS WAS TOTES NOT ON MY CHRISTMAS LIST.




********

So, I've been working on a job-hunting strategy, something I've mentioned to quakey already. Trying to apply for jobs WHILE finishing a degree that makes me irritable and crazy would result in...exponential irritable and crazy. I'm more likely to simply pick a city large enough to have a decent number of libraries/archives/records management type jobs (as well as a constant need for register clerks, stockers, waitstaff, etc) but with low enough cost of living that I can survive on my savings (~$15,000, as long as I don't have to buy a car right away) for up to six months. Alternatively, I could move somewhere with a bit higher cost of living if there were someone I knew there who I could split rent with. So far, I've been considering Minneapolis/St. Paul, Seattle, Atlanta, and Vancouver, BC. Does anyone have suggestions for places that might fit my criteria? Any of you looking for roommates come May?



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So. Have any of you ever taken a course where your final assignment was to tell the professor what he could do better next time....and the only thing you could come up with was "Sod off teaching and go get a job as a turnip farmer instead"?

Am not quite at that point with this professor. But an honest response to the question would be, "Don't let me take this course when the sum total of my interest in it is the precise number of credits offered."






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Lotus was totally blown out of the water by all the nice things you had to say. Truly a fine bunch of human beans.



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My partner in crime, crimes against fashion, and fashion against crimes, lotus_seed, has a big exam tonight that she's been stressing over. To cheer her on, won't you please tell her how awesome she is over at this meme?












ETA: And because I am a weak-willed but slow lemming,

[The old flame you don't see very often any more but whom you still really enjoy getting together with for a few drinks and maybe a pleasant nostalgic romp in the sheets.]
Bleach, sadly. After the Mayuri vs. Szayel fight, I've lost all interest except for a few select characters. (QUINCIES REPRESENT.)

[The mysterious, dark, gothy one with whom you used to sit up talking until 3 a.m. at weird coffeehouses and with whom you were quite smitten until you realized he really was fucking crazy.]
Harry Potter, for an embarrassing confession. As much I loved the books in high school, actually seeing the fandom online made me go AW FUCK NO.

[The one you spent a whole weekend in bed with and who drank up all your liquor, and whom you'd still really like to fuck again although you're relieved (s)he doesn't actually live in town.]
Mushi-shi. The canon is so self-contained and quiet that fangirling it is a bit hard, but it totally was the inspiration for my own fic "Year of the Boar".

[The steady.]
At this point, Tsubasa/Holic specifically and CLAMP in general. So much to poke at there that I don't think it will ever fade away.

[The alluring stranger whom you've flirted with at parties but have never gotten really serious with.]
Doctor Who. I watched the first and second seasons of the revival series, but given the size of the Who canon,

[The one you hang out with and have vague fantasies about maybe having a thing with but ultimately you're just good buddies 'cause the friendship is there but the chemistry ain't.]
Loveless has ended up this way. I just don't know why.

[The one your friends keep introducing you to and who seems like a hell of a cool guy except it's never really gone anywhere.]
D-Gray Man. I know it well enough to check up the new chapters from time to time, but I've never caught up on the archive.

[The one who's slept with all your friends, and you keep looking at him and thinking, "Him? How the hell did he land all these cool babes?"]
Naruto, although I understand that when it first came out it was a lot fresher and it was the "first slightly embarrassing fandom" for a lot of people.

[The one your friend has fallen for like a ton of bricks and whom she keeps babbling to you about on the phone for hours, and you'd be happy for her except you just know it's going to end badly.]
Twilight

[The one who gave you the best damned summer of your life and who you measure all other potential partners against.]
Samurai Champloo. There are at least 5 people on my f-list who I first met in that fandom and have stuck by since then. It was my first time into anime fandom.

[The one that you will cheat on your steady with.]
X/1999, because sadly the X and Tsubasa fandoms have a bit of animosity.

[The one that you’d look up on Friends Revisited]
Horatio Hornblower, because there are times when one just NEEDS nerdy, ambiguously gay British middies.

[The one that you’d change the locks on]
Lord of the Rings, not for being aggravated at the fandom, but because I said some stupid stuff and couldn't forgive myself.

[First love]
Sherlock Holmes. Uh, wow. THAT brings back bad 8th-grade-and-dialup memories.

[The one you first slept with]
Gundam Wing, as that was the fandom that introduced me to yaoi and also to sex in fic more generally.

[The one who seduced you, fucked you over and broke your heart in a million pieces then laughed about it.]
Sherlock Holmes as well. I had a very, very fragile ego and a lot of other problems at 14 that the other fans I talked to didn't know anything about. Totally not their fault and at least I learned a lot from the experience.

I am REALLY jittery tonight, for no apparent reason. Can't keep my mind on anything, am failing at getting done what I need to. The only way I think I'll make it through this homework assignment is if I can divide my focus.

Thus, a request for small distractions. Not big ones, just, like, 5 minutes worth of HAI COOL. Please?

Still alive! Mostly. Kinda. Er.

So yeah. 4+ months of news with a minimum of teal deer--GO!

Had that whole "internship" thing and it rocked. Did anal retentive bean counter stuff for the Environmental Protection Agency all summer, 40 hours a week. Found I make an extremely GOOD anal bean counter. Also discovered that I hate work a lot less than I hate school.

Had a visit from Lotus YAAAAAAAAAY. It was awesome. She is awesome. There was a lot of alcohol and dorkery involved. Also the Art Fair. God but I love Ann Arbor.

Lived in another co-op for the duration of the summer, which was an interesting change of scenery and culture. Moved back to my usual co-op for the school year, and it looks like we've got a good crop of housemates.

Still have an incomplete from last April that I need to complete before the New Year.

Hate my program at school. HATE HATE HATE. But: economy is in the shitter. And the damn letters after my name make me marginally employable.

The "slogging through the hate and apathy" mentioned above is causing me to become depressed and let my grades slip and thus I have acquired a therapist. Yay for Aaron, because he and Lotus are the reasons I don't run away to Canada.

Did I mention that I really hate school right now? Because I do. I'm seriously considering taking off next semester and the summer and finishing my degree next fall. Assuming that the prospect of trying to support myself with only a BA in the middle of a massive recession doesn't make me gibber and foam more than the thought of another 4 months of this crapola.

IN OTHER NEWS.

I WENT TO YAOI-CON. IT WAS AWESOME. lotus_seed, quakey, aizome, and sans_pertinence, Y'ALL ARE AWESOME. LIKE DONGS AND CLOTHING PORN AND CHOCOLATE PORT.

ANY QUESTIONS?

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them
5) Put a star next to those you've only partially read.

( Cut for length )

47

FUCK YEAH FOR BEING OBSESSED WITH DICKENS AND AUSTEN, JUST LIKE THE LISTMAKERS.

Reasons for posting this:

A) I am drunk.
B) Four people on my f-list had already.
C) Might not have been as long since I was in high school, but there's been a lot of turds under the sewer arch since then.
D) lotus_seed is MANY KINDS OF AWESOME and can draw where I cannot.
E) There were Facebook photos she could use for reference.
F) I was amusingly dork-stupid in high school.
G) Did I mention I was drunk? Particularly while adding the notes to the image file?



Futher notes:

A) Yes, I could read while walking and not bump into anybody, and read while in algebra and still get an A in the class. It was a bit sad, really.
B) I discovered that dying my hair vastly improved my appearance and mood in 10th grade but frequently could not afford it.
C) Occasionally I actually tried to pass for a guy in high school. Most of the time I was just passively androgynous and very confused by these "breasts and hips" things.
D) Dickens rawks and you will not convince me otherwise. So do Melville and Hawthorne.
E) Carrying a purse would not come until I was 19. Until then, it was overloaded backpacks all day, every day.
F) I HATED LIFE THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING...EXCEPT COLLEGE.
G) STILL FUCKING DRUNK. GOD BLESS SAKE.

I know at least some of you here are aware of how much I've been worrying about finding a job for the summer, but it's finally all over.

An hour ago I got a call from the HR department at the local branch of the Environmental Protection Agency, offering me a summer internship cleaning up the public website!

I won't have to move out of town for the summer, the pay is GREAT (like, better than any other job I've ever held), and I've worked for the Feds before and liked it.

And if you're wondering about the tag on the entry....I promised to buy myself a gift when a job offer came through 8D