Quick look-in

Today I spent another couple of hours putting stickers on the spines of books identifying them as belonging to our branch, an exercise of extreme pointlessness.

Why, you ask, was this so pointless? Well, these were reference books, so they pretty much stay put ...

I am not complaining that they want to pay me to do this, however. Not one bit.

I will complain, however, that the public restrooms are still under construction, with no end in sight. The construction workers haven't even bothered to put in an appearance lately. I understand that once they have finished, our employee bathrooms will be next to go, but I am certain that I will be long, long gone by the time.

I need to sit down right soon and finish up my Bellatrix/Ginny fic for pornish_pixies, which has gotten to the stage where what I actually need to do is cut a bunch of it out to make it a better story. I hardly ever end up writing like that, making tonnes of useful writing and editing advice generally unusable to me. ;)

Edit: Things I am anxiously awaiting:

Columbo: The Complete First Season

My dad loved, loved, loved Columbo, starting in the 70s. He imparted this love to me by calling for me whenever he found it on TV so we could watch it together. Love Peter Falk and his rumbly, grumbly voice. (You may also know him as the grandfather in the Princess Bride. You quite possibly don't know that he has a glass eye.) Love Columbo and his trenchcoat and his "Just one more thing ... " Love inverted mysteries--many of the classic episodes have quite good ones, too.

Peter and the Stargazers, a Peter Pan prequel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

Happened to hear about this flipping through Writer's Digest on break at the library, of all things. Dave Barry is my man since childhood, and it really looked from what I saw like it's going to be a nifty book.

Quick look-in

Today I spent another couple of hours putting stickers on the spines of books identifying them as belonging to our branch, an exercise of extreme pointlessness.

Why, you ask, was this so pointless? Well, these were reference books, so they pretty much stay put ...

I am not complaining that they want to pay me to do this, however. Not one bit.

I will complain, however, that the public restrooms are still under construction, with no end in sight. The construction workers haven't even bothered to put in an appearance lately. I understand that once they have finished, our employee bathrooms will be next to go, but I am certain that I will be long, long gone by the time.

I need to sit down right soon and finish up my Bellatrix/Ginny fic for pornish_pixies, which has gotten to the stage where what I actually need to do is cut a bunch of it out to make it a better story. I hardly ever end up writing like that, making tonnes of useful writing and editing advice generally unusable to me. ;)

Edit: Things I am anxiously awaiting:

Columbo: The Complete First Season

My dad loved, loved, loved Columbo, starting in the 70s. He imparted this love to me by calling for me whenever he found it on TV so we could watch it together. Love Peter Falk and his rumbly, grumbly voice. (You may also know him as the grandfather in the Princess Bride. You quite possibly don't know that he has a glass eye.) Love Columbo and his trenchcoat and his "Just one more thing ... " Love inverted mysteries--many of the classic episodes have quite good ones, too.

Peter and the Stargazers, a Peter Pan prequel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

Happened to hear about this flipping through Writer's Digest on break at the library, of all things. Dave Barry is my man since childhood, and it really looked from what I saw like it's going to be a nifty book.

Black/White = theirloveissoshadesofgrey

A while back, I tried out Jigsaw, a piece of interactive fiction that someone recommended on Slashdot. I failed to progress very far on my own because I'm not yet autistic--which is to say, I was utterly spoiled as a child by LucasArts adventure games, and I heartily second Ron Gilbert's article on Why Adventure Games Suck.

I mean, come on. In this game you had to pick up a sketchbook and a pencil at the beginning, and use them to draw at least four animals over the course of your adventures, with absolutely no discernible in-game reason for doing so. If you failed to do so, even if you got by all of the fiendish and clever (but mostly just fiendish) puzzles, you were still going to be utterly stuck in the endgame. Seriously, what is that? (I, er, gave up and just started reading the walkthrough to figure out how the game ended.)

Why was I playing Jigsaw, you might (very well) ask? Partly, it was the time travel that interested me--time travel is potentially one of my very favorite literary devices, and the objective of the game is to prevent time from being changed by traveling to various "key points" in history and making sure they come out the same. The promise of good writing and interesting quotations certainly didn't hurt.

What really intrigued me, however, was its creative approach to in-game romance. You, the protagonist, are dressed entirely in white. Your antagonist is a tantalizing figure dressed entirely in black, the one who is going around trying to change history. The two of you bicker, flirt, and romantically entangle throughout the course of the game. Black/White OTP! For maximum player identification with this storyline, neither character is assigned a gender. All such references are left carefully neutral--well, almost. The walkthrough author notes that at one point in the game, White needs to wear a stolen uniform and pass as member of the British Army in 1917, which is the one thing in the game that really, plausibly, only a male person could do--which leads her to conclude that Black must be female, because later in the game "you are definitely opposite genders" since you are romantically involved (!).

Well, that's one way you can project your own ideas onto a neutral canvas, I suppose. I, personally, cannot help seeing Black as a sort of Wimseyesque guy--it's the adverbs that do it for me; Black is always doing things winningly or charmingly or petulantly--and yet I can't help feeling that my character is male too, which, of course, I do not consider to preclude our romantic involvement. And, much as it isn't personally coming easy to me, it's perfectly possible to see either or both of them as female, too. I find this rather nifty.

Too bad about the inane puzzle-piece-collecting and 500 ways to die or get stuck by running out of time or missing some essential item hidden under a wardrobe. ;)

Black/White = theirloveissoshadesofgrey

A while back, I tried out Jigsaw, a piece of interactive fiction that someone recommended on Slashdot. I failed to progress very far on my own because I'm not yet autistic--which is to say, I was utterly spoiled as a child by LucasArts adventure games, and I heartily second Ron Gilbert's article on Why Adventure Games Suck.

I mean, come on. In this game you had to pick up a sketchbook and a pencil at the beginning, and use them to draw at least four animals over the course of your adventures, with absolutely no discernible in-game reason for doing so. If you failed to do so, even if you got by all of the fiendish and clever (but mostly just fiendish) puzzles, you were still going to be utterly stuck in the endgame. Seriously, what is that? (I, er, gave up and just started reading the walkthrough to figure out how the game ended.)

Why was I playing Jigsaw, you might (very well) ask? Partly, it was the time travel that interested me--time travel is potentially one of my very favorite literary devices, and the objective of the game is to prevent time from being changed by traveling to various "key points" in history and making sure they come out the same. The promise of good writing and interesting quotations certainly didn't hurt.

What really intrigued me, however, was its creative approach to in-game romance. You, the protagonist, are dressed entirely in white. Your antagonist is a tantalizing figure dressed entirely in black, the one who is going around trying to change history. The two of you bicker, flirt, and romantically entangle throughout the course of the game. Black/White OTP! For maximum player identification with this storyline, neither character is assigned a gender. All such references are left carefully neutral--well, almost. The walkthrough author notes that at one point in the game, White needs to wear a stolen uniform and pass as member of the British Army in 1917, which is the one thing in the game that really, plausibly, only a male person could do--which leads her to conclude that Black must be female, because later in the game "you are definitely opposite genders" since you are romantically involved (!).

Well, that's one way you can project your own ideas onto a neutral canvas, I suppose. I, personally, cannot help seeing Black as a sort of Wimseyesque guy--it's the adverbs that do it for me; Black is always doing things winningly or charmingly or petulantly--and yet I can't help feeling that my character is male too, which, of course, I do not consider to preclude our romantic involvement. And, much as it isn't personally coming easy to me, it's perfectly possible to see either or both of them as female, too. I find this rather nifty.

Too bad about the inane puzzle-piece-collecting and 500 ways to die or get stuck by running out of time or missing some essential item hidden under a wardrobe. ;)

High on life--I mean, coffee

Whee! I am editing femmeslash and turning myself on. This bodes well.

I guess there is, you know, other Bellatrix/Ginny fic out there. I know, for I have seen the icons. Maybe, after I work out my own take on it, someone will rec me some.

Microsoft Word doesn't know the word "cunt". Figures. Bastard tool of the patriarchy word processor. ;)

My mom and I went out for coffee earlier this afternoon at Cocoa and Beans, the lovely little independent coffee shop and purveyor of excellent sweets and baked goods that opened in July in the strip mall near Price Chopper. I really love this place; it's huge, light and airy, with huge comfy armchairs and couches as well as nice little café tables that are also comfy, and huge windows. (View of the parking lot, of course, but that's what you get in the damn suburbs. At least you can also see the sky.)

The women who run it remind me of Sunshine from Robin McKinley's book--they obviously love to bake and have people eat their food in a way that I can only dimly comprehend. (Well, I like to feed people just fine, but as for the actual baking part ... ) Much nicer than Starbucks, anyway. The coffee there may be all very well and good, but the desserts suck immensely.

Coffee makes me essentially tipsy, evidently. I have noted this effect time and again, yet it still manages to surprise me, somehow.

High on life--I mean, coffee

Whee! I am editing femmeslash and turning myself on. This bodes well.

I guess there is, you know, other Bellatrix/Ginny fic out there. I know, for I have seen the icons. Maybe, after I work out my own take on it, someone will rec me some.

Microsoft Word doesn't know the word "cunt". Figures. Bastard tool of the patriarchy word processor. ;)

My mom and I went out for coffee earlier this afternoon at Cocoa and Beans, the lovely little independent coffee shop and purveyor of excellent sweets and baked goods that opened in July in the strip mall near Price Chopper. I really love this place; it's huge, light and airy, with huge comfy armchairs and couches as well as nice little café tables that are also comfy, and huge windows. (View of the parking lot, of course, but that's what you get in the damn suburbs. At least you can also see the sky.)

The women who run it remind me of Sunshine from Robin McKinley's book--they obviously love to bake and have people eat their food in a way that I can only dimly comprehend. (Well, I like to feed people just fine, but as for the actual baking part ... ) Much nicer than Starbucks, anyway. The coffee there may be all very well and good, but the desserts suck immensely.

Coffee makes me essentially tipsy, evidently. I have noted this effect time and again, yet it still manages to surprise me, somehow.

Hot kinky girlsex ;)

Posted my second pornish_pixies fic here. Well before deadline, even.

Title: With Honey
Author: Mayhap
Pairing: Bellatrix/Ginny
Summary: Bellatrix knows what she wants and how to get it. Ginny thinks she can't be trapped, until it's too late.
Length: 1100 words exactly, baby.
Author's notes: Written for the first wave of Fantasy fest for wild_n_kayzie, who requested "Bellatrix/Ginny mind control and corsets. ;)"

( This might be more than you want to know about my writing process, so I'll cut it. )

Go! Read it!

Hot kinky girlsex ;)

Posted my second pornish_pixies fic here. Well before deadline, even.

Title: With Honey
Author: Mayhap
Pairing: Bellatrix/Ginny
Summary: Bellatrix knows what she wants and how to get it. Ginny thinks she can't be trapped, until it's too late.
Length: 1100 words exactly, baby.
Author's notes: Written for the first wave of Fantasy fest for wild_n_kayzie, who requested "Bellatrix/Ginny mind control and corsets. ;)"

( This might be more than you want to know about my writing process, so I'll cut it. )

Go! Read it!