My Blue Castle

[okay LJ those smiley faces. I want to shoot them in the face. Where's Sherlock???]

ahem.

anyway... So apparently even when this week is super stressful and I need more than all the hours I have in a day to get things done at work, I can't say no when someone higher up the library food chain calls me and says "Hey, we have this free ticket to this off-site workshop all day Friday. Wanna go with me?" So Friday morning I am climbing in a University car at 6:45 A.M. (shoot me now) and going to Clarion PA for the day. YAY roadtrip!?! 

Well, I can always come in over the weekend if I need some extra catching up time. Given that I did SEVEN house webpages today I might be okay in getting pages done by the end of the month. But there's also those pesky time-consuming spreadsheets that also have to be done. And a bunch of departmental web page work. Oh, and decisions to be made over in the book processing area.

OMG shut up self. It's easier if I can't see all this work staring me in the face!

Okay, off to pull a barcode-less book and barcode the bastard. 

Is it October YET?

HA! Was reading this article my friend linked me to about the upcoming SVU season, and this first paragraph especially made me laugh a lot:

So you mentioned Padget Brewster and you mentioned Dean Winters and Adam Baldwin. Are there any other guest stars that you can talk about?
After the first two episodes, we’re off the air for something or other, and then we’re back on Oct. 10th for what I call our second premiere. And that episode has Anna Chlumsky playing the author of a bestselling book called Twenty-Five Acts, about a woman who gets caught up in the bondage and domination lifestyle. (laughs) I don’t know where we got that idea from. Anyway, she goes on a TV talk show, goes out with the host after the show and then everything after that is grey, I suppose I’d say.

We also have a new D.A. in that episode, Raúl Esparza comes in, and he’s terrific — both defending her and putting her through the paces. Roger Bart plays the TV talk show host.

The fourth episode has Kathryn Erbe coming to us as Alexandra Eames from “Criminal Intent.” Her character is now on a joint terrorism task force. Katie will be back later in the year at some point for sure and, I suspect, there’s room for another Dean Winters episode later on. He was pretty dynamic.

“Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” premieres its 14th season on Wednesday, Sept. 26, at 9/8c on NBC.

(from: http://xfinity.comcast.net/blogs/tv/2012/09/12/law-order-svu-breaks-with-procedure-in-season-14-premiere/)

"...everything after that is grey..." OMG Warren you minx. LOL

And YAY for guest stars :)) 

And now back to crazy crazy work. I swear I just need to come in over the weekend for some time where I'm not going to get interrupted. It's not the done thing but I've got deadlines dammit! 

Today was my posting day over on lewis_challenge!

Happy to have written these two little fics:

In Peace, Such War (552 words) by valancy_joy
Fandom: Lewis (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: James Hathaway
Summary: It's been a bad day, and James' thoughts are unsettled.

A million thanks to carolyn_claire for her able beta-ing. She made this so much better. Any remaining mistakes are all down to me and the vagaries of technology.

_________________________________________________

Purr-fect (514 words) by valancy_joy
Fandom: Lewis (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: James Hathaway, Robert Lewis, Monty the cat
Summary: James seems to me to be a cat person. So what if Robbie kept Monty? It might be a bit like this...

In something of a brain fog today which is not making these nine million audio links I'm making here at work any easier. Stopped on my way into work for a giant mocha that I was pounding back before our 9 a.m. staff meeting. A staff meeting where our interim head brought blueberry muffins :)) Awesome!

Anyway ... I keep sneaking off to read fic to clear my brainz in between coding sessions. 

If you like Lewis fic ... the Summer Challenge fics have started posting over at lewis_challenge so check that out. There's been some really nice stuff going up.

And I read an adorable Grimm fic the other day where Nick tells Hank he's spending so much time with Monroe because they're in a book club. And hijinks ensue wherein Monroe is AWESOME and Nick is adorable and Hank and Wu have a way with appetizers.

The (Grimm and Blutbad) Book Club (for the Eager and the Doomed) (8222 words) by laceymcbain
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Grimm (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Nick Burkhardt/Monroe
Characters: Nick Burkhardt, Monroe (Grimm), Hank Griffin, Wu (Grimm), Juliette Silverton
Summary:

"Why don't you just tell me why Hank thinks I run a book club on the first Monday evening of the month, and why he's offered to bring artichoke dip, which sounds awesome by the way, to the next meeting?”

Nick closed his eyes, and when he spoke his voice was a rush of words. “Because it was better than him thinking we were having sex?”

Monroe had always wanted to belong to a Book Club, but he'd never imagined it would be to help out Nick.

I think I would read more Grimm fic if a) I had more time and b)  when reading Nick/Monroe fics there were better solutions to the 'how do we get Juliette out of the way fastest' issue. I mean, I don't mind reading the slash, but the nature of the canon means that you've either got to make Nick a cheater, or break him up with Juliette if you want to hook him up with Monroe. Which isn't always handled too great. Maybe I just need more Nick and Monroe are awesome BFFs fic. W/e. At any rate, above fic is super funny and does an okay job with the Nick and Juliette angle. 

So anyway ... back to linking endless Show Boat songs and beating my head against my computer!

Here is a list of what I would rather be doing than sitting at my desk at work:

*LISTS EVERYTHING OTHER THAN DAY JOB*

LOL

Fall Semester starts today. We have a show tonight. These things are not wildy compatible. Although admittedly I am not QUITE as busy as my pal who is working, prepping for our show tonight, and packing ALL THE THINGS for to take to Dragon*Con. She's up to two boxes to Fed Ex to her hotel with costume stuff currently :)

[Con goers, if you're at/near the parade, smile at the Legend of the Seeker gang ... one of them is likely my very dear pal and Jinxy's godmama :))]

Rehearsal last night was great. Well. I was sort of emo all weekend, probably crashing from the tension of last week or something, but  it was really great to get to hang with mah pals both Saturday and Sunday nights. Helped a lot to fight off the sads. And really, can you have teh sads when you get to sing The Victory Polka loudly and with vigour? I think not. LOL

Work Work to do. Coffee to drink. Script to bash into shape. ENGAGE HIGHLIGHTER!

Hello busy Monday!!

Woe. Still can't do the work work I am supposed to be doing. Am sitting here wondering how I can feel guilty that I'm not getting anything done when other people's actions caused the problem(s). I figured it out on my end, and was just getting going on being all productive and WHAM! A kick to the metaphorical teeth. UGH. I am so annoyed. And I feel like a bad employee even though not very much of this was under my control.

Welcome to guilt island! :(

Maybe the flip side of this is that I'm being more productive at home. I was extra productive last night when I opened my free diet Faygo creme soda and it exploded all over my dining room. Well, I had been wanting to clean off the table. Between being caught up on doing my dishes (ZOMG THIS IS AMAZING), and having the table cleared off, there are a few pockets of tidy occuring in my house.  No one is more surprised than me!

So off to fiddle around with the backburner projects and maybe sneak in some time on my catsitting story. I want it to be fluffy ... it's trying to make me make it a bit angsty. Not sure who is going to win that battle!

SEND PATIENCE. 

vent:

dear work computer people. I was ooookay with the web authoring thing being down yesterday. You had a thing you needed to add to all web pages. okay fine. BUT. now my stuff doesn't work. And I have a TON of web page stuff to do this week before classes start on Monday. Could you please get your shit together? 

also, coming back to a help request with a version of "have you rebooted your machine" is not super helpful. this stuff worked Friday. You guys tinkered with the web pages over the weekend. Now it doesn't work. So figure it out and fix it. I'm doing the same stuff the same with that I did it last week. Except now it doesn't work. Can you get on that?

/vent

le sigh.

I drug my sad headachey self out of bed to come in to work because I have all this stuff to get done. And now I can't really do any of it. 

My supervisor came by, patted me on the back, and took off this afternoon because her back hurts. um. ooookay. 

I love my job/workplace. But maybe not so much today.

Work = busy. Next week is likely to be even busyer. Expect a panic attack about next Wednesday afternoon. Sometime in September I'll be able to breathe again. And take a few days off.

But hopefully I can relax this weekend. And get some writing done. If anyone wants to beta my ~700 word Lewis story (the first of two small fics) let me know. It's (not surprisingly) James being moody. With bonus 15th century madrigals. Anyway... let me know if you'd kindly like to give it a once over with the SPAG stick and/or offer up any other constructive thoughts. 

There was probably other stuff I was going to say. But my brain is rapidly getting full. 

Oh, I ended up taking a rambling 15 minute walk last night after dinner. I actually very nearly WANTED to go for a walk. This is very odd. I never WANT to be active. I mostly want to collapse on the couch and eat ice cream. So that's good. (oh, and I did the collapse and ice cream thing after I took my walk, so....) #badgirl #butalsogood

I skipped Monday movie night on Monday due to inserve and feeling punky. But I think I'm going to take myself off to see The Bourne [SOMETHING] tonight mostly so can stare at Jeremy Renner. I don't think I've seen more than bits of the first Bourne, so not sure how that's going to go, but w/ever. RENNER. ;) 

But now back to herding audio files. YUCK.

So let's face it ... long before CBS decided to reboot Sherlock ... 11 years ago in fact, NBC rebooted Sherlock as a cop drama spinoff of Law and Order. And NBC gave their Sherlock (the off-beat cop Bobby Goren) a female "Watson" first. Her name is Alexandra Eames and she, as played by Kathryn Erbe, is AWESOME!

( moar here... )

So I was grumbling on twitter yesterday about how I felt like my life needed changing. Not big changes like where I live or where I work. Sure those could be more exciting, but that wasn't the kind of dissatisfaction I was feeling. It was more like making the good things better. Like ... what would my life include if I was a better version of myself. So I made some notes about the kinds of things I think the ideal version of me would be doing on a daily basis. 

The list looks something like: 

drink more water
exercise
eat dinner at the table
clean the house regularly/a little bit every day
read actualfax books every day (also magazines and fic, but MOAR BOOKS)
make time for journaling/writing/creating 
empty the cat box daily!

After staring at the list -- and being poked with good advice via twitter -- I decided to pick one thing to focus on. that's why exercise is up there at the almost top. The water thing is up there too as it both goes hand in hand with the exercising, and I've slacked off the habit lately, and the headaches are back, so.... 

But I'm trying to do all this in tortoisey fashion. Slow and steady. Something I can do every day and consistently and maybe eventually have the kind of life I THINK I could have. MAKE THE SMALL CHANGES. A drawing group I used to follow is based on Danny Gregory's book EVERYDAY MATTERS.  I was reading his blog yesterday in the middle of all this and thinking that that phrase is useful for more things than just drawing. Everyday matters. What you do everyday matters.  Isn't there a quote about what you do making you what you are, or something along those lines?

Anyway... so. Exercise. I'm starting small. Just 10 minutes a day this week, and then I'm going to increase that periodically. Ideally I'd like to get back to the couch to 5K thing, but I'm SO out of shape that I need to work up to that. So the goal right now is just to move a little more. Get out and walk to the corner and back. Just do a little something to get moving and get in the habit of moving every day. In the very ideal-est world, I'd be able to afford the Y membership and be the kind of person who could get up early enough to spend 6-7 a.m. in the pool every weekday morning. But for now ... just do a little bit more every day. Motivation is NOT my strong suit, but I am hoping that if I tackle this thing first that I'll end up with more energy to attack the rest of the things. 

Many of them I'm sort of doing. Sometimes. Like that eat at the table thing. I've only ever been able to keep up with it for like a week and a half. then I decide that plunking down on the couch with my dinner plate is a great thing "just this once" and before long every dish I own is piled up around the couch. When I eat at the table I'm WAY more likely to take the dishes to the kitchen and wash them. So. Eat at the table. 

The cleaning thing is something I've got to figure out soon. My house is a tip! I haven't vacuumed in something approaching MILLENNIA... 

But I have been working on reading a book every day for 20 minutes. This works out to be something like 1 chapter (depending) or 25 pages. I've been doing it right before bed, but that's also dangerous because of how tempting it is to say "I'm too tired." But mostly I get it done.

I've also bought and started keeping this month what is officially a 5 year journal. There's just space for a couple sentences about your day. That's been fun. Smaller and more achievable than "journal every day" is "write a couple sentences every day." 

That writing/journaling/creating line is also kind of nebulous ... but in my ideal day there needs to be creative time in whatever format feels right for that day. So more thinking to come on that one. 

And then the catbox thing. It usually gets done about every other day, but every day is ideal and I just need a kick in the pants. And if I'm keeping a sort of daily checklist ... why not add that, right?

So anyway. I know I re-start plans like this all the time, and I have no reason to think this is any different, but maybe maybe maybe.

You can't change your life if you don't change your life ... right?!