girls in cars

[thene]

[i wrote this first part on sunday and forgot to post it, but hello, this is posting old things week]

Today I got a ride in an old white Cadillac with a broken gas gauge, which ended in a predictable fashion, thankfully after we were out of the tunnels and in easy walking distance of a gas station. First time I've ever been in that situation; life remains an adventure. We were trying to get to a training event and I admitted I was mostly going because it was Sunday and I don't care about the game and had nothing better to do than get paid a few bucks, and we missed the first hour of it; almost a pity, it was surprisingly useful, and I liked the instructor who looked older than she looked and who pulled off a tunic-top and leggings and knee-high heeled boots as business wear. I wish I could do that.

On the way back, we did the usual introductory small-talk about motherhood and death. The big news of the day is that all the certification stuff I was bitching about late last year? has just been eliminated by court order, though I doubt this will last because it is embarrassingly absurd and it doesn't matter to me anyway because I wanted to skip that rung entirely anyway.



I DO now have a second job, also local; it starts next week at some undefined moment because current job is being shitty about providing me with a schedule. I am hopeful and a tiny bit apprehensive about all the bits of it and all the people in it that will be new to me, and I hope I can re-learn how to be on the go all the time. I have a whole bunch of teabags in a ziplock in my handbag and everything is fine.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I have a package from you! Thank you. The dragon will likely only be worn at goth knights as it is very heavy, but it looks gorgeous.

You are being impressively workish. I hope it continues well. Are there qualifications you would have to pass if you wanted to do this stuff full time, or is it a matter of finding a traineeship opening?

~yoey.

[(Anonymous)]

Spot the Freudian slip...

[thene]

agh, oh dear! I hoped that a normal human ear would be able to support a baby dragon curled over the top of it. ;__;

And no, it's a matter of branching out into a field that provides year-round work rather than seasonal work. Hopefully this new job will help me do exactly that. It may also encourage the agency I'm going through to find me more things to do, as well.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, it's not meant to dongle?! That would make it easier.

Yay new job, in that case. xx

[thene]

AAH. It said that on the website I got it on but not the packet - wasn't sure if you would have tried it or not >< Does it work?

[(Anonymous)]

Er. Sort of. I think it's meant to go on the right ear with the dragon peering over, but my ears are too small and it won't stay put. I can, though, wear it with the dragon snaking round my left ear - it's sustainable for reasonably long periods, but will be more so when I'm not wearing scarves and hats.

Jay and Becca say *hug*. Becca also says the candy canes turned her tongue blue just before a senior manager was about to do a walk round the office...

[thene]

OH DEAR. the blue ones are so nice though ;___;

The curse of small ears! I usually find wraps are easier than heavy earrings but agh, baby dragons are heavy >< *HUGS* to everyones

[(Anonymous)]

I suspect the dragon is just sized for blokes' ears. :s It does look good when on, even backwards, though it does make my ear stick out a bit.

I didn't get the job I interviewed for last Wednesday. Things are feeling weird. hgu?

[thene]

all the hugs ;__; I am sorry to hear that. Jobhunting sucks. I have this horrible feeling that I'll be high and dry after April, so am working as much as possible while I can :/

...from playingstraight:

[(Anonymous)]

Awww. Don't they just adore each other.

Am feeling more positive today, thank goodness. WTF re. your most recent post. Is there anything in that situation that isn't bizarre?

[thene]

APPARENTLY NOT, but at least it'll look good on my resume in the future! I may even learn a thing or two, possibly by accident.

[(Anonymous)]

Learning stuff is fun, and when it's accountancy/bookkeeping, that's something that is necessary year-round.

M and I saw Les Mis this evening. Five words: Orestes Fasting and Pylades Drunk. Also Russell Crowe and Amanda Seyfried are not nearly as bad as everyone says: but nobody is anywhere near as good as Eponine, even Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter and Eddie Redmayne are a rung below, so aside from when Eponine is on, it's ignorable.

[thene]

Oh. Oh dear. I may have to go see it, then.

[(Anonymous)]

Clever doggie! *pats*

Tor UK has opened to non-agented submissions so I sent them RD earlier. When skim-reading it to check the page setting I found it annoyingly bitty in quality. STAS is better, but isn't finished - one and a half unwritten chapters plus the epilogue. Calad is wandering off to look for Atalanta, who has wandered off. Aggravating woman.

[thene]

it's the way doggie looks so PROUD that really gets me.

Best of luck! And mm, that is always annoying but kinda inevitable at novel-length?

eta: it just occurred to me that I haven't finished a shortfic in two months and I might be able to sleep better if I got back at it. :/

[(Anonymous)]

Agree about the apparent facial expression. Dear doggie. How are yours?

Mmm, writing can make one sleep, except when it stops one sleeping. I'm amazed you have time for writing right now, tbh. And, no, quality dips are not inevitable at novel-length. RD has quality dips because of the number of different versions, written between 2005 and 2011, that have been shoehorned into one whole book. The newer bits are better than the older bits (except where some of the links don't fit quite smoothly, and the final chapter is very nice but has the exposition of a midway-through-book chapter, which sucks). Write a novel quickly enough, and the quality won't dip because the writer doesn't have time to develop. I started STAS in 2008 but only wrote three (short, arguably too short) chapters then: most of it is from 2011-2013, half of it from September 2012 onwards. If I keep pushing it shouldn't have time to break.

Right now I am writing nothing, just rereading Les Mis and going ow. Is your current shortfic OF?

[thene]

Precious has COLD TOES and is NOT IMPRESSED. She has developed affection for M's ELECTRIC BLANKET. Grendel likes snow! It seemed to take him time to get used to me being out of the house all the time - he is very much My Dog, and M says he was mopy for the first week or so.

I DON'T have time for writing, or at least, I haven't grown that space for it yet - I wrote Pandora at a tearing pace while juggling two jobs, and while its plot is slim-to-nonexistent it had a kind of alchemy sometimes, idk. The thing is, writing might be a better thing to be doing than all the other evening activities I engage in to wind down and get me to sleep, which I keep failing at anyway. More productive and possibly more effective. I am bad at having just one current shortfic but when I last opened ywriter, I was playing with an OF experiment and two different terrible PWPs.

[(Anonymous)]

Multiple WIPs are good, so long as they don't confuse themselves and breed more WIPs. Ditto experimentalism. As long as writing does wind you down and make you sleepy... IDK, everything is weird wrt that sometimes. Productivity, though, is a good feeling. I never know how to measure it.

[thene]

indeed :/ Especially lately. I think I've either already or immanently junked over half of what I've written so far this year, but this is mostly because of the Exponential Melodrama Curve that I have discovered threesomes are prone to - oh my god stop talking about your feelings, you're all complete primadonnas with hopelessly incompatible sexual needs and i have no idea how you even remain on speaking terms because you're all TERRIBLE PEOPLE.

I find writing can at least get rid of all the OTHER noise, if I manage to let it, and I think that would help? I'll try.

[(Anonymous)]

As you know, I'm always chary of junking stuff, if only because it can prove to be useful later, sometimes in something you didn't think of at all at the time. And yes, getting rid of other noise = good. Creating a gigantic clamour in its place =/= good.

Suggestion: don't write as many threesomes if they're that annoying?

[thene]

Oh, I keep a discards file for stuff I've junked rather than deleting anything.

:( ! I wrote my first threesome for FFEX last year and in retrospect I had the same problem; in order to set up some three-way sexual chemistry the characters spent 3000 eminently skippable words indulging in a stupid lesbian dramafest before getting to the sex. This time, at least I figured out what was going on and nixed the first two scenes of what was originally a three-scene story. But it's kinda stuck atm because it is hard and I am busy.

[(Anonymous)]

But dramafests are fuuuuuun! They spawn all sorts of tasty dialogue, and dialogue is great. Easier than porn, I find, and has more repercussions to play with later.

But it's kinda stuck atm because it is hard and I am busy. - Not surprised, but, unsticking is beneficial for all sorts of reasons, including aforementioned sense of productivity. Hope it unsticks soon.

I finished my chapter last night. Teenage Calad and Atalanta are somewhat sweet sometimes, despite everything. (Calad spent that part of the chapter barefoot because someone nicked his boots while he was in a temple.) Now, I've just got the epilogue to go, plus the chapter I missed out from earlier because it was too problematic. Don't know what I'm going to do about that one.