music: "sakurazukamori", dj lycoris; "sadame (piano version)", x tv ost

amount of alcohol consumed in the last 24 hours: two hard lemonades and a godawful gin punch

hangover: none!! :D

Surprise birthday party for Fil last night. What a wonderful guy. ^_^ It was a lot of fun meeting the friends of his that I didn't already know; they were very nice and we played a few rounds of a really, really funny game called "Dirty Minds". There was karaoke, and Pump it Up (*whine* I score so much better in the arcade!), and I got pleasantly tipsy and sang "Slide" with Homer. I love the Goo Goo Dolls. ^_^

In other news, I have finally started practicing the piano again. I'm learning to play "Sadame" from the X TV series... damn, it's a beautiful piece, but so... fricking... hard. I hope to have it mastered by Otakon, though; that way I can sit down at the piano with my black turtleneck and my bandage and get somebody to fling sakura-shaped confetti behind me. XD

Social bloggage:

Imouto-chan, my cupcakes are indeed frosted. XD I've heard "How You Remind Me"... it's on a CD I made specifically for this couple (because I have noooo life). "Sick Cycle Carousel" by Lifehouse is probably the best song I've heard for those two, though... a close second would be "In The Air Tonight" by Phil Collins. Or, um, almost anything by Hoobastank.

D-chan, I know I already said this, but thank you SO much for the fanart. It's gawjuss! :D

Exie, I think Subaru and Kamui should petition CLAMP Academy to get their own radio show. The Subaru and Kamui Angst Hour. XD

And nee-san, I'm with you on the X storyline. If they take it in that direction... *shudder* You know, I've been thinking of posting some essays on "Hand In Glove" when I get it up. Would it be too, um... I don't know, too inflammatory to post an essay on why I'm anti-S/K?

...blarg, I need me some CANDY. *hops off*

I love my tiny Hello Kitty stationery.

However, I'm still bummed that when I went to the Jimmy Buffett concert last night, we were surrounded by chainsmokers and he didn't do "Pencil Thin Mustache". ._.

On the plus side, he did do a great cover of "Skipping Over The Ocean Like A Stone" or whatever it's called. *happy sigh* I love Jimmy Buffett.

Otanjoubi ometedou gozaimasu~! ^____^

Go here. Now.

It was on Becky-nee-san's blog, but since I participated, I thought I'd share. ^_~

And now it's time for... quasi-social blogging!

Bridget, I finished your fic; the beta's in the inbox. It ended up being an hourfic (actually, it was a forty-five-minute fic). I just... really hope it doesn't suck. I worry about accidentally writing Fuuma Lameness, cause, y'know, that'd suck.

Kira-'mouto-chan, the lyric makes sense to me 'cause it just... *shrug* does. And yeah, that one line obviously doesn't work (do we see breasts on the CLAMP men? Aside from Hokuto?), but the lyric overall does have that kinda obsessive, infatuated tone.
My choices of couplesongs are usually really weird. Sometimes they're based on tone and sometimes on lyrics. And sometimes my brain just goes "sproink" and I get stuck with something. ^_~

Wait wait wait... D-chan... does this mean that if I spoil Tabula Rasa for you, chapter by chapter, you'll give me art?
...oh my god... and everyone here knows how much of an art whore I am...
...Must... resist...

music: "swan lake", tchaikovsky
time between postings of last chapter of tabula rasa and current chapter: two weeks

(And boy, am I so grateful to Bridget for pointing out the embarrassing continuity error in the first draft. Bridget, I owe you art now.)

My weekend at the beach, with the exception of being able to pick up candy cigarettes and seeing my wonderful cousins again, was kind of... eh.
See, my grandfather and step-grandmother snipe at each other like nobody's business. She starts with the insults, then he rises to the bait, then they yammer at each other until one of them gets tired or one of their children has to pry them apart.
It's really not fair. My cousin Alicia--very pregnant, and wonderfully cheerful--was there, along with her sister Kathy; both of them were sweet and amiable and we had a ton of fun hanging out. (And Kathy bought me hard lemonade when I begged a bottle to help me cope with the grandparents.) They both have two-year-old sons to deal with, and yet they both had their patience stretched out and stomped on by the constant bickering and petty battles.
My soon-to-be-aunt Diana (uncle's fiancee) was there; the more I talk to her, the more I like her, as she's a wonderful human being, and you can tell she and my uncle love each other very much. I wish I'd given her more hugs; I'll have to remember to hug her long and hard at the rehearsal dinner (which is at our house). Step-grandmother, however, sniped at her a lot, largely behind her back. And frankly, that really pissed me off. It's really not fair; she's a nice person and she doesn't deserve to catch any crap from someone who hasn't even bothered to get to know her.
Those of us old enough/in the loop enough to understand what's going on between granddad and step-grandma are holding our collective breaths for something really terrible to happen.
Honestly, a weekend at the beach with the grandparents is like being in an Agatha Christie mystery. We're all just waiting for a body to hit the floor.

SHIT.

Tabula Rasa Chapter Four is done, we leave for the beach in half an hour or less, and FFnet is down.

SHIT.

talkin' to myself again

music: the matrix soundtrack. aaaalll of eet. :D

Notice to voices-in-my-head Sumeragi Subaru and Monou Fuuma:
If you two don't quit screwing around and let me finish up Tabula Rasa Chapter Four, I will personally call in the Four Motorcyclists Of The Apocalypse (id est, Pestilence, War, Methos, and William Shatner) and see to it that both your pansy asses are kicked around the block.
--yr. loving author

All I need to do is finsh this chunk of the chapter and I can do the first death in the fic. And then move on to the really good stuff, like more death, pain, molestation, gratuitous Judeo-Christian Symbolism, sex, and drug-abuse parallels.

This is how you know you're a writer: you hold a beautiful, elaborately crafted time bomb of a story in your hands, and you realise you've forgotten where the "on" button is.

I burned my wrist taking shoo fly pie out of the oven.

*CRY*

music: "leave you far behind", lunatic calm

Damn you, April, I'm not supposed to have any Sakurazuka muses! Now you may never be rid of Setsuka. She'll, like, wander around trying to steal Kazuhiko away from Oruha and staring at Kohaku. And it's your fault! Meh!!

Okay, moving out of the realm of the totally bonkers:

I have to spend this weekend with my crazy grandfather, at the beach. Now, I should say something here. I love my relatives. I do. Blood is thicker than water and all that.
This does not, however, mean that I like all of them.
My grandfather is pretty much everything I am not. Catholic, military, highly conservative, Republican. Some of his stories, I admit, fascinate me to no end; he fought in WWII, lived in Japan (where my father was born), and befriended a man who later became prime minister. (A token of that friendship sits next to my computer as I write--a pair of sake cups, one gold and one silver, each with a sakura blossom and an eagle engraved at the bottom.)
But he drives me absolutely stark raving claw-my-eyes-out-mad.
Case in point: he called me once to brag about having gotten down on William Safire in some matter of unpatriotic language or some similar. (William fucking Safire.) I got so angry I reached for my copy of 1984. And I don't even particularly like that book.

I think I may have to spend most of the weekend working on "Tabula Rasa" and taking advantage of the total lack of sales tax at this beach.

And Bridget? Your South Park chibis are giving me really, really horrible ideas. XD

just talkin' to myself...

music: "in a little while", once upon a mattress
hours i have to finish ch.4 of "tabula rasa": between eight and twenty
hours i have to get a job and thus weasel my way out of spending the weekend with my crazy grandfather: between twenty-four and thirty-six

"Hey, Subaru?"
"Yes, Lisa-san?"
"D'you feel like telling me why you're in Kyoto, lying on a bench in the garden in a white kimono on the night of the Star Festival, instead of being inside officiating at a Sumeragi wedding?"
"Write the story and I'll tell you."

I have a lot of conversations like this with my muses.

More later, I'm off for "Spider-Man".

Okay, because fanfiction.net is being a BITCH and will not let me upload until Friday:

Hurt/Comfort.
Recommended listening: "Love Island", Fatboy Slim; "Sleep", Melissa Etheridge; "Tonight And The Rest Of My Life", Nina Gordon.
Please be advised, these are all Becky's fault. Not that that's a bad thing.

music: the blog theme! XD
chat: tk-chan

So here's what happened in New York City.

I'm a New Yorker. I have never lived there--I've lived in its great British-speaking twin, London--but every time I go there I know I'm home. I can negotiate the crowds without breaking stride, I feel the length of every block, I let the noises of the city be my lullaby and my alarm clock. It's just in my blood. I'm a countryborncitygirl.

Now that's off my chest--time for the really really exciting part... the theatre reviews!

We saw three plays--comedies all, which was quite possibly the best theatregoing decision we've made in months.
The first was "Noises Off", which follows a hilarious series of disasters plaguing a travelling theatre company. Now, I've been in productions where we had the most horrible bad luck (main character losing her voice, sound effects going wrong, set falling apart), but this was so wonderfully ridiculous... some of the actors were struggling not to lose it onstage, and I didn't blame them; I haven't enjoyed watching things fall apart so disastrously since I saw "Independence Day". XD No wonder it was nominated for Best Revival of a Play; it was so funny we had gigglefits until about one in the morning.
(Post-theatre dinners are great things. You can't do it in DC, because everything goes to sleep around 9:30, but in New York you can walk into a restaurant at 11:30 and have a wonderful steak sandwich and talk about watching Faith Prince crack up onstage.)

Saturday night, Dad got mistaken for Richard Gere at dinner, and poor Peaches accidentally ordered a hamburger as big as her face.
And then we saw the Best Play Revival winner, "Private Lives". With Alan Rickman.
I had been waiting for this for months. Alan Rickman is one of my favourite actors, ever, and he absolutely did not disappoint. The whole production was lavish and bittersweet and alight with energy--very real, despite the carefully structured prose. The entire audience held its breath in places.
I should explain that "Private Lives" is a rather dark comedy about a divorced couple who just can't stay divorced. For years it's been played and read in a very superficial way, emphasizing the comedy and the curtness more than anything else--it is a Noel Coward play, after all. But in this production the passion was real; the leads really did love each other, and the little cues they gave were subtle and true. The moment the female half of the couple (played by Lindsay Duncan) walked offstage, after their first meeting, Rickman turned away and slumped just a little--he went weak in the knees. After that you knew it was all over for him--he could only hold out for so long before he gave in.
And in the second act he sang. He played the piano and he sang. He's so wonderful to watch--he's got the kind of presence that drives up the temperature in the room, he's just so intense.

And on Sunday, to distract ourselves from our fangirlishness (yes, even Dad got fangirly), we saw Blue Man Group. Boy, are they a head trip. XD Their version of "White Rabbit"--yeah, the Jefferson Airplane song--is a hoot and a half.

And now I have the acting bug like you wouldn't believe. It was all I could do not to dance down Times Square while we were there... luckily, now I've got this huge empty neighbourhood to wander around in singing, and nobody cares. XD

Everybody pet the sweetheart. She's getting big kisses and hugs from me for wrangling this layout into shape. *cuddles her*

New layout very soon.

Yes, that's why I haven't been updating.

Give it some time. ^_~