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Am I the only one just about peeing her pants in anticipation of Legion opening on the 22nd? Since I first saw the trailer, what seems like five years ago, I've just been giddy with anticipation about this and now it's so close and yet so far. Paul Bettany just looks so hot, and it's like some sort of casting squee-fest for me with all the folks in it. Plus, it looks like it could be really creepy-scary, and as someone who never gets a good scare at scary movies, I really, really want this.

In short, terrifying, world-ending angels for the win.

I am soaking my geekboy panties in anticipation of this one. It's not out 'til gorram December 2010 - well, maybe we can get the nice folks at the Rio to snag it for a week or something? I don't know how all this film distribution stuff works and expect it's a lot more complicated than that... ah well.

I wish I'd seen the trailer in a movie theatre, because it's a great teaser - it doesn't tell you what it's about until midway through.

Surely I'm not the only one who watched this one when I was a kid?

Sometimes, that is all she notices: thumbnails. Bits of people. Pocket-sized fragments: their hands on her desk, their fingers dipping into her candy bowl, their waist bands and bits of white coat when they move too closely into her space. A line on one doctor's face, indicating that it has been a hard day in autopsy. The festive gypsy earrings of another, who would rather be anywhere else. Through the frames of her own glasses (of which she is suddenly conscious) everything is constructed: the edge of the computer overlapping the white paper on the typing stand, the bottle of lemonade, the liquid paper which is used so seldom now that one bottle lasts longer than the tenure of a typical secretary.

She would like to view something else. She would like to look down at her hands and see black or purple fingernails -- shiny to the point of liquidity -- as she types away. She would like to see a wine glass instead of a plastic bottle, a desk of wood and stone, walls in some other color than beige. Or maybe she could get away from this desk altogether: see in front of her a stand of bamboo, her own hand trailing in the water of a goldfish pond, disturbing the reflection of a sunset, watery ripples through which she can also see the coins of accumulated wishes.

For those of you who remember me whinging about my year being a human target for the IRS and their inept, incompetent, disorganized, and malfeasant "audit" of my 2007 taxes, I got a call from my tax person last week telling me that they'd called her to tell her they were accepting my (perfectly legit) claim. And it was confirmed yesterday by mail in a letter to me (though they reserve the right at any time to come back and accuse me of something else entirely later on).

Seriously, almost an entire fucking year being fucked around by these fucking fuckwads. I got the first letter in February, and the call to my friend was on Dec. 29. And my case was mild -- I had no assets seized, didn't have to pay for an attorney yet, no liens... and yet it still cost me quite a bit of money and anguish and mental distress. I hate them all and I want them to die of a terrible disfiguring disease.

Out of the mulch: a seedling, or two, or three. Crocuses, purple, nine weeks early.

She follows the life-line down through the cedar chips and rotten banana peels and remembers what the earth feels like to her fingers. Cold, muddy soft, gritty. She plants herself, or starts to. But then looks up and thinks. Maybe this. Maybe that. Thinking overcomes feeling, and anxieties about what else is there in the earth -- what worms its way around down here, what might touch her if she stays here -- anxieties build and surface and now she has to look up further, beyond the crocuses to the chain-link fence, tied with the morning glory that never quite dies away. Up past the chain link fence to the cement stairs, surrounded by blackberry bushes and discarded 7-11 cups. Up the stairs to the street above her head, up the hill to the college across the street, past and over the college to sky, the east where the sun will rise soon and bring daylight back to the mornings. She will go inside and wash her hands and get ready to work hard in a busy, windowless hospital. Or she will quit her job today, walk out of the hospital and into the dark back rows of a church, sit on the hard pews, stroke the golden or red velvet cushions, take the hymnal out of the back of the pew ahead of her, flip through the delicate pages to find something that she remembers: if not a song, then a familiar phrase: Praise.

And she does.

I'm happy to report that planetary gravity is still holding firm at 47.6550000 (latitude) and -122.3151000 (longitude). Tested it thoroughly today with a live human body. Elevation is slightly less than reported, however, due to half the hill ending up on my pants.

OMG, courtesy of maechi, I have found out that my spiritual fiance Kevin Alejandro will be joining the cast of True Blood as Lafayette's lover. I am beside myself with joy. I am so beside myself I'm practically another person. I just... how is this even happening? Eeeeee.

Also, and this is completely random, but has been on my mind since Yuletide, I am in love with Damian Lewis's mouth. I want take one of his pillowy lips in my own mouth and alternately bite it and suck on it. What. Like you wouldn't if you had the chance.

And hey, while it's on my mind, if anyone needs any last minute beta-ing for Festivids, please feel free to ask me! I have people who will vouch for my mad beta skilz, for realz. Is that enough z's for you?

I am home, as of early this morning, and the less said about the trauma of yesterday the better, probably, otherwise I might devolve into a foam-mouthed pitbull of rage. Short story: flight cancelled from Dulles to Newark, which I only found out because I obsessively check the web site, one hour before we were to leave; can't get flight home for at least two more days, Keith wants me gone; decide to take train to Newark if I can get one, get on train as it's in final boarding; rush through Newark, have breakdown at ticket agent when I can't print boarding pass because of the schedule change; get through horrid security and rush to terminal to find out flight is late; keeps getting later in 15 minute increments; finally takes off hours late, longest flight ever in history of flight; plane is so hot that everyone is stripping down to their under layers except me; so dehydrated I can hardly breathe (3-hour train ride was hot, too); last suitcase off, though considering the day, still glad it came at all. And that's with all the extra fun stuff like empty gas tank left out.

Dad insisted on picking me up, which meant drive home took app. 3 years longer than it should.

There's a lot to do, but I just can't get the motivation to do it. My face hurts so much -- I don't know if it's something in my skin care routine being changed, getting sun and wind burned on NY's as we wandered around the Mall and memorials, or what, but my cheeks have the consistency of an orange rind and they really really hurt. I'm enjoying the colder air after all the overheating (because it was so bone-breakingly cold the whole time, it seemed like the transportation systems were in overdrive on the heat in pretty much everything I was on) right now, and drinking the violet tea I picked up in NYC, but... right now I just don't want to do anything. I'm so effing tired and kind of weirdly dispirited (this little misadventure cost me quite a bit of money I hadn't budgeted for).

But I have pics to post and stories to tell. And there's a whole Yuletide archive that I haven't even had the chance to look at!

Oh, and hey, the reveal happened during all this, too. So, I wrote two stories this year, which could not have been more different from each other: Safe for omphale23, a Band of Brothers extra from the pinch hit list about Winters and Nixon right after Eindhoven; and The Mirrorball Malefaction Misapprehension, my primary Yuletide story for Nomie (metonymy), a Middleman story about nefarious deeds on New Year's Eve. It sounds like some people enjoyed them, so I'm really glad, and I'm especially happy that a lot of people felt my Middleman voices were spot-on and the dialog sounded like the show. I can't tell you how much I agonized about that!

One last post for 2009, and a hello from DC. I will not be sorry to see this year go. I don't have any hope that 2010 will be different, but here's hoping anyhow. Yesterday was a day trip up to NYC, which was lovely and fun although OMG cold, so cold, I thought I would die coming out of Penn Station. Picked up some Kusmi violet tea (that I can't wait to try, but there are no tea making supplies here) at Dean & Deluca, and some treats, and the bestest cheese I have ever tried. The bad part is that now I have to try to figure out how I can get more of that cheese when I'm home with no D&D and they don't mail order this one. I bonded with the cheese guy.

Went to Bull Run/Manassas the day before that, and it was so cold I felt like I was dying. The wind coming up off the valley was hideous, and the wind chill temp was about 12, they said, though it felt even less. We were the only idiots dumb enough to go traipsing around the field, but there were cannons to be photographed and houses to investigate, and at one point the wind was so bitter and we were so agonizingly cold we took shelter behind Stonewall Jackson. Keith thinks it will make for a very good story.

Today we're off to his office and then the Corcoran for a Sargent exhibit, if we can get there before they close early. Not sure we're doing anything for New Year's, but I'm feeling kind of crappy from vertigo, so I'm not sure there's much I want to do more than just sit here and eat my D&D bounty and watch Keen Eddie. We'll probably go the WWII memorial and Roosevelt island on the holiday since most of everything else will be closed. There was an icy sleet last night, but I hear it might warm up to a balmy 38 today.

OMG I want to read Yuletide stories! I notice that after the reveal, no one ever seems to post recs, though I don't understand that. I'm looking forward to reading and catching up though.

Pandora finished dusting the window sills with salt. She'd spent the day smudging with sage and making sure the house was energetically clean for the New Year. She'd gone through the house with smoke (for air), flame (for fire), water (uh...for water) and salt, for earth. She'd said blessings in the oddest corners, and straightened books on bookshelves, and made sure she had black-eyed peas on hand for the next day. Now it was after dark, new year's eve. Pandora put on her favorite new year's album, Down to the Moon by Andreas Wollenweider. She lit candles and made a cup of tea, and sat at the table in the kitchen with a notebook pad full of graph paper, crayons, markers, and fine point pens. She was equipped now to look backward, month by month, at the last year, and to write whatever reflection might come out of that. To refocus herself. To cleanse her spirit and forgive all her misdeeds and--

"Yo! Pandy!" Her downstairs neighbor Mark yelled from the hall. A knock followed.

She sighed and got up, knowing from experience that Mark didn't go away if he knew she was home.

"Yes?" She said as she opened the door.

"We're going to Capitol Hill to watch the fireworks from the Space Needle and get totally messed up!"

"Have fun," she said, starting to close the door. Mark caught it before it closed.

"My cousin's in town," he said, "and Michelle's going, and here's the thing...we kind of need another person along? So it's not like me & Michelle with my cousin feeling like a third wheel?"

"Ah," she said.

"And I'm bringing champagne," he said. "Plus, I know this guy who has a karaoke machine, and his place is right on Melrose so you can totally see EVERYthing from his living room!"

Pandora wavered.

"Please?" Mark made his eyes wide, knowing that had worked on her before.

"Ok." She grabbed her coat and hat and snuffed the candles. She could always do this reflection stuff tomorrow.

"Cheers!" Mark said, and they walked out into the not-too-cold night.

Greetings from the no-longer very snowy wilds of suburban Washington DC, specifically Arlington, VA. By now most of the big blizzard is just giant piles of filthy snow at curbside. Today it was beautiful out - sunny, warm enough for not wearing gloves but cold enough to feel like it recently snowed, and a perfect day for a venture to the Congressional Cemetery, which was beyond my expectations. My camera battery died long before I could finish the pictures I wanted to take, so I was very sad. I guess I'm going to have get myself a second battery -- but I've never run out before, and I don't really know why this one did unless possibly it got turned out at some point during travel.

Unfortunately I slept most of the day away, I was so freaking tired from the air travel. But tomorrow there will be more venturing. Civil war battlefields, terra cotta warriors, Roosevelt Island, and a great deal of other adventures await me this week, plus a day trip to NYC and possibly Baltimore.

Right now, I am hooking Keith on The Middleman. It was not hard. I knew he would love it.

I haven't had enough time to do Yuletide, sadly. But I did just get to read my Madness stocking stuffers, which are all adorable:
Chucks vs. the Choirboy is so cute!
The Passing Lane is sweet bantery White Collar.
A Moment of Clarity is a schweeeet piece of Buckaroo Banzai from Rawhide's POV.

I see people play guessing games all the time and I doubt it would work for me, BUT if anyone wants to try to guess which of my two Yuletide stories are in there, you'll get a ficlet if you guess right.

Hints: They are in wildly different fandoms, about as different as could be; they are both well over 1,000 words, and I have never written before in either one, but have vidded in one.

Talk to you later when I have more time!

"I used to think that tangles were green diamonds...little teensy green diamonds in your hair that did something bad over time."
--Penny, age 9

I don't know how to cover the last couple of days since leaving work on Christmas Eve. I had no expectations for what it would be like, except that I had the kids this weekend. Had no specific plans, though, other than to get through it. Christmas Eve was great -- spent it with A & R and then A drove me home the next morning. Got to Kevin's around 9 -- the kids had opened their stockings and they'd each gotten a present from a neighbor, and they were delighted with this simple stuff, most probably because we set them up to expect very little. And because there was candy. Kevin made nectarine pancakes (vegan -- & very good despite being all hippie-fied). And then the kids and I went to Dragon House, where it was just another Friday with every one pitching in on chores. We all threw in together and got the house completely cleaned in a couple of hours and then Karen took the kids on an outing to downtown, where nothing was open, and they came back and watched a movie while I napped. Sam had been having a cough that had been getting worse, with wheezing, and then started throwing up. At about 10 I woke up and found that Karen & James were getting ready to take Sam to the emergency room. I kept Tera & was up with her until she put herself to bed around midnight after a couple of Wiggles videos. Then stayed up until James got home around 1:30. Sam stayed in the hospital last night and will be there again tonight, and Karen's been with him the whole time, so there is this surreal kind of "getting through it" energy around here. I've had Tera for a few hours at a stretch -- early this morning and again in the afternoon when James went to take lunch to Sam at the hospital. He's got all the kids out right now, giving me a couple of sorely needed hours to exercise and use my computer. We're taking up the carpet upstairs tonight, and I'll take Tera again while he goes to visit at the hospital. So that's us this weekend. Completely unexpected, but I'm also getting this valuable chance to be useful to my housemates and give a little tiny bit back to them for all they give me almost every single day.
Sam will be back tomorrow (I hope) when the folks at the hospital are sure that he can breathe on his own without all the extra support he's getting there. And I'm so glad he's ok and going to be ok. It really is just asthma -- they don't think it's the flu or pneumonia and they've x-rayed his lungs, which are more clear than not. So that's us. Just finished my workout and on my way to the shower before the kids get back.

Hope your weekends are each going well...

OK, first things first: I was wrong, but most importantly, YOU were right. It's true that pinch-hits don't mean Christmas blues. I got not one, but FOUR freaking stories, and apparently there are more Madness stories still to come. I'M NOT WORTHY. And it sounds like possibly the person who defaulted still put the story up, and it sounds like something terrible happened (so of course now don't I feel like a shitheel). And they are all great.

My pressies, let me show you them!!!

So, I get these two wonderful Christmas cakes of Buckaroo Banzai.
Saddle Up is a wonderful post-movie depiction of Buckaroo's intentions of bringing Rawhide back to life. And just about anyone at the Institute in the movie makes an appearance, and there's this wonderful little pun of Johns who come to help.
and then
The Adventures of Rawhide: Navigating An End and a Beginning (With Bloody Feet) is a look at the post-Peggy Buckaroo, with glimpses back to how Rawhide met him and some adorable case-file names and nemeses. It's beautifully written and I'm thrilled.

And more cake! MORE CAKE, PEOPLE! White Collar cake, to be precise.
The Great God-Daughter Caper has Neal and Peter chasing around looking for Peter's missing 16-year-old god-daughter and being Neal and Peter together. Aaaaaaahhhh.

So there's the cake and then I get this SURPRISE FROSTING. My little fandom that there are hardly any others who have even seen it, the fandom where I was the only one who mentioned it this year (last year I bullied someone else into offering it, but this year it was just my lone request, no offers), MDs, and someone wrote me a Bruce/Robert story with smut! I AM SO HAPPY. Happy happy frosting. It's called What's Worth Keeping and you know what? THIS STORY is worth keeping!

And then there was a cherry! A little Chuck ficlet called Reverse Surveillance where Chuck might just turn the tables on Casey watching him all the time. EEEEEEEE. Chuck and Casey.

I am going to be sitting on that horrible plane and in the horrible airports just thinking about these stories and being happy, so watch out air travel, you can't get me down now! I dare you! I HAZ BUCKAROO, WHITE COLLAR, MDs, AND CHUCK STORIEZ!