( LoM One Shots )

( 5 Things/Times Fics )

( LoM/Meat Crossover AU series )

( The Kept Man AU series )


( Steady As She Goes AU series )

"Something is wrong," Snoopy said to Woodstock as he sat at his typewriter one day. "I've been writing for such a long time, and I'm not famous yet. I think it's time to write something really important. I just wish I could think of something really important."

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Iron Man
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Watchmen
Drag Me to Hell
The Blair Witch Project

Which means I now own 8 movies which I have never even seen: Broadcast News, Brokeback Mountain, House on Haunted Hill (the 50s original), Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, Run Fatboy Run, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Drag Me to Hell.

I really should get around to watching some of those.

Anyway, now time to update the spreadsheet!

Thankfully, there was no cleaning up involved as Mom and I made the smart choice and went out to eat instead of cooking. I ate way too much stuffing and had the fluffiest lemon meringue pie ever. It was great. And I had some pumpkin pie. And some chocolate chip cheesecake. And some mashed potatoes. And some turkey. And some corn. And some carrots. And some green beans. And a chocolate martini.

Now, tomorrow I will brave the stores, well just one store, and shop. This will be only the third time I've ever gone out shopping on Black Friday. The first was when I was in high school and my sister was visiting from college. She needed to buy something at the mall so we went down there, completely forgetting about it being Black Friday until we got there. The second was last year when I was forced to work a double shift at Best Buy and had no choice but to go out.

Tomorrow, I shall go, in a valiant effort to create a DVD collection that would envy Danny Butterman's. I already added some DVDs to the pile yesterday when there was a special sale at Borders. I got Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist for $4.99, though I've yet to see it, and I've finally, finally, bought Firefly: The Complete Series, and for just $19.99! So, we'll see what we get tomorrow.

After the shopping I'm going to return home to recuperate, then head out to Starbucks around 4pm-ish, after the main surge of shoppers has died down.

Wish me luck.

So, I saw a patient today. Let's call her Patient X. Now, I had seen Patient X a few weeks ago when she had the flu. She has lupus and gets pneumonia easily and had just been in the hospital with pneumonia, so she knows it's important to go to the doctor right away if she's feeling ill. She was a very friendly woman, about 30 years old, though she looks like she could be in her 20s. She had had anxiety and mild depression issues in the past, but that was well controlled now. She's known the Doc for years and years and they get on great together. She was a little shy, but she also had the flu and felt like crap. She was easy to talk to and grateful for all the help we gave her. Nothing unusual about her at all.

Patient X came to see again today after being in the hospital, again. She had to have a brain biopsy and was put on Ativan which gave her violent mood swings in the past. She was also started on a steroid which she also reacted negatively towards.

It was like seeing the mentally ill!Sam I've written in a few fics. She wouldn't make eye contact, just kept picking at her sneakers and the staples in her head. She hardly spoke and didn't want to answer any questions or engage in any conversation. It wasn't clear if she recognized who the Doc was or not. He kept asking her if she knew who he was, but she never responded. When her mother asked her if she knew who her husband was, after the third time she finally mumbled, "A pain in the ass." When her mother asked her if she knew who she [the mother] was, she mumbled again, "A pain in the ass." She had tried to escape from the hospital, too. She'd removed one of her PIC lines and had made it all the way to the elevator. The only thing that she repeated was that she did want to go back to the hospital.

We heard later that her husband did take her back to the ER as planned but while there she freaked out again and refused to be admitted.

We've had a few schizophrenics in the office, but they were controlled on medication and didn't seem any weirder than most of the people we see. This, though, you could tell something was wrong as soon as you walked in the door. They're hoping she'll be alright after the steroid and Ativan is out of her system, possibly in a week or so. Apparently this type of reaction has happened in the past. Yeah, I've read about this stuff a lot, but it's different seeing it in person.

My mother is flipping through a magazine that sells odd knick-knacks and t-shirts.

Mom: Who would buy statues of meerkats? *shows me picture* That's just weird. Really. What person would buy a meerkat?
Me: No idea. No idea at all...

(This from a woman who won't admit that she wants a "Mrs. Gene Hunt" t-shirt but does admit she wants to time her visit to me/London next year with the next LoM meet-up.)

Rolled out of bed around 10:30am, left for Starbucks at about 11am, and was there until about 2pm. Then I came home, took Harry to the park since the weather was nice, and then went back home. It was a good Starbucks day. Not crowded, so I got my favorite table, had a great Peppermint Mocha, and even the creepy barista acted semi-normal. Didn't work on novel #2, though I brought all the stuff with me, because I wanted to churn out some fic. I wasn't happy with what I had for the penultimate part to the Sam-Ray fic, so I ended up rewriting the whole the thing. Now I just need to edit the last part/epilogue bit and that will be another fic finished.

I barely remembered to sign up for martianholiday this year, but I did my sign-ups last night. I loved the fic and icons I got last year, and I was really happy with the fics I wrote, so I thought I'd do it all again. Now I just have to remember to go choose some prompts once the list is up.

The angst monkeys have been upset about being locked in their cages for so long, and have started lobbing bunnies at me. There's a "Sam caught in the rain, in the middle of nowhere" plot bunny that culf tossed at me, so I'll be writing that, and I've been toying with an idea for an extended series about Sam's teenage years, with fics going from age 12 to when he's accepted to the Academy. I'd have to do some research for that first, though.

In the meantime, I've wrote the first scene for the next SASG one-shot. Yeah, it's been over a year (I think) since I last posted a fic in that series, and maybe I should just leave the AU be, but I've always wanted to tell this last story, and now I've finally found the way in which I want to tell it. So, hopefully the story will write in the way I want it to write, I'll be happy enough with it to post it, and it'll be up in a few weeks. Hopefully.

I'm presumably only working Monday and Tuesday this week, thanks to the Thanksgiving holiday, so I should have plenty of writing time ahead. Though, on Wednesday I need to stick around the house while the new appliances are delivered and the new microwaved installed, and on Thanksgiving Day itself, Mom just wants to clean all day for this Silpada party she's agreed to host for oldest sister's step-mother-in-law. But, Friday looks good with my only plans being to go to Best Buy later in the afternoon for the awesome DVD sales they'll have for Black Friday. I don't typically (read: ever) go Black Friday shopping, but after working in Best Buy last year, and getting a load of awesome movies like Memento for only $3-4, I want to check out what they'll have this year. Last year I didn't buy anything until later in the afternoon and they still had plenty of DVDs, so I should be alright with my afternoon shopping timeframe. No way in hell I'm going to be up at 4am to go to a store. Not even for cheap DVDs. I'm not that much of a DVD addict. Yet.

Today was the one Saturday a month we see patients, so I had to get up and go to work in the morning. Now, I'm currently doing the work of two people at work, since the physician's assistant is gone. Today was also the doc's stepdaughter's birthday, so she wasn't coming in at all, which meant no one else knew how to process labs (not event he doc) which meant I did the work of three people. Well, today was Saturday which meant Harry had class at 11:30am. Mom had to play the organ for a special church service, so doc said I could leave at 11 in order take Harry to class. Well, out of the goodness of my heart, I told him I could come back around 1pm to finish processing the labs.

So, I went to work at 9am, left at 11am, got Harry to class at 11:30am, took Harry home at 12:45pm, got back to work at 1:15pm. Finish labs, then the doc wants to talk to me about ways to make the office run better as he says he likes my input. Well, I do appreciate that he listens to my opinions and that he is open to changing how some things in the office work, but I don't really want to talk about them on a Saturday afternoon. Not that I had much choice. So, after 5 minutes of actual lab work and 40 minutes of talking (at least it was paid), I finally get to go to Starbucks around 2pm. Stay until about 4pm, then go home, then go right back out with Mom to Lowe's to get new appliances.

See, our 20+ year old dryer decided to finally die, so Mom decided it was time to get all the new appliances we wanted - dryer, microwave, oven, refrigerator. Not that we cook. Ever. Except in the microwave. But, our microwave was purchased in 1983 (and therefor, is older than I am), our oven is pushing 20+ and our refrigerator is somewhere around 15 years old. And she wanted new appliances with the house for when they put it back up for sale. So, we went to Lowe's, quickly picked out what we wanted, and then waited for about 45 minutes until the order and delivery stuff was fully processed.

Then, we got some food, then went up to Petsmart to get stuff for Harry that I didn't have time to get earlier. And then we came home. And my back has decided to seize up and hate me after all the running around I did today.

In short, I don't like working on Saturdays, especially when I'm doing the work of three. Good news - they may have found a qualified medical assistant, which they desperately needed to do as doc's stepdaughter got a job at another doctor's office and will be starting there in early December.

Tomorrow = Starbucks and football and not much else. Thank god.

So, I only needed to have one tooth drilled, not two! After filling the one cavity, the dentist was staring in my mouth and said, "There's really no need to crack into that other tooth." So, yay! And it's not sore at all, at least right now. I did make sure to take an Aleve before the novocaine wore off, but really, my mouth feels no different than before. So, that's good. We'll see how it is tomorrow morning.

And I also managed to be a productive writer today. I got to Starbucks and clocked about 2 hours of writing. I'm sorting out a big messy knot right now at this point in the novel, but it's been going along relatively well. I can tell that I'll still have to make a lot of changes to this section of the book once the first draft is finished, but at least it makes a whole lot more sense now than it did previously. I just have to keep chugging along. I also managed to get work done on it after taking Harry to the park later in the afternoon. He was tired after playing tag with two, friendly Rottweilers, so I could focus on writing. That's twice now this week I've been able to get work done while sitting in our dining room. This is good that I can change my writing habits some what. I need to be consistently more productive if I'm ever going to get anything done. I've worked through 17 of the 26 Post-its now. Once that's done, I'll type up the changes, read the thing through from the beginning to get a good feel for it, then power on with the second half.

Not setting a goal to finish the first draft, but I will once it comes to editing. I put off editing Novel #1 for way too long. I may take a little break and work on screenplay #5 a little, then go back and start editing, but it would only be a little break. Not a big one.

Still no word from my admissions advisor. This is me, twiddling my thumbs. Still, this application is a lot simpler than when I was applying to colleges. It is nice having someone to do all the work for you, especially when you don't have to pay them.

I'm usually done by 2pm on Wednesdays anyway, but there are no patients scheduled for the morning, and nothing for me to do. so the doc told me to take the day off and go write a novel. And that is what I'm planning on doing, before going to the dentist at 2:30. *Grumble* I won't be in the mood for Starbucks, nor should I consume hot beverages, after getting this two cavities filled tomorrow (and hopefully figuring out why I'm still having sensitivity on the upper right side), so I'm going to go beforehand. If I wake up in time. For some reason, I've been extra tired these past two mornings, despite getting the same amount of sleep I've been getting. I blame it on the cold weather. That makes sense, right?

I have started reading "The Book of Lost Things" and I already love it. The writing seems so simple, yet it's quite elegant and descriptive, and the story just leaves me wanting more. I'll have to recommend it to my sister, if she hasn't read it yet. My middle sister is a huge reader. She has about 40 books on her shelf that she hasn't even read yet, she just keeps them in reserve.

In grad school updates, I'm waiting to hear back about the edits to my personal statement. Also still waiting to here if the scans I sent of my transcript are acceptable. I did look up my application at the website and it says both of my recommendations have been received and approved, though I'd still like to hear it from my advisor that she got my academic reference. Now, I'm just waiting and twiddling my thumbs until she e-mails me back and tells me what to do next. Thankfully, it looks like my application will be all done before Christmas, which was the goal. Once all the documents are officially approved, I'll just have to wait and see if any of the programs will require additional information, like a writing sample, for instance.

My motto lately has just been each day brings me closer to where I want to be. I have to keep telling myself that everytime an old man comes in and removes his shirt for no reason. (Yes, that man came in again today. He had been in a motorcycle accident. Though there were no problems with his chest or back, only scratches on his face, as soon as the doctor came in the room, the shirt came off. And the pants. The pants I didn't get too much warning on, but I managed to turn away just in time.)

Just had microwaved Healthy choice french bread pizza and three thin mint cookies for dinner. Now I'm stomach's a bit queasy. Hm. I wonder if there's any correlation?

Got out of work early today because the doc needed to go see a cardiologist, for himself. Don't know what that's all about but he was planning on being at work tomorrow. I'm under the impression he wasn't seeing him because he was a cardiologist but just because he didn't feel well and he trusts that particular doctor. Again, I have no idea. Just making assumptions.

Anyway, because I got off early, and the weather was nice, I was able to take Harry to the park for a little and run him around. Now I have about an hour until House, so I think I'm going to take all my writing stuff downstairs and try to work through another Post-It or two for the novel before the show starts.

And, less than 1 month until culf 's visit. Yay Apocalypse! (And paid time off!)

The way I've been working this weekend, you'd think I'd want to do this for a living. *Sigh*

Spent a solid two hours at Starbucks this morning/afternoon, slowly working through the changes I need to make to the first half of novel #2. I have 26 Post-Its to go through, and I made it through 9 of them. So, slowly but surely I'm working my way through. Then I'll need to type up all the changes, but at least the thinking part will be done. I've been forcing myself to not make nitpick corrections to what I have so far, as that will only hold me up and it's not what I'm trying to accomplish right now.

I also made adjustments to the personal statement, typed them up, and sent them off to the advisor. My academic reference also told me she sent my reference letter to the advisor, but I haven't heard anything yet, so I asked advisor if she'd received it. So, now I'm just waiting to hear. If she does have that reference letter, than everything that's left to do (personal statement, transcript) is in my hands and I need to get it done, so that I can just sit back and wait for further instruction. I'll scan and upload the personal statement as soon as I'm done here.

Also did some shopping after Starbucks. I picked up a Christmas present for my sister at Borders, which will actually be from my mother. She just wasn't headed towards the bookstore and wanted me to use her 30% off coupon, so she handed me the Christmas lists and said "find something." I did pick up two books for myself, though. They were buy one, get one 50% off, and they were two books that I've been looking at for awhile. Plus, I have nothing to read right now except my zombie short story anthology, which is heavy to carry around. So, I got "The Book of Lost Things" by John Connolly and "Let the Right One In" by John Ajvide Lindqvist. They're both about the same length, so I don't know which one I'll read first.

Today was a 3 hour, Venti Peppermint Mocha, Starbucks day. I tucked myself in at a corner table, pulled out my multi-colored pens, plugged the iPod into my ears, and just had at it. The end result was this:



That's the first half of novel #2 - 254 pages, and I went through it all. I wasn't looking for any typos or polishing-type changes, just the major stuff that needed to be worked on. All the yellow tabs represent a scene I need to write, change, cut, or move. There are less towards the end because that's when the bastard thing finally gets into a good flow and starts working the way I want it to work. (The Master is there for no purpose except that he wanted to be, and to also remind me that Waters of Mars airs tomorrow.)

Now, the next task is to go through and actually make those writes, changes, cuts, and moves. Once all that is under control, then I'll be able to move forward and write the second half of the story.

I wouldn't want to work customer service at a firearms store.

And that is my random thought of the day.

So I'm not working nearly as hard enough on novel #2 as I ought to be. This, I realize, is partly because I've been procrastinating and I've been procrastinating because the damn thing keeps twisting and turning away from me and while I've been redoing outlines and making fresh notes, I haven't actually been writing anything for it. So, though I say the outlines and notes are helping me work on it, they've actually been only helping me procrastinate more because really, I'm procrastinating because I'm a little afraid of going back and tackling this thing.

Well, the time has come to fear no more! I need to just dive and fix this thing. I'm printing off all 254 pages I have so far, slapping it in a binder, and grabbing my handy, dandy red pen. I'm going to rearrange the scenes I need to rearrange, write the scenes I need to add, and get the first half in decent enough shape so that my brain can clearly see how the second half is headed. I usually hate to go back and edit while I'm still working on a first draft, but this is more than editing. It's a massive overall and it has to happen. I just hope I have enough paper...

And here are some new photos of Harry. He's six and a half months old now and almost at his full size, but his coat's only about halfway finished growing. The boy still has a lot of fur to go! He doesn't have class tomorrow because the teacher has a family commitment, but he did do well at the park today. He's been having some trouble heeling (ie, he doesn't want to do it), but he's doing really well with his other commands and slowly but surely he's making progress on heeling and loose leash walking. He still has some issues with my toys vs. his toys. I just had to rescue Shaun from his clutches once again.

   

And finally scheduled some appointments I've been needing to make, including what should be the last one to the dentist to get two cavities filled. Argh. Well, at least this current tooth saga will be over. I still hate my teeth. They look fine from the outside, but are rotten on the inside. Sigh. Anyway, also made a hair color appointment, which is tomorrow, so I'll have my fresh, vibrant coppery-red tones again. See, the level of my evilness is gauged by the color of my hair. As the red fades, I get less and less evil, and I have been much too nice to Sam lately...

Also, two goods thing that happened today: 1) Doc told me that those days off I asked for in December are going to be paid days off. So, I'm going to get paid for plotting world domination with culf . That's pretty cool. I've never had paid vacation before. 2) Without baseball on, and with nothing else to watch on Tuesday nights, Mom and I have started watching "The Devil's Whore." She's never seen it and loves historical stuff, plus John Simm, so it's a win-win. Now, I get to swoon over Sexby all over again, though it's a lot harder when you're watching with your mother. Still, shirtless!wet!Sexby, swoon. Culf, we really need to work on that Sexby!Sam fic when you're here.

I would like this sign posted in both the exam rooms. I think it's necessary when you and a doctor and a 62-year-old man are having a conversation and, without warning, the patient removes his shirt for absolutely no reason. Especially when the conversation begins with, "I'm having erectile dysfunction. Do you want to see my penis?" And then he continues to talk for over an hour about how a cat made his ears close up, and he still doesn't put his shirt back on.

People, clothes are good for you. They protect your skin and they protect me from seeing your hairy, hairy backs. Well, chalk up another one to life experience.

At least I don't have to go in until tomorrow afternoon. The doctor has to go to court about an ex-employee's unemployment or something or other, so there are no patients in the morning. The front desk woman and the doc's stepdaughter will be in the morning to answer the phones and such, but there's really no work for me to do all morning. The stepdaughter was whining about never getting a break from work (even though she has every Wednesday off and no one else does), and sometimes I feel bad for her, the way her parents treat her, but I can't put up with whining about work hours. Not after working 12+ hour days, 5 days a week, with occasional 3am wake ups, in addition to 1+ hour commutes. I know I have difficulty empathizing with people sometimes, and complaining about work hours is definitely one of those times.

But good news - I officially have days off for culf 's visit in December! I've been mentioning the dates ever since I was hired, but today the doc brought the subject up himself and then put it into his phone. Yay days off! Yay Apocalypse! Yay evil twin! Or as she's known over here - the Mysterious Norwegian Friend. Everyone should have one, really. Except I don't know if there are enough Norwegians to go round.

I know I've mentioned this before, but each year Entertainment Weekly publishes their list of 25 films they think you should see before Oscar night. It comes out before the nominees are announced, so some of the films will have been nominated for something while others may not be. Either way, I've found it a fun challenge for the past 3 years to try and watch the whole list. Now, doing so before Oscar night has been pretty much impossible for me, so the list sits on my desk for several months afterwards as I slowly make my through the whole list. I do so 1) because I'm a film dork and 2) because the list has introduced me to very good films I may have never watched otherwise.

Well, last night I finally finished last year's list (which was originally published in January of this year) by watching Nothing But the Truth, a kind State of Play-like film with Kate Beckinsale, about a reporter who refuses to reveal a source that leaked info about a CIA agent, that I really enjoyed. Anyway, with the list finally accomplished, I thought I'd post it here in case anyone was interested in checking out the films (and so that I have a reference to it later, if need be.) I have to say, I did enjoy all the films on the list this year (though I'm still trying to wrap my head around Synecdoche, New York.) Here's the list, the films in the order in which they were published:

( Here be the list )

I was planning on seeing Paranormal Activity but the movie times didn't work out well with Harry's obedience class, wanting to take him to the park, and going to Starbucks, so I'll go see it tomorrow. So, right now, it's off to Starbucks where I can hopefully relax and clear my head and work on my personal statement. There's just a few minor changes that my advisor would like me to make.

So, we lost the World Series and had our cat put down all within 24 hours. Yeah, this week has just majorly sucked. And so continues my family's tradition of everything crappy happening in an odd year. Yes, it sounds silly, but anything bad that's happened to our family has happened in an odd-numbered year (except, erm, my birth.) Yet, this means that in two months, things should be much better as it will be 2010. Mom and I will be going on vacation somewhere and I'll hopefully be returning to England.

Mom's visiting my sister in DC this weekend, so I'm just going to relax, watch a ton of movies, and play with my puppy. Our house has never housed less than 2 pets at a time in it's 21 year history. It's sort of weird.