hcolleen: "I can summarize a 90 minute movie in 2 hours."

We have a new lady in tonight, a single mother with a pop first name that starts with B. Britney or Brianna or Brenna or something. hcolleen mentioned LJ.

4,784. The circumstances behind the "you're not dressed right" grow worse. Yay.

OMG! meacu1pa brought Wilson with her! He's being edited! I love the magnetic poetry bit. I also love the sister's lot in things.

Bob and George were sketched by me on the board, but they do not look like they're supposed to.

hcolleen was taking notes tonight: "I'm Not Feeling the Clams" (or something like that) -- some Found Poetry.

It was like "I'm not feeling the love here, people!" except ... with clams. The New Lady's reading had involved an oyster bar, see, and this led to discussion about sushi, which is our generation's oysters.

The "very angry shredded lettuce" refers to the sidewalk by a garbage can, where someone's salad had partially missed the mark.

I need a caffeine icon.
I need a poly/bi type icon.
I need lots more icons.
I just don't have time when I have motivation, and I don't have motivation when I have time.

Why are you guys playing with my onions? I wasn't tailgating, but I did rear-end the person. My nose is a very powerful thing.

Late to writing group. Those summaries take about 2 hours to write up properly, between reading all the comments and [crafting the] humor.

Cycled my sleep weirdly.

Called Fresh Start after I woke up. No progress on the network key front yet, but I left a message with someone who might be the right person.

Vacuumed the floor. (Yay!) In related news, got a snowdrift of unattended random ads off the floor by the comfy chair.

Washed the car.

Went to writing group. Bookmarked Necromancer's Prayer for easier hunt-through in the 2nd drafting phase. Alia is going to bloody college. Therefore, it makes sense to have more character development with her in bloody college. Likewise, developing the characters of Joe, Meg, and Dan. (What is it about me and one-syllable names?) Alia needs the atavistic prickling of fear around entirely the wrong character, because she is fallible and somebody is a damn big red herring, for the best of reasons.

Also, development of the brotherhood plotline.

More involvement with kellinator's pseudo-cameo.

Writing group dinner had a lot of blood sugar fun, followed by hcolleen and me plotting a Sockpuppet Punching Bag, Villain, or Vile Thing What Should Have Been Time-Looped Out of Existence? type quiz, inspired by the Mary Sue Quiz. (Could the villainy ever be considered the results of a tragic flaw? Must find good copy of Evil Overlord List. Features the "Axe to Grind" item which asks about similarity between villains of the same writer. {Thanks, whichever Listee pointed that one out, especially the phrase about bludgeoning over the head...} In a relatively fair fight, our heroes will: cream the villain, be creamed by the villain, it could go either way. Assuming Our Heroes defeat the villain, their losses will be: no one or redshirts/canon fodder, characters we have come to know and care about over the course of more of the story, Our Hero(es).) Specifically, inspired by that part of the Mary Sue Quiz that asks "I have fantasized about her showing up and besting someone who's just pissed me off, or I put people who piss me off into the story and let her beat up on them."

Poking about on Craigslist. 12/hr @ 40/wk would be nice. 16/hr @ 40/wk would be nicer.

Helped j with a craigslist posting and a flyer about some furniture. She was most worried about the digital camera.

Today ruled.

When I got there, trystan_laryssa and hcolleen were already there. I had come up with a writing prompt for hcolleen to write on the board ("Everything was backwards"), and there was a lot of happy fun talking about stuff in general before getting down to business. We had another new person today. I still can't remember hcolleen's friend's name, the one who's very defensive about her writing.

Constance McNeill tackled me in the shower last night. Constance is a new character who just came out of fucking nowhere, and she already has quirks. The writing prompt actually provided me with a viable way of introducing her. I am collecting characters. This is a good thing.

We went around the room and shared stuff. Fun was had by all. trystan_laryssa wound up actually figuring out how to start off some project that she'd been planning to do.

The last hurrah at Cafe Fiat was excellent. The food was good as per the usual, and there was actual chocolate cheesecake -- on the last day we'll be meeting there, figures! trystan_laryssa and I shared the last piece of Double Chocolate and a piece of chocolate swirl.

M wound up tailoring writing challenges to the individual. I am to write a mundane heterosexual affair without dialogue. I may fudge the requirements a little and include some "She gasped loudly, then yowled his name so loudly the neighbors started pounding on the walls" and so forth, but no actual conversation, no actual ... well, the lead-in may well have to have meaningful dialogue so that I can stand to write it and I'll know what the characters are actually doing besides fucking with great glee and abandon. It is horribly difficult for me to write romance that does not include the supernatural, because I write what I know. And I do not do a good job of having romance that does not include the supernatural.

I think that Constance is going to be the one having the affair.

trystan_laryssa explained tabletop gaming to azwriter. Something tells me that azwriter is going to jump in wholeheartedly and do her darnedest to raise her girls as Good Little Gamers. Pocky was also explained. There was joking with subtext, pickles, and whipped cream. All normal good clean fun. trystan_laryssa was not freaked out by us being wild and crazy, because that's what normally happens around our friends...

There was much bus-giggling. trystan_laryssa and I snarked at a particular asshat driver. She wanted to remember my spur-of-the-moment comment, which was something to the effect of: "Who ripped off your dick and replaced it with a stick of pocky?"

I wound up dropping by her place for half an hour or so before catching one of the last buses home. Loren was there. Good filking fun was had by all.

I got up reasonably on time, but I gave myself a major scheduling malfunction when I turned my alarm clock OFF rather than hitting snooze again when I was going to "just check a few things, honest" on the computer. Heh. I was nearly late; as it was, I skidded in at 1:02 (within the grace period), without half the stuff done that I should have gotten accomplished before I left. (Most of these involved lunch.)

( Work... )

I was going to attempt to go bleed, even after work, but I was 30 seconds (approximately) too late to catch the appropriately timed 19 southbound, and (disgruntled), I waited for the Red Line to take me to writing group with no detours. On the way, I managed some work on crossovercomic. Not much, but enough to make me feel productive and get the mental juices flowing again after stalling out.

I was late to freshstartwrite by half an hour as it was. I read two things today -- "I Have a Friend" (which is a compilation of horror stories based on how I tend to start comments on some of the threads over at ginmar's) and "My Brother, the Storm" (much lighter, a LF story). hcolleen had a bizarre fictional salad (that she'd actually made, and it was tasty). I must introduce her to cadhla's idea of a salad.

meacu1pa was having car troubles. What is it with our gang and car troubles? There's been a rash of them of late! We all went to Cafe Fiat afterwards. easalle has the good kind of relatives in, and couldn't make it to either group or dinner.

Cafe Fiat is great, and has the kind of service, rapport with customers, and food that makes the place collect loyalty. Today, there was a cheesecake shortage (causing a disruption in the if only/alas balance of the universe, as I said the latter without saying the former, and did so twice) and an avocado shortage (causing free pieces of cheesecake to be distributed to those who were shorted in the avocado department). Nonetheless, service, while not always prompt, is personal, cheerful, and a joy forever. It does not hurt that the food is highly tasty.

It is much of a weirdness to be having an enthusiastic conversation about slash and smut with hcolleen (around azwriter) at Cafe Fiat, of all places.

J provided two of us currently carless ones with rides -- me to a convenient bus stop, and meacu1pa home. I caught the Red Line with no problems.

I have photos from Tuesday and Monday to upload, including a lot of rather blurry and dark ones (that will probably have to be binned) that were supposed to be of the local kittens.

Plasma took three hours, more or less. I left here by 10:30, scorching my shorts-clad seat on the seat of the car, and playing hot-potato with the Arizona sunlit steering wheel. I had neglected to set up the Car Fondue properly, alas; I'd been planning on setting a container of chocolate chips in the car and leaving it there all day, but I somehow lacked the general energy to do that. There was an hour wait at plasma for screening, then my pulse was too high, so another fifteen minutes, and then by the time I was properly settled in the bed for plasma, I was almost out of Magic's Promise. The alternative was watching Dodgeball. I started in for an immediate turn-around of a re-read. I didn't start off for home until 1:30, which was not at all in my schedule for the day. Turns out that the nice mid-thirties phlebotomist fellow who kids around with me, the stocky pale guy with the small beard who works the lab, up front, and the floor, not only had a recent birthday, but is also a gamer. One of us, then. *grin* We geeked a bit. That was fun.

The car had gotten grungy from sitting around under places where birds perch, and in Phoenix with pollen and dust in general. I stopped in the parking lot at the designated car wash point and gave the thing a good hose-off. (Did I mention my apartment has a place and hose designated for car wash? How cool is that?) This got my shoes soaked and muddy, and me just plain soaked.

( My plans for a relaxing but productive afternoon had been delayed... )

Two Hawks re-opening, 89th & Peoria. Can we say ow? Way far away.

Gay sex. Lots of gay sex. Bondage. Ramen and tofu as safewords.

No one is allowed to edit her horniness!
"I don't have feelings for her the way I do for you! The Captain has spoken!"

"She didn't fist it, she 'yanked mildly' at her hair." (on smut terminology)