Mar. 26 - Apr. 09 -- Happy birthday to me -- Big fucking Roswell babble & recs -- I knew that -- Scenes from Planet Livia -- Shame is good for you -- Movie babble, techie fiddling -- Sex, death, purity I & II -- Channeling Karen -- Addendum -- Code & Design -- Due South recs -- Hacks & slashers I, II & III

Kat, stop! I'm gonna hurt myself laughing over here-- The Longest Weekend is so not a good example of my originality. It's, oh god, it's The Sentinel by George Lucas all over again, except I'm ripping off Ray Bradbury instead of Lucas. Ray's the dad, Fraser's the mom, Dief's the kid with the soda pop bottle-- it's the whole story retold, except in bright shiny Livia-vision and with some over-the-top metaphors.

But don't take this as me still arguing that I suck. I'm not. I just think... Writing and learning to write aren't two different things. You learn to write by, y'know, writing. And when you write, you learn more about writing-- it's the same process, the same thing. So unless you're lazy and decide to coast-- you do improve. I don't believe that people can run out of talent, can hit the ceiling and just stop improving. When your technical skills are near-perfect, that's when you start exploring new themes, or new fandoms, or experimenting with form.

I really, really believe that, and so I just keep plowing ahead, grinding out the words, spitting out paragraph after paragraph. Even when it sucks. Even when I had to rip off other people's ideas just to have something to hang the words on. Even when I feel like a hack. Even when I am a hack, because (and this is why it's very tempting to be lazy) fandom is a welcoming, content-hungry, all-inclusive place. I mean, I made Nestra laugh with "Major Crush," which I have often considered taking off the page, 'cause it's just silly. So in the end, does it matter that I wrote it in an hour in response to a dumb challenge? Heck no! Bang, I got her!

My kung fu is still the best!

Nestra writes: "Hot Sky Blue" and "Nuance" both made me sit back and say, "Shit!". "Nuance" has been rec'd from here to Timbuktu.

Hey, I'm proud of those too. But let's look a little closer. "Hot Sky Blue." By Livia, Julad and Calico. "Nuance." By Livia and Resonant.

So, then.

I'm more willing to claim credit for Nuance since in our brainstorming sessions, Res and I tossed ideas back and forth so much that, well, who can remember which scene or plot twist was whose idea? And then when we got around to actually writing them we swiped bits from each other, and in revising things got even more mixed up, so now who can tell what's chocolate and what's peanut butter?

But Hot Sky Blue? That is a damn hot story, but maybe about the first 4K is "mine." That's about half a page, and after revisions it doesn't look much like what I had when I gave up on it. *laughs* Although if you want to have fun sometime, let me tell you. Collaborate on a story with two people from two different countries than your own. Sounds like a joke doesn't it? An American, an Aussie and a Brit walk into a bar...

I'm not saying I'm not proud of those stories. 'Cause I am, I'd be stupid not to be. But I wouldn't hold them up as proof that I'm not a hack, either. (Not that there's anything wrong with being a hack.) Just, maybe, good at picking brilliant people to help me write stuff. :)

So Kat writes: When I read work that achieves, with ease and grace, things that I can't manage at all, it makes me despondent about my shortcomings.

*Livia sputters and flails* Uh. Okay. Yeah, I'm speechless. I mean, this is Kat, people. Kat Allison. Who wrote the best Due South story ever, Roots Rain. Go on. Argue with me. Say there's a better one. *waits* You can't, can you! Seriously though, if you do actually know a better Due South story, I would loooove to have the URL, because so far, Kat is IT.

Actually, wait, I can't say that. I'll take it back, I'll restrain myself from proclaiming myself the ultimate judge, I'll be generous and make allowances for individual tastes, differing as they do. And I'll simply state it's in the top five. Best. Ever. Roots Rain is the kind of story that... if I ever meet someone who doesn't read fanfic, and wants to know what the big deal is about, I'd print it out and give it to them. There are probably other stories I'd think of later, but that's the first one that leaps to mind.

Kat is my idol. I mean, you can fake snark, and you can swipe plot, and really good sex isn't all that thin on the ground (as long as Jane St. Clair and Te keep collaborating, that is.) But the purity and the emotion and the depth and the truth in Roots Rain... *sputters*

*regroups* Okay. I'm twenty-two years old, people. Yeah. I'm younger than Star Wars. But nothing makes me feel more adolescent, unformed and amateur than a story like Roots Rain. With the power and humanity and tragedy of it... Did I write you a LoC, Kat? I'm sure I didn't, because I would have just babbled for sure like I'm babbling now. I don't know if this makes you feel any better-- knowing that you inspire the same envy you feel when you read other people's works.

But, jeez. How can any of you, not just Kat but any of y'all in this conversation call yourself hacks? I mean, I got a letter a few days ago from someone asking if I was ever going to write the fourth and final part of The Sentinel by George Lucas. Cringe!! Major cringe. Major, major cringe at the complete and total hack I used to be. But the answer is yes. Yes, I will finish that story. Really, I have the fourth part 99% done, I just want to punch it up a little, but as the months went by it got kicked farther and farther down the list of WIPs...

But I will finish it, and even *shudder* post it. Because even though I was a hack, and that story is utterly utterly bad...

It's my baby. And it may be a clumsy, dumb baby, but I'm proud of it. I guess that's my main boggle with all the good authors who feel like they're hacks. When they're not. And I AM. And I'm still pretty proud of 99% of everything I've ever written. Seriously. I remember being SO thrilled with TSbyGL... with the kiss-and-grope scene before they rescue Megan, and then in part three putting in that Blair tasted like filtered water. Very proud of myself for that little detail. Ai yi yi.

I've gotten better. But in some ways I'm still a hack. There are so many things I can't do that I wish I could do. Character like Kat does it. Imagery like Anna. Mood like Rhipodon Society. Dialogue like Matthew Time, emotion without histrionics like Helen. Dark stuff, like Jessica Harris or Morphea, and sex scenes, like... well, like anyone who can finish a damn sex scene. Now that I actually think about this, it's weird. I don't really deal well with anything but success in the real world. I don't really deal with it at all. *laughs* Imagine if I hadn't gotten so many LoCs for In Your Dreams. I'd be... who the hell knows what I'd be doing with my free time. *shrug* Macrame?

So I understand the envy. I live with the envy. But not really the despondency. I guess I believe that I improve with every word I write. I have to, or else I wouldn't do it. Every new story is something new that I've proved I can do. I deal with it, I guess, by caring less about the final result, and more about the process.

And also by cackling quietly to myself over the ones I count as wins. Like Habitation. *laughs* Now, Roots Rain maybe isn't the best Due South story ever (although you'd have to argue pretty hard to get that by me) but Habitation, that actually is the best Galaxy Quest fanfic ever. (In my oh, so humble opinion, of course.) But seriously. When I feel like a hack, I just think: Who writes the very very best Galaxy Quest? Livia does! LIV-I-A! That's right, baby! Whoo-hoo!

(Okay, so there's like six other stories, total, but who's counting?)

So, anyway, perhaps that's TMI, but I'm taking a page from LaT and saying "screw you world, I got a big ol' writerly ego and I'm not afraid to flaunt it." (Okay, LaT didn't say exactly that. But I did.)

Whoo-hoo. *grins*

And I guess even my hack-work can't be all bad; after all, I got that letter. People do want to find out what happens next to Jim Solo, Blair Sandwalker, and Megan Organa... *hums Star Wars music triumphantly* That's right! When it comes to hacking, my kung fu is the best!

...and hey, addendum to my last entry: I just found out that Brighid is writing DS too! Go to the new archive and search on her name. Yay!!

Damn, it's been a good month or so, for Due South writers.

I like slow thoughtful, literate stories, sometimes with hot sex, and this week I get Resonant's A Fine and Private Place, Kit Mason's Duet for Three Stooges, and Viridian5's Getting Warmer. (Heck, I always love Viridian5, and this week she posted three stories.)

I like short, spiky or striking unclassifiable stories and recently I got cmshaw's One Up, Miriam's Are You Experienced? and Ophelia Coelridge's Once a Year. For humor, there's Kit Mason's Fairy Tale and also some DS bits in Basingstoke's collection of snippets and dialogues that didn't make it into a real story-- go read the exchange between Bob Fraser and Tyler Durden. You'll thank me.

(Actually, Basingstoke's latest few stories have really been kicking my ass, so check out her whole page while you're there, especially the Gattaca post-movie story Und Jetzt.)

But back to Due South. I like nice long stories, and this week I get Viridian5's Wearing, Speranza's Scrabble and Laura Jacquez Valentine's Baresark. (Though new to DS, Laura really hits home with this story and I'm thrilled to recommend her.)

And, finally, this isn't exactly a new rec but somehow I must have missed it in the flood of Serge Protector stories that all came out at the same time-- Crysothemis' Blind Justice. It's new to me, folks. :) And while you're there, check out her gorgeous Serge Protector graphics. Really, these are lovely-- I especially like the one with the flags.

[grr. And now it looks like internettrash is down and so I can't upload this charming entry where I actually talk about, like, books instead of just staring at my navel. Curses. Being on a free server is like being a hooker's nymphomaniac significant other. You can't complain about what she gives you, because hey, you need it, and you're getting it for free. But oh, did I mention, she's a huge bitch? *snicker* Not the most feminist analogy, is it... sorry.]

So I spent about four hours yesterday and most of today taking a Beginning Programming Design course at the community college. It was pretty neat. I learned how to define a problem and design test data and write something out in pseudocode so it can be translated into a real programming language... Basically, as my Dad said, "You learned the part of the job that usually gets done on cocktail napkins." :)

It was funny. Dad's a systems engineer, so this is his thing, and he was away on a week-long business trip and just got home last night. (He's been traveling a lot lately, which is why he hasn't been in the blog much.) Anyway, he didn't know I'd even signed up for the course until he got back, and it was so funny watching his reactions as I chattered about trace tables and modules and all that. I've always been the arty creative one, and now I'm getting all technogeek, like I'm following in his footsteps.... aww! *grins*

Mom said that too, that it was so different than anything I've been interested in before, but I told her it wasn't, and Dad agreed with me. Writing is a lot like coding. In coding it's important to choose the right words/symbols/commands or whatever to say exactly what you mean, without extra stuff cluttering up your message, and so on... There's other similarities too, just in the feel of it. I think anyone who's spent an hour going back and forth over every little detail trying to make her web page look just right would agree with me... It is a creative process...

I'm thinking of a book now-- "Plowing the Dark" by Richard Powers, which I read a few months ago. There are two plots that intertwine in the book; one features a teacher named Taimur who is taken hostage by terrorists in the Middle East, and the other follows Adie, 'the only artist in a group of engineers who’ve been hired to create "a prototype immersion environment": a computer-run room whose walls can become any space the imagination can create.' (I'm quoting from this review-- it's a good one, one of the few I've read so far that manages to talk intelligently about the plot without spoiling the climax.)

So, anyway. There's a lot of reasons I like this book. It's full of ideas, but you never lose track of the people. The characters Adie interacts with are all sharply drawn individuals, geeks and hackers and poets and visionaries. They talk like I used to imagine all adults talked when I was a kid-- witty banter mixed with uber-literate philosophical wrangles. It's set in the Pacific Northwest and (when the characters actually venture outside-- hey, they are techies) it does an excellent job conveying the atmosphere and spirit of the place.

But what makes me think of it now is Adie's reaction to the technology her co-workers create and use to build their virtual reality room, called the Cavern, and how she comes to realize that coding is like poetry. In an interview (which does have spoilers, so I'm not gonna link) Powers said "In describing Stevie's discovery that code combined action and meaning, I really was attempting to convey my own sense of discovery," and then later, "...that's the same kind of thing we learn when we learn how to read poetry -- the actual diction of words on the page is just the tip of the iceberg." About VR, he says "The desire to live in our imagination is driven by this suspicion that we're disembodied sensibilities cobbled into our bodies. That idea has infused most of human thought since the very beginning. I strongly believe poetry has always explored that same split, needing the body and yet constantly on the verge of discarding it as irrelevant or debilitating. It's right at that same untenable split that I want to position the digital revolution and virtual reality."

Which sort of ties in to what I've been saying for the past week or so, actually, although this entry's long enough already without me going off on my young white middle-class angst again. :)

Anyway, I highly recommend this book. Ten out of ten, gold star, everything. Go find it. (Hey, anyone interested in forming a Slash Blog Book Club? *grins*)

P.S. AuKestrel, I didn't think you were mad at me or anything. It's really just my way to put an idea out there and then come back to the discussion and realize that I went off on a tangent or whatever, so then I have to clarify, but not because I'm timid or something, so don't worry about it. :)

No. Yes. I mean, I realize this. Bouncing off AuKestrel's entry-- yeah. That last entry was insensitive, we all know this. I knew I was insensitive when I wrote it, but I'm a generally insensitive person. Wanting to be on Prozac-- it's like saying "Gee, I wish I could park in the handicapped spaces." Um, no you don't, really. And I live with a person who hates the fact that she's dependent on pills that fuck her up just as effectively as they help her, so I know. There are times and places when I actively try to piss people off; the last entry wasn't really one of them.

It's just... the idea, the Alice in Wonderland idea. It is attractive, isn't it? That's the whole point of those goddamn commercials. Like mental health is part of the American dream. And not just your average "I can cope!" mental health. No, they're selling happiness. For years they've been using the promise of happiness to sell a shiny new car, a shiny kitchen floor or shiny bouncy hair. But happiness isn't an adjunct any more-- when you hear "Product X will make you happy," they actually mean it literally! "We can make you happy!"

Kat has some interesting things to say about the whole thing too... I'll just quote a little bit, but go read it for yourself. She speculates "that there is some fairly common chemical imbalance that affects whatever part of the brain handles the management of input (conversations, bills to be paid, work tasks, demands for attention, loud noises, whatever) ...."

I wonder myself if it's got something to do with the constant barrage of information that comes with modern-day life.

I wonder how many words I come into contact with on a regular basis. I got up this morning, I checked my e-mail, my egroups, my Topica mailing list, I checked everybody's weblogs, I read a couple of new fanfics, I read the whole newspaper and my actual mail, I re-watched the bloopers that come at the end of "Ten Things I Hate About You," I read a book of short stories while listening to the radio, I chatted in IRC for an hour or two, I argued with Pinky and Mom about free speech over dinner, I listened to a new CD, checked into my online fiction-writing course that I signed up for last week and worked on a couple of assignments, I flipped back and forth between Letterman and Politically Incorrect... hm, what else. I'm sure I'm not thinking of everything.

Wasn't there some study once-- it was about gender relations or something-- that said most people only speak so many words a day? It was about men being uncommunicative-- "your husband isn't unresponsive, dear, he's only used up all his words for the day before he's gotten home from his very demanding job. the best thing for you to do is go back in the kitchen and give him some space." Something like that.

7000 words is the figure that got stuck in my head as the number of words the average man says in a day. Women had more.

And, I mean, look at my day. I think everyone would describe it as-- well, not a stressful routine. Relaxing, you could call it; boring even. But even my boring little stay-at-home life is filled with input, input, INPUT. I probably took in 7000 words within an hour of waking up.

Makes me want to go be Thoreau-esque and live in a log cabin.

As long as I had a laptop or something...

aaaaaargh. I must go sleep. Have class in the morning. This all day weekend-cram computer thing. Have to get up in *sigh* less than five hours.

Last word of the day: goodnight.

Those goddamn medication commercials. With the singing and the sunshine. They make me imagine there's some miracle pill that would magically make me bright and happy and productive. Better living through brain chemistry. It's funny, because I've never been interested in experimenting with pot when I've been in a situation where it was offered (never interested enough, that is) and yet if someone asked me to be in some experimental study where they'd give me the latest Prozac or something, I'd be, like, "whee!"

It kills me. Because it's an utter fantasy. My problems are not about my brain, which is luckily fine. It's about getting off my ass and getting shit done. I try not to tell Pinky this exact same thing all the time. "You do not have a sleeping disorder. When you have what you consider a good reason to get up in the morning, you somehow manage to get up. Therefore when you don't actually get up, we can only conclude that you're lazy." I know, I know, that sounds so horrible. You'd hate me if you lived with me, I bet. But I don't say it, I try not to, okay? "Not her mother." That's my mantra. "Not her mother."

I am lucky. I could have been Pinky, who is on Prozac. Sometimes I think to myself "Well, it's been medically proven: she does need it. Maybe I do too. Maybe I could be a different person with whatever they've got to help deal with the fact that, really, I hate talking to strange people, or coping with pretty much any people, or doing anything without a plan, or deviating from said plan."

And then I go back to-- Livia, you lazy bitch, you do not need a pill. The very thought is insulting to people who have serious problems and do need pills, not that their problems can be entirely solved by pills either (as most of the social anxiety websites go to great pains to point out.) I mean, jesus. My parents went to all the trouble to figure out it was food allergies making me hyper and emotional when I was a kid (when the pediatrician said "Ritalin!" Yeah, that would have been fun) and now I'm going to say "Hey, I'm mildly self-conscious about my looks! Medicate me! I have malaise and ennui! Drug me! Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Ativan, Xanax, and maybe I'll get around to moving out of the house, how's about that?"

*laughs* I sound like Karen from Will and Grace now. Maybe I need a multi-vitamin.

Maybe I need a Midol.

Maybe I need some sleep. The trouble with me is, I'm usually awake at three in the morning. The darkest hour, the hour when you think terrible things and spin in circles-- other people sleep right through it. Smarter people. Not me. Obviously. *rolls eyes* Okay, going to bed now. Maybe.

It suddenly occurs to me that I should have answered "yes" to the pornography question on the purity test. Not that I'm an adult film actress, but I have (duh) written and published many varieties of erotica. But I can't remember how strictly the question was phrased, if it specifically said "have you participated in a pornographic movie" or not. Maybe I'll check back.

Xen, etc., have taken various online tests. I already know I'm an INTJ (the J wavers to a P sometimes) and I wouldn't be surprised if a rather high percentage of the fannish community turned out to be the same.

No, it's the other results that screw with me. I'm 80% pure, which I probably could have guessed. Why aren't there any questions about things I've actually done? Because I've done things. Just not some things. *grins* I really can't believe that 90% of people are more pure than me. On the other hand, the sex test says that during my life I'm going to have sex with five people. According to the website, my lovers will be two women and three men, and I'll actually love three of them. Although I don't know how the site calculates the genders. Or why it can't just give me names and addresses already... On the other hand, the death test says I'm going to live to be 73 (probably longer, in my personal opinion; I'm hardy stock) so I suppose I can afford to be patient...

On March 27 I recced some Roswell fanfic, including 'The Miracle Worker' by Mere G. mainly because it treated the problematic Valenti/Max relationship with what I called "the utmost delicacy." Well, here's another story, Michael Woke Up Gay by Debbie, and, well... "delicacy" is not exactly the word I'd use. More like "frigging hilarious." It's funnier if you've visited Kate Bolin's Wake Up Gay site before, but honestly, lines like "I appreciate your concern, Miss Evans, but this is the police. Not the fashion police." are funny all on their own.

Well, I hopped on the bandwagon and added some visual content. The first pic is the newest addition to Guy Candy, and the rest are covers. For the accompanying recs & links to the stories, see the covers page.

Selphie left today. :( We had a great time, but now my sleep schedule is totally whacked. For instance, we were up till 2:00 in the morning last night watching "Ten Things I Hate About You" at Pinky's insistence. And then it magically turned into 3:00 in the morning thanks to Daylight Savings time. Whee.

I was not expecting to like "10 Things." The last movie Pinky called gold was "Mystery Men." Which I liked, but... well. I think it was Roger Ebert who said a good test for a movie is: if you put all the actors in a room and filmed them having lunch, would the final product be more or less interesting than the actual movie they were in?

I think that if you just picked Janeane Garafalo and Ben Stiller and put them in a room for an hour and a half, it would be more fun than "Mystery Men." Add William H. Macy, Hank Azaria, Geoffrey Rush, Greg Kinnear and Eddie Izzard, and you really start to realize how much better this movie could, possibly, have been. (Okay, Eddie Izzard's only got a small role, but still.)

It isn't an entirely bad movie. Everyone-- especially Ben Stiller (as "Mr. Furious") and William H. Macy (as "The Shoveler") -- puts so much heart into their characters, so much humanity, you can't help but cheer when they finally triumph. The scene where the Blue Raja (Hank Azaria) comes out to his mom is golden-- hilarious and almost touching. "I'm a superhero, mother! An effete British superhero!"

But, like the saying goes, "if it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage." There just weren't enough big laughs for me to really call this a great movie. Damn Roger Ebert and his hypothetical lunches.

Anyway. I got sidetracked. I was talking about "10 Things I Hate About You." Which I really liked, for the relationships between Kat, Bianca and their father. I feel kind of silly saying "Gee! The writer was really perceptive in how the family dynamics were portrayed!" After all, it's a Shakespeare remake. Of course it's got good characters. Duh.

But on the whole it was a nice surprise. For whole long stretches of the movie, it actually seemed like it was about real, complicated human-type people instead of the usual "Clueless"-type cardboard cutout characters. I may slash it... For West Wing fans, I think it's worth renting if only to see Allison Janney (aka CJ Cregg) muttering things like "...throbbing member..." to herself. She's only in about two scenes near the beginning; she plays a guidance counselor who writes romance novels on her laptop during school hours. Heh heh. As the bad boy with a heart of gold, I think Heath Ledger's cute, but he's not all that.

Anyway, I got distracted. I was talking about the revamped look of this place. I reformatted the sidebar. It's more compact now. Added links to Helen & Viridian's blogs. Finally fixed the link to Nestra's new blog. Reformatted the whole page just for the heck of it. Added the little pic of me-- look, I'm so cute. *grins*

(The picture of The Host is Anna's fault. Anna's entirely, I say.)

Hey, check it out. Helen has a livejournal. Yes, that Helen. Contains N'Snyc content.

She mentions their fruit snacks. Which I knew about. Because I...

I didn't even buy them. I made Pinky pay for them, because they were for my birthday sit-at-home-and-watch-movies quasi-party sort of thing, and because that's how I measure affection, like, what have you done for me lately? They were two dollars.

The candies were, in fact, fruity and squishy and good. I actually liked them, which was a pleasant surprise. I don't usually like fake fruity candy because I had all these complicated food allergies as a kid that kept me from fake food coloring and flavoring, (no Froot Loops, no Fruit Roll-Ups, that sort of thing. Basically nothing made in a lab. Yes, this was actually a real food allergy and not something my parents made up because they wanted me to eat Grape-Nuts. Really.)

I know you all probably think so much less of me now. But come on. They were right there on the discount table by the self-scan checkout machines at the grocery store, and what the hell is a self-scan checkout machine for if not buying things that you wouldn't want the checker to see? As Dr. Forrester says, "Shame fuels the economy!"

I'll scan the box when I get free time. (It's purple.) Y'all won't believe the gay pants these boys are wearing. Truly.

Addendum-- if you were at the Pink Martini concert last night, Pinky was the one down front who yelled "I love you China!" just before the encore. It was so sweet. China looked really touched and said "Aww! I love you too!"

So P. was so happy, and then today-- how would Bridget Jones put it-- HUGE emotional fuckwittage from Evil Ex Boyfriend. Like, he called her up to say "Stop calling me. I don't want to hear from you any more." I want to bang on his door, grab him by the collar and scream-- you amazing fucker, the only reason she calls you is because you won't forward her mail!

GRRRRRR. Do not mess with me.

Did I mention he feeds his dog beer 'cause he thinks it's funny? Fucker.

Anyway, going out to dinner now with family. Seeya!

March 29, 2001 Scenes from Planet Livia

Selphie's coming home today! Whooooooo! And we're having my family birthday party tonight too. So that should be fun. Today on Livia's Weblog: I present two short vignettes from my life.

So last night, late, I'm trying to read something. Gen West Wing fanfic, I think. Then I start to hear this strange pop/snap sound. Snap. Snap. Pause. Snap snap. It sounds like someone hitting a typewriter key at random-- just not rhythmic enough to be horribly annoying. Finally I get up and walk down the hall to Pinky's room, which shares a wall with the computer room. I pause outside the door. Do I want to know what she's doing?

I push open the door and she's lying on her bed with a foot-square piece of mini bubble wrap.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm popping bubbles, man." Snap snap snap.

"Stop it!"

"But it's fun!"

See, just when you think someone can't acquire any more annoying habits... oh, boy. At least now I know what she'd like for her birthday. Besides the sequel to "Bridget Jones' Diary" and the "Monster Ballads 2" CD. Seriously.

This morning, early. I'm lying in bed. I hear my mother come down the hall to wake Pinky up. (If left to her own devices Pinky would sleep 22 hours a day. It's not entirely her fault, she's on an antidepressant which screws with her sleeping habits. She's also just a big fan of naps in general. Mom knows this.)

Mom (urgently): "Get up! Your sister's coming home today and we have things to do before she gets here!"

Pinky (sleepily): "Okay. When's her plane get in?"

(I'm laughing to myself because I know the answer to this.)

Mom (pause): "Eight-thirty tonight..."

I can almost hear Pinky pulling the covers over her head. Ah, Mom, you were so close... *snerk*

It was ZorroRojo who wanted to know about Roswell. Yeah, I knew that.... ^_^

Added Maygra, Soo and Erica, aka Necessary Angel to the Ever Growing Sidebar.

Man, I *love* that picture of Punchy!Ray that Kat has in her sidebar. I thought I'd *seen* all the good ones, but this is new.

I was reading Anna's chronicles of her dreams lately and feeling jealous because she has these incredible narratives, and I never remember *any* of my dreams. Then for the last two nights I *have* remembered some of my dreams, but they're all so television-related it's almost scary. Two nights ago I re-read Sabine's Sports Night story "Where Have You Gone, Tom Glavine?" and I dreamed there was an extra scene at the end, where Dan is typing at his computer in his apartment and Casey spins his chair around (it's one of those super extra nice leather padded rolling chairs) and goes down on him. That was pretty much it.

Then this morning I woke up from a *really* long, involved, strange dream. In one bit, me and this other girl had to wrap our arms and legs around a support beam and shimmy across a very high place, only I was wearing a pretty summer dress. (Ha!) And of course people could see my underwear. It wasn't horrifically embarrassing, I just tucked the dress up and kept going.

Then when I got to the other side, Brody from Roswell was there. I greeted him very fondly and gave him a big hug, mainly as an excuse to grope him. He was pretty damn cute in the dream, had a nice firm chest. Then later on, I sort of became Blair Sandburg. It turned out there had been a war and it had interrupted my studies at some college. I was sitting next to a Japanese girl on a park bench while some "end of war" festivities went on, further down in the park. I couldn't wait for them to be over so I could get back to work. It turned out the girl was in the same situation: "No one *told* me there would be a war!" "I *know!*" I said.

Just as the dream ended, I was sitting in a restaraunt that I go to sometimes with my family, only now I was with a bunch of the Buffy characters. It was some kind of special occasion that warranted Xander giving presents to everyone. He presented Anya with a homemade hat, sort of like a square fez with an extra cone of fabric hanging off the side. Anya's hat said "Women's Stuff" on it in gold letters. She was so touched, she crawled over the two people sitting between her and Xander in order to give him a hug. In the dream, it was the equivalent of when she says rude things on the show: "Oh, that wacky Anya."

Xander had made a hat for Giles too, but Giles was holding it so it faced him and no one else could see what was written on it. He was embarrassed by the gift (I got the feeling that the people sitting on the other side of him were Watchers or something, but I couldn't see them really.) Giles was making some excuse as to why he wasn't going to wear the hat, and someone asked "Why does it matter, anyway?" Xander was standing up by now and said loudly, "Because that's my *other* dream." It seemed that by saying that, he had confessed to having feelings for Giles, and everyone was embarrassed for him. Big awkward moment.

*laughs* Really, I don't *always* dream about TV characters....

March 27, 2001 (2:12 PM) Big fucking Roswell babble & recs

I am so bad at this. I cannot remember who asked what the hell was up with Roswell. I was even actually thinking I'd write this person personally, but now I'm going through all the weblogs and I cannot find the entry. It must be someone I haven't linked yet. Dammit. Anyway, here's what's up with Roswell: it's usually on Monday nights at nine, but they've replaced it for now with Gilmore Girls reruns, because Gilmore Girls is, like, the critics' darling and gets good ratings and so on. Roswell will be back April 16.

And yes, Viva Las Vegas was the slashiest episode ever... God, this is driving me nuts. I can remember every detail of the entry, but not who wrote it. What the hell. Here's some of my personal Roswell recs.

First of all, anything by Kate, especially her two brilliant tragic Michael/Maria stories: Steam Heat and Women and Children First. They're both AUs, and I'd recommend them even to non-Roswell fans. Especially "Women and Children First," which I made a cover for. It should be up on my page soon.

Dark Blue is set during A Roswell Christmas Carol. It's about Maria and Brody and his daughter, and it just kills. Also check out "True Confessions of a Buddhist Jock," 'cause there's just not *enough* Kyle in the world.

Persephone's Footfalls by Elisabeth. The summary is "What if Maria and Michael met in a very different Roswell?" Elisabeth takes the myth of Persephone and turns it into a very reality-based science fiction plot. I also made a cover for this story.

And just a word on Jim Valenti before I rec this next 'fic. Sheriff Jim Valenti is the only adult main character, kind of the Giles of Roswell-- if Giles had been Buffy's worst enemy for the whole first season.

Jim's father was around for the crash in 1947, and devoted his life to proving that aliens existed. Jim in turn has devoted *his* life to proving that his father wasn't a friggin' nutcase (often to the detriment of his relationship with his own son, Kyle.) Like Inspector Javert of Les Mis, he's honorable but obsessive, and dogged the aliens' every move until the end of the first season, when he realized that FBI Special Unit was killing innocent people in their pursuit of the aliens. When they captured and tortured Max, he realized there was a right side and a wrong side to be on, and then Max saved Kyle's life. Jim vowed to be there for the aliens in the future. Which he has, even when it looked like it would cost him his job.

He's a great and frustrating character. Great because he's strong, self-sufficient, driven. Flawed. Terribly human. And he really loves his son.

But again-- like Giles-- the frustrating part is that there's no one to *write* him with. Okay, Giles had Ethan (which I consider pretty much canon) and Jenny for a while, and even Joyce, but they were all bit players, they weren't in every episode and you didn't get to see them interact all the time-- there wasn't the *depth* of say, the Buffy/Giles or Xander/Giles relationship.

And, okay, you can write Willow/Giles, and you can write Jim/Isabel-- but unless it's handled with the utmost delicacy, there's always going to be a little voice in the back of my head going "Hey, she's sixteen, remember? He could seriously be her dad! Ewwww!" (And okay, thanks to Hollywood casting practices, Isabel doesn't actually *look* sixteen-- but still.)

We've really only seen Jim interact with one other adult-- Maria's mother, Amy. They have this adorable hippie/cop dynamic, but they've only talked to each other in like, three episodes, am I right? Valenti's relationships with the kids, especially the alien kids-- there's so much more *grist* for the mill there. The Valenti/Michael relationship is something I see as vaguely paternal, and a little bit "brothers in arms" in that they're both dedicated to defending the Pod Squad by whatever means necessary. The Valenti/Isabel relationship-- I can see her having a crush, but it's still kind of a catch-22. Valenti's maturity, his honor... these things make him so attractive, but they're also the exact qualities that would keep me from writing or believing in the reality of a story that matches him with *any* of the kids. Because they *are* still kids.

That being said: here's a story that *does* handle the concept with the utmost delicacy. The Miracle Worker by Mere G. The last couple of lines send a thrill up my spine every time. Scars by the same author explores another adult character, Max and Isabel's adoptive mother Diane. I don't really see their father the way he's portrayed in this 'fic, but there's a host of great Michael detail that makes this story very very worth it. Mere G's page is here.

And now, finally, a couple of slash recs. Here's one that's really more pre-slash: Be Still and Know, a Kyle/Oz crossover story by Morphea. Love it. Also Crouch, an Ava/Liz story. Contains this kick-ass line, from Liz' POV: "God, she could get a Ph.D. in Is This Really Happening." Hee. :) Caveat: I really don't think Ava's this articulate, but it works for the story.

Days of Grace is the latest thing by Elizabeth, yes, the same Elizabeth who wrote Persephone's Footfalls. She gets better and better. Trust me. This story starts in Viva Las Vegas and runs backwards.

20/20 by Meri. Besides Max/Michael, I think Max/Kyle ties with Alex/Kyle for slashiest relationship. ("They hate each other! It must be love!") Meri sums up this post-Destiny 'fic as: "True destiny rears its lovely gay-football-hero head." Yeah baby. Nice.

(Can you tell I'm starved for actual adult people to talk to Roswell about? *sigh*)

So it's my birthday. Had a good one. And I've decided this is a good day to make a page break-- ie, the last month's worth of entries get their own page now.

Someone, I can't remember now, but someone with a weblog commented on how mostly DS authors have started having weblogs. Yeah. Interesting. I think it's because the Hexwood archive's been down. Not that we're all *bored* or anything, though that might be a factor, but when something like that vanishes, it makes you all existential, doesn't it? Just a thought.

And kudos to Merry for taking over the archive, which is now here:
http://www.squidge.org/dsa. Adjust your links accordingly, blah blah.

Feb. 25 - Mar. 25 -- First entry -- Earthquake -- In which I am obsessive and make lists. -- Some works in progress -- Mommmm, she's touching me!! -- I make cookies -- Hayes for President -- Who could ask for anything more? -- Feverishly productive

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