Final preparations for Legacies: initiated!

Everyone, have a lovely weekend.

When you see this, post a little weensy excerpt from as many random works-in-progress as you can find lying around. Who knows? Maybe inspiration will burst forth and do something, um, inspiration-y.

It's mostly Toisian lately. Big surprise, I know. Some of this is old, as in several years old; some of it's as recent as the last couple weeks.

( silent for two breaths, and his eyes went to one side )

( rooftops, red under the glowing sky )

( as if he was debating whether to speak again )

( nothing short of ridiculous in her neat-pressed hakama )

( he smiled and looked off across the meadow )

( with seven years to dull the remnants )

Well, the cake is finished (and rather nice, if I do say so myself), and we are off to brother's birthday dinner at Maggiano's.

Want this. Fucking want this. Why in the name of all that is good and pure is it sold out.

I'll be back later to talk about writing. At the moment, I am finishing a pistachio cake for my brother's birthday. I just shelled pistachios for, like, half an hour.

Thank you very, very much to those of you who offered zombie-walk suggestions. I made some fake blood, bought some clothes to destroy at Good Will, got out my LARP make-up, and ended with a pretty good costume, I think. No pictures, but hopefully some will surface online. I ended up driving due to time constraints and not wanting to collapse from the heat or anything, and I actually ended up having to leave before the Thriller dance started on account of a bad headache, but I did participate in the walk itself, and saw a whole bunch of awesome, awesome zombies. The locals loved us.

I went to the grocery store afterwards, still in full zombie get-up. Got lots of stares, and a few questions as to whether or not we managed to break that world record (the answer is yes, as far as I know!).

Anyway, it is very warm, and I am sleepy, but tomorrow is a holiday! I almost feel obligated to stay up late a little.

I have no Friday afternoon plans, since both of my Friday walks cancelled for the holiday. So, naturally, I am on this like you would not believe.

I'll probably just stay for the early stuff and leave before the film, because I'll be bussing (in full zombie get-up if I can manage it on my own), but it still looks like it'll be a blast. Oh, yes.

Man, I love Seattle. I've never participated in one of these before! Eeee.

I have a few links with instructions for good zombie make-up, but - those of you who have done zombie walks or similar things in the past... any tips?

The dog-sitting was ultimately uneventful; well-behaved dogs, pleasant weather, no complaints here. It gave me time to peck at the latest Toisian fic, which I might actually finish soon. Anyway, the owners were very appreciative, and they may very well want me to come over again later in the summer, so! Rockin'.

In other news, AIM is being a little touchy. As in, it runs fine for about a minute, and then crashes. I may have to threaten it, restart, et cetera.

Public service announcement: Finnish folk metal is completely balls-to-the-wall fucking AWESOME. How did I not get into this before.

In other news: have a meme, which I have stolen from sakuratsukikage.

Pick a character that I have written, or that you know I have substantial headcanon about, and ask any question about him/her. Be sure to specify whether you would like responses to be OOC (responding as the writer) or IC (responding as the character).

I'm so out-of-touch with fandom and I practically never write fanfic or anything, but any character that you know I know is fair game. Original characters included. Go!

So, the graduation presents are trickling to a halt, but I got a seriously beefy Amazon gift card recently, and I think I might spend it on music, because I like music, and it's certainly time that I got some new, hip tunes. Seems like I can buy .mp3s from Amazon, which is cool, and probably cheaper than buying a CD or something. All the better with which to maximize my music-consuming potential!

So, I am looking for music recommendations this time. For those who don't know, my tastes are very, very broad. Basically, I like talent. I also like heavy metal of most flavors, lyrical folk/blues, evocative/atmospheric instrumental post-rock (though I think a lot of that has to do with their band names), Tom Waits, the better film soundtracks... okay, I was going to break down and list the genres that I unconditionally dislike, but there actually aren't any that I can think of. I mean, I generally do not like rap, hip-hop, avant garde, indie-pop, and country, but even within those there are things that I enjoy, though maybe somewhat less in indie-pop than the others. To hell with it! Recommend stuff that you like! I won't judge you unless it's Death Cab, in which case I will judge the fuck out of you.

I tend to write down the lyrics of songs that I hear on the radio and like, and I heard "The Boxer" by Carbon Leaf last week and loved it, and while I'm listening to previews of their other stuff, I'm still undecided. Thoughts? Does anyone actually know them? See, one of the disadvantages of getting most of my music from friends on the internet is that I don't actually know what's popular. So, for all I know, Carbon Leaf could be the new insert-stale-but-semi-talented-household-name-band-here and I'd never know. And the fact that I couldn't even come up with a band with which to close that statement is testament to this.

And I want to thank everyone who suggested book recommendations last time. I have a very healthy stack of reading for the summer and beyond, now, for which I am very grateful!

Anyway. Music recommendations. Go!

Wow... Michael Jackson died today. I... he wasn't particularly meaningful to me, but he's been around and visible for my entire life, so it's like the end of an era. It's really surreal.

Twenty bucks says that LJ's current downtime is related.

Edit: LJ is back, hesitantly? *prods*

Also, I went to Half Price Books as promised, and found some good stuff. Some of which I am going to read right now.

I am home from Legacies! I did have company on my drive; the ferry was harrowing, but all was well in the end; event was awesome if a little low-key, but I'd forgotten how much I missed it, and it was really good to be back.

Only two more events before I leave for PA, which makes me unspeakably sad.

Anyway, I must continue to catch up on the events of the real world, so more shall be said at a later time.

List 10 of your favorite characters from different fandoms, and ask people to spot patterns in your choices, and if they're so inclined, to draw conclusions about you based on the patterns they've spotted.

Oh, man. I actually have to think about fandoms. Hang on. I guess I don't really do fandoms so much as I just like stuff. Anyway:

Fullmetal Alchemist: Riza Hawkeye
Axis Powers Hetalia: North Italy (Feliciano Vargas)
Bleach: Kuchiki Rukia
Rurouni Kenshin: Himura Kenshin
Law & Order: Lennie Briscoe
House MD: either Gregory House or James Wilson, I am undecided
Guilty Gear XX: Baiken
Brother Cadfael mysteries: Brother Cadfael
Supernatural: Dean Winchester
Peacemaker Kurogane: Okita Souji
Obligatory inclusion of Toisian because I am dumb: Himitsu Kaida

Knock yourselves out.

Oh, shit, I need to go to bed. Gotta wake up and meet a Weimaraner in the morning, and then buy a Father's Day gift, and then walk the terrier and the two German Shepherds, and then I need to finish the last of the sewing necessary to prepare for Legacies, and then I need to get to Legacies. *flails* And I may or may not be picking up a guy from Everett. Ahahaha, tomorrow will be fun.

I have one more Dreamwidth invite code up for grabs if anyone wants it.

Also, I watched something on Food Network today about meatloaf - specifically, meatloaf made with bread soaked in milk and slathered with tomato-onion-pepper relish and topped with bacon, with mashed Yukon gold potatoes and tender-crisp green beans - and now I really want some.

8:58 AM: Well, it's a damned good thing that I woke up early to walk that dog in Queen Anne.

I was up by eight thirty and I went out to check the garden and greet the cats, and there's this... weird scratching sound coming from the other side of the fence. I'm thinking it's a raccoon or something, so I shoo the cats inside and go to chase the thing away, and sure enough, there's a freaking zombie in my neighbor's yard, clawing at the fence that separates our properties. Shit. I haven't seen any others, but zombies are kind of like roaches, or ninja; for every one that you see, there are hundreds that you don't.

I gotta figure out a plan. Moreover, I gotta get some guns.

Open question to all of my tattooed friends:

What the heck kind of moisturizer do you use? I never seem to buy the same one, because I always chuck the old container and then forget what kind it was. Today is the day that I switch from the skin-protectant ointment to the regular old moisturizing cream, but the moisturizer that I bought (Eucerin Original, dry skin therapy, fragrance-free, water-based, very short list of ingredients) is really pasty and thick, and it leaves this nasty, slick, chalky film on my skin. It's so thick that it takes some mandhandling to put on, which is still painful at this point. I think I have purchased this kind before and hated it just as much the first time. So, before I go out and buy yet another brand of moisturizer that I will end up hating, I must know. What is your moisturizer of choice for your tattoo after-aftercare?

Anyway, I am going to go and try to convince myself to eat by buying a big, meaty, juicy, delicious hamburger. (The fact that those words alone do not make my mouth water and my stomach rumble is concerning.)

Wha-bam.

( There's a super-awesome tattoo under here. )

In other news, I went to the doctor this morning (mostly for forms for UPenn) and discovered that I've lost a lot of weight since leaving school. I mean, approximately ten pounds in a month. This is a serious problem, since I was already more underweight than I'm generally comfortable with, and I've been getting exercise with all of the dog-walking, so I'm not just burning fat, but building muscle, which is heavier and thus this is even more concerning than it would be normally. To top it off, my appetite has sucked for several days, and when I do eat, it tends to be junk food. For me, that leads into a very nasty self-perpetuating cycle, because when I don't eat at least half-decently, I feel like crap, and when I feel like crap, I don't bother to eat well.

Anyway.