This is about as close as I get to "candid"

[nekokoban]

Dear Starbucks, why must your peppermint bark brownies be so tasty! And expensive. :(
Secret: While I laugh at all the Starbucks jokes -- and living in Seattle, they're pretty damn copious -- I actually have yet to be disatisfied with any drink or food I've gotten there. And the people who work at the outlet next to my workplace are kind of super-awesome. I get compliments on my hair and smiley faces drawn on my drink cups and heckled for wanting bagels when there aren't any. They're nice. :x

However: I have been promised cookies on Monday. Soothe my heart with other baked goods, because I'm really easy that way.

Have been hacking away at the Yuletide story -- it's a lot of fun, but my mental image of myself after posting it is sort of like, I dunno, the bloody and beaten shounen hero staggering triumphantly in with an arm around a friend's shoulders because one's too tired to quite stand on one's own and being all "THUMBS UP, GUYS, THUMBS UP." I'm just a little worried that my recipient won't like it, because I just may shrivel up and fade away a little if that's the case. XD

Recently, I have been waffling between a) wanting more tactics fic, damnit D: and b) wanting fic about Griselda and her mother (Odin Sphere). I joke that Griselda's the only character in the game who totally had her shit together and NO ISSUES, and of course she dies in the very first scene. I blame "93 Maidens," which inarticulate pimped the other day; the majority of it isn't actually that fitting, but the parts that DO feel like they really do. I think part of me is vaguely disappointed that Griselda and Gwendolyn's mother is reduced only to two throwaway comments. I don't actually care so much about the other missing parents in the game -- but somehow I'm disappointed, in a way, that Ragnanival's Queen is never explained.

... I think my big problem right now is that I feel a little beside myself. I have a number of Big Projects inprogress that I have been throwing myself at with all the satisfaction of a kid who knows the ground'll catch her with minimum damage, but ... it's like I want to do more. :\ I want to write more! I want to write a lot more, but am feeling distinctly uncreative and uninspired.

I've got the energy, but neither the focus nor the drive -- nor, in fact, ANY IDEA WHATSOEVER OF WHAT I'M DOING -- to get anything done. I pick a little at this, I poke a little at that, and then the next thing I know, I'm playing Spider Solitaire and losing. It's a little distressing. :| That may be one of my only quibbles with tiny fandoms -- I love their smaller, "safer" feeling, and the fact that there are a handful where I can look at all the names and go "hey! I know you! you're on my flist!" but at the same time, there are times when I miss the heyday of, oh, YahooGroups and mailing lists and stuff. XD Not because I necessarily think it was better "back then," but because that was where I got my start, and it feels more interactive (in wistful rose-colored memory) than some of the communities I watch today.

Confession: I really wish I knew more people online. XD; Or I could interact with people more -- I have a problem with not being comfortable with spamming people with random things unless I know them, and that list is like ... five. At tops. I'm conditionally shy; I am super-loud and blunt and spammy if I know and am friends with someone; around people I don't know or barely know, I just sort of ... clam up and smile and nod a lot. Most of the time, I feel like I need to have something worth contributing before I plonk myself into someone's LJ thread(s) or whatever and start yammering.

On the flipside, I really wish people would do that to ME more often, because I really like talking to folks. Especially in tiny fandoms. T^Tb I, I'm not that boring, am I? Oh god, I hope not. XD;

What I need is a revolution, but this late in the year, where on EARTH am I gonna find one.

Comments

[vaulted-eel.livejournal.com]

You know... I've never set foot inside a Starbucks! Granted, we didn't have one in town until just a little while ago, but still. Those brownies sound horribly good, though. :9

And I know what you mean about not being comfortable spamming with people unless you know them really well or have something specific to contribute. I feel kinda bad about it -- I've got so many people on my flist, but I only talk to a handful of them at best. I guess I feel like I'm imposing upon or annoying them if I talk too much. Kinda silly, huh?

[nekokoban]

That ... seems so strange to me, in a way. XD If I go down to, say, the University Village (twenty minute walk from where I live, tops), there's something like four Starbucks within the kinda-sorta shopping center area. XD (And the brownies are AWESOME. I am a hook-line-sinker sucker for peppermint, especially candy canes. T___Tb)

That's actually how it is for me, too! Sometimes I'm kind of amazed because -- I have a decently large flist! If I go a day or two without checking LJ, the backlog gets daunting! But I think I only regularly interact with a handful, not counting the RL friends who've got LJs (and I'm much more likely to call or email those folks rather than use LJ to communicate). I know theoretically if someone has a public journal -- or an flocked one that you're on the filter for -- they shouldn't actually MIND if I talk, but I clam up anyway.

I'M KIND OF LAME THAT WAY. :|b

[vaulted-eel.livejournal.com]

I guess that's what happens when you live in a one-horse town like mine and don't do a lot of traveling. XD; But gosh, now I'm wondering if I shouldn't give up my Starbucks-ginity and see if our local one has those brownies! I'm a huge sucker for peppermint too. T^T (Have you ever been to a Cold Stone Creamery? I remember having this insanely good cake there that was called something like "Dark Peppermint Pleasure"... IIRC, it had layers of red velvet cake and dark chocolate/peppermint ice cream, covered with ganache and garnished with crumbled candy canes and quite possibly tincture of pure evil. Aaahhhh.)

Same here, same here. Looks like this is more widespread than I'd thought, judging from the comments you're getting here. I'm a recovering social phobic, so I always assume that I'm way worse than everyone else when it comes to shyness and such. But hey, maybe everyone else is as scared of me as I am of them. XD; I mean, when people don't comment on my journal I usually figure they're either busy or not interested in whatever I'm talking about... but now I kinda wonder how many of them are just being shy.

[nekokoban]

That's fair enough! XD There weren't that many in Austin, I remember, before I left for college -- this may have changed in recent years, but the only one I can remember was downtown, which is a good twenty minutes from where I lived. (I HAVE been to a Cold Stone, but only once -- however, if I'd known there was a cake like that, I would've totally gone again and again. :(b Holy crap that sounds good, and I swear I wasn't hungry five seconds ago. XD)

It's sort of weird -- I've heard and seen evidence of how people act out MORE on the internet, because there's that whole degree of separation and you can get away with being an asshole to someone online a lot easier than someone standing right in front of you, but ... yeah, I have this bad problem of reading all the entries on my flist, WANTING to say something, and then just sort of ... chickening out or feeling like anything I could say in a comment would sound super-trite. XD;; Especially when you go back to the "I don't actually KNOW know most of the people on my flist" issue, I just never know what to say nine times out of ten.