nekokoban

It is the start of a new quarter, the year is a third over, and while I am not beating myself up over failures, I am not extraordinarily happy with here I have flubbed and could have done better and etc etc. THERE ARE THINGS I COULD AND SHOULD DO TO IMPROVE MY LIFE AND MYSELF! So I am going to make this list and hope it works out for me. :|a

But first, things I did accomplish in the past three months:

* I have a regular column now over at Royal Archivist! It is pretty neat to be over there, and I would recommend folks giving things a look-over if/when they can. I will have an actual guidebook thingy coming from them in a couple of months, kyaa kyaa.
* lovesexgrave isssssss officially started. :D
* bb_shousetsu -- Shadow Stranger [Ladies' Night]
* imaginarybeasts -- The Dream's End [Dreams]

I ALSO COMPLETED SPRINGKINK, ugh, I meant to post them to my journal proper last month. I guess it will just have to happen in April, or else not at all. 8|a

But now: goals!

- Seriously try to be in bed by midnight/midnight-thirty during the week. I can definitely tell how letting myself slip to a 1 am bedtime has affected my general mood/creativity/etc. EVEN IF I AM HAVING FUN OR WHATEVER, I really need to start enforcing this. It'll let me get up earlier in the morning too, and be less hateful of the wooooorld by the time I get home from work.

- On the flipside: Get up no later than 10:30 on the weekends. If possible I would like to go for 9:30, but who knows how late I will stay up when I allow myself a late bedtime on Friday/Saturday. :|a

- Be better about frivolous money things. It is super-easy to want to just not cook and go out, but I want to be better about things--I want to stick to the budget I have drawn up, and in this way be more responsible about my spendings and thus feasibly shore up my emergency savings till I hit my goal. If/when I hit that, then I can reevaluate how silly I want to be about stuff. Until then, I should make my emergency savings a priority.

- Start walking home from work. At least on Fridays, when I am less :V BUT MY PRECIOUS FREETIME! and as the weather starts getting nicer. Once it stops raining pretty much every Friday, that would be nice.

- Write daily. I let this slide also more than I should, which is terrible, because writing brings me a lot more joy than prrrrretty much any of my other hobbies, though I am missing having an active fandom that I could and would participate in the ficwriting culture of. Debating some of my older fandoms, because I still love those, but they're either deadish or terrifying to me, so again: hotly debating. I should just go back to randomly posting fic here and maybe someday people will find me and be happy. :B Original and fanfic both, though I haven't decided if I want to do like, a WORDCOUNT GOAL or a TIME SPENT GOAL just yet.

-- wrt the above point, the theme list for 500themes. I don't think I will officially sign up, because I am balls at crossposting (as the springkink stuff has proven), but I do want to try doing this. Maybe a theme a day. :|a Current plans are to just go back and forth between D.Gray-Man, di[e]ce, Pandora Hearts, and 07-Ghost for these themes. Idk if I should actually post them, though, because an update a day might get gratuitous when it's every day for over a year. :|a If people have a strong opinion they should yell at me.

We rang in 2011 by playing oldschool Sonic the Hedgehog and I had a chicken-and-cheese quesadilla with apple slices. Instead of champagne I had Martinelli's sparkling apple-cranberry cider, and Sammycat was the happiest because both rinkhals and I were sitting on the couch together and it meant he could drape on BOTH OF US AT THE SAME TIME!

If the superstition about "what you're doing at midnight is what you'll have a lot of for the next year," I think I am all right with that. :)

( ACTUAL WRITTEN STUFF )

( REFLECTION MEME THINGY )

But I am still not so sure about this "wiser" thing. :|a

ETA LJ WHY DO YOU NOT LOVE CAPSLOCK IN YOUR TAGS :(

HEY EVERYONE!

Can people tell me where to look to get songs (preferably in English, because that's the only other language I understand to any extent, durhurr) that tell actual outright stories--preferably for the darker/creepier sort; songs that talk about abandoned places where odd things happen and crazy people doing tragic things and "here's this story I once heard" that--isn't folk music*? It must exist somewhere, but I am looking in all the wrong places, possibly!


* As per examples--this is because of stupid singing robots, okay. :( My favorite composer is proooobably mothy/AkuNo-P, who did things like Daughter of Evil/Servant of Evil, where a tyrannical princess is overthrown and her twin brother/servant's reaction, or moonlit bear, where the singer brings home some fruit that isn't quite what it seems, or The Tailoring Shop of Enbizaka where it is a TRAGIC LOVE STORY. ... REALLY.

Or things like Dark Woods Circus, or Human Sacrifice Alice, which I have gone on about before! THINGS LIKE THAT, which have a definite plot and story behind them, but are not necessarily folk-ish in their musical style. Because I love folk music like a lot, I grew up on it where everyone else in my generation seems to have been listening to the halcyon days of rock'n'roll, but I would like more if I could find it. :|a

REC ME. :(

* Sometimes, I really wish I could just post snippets of lyrics to my LJ without feeling ridiculous about it. And granted, I find it irritating, pretentious, or kind of dumb when I see people do it, but there are times where I am like, I really like these lyrics, I feel like repeating them and I am in the office and I cannot sing aloud. I've done it once or twice in my twitter, but I'm still sort of \O_o/ about doing it. IT FEELS SILLY. /o\

* A few weeks ago, there was a post on my flist about how dark and angsty =/= artistic merit. I would agree with this wholeheartedly, and extend that to life as well. Dear people, just because I am normally a cheerful person who just sort of floats and isn't always weighed down by the troubles of the world and my deficient personality, it does not make me stupid or childish. Your angst and drama does not make you a deeper or more worthy person than me. I will punch you in the face; then you will have physical pain to go with your spiritual, THEN WHAT. I've had this problem all my life, honestly--less with people online and more with people I know/interact with in my daily life.

It frustrates me, because sometimes, hey! I have bad days too! And then I wonder if there's a point to that attitude, if maybe it really--but then, no. No. :\ I've grown to a point where I resent the implication that I am somehow dumb because I like a happy ending, or that I will see the glass as half-full. Online, the problem is more about things you write, and the "artistic merit" of fiction itself, which ... okay, I mean, a well-done BAD END or bittersweet ending is totally cool with me. I like some stuff that's bleak! But a lot of times, it just wears me out--it doesn't make me think, it just makes me want to curl up and sleep for a week. SEE ALSO: my reaction to The Dark Knight. On its own merits, I think it was a fantastic movie, but god, it wore me out, and it didn't really make me think, because I was too busy being worn out by the relentness SHIT GOING DOWN. I liked 9 much better, because inexplicable as parts were, as spotty as the dialogue and plot sometimes was, there was hope, and I appreciated that. 9 made me think, actually, though I'd probably need to see it again before I could articulate any of it.

And okay, I have this Thing for horror stories, or endings that are weird and not entirely explained; I like Lovecraft and Poe and King. My greatest enthusiasm is for running horror stories, and not necessarily ones that are hooked on Twists And Plots, but just ... horrible things! Weird things! Monsters in the closet and things going bump in the night and the sinking feeling that the nightmare isn't over, just paused temporarily. I love stuff like that! --but I also want my happy ending, where people get through horror safe and sound, or maybe never encountered it at all. And I suppose my point is that ultimately, I don't think there is more "merit" in a story where the creeping horror drives someone insane and leaves the rest of the party with the sinking sensation that they are next vs a well-done quiet people-being-happy-and-people story. They both have their strengths, and they ping on different things, and let's face it: I feel like gratuitous amounts of ANYTHING (angst, horror, fluff, kitchen sinks) drags down the so-called intelligence level of something. Maybe there is something childlike about just letting oneself be taken into the immersion of a story, but I think the world could stand a little more of that. Sometimes we don't have to be (sometimes I don't want to be) the jaded cynical cool critic--sometimes it's nice to just be the kid who believes in everything, even if it's only forthe space of one story.

* Yesterday I was emailing back and forth with inarticulate re: f/f pairings, only we ended up talking about genderswitch fics instead. :|a A LOT OF IT WAS ACTUALLY CONTEXTUAL, looking back on those emails, but what it really boiled down to me was: 1) dude, fandom, please realize that the touching/charged/etc/etc scenes you squee about when your two favorite waiwai prettyboys are together would still be legitimate if one of them were female because man, while I identify as female, that is only one thing of many that defines me; 2) klsdjflaheot why do I not write more gen, why do I fall into the pairing-fic trap more than I want to. :( I sort of go in cycles; sometimes I am all about reading stuff that has porn in it! and other times I'm like that's boring, why is there so much sex in fandom, can I just have a nice long casefic, please. RIGHT NOW I AM ON THE LATTER. But even in long casefic, apparently I like it when there are pairings, so is that really gen? I have no idea. \o_O/

Then we got into a tangent about Subtext and how it exists in fandom, and sob. While I am someone who tends to label on the safe side (I did not touch the huge debate that sparked a few months ago, but while I don't care particularly much as a reader, as a writer I err on the side of caution), it sort of makes me wonder--when do you label something as gen? Or as a pairingfic? If you have two characters that you-as-the-writer (or the reader) ship, and all they're doing is interacting in platonic ways, is that gen? Is it pairing? Pre-slash? Is the important thing authorial intent (which enough english majors have told me only counts for very little) or what the reader sees in it? If people have problems with NO GAY!!1 why are they reading 07-Ghost?

* \o_O/ is my new favorite emoticon.

* TERRA IS WRITING ORIGINAL FICTION. SOMETHING IS WRONG IN THE WORLD.

* --Hi.

This is a tea morning, I think, once I finish breakfast. +_+ Normally I don't require caffeine in the mornings, but very little sleep Saturday + interrupted sleep Sunday and Monday nights (courtesy of my cat) means I am a bit on the woozy-mumbly side. I can't even get mad at Merlin, because the way he disturbs me is--instead of pawing at my head or sitting on me (though he DOES walk on me and his bony little paws hurt sometimes), whenever I'm lying on my side, he curls up right next to my head and starts purring. Which wakes me up, but he's so cute and fluffy and happy, I can't actually yell at him or push him off for that. 8( I know I've commented a lot on his babyvoice, and how he has a much quieter purr than other cats I know--but he purrs louder when it's just the two of us anyway, and when it's right next to your ear, that is plenty loud.

Sob, but I have been very tired lately--I keep finding myself making the most idiotic mistakes at work (I've gotten back revisions that are like "er, we asked for abc, not xyz" and I'm like #@*&^%%^*#*(!@*&%), and when I was talking to enough_space last night, I realized I have not taken a proper holiday-holiday since possibly January. Nearly all--IF NOT ALL--the company-provided days off I have been working overtime, and I took only one day off for moving as opposed to two like I'd originally intended and ahhhhhhhhhhhhh my brain, she is frizzling. I think I need a proper three-day weekend/mental health day, and apparently commuter services aren't running this Monday, SO SCORE. \m/ HOLIDAY! I am not working emergency support that day, I am not working emergency support that day, SOMEONE KICK ME IN THE HEAD IF I TRY TO VOLUNTEER FOR EMERGENCY SUPPORT THAT DAY.

You know, my life is actually a lot more eventful than I sometimes make it sound--every weekend for the past month or so has been filled with DOING STUFF AND SEEING PEOPLE! but I forget to blog about it the day-of, and then afterwards, I am like "... it's not really 'talking about your day' if it was a day two weeks ago." I hang out, I watch movies, I'm replaying Odin Sphere (instead of like the fifty million unstarted games I have waiting for me), MY CAT IS ADORABLE, carry on.

However, after eight years, I have finally gone to the Seattle Aquarium, thanks to an impulse suggestion by rivendellrose. IT WAS AWESOME GUYS. (I took a lot of very amateur but very earnest photos, as evidenced by the school of salmon in my last post. IS IT JUST ME, OR IS IT HEART-SHAPED! I think I will take it as a sign that I am doing things in the right spirit, at least.) I WANT TO GO AGAIN, if hopefully this time to see the giant octopus when she's not hiding under a rock.

NOW BACK TO WORK. [inserts interesting hook for comments here]


eta: ... I forgot my water bottle. :( WILL I WITHER AWAY FROM DEHYDRATION? STAY TUNED. Or not, I still have my Starbucks cup.

ETA: Okay, so uh. Never mind, with all the inanity I do have other things I want to say.

And that's mostly--guys, seriously. If you have a problem with me, please come and tell me directly. You can tell me anonymously--I have critposts up for my characters at CFUD--you can email me (nekokoban at gmail) or PM me when I'm on IRC, whatever. I may be hurt and upset at first, but I will listen. I am more uncomfortable with the idea that I am making other people unhappy and uncomfortable, frankly, and I would much rather be told so I can make corrective steps rather than just ... let things fester. That never has helped anyone, as far as I know.

I'm not saying I don't have problems with people! I'm only human, and I get irritated/upset/angry about things, sometimes irrationally! But I also try to speak up and tell the person I'm having problems with. Sometimes it takes me a bit to get my courage up, because I'm a horribly non-confrontational person, but I still will say something. And I really hope people would do the same for me.

My two cents--back to fluff and blather. [/ETA]

ETA2: Dear program that is necessary for my day job! PLEASE STOP NEEDING TO BE RESET AFTER EVERY SINGLE TASK. :E It's a good thing I've already made my number goals for this month, s'all I'm saying. SOB. [/ETA2]

RADIO SILEEEEEEEEENCE

Okay it's mostly that I have been trying to transition back to a 9-5:30 schedule, because--as much as I like being done at 4:30, I don't usually get home till anywhere from like 5:45-6 anyway, and I hate waking up before 7 if I can utterly avoid it. Since my manager is understanding, our schedules are usually flexible, so I am testing out this new schedule for the week! SO FAR, two days in, it feels pretty good--though I know I will probably grow more dissatisfied as traffic levels return to post-holiday madness and also in the winter, when it gets dark at 4. :|a Plus my chiropractor appointments are at 5:30 so at least sometimes I will have to come in early so I can leave early. Earlier. Either way. I think this will help with my energy levels overall, though, which in turn will hopefully help with everything else I have been tired or blah about lately. Baby proactive steps, yay! \o/

(On the downside, yesterday I also had my first migraine in months and that was terrible. ;o; I don't get them very often, but boy do I hate everything when I do. :x)

Further on the plus side, katmaxwell is magical and amazing and got my wireless working in my apartment finally. \m/ I can bring my computer into the kitchen and look stuff up without tripping over cords now! ;^;b I still mostly spend my time in the living room with the magical noisebox, but now I have options and that is nice. This icon is mostly for her. :|b I also ended up rewatching the first two episodes of Supernatural over the weekend, which reminds me how much I really did like the show--and it isn't that I dislike it now, but the show as it is now has lost a lot of what originally drew me to it. (And I mean, I enjoy religious fiction, so the show as it is now still has a story that is very appealing to me, but it is no longer really DRR DRR THIS SHOW WAS MADE FOR ME like it was when they were hunting boogeymen and poltergeists and so forth.) As a result, I am looking for fic again. It's kind of nice. /o/

I am incredibly looking forward to Friday off. I am probably going to pick up at least some extra hours at work, but it's holiday overtime and therefore things will be kind of comfortably slow and no commute. I think I will treat myself to a tasty dinner of some sort. DOES ANYONE IN SEATTLE WANT TO GO WITH ME. Especially you people who have not seen my new apartment yet--it's not exactly all unpacked, BUT MY LIVING ROOM IS PRESENTABLE FOR HUMAN COMPANY! Yeah. \m/

Cravings for a Starbucks Lemonade Tea and braindeath from anticipating vacation aside (there is work to do, but I am so scatterbrained that I am amazed I have any semblance of coherency), life is pretty good. :|a Things are going well, and they will hopefully get better in time.

I have almost perfected katharon's keyboard smash!11

Sob, tonight is COUNTDOWN, and of course now I'm borrowing trouble for myself, worrying that things won't be finished in time, that I'll regret moving on my own, a thousand and one things that COULD GO WRONG! between now and tomorrow, when I will theoretically be unpacking. (I say theoretically because given my energy levels + how much sleep I don't plan on getting tonight, I could very well just be passed out. We'll have to see!) I am anxious and a little excited, and a lot AHHHHHH what is this AHHHHH about everything. Sob, I've gotten to the panic point of "do I have enough boxes? I don't have enough boxes! what am I doing, how am I going to transport myself tomorrow since I don't have a car do I have to call a taxi AHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhsob"

I almost wish I'd taken Monday off too, but I can't afford to do that right now. A-at least there WILL be a holiday coming up, and maybe if I'm lucky my computer will work with my new internet and I could take a couple of working-from-home days. That'd be kind of nice; I'd like to get used to my new living space. Really I'm just antsy now; everything is nearly done, and I have gotten to the point that I want it completely done. And I've hit the late-afternoon lethargy, where it is a chore to keep my eyes open and my typing coherent. :x Since the internet won't be set up in my new place until Sunday, I really plan on catching up on sleep this weekend, sob. And if I miss people I will-- go find a cafe or something with my laptop and be like GUYS GUYS LOVE ME I MISS YOU.

Nnngh, the gorgeous day actually isn't helping, because when I went out during lunch, I just wanted to curl up and nap. There is a distinct trend in my thoughts these days, which seem to follow the pattern of PACK-PANIC-SLEEPY-BAWWWW because I feel like I am missing cool stuff and while I think I will be happy once I move and have everything settled and can restart my schedule, I ... really hate the upheaval between the calm periods. My mom once accused me of only ever taking the easy way out of things--which I don't think is entirely true. I prefer easy smooth transitions and if there's going to be excitement I'd like to at least be rested for it, heh.

Still, all things aside, I think this could be entirely much worse. I'm going to allow myself to be okay with this--though I will be more okay when I've moved and everything is settled. And I'll be going into radio silence till the internet's set up at my new apartment, which will hopefully be sooner than later; I'm a little excited to actually get cable TV again. :|a (Hilariously, I think I've been updating this journal more now while I panic about offline stuff. IRONYYYYYY.)

--oh right, I need to work on springkink, too. Maybe a break will be a good thing. :|a

I'll see you guys soon. ♥

FLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH. [shakefist]

So for a while at work (on top of the Photoshop problem sob) I've had this thing where--I can edit flash files, and I know the coding is right and I can save them and everything! ... but publishing them, going from .fla to a web-publishable .swf file just doesn't work out. If there's an animation, it flashes in a blurring mad headache-inducing jumble of images; if there are buttons, they have their mouseovers, but clicking them doesn't do anything. I've had to ask coworkers to publish the files I've edited because nothing happens. :\ Helpdesk uninstalled and reinstalled CS3 for me this morning, and the problem persists. I know it's not a browser issue either, because when Coworker I publishes the site and ups it somewhere and I click, tah-dah! The buttons work! SUCH A CONCEPT. 8(

I am also playing Persona 4 and already like it leaps and bounds and miles better than P3. I ADMIT, I was wary, because my flist had exploded with people loving P3 when it came out and I was ... pretty unimpressed; things began feeling pretty monotonous and the dating sim part of it just kind of irritated me. I ended up not actually finishing, especially since Roommate beat the game and I just watched. |D But with P4 I feel a lot more drawn into the story--I think the murder mystery resonates with me more than P3's exsisential (I spelled that wrong, didn't I) WHERE DID THE SHADOWS COME FROM WHY IS THE DARK HOUR HEEEEERE--mostly because relevations felt too slow-paced and unimpressive when they came. I also like the cast better. Kanji, I will rescue youuuuuuuuuuuu. ;o; I don't really do gameblogs, mostly because I would forget and really, when I play video games, I ... narrate. "AHHH RUN AWAY I DON'T HAVE ANY SP!" or the way I shrieked when I saw the optional boss in the castle. 8(

And last night, I wrote something. It wasn't as good as I would've liked it to be, but--I'm allowing myself to be mediocre for now. It's been a long time and it's like a cramped, half-atrophied muscle that is uncurling. It's kind of nice. \o/

Like everyone else, too, I am considering Dreamwidth. What really pings me, honestly, is the fact that I could theoretically read flists for my other journals; that is magical to me.

( AND NOW, THAT SIXTY-FIVE QUESTIONS MEME )

1. I did an update earlier for a "Noah Allen." I cried laughing a little.

2. Apparently my keycard is not in my wallet! But. How did I get into the office this morning. I-I can't remember. This is possibly bad.

3. FRIDAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY this has been the strangest week: every day I find myself staring at the clock going nnnnnngh why is it still only 11/12/1, but. Somehow it's already Friday?! So the days individually are going very slowly but the week is going fast.

4. I-I need to stop listening to Human Sacrifice Alice so much, it's playing in my head as I walk places. Sob. It's just such a nice song, though. :(

5. My friends are crazy and I love them. Even when I can only follow their emails about half the time.

6. Part of me wants to write and part of me is still so wrapped up in planning/mapping things out for the kill-game that I'm exhausted it's a good exhausted! I LOVE THIS but sob it's kind of epic and how did that happennnnnnn. But I want to write something cute and fluffy and easy that appeals to the side of my soul that is not blackened shriveled brimstone, but rather a very round and overly-fluffy pomeranian puppy sleeping in a pile of pillows. Possibly with a ribbon around its neck.

... The metaphor made sense in my head.

It's probably also a sign that I should eat lunch. Yay, gnocchi. \o/