Writing In Twilight

Starting a local movement. I know at least one woman living in my area who has many FB people who don't like Australia's current stance on refugees.

Job prospects for 2017.

Working out how to minister more to people-who-are-not-like-me and people-who-don't-have-my-opportunities.

Spending more time in contact with my cousin's wife, who is just starting out writing.

George Michael. Carrie Fisher. Vera Rubin.

( epitaphs of heroism )

Headaches. I mean, it's not even 48 hours after I got the implant out, but headaches at the right temple.

( stuff )

*sigh*

--

( we're back in fandom limbo )

--

( work )

Ugh. Life.

US Political Action Alert: Refugee Crisis and Prison Sentencing Reform over at beatrice_otter's LJ.

What Religion Would Jesus Belong To?
"Founders are typically bold and charismatic visionaries who inspire with their moral imagination, while their teachings sometimes evolve into ingrown, risk-averse bureaucracies obsessed with money and power. That tension is especially pronounced with Christianity, because Jesus was a radical who challenged the establishment, while Christianity has been so successful that in much of the world it is the establishment."

Anne Frank Today Is A Syrian Girl
"The obstacle was an American wariness toward refugees that outweighed sympathy.

Jim Wright: How The War Against Terror Was Won
"Yes we did. Many times over. We killed them. We killed them all. We killed their families. We killed their wives and their kids and all their neighbors. We killed whole nations that weren’t even involved just to make goddamned sure. We bombed their cities into rubble. We burned down their countries."

On the difference between being nice and being kind
Haven't read this, was pointed to it by colls, but need to take a look. Looks valid and interesting.

--

In other news, I went to a women's weekend at our church, based on the book of Hebrews, about how to be encouraging. It was really good. And all the more to sit in a group of women, with whom I figured I had little in common but our faith, and discover that we have a lot of other things in common: feminism, belief that the church is focusing too much on 'gay marriage' and not enough on compassion for refugees, how to minister to our fellow women when we're all out of emotional spoons ourselves, and many other things, including taking time to self-minister spiritually (something that I struggle with, and I'm a single woman with no partner or children to take my time and energy).

It took up a big chunk of my Saturday, but it was really good and I was going to type up a precis of it, but haven't done it yet. I don't think I stopped on Saturday until around 10:30pm. And then Sunday was nearly as busy!

Tonight, I'm going to dinner with a friend, and another friend (undergoing a messy divorce) wants me to go out with him and others to a comedy club until nearly midnight. Sorry, mate, no.

Finally, I'm over at imzy as tielan.

No, not the paying of it - I'm perfectly happy to put some in for societal benefit.

But the calculating of it? Evil. Evil evil evil. UGH.

Confession time: I haven't done my tax for four years. There's a reason for that. Of course, it has made this year pretty awful, because the Tax Office realises I've sold a property, and their beady eye is on my capital gains.

Anyway, I have to get a tax return in by the 11th December or...I don't know what happens. But auditors may be involved. :(

Too many countries in too little time. And my priority is to get to [country x] to see [fannish person a], which is in a section of the trip where, naturally, I have the least time in which to get things done.

Cryptic enough? :D

Anyway, even if Dad isn't working in Vladivostok for too much longer (I'm kind of wondering about this, because he was supposed to finish that work contract back in June) then I can always go back at another time.

I am in a cheerful mood today. I finished my FemmeRemix PH and polished my FemmeRemix assignment. I discovered a new Steve/Maria writer who looks halfway decent, and an existing Steve/Maria writer who has a pretty good sense of plot and dramatic action(even if her SPaG needs work and I'm not 100% on her characterisation). I have a concert tonight and a family dinner tomorrow, and Saturday is free, FREE, FREE. (And Sunday is pretty much hockey with a break in the middle.)

I go travelling in a little over a week, haven't written a fraction of what I want to for my Marvel Bang, and am sorely tempted to ask people to drop me prompts for writing. I will, naturally, regret doing any such thing, because they will become epic plotbunnies and I really don't need any more epic in my life...

But on the whole...I'm feeling kind of okay about things right now. Maybe that will change in five minutes when I check Tumblr, but...

Really need to get to bed before midnight. Even if I can't stop my body waking up at 5am, maybe I can persuade my brain not to get in on the act for a couple of hours until the alarm goes off?

Also: either really unfit or getting old. Body hurts after hockey. And this is me without any physical issues! I can't imagine being one of the women dealing with, oh, knees, and ankles, and feet and wrists and things that need binding week after week after week.

I do hope it's unfit. At least I can do something about unfit.

Have 45 minutes to midnight. The race is on...

Oh, and here, have some quilt that I made over the weekend:



That's the half-finished version, I'll post a pic of the full one up when I'm done, along with an explanation of the process. (Basically: I had an assigment for a quilt exchange, I forgot about it, and had to do a rush job over the weekend.)

Let me tell you about today.

( it was all the drama, on all the fronts )

And now I just want to climb into bed under my layers of quilts, with my cats purring up beside me, and *WIBBLE*.

(My 22 y.o. friend uses that phrase a lot. I'm not entirely certain what it means.)

So: hockey.

( politics, etc. )

Anyway, today has been draining and exhausting - not really the hockey - a bunch of other things - but it all adds up.

And I seem to be in the throes of a sugar/pastry/butter craving right now. I want to go out and buy all the sweet pastry things and eat them with large volumes of whipped cream, and equally large portions of full cream milk.

And I want to go home and crawl into bed and not drag myself out until tomorrow morning.

So, I have my MCU Ladies assignment in and I'm looking at treats. And all the bunnies are coming up epic. (No, brain. NO.)

I should try writing some short treats. Emphasis on short.

I finished 'No Fate' (the soulmates fic) which I've been trying to write for, oh, a month. I have 'Duncker's Candle' which has been waiting for, oh, nine months.

And I have the Maria Hill epic from HELL.

--

SHEEEESH AGENTS OF SHIELD COMES BACK THIS TUESDAY AND I HAVEN'T EVEN WATCHED S2.0

I guess I just hate watching things as serials; too much angst and emotional investment.

I don't suppose there'd be anyone available to chat-watch Agents of SHIELD S2.0 with me in about 12 hours (4am Eastern US time)? *sigh* I want someone to burble with, because that's always more fun and if I do that, it's harder for me to get distracted and walk away.

--

I have assorted quilting projects that REALLY need finishing, not least of which are two handmade gifts that are for January and February and which I have NOT EVEN TOUCHED. Too scared to get it wrong, which is so much stupid, I don't even have the words for it.

--

Work: as of next week, I will be commuting by train one of two ways.

There's the way which involves changing trains twice, but is shorter overall (45 mins).

And there's the way which involves changing trains only once, but which gives me a good 45 minutes of writing time from when I get on to when I get off...

Maybe I'll go the long way in the morning and the short way in the afternoon? I could write on the way to work, and handsew on the way home?

I'm guessing calling someone the "grand and wise, all-knowing Poo-Bah" would reek of sarcasm. But damn if it isn't tempting. I love it (read: hate it) when they expect me to do a job with insufficient access. If I can't access the relevant data, I can't fix the problem!

Anyway, we didn't get stuff done in the two days alloted, so we either have to go back to the drawing board or...IDEK. They tested all this in November! Why did they test it in November if they weren't going to go live until February?

...

It is now 36 hours since I wrote that first bit of the post, and in that time I have eaten two truly amazing meals - well, one truly amazing meal, and one pretty darn good one. Both with multiple courses. One rather more expensive than the other (the truly amazing meal).

Holy cow, I will be DREAMING of that meal for some time to come. Let's just say it started with buttermilk curds with beetroot salt and society garlic flowers and that pretty much set the standard of the night.

The problem with holidays: I always try ALL THE NICE FOOD for ALL THE MEALS wherever I am. Because it's new! And tasty! And I'm only here for a couple of days! And I have no self-control at all when it comes to really good food!

(Tasmania has REALLY GOOD FOOD. JSYK.)

And that's even before Salamanca markets tomorrow morning - foodie, crafty, "hippie" heaven. They'll be rolling me onto the plane tomorrow afternoon.

And then there's Chinese New Year dinner at mum's when I get to Sydney.

We're DOOMED. DOOMED, I TELL YOU.

--

Okay, so the last day I've gotten writing done. There's The One With Soulmarks (because I got it on my card in Trope Bingo and I had this idea and it's currently 4,600 words and will probably just fall short of 5K.

WHYYYYYY???

There's also The One With Lingerie (for the pbam Golden Oldies prompt 'Maria/Steve, lingerie').

And The One Where Maria Is A BAMF. Okay, so there isn't really just one in which Maria is a BAMF. But in this one, she's particularly BAMFy from the get-go. And there's a plot twist! (More twist! More twist!)

Alas, for I left my profic files at home. And have been stressing about my profic writing (or the lack of it) for some time. I've decided to get up 30 mins earlier every morning to write my profic before I go to work. Specifically to write profic, because otherwise it'll just get lost in the fanfic - too easy to do so. So, special time, requiring sacrifice. It's not a bad thing, I just have to go to bed earlier or do without sleep.

So it's a Friday night and I'm sitting in my room at the casino/hotel for this town, listening to the neighbours watch...some movie that's all dramatic music and very loud. And the reason I can hear these neighbours is because there is a connecting door between the rooms which is not soundproofed.

I just hope they're not the 'go at it like bunnies' kind of neighbours like the ones I had once in Canberra. Man, that was awkward.