Hangover Friday

I adore Harpoon's UFO beer - but I swear it causes harsher headaches. I really do. *sigh*

Of course, it could have been the glass of Stella Artois I had, too. But I think that was the cause of my slightly queasy stomach during the train ride home last night.

Beh.

In any case, had a good time at my company's holiday party last night. I didn't stay too late, but I was there for about four hours. The food was decent. I loved the place (International Cafe on High Street in Boston). A newer employee in our office does a damned good Grace Slick, based on her karaoke skills last night.

And today, I have off. Which means I'm doing the following in roughly this order:

1) Coffee
2) Finishing Christmas cards
3) Throwing a couple loads of laundry in
4) Throwing a load of dishes in the washer
5) Writing the draft of my pinch-hit piece for OSK
6) Burn the photo CD for my mom
7) Pack for the trip to PA
8) Finish the wedding thank you notes for family I will see this weekend
9) Drop off Christmas cards to the mail

It sounds like a lot, but I'm an admin assistant. I multitask. Well. :) I should have the vast majority of this done by 1 p.m., and then I'll slack off all afternoon.

Wednesday musings

- I have listened to John Barrowman's Another Side quite a few times lately. I absolutely adore his versions of Time After Time, Weekend in New England and Heaven. His version of All Out of Love is quite good, too. (Is it just me, or am I hearing his Scots come through on that? Maybe I'm just too used to Russell Hitchcock's Aussie...) It's a fantastic album top to bottom, IMHO.

- Took last night off from all things fanfic once I posted the first half of my fic due yesterday. Needed to for my brain's sake. Getting back to it today. Once I get the rest of the OT3 fic posted and finish up the pinch hit piece I'm doing for OSK, I'll be taking a writing break for a while. I have cross stitching that's screaming at me to get done.

- I really need to get my Christmas cards finished and mailed. At this point, folks MIGHT get them by New Year's...

- I really need to buy something for my dad & his wife today. *sigh*

- My friends list on LJ amuses me, especially the random threads about sex toys. :)

- It's sad that I'm excited that Erich and I are buying a snowblower. But I suppose that's what you have to look forward to when you're married and homeowners. Goddess, I'm turning into my parents.

- Speaking of Goddess... two days until Yule. I probably should get on thinking about what I'm doing this year.

Christmas Meme

Via friends on LiveJournal...


1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper.

2. Real tree or artificial? Real tree. I grew up with an artificial one, so now I'm a stickler for doing the whole tree lot tradition. :)

3. When do you put up the tree? Usually the second weekend of December

4. When do you take the tree down? Anywhere between Epiphany and my birthday (a five day window)

5. Do you like eggnog? Yes, the soy kind with nutmeg sprinkled on top.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? One year nearly everything I received for Christmas was on a Cabbage Patch theme - and I was in pure bliss because it was during the whole craze. I still have the dolls I received that year. :)

7. Do you have a nativity scene? No.

8. Hardest person to buy for? Either of my parents - because they always tell me they don't want anything.

9. Easiest person to buy for? Erich, because he normally has a list that's easy to find.

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I can't recall.

11. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? A Christmas Story

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Sometime mid-December when I realize I'm now on a time crunch to get stuff mailed off.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? No.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? The huge Polish dinner spread at my grandparents' on Christmas Eve

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Clear (although I don't mind either... just no blinkies!)

17. Favorite Christmas song? Classical - Carol of the Bells
Modern - tossup between "Do They Know It's Christmas" and "The Closing of the Year"

18. Stay home or travel for Christmas? Stay home

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Yes

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? We put a Santa on the top of ours. :)

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? One Christmas Eve, the rest in the morning

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Pushy, pissy people who scream about the "War on Christmas."

Dear New England

Why is it that every time it snows, the mentality prevails that it's something so deathly horrible that everyone becomes complete morons, freaks out, can't get anywhere, and just gets an incurible case of the snow stupids?

WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT YESTERDAY?!?

Learn to drive correctly on snow. Stop being an ass and trying to cut the lines of cars, causing people to spin out, slam on their brakes, or get into accidents because you're being such an ass.

And plows? DO YOUR DAMN JOB. If the main roads are too crowded with cars, do us a favor and start cleaning off the secondary and terciary roads so people can use them. Don't sit there with your plow up, just watching people.

It took my husband FOUR HOURS to drive what normally takes EIGHT MINUTES. He almost ran out of gas in the process. I don't doubt many people did. People in my office had to abandon their cars due to running out of gas - from FULL TANKS.

*head desk*

ETA: This will be my last post for Holidailies. This was not appreciated and makes me very uncomfortable remaining with the project. The community owners asked for honest opinions, and I gave mine. I feel that honesty is important, and what I gave was constructive and honest criticism and suggestions on how to go about a project like this in the future.

Squirming again

Well, it was a productive night last night. Got the draft of the OSK piece done. I'm fairly happy with it. I could do more, but I can always do more, I suppose. There's always room for improvement. But I needed to get something to the beta readers (thanks guys!!!) and just feel productive about it.

To my surprise before I went to bed, I had beta reads returned from two folks - eep! That was fast. Granted, it's 2,000 words... but still, really fast. I haven't looked at comments yet, though. I want to get the OT3 fic draft done and sent off before I start editing. Keeping focus is good, and I've been struggling with it as it is.

My plan this evening is to loosen up with a small amount of alcoholic shots of my choice and then get to writing the sex scenes of this fic. I don't feel comfortable writing smut on the train - just in case someone's staring over my shoulder. Writing smut in general is very... well... revealing, I think. It definitely exposes a writer in ways that are unique. Perhaps it's one of those societal undercurrents gone wrong - or just my slightly more conservative upbringing. I don't know. But yes, it does make me feel like I'm exposed and on uncomfortable display.

Add to that the unknown of writing male-on-male sex, which I have no personal experience with beyond the occasional purient curiosity regarding gay porn (i.e. "how the heck do guys do this together?", and well, it's getting a bit tougher to figure out. Now add on the third party into this OT3 fic, and things are getting MUCH more confusing to figure out.

*Gasp* Writing threesomes? Measi, you should be ashamed of yourself!

So yeah - I've decided that in order to write this, I need to be drunk.

In case at some point anyone reading it thinks it's completely out of left field and crazy and wonders if I were drunk when I wrote this, I can quite honestly say "Yes. Yes I was."

It'll make me feel better, at least.

Popping the prOn cherry,
Mel.

Holidays and Charity

I've now been involved in the Holidailies writing project in December for three years. To my surprise today, there's an announcement that Holidailies is planning on doing some sort of a charity drive via the site, and that today's prompt was to write about ideas.

I have to admit that I'm a little bothered by this. And to prevent myself from sounding like a grinch, here's why:

Charity, when done correctly, is something that's personal, in my opinion. I don't need to broadcast who I've given money to, nor who I've donated time to. Quite frankly, I don't feel comfortable announcing what I've done because it sounds far too much like grandstanding to me and a case of who's outdonating who. I have my personal interests of where to donate my money and my time, and I leave it at that.

And it bothers me a bit that a few days into Holidailies, there's now a press for charity, and the "if every participant gives xyz"... NO. I understand it's optional to give, but it's the principle of the thing. If you're planning that sort of a side-project, state that up-front. It sounds disingenuous to me a few days into the project. I don't appreciate peer pressure to give - particularly at a time where I'm scraping every penny and every minute of time to figure out what way is up because yes, it's the holidays AND particularly not through a journal portal that has a completely different focus.

And... if for no other reason, I simply don't have the time and energy during the month of December to go research the charitable organization that may be chosen. And yes, I am extremely picky as to where I donate my money and/or time. Because many charitable organizations are tied to larger organizations or corporations that I do not want to associate with if possible.

Donating my money so Holidailies can continue? Fine. No problem.
Donating my money to a charity organization as of yet unidentified? No. Absolutely not.

If you want donations for charity, please get the site up prior to five days before Holidailies starts so folks can research your planned charities.

And I'm sorry to sound grouchy about it, but considering that no one's commenting on my entries for Holidailies anyway, what does my opinion matter, eh?

Cold

Sometime after lunch yesterday, the really cold winter air pressed into Boston. By the time I left work, the temperature was somewhere down around 20 degrees. And me, being the crazy "I fear no cold!" Montanan that I am, was wearing only a padded hoodie. No hat. No scarf. No mittens.

I'd be lying if I claimed I wasn't completely freezing when I exited the train in Providence - but I have a theory about it, see. Because I refuse to lose my Montanan "fear no cold" winter cred.

It's the station's fault. The tunnel where the tracks rest are under the rest of the station - so there's the wind tunnel effect. Plus it's all concrete - unadorned, basic concrete - which means it's sucking the cold in further, right?

Plus there are the metal rails. AND - because I'm on an Acela line, there are concrete railroad ties as well.

See? It's all of the concrete - which is making me cold.

Yeah. That's it.

.

.

.

WHAT?!?

Stopping Time

via today's prompt at Holidailies, which asked for a story about snow.

ETA: This entry was noted as a "Best of Holidailies 2007" posting. Hooray! :) Thank you to whomever nominated me!

Saturday, January 23, 2005...

Funny that it's now nearly three years ago, but I can remember the entire evening like it was yesterday. Big events in your life tend to be that way, don't they?

I spent that weekend in January holed up in the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts. As in years past, my other half, Erich, and I were attending the Arisia fandom convention, held every January.

It had already shaped up to be a unique convention experience. Our requested king-sized bed had been upgraded - for free- to a mini-suite, allowing us both a bedroom and a sitting room for the remainder of the con. In addition, our room was on Dealer's Row, where a good portion of the convention wares dealers set up shop within hotel rooms. Every year, it's one of the bustling areas of the con - and my personal favorite to hang out on - and here I was, with my hotel room on Dealer's Row.

Life couldn't be better.

As Friday night and Saturday morning rolled on, reports about a winter storm brewed, but all was well. The con staff kept weather updates in the main hallways. A few presenters and panel guests cancelled out to fly home before it got too bad, but everything went on as a normal con.

Erich and I decided to go out into the city to grab dinner somewhere in Back Bay before it got too bad. We wandered two blocks down the street to Fire + Ice, one of our favorite restaurants (and the one where we'd gone on our first date... so it was sentimental). The snow was just starting to fall as we went inside.

The restaurant was dead. The snow was beginning to swirl, and in true New England snow-phobic fashion, few people had dared head out into the streets. We took our time, had a lovely dinner, and then headed outside...

where we found nearly six inches of snow already on the ground. The snow was really swirling now. The windtunnel that is Back Bay Boston was in full force. And then Erich looked at me and asked if we could go one more block over, just for a second, so he could see how the snow was swirling in the Hancock intersection.

I thought it was a bit odd - because the corner of Clarendon and St. James Streets is the LAST place you want to be during a windstorm in Boston. The buildings in that intersection create a horrible little microcosm of weather, and in light breeze conditions, it can feel like a hurricane in there. But since Erich had worked in the John Hancock building for a while, and it was close, I agreed, and we plodded over. The snow was piling up on the sidewalks, well over my ankles. It was swirling everywhere in the air, getting difficult to see.

But what I could see was lovely - the snow was piling into little ripples on the stone buildings, creating miniature drifts above window casings. Very lovely.

And then Erich stopped, just short of the stairs in front of the old John Hancock building.

And then suddenly, he went down on one knee.

Now - you know those cliched "and time stood still" phrases in literature? The ones you think are totally bogus?

Yeah. Well, they happen. Especially when someone proposes marriage to you, in the dark, in a blizzard, when you're the only two people for blocks in Back Bay Boston because you're the only two people stupid enough to be out in this weather.

Time stood absolutely still. I said yes, of course.

He placed the ring on my finger, and we had the quickest of kisses before time, wind, and snow came roaring back at us, forcing us to return to the warmth of the hotel, to our lucky upgraded room, as twenty more inches of snow piled through the night.

Wedding Preparation Redux

2007 was, by and large, the year that I managed to go completely insane. The vast majority of it was spent dealing with all things wedding planning. And much to my annoyance, it wound up taking up every ounce of my life that wasn't devoted to the work I had to do to pay the bills.

First thing I thought of waking up? Wedding stuff.
Last thing I thought of before falling asleep? Wedding stuff.

Two months and change post-wedding, I'm so relieved that it's not happening anymore. And other than my thank-you notes that are underway and getting whittled down... I have no other wedding stuff left-over that needs to be done.

I don't miss it. I don't wish wedding planning on anyone in the world. Because it was pure hell. My wedding day was beautiful - I had a fantastic time. But the months leading up to it were pure hell.

So when one of my friends asked for help with her wedding preparations, I felt guilty saying that no, I couldn't come to her house yesterday. This weekend was my only one in December currently not booked with something or other, and I knew I had lots to get done personally. I definitely wanted to help, particularly because she's been having a rough go at work lately. Wedding stress is just one of those things that, well, takes over.

But as it worked out, as long as I didn't have to do the traveling, I was fine. She was happy to come down to my house, and so today she did. We sat in the living room, watching the first three episodes of Doctor Who since its rebirth in 2005 (in an attempt to hook her fiance). Then we watched the first two episodes of Blackpool because Tricia, like me, is a David Tennant fan and needs to enjoy the man in all of his native Scottish accented glory, complete with scruffy five o'clock shadow and singing. David Tennant singing Kenny Roger's The Gambler into an ice cream cone microphone? Oh yes. It is awesome. I promise.

It's a shame the U.S. producers didn't just go to get permission to air Blackpool, rather than try to remake it into the tripe that became Viva Laughlin.

Anyway... the assistance Tricia needed for her wedding was folding paper cranes. She's doing the 1,000 paper cranes for good luck thing for her wedding. She's smart to be getting started now for a June wedding. :) So as we watched TV, she, her fiance, my husband, our friend Matt, and I folded cranes.

In about three hours - including breaks for food - we managed to fold 58 cranes. She now has over 200 done.

And I can fold paper cranes from memory now.

Kinda cool.

Always off-season

I'm convinced that the stores are completely out of whack with reality about the holiday season.

I know - thank you Captain obvious. Where have I been, eh?

But here's what really bothers me. The season doesn't match with the Season. It's December 1st, and at Lowes this afternoon, all Christmas ornaments were on clearance. Everything 25% off. Never mind the fact that it's still 24 days until Christmas. No. The end-of-season clearance sales now begin just as the true holiday season is just getting started.

I'm sorry. I'm not one of the crazy people who gets into the holiday spirit in... what was it... September? I think that's when the Christmas tree displays were put up at Lowes this year. Kid you not - there was the glowing beacon of Christmas spirit while the summer flowers were just beginning to fade.

Mind you - by the end of September, Halloween stuff is on clearance sale. By the week of Halloween, you can barely find bags of candy to give out. The stuff you do find is the stuff that used to rot at the bottom of the treat bags for being "sub-par." And personally, I don't want to be those neighbors who give out the crappy candy. But if I have Halloween candy in the house for more than a few days, I know I'm going to start raiding the bag. I don't want to buy it in September, guys.

And now the Christmas decorating season is on clearance on the very first day of December. How crazy has this shopping frenzy become? All I hear is the stores complaining about how hard a holiday season it's going to be. Well, rather than overpower a quarter of the year for holiday shopping, condense it, return it to the proper time of year, and possibly those of us who are tired of Halloween and Thanksgiving being speed bumps toward the shopping frenzy would return to the stores.

Worst of it is that trying to keep your business to the stores that actually do observe the proper holiday season is becoming harder to do. Most stores are taking down their holiday decorations the week before Christmas. This makes no sense to me. I mean, it's not a religious holiday to me, but it reinforces just how superficial and economy-based the celebration of the holiday has become.

Oh - and Lowes? Could you actually have the paper leaf bags in stock the week that the leaves have just fallen from the trees, rather than taking them off of the shelves as "out of season" before the leaves even turn color?

Would appreciate it.

Thanks.