Various random observations

[katallison]

1. After a week or two of tender, balmy, fragrant late May weather, a cold front ripped through today, and it feels like October out there, with a leaden sky and a wild cold wind whipping everything around. Needless to say, this is my kind of weather, and makes me very happy. I am making soup and sipping bourbon and listening to the Bach cello suites and watching the trees lash around in the gale.

2. Thunderstorms came through last night, presaging the weather change. I woke around two, with lightning as bright and unrelenting as a strobe light flashing through the blinds. The thunder was continuous; I don't remember ever hearing anything quite like it, five or ten uninterrupted, unrelenting minutes of thundering, until I felt like I was right next to a very long freight train.

3. While I stood on the back deck early this morning, an enormous flock of Canadian geese went by right overhead; I couldn't do a count, they were moving too fast, but there must have been at least 40, in a huge V, honking loudly, flying north.

4. You know how, on a day that starts out warm and abruptly turns cold, when you've been out running around underdressed for the change in weather, with a flimsy t-shirt and sandals, and you finally get home, thoroughly chilled, and pull on a sweatshirt and heavy jeans and warm socks, how good that feels? That's one of my favorite feelings in the world; it's something I loved about living in north coastal California, the way the warm days would turn into chilly evenings, and one could snuggle in.

5. Great triumph is mine, because I finally got a large website I maintain at work re-coded into totally tableless CSS. Not that anyone who uses the website will ever know the difference, but I shall. I do the dance of the geekish autodidact.

6. I cherish the dS flashfiction challenges because they've given me occasion to play around with characters other than Fraser and RayK. In particular, I seem to be yanked into writing Vecchio, or more specifically Vecchio-as-the-Bookman; I have another shortish thing about half-done, one which is making me stagger up from my chair from time to time with the "Ow ow ow," and "Oh, jeez, Ray, you poor sonofabitch." I am really starting to love this Armando-Vecchio guy, and the token of my love is how much I'm willing to hurt him. *g* I still don't know if I could write season 1-2 RayV, though.

7. It strikes me that I could write pretty much anything in here, the rawest spillage from my addled brainpan, and at least some people would read it. That's an alarming thought, really. So I will not focus on it, but will instead tip the platter, hit the "update" button, and let these jumbled fragments dump out onto the aether.

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Various random observations

[maygra.livejournal.com]

1. After a week or two of solid rain, dripping trees, overall mugginess, we finally see sun, and a glorious bit of it, so much so it's nearly like august and the air was so thick today, you hardly needed to drink water to stay hydrated. Needless to say, this is not my kind of weather, coming, as it is, far too early in the season, and bodes not well for the rest of the summer. But still, it was a change from rain and I whipped up a dinner of frozen sausages and macaroni and cheese which we ate on the deck because the mosquitoes had not been fed yet today.

2. Last night, while damp, was fair to balmy, and quiet save for the idiot children tearing through the neighborhood in their souped up Turbo GT's and Hondas, because school was out. At which times I sincerely think having a shotgun in the house might not be a bad idea after all.

3. While I stood in my driveway this morning, trying to coax my truck into starting one more time, no less than six people went by, with dogs, three of them men, and not one of them offered to help me with my car.

4. You know how, on a day that starts out with frustration, sometimes slides into one that can't possibly get any worse, but it does, until you are forced to either laugh or go postal? This was one of those days, in which the transfer of title on my mother's car was rejected, the landlord at work is threatening to lock us out of the building, and the HR office in Phoenix lost my personnel file, just as the mortgage company was trying to verify employment. But you know, I looked *marvelous* in my red shirt and black jumper, and Dr. Scholls, and no one even mentioned the massive ekeing hole and run in my stocking. That feels good, to know, no matte what else happens, no one really cares how well you are dressed.

5. Great jubilation belongs to me, for my truck got me home, because I, I can still clutch start my old transmission like any self respecting southern girl who drives a BIG truck. And people scoff at tradition, and no one will know how cool that is because I was the last one out and no one, yet again stopped to help me. But I triumphed and did the dance of the nearly-redneck Dixie chick.

6. I cherish the concept of drawer fic, in which I can maim and mutilate my characters to my heart's content and never once have to worry about word choice or grammar or even spelling, and no one will challenge me on my plot points, nor try and coax me to do better. For they are all about me -- and great carnage can be wreaked in the name of thwarted art and a serious desire to kick the ass of no one in particular.

7. It strikes me that I could write pretty much anything in here; the wasted words and rantings of a madwoman notwithstanding and live my schizophrenic dual life while cackling psychotically at the idea that I am a nice person, and that the bitterness and gall spewing forth will most likely not be read at all, and if it is, well, being able to send old people and small children screaming form the grocery store with my wild-eyed gaze, frothing of the mouth and gnashing of teeth, would probably be chalked up to PMS or something. That's an alarming thought actually, so I will not focus on it and instead will claim that all of the above was actually a day in the life of my evil twin Skippy.

[suzecarol.livejournal.com]

But I triumphed and did the dance of the nearly-redneck Dixie chick.

I know that one! It's a lot like sockkpuppett's dance of the domestic goddess, but with a faster rhythm and synchronized finger jabbing.

Yeah, that finger.