Got a great week coming up. I have a new girl starting tomorrow and she's bilingual, which is sorely needed right now on our team. I haven't trained anyone in ages because my co-supervisor's team is the one that keeps losing members so she's gotten the last 3 new recruits, but this one is mine. I'm a bit apprehensive as I feel I'm pretty terrible at training folks one-on-one and especially at becoming comfortable enough with them to treat them as members of the team, but whatever... it'll come. I hope we don't terrify her on the first day.

Then on Thursday I've got my tix to Guardians Vol. 2 already - Imax 3D of course!

Then Friday morning my cousin and I are heading off for a mini-break at a Hotel & Spa in the Laurentiens.

Very excited and of course starting to pray I don't get sick, since I've spent both the last weekends around people with colds. I know, right? How dare they.

And right now? I get to watch the Anne finale. Anyone who wants to join me can go to green_gables and join up to make it less pathetic (I am the only member and only poster, although I did get one comment! Haha!)

Some thoughts on Anne episode 7, "Wherever You Are Is My Home", the first season finale (cross-posting to my sad little comm):

( AKA the episode where I fell in love with Jerry BaynardCollapse )

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Given the state of LJ and the major migration to DW going on, I'm considering stopping my crossposts and just posting here starting pretty soon. I don't want to do a full import. There's a reason I started feeling stifled by my own LJ there at some point.

That said, I have a feeling I'm going to be much more active in the next little while. That's because I've been watching Anne on CBC and am completely taken with how they're bending the Anne of Green Gables canon and changing the characters from those I know from the books and from the other previous films. This past episode (number 7) blew my mind on several levels and there is so much fanwork to be done, you guys. So many things suddenly open for interpretation and I just want to sink on into it.

So I am hoping to scare up a few other Canadians who've had the chance to see it, and want to play around in that sandbox.And soon, when it hits Netlix, maybe the rest of you will come along. Don't expect it to be the story you already know. Expect more.

To that end, I created green_gables as a comm where Anne folks can eventually converge. It's literally just a name and an empty community at this point, so I still have to set it up and, you know, let people know it exists... but I actually just went nuts and made like 25 icons for the show that I'm going to be posting there in a minute. So, I guess once I get around to informing folks of its existence, it'll actually have a bit of content.

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Guys, I'm finally watching Insecure and it is the BEST SHOW I'VE SEEN IN YEARS. Seriously obsessed with Issa Rae. Somehow her just rocking a Prince shirt while looking totally put together is making me feel like putting in some effort. I've been thinking about dying my hair a kickass colour and starting to wear makeup again.

And writing something that kicks this much ass. But I'll start with the hair and the cool t-shirt.

Here's something amusing that happened today: seems like every day I read Twitter to the point of total exhausted outrage and then I come home and spin around not knowing what to do, and I make shitty food decisions out of anger and despair. Today, after I caved and ordered a ton of unhealthy food, the pizza place's app added a free salad to my order and it seemed like the funniest, most absurdly on-the-nose thing that's ever happened to me.

"Looks like you're trying to eat your feelings," said Pizza Pizza's version of Mr. Clippy. "How about some greens? Don't be totally disgusting."

Anyway.

In other news I am starting to think about reclaiming my second bedroom. I got a sofa bed to go in there because I thought folks would be over here all the time but aside from my folks coming maybe 3 times in a year and a half, no one really spends any time here but me. And the room is awkwardly shaped, so the sofa bed takes up basically the entire space, making it unusable.

Thinking of selling the barely used sofa bed on Kijiji/Craigslist and putting in a desk and/or multipurpose table and setting up my guitars/mic stands etc. A small desk would actually be fantastic on the slanted wall, the same wall that makes the room feel awkwardly shaped in the first place. Then whenever anyone comes over I can just pull out my inflatable double mattress.

But somehow I think my family will take me getting rid of the sofa as an attempt to make them feel guilty for not spending more time at my place. Because they do that. To the point of being delusional, sometimes.

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For some reason I felt the urge to write here even though I have to take off in less than 10 minutes.

Happy Women's March day everyone... I wish it wasn't necessary but I'm very glad it's happening.

Essentially, just a quick update: I am going to start writing here more.

I am going to keep primarily posting to DW but still cross-post to LJ (for now)... mostly because of a couple of people I don't want to leave behind on LJ. Maybe eventually we'll all survive a migration but for now it seems we're still suspended over a void.

I've been writing movie reviews for a website. I like the people who are my co-pro-bono-workers there. We don't get paid, but we do get to see stuff that isn't commercially available yet - sometimes that's a good thing and sometimes it's torture. This is it, if you're curious.

One minute left!

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So, I moved. I had pledged to write more in between, but... I lied, I guess?

Boo to me.

New things both real life related and otherwise:

- My dog is getting used to being alone during the day and to hearing other people in the building. For a while things were really dire with her and I was worried I was ruining her life and it might be better just to give her to my parents, where she's happy. But she's slowly growing accustomed. Every day it gets a little easier to get her to eat. And every work day she freaks out at me a little less when I get home. And when my parents' dog comes to visit she literally cannot abide his presence.

- I still haven't remembered what I used to do with my time before I started spending all of it on the bus. It's a process. It'll come back to me. Sure is relaxing to have so little to do...

- I wrote Portal fic for not_primetime with which I am only partly satisfied. I hit most of the notes I wanted to hit with it, but it went tonally weird and the final result is way darker than I meant it to be. I also am not sure it's entirely necessary, as a story. But I did get to turn a couple of clever phrases, so I'm happy. I'll probably repost it here eventually, but for now you can read it at AO3.

- There is a giant thunderstorm going on over here right now! Puppy is not into it at all.

- I watched all of Hannibal minus this past week's episode, all over the last 4 days or so. Marathoned something like 12 episodes of it just yesterday, actually, and I can't even tell you how weird my sleep was last night. What is the fandom for this show like? I'm afraid to look. o__O

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Basically? My brief(ish) comments on the form itself are all you need to know. I am up for ANYTHING since I've been out of fandom for so long and I'm just dipping my toes back in now. I really want to be surprised and I promise I am *really* easy, I will read just about anything as long as it's written with enthusiasm for the subject. If I can tell that you had fun, I'm having fun ;)

==

In real-life news, we got busy today and forgot to pick up a case of cat food at the vet, so to tide us over until tomorrow, my dad just went to the store and bought a single can of cat food. Somewhere out there, there's a cashier who sold a single can of cat food to a 63 year-old man tonight and is probably really sad about what that MEANS. Poor kid.

==

Still in job limbo between 2 positions. Luckily, plenty to do in job limbo since I am in 2 positions at once.

==

I'm doing research for my own Not-Prime-Time assignment tonight. Which means I'm playing video games. ALL EVENING LONG. YASSSSS.

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So I just signed up for not_primetime at the very last second.

Hilariously, looking at the numbers, I'm pretty sure I'm the only person both requesting and offering a certain fandom.

Three to one I get matched with myself! :D

==

In other news, work is insane because my managers and supervisors literally seem to be revising my job description on a daily basis. Yesterday myself and a co-worker were told we were taking over all of Foreign Service but also continuing to take on a full file load at our regular jobs, essentially operating at 150% compared to our 4 other coworkers doing the same job and making the same salary. Today I was told I'm fully transitioning over on Monday without the entire other job, and he's just going to be training as my backup. So I really have no idea what tomorrow will bring.

fI know what I want to have happen... I mean, obviously what I was told today is not as enraging as what I was told yesterday. But I'm wary of believing too much in the favourable scenario, because over the last year I've been almost constantly in a position of being expected to perform dazzling feats of multi-tasking. From January to April I was technically working 3 jobs at once.

I'm fuckng tired, man. Can I just learn one goddamn job and do it for more than a week in a row?

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Just finished watching What Maisie Knew, which my dad and I figured would be a fine way to kill a few hours. It just had that look of a movie that you wait for it to be on TV when you have nothing else to do. You know, nothing much.

I was so wrong. This film will stay with me. It was so beautiful, and haunting and just... unsettling in a very real way. Highly recommend. Like, I went looking for gen fic afterwards, because there is so much to unpack here, about childhood and what kids absorb and understand, and the effects of both indifference and kindness. And I found four! I'll be savouring these slowly.

Anyway! Top five meme time! ellel asked me to name my top 5 songs that you must always have on your 'favorite songs' playlist. I thought about it all day! Even though I actually had a really busy day at work where I had to give an hour-long presentation to a dozen people about to go work abroad, and then had one-on-one meetings with a bunch of them, too. In the back of my head the whole time, I was going "Oooh, can't forget Le Tigre!"

Because I am an epic multitasker, and I'll defend that until the day I die. So there. (We had a debate about this at work, so I am really serious about my multi-abilities now. I must not be doubted.)


Top 5 songs that must be on every playlist I make:

1. Neko Case - Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis (Tom Waits cover)
This song hasn't been in rotation for nearly as long as some of my others (about 3 years, I'd say) but I don't think I have ever skipped it, not even once. It is fantastic to sing along to, and just so damn tragic and theatrical.

2. Le Tigre - My My Metrocard
This one's been on my playlist for AGES. I almost included a different Le Tigre song but I figured it wouldn't be fair to this one, since this was my first Le Tigre song ever. I still have to fight the urge to stat running down the sidewalk when it comes on my headphones.

3. Betty Wright - Shoorah Shoorah
Someone included this on a mixtape I downloaded like 10 years ago. I knew nothing about Betty Wright - in fact this is the first time I've ever looked up a video of her. She looks better than I could have imagined, OMG. And I love her little dance she does during the instrumental bit - so goofy and endearing. Another song I have never once skipped! It is soooo much fun to sing, because you can get really bluesy and throaty with it, but it still has a lot of drive. And I feel like such a badass when I'm listening to it.

4. TV On The Radio - Family Tree
This was an album I downloaded because it was declared Time's Album of the Year for whatever year it was and then didn't pay much attention to. Then one day this song just came on and I started paying attention in the middle of it, sort of gradually focusing on this building, slow, driving sound. It really hooked me.

5. Yo La Tengo - Sugarcube
There are other, better (I guess) Yo La Tengo songs, but this is the single song I have put on my more playlists, mixtapes and mix CDs than any other song, *period*. It just so perfectly represents what I found when I got into Yo La Tengo, a kind of music that exists completely separately from the alt-folk I'd been listening to up to that point. Yo La Tengo layer so many sounds on top of each other that the songs become opaque and SOLID to me. But I think I've included it in more mixes than any other song in my history because it's so versatile. It's kind of a happy pop song. It's kind of aggressive. It's also kind of vulnerable, that blood and sugar imagery... I can fit that into a lot of themes.

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As seen from gottalovev, zelda_zee and ellel:

Top 5: ask me a top 5 anything (on any subject, fannish or no), and I'll post the answers over the next few weeks.

Last night I spent a fun half hour reading old fic of mine and finding myself amusing. Isn't it nice when you can do that, instead of cringing at everything past-you has done? I feel fortunate not to have as many hangups as I once did. It made me really want to write again, if only to entertain my future self.

I have been freaking exhausted for as long as I can remember (yay, work!) so I decided to stay home today. And instead I ran around doing stuff all day. Maybe tomorrow? Time and space tomorrow? Breathing room?

I had a print that I ordered a few years ago that I decided to finally have framed. Holy shit, framing is expensive. The process was like 65% off today on promo and it was still so prohibitively expensive that I hesitate to admit how much I paid for fear of appearing to be careless with money. That fucking fish picture better pop like woah in my hallway or wherever the hell it ends up. :\

Watched Beyond The Lights with my mom tonight - we had a little girls' night together. We both enjoyed it a lot and of course if I wasn't in love with Gugu Mbatha-Raw before, her transformation in this movie from sex kitten to real human woman in all her glory would have done it. This film was on so many critics' lists of the best films of 2014 and I never heard a single soul outside my film podcasts and comms even mention it. Then I looked at the credits and found out why: it's a movie written, directed, shot, lit, edited, cast, choreographed and costumed by women. So of course it got a Best Song nomination (the worst, stupidest category in all of Oscar) and was universally ignored in all other aspects. UGH.

Now I feel like watching melodramatc trash for some reason. What Tyler Perry movies are on Netflix (and aren't Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counsellor, because I've seen that masterpiece already)?

Yo.

Yoooooo.

I came by earlier today to sell some BPALs on the lj community dedicated to such things (my BPAL sales post is here if anyone reading this is into perfume oils or thinking of getting into them) and I honestly hadn't realized how long it had been since I'd been here.

I started looking around. Found a couple of comms that seem like fantastic ideas (LJ Movie Night? So there!) and took a look at my flist. Holy shit, you guys. It's still here. It's ALL still here. I read pages and pages with a giant smile on my face. I missed you guys SO MUCH!!!

So sorry I've been absent for the past few years. I have basically let my commute run my life - 4 hours a day really takes a lot out of me. At first I tried keeping up with livejournal on the bus, but that proved to be really hard and I just sort of drifted away. I became a commoner. How tragic.

Now I'm getting ready to move way closer to my job. Like 10 minutes away. So I will likely have a lot more time to spend reading and writing! That's the plan, anyway, along with cooking a lot. I'm actually becoming a homeowner, so, you know, I'll likely stop doing anything that costs money, which means I'll be at home online, being poor and eating noodles with my incredibly cheap dog.

(Seriously, she's the cheapest pet I've ever owned. 2 Costco-sized bags of dog food and 1 vet visit a year. I love my little naked pup.)

And one of the things I'm really eager to do is to spend more time here. If not on fandom things (not sure what I'm really into at the moment, maybe Orange Is the New Black? Is anyone talking about that? Is that a thing that folks are doing?) then at least writing about stuff and nonsense and weighing in on the LJ issues that matter. I used to know what was going on in all these dark corners.

Is it just me, or is it horribly rude to invite someone over on Super Bowl Sunday when you're obviously not planning on watching the Super Bowl? I mean, I'm not a HUUUUGE NFL fan (although I love the game of football) but this is the one day out of the year where I have to watch a game. You know? And "Oh, we have a TV in the den we can tune into the game after dinner" is just not the same.

So, I'm at a fake party right now, begging off from dinner at my aunt and uncle's with a "prior engagement" which invoves me hanging out with my dogs at home and making awesome chili. I don't even feel a little bit guilty. Earlier, I made some surprisingly tasty nachos garnished with cheese, salsa, spinach, pineapple, crunchy chow mein noodles, BBQ ranch sauce and almonds. I also attempted cauliflower wings, but as I couldn't find any buffalo or chili sauce, I improvised a honey garlic sauce instead. Big mistake - the sauce was way wetter than what I would have had with the spicy sauce, and it liquified my crunchy coating.

And now I've got Beyonce in a leotard and fishnets, which is my very favourite kind of Beyonce. Siiiiigh... :)

The only thing that could make tonight better is if someone out there was recording the puppy bowl to post online for us poor Animal Planet-less folks!

So.

There appears to be a slight treasure trove of Django Unchained fic at AO3, with the main focus being a certain Broomhilda/Django/Schultz OT3...

YES PLEASE.

I absolutely must find a way to encourage this budding new fandom.

So, I'm back from my cruise to Panama.

Panama was wonderful, as were all the other countries I briefly visited.

Not wonderful? The awful chest cold I had the entire time, plus the eventual middle ear infection and sinusitis. I didn't want to get checked out until after our stop in Costa Rica, because I was afraid they'd decide I was contagious and quarantine me, and this was essentially once in a lifetime. So I dragged myself around 4 different countries before finally going down to the medical centre and getting some much-needed antibiotics.

I'm not actually all that bitter about it, since I feel almost completely better now and my memories of what I actually had the chance to do and see aren't tainted by the fact that I was sick.

But I'm very sad about the memories I don't have, and I feel cheated, because there were so many things I didn't have the energy or ability to do. I desperately wanted to work out, but I couldn't breathe. I wanted to sing karaoke and do the late-night clubbing thing. I wanted to be up late and up early, and I wanted to meet interesting people and look freaking awesome every night at dinner. I wanted to go swimming. None of that happened. There was actually a day where I only left my cabin twice.

But! Panama is amazing; I want to move there. They have Thanksgiving, and near-zero unemployment, and beautiful, glittering Panama City, and adorable coatis lumbering around in parking lots, and McDonald's with home delivery. The Canal itself is fascinating, and I know lots of trivia about it now, since I spent a lot of time in my room watching the Panama Canal onboard expert lectures on repeat while I tried to nap. My favourite bit of trivia is that they still have 2 guys in a rowboat go out to every ship to set up the cabling, because no better method has ever been found. They've tried automated systems and rope-shooting guns and all kinds of high-tech alternatives, but the most effective way to get that first line going is to have two guys row out in a little boat, get ahold of both ropes and tie a knot. With their hands.

Anyway, it was fun. I would definitely cruise again, although I still think it's ridiculous to spend 6 hours in a country and then claim you visited it. So that aspect of it is sort of asinine to me, and I try not to think about it. The thing that's great is that these ships are basically run like an old-school Catskills mountain resort, so if you're a giant Dirty Dancing nerd like me, it will never get old. There is always a silly trivia contest or a merengue lesson or something going on.

I'm desperate to post these before I take off for that aforementioned CRUISE TO PANAMA Y'ALL! tomorrow.

I've been plowing through Yuletide and I still have some longer fic to read after I get back, but for now, here are the gems I've found in Saturday Night Live, Sports Night, Pushing Daisies, House Hippo (Concerned Children's Advertisers PSA) (it's a Canadian commercial), The Cabin in the Woods, Dollhouse, Project Runway RPF and Mean Girls fandoms. I just realized that Fran Kranz appears in the source of 30% of the fics I've recced. That's a little weird!


Don't Stand So Close To Meat: A Hamm & Buble Text Adventure by Relia, Saturday Night Live, gen, 6781 words.

Michael Buble attempts to escape from the evil clutches of Jon Hamm. If you are a fan of the Hamm & Buble SNL sketch, or text adventure games, or both, or neither, please read this, because it is one of the most hilarious things EVER.



Forever Ago by pyreneeees, Saturday Night Live RPF, Amy/Seth, 7949 words.

This is the fic I didn't know I always wanted. Sigh...



You Could Turn It On Like A Light by nightcamedown, Sports Night, Casey/Dan, 11980 words.

This is just a classic slow burn angsty blossoming-romance fic with spot-on Sports Night dialogue. Natalie's lines are especially perfect and well-timed, I sighed with SN nostalgia many, many times.



It ends in a small white room by russian_blue, Pushing Daisies, gen, 3679 words.

“Ever since I was a kid, I’d have this dream where somebody would find out what I could do. It starts off with lots of ice cream and balloons and ends in a small white room where little bits are cut out of me until there's nothing left to cut.” This is Ned's darkest timeline, and it is freakin' DARK.



Requirements for a House Hippo, appendix IV of Every House A Hippo, Or, A Nonbeliever's Guide To The Common House Hippo... by Ekaterinn, House Hippo (Concerned Children's Advertisers PSA), gen, 1171 words.

First, watch the commercial, and then read this adorable collection of vignettes from the life of a house hippo!



All Other Priorities Rescinded by raedbard, The Cabin In The Woods, Gen, 4295 words.

This is the story of a final girl. A brilliant take on the Director's backstory.



Monsters, Inc. by Margo_Kim, The Cabin in the Woods, gen, 4773 words.

A collection of vignettes about the Organization in charge of preventing the end of the world and the monsters they need/hate/love/become/really don't want to see having sex.



Documentation by Andraste, Dollhouse, gen, 1219 words.

Excerpts from 'Destroyer and Saviour: A Selection of Primary Sources Concerning Christopher Brink'. The last section is particularly haunting.



It's a Delightful Day in the Neighborhood by miss_pryss, Project Runway RPF, gen, 1014 words.

Being an accounting of various features and figures in the New York City neighborhood of one Tim Gunn, in his own words. So peculiar! So funny!



Dyke by PteranodonSays, Mean Girls, Regina/Janis, 4097 words.

What happened between Regina George and Janis Ian to end their friendship. This is told from Regina's point of view, which I love!



And now, I'm off to warmer climes! Back in a couple of weeks! :D

A great big internet hug and a wish for a wonderful birthday to penny_lane_42!

Title: A Thoroughly Stupid Thing
Fandom: Singin' In The Rain
Details: 3552 words, no warnings, Cosmo Brown/OMC,Yuletide gift for Philipa_Moss
Summary: Cosmo Brown's attempts to find happiness in a Hollywood freshly wired for sound are complicated by his own insecurities, as well as the looming implications of the Hays Code.

( Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.Collapse )

- I am back for the time being. Which is to say, I'm back for the next six days, and then taking off for 2 weeks because CRUISE TO PANAMA Y'ALL! But truthfully, I plan on being back here for the long haul. Please don't interpret this as a "Kath returns to LJ with false New Year's promises she never keeps" because I've actually been considering coming back for a couple of months. I just didn't want to do it before Yuletide was revealed.

- In case you missed it in the previous bullet point: CRUISE TO PANAMA Y'ALL! I leave on Monday! I cannot wait. I'm assuming their canal is about 5000 times more impressive than ours. Also, there may be sloths.

- Yuletide things:

I wrote A Thoroughly Stupid Thing, a Singin' In The Rain story for Philipa_Moss. To be honest, I wish the story had gone differently, but I like parts of it, and I'm at least proud I successfully completed Yuletide! I'll be posting the story here sometime in the next couple of days, so it can live with its brethren on my LJ.

My gifts were Spoonbridge and Cherry by warriorpoet (A: the title of this fic is BRILLIANT, in case you didn't know - B: warriorpoet wrote Seth Meyers/Stefon fic last year for Yuletide, so obviously I should just marry this person) and Missing (What You Never Really Had) by zeldadestry (this magnificent hero wrote last-minute treats in 6 hugely different fandoms!), both for the movie Young Adult. Amaaahzing.

- Have some ( pics of my adorable hairless dog!Collapse )

2012 Books
#1: 2012-01-03 to 2012-01-04 - The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula K. Le Guin ***
#2: 2012-01-06 to 2012-01-16 - Desperation, Stephen King **
#3: 2012-01-17 to 2012-01-19 - True Grit, Charles Portis ****


2012 Movies
#1: 2012-01-02 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 ***
#2: 2012-01-03 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 ****
#3: 2012-01-21 - Drones (long-awaited and amusing) **
#4: 2012-01-21 - Goodbye Solo (slow to start, but worth it for the great performance by Souleymane Sy Savane) ***
#5: 2012-01-22 - The Artist ***1/2
#6: 2012-01-24 - All That Jazz *
#7: 2012-01-25 - Notes On A Scandal ****
#8: 2012-01-27 - Certified Copy **1/2
#9: 2012-01-28 - 9 (hee!) ***
#10: 2012-01-30 - Pina ***
#11: 2012-01-31 - The Help ***
#12: 2012-02-01 - The Vanishing (1988) ****
#13: 2012-02-03 - Take Shelter ***1/2
#14: 2012-02-04 - Chronicle ***
#15: 2012-02-05 - The Descendants ****

Hi all! Long time no talk. I've been flirting with the idea of coming back here lately.

I actually did Yuletide under a different name this year. I wanted to try the total anonymity, and I mostly enjoyed it, but I also missed the atmosphere of going through Yuletide with my whole flist and felt a bit like I was writing into a void...

I don't know that I would have posted here about it, except that THE GIFT STORY I GOT WAS SO AMAZING OMG.

AND I got a treat. An AWESOME treat, in the same fandom. SO! Please, if you saw and enjoyed the film Young Adult as much as I did, do yourself a favour and read these stories:


Spoonbridge and Cherry, Young Adult (2011), Matt Freehauf/Mavis Gary, 4993 words.
In which Matt tries to get used to being Mavis Gary's rock bottom.


Missing (What You Never Really Had), Young Adult (2011), Matt & Mavis, 1527 words.
They talk on the phone sometimes.


I sort of hate the story I wrote, even though people other than me seem to be enjoying it. But as much as I was relishing my anonymity when I wrote it, I find I don't really mind the idea of linking to it anyway. Maybe my era of enhanced self-consciousness on the internet is coming to a close. One can only hope!

(As a warning, if I do return to LJ and start posting on the regular, it's going to be about 70/30 cosmetics talk/fandom. Oh and probably steal 10% of the fandom talk for pictures of my adorable hairless dog ;)