Fuckit. Too many accounts everywhere. I'm consolidating. This DreamWidth is little more than a back-up for my LJ, and I just don't care about the politics enough. So I'll be back at rostand for the next little while.

Back in the States for a few days. Saw a Welsh flag flying side-by-each with an American one, and then I saw the greatest bumper sticker possibly ever. At first, I just saw 'JESUS' and thought it was going to be lame and preachy, until I got closer and realised that it said 'JESUS would slap the shit out of you'.

Yesterday was mine and Rita's one year anniversary, by the way. It feels at once much shorter and much longer than that - less than two months until the wedding (ack!). Cue far-too-long list of things that need to be done. I don't know what I'd do without Rita, really. It isn't all sunshine and rainbows, but it's good. Really good. I feel . . . I dunno, almost like I'd jinx it if I talk about it too much? That, and it's hard for me to describe this kind of absolute contentment I've found.

Had two job interviews today, both for part-time. One is during business hours, the other was evenings and weekends. The former was offered to me outright, and I wish I could take it, but since I don't have anything permanent yet, I can't commit to the time necessary. The latter I'll hear back about on Tuesday. And still on the hook for an office job with Dad's firm, but I have no idea when I'll hear about that or how likely it is that I'll get it.

Got some writing to do tomorrow.

Yep, off to visit Rita in the States for a few days (until Friday), without much internets. Sorry, Caitlin, I know I fail at friend. Will talk to you when I get back, pinkie swear. Looking forward to a break, though, some time to just relax and read and write. The last week or so has been stressful.

We do have the house (yay!) but I don't have a job (boo), but I did have an encouraging interview with a headhunter on Thursday. After I get back from the States (and after Pride - networking opportunities, hopefully?), I'm going to head down to the new neighbourhood and wander around. Look for something part-time, figure out where the GO station is, the library. The lake. Well, I know the lake is there, it's kind of hard to miss, but how far away it is and whether or not there's a beach or a walking trail or anything.

Another Bread and Honey come and gone. It was laid back this year, I think more so than last year. But Rotary had the trade show and the pancake breakfast back, which meant a lot more work for me, yay! Bread and Honey just doesn't feel like Bread and Honey without getting totally wiped out by volunteer work. And it was great that Rita could be here, even if she was sick (she's adorable when she sniffles, it's weirdly cute). We watched the parade and wandered through the fair, went to the craft fair on the island, hit up the trade show in the arena - which was niiiiice, since they finally got the equipment to keep the ice in, under the boards - and then spent most of Sunday working the coffee station at the pancake breakfast. And then sleeping afterwards. I was exhausted. I had like a five hour nap afterwards. I also got a pretty bad burn on Saturday, so my everything hurt and I was still dealing with a bit of residual sunstroke.

I'm always amused by how much of a little boy's club the Rotary guys have going on, but this weekend the pancake breakfast was particularly so. Because they weren't making pancakes, oh no. These were mancakes. These were pancakes so manly that they were mixed by men using power tools in a machine shop, while other men stood around and drank beer, and then were grilled on massive barbecues by more men. Mancakes.

But the most exciting thing that happened all weekend was this!



I won! My very first craft competition! I'm so happy. I don't know how many other entrants there were in the knit category, but I won! The lace shawl is a Shetland Triangle shawl, there's better pictures of it here and here.

The parade was excellent, as usual. All the pictures are here, but the highlights were definitely the ROTC (The Righteously Outrageous Twirling Corp) and the weetiny War of 1813 reenactors.

Had a bunch more yard work to do today, but the unexpectedly early rain fucked up the stain on the deck, so I have to do another coat when it dries out, tomorrow. I just wanted to be finally done. Oh well. Have to do a clean and tidy of the house before I head out to the stitch'n'bitch tonight. That much I can do, at least.

So over the weekend, Rita went with me to a reading at the Moonshine Cafe.

Background: Dad is an accountant. Dad is the kind of guy who develops personal relationships with his clients. One of his clients is Vicki Delany, one of the flagship authors of RendezVous Crime. Who organised a reading of six RendezVous authors at the Moonshine Cafe. Which is also where Dad's mancrush, Steve Poltz, often performs.

Two of them were meh, not great, but I really enjoyed four of them (including Vicki, who is a really nice lady). I didn't get much opportunity to talk with Vicki, or Rick, who I'd met at the launch of Vicki's book Gold Digger, which is really why I went, but it was . . . entertaining. I've kind of been turned off of readings because mostly I have found them to be delivered by pretentious poet-wanks who are in love with themselves. Then again, they were all by university students and professors, so. There we go.

Rick Blechta is a little man who looks almost exactly like Vizzini from The Princess Bride. He writes crime thrillers about music, which is cool. His latest main character is a jazz drummer; one of the guys from my last creative writing class was also writing a piece starring a jazz drummer. He loudly complained about poorly crafted sentences and accused Charles Benoit of sneaking into his house in the middle of the night and throwing them in. Charles joked that he also wrote a steamy sex scene in. And Rick said that his novels usually had a lot of sax and violins.

Hey, I thought it was funny.

But it was really fascinating, hearing about all the different influences and research and experiences and inspiration that goes into crafting these thrillers. Shakespeare's lost play, the Yukon gold rush and the Northwest Mounted Police, Beethoven, India, this guy from work, drinks with an eighty-five-year-old Chinese pirate in Malaysia.

It really fired me up to write - in a good way. Thoughts and ideas turning over, solidifying, regrouping. The only problem I'm running into is getting them out. Part of the problem is that I don't have a usable desk. The little desk in my room is permanently covered in crap, and even if it wasn't, there just isn't enough room. And maybe it's just me making excuses, but I find it extremely hard to write when I'm sitting crosslegged on a bed. I need a dedicated workspace that's even remotely comfortable. And it's frustrating.

There are a few ideas that are shouting louder than others. The ones that are really occupying me at the moment is my vampires-in-the-'Nish thing that started off as fluffy humour but I keep refining the mythology, and an actiony-thriller-fantasy about Oisin that has a well-developed main character and motivation but no plot. And then there's a handful of other stories and plots that are revolving and brewing slowly.

I feel like I'm in a rut. That doesn't include time for writing, or reading. I knit, watch TV, and hang out on the internet. And that's it. I am trying to change this. I bought three books at the Moonshine, Rita bought another, and Dad has a pile of Vicki's lying around from previous launches and readings. I have a fully stocked bookshelf and I am going to attack it with vigour.

Bleh. Had terrible, vivid dreams last night.

I dreamed I was in Lost. Hurley, Sayid, Juliet, Sun, everyone was there. And we were getting rescued from the island, yay. Only for the fact that my entire family had been on Oceanic 815 and I was the only survivor.

Ow. Owowowow, my heart hurt. Still does. I spent a lot of that dream crying.

Hurley let me crash at his place, though. Especially once he found out that my fiancee had died in a car crash while we were on the island.

Oh yeah, that was in there too.

I woke up and I was all alone in the house and Rita had already gone to work, so that heavy feeling in my chest hasn't really gone away yet.

Went for a bike ride this morning. I used to ride my bike so much, everywhere. I was good at it, too. I could go far, fast, with few breaks. Now I'm lame and need three breaks in half an hour, and can't make it up a couple of hills.

The hills are funny. They looked sooooo much bigger when I was younger, and now they look like bumps in the ground but I still can't get up them without stopping to walk.

Once, I biked to my high school in seven minutes. That's a trip that takes five minutes by car. It's almost a straight shot from my house, all on a gradual downhill slope. Usually it took me fifteen minutes to do. But one morning I was running late, had missed the bus, and just jumped on my bike. Hit all green lights, and flew.

Today I opened up on one little path, which was slightly terrifying because my speed jumped up, the path was narrow and twisty and through a forest, so it was like a dense green tunnel, and a jogger came up out of nowhere at me. But it was fun.

I need to figure out a new route, though. I thought that this one (taking the bike trails from my house around the two local lakes and then back) would be a forty-five minute haul, at the least, but it took me about twenty-eight minutes. It was nice, though. I've discovered when all the old people come out to get their fitness in. The paths were packed with people! Little old Chinese couples "power-walking" hand-in-hand, moms on foot or rollerblades with those sleek fitness strollers, retired guys jogging or walking. A couple other people on bikes. And the day was gorgeous, not too hot but nice and sunny. Once you get around the lakes, you can't see or hear the roads for the most part, so it's just all water and grass and trees and geese. Going pretty much right when I get up is good, because it means I can get gross and sweaty, come home, shower, and still be presentable for the rest of the day. Also, I won't get lazy and lounge around.

Have to get a handle on the music situation. I like having music to walk or bike to. I'm going to make a couple playlists that are an hour long, so I have some aural gauge of time. Does anyone know how to get iTunes to sort by bpm? Or just have music sorted by bpm in general. Because that would be useful. I've found that Backstreet Boys and Justin Timberlake, stuff like that, has a good beat for walking, but I prefer the BeeGees and ABBA for biking. Seriously, 'Staying Alive' is the best song for whipping around a lake on a bike. Especially if you coast for the "aliiii-iii-iiiiiiive" bit.

Trying to decide whether I want to lounge around the house and knit before I go pick MK up at school, or lounge around the house and spin before I go pick up MK at school, or go to Linda's and knit before I go pick MK up at school.

Oh, wait, Linda's is closed on Mondays. Dur. Knit or spin, knit or spin . . .

Just finished washing the deck. It's one of those big annual chores that my sister and I do. We wash and stain the back deck, which is big and did I mention big? We do, however, get the entire contents of his piggy bank.

My dad is the only grown man I know who has a piggy bank.

It's the size and shape of a curling rock, and he throws his spare change in there all year. The contents have ranged from seventy-five to two hundred dollars. Stage One is complete, which was power-washing, mopping with deck cleaner, scrubbing the deck cleaner off, and then power-washing again. Tomorrow or maybe next weekend we'll stain it. And then we get the piggy bank.

I feel kind of accomplished (even if my fingers hurt and I'm soaked from the waist down - someone had the bright idea to give my sister the hose), but it's been a blah day otherwise. Had trouble falling asleep and then had bad dreams and woke up crying.

There are three things I want to do today, and I don't really want to get off my ass and do them.

Want to get a few more rows down on my gigantic lace Highland Shawl (seriously, this thing is the Shawl That Ate Manhattan). Want to try out the drop spindle again. Want to do some writing. Had an idea for fic - my first bit of fic in years, Jesus. And then just . . . writing. Which I haven't done for fun in months.

I think I shall go and play with some fibre for a while. Maybe doing something with my hands will clear my head a bit and give me room to think.

First entry in the new digs. It's kind of exciting, a whole new blank slate. But also a little intimidating. Like cracking open a new notebook, or starting a new page. There's always a moment of hesitation on my part before writing, because I want to make it . . . well, perfect. Make the words worthy of the blank page.

New journal seems appropriate for new adventures in life. I'm done school, I'm getting married, it really is a whole new life. I'm going to be a bit more selective about the people I add to this journal, make use of filters more, because I do want to be more open. Just not to the entire world, y'know? There was an article in the Toronto Star about the "peep culture" of the internet, and the need to fill the void of dehumanisation by exposing ourselves more on places like Facebook and Twitter. Not that way. But I think it's kind of true.

I read the paper a lot more than people really expect of me.

I've used a lot of aliases over the years. My first internet alias was Kim Longbottom, how many of you knew that? Ekauri, then Kauri, then Kuma (for a short while, and only some places, in the height of my Redwall-anime phase). Rostand (after Edmund Rostand, I was obsessed with Cyrano de Bergerac for a while) for a long while. NicKilty, for a bit after I started RPing (from one of my pups being called Crazy McKilty, which I liked but all permutations of McKilty were taken except the feminine NicKilty). Recently I've started using Beauty. Rita started calling me that as an endearment, and then just as an alternate name. And I like it. I have many reasons, none of which are that I feel particularly beautiful at any given moment and most having to do with Bob and Doug MacKenzie and Robin McKinley.

I feel like most of that last paragraph needed to be footnoted. Or something.

I also feel like I have to . . . reintroduce myself. Things get lost, a lot, in the minutiae of daily life - almost as much as what is revealed. See what I did there? I speak with shadows on my tongue.

So. This will be my aislingi. Beauty, dreaming. (Get it now? Don't you love when the say the title of the movie in the movie itself?)

DreamWidth. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the girl . . . Beauty.