Motivational posters. Kinda love 'em.

I made this one while taking a genre-specific writing workshop in which it became increasingly evident that some folks didn't know what speculative fiction entailed.



( Here are some of my favorites. )

What're yours?

AUGH, so my Stop Spending Money, Stupid plan kicks into action (again)... nnnow! Now. Right now. I've eaten out three times in the past week. Got groceries. AND BLEW MOST OF MY WRITERLY MONIES ON PLUGS.

( LOOK AT THEM. SEE HOW SHINY. )

I guess it's a good thing I couldn't fob off my (last!) shift tomorrow. Though I do not look forward to walking to work in 90-degree weather. I'll at least make back maybe half of what i just spent D: Who am I kidding, no one wants to go out and about in this horrible heat.

Some recent keyboard smashing has resulted in a 20-page one-shot comic script, which me old friend is in the process of illustrating. I am currently writing another, probably longer script, which was meant to be a horror story but morphed inexorably into a cheerful romp of a thing and is now regaining some dark 'n' gory elements. I'm kind of really excited about this one, because it focuses on characters that haven't been rattling around in my brainpan for half my life, and loosely ties into another series I've been mulling over for a few years, but only in such a way that will be evident if you read the novels. Which I haven't written. Hah.

Know what I've realized? I don't have a single story to which I know the ending that ends on a purely happy note. I don't even know why. It's bittersweet at best. Except this one, I hope.

RT sai12

The saga begins when I noticed a rather large, flesh-colored lump on Pipkin's belly. I took hm to Bright Eyes, Bushy Tails, where a vet divined through the dark arts of modern medicine that the lump was, in fact, a tumor. We scheduled a lumpectomy, and I went to Chicago for less than a week, and when I returned it was to find to my horror that the lump had grown visibly. I don't have any photos of Tyrannolumpus Rex, because Pipkin is a squirmy bastard. But it was easily the size of my thumbnail.

So off we went--that is, Kara, who ought to be nominated for sainthood for driving Pipkin and me at the ass-o'-clock in the morning to get a little hammy operation.

Here he is in his ad hoc ambulance, with the special purple bedding that sai12 bought for him a couple months ago.


And here with a delicious Yogie, also supplied by sai12, and an apple treat.


At one point he bumped his head on the water spout and was liberally dampened. I plopped him on the roof of his hambulance so he could show off his punky 'do.


We left him at the vet's for a few hours, then were called back at around noon to pick him up. The incredibly reassuring, delightful folks at BE,BT called my ornery little friend "sweet." I kind of wish I could have seen him all zonked out and deceptively docile, but alas. He was still recovering from the anesthetic, I think, because he protested less than usual when the kindly vetlady picked him up to show me his stitches.

( Mildly gory stitchery within. )

I took him home with a baggie of pain meds and instructions to keep him separated from Gulliver. Poor Gully--he's never been alone this long in his entire life!


In protest of this isolation, or perhaps to feign additional occupancy of his cage, Gulliver built a nest up on the platform.


Then, in a fit of pique, he shoved some bedding through the bars, and onto floraldeoderant's brand new EeePC.


Meanwhile, Pipkin spent most of his days sleeping and gnawing on giant foodstuffs--sometimes, as it appears in this photo, simultaneously.


While I tried to squirt painkillers into his mouth every 12 hours. The little jerk fastidiously avoided drinking most of it, but he didn't seem especially pain-y.


The good folks at BE,BT called recently to check up on Pipkin's progress. I'll know in a few days if the tumor was malignant or benign. Fingers crossed that this crotchety little fellow still has a good year on him.

O hay. Memetiemz. Have removed the questions dependent on an original poster-respondent rapport. Too lazy to replace them with my own. :P

( I stole this. )

Importing this post from LJ. 'Cause sometimes I have trouble keeping track of things. e_e;

Triple helix: 16g

Inner conch: 12g (most irritating size evar)

Septum: 16g 14g (self-stretched!)

Lobiesx5: 18g

Lobiesx2: goal size = 5/8"
Feb. 15th, 2008 : 6g - 4g (pierced 'n' stretched)
Oct. 19th, 2008 : 4g - 2g (taper + weights)
March 3rd, 2009 : 2g - 0g (taping, approx. 1 week)
May 9th - 15th, 2009 : 0g - 00g (taping + taper + pseudo-dead stretch) STUPID. NEVER AGAIN. Although, miraculously, it has healed quite nicely.

So it's summer. And it's not summer vacation because that would imply only a brief hiatus between two periods of the same-old-same-old, and I'm done with school for now. For the first time in my life, I'm done with school on a semi-long-term basis. Semi-long-term because I plan to come back, for an MFA in creative writing and an MA in history and an MLIS, but have no definite plans on when or where or how that'll be happening.

Being a grown-up? Kinda scary.

At least I know more or less where I'll be at the end of summer. Which, ironically, is back in school but on the other side of the teacher's desk, and on the other side of the world. Terrifying thought, innit? Me, teaching children. Worrisome at best.

Stuff I'm working on now:

getting together F4 visa docs

submitting metamorph to DHC

taking care of my poor ears because I stretched them too fast like a dumbass

Vince is moving out tomorrow morning in a few hours, taking half of the living room furniture and ruining my life. Geh. Everything is happening so fast. After the past year, what with applying to futurethings and writing my thesis, I'd really like to just curl up and hibernate for a couple months, but I guess I'll just have to hit the ground running.