slash versus 'real' novels

mmmmm no.

wanted: somewhere other than the slash community where reliably good writers can be found writing something that gives the kind of reliably good high that a good romance does.

look at all that use of the word 'good.'

but you know what i'm saying.

if i throw my hands up and walk away from the archive 'cause i just can't stand another bad one, well, i've got shelves and shelves full of stuff to read. and delany may be unimaginably better than speranza and cherryh may be unimaginably better than our dear m. fae, but when you finish a *fantastic* wonderful brilliantly plotted sf novel, you're *satisfied*, but you haven't been jerked around emotionally and you haven't had your stomach tied into the right kinds of warm slippery knots (although, to be fair to them, they've both written things with romantic content, and cherryh, while no where near delany's brilliance, has written books where the romance was maybe a quarter of so of the plot--this is, however, still not the same).

and you can't just go read romances, either. because commercially published romances aren't reliably good. in fact, they're less reliable than your average slash archive.

back to slogging through mediocre reading material i go, then, in search of the gems. after i wake up in the morning, that is. goodnight, ethel barrymore, whoever you are.

legolas/gimli.

please, people.

i'm dying.

more legolas/gimli.

dreamness

okay, so i had a dream that was mostly, anyway, back in high school. and we were taking the equivalent of an SAT test that was long and on-going and i'd missed about half of it by skipping all my classes first semester. and the whole school was divided (randomly?) into 'teams' with leaders and assistants in a way that reminded me of summer camp, and even though it was supposed to be an intelligence test, they were mostly gauging it with writing--they'd say 'recent memories' and then give you a lot of words and you had to write a paragraph (?) that you associated with it, and then there was a performance part everyone else had been rehearsing for, where you could give a presentation but most everyone was just singing, and i finally realized i could recite poetry, only i couldn't remember the words to neruda's "juegas todos los días," so i was going to have to recite "jabberwocky."

and meanwhile i didn't know what team i was on and assistants, when i asked questions, kept giving me these utterly scathing looks, until i finally found a team-leader who was intrigued by the thought of having someone who would have to write 'N' for all the things i had missed. 'diana says it's because you haven't been here since september,' she said, and then diana (a friend from 8th grade and graduating gold-award member of my girl scout troop) showed up to say she had called and left me a message over the break and why hadn't i called her? and i had to lie.

and then we heard people performing, including the black boy who was my boyfriend in first grade and later the star of the school chorus and widely-known for being eccentric, singing christina aguilera's favorite, 'at last.' i was extremely critical that he couldn't do it as well as kitten_head. 'he doesn't have any soul,' i told anyone who would listen.

tolkien geekiness

you know, i want statistics. how many people get married with tolkien replica rings? that would be a very telling one.

heh.

the sheer geekiness. just the *thought* of it. astounding.

[edit: look!

Nenya TM has been designed with a matching tracer band, so that the ring can be used as a ladies engagement and wedding set. Nenya TM is available with one or two of these bands, as well as by itself. here.

am pretty sure the design pre-dates the movie. this is not the nenya worn by cate blanchett, which i can't imagine anyone using as a wedding band, but really, who knows? people are nuts.]

meh.

i would like to point out for the record that i am very much awake. i'll come back in half an hour ::nudges im buddy list::, hopefully with nutrition. [edit: okay, at, say, 9. central time! mmmrf.]

checkerboard birthday cake for breakfast! damn its siren song.

and you know what else sucks? at 3 am--after a mere 3 hours of sleep!--perry climbed out of bed and couldn't be persuaded back, and i was too sleepy to carry him. he spent the rest of the night on the floor under the desk (sorry, thechaosdiva). now that i'm up, of course, he's exactly in the center of it on top of all the blankets.

when i say 'bed,' realize that i mean 'couch with sheets and blankets on.'

mmmsiriusandremus. going to re-dye hair as soon as it has had time to become sufficiently dirty. can't dye clean hair. 15 days left. dad asks me if i want to go to church--wtf? i make a face. 'thank you for that image.' fuck you too. pffftht. ::grumpgrump::

oh look, that same survey...

...that i was going to take from leyenn, and now waxlet has done it. ::speaking sniff::

( that one that says 'are you a lesbian' totally randomly )

follow them down

cheesy sentimentality.

::stabs things::

::dusts off hands:: thank you.

so i was cleaning the kitchen--shut up. yes, sometimes, i do clean things, but this was part of re-decorating anyway, and i am the family decorator--and that involved removing all my magnetic poetry from the refrigerator, scrubbing it off with 409-lookalike fantastik, throwing away excess stuff and tidying the remainder. and then i started the side of the refrigerator (gave up before i finished), and i discovered, in among the detritii, a lovely 5x7 black and white photo of all of my cousins and myself from my cousin kyndra's wedding last summer. there's jackie in her wheelchair with taylor on her lap, almost all the cousins dressed for the wedding party, kyndra in her wedding dress and myself next to her turned entirely sideways holding jillian, the niecelet and kyndra's daughter up so the camera would catch her face. and my hair is halfway down my back and in the photo, it looks black, because it's black and white.

and i miss it.

my hair is a lot prettier its natural way, really. of course, it will grow back. i'm just going to keep this red for a while longer. i'm still going to re-apply that red dye in a few days, cause while i have it i at least want it read and not coppery.

and i'm glad it's uneven and all, but the long long black hair was much more princess-like (although the bridesmaid dress may not have *hurt* that impression).

here i am, online again. maybe i'll go tape down dropcloths in the new bathroom to be primed--this is my mother's form of blackmail, a requirement if we want to go see ttt this afternoon.

bitches.

chocolate and vanilla cake... with pink icing (it's like the cat in the hat!)

i have checkerboard cake and blackcurrant tea.

last night at the party, a scene for your edification.

lil: you all have to see my birthday cake. it's so great! show them, mommy.
friends: it's pink.
lil: guess what kind of cake it is!
friends: lemon. chocolate. vanilla.
mom: ::cuts the first slice::
sarah, astutely: it's a checkerboard cake.
lillian, proudly: i frosted it. well, mom helped.
mom: that's right. there's chocolate frosting in between the layers...
lil: see the flower?
jordan: did you do the flower?
mom, serving cake: the colored icing, though, that's just a plain buttercream frosting, and that was lillian's choice, not what i would have chosen for this cake, but it's lillian's birthday...

free lotr icons--any takers?