Well hello, lj, it's been a while.

( Okay, since I last posted: )

Okay, just a few more things to do and then I'm off to catch a train to Wakefield to catch a train to Leeds to catch a train to London to catch a train to get to St Albans where I will be seeing some of you YAY.

Leaving for London in two minutes! BSB tonight, AJ tomorrow night, and more importantly seeing a good few of you! Yay!

I don't normally go online before work, for the very good reason that it is STUPID EARLY, and while I can manage to get myself out of the house by seven am, most of it's just well practised sleepwalking. But today is a special day!

First thing: extreme happy birthday wishes to the very wonderful lelise!

Second thing: it is my turn for Awesome April fic, so thanks to msktrnanny for beta, and here goes...


( Circumferences )

It would possibly be accurate to say that I am seeing someone. Would it? I don't know. When do you say that? I've never done this before!

Anyway, he works in my department, but thankfully right at the other end of the (huge) room. I was kind of at that teenage I think he likes me stage for a while, and then he asked me last week if I wanted to have lunch with him, and I was like, okay, and then just before I was going to go and meet him at Starbucks I was having huge misgivings. I mean, I don't DO this type of thing. I don't like people! I don't trust people! But then I went and it went well, he's nice, I like him, he likes me, that kind of thing. So we're doing that again next week, and maybe going out at some point in the future, and we've been doing a lot of emailing. :)

So. yes.

Anyone up for beta duty? I have 1500 words of (nsync) gen due to be awesomised. And probably somewhat Americanised Americanized, come to think of it. So any help with either or both would be appreciated!

Has anyone who is going to the AJ show in London on May 15th got somewhere I can crash/want to share a cheap hotel room for that night? I'm staying with trumpeterofdoom on the 14th after BSB, but I wasn't going to stay for the AJ concert so she's rooming with other people. In very high demand, that one. Anyway, I crumbled and now am going to see AJ (yay!) but don't have anywhere to stay (boo!). I'm quite clean! I have pyjamas with sheep on! Anyone?

Sekrit message for trumpeterofdoom: It *was* All I Have To Give! You know too much!

Dear people: I have been very lax with my posting. I get this way when I've done a lot of socialising (for me) - I have this tendency to retreat into my own space for a while. OR I'm just lazy. You know.

So, just in case you have forgotten, this is what I remember of the awesomeness that was ( Camp Sparkle )

We had an earthquake last night (like you didn't know). I have never experienced an earthquake before, I had NO IDEA what was happening when it woke me up.

First thought: someone is breaking in downstairs.
Second thought: No, that's not right. My brain must be doing mad things again. Bugger.
Third thought: My heart is beating really fast! *tries to feel heartbeat* I can't feel my heartbeat! Maybe I am dead.

Then I went back to sleep. Burglary, psychosis and/or death are not good enough reasons for me not to sleep.

I got up late, no time to watch the news (or eat breakfast or have coffee), got to the station, girl at the station said, "did you feel the earthquake?"

Me: No? Earthquake? When? ... wait, was it around one in the morning? So THAT'S what it was.

Which was a relief. I'm not going mad again, and no-one broke in downstairs (and I'm not dead, although I had rejected that hypothesis by the morning). It still took until about 10:30 this morning for my heartbeat to settle down, but I am a nervous person and that kind of thing's to be expected. Final verdict: somewhat exciting, but I'd rather it happened in the daytime next time. Or not at all. Still, it gave everybody something to talk about at work.

CAMP SPARKLE IN 2 DAYS YAY!!!

Happy birthday to the marvellous turps33! Hope you've had a fantastic day and got properly spoilt.

Sekrit message for trumpeterofdoom: Got the tickets yesterday, you're a star. :)

Dancing on Ice: Chris did CMAR!!!! and he was FANTASTIC. With the dancing at the beginning! And the required element all fancy like that. Who would have ever thought that rubbish Justin from Hollyoaks could be so good at something?

I got my blood test back from the blood bank people, they told me to go to the doctors. I'm still registered at my old doctors, in the village, mainly because I worry that if I see someone who doesn't know me, who never saw me when I was really bad, they'll want me to try going off my meds. That and I hate change. So anyway, it takes me about two hours to get there from work, so I had to take time off to get to an appointment on Wednesday. Doctor said it looks like I'm anaemic, prescribed me iron tablets, and wants me to get another blood test. I was pretty much expecting the anaemia verdict, but I'm now trying to work out getting a blood test. The local hospital only does them on weekdays, so unless I can find another one fairly near that does weekend blood tests I'm going to have to take more time off. I'm not used to trying to work medical appointments around my life. It used to be I just worked my life around medical appointments. I do prefer it this way round, but it's a lot more complicated.

Quick happy birthday to the fabulous rikes! Have a good one!

Okay, you. I need your help. I want to cook more, but I'm shamefully inexperienced at it and very tentative. But being on my own means it's okay if whatever I'm making goes horribly wrong so I'm trying to be more adventurous.

Anyway. I utterly failed to learn anything growing up, so I would like your suggestions, your recipes, your ideas. Recipe books all seem to make things complicated and assume you know basic stuff. Don't assume! I don't know anything! And if I do know I only have performance anxiety and doubt. At the moment I generally subsist on basic stir fries (with packaged sauce) and pasta and things out of tins or packages. And I want to cook at least one meal from scratch every week. I have freezer space now, so anything where I can freeze the surplus and reheat on weeknights is a bonus. I bought a casserole dish and made beef stew last week (mmm, beefy carrots), but I need more ideas.

So tell me: what are the simple things you've made a million times? The ones your mam taught you (or your dad, or whoever). Or, you know, anything you want to tell me. I'm not aiming to be a domestic goddess, just a little bit more capable. I will love you forever!

ETA: I don't have any dietary restrictions apart from not being able to cope with spicy food (much to my shame). Apart from that, I will try anything. Bring it on!

I nearly got blown away yesterday at lunchtime. I am not kidding, I had to hang on to a lamp post. There's a road you have to cross on the way into town from the office, where the specific arrangement of hugely tall building + long straight road + river nearby somehow makes some sort of wind tunnel and yesterday there were gale warnings so it was particularly forceful. We eventually made it across (and back again afterwards), but it was quite an effort. My hat blew inside out! Luckily I was holding onto it. By hometime the police had closed the bridge over the river so I didn't get to repeat the experience.

This week's B3ta newsletter had some good links, including this mad video about a church in America somewhere being moved wholesale on a big lorry to somewhere or other, accompanied by a song composed for the occasion. It barely looks real, everything's so bright and shiny, even the church (which is apparently 100 years old and thus had to be preserved. 100 years old? A mere baby church). And it's zipping around the countryside like in a Monty Python animation, preceded by a choir. ( See! )

( Writing meme )

Very happy birthday to 1000_words!

The benefits of working for a French company: had my first French lesson today. It was somewhat terrifying, but enjoyable. Autrefois, j'etait tres timide, mais maintenent je suis un peu timide seulement. I think?

Also went to give blood at lunchtime, and they don't want it! Rejected! Apparently insufficient haemoglobin - the leaflet says I should be eating broccoli and fish and tofu and wholewheat bread and raisins. LIKE I DO. Also eggs and nuts and spinach, which I never do apart from when they're disguised in things, and red meat and brown rice and beans, which I don't do much. Still, I feel alright, so whatever.

Have been investigating buying train tickets for camp sparkle - in fact I have tried to buy tickets online at the cheap prices, and then it wouldn't accept my card through the verified by visa thing, so I tried again, and again, and then my bank account wouldn't let me get any more money out because all the times I had tried to buy the tickets were showing as debits, and it was all bad, and it's just righting itself now and I'm just going to have to buy them at the station and pay the full price probablement. Damn security software! What use is it if it stops *me* buying anything online with my own bank card! I don't want to have to go to actual shops and do actual transactions with actual people!

It turns out I like a Fall Out Boy song. Or rather, I like the Kanye West remix of a FOB song, which was in with a bundle of Kanye stuff I got from who knows where a while ago and have only just got round to listening to. So I was like, hey, maybe I do like this Fall Out Boy! I am not averse to that. But I looked up the original version on Youtube and wasn't that keen, so I'll stick to the Kanye remixes. The song's This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race, if anyone's interested.

I stayed up waaay too late last night (this morning) to make sure I'd at least glanced at every single story, and I managed to leave feedback for 28 of them, which isn't fantastic but it's a big deal for little old antisocial me.

I have (*counts*) twenty bookmarked as particular favourites, and as I don't think the authors have been revealed yet (although they might have by the time I've finished writing this) I thought I'd just squeeze in my recs.

In no particular order:

Six Steps To Being A Better Stand Up Chris/Justin
This is just a great, long, well-written AU, with a young and slightly unsure and not really completely out Justin having just moved out to Florida and landed a job at Travelstar, and you know who works there, don't you? That's right, everybody. I love these kind of AUs, that pick the whole lot of them up (the girls too) and put them down in a more normal kind of life, and they're still very much them.

It Pays To Advertise Chris/Justin
Yes, I went straight for a couple of Timbertrick stories. DON'T JUDGE ME.
This is another regular job AU, in a London-based advertising firm, and it works in echoes of the kinds of things nsync went through in rl with the bad management, which I loved.

Still In The Running AJ/JC
America's Next Top Model, via the Television Without Pity recaps, and the model hopefuls are our sparkly boys. I've never watched ANTM, but I've been a TWOP reader for *years* (I remember when it used to be Mighty Big TV) and this story reads like the best kind of snarky recapper. HI-larious.

My Big Gay Disney Courtship Joey/JC
JC is landed with the responsibility of introducing Briahna to the Disney Princess DVDs in a non-gender stereotypical way. This is a really interesting take on JC, which actually goes into detail about his little weirdnesses instead of referencing a few bits of fanon-jc and calling it done (which I'm as guilty of as anyone else).

Many Times, Many Ways Chris/JC
Chris and JC, stuck in a snowdrift being annoyed at each other. That's my favourite kind of romantic comedy.

Rescue Chris/Lance
Well-grounded established relationship with lots of little funny moments. Sweet but not saccharine.

A Tale of Dreams and Asses Lance/JC
Reunion fic! This makes me so happy. No pretence that everything's going to be immediately the way it always was, but they're getting there. I want this to be true! Who do I have to go to to make it true?

Year of the Bull Chris/Lance
Lance is a bull, *obviously*. An annoyed bull, at Chris's house. This is very much the kind of insane story that popslash does so well, and I love that.

Charades Joey/Lance
Joey woos Lance with domesticity. We've had a lot of wives to work with this year, and people have had to find ways of working around Joey's obvious happy family man status. And Kelly just always seems so cool, so I'm always glad when someone can make Joey slash work without removing her completely from the equation. Like this!

And You'll Notice My Smile (Is Like Kool-Aid) Lance/Chris
This is just PERFECT, and funny, and PERFECT. Totally and forever. Lance learns how to work his smile.

Someday We'll Stop Confessing Kevin/Nick
I know. KEVIN. KEVIN/NICK. I almost stopped reading when I realised what the pairing was but the writing had already got me. This is a great story. Nick's gone to see a psychic who has told him that he's in love with Kevin. Or, you know, that's what he's told Kevin.

The Rest, As They Say, Is History Chris/JC
I have hardly any idea what is going on here, except that it is genius. It's kind of like a bit of every kind of story. It's kind of like Chris and JC through-the-ages. At one point they are condiments, and it is tragic. Bizarre and wonderful.

Flashes Joey/Chris
What if Joey was the gay one? This is another kind of story I love, that takes the canon we know and makes one little change. And I love the fact that Lance is straight in this - that he can be - and slightly bewildered but totally supportive, like you *know* Joey was in real life.

jc chasez, full of grace JC/JUSTIN'S MOMMA
OH YES. The idea of it just makes me cackle with glee, and the execution is MAGNIFICENT.

Every Dot Com's Refreshing For A Journal Update Chris/Joey
Again, a little change - Chris is a woman. Oh, and I think they're an emo band. The way Chris sees - and loves - all the others feels very *right*. My heart hurts for Britney at the moment, so I was slightly put off by her portrayal here, but I suppose it's true to the way over-protective Chris sees her, hurting his (her) Justin.

Midas Touch JC/Chris
JC has found some ugly magic shoes. Of course! Lots of weird and wonderful turns of phrase, and fun group interaction.

Freaky Deaky AJ/JC
Chris thinks JC needs an angst guru, but JC's really not that complicated. Very funny.

It's Like a Fucking Metaphor: Or Why AJ Hates Wedding Cake AJ/Kevin
I'm not sure if I'm even less likely to read this pairing than Kevin/Nick, because at least that one is Nicky-centric (but then there's the otp breakage). I don't know. What I do know is this is hilarious and wonderful. Although apparently if you hang up on Kevin he APPEARS, like a disapproving phantom, which is slightly adding to the Kevin-fear.

Letters to Prague Justin/Lance
And what would Christmas be without the traditional bit of Lambs mpreg? I ask you. No, don't shy away in horror. This is lovely and subtle and incredibly well-written. And has great Lynn in it, which is always good, even if she's not having sex with JC and traumatising popslashers. In this one.

Hiiiii!

So, Christmas was fun. Ate far too much, and then some more. Presents exchanged, family seen, etc etc.

Thank you so much to my MtYG author! I got a very sweet Howie/Nick futurefic, Just Breathe, where things are just being rekindled. Something lovely to wake up to this morning!

Okay, now I'm off to read some more before my brother gets back from the rugby.

Ps. I'm dying to answer some of my feedback. I think somebody thinks I'm someone who I'm not! *cackle*

Very happy birthday to the wonderful bossymarmalade!

Am currently at parent's house & quickly typing on laptop. Keyboard is too small, I keep hitting the wrong keys.

Just wanted to check in to say I'm probably not going to be able to read any SeSa for a couple of days since I'm not at home, but I am very much looking forward to my story (and all the others)! Will read as soon as I can.

Happy Christmas to all those who celebrate, Happy Tuesday to everyone else. xx

I had fifty billion things I wanted/needed to do this weekend, and have managed to do none of them. Am having a day of procrastination. I think it's recovering from SeSa, which went right to the wire and even then I managed to leave out the FIRST WORD. Thankfully, the mods noticed it started in the middle of a sentence and it has been rescued.

Main point of this post, as I have to really go to bed in a minute b/c I have work in the morning (but only the morning, yay), is to thank all the lovely people who've sent me cards and apologise for not doing so earlier. lesa_soja (wow, you were fast), turloughishere (and lancecat!), stellamira (love the felt reindeer), rikes (that's a piece of wood! I love it!), saba1789 (why is your card French? Are you secretly French?), seiyaharris (is it Becca or Becka?), simplyflyaway (I was not expecting twinkly things! Twinkly things everywhere!), iconis (another lovely handmade card), nopseud (& archie_gremlin), trumpeterofdoom (backstreet omg!), pensnest (you people are so talented), and turps33 (more twinkly things! and I will pretend you didn't mention Kevin ;) )

I'm hoping that's everyone (really need to go to bed). If I've missed anyone out I do apologise. All cards were lovely to receive.

Just want to remind you all I have plenty of cards, so if anyone hasn't filled in the poll and would like a card from me, do it! I used to get through about one box of ten cards in three years like a proper Billy-no-mates. It makes me very happy to be sending out lots this year.

Am enjoying the new job still, especially when people come with spreadsheets for me to fiddle around with and make fancy macros in. Am going to go on the departmental Christmas meal (though I'll probably skip the drinks after), like a sociable person.

turps33's Christmas wishlist included Post about what's making you happy right now. Happy posts are joy. So, especially for Terri:

1. Having people to send Christmas cards to. I like people!

2. My job, as mentioned above, especially when it involves spreadsheets.

3. Sleeping. Not in a I-hate-being-awake kind of way - I like sleeping. I hardly ever get nightmares any more, and when I do they're not nearly as bad, so it's lovely to have a really nice sleep.

4. Trains. I go to work on the train now, rather than the bus. Trains are a much superior form of public transport, because I can read on them without feeling ill. So yay for trains! My train leaves at 7:03, which is a little painful (I told you how I love to sleep), but there's a little knot of trees at each side of the station, and often when I get there the birds are just waking up and calling to each other over the track, chirps and whistles and all these different little songs.

5. Being mostly happy. This still feels quite new to me, and it's so amazing. And I think it's going to last. I used to feel like I was taking meds to suppress who I really am ("who I really am" being a miserable, nervous, guilt-ridden wreck in a horrifying world) but these days I feel like I'm taking meds to combat my illness and *let me* be who I am. It's good.