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☆ Signups for trickortreatex are open. I'M... CONSIDERING IT. But I'm not sure! I'm going to be doing a different exchange during October; a single-fandom one arranged by the Hetalia Writers Discord. Parameters are only 500-1k words, which is manageable. But, two exchanges? Plus that zine entry on top of it - Mnhhhh best not to. (Maybe I will just put some horror requests in my HWD signup? :D?) I guess I'll just keep my eyes on the requests in case of treating.

☆ One of my former coworkers had a baby this weekend. It was very premature, and things were looking quite difficult for a while there, but it seems everything is okay now. Normally I don't knit things for my coworkers - it seems like there is always someone who's having a kid, I can't keep track of them all and if I did I would be knitting nonstop - but I kind of want to do something nice for her, since we did work together for quite a while before she left. Got to find a decent pattern, I guess... and pick up some suitable yarn before I leave on vacation.

☆ Speaking of which - yes, it's coming up soon! I'm leaving for Ottawa at assfuck in the morning on Saturday. So, looking forward to that. Though I kind of wish the getting-there part was over with; never do like that bit very much. ;) My aunt lives there, so I contacted her to ask if she'd like to meet up. Part of me wasn't crazy about the idea, but I think it's just that I'm not feeling very social today. It'll probably be better when I get there. Might see if I can meet up with Lilly too. Ah, well, whatever happens, it'll be nice to get away from home. :)

So... tired. Ugh, it was one of those Mondays, you know how it is.

Discovered that I will not, in fact, have the house to myself this weekend. It's really disappointing (in fact, I'm actually kind of upset about it) because I had some plans, but - oh well. I'll just shift the stuff that I was planning up to the Friday night, and do everything in a slapdash halfassed way as always. Ugh.

Ah, well. No point in grumping about it.

Good things: Trick or Treat Exchange has been absolutely crazy; over 800 gifts in the collection at this time, and everyone has at least two gifts (which is amazing, considering the number of signups). Someone even hit the "one fic over 20k" part of the bingo square, wow. I'm really looking forward to reading everything, even though I won't be able to do so until late on Halloween night.

NaNo starts very soon. I plan to work on my Yuletide exchange fic. And buckets of self-indulgent nonsense. And who knows what else. (Feeling a little bit uninspired lately, but I'm sure once I start poking at things, it will help...)

Anyway. Last night I watched Near Dark (1987). If you're looking for some horror, and you like vampires, this might be a good one to try. It has a certain take that I don't see often (won't go into details - it'd be a spoiler), plus the southern USA setting is one that I don't usually come across for vampires - well, okay, I've seen plenty of canons with vampires in Louisiana, but not many with them in Oklahoma/Kansas/etc. ;p

Hmmm, Halloween tomorrow... I'm really looking forward to dressing up in my raven costume to hand out candy. <3 That'll be nice.

You know it's time for bed when you accidentally put the relationships in the characters field... Maybe it's best to just, like, not let me near Ao3 ever. (Or maybe I could get some proper sleep for a change -- nah.)

Today was utterly nasty. Windy and cold and rainy all at once. I took one look outside, and decided to not even bother going out or anything, because it looked seriously unpleasant. (And now I feel like a lump, but, well. That's how it goes.)

Finished my letter* for trickortreatex. You guys should all consider doing this one~ I love this exchange so much! Mmm, that bite-sized minimum wordcount. Delicious. :D

Leaving for vacation this Friday... Aahh! It'll be nice to go somewhere, even if it's somewhere I've been before - well, Victoria is always nice. Haven't decided what to do when I'll get there, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. Though, considering so much of the Pacific coast is on fire, I'm a little worried about smoke. Not physically, but well - ugh, I'll just deal with it somehow if I see/smell it, I guess.

On an unrelated note, I made a crustless quiche thing yesterday, and it turned out really good. ...I had supervision for it, but eh. At least it turned out. ~Learning experience~ and all that. We were going to do another one of my recipes from that book of Fruilian cooking, but we took one look at the time/temperature suggested for baking the frittata, and were like "... this seems off". Sooo... we used one of mom's recipes instead. I might dump it here later - going to have to look for the card first.

( Dziady etc; pagan stuff )

☆ Today was very relaxing. Aside from cleaning and running a couple of errands, I did nothing but loaf around, read a little, and watch art streams. It was nice! This past week has been so stressful, and I think I really needed to... decompress a bit, I guess you could say. But hooo boy, I'd best not repeat this tomorrow. One day of loafing is quite enough, thank you.

☆ Noms have opened for trickortreatex! Whoo! I'm really looking forward to this exchange. The 300-word minimum is just perfect for my tastes right now, really. Now, to get that letter written. I'm not sure how I'll even be able to decide what to request... Narrowing it down is going to be so hard. Especially since this is character-based matching, rather than pairings. Hmmm....

☆ My parents are on vacation, which means that I'm alone in the house, which means I'm able to practice cooking without imposing on anyone or annoying anybody with the mess or using up ingredients that are reserved for something else or subjecting anybody to my failures. Huzzah. It's so ridiculous - I can make desserts just fine; I can't think of a single time I've ever messed up when making something sweet. But cooking actual, you know, food? Well, I'm essentially not allowed to do it unless everyone else is absent or incapacitated, because it usually turns out wrong (not inedible, just... not good). It's not like I'm magically going to get better at it in the span of these few days, of course, but every attempt is one step toward sucking less! Yeah!

☆ Reading: Finished Trans/Portraits*. I was expecting it to be interesting - and it was - but it was also really good. This book is made up of snips of interviews with trans people commenting on various subjects related to being transgender in the USA, and it provides a wide variety of trans perspectives; there was a lot of effort toward showing how broad and varied the experience is, and how there's no singular way to exist. Worth a read if that subject interests you. This book has been on my radar for a while, since the local library has it, but I didn't get around to reading it until now because... well, this book, like most of the other nonfiction LGBT books at our library, is focused on the USA. And while I'm glad that they have these, I'm really more interested in the subject as it applies to Canada, for obvious reasons. So I've been kind of poking around these books and getting frustrated because, argh, this is almost what I want, but not quite.... (Clearly this means I need to research around for titles that are relevant to Canada, and inter-library them or something, but ugh, effort.)

☆ It's starting to get a little bit cooler now. I'm glad for it; for a while there, summer was a little too much for me to handle. Have a lovely weekend, everyone.

☆ Nice little things: Rice pudding, coffee with egg nogg, and cinnamon. I love this time of year.

☆ Yuletide Exchange fic is done. D O N E. Done! Yay! Maybe if I find some energy, I'll write a second story for this exchange. But it's nice to know what I'm finished with all of the required stuff.

☆ I received a late treat for Trick or Treat exchange! *_* Monument by Idonae. Ex Machina, ~600, 0+. Lovely use of language. Go read it if you enjoy this fandom. <3

☆ I've seen people mentioning the December Talking Meme again... Considering I post so frequently, I figure, it probably isn't necessary. ;p But if there's anything in particular you all would be interested in me yammering on about, drop a comment. Though I leave no guarantees that I'll get to it, of course.

☆ Trick or Treat Ex fics are revealed. Yay! Too tired to link individually right now, so, my gift page is here, 3 SSSS & 1 Ex Machina. They're all wonderful, and I'm very happy with them. I highly suggest reading them if you like those fandoms. And also suggest browsing through the collection in general, honestly. Lots of good stuff this year.

☆ There was a Russia/Norway during time of the Pomor Trade fanart on my dash and it made me very happy.

☆ I received my assignment for Silent Night Ex. This is something that I can definitely work with, and I have an idea already, so I'm happy with it. Looking forward to starting it - probably not until weekend, but who knows. Treats might happen, but after ToT, I'm a little bit treated out, so we'll see.

☆ I also finally have a somewhat solid idea for my Yuletide assignment, or at least something to hang an idea on and develop it, so that's something. Hopefully will get to that this weekend as well. I thought I might have to review the entire canon, but it looks like I might be able to avoid that, which is nice.

☆ SSSS's latest update is family trees for all the main characters. We have a lot of new names for character background, hooray. The fandom's going nuts. It's nice to see. :D (And now I finally have official names that I can use if I ever want to follow my dreams and write stuff about Sigrun's parents, yesssssss)

☆ I am very tired. So tired. The tiredest. And also it's cold.

☆ NaNo started today but I'm too braindead to write a single sentence of fiction, fml.

☆ Why am I incapable of finding a black nail polish that doesn't chip like a motherfucker. WHY. Is there a solution to my woes? ...The answer is probably "Illamasqua", and to that, I stare dead-eyed and say, "Conversion rates and international shipping".

I came home to unexpected postcards from Nunuut and Melusine. <3 Lovely! It's always nice to find such a surprise. (Speaking of which, I have postcards that I need to mail, myself... going to have to get around to that soon.)

The days are starting to get really, really short, and man, am I ever glad that I bought those jogging reflectors. It's pitch black by the time I'm heading home, and visibility on these streets is pretty bad. They do the job for now, at least. I'm not sure how it'll be once we're deeper into the winter, but we'll see.

Oof, it's been a long day. Mondays always are, especially when I'm doing the longer shifts... I'd expected to get a bit of writing done when I got home, or at least editing, but nope. It was an evening of: turn off brain, knit while watching some Rose of Versailles, and then go for a run. That's it. Oh, well. Tomorrow, maybe. I just feel better when I'm able to get something written down. I spend all day with so many ideas swimming around in my head, so it's really disappointing to come home and feel like a big blob of blah, incapable of doing anything that requires any thought at all.

Not to mention, I still have a lot of stories for Trick or Treat Exchange that need to be polished and sent to a beta; they pass the bus test, but they still need just a little bit more tweaking. Just a little bit more....

A lot of people have signed up for silentnightex, and I'm really excited. So many more than I'd expected! (Perhaps a few more will join in? Signups are open for a few more days...) Though I must say, I'm a little bit concerned about some of the worries I've heard going around - mostly "I'm worried my work won't be good enough, especially compared to so-and-so" type stuff. It's a handful of people that I've heard it from now, not just one person, and all of the people who have said such things are folks that I'd love to receive fanwork from. I don't really know how to reassure everybody that it's going to be just fine; I guess it's just that people tend to judge themselves rather harshly, unfortunately. And I'm the same way, sometimes, so I guess I don't really have room to criticize. (Do as I suggest, not as I do....)

Speaking of SSSS, today's page sure is a doozy. YIKES! For a second I didn't understand what I was looking at, but then... ohhh dear. I wonder how the hell the crew's going to get out of this one.

☆ I'm really, really, really happy with my assignment for trickortreatex. In fact, I've already started on the story. If I'm lucky, I'll end up writing my recip two stories. ...Either way, I'm going to do my best to write them something really cool. I wasn't expecting to match to this person at all, but it's pretty exciting to be writing for someone completely new. Hopefully they'll like what I'm putting together. ...I've also started working on a treat. :D There are so many people I can treat in this exchange! Don't know how many I'll manage, but I'm going to try.

☆ Things are going to get kind of busy soon - I've got a lot of projects on the go - aaand that means I'm faced with coming up with creative ways to handle it all. Wonderful. We'll see what happens. ;V As long as I don't bite off more than I can chew, it'll be fine. Some fandom places have been kind of annoying me lately, so it'll do good to spend time doing other things. And it might help with some real-life stuff, hard to say. Even though it's been months since the fire, I'm still not quite up to my usual routine, in a lot of ways. Maybe a fixed number of small, time-definted commitments will help me feel more, hmm, mentally organized. I hope so.

☆ The nightly PokeGo walks have been kind of an experiment. I've been trying to keep to dark-safe areas (in other words, not crossing any major roads). What I've found is - it's excellent for egg hatching and buddywalking; I can typically hatch one 5km egg in one night, as usual. Downside is, it's absolutely crap for catching anything. Like I've mentioned before - this is kind of a dead area. I think one of these nights I'm going to expand a little, heading slightly south - there's an area that I haven't explored yet, and it might have something interesting (or at least a pokestop). Small chance, but you never know. Yesterday, I did discover that there is a gym that I didn't previously know about - on the other side of the highway. So, not dark-safe at all, but good to know. ...Anyway. By the weekend, I'm going to need to fill up on eggs again; I have two in the incubators, and then just one 5km left. It's nice to get them all out of my inventory, but I expect I'll find it hard to get motivated to go out when there isn't anything to hatch.

☆ Signups for trickortreatex are open! (And my letter is here.) I'm so excited for this exchange, you guys. I'm crossing my fingers in hopes that somebody will request some horror in a canon that I can write; that would be so cool. But if not... still fun! The low minimum is so freeing. <3 And I remember that I really enjoyed treating for it last year. (I'm still really pleased with that Ex Machina fic, honestly.)

☆ I should (keyword, should) be getting access to the extra phone again tonight. I think. WHICH MEANS... PokeGo time. YESSS. I'm so excited for the update that I've been hearing about, oh man. It sounds great. While I've heard some lukewarm response on certain things (mainly people disappointed about the distance you have to walk in order to get candy) it doesn't sound like much trouble for me, because my nightly circuit is roughly 5km anyway. Though, soon I'm going to have to buy some reflectors or something, to wear when I go out, because it's starting to get pretty dark really early up here, and safety is a concern. Not a big deal, though.

☆ SSSS fandom had an awesome, unexpected reveal yesterday. :D We finally have a first name and character design for Grandma Hotakainen - Ensi Hotakainen. SHE LOOKS SO COOL! I was so excited, I just had to whip up something quick*. And Folie wrote something too - go read it, it's great. I hope we'll get more information about her in the future; what little we currently have to go by makes her seem like she's a character who'd be very much to my taste. I love tough older women.

☆ Found myself listening to the Frozen soundtrack this afternoon, and got knocked over with a whole bunch of feelings. Wham, right in the kisser! Yes, yes, "Let It Go" is super overplayed, but... man, I still love it. Probably because I over-identify with Elsa to an almost embarrassing degree, but I've heard that's not unusual. Looks like I'm due for a rewatch - especially since there will probably be some requests for Trick or Treat, and while I'd love to write for it, I'm not sure I can manage that without doing canon review. Come to think of it, my Ideas doc has several personal fics that I wanted to write but never got around to, as well. Some day, some day....

☆ I FINALLY figured out how to sign in to the library and, among other things, borrow ebooks. SCORE. I WIN. Usually I prefer paper anyway, but this is great for travel. And for, like, cases where the books are basically bricks (here's looking at you, later portions of the Harry Potter series....) Unfortunately, there are also a lot of bricks that I want to read that aren't in the ebook system. One of said bricks is With Fire and Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz; after discovering that the library had the novel (but unfortunately not the film as well), I went to take a look and... oh dear. Um. It's huge. And my arms were already full of other books. xD Some day I will grab that bigass hardcover and cart it home, but er, not this week, thank you. There's also this one biography of Van Gogh; it looks amazing and the only reason I haven't read it yet is because it's enormous and hardcover and weighs over a kilogram.

☆ I spent more money than I should have on indie fragrance sample vials. My brain is telling me I should know better. My nose is excited about autumn limited editions. The nose wins - this time. Really though, I'm super excited (argh, just wish that the mail didn't take so long to get here) - last year, Traveling Vardo had some real winners.

Fffu. I'm working on an exchange letter for Trick or Treat right now, and man, it's so hard to put these things together. The problem is, I like so many things! All the things! Well, maybe not all the things, but most things. So, it's really hard to narrow it down and form some coherent requests. It's one of the reasons that I prefer treating, really. OH WELL... I've finished requests for 3 out of 5 fandoms I could potentially ask for, so technically I could call it done if I wanted to. ;V

Today was nice and sunny. I wish I'd spent more time out walking, but I was starting to feel unwell, so I had to return home earlier than expected. It would have been nice to sit on the bench out in front of the pond and knit for a while... oh, well. Maybe tomorrow? If I feel better. These stomach problems are a typical thing, and I know how to deal with them, but they sure are inconvenient. ;V

Didn't get as much writing done as I'd wanted to. Was aiming for 2k, but only managed 1k. My ultimate goal is to write 100k in total this year, but in order to reach that, I'm going to have to write 8.5k per month until the end of the year. Upside is, today I finished a poem, and got some significant work done on a treat for Femslash Exchange. Hah! Signups aren't even closed yet. 8) Bless people who put their letters up promptly, says I. Though this story might end up long and challenging - hopefully I'll be able to finish it within the deadline.

Also managed to get a decent amount of work done on something else, and... man. It's one of those fics, you know, the kind where I feel a little uneasy about writing it because I just know that I'm exposing too much. Letting the id all hang out, so to speak. [/drags a hand down face] WELL THEN. I'll just write it anyway - it's not like I've ever let that stop me. I mean, it's not like I'll be posting it beyond my archive anyway. But. Yeahhhh, I dunno. Whatever. ;V