For future reference: This is a how (not) to writers guide for sf/fantasy authors.

Wow. I rock. (or something)

I just whipped out a four page, 1000 word essay in 3 hours... and it doesn't suck! Okay, so I know that's not all that impressive to some of you who, you know, do this writing thing regularly, but given that I suck at writing and I usually dither around at least twice that long for something half that size, that's pretty damn good for me. So there. : P

P.S. I'm also giving myself extra bonus cool-points for the title I came up with: To PC or Not to PC: Political Correctness in the Literary Arena.

I pun, therefore I am.
 

Oh wow. G and I have been married a year already. It doesn't really seem possible.

I, of course, completely forgot. When my mom called up late last week and asked if we wanted her to watch Miss L, my response was "Um... why? What's happening Monday?"

Well, once she'd clued me in, I happily accepted her offer, and the husband and I actually got to go out to dinner yesterday. We had Japanese at the restaurant we used to go so often that the couple who own the place greet us by name. Although there wasn't much I could eat, I could still eat avocado maki rolls, so I was happy. It was also the first time I'd eatten in a restaurant since Miss L was born.

It was supposed to be dinner and a movie, but Miss L woke up and had started screaming, so we gave Indian Jones and the... whatever it is this time a pass and went home to rescue my mom. After soothing the baby back to sleep, G and I broke out the year-old wedding cake--which actually wasn't as awful as I was expecting--then stayed up for a while talking and snuggling on the couch.

It wasn't exactly some grand romantic evening, but even with the dietary restrictions, interrupted evening, and generous contribution to the already overwhelming sleep deficit, I find it had to believe I could have had a nicer night.

We are now the proud parents of baby girl. She was born at 10:16pm last night (March 18th, 2008), weighed in at 8lbs 15.5oz (ouch), and measured 20 inches long.

I have never been so in love.
 

meyerlemon posted a petty whiny complaints meme today which I found extremely amusing. And I really want to be able to contribute, but I just... can't. I can't think of anything to complain about (which is ridiculous, really, because it seems like I spend 90% of my time describing the weird things pregnancy is doing to my body in great detail to anyone who'll listen), but I seem to be feeling... content today.

It's really weird. I'd never really been happy like this before I got pregnant. I mean, it's not like I was always sad or depressed or whatever, and I certainly enjoyed doing fun stuff with friends or reading a good book or watching the sunset, but that was a more momentary sort of happiness. Like I spent most of my time in emotional neutral, and if good stuff happened, it made me happy for a little bit, and bad stuff made me momentarily sad, but either way I returned to "normal" pretty quickly.

Well, right now, (and maybe this is just the pregnancy hormones talking--in fact, I have to wonder if maybe it's not the loss of this feeling that causes post-partum "baby blues"...) I'm happy all of the time. Even when I'm stressed out or tired or physically uncomfortable (which right now seems to be a lot of the time) or actively unhappy about something else, there's still this center of joy, where no matter where I am or what I'm doing I'm still ecstatically happy to be me, exactly where and as I am, right at this moment.

Basically, I can sit here (or drive around in the car or do the dishes or clean up cat vomit) and just revel in the existence of my husband and of our baby growing in my tummy because, even though there are so many other things in my life that are working themselves out in various degrees of not how I wanted, those two things are perfect, and that's enough to make everything (anything) else okay.

It's official. My tummy has grown enough to stick out farther than my boobs. So now, not only do I waddle, I waddle while leading with my not actually all that huge and distended stomach. Joy.

To celebrate the occasion, I ordered some maternity tops online today. (Actually mostly done since all of my clothes seem to have become quite unflattering overnight.) I'd pretty much already outgrown all but the baggiest of my pre-pregnancy pants and skirts, but It's apparently time to retire my regular shirts as well. They're all too short so the tummy panel on maternity pants and stuff shows, plus, you know, they're getting kind of tight across the middle.

And, also, I now know why women wear those stupid "baby on board" shirts. It's not 'cause anyone actually likes those things (I sincerely hope not anyway, or else I've totally just started some sort of maternity wear wank); it's cause they're a way to tell the world that "no, I'm not fat, god damn it! I'm pregnant!"

I mean, while it's exciting 'cause hey, that's my baby growing in there, it's also kind of not 'cause I've spent my whole life having an expanding waistline be a bad thing and that's tough to turn off. Which, of course, makes me feel like the shallowest human being alive because why can't I just be happy with the physical representation of the miracle of life that's growing inside me (or whatever bullshit those serene pregnant ladies think) instead of having some sort of fucked up battle with my self about whether we'll flaunt the bulge or hide it every time I leave the house?

So yes. Baby = yay! Feeling like a the fattest (and shallowest!) of all fat walruses = not so much.

Oh... but new clothes also = yay! so I think maybe I'll call this one a win.

For anyone who doesn't already know: I'm pregnant!

I guess that since we made the family announcement at Thanksgiving, I can go ahead and un-friendslock all the pregnancy-related entries here.
 

today from musesfool:

"The Wizard of Oz" was on, which I probably haven't watched in a good twenty years. So I watched it. And man, the Tin Man is really kinda gay, isn't he? I am not sure how I never noticed that before. The Scarecrow, he's kind of a ladies man, and the Cowardly Lion would like to be, but the Tin Man, he's all for the boys, and for the Scarecrow in particular.

Ahahahaha! Oh fandom... ruining my childhood, one movie at a time.

Well, we're back.

The trip was lots of fun, and Europe was quite beautiful (there will probably be a picpost later). Although, as the hubby has repeatedly pointed out, we probably had one of the least romantic honeymoons in the history of the world. Between exhausting days of hiking to and from landmarks and museums, hours spent standing in line at said landmarks, and our determination to see as much as we could in the time we had, neither of us had much energy left over for fanning any flames, metaphorical or not. The queasiness that plagued me for the last few weeks of the trip was just the last nail in that particular coffin. *shrugs* But, of course, that was what we signed up for. If we wanted romance, we should have spent our four weeks lying on a beach somewhere, rather than trekking across Europe. I for one was very happy with our trip, though I must admit I'm also happy to be home.

Now that we're finally back home, I find I have quite a lot of stuff to do. I have thank you notes to write, at least a couple months of backlogged journals to wade through (so don't be surprised if I suddenly comment on one of your entries from a month ago), and class work to deal with now that the fall semester's underway. Additionally, though the *ahem* queasiness issue will hopefully be settling down in the next couple of weeks, there is all the other stuff that goes along with that to worry about.

I guess I'd better get to work.
 

( OMFG, I'm pregnant!! )
So uhum... ehehehe... yeah.

I guess all the queasiness I've been dealing with wasn't food poisoning after all.
 

We are currently having tons of fun honeymooning in Europe. We'll be gone for 3 more weeks. There will be minimal intenet access, and so probably very few posts. See y'all later.

In no particular order except as they occur to me:

1. I am a MARRIED WOMAN now. This brings much joy. Not only am I married to the man that I love, but also the wedding is FINALLY OVER WITH, and, with any luck, I will NEVER EVER EVER have to do that again. YAY!


2. The Best Man's GF is okay. (As am I, no_utopia. Thank you for asking and for the good wishes. *belatedly hugs back*) The surgery went fine and she was recovered enough to attend the wedding (though she spent much of the reception lying down in one of the bedrooms) wearing the sexy new dress she was very excited about. And, though she was still in some pain on Sunday, they managed to catch their early morning flight back to the east coast, so she must have been feeling at least mostly better. Yay!


3. The wedding itself was very nice, and I had lots of fun (there may be more about this later) which, since I had spent much time angsting about how nothing was turning out at all the way I wanted, was unbelievably better than expected. (I think I used up all my nervousness/unhappiness in the weeks before the wedding, so by the time we actually got there I was quite zen about everything and spent the evening cracking jokes.) So, um... yay!


4. The last of the wedding guests departed early this morning. This included my new in-laws, my new sister-in-law, and my new husband's (OMG, I have a HUSBAND!!!! *squeals like the rabid-est of fangirls*) cousins. I was really nice to see them all again, but I must confess that I was glad to see them go. I have quite enjoyed the first morning in weeks where I got to sleep in as long as I wanted to, which was also quite rather yay.

Hrm... I feel that there was more I wanted to say here, but, despite sleeping 12 hours last night, I'm still exhausted, so I think I'll go take a nap now. Yay!

So we've had good(ish) news.

The best man's girlfriend (the one who we took to the emergency room earlier tonight) is okay, or at least not in any immediate danger. However, there is something wrong enough with her gallbladder that they're going to operate "tomorrow" morning (in about three hours). He just got back from the hospital, and we're all going to try to catch a bit of sleep before medical-type things are scheduled to begin happening.

I'm just really glad she's going to be okay.

The wedding commences in exactly 66 hours and 19 minutes.

There are signs to be made, favor boxes in need of filling and ribboning, we're not sure yet what 3/4 of the wedding party are going to wear, and... oh yeah! We just took the best man's girlfriend to the hostpital with severe stomach cramps. Today is not my friend.

Hopefully tommorrow will be better.

A friend of mine recently lured me into watching Dark Angel.

( probably not actually spoiler-y thoughts )

Anyway, having been indoctrinated into the fandom, I immediately went in search of fanfic and found... well, nothing. Nada. Bupkiss. Okay, so that's not exactly true--fanfiction.net (as previously ranted about) certainly has a lot of DA stuff, but if there was anything much worth reading, I couldn't find it.

So, can anyone rec me some decent DA fic? Please? I'm not picky; I'll read any pairing (het, slash or gen) in just about any genre. So please, take pity on me and send some recs my way. I need my fix, goddammit!

In other news, I wrote pr0n! Heh heh. *looks around shiftly to see if the decency police have come for her yet* The overwhelming abundance of Max/Alec super-fluffy romance!sex on ff.net made me write 2000+ words of smutty heat!sex in sheer self defense. It's NC-17, and um... not fluffy. It's also my first attempt at PWP, so I'm kind of unsure about the quality, and I'm looking for someone to beta. ( porn snippet sample ) So, Anyone interested?

*Is busy, not dead*
*Is off to slog through her 'to do' list before she drowns in it*

Dear life,

    When I dropped my Japanese class, I wasn't doing it to give you more leeway to fuck me over. The thing this morning... You know, where I was supposed to go in and ace my physics test, but instead I fell down the stairs, sprained my wrist, banged the hell out of my knee, scraped up my arm, and spent the morning at the emergency room? Yeah, that thing. That was seriously not on. And did it have to be the right arm? It it really that important to the space-time continuum that I fail my remaining classes this semester? There has to be a less painful way of accomplishing that. Maybe next time I could win an all expenses paid, month long trip to Europe or something? Please?

    In conclusion: I hate you. Please stop fucking me up.

      - Ob

from crimsonclad by way of helpwess:

( They r on ur inturnetz, makin u laff! )
 

Okay... so, I was wrong. The one episode I saw on TV while house sitting for my parents (they have cable, we do not), was season 2, episode 1. I know this because I just finished watching season 1. That's right, I watched all 22 episodes in something like 76 hours. I... I just... oh my god, I love this show.

( cut for fangirly ranting and possible spoilers )