Hi, everyone. I'm still alive, still... around, just very very quiet. I can't believe it's March already and that I'm staring 39 in the face, but at least I have the week off work to cope with getting older. *g*

So, what have I been doing since last I posted? I've been entertaining Mommie Dearest with marathon sessions of seasons of various tv shows (Bones, Midsomer Murders, The Shield, Criminal Minds, the CSIs, NCIS... I'm sensing a pattern here). I've been trying not to get reeled in by the brain-numbing storylines of her many tv soaps. And I've been indulging her with IMDb searches every time she says 'Ooh, where do I know him from?' And we've been gossiping and giggling like 12 year olds and having wonderful fun shopping online.

But now she's back in France, bombing down the motorway like a madwoman as I type, heading away from the place she considers to be home (here), towards the place she'll spend the next ten months wishing she was here - St Tropez, on the Mediterranean coast. She's nuts. And I miss her already.

I've also been busy here at lj, in ship_manifesto, an older comm (5 years old this year - there will be more on this later!), run by a friend who recently put out a plea for assistance. I was helpless to resist. So, I spent a week coding links to the manifestos into the masterlist, and then spent another week organising tags and then tagging every single post in the comm. (A slight touch of OCD can be a wonderful thing. *g*)

And now the hard work is done and my procrasty-pants self is suddenly at a loss for 'things to do that are not writing', and I really want to write, I do, I do, but instead of actually, y'know, writing, I keep trying to find other things to do.

Which reminds me! I've been reading stuff that is not fanfic!

I tried a Sookie Stackhouse book, because my pookie watched a couple of eps of True Blood and fell for Eric the Viking Vampire and poked me until I gave in. *g* Sadly, though she is hooked, I am not. The books are written in first person and Sookie's head is not a place I care to linger. Too many page-long descriptions of who's wearing what, and really? I couldn't care less what colour Bill's socks are. Or that Sookie shaved her legs and her pits and plucked her eyebrows for her date. TMI, girl, really. But my pookie is crushing on Eric, so I endure. ;)

(Want to know how I turned literati into my pookie?:
<lj user="ACTUAL USERNAME" title="FAKE USERNAME"> - at least until lj realise how easily this can be abused. *g*)

Instead, I switched my reading habits to Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden series, which has been recommended to me several times over the years and I've never quite forgotten, just never got around to them. Until now.

I luff Harry. He's irreverent, except when he's not, and he's a hero, even when he knows better. But wow, Jim Butcher really does love hurting that guy! I've read the first two books now and in both, Harry spends a lot of time struggling on through the pain, trying to ignore his injuries and suffering in silence. Is that a thing with these books?

Also? Despite seeing several Harry Dresden/John Marcone prompts at rounds_of_kink last night (See? I'm not entirely avoiding ficiness, just... not writing. *siiiiigh*), I am resisting the urge to slash them. To be honest, the relationship only started getting interesting that way towards the end of the second book, but the potential is there. *headdesk*.

So, back to the writiness of me. I spent a couple of hours last night going through the 1693 prompts over at rounds_of_kink Yes, you read that right - one thousand, six hundred and ninety-three prompts in all manner of fandoms, slash and gen both. I whittled that boggling number down to 31, and then down to 22, and am now trying to bludgeon my procrastypants self into submission. I can do this, I can! Not all 22, you understand, but at least one or two, right? *sigh*

Anyway, this is me, still here, still reading fic, still modding away and thinking about writing. And apparently in a sharing mood today. *g*

I still have fb to reply to and I will, eventually, so please know that if you've commented recently (or not so recently), I do appreciate it and feel all warm and happy over each comment, I just suck at replying at the moment.

{{{hugs and smishes you all}}}


Teeny pimp, cos I just gotta:

ship_manifesto - the place for your "Why I ship this pairing/threesome/moresome" manifestos. All fandoms welcome - live action tv, manga, anime, literature, computer games (Suki, I'm looking at you *g*). Go check out the masterlist! Stake a claim! Share the love! /pimp

One last thing! If you or anyone you know is being inundated with popups, and/or has seen their computer slow down considerably, you may be infected with the Virtumonde/Vundo trojan horse. Spybot, Norton, Symantec, Adaware, AVG (and possibly others) are not catching this. But all is not lost. malwarebytes.org has the solution, and for free! There is a paid, always-on version with automatic updates and scheduled screening, but the freeware version does the job just as well. I diagnosed a customer's computer woes while selling his wife cigarettes and told him to use this prog. He was back in 3 hours with tears of joy in his eyes. Well, okay, he was happy and said thank you, but it works! :D