Yes, I have sombrero pictures. No, I'm not posting them here.

I searched Google Maps for the universe's crotch, but all it brought me was a bunch of sports equipment and gun stores and a bookshop in NYC's West Village. So, either the universe's crotch isn't on Google Maps, or its location is in a retail store. Equally likely options, I think.

Life in general has improved a lot since my last post, so to borrow a tradition from the Very Longest Thread on Ravelry, I'm going to post...

Five Cheerful Things:

1. The agent hunt is underway! This gives me a big dumb grin. I've gotten nothing but rejections so far, but I find the whole process oddly thrilling. (The last time I queried literary agents, I proclaimed myself a letterhead hunter and started tacking rejection letters up on my wall like trophies from a big game hunt. Writer friends have told me this isn't normal behavior. They're probably just jealous because they lack safari hats.)

2. Hobbes may be an old dog with an old dog bladder and old dog ears, but he still seems to be enjoying himself. And because of the hearing loss, he can't hear the front door opening anymore when he's sleeping on the couch. Which means instead of waking up and doing his "OMFG A PERSON BARKBARKBARKBARKBARK" routine when I get home from work, he's been waking up to me petting him. Which means I get to come home to a sweet old dog sleeping in a patch of sunlight.


(Five seconds after this peaceful sight, he's awake and breathing the dreaded Stink at my face, usually while I've got my mouth open to say hello, and then there's gagging and a momentary plea for the merciful hand of death. You can't smell the Stink through the internet, you lucky reader.)

3. My birthday was last Thursday, and several cheerful things happened that day, which I'll condense into one item on the list: I got the day off work, my brother washed all my dirty dishes, and my friends took me out to Boca Chica for dinner, where a waitress put a tiny pink sombrero on my head and gave me a free sundae that was about the same size as the sombrero. Oh, and I baked show-offably good cookies.


4. Supernatural, a show that's given me years of fangirlish glee and more than a couple of plot ideas - a show that I never expected to reach the five seasons its creators had planned for it (because how do weird little shows that I love ever live that long?), has been renewed for a sixth season. I'm a little embarrassed by how happy this news makes me.

Actually, fuck embarrassment. I LOVE THIS SHOW! I love the characters! I love the world! I love that it tells the kinds of stories I would write if I were on the show's writing staff, but twists them so they're even better than what I'd come up with! I don't think I've ever been this invested in a TV show. Every time I think about having one more year of that, I start grinning.

5. I'm not on fire, falling out a tenth-story window, or being chased by zombies at this particular moment. Always something to celebrate!

My knitting mojo is still gone, and I've had to place a moratorium on new projects due to lack of time (thanks, school!), but the projects I've got in progress seem to be coming along nicely. I'll post some writing tomorrow.

This blog is now about Misha Collins.

Once again: not dead. I've just been buried in revision and...erm...things.

Oh, hell. No use trying to skirt the issue.

I've been doing Supernatural fandom crap. Fic writing, fan art, collecting animated gifs like they were precious metals - y'know, the usual crazy fan-person stuff. It's sort of eating my free time right now, and I'm sort of happy to let it.

In my defense, Misha Collins made me do it. He busted into the series last season as a dude named Castiel who quickly became one of my favorite characters in the series (possibly of all the characters I'm watching on TV right now). He basically dragged me into writing fan fiction for the first time since high school, totally against my will. I didn't mean to write it. I just stared too deeply into his eyes on the screen, and when I came to I was covered in Cheetos dust and I had a pseudonymous LiveJournal account* with like five fics posted on it.

So you can see how it's not my fault. Things just happen when you stare at Misha Collins for too long.


Things like this:


I haven't had the motivation to finish a digital painting - even a speed painting like this - in ages. Not, apparently, until Misha Collins spent a whole scene illuminated by firelight.

So, let this be a lesson to you: DON'T STARE DIRECTLY AT THE MAN. Just don't do it. For your own self-preservation.

(I think maybe you can stare at him if you use a hand mirror, but I haven't tested this theory, so don't blame me if you try it and find yourself making LOLMisha macros at 4am.)

*All my fandom crap is under a pseudonym because I'm not sure I want the name I'm trying to get published under to come up with a bunch of crack!fic when agents Google it. But one of these days I'll have to write an essay on why fan fiction is an incredibly useful practice.

TV is the cure-all.

Well, I'm home.

I was going to write about how awesome it is to travel by myself because I can step off the bus at a McDonald's and order a Happy Meal just for the hell of it.

...But then on the way into St. Paul, I watched a hit and run on the interstate. A sedan in the next lane over got rear-ended and crashed into the median. The cop car that hit it didn't even slow down. A woman on my bus called 911, and the operator didn't seem to believe her when she said a cop car was responsible. Half the people on the bus saw it - the lights and siren were going, and traffic was trying to pull over for it (the sedan included, but not fast enough evidently).

Oh, hey, faith in humanity, how're you today? You look a little thin. Have you eaten today? I'd give you my Happy Meal, but I already ate it.

As soon as I got home, Kiah started cheering me up with my usual insta-cure. We took a trip to Super America for energy drinks and candy, followed by a marathon of all the shows I missed while I was away: House, Battlestar Gallactica, Supernatural, and now Lost. I'm loving Desmond's mismatched shades/cap/scarf combo.

Me: "Desmond, you look doofy."
Kiah: "He's in his rock star/professional baseball player/gay scarf designer disguise. So Whitmore can't find him!"

These are the things I care about after two servings of mango-orange energy drink and a Wonka Bar.