and miles to go before I sleep

This is all actually cut-and-pasted from my private journal, in a post from March 2010. I felt that I should repost it now, with the Avengers blowing up and more people falling in love with Le Renner.

I just woke up from a super-super detailed dream that was sort of a period film? I think it started out in the 60's but then it switched to the 40's or 50's. In it, Jeremy Renner (the lead actor from the Hurt Locker) was a psychic looking into the disappearance of a young woman and her paramour.

It started out with Ben Stiller - who was some kind of shy, poor, cynical photographer/artiste - being told by a rich old dude to please hang out with his son (the paramour), the son's girlfriend, and the girlfriend's sister*, you know, show them the sights. Actually the father also rather crudely asked Stiller to get his son some girls, since things were dicey with the girlfriend; I got the impression that the father didn't like her. Stiller's character immediately developed a crush on the girlfriend's pretty, sweet younger sister and was paying her all his attentions. Unfortunately, this didn't turn out in his favor: while the two of them were hanging out in the park the son and his girlfriend walked into a nearby cafe and vanished.

Enter Stiller's two friends, one of whom was Jeremy Renner's character (I don't know who the other dude was played by - he was very tall, and had a real mother-hen personality). Stiller was in hot water with the cops and the millionaire, and everyone wanted to know what happened. He begged his friends for help; I got the impression that Renner had sometimes worked as a detective or something? Anyway, he started working on the case: he followed his visions to the edge of town and a barn, where he 'saw' the girl and boy being forced into a car by mysterious people. He sensed that the girl was pregnant: she and the son had been planning to slip away for an illegal abortion, but something went sideways and they're in trouble. He knew the baby is still alive. He couldn't tell about anyone else. There was something else the vision was trying to tell him, but he can't figure out what. It had led him up into a barn hayloft, overlooking the area where they'd been taken. From there he could see red dirt on the ground in two straight lines.

Stiller, the sister, and the mother-hen dude were sort of dubiously following him around, and then a car pulled up with a couple of black dudes inside, the main one played by Don Cheadle. They were well-dressed, a pair of slick businessmen representing the interests of the local black community; apparently a black girl who worked in the cafe as a dishwasher had gone missing at the same time and they were trying to figure out what had happened, since obviously no one else gave a shit. Stiller and the mother-hen dude were wary and maybe a little bit racist, but Renner just crouched in the dust beside the dude's car to ask him questions and even shared a pull from the flask tucked in his shirt (after darting a guilty glance at the mother-hen dude, who glared back angrily - I got the feeling that Renner's character had had some problems with booze).

In the middle of their conversation, in which the businessman revealed there wasn't any real connection between the son and girlfriend and the black girl besides the fact that they disappeared at the same time from the same place, Renner glanced out over the barn's yard, froze, then jumped up on top of the businessman's very fancy car. Ignoring his cries of indignation, Renner recalled that in the vision he'd been blinded by the sun as he watched them being pushed into the car. "West," he said, pointing in that direction. "They went West."

And then I woke up.**

Now that I'm awake, I'm still deciphering clues in the dream. (And thinking that my brain really mis-cast Ben Stiller, but that's a whole 'nother issue.) That red dirt underneath where the bad guys' car had been parked - maybe clay? That possibly could have led them to a quarry or something. But how was the dishwasher involved? Was it a kidnapping plot? If so, why hadn't any demands been made to the millionaire father? Why would the son and daughter have disappeared in such a public fashion in order to get an abortion, instead of manufacturing some story about taking a 'vacation' and slipping away overseas? Maybe they were afraid of the father, and the dishwasher girl was part of some kind of illegal abortion ring. How would the bad guys know where to grab them, though?

Now I'm imagining that they go to see the dishwasher's family, and her daughter is acting all fidgety. Suddenly the kidnapped girl's sister hears a voice in her head saying, Start crying. She jumps a foot before realizing that Renner's character is staring at her fixedly. Start crying, he tells her silently again and she starts sobbing melodramatically, a really bad performance. He sort of rolls his eyes but it does the trick: he asks the dishwasher's daughter to go outside with the crying sister, then goes out too and questions her. And by "questions" I mean, he leans in close and looks straight into her brain and says, "She was helping them get an abortion, right? How much were they paying? Where were they going to get it?" She starts crying and the sister intervenes, letting her go back inside.

Once she's gone Renner turns to the sister and says, "They were paying the dishwasher $500, but she doesn't know where they were going."

And the sister stares open-mouthed up at him. She hadn't really believed it before, but she does now.

*I didn't cast the sister at the time, but now--obviously--she is played by Scarlett Johansson.
**I have dreams like this all the fucking time. No, seriously. My brain, ladies and gentlemen.

So, there's that.


On Saturday my dad sat me down and handed me a little bell. He explained that he got it from this guy at work who rides a motorcycle. Apparently Dad had noticed that the guy had a similar bell hanging from the axle of his bike, and when he asked about it the guy told him it was a Spirit Bell.

Spirit Bells are worn to ward off evil spirits that might harm travelers. Apparently the evil spirits hear the bells and are startled into fleeing instead of attacking. Spirit Bells cannot be bought for yourself: they have to be given to you by a fellow biker.

So this guy told my dad this story and he thought it was pretty cool. Then, a week later, he was riding his bicycle home when he heard a strange noise. Looking down, he realized that the guy had hung a little bell on the front wheel of my dad's bike.

And now I have one. :) Thanks, Dad. Hope that it'll ward off the dreaded Right Hook.


On Sunday I got to see a solar eclipse! It wasn't quite total, I was a little too north for that, but most of the sun was blocked out. It created quite a stir on the unit, as everyone from patients to the residents went hurrying to the west side of the building. We rigged up one of the empty rooms to be an observation deck: we have both blackout and sheer curtains, and one of the student nurses got the bright idea to roll the sheer curtains down so that we could look through it at the sun.

And now I've seen a solar eclipse! Huzzah.


How're you, my lovelies?

So...sleepy...

Previously, on Spartacus: the Nasir/Agron edit, Sparty & Co. got a whole bunch of new Germanic recruits, Agron and Crixus had round 5,000 of their glare-off, and Gannicus kidnapped the wife of the Big Bad, Glabber.

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Everyday Weapons
PG-13
Natasha/Clint
Warnings: None. Unbetaed.

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Also:


That's especially hilarious because I'm pretty sure they're both gay.

So, I accidentally a comment not!fic Clint&Natasha backstory here. (Scroll down to the bottom.) I've never read the comics so the characterizations and canon are based entirely on the movie. I disavow all.

ALSO, if someone knows of good, lengthy fic about these two, with or without the other Avengers, please do link me! I don't really have any interest in the big four, but H'OH MY GOD the two master assassins, yes please. I would read ALL THE FIC about them being friends/partners/lovers/enemies/whatever.

ETA: found some!
http://hariboo-smirks.livejournal.com/301452.html?thread=2500748#t2500748
http://hariboo-smirks.livejournal.com/301452.html?thread=2514060#t2514060
http://hariboo-smirks.livejournal.com/301452.html?thread=2499468#t2552204 (AND THIS ONE OH MY GOD THIS ONE)
http://experimentallycanthropy.tumblr.com/post/22524644684/fic-thorazine-for-the-lady-knives-for-the-gentleman (NO NO THIS ONE OH MY GOD but why do you post it to Tumblr, dear author, whyyyy?)

I'm currently trucking my way through a depressive cycle. Longtime readers will know that I have periodic bouts of depression, periodic meaning "every three months, like clockwork, for the last ten years." I have no idea why three months. All I know is that the last two weeks of January, April, July, and October are pretty much guaranteed to be shitty for me.

Fortunately I'm surprisingly good at compartmentalizing. Most of the time I don't think that people even know when I'm unhappy, because I can kind of shut the bad feelings into boxes for an extended period of time and then go do whatever I need to. Keep calm and carry on, etc etc.

This recent bout of bad stuff has been focused on a girl. It's been a while since I've been in love; I'd forgotten how shitty it is. Maybe things work out for other people, but they never damn well do for me. Which, I realize: asexual, homo-romantic, Dominant, geeky loner. It's not like there are a lot of people who hit all of those bases.

But this girl did. Which is why it sucks especially hard that she doesn't reciprocate, because how rare is that going to be for someone like me?

So it's back into the little boxes I go.

This post contains fannish opinions that, judging from my flist, are unpopular. :/ Alas. I wish I could have gotten into the Avengers fandom with y'all, that seems like where everyone is going these days, but with one precious exception the whole movie left me cool.

Not cold, exactly, or at least not as cold as Thor. It was entertaining! There were times that I laughed out loud, especially at the Hulk using Loki as a flyswatter. It was a well-made film. Joss Whedon, bless him, mostly corralled this massive monstrosity into something viewable.

RDJ was funny. This was the only version of Bruce Banner that made sense to me. Captain America was completely boring. Samuel L. Jackson was Samuel L. Jackson. Thor didn't seem as over-the-top as he did in his own film, which was both good and bad.

But there was all of one, exactly ONE moment in the film where I felt like I actually cared about what was happening onscreen: when Barton finally shook off his mind-whammy, and he and Natasha were talking. Apparently Scarlett Johansson and Jeremy Renner are friends off-camera, and that really showed through, because there was this second where Hawkeye murmured, "Tasha," real quiet and gentle, not even in a sexy way, just in a way that indicated intimacy and caring and HISTORY and why the fuck couldn't they make a movie just about the two of them? Seriously, you had to waste all that money on a ridiculous Norse god rather than two people who had actual chemistry and emotional heft?? I want to see their backstory! I want to see them at odds with one another, her playing mindgames and him choosing not to kill her like SHIELD wanted (and how much trouble did he get in for that, I wonder??).

The rest of it...meh. I'm waiting for The Dark Knight Rises.

(WARNING: This post contains ample discussion about death, dead bodies, and spirituality.)

The other day a nurse asked me to help her with death protocol. No, seriously, that's what she called it.

The patient was an older man, maybe in his 70's. I don't know his name or what he died of. Fortunately he wasn't very big so it only took the two of us to maneuver him. The nurse went over his whole body, taking out the lines and IVs; I helped lift his arms and legs whenever she needed a different angle. Rigor mortis hadn't set in yet, so he was just kind of floppy in a way I've never seen before. Even patients in a coma have some unconscious muscle tension, but this guy was just...nothing.

She sent me to get a body bag and when I came back she'd conjured some string out of nowhere. We tied his arms together at his wrists and his legs together at the ankles, to keep his limbs from flopping around when we turned him. She covered his face with a towel to catch any secretions that might leak out of his mouth. There was already a towel underneath his butt.

We spread the body bag out on the bed next to him, then tilted him first one way and pushed the bag halfway under him, then the other and pulled it fully underneath. That achieved, we removed the towels and string, secured the toe tags, and zipped him up.

"Made in China," the nurse wearily noted, tapping the body bag's label. "We go out of this world in a bag made in China."


I've been thinking about it a lot and I would really like to start going to church, probably an Episcopal denomination in my area. It's something I've thought a lot about before. It's not that I think Christianity has all the answers, but in facing death every day and seeing the way that people go from something to nothing, I'm finding it increasingly hard to believe that death is the end, full stop. There was this guy a while ago who went from walking around and talking and laughing to full cardiac arrest to dead in two minutes flat. I was the last person who spoke to him. I just--I can't see stuff like that and NOT believe that there's something after this.

So, I'd like to start feeling more connected to whatever it is that's out there. Again, I don't think that Christianity is necessarily the "right" way to connect, but it's the one most available to me. If there were Temples everywhere in my area, I'd become Jewish. However, I live in a predominately Christian country and Episcopalians are notoriously queer-positive, soooo.

I might start talking about my church experiences on this journal. I want to make it very clear that I'm not trying to evangelize anyone; this is strictly my personal experience. But I talk about a lot of stuff here, and I'd like to talk about that, too. If that isn't something you want to read, I'll understand.


Did you ever think when the hearse rolls by
That you may be the next to die?

Ahahaha, oh god, in trying to talk myself out of a very bad mood today I accidentally gave myself an Agron/Nasir surfer AU bunny.

Nasir is the young Gold Coast surf instructor with Maori tats and a sweet smile. (Going with the actor's ethnicity rather than the character's.) Agron is the rough-around-the-edges drifter who rolls down from Brisbane with his whole life packed into his car. He's two months out of a prison sentence: he was a part-time thug until his partner--who also happened to be his little brother Duro--bought it in a deal gone bad.

Now Agron's sort of drifting through the civilian world, still in the half-feral crouch of a prisoner looking to watch his own back. On the half-demanded advice of his parole officer, Dom Spartacus, he signs up for surfing class. At first Nasir despairs of teaching his particular technique to a long-limbed, thick-skulled brute, but the first time he manages to get upright on a crest, a grin breaks out so wide on Agron's face that it takes Nasir's breath away.

But! The past is close behind! Some thug friends from Agron's old life make contact, and threaten to destroy this fragile new world he's found! Or something!

Previously, on Spartacus: the Nasir/Agron edit...Nasir and Agron made out! Agron made overtures of peace to Crixus, who shot them down. Gannicus made overtures of reconciliation to Oeny, who shot them down, dismembered their corpse, burned the pieces, and salted the fucking Earth. Spartacus tried to sway Gannicus to their side but they wound up fighting instead, and Gannicus took his toys and went home.

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Previously, on Spartacus: the Nasir/Agron edit...our intrepid heroes totally brought down the Capua arena in order to save Crixus and Oeny, Gannicus and Oeny had unfinished business, Nasir and Agron shared a first kiss, and Lucy Lawless was still bananas. Seriously, I'm only recapping the Nasir&Agron section of the show (with some asides for Gannicus because he's awesome), but it's worth watching for the Lucretia storyline, too. No one does crazy, cunning snake-in-the-grass like Lucy Lawless.

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The day is upon us! The electronic version of my YA fantasy novel "Timshel" is now available for purchase, for the low price of $5.99!

You can buy it at the following locations:

Barnes & Noble (specifically for Nook)
Amazon (specifically for Kindle)
All-Romance eBooks
Kobo eBooks

I know some people had asked about print versions, but the print version won't actually be out for a little while. I will let you know when it is!





*shrieks, runs away to become a hermit*

Previously, on Spartacus: the Nasir/Agron edit, Spartacus, Mira, Crixus, and Nasir went on a suicide mission to save Naevia, Crixus' wife, which did not go well. Crixus and some Other Guy got captured and were taken back to prison where they met up with another former gladiator, Oenemeis(?). Nasir got stabbed! Agron saved the day.

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I HAZ A BOOK COVER. And only two days left to the release date, eek! I admit, it's somewhat terrifying. Not quite as terrifying as realizing that by writing this and putting it up on Facebook and everywhere else, I'm essentially coming out to my entire family, hahah, some of which are kind of conservative, AHAHAHAHA. HA.

Anyway. The book will be available in both print and digital formats, but I get a much bigger cut of the digital sales so if you can buy that version both I and my bank account will love you. However you choose to buy, you can do so from Barnes&Noble, Amazon, and directly from the publisher's website. I'll provide links as soon as they go live.

Please link to your flists! Please spread the word! Please read and review! PLEASE BRING ME SOME BOOZE.

Also, if you want to link to some visuals but don't have space for the full cover: here's a banner!

Hey, y'all, it's a week until the official legit version of Timshel is released! You can read the first chapter here on my author blog.

This is only a slight exaggeration. THEN I had to find my own way back.

It's interesting how each unit in the hospital is kind of like its own country, with its own customs. Allegedly we even have our own flags that are used to represent us at big public galas, but I have yet to see them. We definitely have our own shirts: they say "Got Rhythm?" and an ECG heartbeat design.

This semi-autonomy does have some interesting side effects...in particular, the process by which we share resources between units. Usually this is a process of careful negotiation: our HUC will call their HUC, an envoy is sent, a guide meets them and guides/guards them in the supply room. But every now and then, time and necessity make such a diplomatic process impossible, and a raiding party must be sent.

Recently I was sent on just such a raid. It was a busy day, we were nearly full up, and the overhead page had just announced a code on the floor above ours. Usually codes come to our floor, but due to one thing and another we didn't have a code bed at the time. Add to that, we were having a code of our own. This was no time for diplomacy, so when a nurse turned to me and told me to go find a bed, I girded my loins, gathered my courage, and set out to raid another unit.

Stealing a bed is no small matter, both literally and figuratively. They are heavy, and the adult critical care beds that we use on our unit are few and far between. No unit would be ready willing to part with theirs, and most had them hidden away in back hallways. Fortunately I knew a shortcut to said back hallways, and went creeping through them.

At first my efforts proved in vain, and worse I stumbled out of the back hallway of one unit into the front reception of another, where I met with sharp suspicion. Fortune proved to be on my side, however: one of the nurses at the front desk was clearly new and innocent to the ways of supply raids, because she readily identified a back storage area where they kept their beds. I fled in that direction but lo! My prize was already being claimed by a raider from another unit! We growled and snarled over the bed like wolves over a carcass, until I noticed another bed behind her, half-hidden under piled mattresses. I released my hold on the first bed--its raider staggered away still bearing the marks of my teeth--and claimed the second.

Victorious, I returned to my unit to the glory and praise that befits a conquering hero.

(Also only slightly exaggerated.)

Last week, on Spartacus: the Nasir/Agron edit--our heroes met, threatened each other with serious bodily harm, and killed some fucking Romans! Also, in non-gay-power-couple-news, Lucy Lawless is B-A-N-A-N-A-anas.

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On the word of dancinbutterfly, I sought out and watched the recent season of Starz's "Spartacus," their ultraviolent, ultratrashy version of the famous slave revolt in Ancient Rome. It was, as promised, ultraviolent and ultratrashy: nary a tit or cock went uncovered, and the amount of blood that poured forth from inflicted wounds bordered on comical, like the Black Knight in Monty Python.

HOWEVER, I enjoyed the twisty moments of betrayal, the scheming women (though I could have done without some of the rape, good lord), and, well, Nasir&Agron. NASIR&AGRON. Little Man and snarky German!

Come, friends! Let me guide your fucking feet on the path through these trashy, ridiculous waters, for there is much glorious manlove to behold!

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I feel I should explain that last one: our hospital has a sister hospital next door that's exclusively for children. The wards at the children's hospital are given code names to make them a little bit more kid-friendly and possibly slightly less horrifying--because really, who wouldn't get depressed if they heard pages all the time for someone to return to the child's oncology unit?

That does mean, though, that we get bizarre pages for shit going down in places named Pink Chipmunk and Purple Frog. Everyone else must be used to it by now, but I still laugh every time.

I think I'm really settling into this job and the idea of nursing as a career. For instance, I've already formed a dislike of doctors. I'm not saying that every nurse everywhere doesn't like doctors, but there really does seem to be an Us Vs. Them vibe on the unit, and every other I've been to. At first I tried to avoid that, but after seeing one too many MDiot treat patients with simply awful bedside manner or block the freaking code carts with their little mobile computer pods, I'm firmly entrenched on the nurses' side of this cold war. There are of course some excellent doctors and some terrible nurses, but the trenches have been dug, my friends.

In other news, I can now confirm that my gay YA fantasy novel Timshel will be coming out on 4/20. We actually could still have rushed the edits and gotten it out on the original date, but when they offered 4/20 as an alternative, I couldn't pass it up. All for the LOLs. ;)

Somehow despite not being in the Merlin fandom, I managed to give hermette a bunny for her birthday, based on the single hottest porn shoot I have ever seen. (Massively, massively NSFW link. There's a gay BDSM gangbang, y'all.)

Here's the full-length bunny I sent her:
( Full bunny )


Someone should write that for her birthday! Though really, I'd be thrilled if anyone wrote fic in ANY fandom based on that shoot.