A bit weird out of context

After 6 months of unemployment, I might finally have a job again. This would be a temp, possibly temp-to-hire, position back at the moving company I was with before I got laid off. Now that they're fixing some of the financial issues caused by previous mismanagement, they're discovering money to bring someone back to the office part time. If they win some of the big logistics projects they've bid on, the position could become a full time permanent position. The best part is that, since it's still part time, I'd still be eligible for supplemental unemployment insurance, I might be eligible to apply for medicaid (no benefits with a new job AND I don't have any loans in default anymore), and I can start putting aside money to deal with some health stuff (starting with my teeth, I need to go to the dentist urgently and having no money or insurance to see a dentist is starting to show).

Today was absolutely beautiful--the weather was warm, the sun was shining, tomorrow my sisters are visiting on the deck, and even though I got eaten alive by mosquitoes while I was talking to Jay on the phone, it was still gorgeous outside and felt so good to be out of the house even a little bit.

Please let this be the start of a turnaround for my life. Please. Please. Please.

One of the things I'd like to start doing is documenting my life by journalling again. We're living in Interesting Times, and I see why this could be considered a curse.
I've made up a calendar on a dry erase board to keep track of who I've written to, and how much time has passed, and when I have recurring commitments. My D&D game has moved entirely online, and we're about to have our 7th session with the new makeup of the Arcane Adventurers on Wednesday. The Arcane Adventurers players are Jacynthia (Kithri), Savannah (Quest), me (Thori), and Jon (Rhogar), and our DM is Cody. I've also taken on the job of cleaning the house every week, since my parents' cleaning person is the caretaker of someone in a vulnerable population. This means that I've managed to accumulate a small hoard of cash, because the closest bank is still 20+ minutes away by car because I never switched away from the bank I had in Lexington.
Today I sent cards to Joe and Fiona, which I got out to the mailbox about 15 minutes after our mail carrier had picked up the mail 😑
I've added my great-aunt to my list of people to write cards to; I've regretted for years that I didn't write to my grandparents more frequently, and now they're both gone, but Aunt Neenie is still here. She'll be 95 in December, and I want to be able to write her while I still can.
For now, I need to get up from this chair and go pee before I start doing the potty dance.
I miss all of your faces, even if I've never seen your faces. I miss people, and going out, and spending time in restaurants. One day we'll be able to be closer than 6' apart, and I hope all of us are alive to see it.

I still have an account on dreamwidth; I actually check my reading list every day, and now that Tumblr is going strikethrough 2.0, I figured I'd post something here for anyone who stumbled upon this page to let them know I'm still alive.

As a relative newbie to perfume and especially to perfume reviews, I've been having such a great time reading smellsgood that I was inspired to finally do something I've been wanting to do since Seanan McGuire announced that Conjure Oils had designed a set of perfume oils around her characters in her October Daye series. I didn't end up buying any sample pips from that collection (I set a hard limit of "no more than $35 on pips" for my first time ordering, and had others that I wanted to try equally as much or more than the 7 pips I could get for that price in the Toby collection), but I did end up with quite a few pips to try. I'm only reviewing some of them, because my nose gets tired, but I'll post the rest in the next couple days.

( Read more... )

Hey y'all, my name is druidspell and this is my first LJ Idol. My best friend encouraged me to participate this year, because I was looking to get back into the swing of writing more frequently, so you can blame phoenixsansfyr for everything ;)
A brief list of relevant information:
I'm a 27 year old asexual woman living in central Texas, and currently in a job I don't love but does provide me with money to pay my bills, so at least there's that.
I majored in English (emphasis on creative writing) and Anthropology during my five semesters of college before I had to drop out for financial and health reasons.
I love reading fantasy, history, and fanfiction.
I have very strong feelings about NHL hockey. I'm a diehard Chicago Blackhawks fan. My greatest accomplishment of 2013 was luring three other people into hockey fandom, and I have made arrangements to be off work during nationally-televised Hawks games.
I cross-stitch, usually while watching Netflix.
I do most of my plotting for writing at work, since aside from basic arithmetic and social niceties I have virtually no need to engage my higher-level thinking at work.
I come from a large extended family, have two older sisters, and one niece. However, my extended family has grown much more distant over the years, and that frequently informs my writing.
I listen to a lot of podcasts--Girl on Guy with Aisha Tyler is a favorite, as well as Welcome to Night Vale and a few fannish and hockey-related shows.

Since moving to Texas, the severity of my depression has been at an all-time low and therefore my creativity is flourishing. I can't wait to get started, and I hope this community will provide me with a lot of positive memories and experiences.

I wrote a thing!

Fandom: Hockey RPF; Chicago Blackhawks
Author: druidspell
Warnings: No AO3 warnings apply.
Summary: A series of text messages and emails between Patrick Sharp, his teammates, his wife, and his best friend. Sharpy's life is so hard, you don't even know.

At the beginning of September, svmadelyn complained about the Hockey RPF fandom being pretty much dead, and she wanted some new fic to read. So she organized the Stickhandled hockey zine, and my story is one of 15 that were finished and submitted by the deadline! I'm rather pleased with how this turned out, especially considering that this is not only my first fanfic in about two or three years, but also my first attempt to write for this fandom :D

I have deleted this fic from the internet; it no longer exists. Fuck the Blackhawks, fuck P*trick K*ne, fuck rape culture, and fuck how betrayed I felt when the news broke.

For my writing project in November (not a proper NaNoWriMo, because I'm not going to torture myself trying to write 50,000 words either longhand or on my phone), I'm writing the origins of my Triad universe--how Gabriel and Elena got together, and how they brought Ana into the mix to eventually form a polyfidelitous triad. Below the cut, I've got some nano prep character work.

( Gabriel/Elena, domestic style )

Originally posted by insunshine at Help Us Support Planned Parenthood

2. Beliefs - The Threefold Rule

In essence, the Threefold Rule is the belief that whatever good or harm you do in this life will come back to you three times (either in intensity or quantity). It's often linked to the most frequently quoted stanza of The Wiccan Rede: "An it harm none, do as thou wilt." ["An" is an archaic word meaning "if," not a shortening of "and."]

My first teacher actually taught my soulsister and I that what we do comes back tenfol, which is a good rule when you're teaching teenagers (who see the world in black and white, for the most part) about ethical use of their abilities--abilities which give them an advantage other people can't always match. If you arrange for the bully to be struck by lightning, that will come back on you ten times worse; it's an effective deterrent.

However, "do no harm" is a bit less than totally practical, especially that as preached by the bunnies, who take "do no harm" to mean "you're not allowed to hurt anybody or anything, ever, for any reason"; who believe that extends to "you can only defend yourself insofar as you don't hurt your attacker." That sort of belief leaves no ro for punishment, which is vital to a healthy community: wrongdoers must be punished, and punishment hurts. It leaves no room for following the discipline of darker gods; my religion isn't all sunshine and rainbows--I worship Brigid, yes, but I also give honor to the Morrigan, and the Lady of Ravens and Wolves is a goddess of death and battle as much as or more than she's a fertility symbol. My guideline is essentially "Do no unnecessary harm." Wrongdoers must be punished and brought to justice, and sometimes justice comes at my hand or gifts. The territory, den, and pack must be defended, and I'm a wolf; sometimes the best defense is to be the last one standing.

I'm a Kentucky girl, which means that the only sport played on a collegiate level that I care about is basketball--specifically, the University of Kentucky Wildcats men's and women's teams. I went to UK, and had the opportunity sophomore year to live among some of the women's basketball players. They work just as hard as their more famous male counterparts, but they get a fraction of the glory; they're some of the nicest people I had the opportunity to meet during my five semesters of classes at UK.

But the real story I want to tell has nothing to do with those women.

When I was in grade school, I looked forward to basketball season ferociously. Every August, I signed up for the school team, starting in grade three, when I played on a coed team at the rec center. Now, I have to be honest: I'm not very good at basketball, especially now that it's been years since I played. I'm adequate at layups, I can dribble well with either hand, I'm pretty good at passing and defense. I never mastered free throws (my depth perception isn't adequate to judge how hard and at what angle I need to shoot a ball into a basket from fifteen feet away) or three point shots. But I LOVE basketball, so I endured running suicides until I wanted to vomit and dealt with shin splints so bad that I broke down and cried during at least three practices that I can remember. I lived for game nights, when forty minutes of incredible effort left me wrung out and shaking, trembling on my bike as I rode home. I even loved watching the games I wasn't playing.

In seventh grade, the second practice of the season, I made my first free throw. It was a complete fluke, and my assistant coach looked at me and grinned. "Do it again," he dared me with a laugh. Miracle of miracles, I did make it. He offered me a high five and I hugged him before lining up with the rest of the team to run a variant of the suicides drill. (The suicide drill, for those not familiar with this act of torture, is where you run from the length of the court from one basket to another, except that it goes like this: from the basket to the foul line; touch the foul line; run back to the basket. From the basket to the three point line; touch the three point line; run back to the basket. From the basket to half court; et cetera and so on until you've touched the opposite boundary and run back to your starting point.) This variant involved running backwards after you touched the line. We ran on the head coach's whistle--when we touched the three point line, as we were running backwards, I tripped.

When I landed, I was stunned for a moment. Both coaches asked if I was alright, and I told them I was fine. I stood back up and lined up with my teammates, but before I could take off with the next whistle, I realized I felt faint, and like a swarm of bees was buzzing in my head and in my right wrist. I motioned my assistant coach over with my left hand and admitted that I might not be so fine. I ended up with a broken right radius that essentially put a halt to my ability to participate in any games for the rest of the season.

However, I may have mentioned this before: I love basketball. Just because I couldn't play in the games, or really participate in the practices, didn't mean I couldn't go to every practice and work on my skills.

So I did. I showed up at the next practice, much to my coaches shock, and requested a basketball so I could work on dribbling with my left hand. They agreed, and I set about making up for the loss of my dominant arm. I stayed through the entire practice, and then showed up to the next one and repeated the process. I watched the plays they were working on as I dribbled so that I could keep up with what was going on. Once my arm was out of the sling, I started running with the team at the beginning of practice. While they were playing scrimmages, I sat on the bench in my team jacket cheering for my teammates. I went to every practice and every game. I ran laps and suicides so I wouldn't get out of practice, and learned to work around my cast so I could practice my passing skills against the wall.

When I got the cast and the brace off and my coach and doctor gave me the okay to play again, I was so happy I had tears in my eyes. On the first game day that I was able to play again, those warm ups before the game were some of the best I'd ever run. When I took the court, my team gave me a standing ovation, and the announcer told the crowd that it was my first game since I'd broken my wrist at the beginning of the season.

At the end of the season when we had our awards banquet with the boys' team, my coaches announced that they'd had a hard choice for almost every award they were handing out. MVP went to our point guard, Brittany; most improved went to Bethany; the next award was for most sportsmanlike behavior. This award was the easiest one to decide, they told the assembled players, coaches, and parents. There was no question of anyone else receiving this trophy. One player had shown up to every practice and every game, and never complained even though she only got minimal playing time. She'd supported her teammates in every way she could, and had been a huge help and inspiration to both coaches and players. "And the award for Most Sportsmanlike Behavior for the Seventh Grade Lady Knights for the 1999-2000 season goes to...Laura."

I was stunned and gratified; to be quite honest, I'm not good enough to play any sport solely for glory or trophies, so I never expected to win any. I sweated and bled and broke a bone and kept going for the sheer love of the game, and because for the duration of basketball season I was a part of a team, whereas I was pretty solitary for the rest of the year. That's why I kept at it, even though I'm really not much of an athlete. I loved working with my teammates, and the exhilaration and accomplishment that came of running miles on the court and the euphoria of making a shot or seeing a play come together perfectly.


And now, a rec:
How to Ditch Your Fairy" by Justine Larbalestier

This book is an amazing, thoughtful, funny book about girls, friendship, relationships, rivalries, magical realism (people have invisible fairies which impact their lives--always hear songs you like fairies, shopping fairies, know what your kids are up to fairies, etc), and also? Sports. This book is a lot about sports, and the characters relationships with sports.

The protagonist, Charlie, attends New Avalon Sports High along with her friends, her crush, and her rival, and all she wants in life is to get rid of her useless and hated fairy (a parking fairy, and she doesn't even drive) and to make the school basketball team. Charlie LIVES for sports, and thrives in the environment of NASH which is governed by rules and regulations. If you love funny YA that passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors and the use of some very creative problem solving, you should pick up this book.

They say it gets better; sometimes it doesn't.

Today I told Fi (and Jay, and Tessa, and Das, and Rebekah, and Ria even though I ran out of characters before I could mention her) that they saved me. And in a big way, that's true.

I've been suffering from major depression for close to 18 years. I was 10 the first time I tried to divide up my property (Bridgette, Jeanna and Maria were getting most of my stuff) in the closest approximation I could manage to a Last Will and Testament. When I was 11, I started thinking of ways to kill myself.
( Edited to cut for the sake of trigger warnings--the rest of this post contains talk that may be triggery for: Suicidal thoughts/actions; Self-harm. )

This is a filk for one of my own stories. Until the Sea Shall Free Them is the story of Lorelei, a mermaid, one of the Folk of Mharaheim, and River, an unwitting Selkie child, meeting, discovering themselves, falling in love, and choosing their own families and their own fates.

This song is a reminder that not every ocean's daughter's love story is a happy one.

Ocean's Daughters
When the sea-girls come a-calling,
Whisper-wailing their mournful tune,
Will you answer? Will you follow
'Neath the light of the cold bright moon?

Ocean's daughters seek to marry;
They'll love you true and love you deep.
But their lovers must be wary
For what the oceans take, they keep.

When a sea-maid seeks a lover
To live beneath the deep dark waves,
Will you swear to love no other
Though the ocean shall be your grave?

Ocean's daughters seek to marry;
They'll love you true and love you deep.
But their lovers must be wary
For what the oceans take, they keep.

When the siren sings her binding,
Weaves salt and sand and brine and blood--
Will you choose her, never minding
That you are not her only love?

Ocean's daughters seek to marry;
They'll love you true and love you deep.
But their lovers must be wary
For what the oceans take, they keep.

The ocean's daughters play for keeps.