You are viewing dragonlady7

A · Life

happy new year!

Recent Entries · Archive · Friends · Profile

* * *
I miss having online conversations. I'm finally managing to engage with other people on Tumblr and Twitter, but it is literally impossible to have any kind of meaningful conversation on there. Some of the people I know from Tumblr are on LJ, so I suppose I could try to find them here. But it's just so goddamn annoying, all of it.
2013 was a mixed bag. Mostly, more of the same. I'm still at my stupid retail job. I'm still on the same roller derby team. (This'll be the 8th year). The only change from routine is that in mid-November I fell off a concrete step and sprained both ankles-- the left one I just rolled a little and it was sort of ok, but the right one, I really did a number on, and stretched out the ligaments in the ankle syndesmosis, which is the whole web of connective tissue that attaches the bones of the lower leg to each other and to the ankle bones. It hurt like a bitch and I couldn't bear weight on it for a full week, and had to wear an orthotic knee-high brace boot thing (which I dubbed Moonboot) for over six weeks. I finally started being able to handle a whole workday sans Moonboot... this week. So yeah.
I will, obviously, not be skating in the season opener in less than two weeks.
I am tentatively considering putting skates on again next month. Really, tentatively. I successfully stood on my tiptoes to reach something yesterday for the first time.
So that's what's up.

I sublimated my feelings through writing, this past year, like I normally do. I figure tentatively that my total output for the year was in the 500,000-word range. So that's good, I suppose. I mean, in that it's not the healthiest coping strategy, but not the unhealthiest. I'm still on reasonable crazy pills so I'm not in as dire a shape as I usually am in Januaries, but I'm really not feeling so great either. Whatever. That's what depression does.
Most of what I wrote was Stargate: Atlantis fanfiction. Not because the show was so great, mind you, but because the characters were, and the setting had so much potential, and it's been a perfect vehicle for me to work on a lot of things I've historically sucked at, writing-wise-- especially emotionally-constipated protagonists who can't talk about their feelings. God, everything I've written before has featured heroes who talked about their feelings endlessly, and I always knew it wasn't quite what I wanted, but I never had a good motivation to fix it until I started trying to write John Sheppard. Who, in canon, can't even finish sentences and literally free-climbs skyscrapers to escape feelings conversations.
It's been a hoot, at least.
I finally got an AO3 account, like the cool kids have had for a little while-- so I'm cleaning up old stuff to post it there, and putting up new stuff at an alarming rate. (I've got an almost 8,000-word chapter mellowing that I'm probably gonna put up later today. I think I wrote the bulk of it in a single day. My output is amazing. Too bad it's not something I can do with paid work.) What's really awful is my realizing how much of my stuff I just can't find anymore, that I never really had a clean draft of anywhere on my computer. I'm such an idiot, I sometimes did final edits on a story directly into the text-entry field on various fic archives or LJ.
I should probably go back through this journal and make some attempt at organizing and archiving it. But y'know. Depression. I can't even get my fucking laundry done, how am I gonna get my online life in order?

I do have a paid tech writing gig waiting for me to go through and figure out how to do it and generate a quote. Fuck me, I've got no idea how to quote that out. But if I can get that done, and get my portfolio together, I might be able to parlay that into a tech writing or support job, which would be something to get me out of retail. I don't mind the retail job, except that I do. And Abusive Coworker (I've probably mentioned her on here before? It's been years) is currently out on maternity leave but verbally abused me for like twenty minutes on almost her last day, and has promised she'll be back after she's done with maternity leave. And that's my goal-- be the fuck out of there before she gets back, because I will not be spoken to like that ever again.

I also took a class in silkscreening (the concrete step I fell off was in the arts building, during the class) and am just consumed with desire to make art with textiles. I've been dealing with this desire a long time, and now I really, really feel like I have to try it, so I might make some things with an eye toward starting an Etsy shop. I have a sort of half-formed long-term goal idea in mind, of tying this in with my sister's farming business somehow-- oh, more on my sister in a minute-- but like all things, I can ruminate and plan and speculate forever, but there's no substitute for actually doing. So I'm going to just do some things. Though unfortunately, a great deal of the budget I'd planned on using for materials is going to have to go to pay for, you know, the ER, the crutches (those fuckers were three hundred fucking dollars, are you serious?), the Moonboot, $60 every time I see an orthopedist, etcetera. Whatever!

Back to my sister, and other news-news-- my babiest sister gave birth to her own baby the day before yesterday, in her own house (this was planned and midwives were in attendance)-- a perfectly beautifully healthy 7-pound, 19-inch daughter named Willa (for Willard, our maternal grandfather, and William, her husband's grandfather). So that was cool. She's working in the fundraising department of the local NPR affiliate (Troy area, near our ancestral homestead), and her husband is the farm manager for an organic farm-- they moved back from Illinois partly in order to breed, since our family is more supportive than the husband's family in terms of real usefulness and lack of insanity. My other little sister moved back to Troy from Colorado, so I've gone in almost one fell swoop from being the closest duckling to home (at 300 miles' distance) to the third-farthest. (Older sister, Katy, still wins, being still in Savannah, now with three children.)

And my other 2013 news was that I bought myself a car. A new, never-before-owned-by-anyone-else car. It's a 2014 Subaru Crosstrek, which is basically an Impreza jacked up onto an SUV suspension. Tiny almost-SUV, which means I can see better in traffic. It has proven itself to be a phenomenally fun ride in all the snow we've had lately, and I wish, I wish I had somewhere to take it offroading because while the Impreza I used to have (a 1996 hand-me-up from Babiest Sister) was fun, it had no ground clearance and I was usually justifiably worried about wrecking the suspension. (Part of the reason I got rid of it was issues with the CV joints.) But this one? Actually has off-roading instructions in the owner's manual. So hey baybee! That *is* how I learned to drive, after all.
By far the coolest thing about this car, however, is that the radio accepts a USB stick full of mp3 files as a valid input. I've got every episode of Welcome to Night Vale, plus a bunch of assorted music, on there. It's a far cry from the only CD I could get to read in the old Impreza-- which was a Wintersun CD a coworker burned me on impulse, and I just listened to it on repeat because I couldn't get anything else to work in that stereo. Cookie Monster speed metal in dodgy Scandinavian English. Yeah.

OK, that's it for now, LJ. I miss you all and am sort of caught up on some things, and don't know if I'll stay around here long, but I always say that, and we'll see. Maybe comment notifications work now! Maybe not.
Sorry if this breaks your friends-page. I'm super out of practice at this.
* * *
* * *
[User Picture]
On January 6th, 2014 03:20 am (UTC), singswithtrees commented:
Hi there! Long time no see/talk/whatever. It's good seeing that I'm not the only one who's attempting to make a comeback here after growing dissatisfied to some extent with Tumblr.
* * *
[User Picture]
On January 6th, 2014 09:32 pm (UTC), kkatowll commented:
Yay! You've come back! I love your posts. Y'know, I started a LJ account solely to keep in touch with you and one other friend. So get to posting, I'm happy to read it. :)
* * *
[User Picture]
On January 6th, 2014 11:40 pm (UTC), tehta commented:
Hey! Can't write much as am currently traveling around Peru, where internet access is patchy. But great to see you around again! And thanks for posting the E/G - I will pump it in my LJ later. (I still reread your half finished stories about those two from time to time...)

Bummer about the legs. I broke an ankle three years back and had Operations and was on crutches for months, so I can sympathize.
* * *

Previous Entry · Leave a comment · Share · Next Entry

* * *