Inside Voices

This is the kind of present you get when you raise a fangirl.

The awesomeness of hickumu once again knows no bounds.

"Now I want to write a Supernatural/Good Omens crossover, and it's all your fault!"

Robin - to me.

Score. :-)

Today, Robin and I finished a journey started almost ten months ago.

We watched the final episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

To say that I timed Robin's exposure to this show *perfectly* is understating the truth. She has fallen so completely in love with this show that it reminds me of my first flush of true fannish love. That isn't to say her reaction has been identical to mine. While we are both true Buffy/Angel 'shippers, she has definitely had her own opinions on different episodes and characters.

She likes Dawn. I *hated* Dawn. Of course, she was fifteen the first time she saw Dawn.

I was thirty-two.

One way her reactions are very much like me is that she has been writing 'fic set in the Buffy 'verse. Good 'fic too, so far quite well received on Fanfiction.net. Her primary focus has been on an AU established following "Passions" on a very simple premise:

What if Buffy had chosen to kill Angel at the end of that episode instead of saving Giles?

The result is quite interesting - instead of Angel, a newly vamped *Giles* forms the third member of the Spike-Dru "gang". And instead of Dru's lover and rival with Spike for her affections, Vamp Giles has allowed Dru to adopt him as her "Daddy". Deeply sick and twisted, and disturbingly well written, considering it's *my* sixteen year old penning the tale.

Her current 'fic, however, crosses into truly inspired crack-fic territory. She's rewritten "I Only Have Eyes for You" in her alternate universe.

With Oz and Dru in the central roles.

Think about it. Oz and Dru interacting as the vessels for James and Grace.

Kissing.

Declaring their love for each other.

And she makes it *work*! It's *good*!

This fact disturbs me almost as much as how well she wrote Vamp Giles' first feeding.

I've truly created a monster.

"The way to save your need for your greatest endeavour is to metaphorically find your way past the string in your pocket."

It's not *precisely* what she said, because I don't remember exactly how she phrased the first few words, but it's almost exact. She was apologizing for it "not making sense" this morning (it's something she remembered saying in her dreams last night).

I think it's potentially brilliant. :)

For those of you that might have been wondering -- not only did Robin survive her third degree black belt test, she kicked *major* ass.

I shot videos. They will be uploaded as soon as I can stop running long enough to set up an account on YouTube. They're seriously awesome viewing, if you can ignore me screaming like a lunatic in the background. ;)

The best part is that the entire evening was a perfect object lesson in setting goals, working for them and achieving them. Robin is currently one of the highest ranked (if not possibly *the* highest ranked) women in the United States in this discipline (modification of Choi Kwang Do).

Not too shabby for a modern-day high school sophomore. *g*

Oh, and the seminar the school is hosting that she tested at involves people from all over the world. Robin has developed ( Grindar, you probably don't want to click here. )

Hee!

I probably should recap Monday at D*Con at some point, but as time is passing and the day was mostly a jumble of packing, selling, and saying good-bye to everyone...not a high priority.

I did want to share with you what was waiting for me this morning in my inbox. It being that school has started once more, and I have not paused long enough to get the two desktop units straightened out, Robin is once more sending me files to print for school.

And once more, her snark is enough to do a mother proud. *sniff*

Once more into the breach, dear mother! Where I shall risk life and brain cells to scrounge a few scraps of precious, life-giving extra credit, facing down complex formulas and idiots...once more, into the breach, dear mother...

...all right, all right. In modern language, please print.

*giggle* If you ever see me in an "I <3 My Geek" shirt, no it's not going to be for any *adult* in my life.

We also had Parent-Teacher Night on Wednesday (I think the term is "Back To School Night" now, but they're essentially the same thing). Wow -- first impression is that sophomore parents are, on the whole, far less motivated to go to these things than freshman parents. I guess it makes some sense, but the latent control-freak in me doesn't like being that frakkin' ignorant about where and with whom my daughter spends the bulk of her time.

Aside from that, though, I do see why she has the impressions of her teachers that she does. Surprisingly this is the year that grindar scores on the teachers and I -- sadly -- am largely full of fail. Her Chemistry and Geometry teachers are *awesome*. The geometry teacher in particular seems calm and level-headed, and speaks exactly the way Robin best responds to. This is good, as geometry was the only "C" I ever got in high school. The subject still gives me virtual hives.

In contrast, her Italian teacher just didn't show up -- and apparently didn't bother to tell anyone she wasn't showing up. New Media Tech didn't show either, but at least she had an excuse and a stand-in. World History guy was all right. Robin likes him well enough, and of all her subjects I'm probably the least worried about her ability to do well in any type of history class. Her entrepeneurship teacher did not really impress me, but the information he has available in his classroom does, so that's probably a wash.

And then there's English. *shakes head sadly* She's a nice enough lady, but the last thing I want is a ten minute breast-beating on how many critically important tests sophomores are subjected to, and how much PRESSURE they're under all the time. o.O Personally, I've never found it useful to harp on how much pressure kids are supposedly under until you see if, well, they *are* under actual pressure. But that's just me, I guess. I told Robin on the drive home that the tests her teacher was so wigged out about were actually no big deal -- and certainly nothing she had to even remotely worry about failing.

I also got to meet some of her new friends. There are a cluster of them in geometry -- all female, and all fairly nice. The four of them (including Robin) have given themselves nicknames from Naruto. I gave Robin a little grief for not encouraging everyone in the direction of an anime' I was more familiar with, and then spent some time letting the group of them help me connect names to costumes. By the end of it, I was rewarded with choruses of "your Mom is *so* cool!", which just inflates my ego like little else. *g*

"Mom," Robin told me later, "you have to understand -- bringing you around my friends only improves my standing."

Heh. How many mothers of fifteen year olds get to hear that?

*whine* But I don’t want to listen to the replay of yesterday’s meeting!

Seriously…for loving my job as much as I do, I’ve been doing some whining about it this week. Mornings are just hard. I don’t want to spend the money or the calories on Starbucks on the way in, but I haven’t been good at all about getting real, honest-to-goodness sleep this week. Initially I was trying, but I was at that point of being *so* overtired that sleep was impossible.

Later on in the week, I just quit pretending. That’s what the weekend’s for, right?

No club night at least. There’s a huge trade show in town (which could be interesting to check out), and E decided it wasn’t worth having people set up to vend. He’s still doing the regular second Saturday thing, but it’s going to be more of a “meet and greet” party than the usual gig. At least that’s what he told me last time I checked in with him…I should probably give him a call just to touch base, but excessive communication with people has definitely been filed under “too much effort” this week.

D*Con talk flying fast and furious. Can. Not. Wait! Any of you off my f-list that are attending (that don’t already know this), I can be easily tracked down during the day at the Offworld Designs t-shirt booth. We’re in the regular dealer’s room, not the hoity-toity “exhibitors hall”. I’d tell you precisely where, but as everything is relocating to the Hilton this year I really don’t know where we’re positioned precisely. Just look for the biggest t-shirt display in the room and the completely over-caffeinated, short-haired salesperson handling anywhere from between one and five customers simultaneously. I probably won’t be able to do much more than say “hi” and try and sell you a t-shirt, but I *love* being able to put faces to LJ handles! Stop by!

Not entirely sure what’s going on this weekend, which is both surprising and weird. My weekends have been at least partially set in stone for so long, this is definitely going to be something different. One thing I do know is that Robin is turning FIFTEEN on Sunday.

Fifteen. That’s like a real age and everything. Age to be reckoned with. A mere three years standing between her and adulthood. Between her and high school graduation. Between her and college. Between…

Okay, I’d better stop before grindar goes catatonic.

Oh how I've missed you!

"Convicted in Absentia":

42,879 / 100,000 (42.9%)

As I said over on nanonov, with luck and a few hours at Starbucks, I *should* pass the NaNo mark today. If not, definitely tomorrow.

50K in 10-11 days? I'll take that. Particularly when a lot of the past week has been devoted to rewriting/polishing the first couple of chapters. I know, I know -- not supposed to do that during NaNo (and I wouldn't recommend it for most people) -- but at the pace I've been setting, I don't think it's really going to hurt my ability to complete this thing on time.

Plus, I want to be able to have the first three chapters ready to go out in a query package by November 30 -- which means editing/polishing. Luckily it hasn't required much -- my characters are all in a cooperative mood and more than ready to party.

The big challenge on the horizon story-wise is that I've had to write in two additional characters. One of them is going to *really* want to go with Jason and Diane on their adventures and, well, she can't. She'll interfere, she'll weigh down the storyline, and she'll just generally make me miserable.

Ironically enough, she's already causing me problems. Her name (nickname, actually) is Callie, and she's the team mechanic. *facepalm* No wonder she's annoying me right now.

Been fighting off a cold and general ickiness all week. It's not a surprise -- between life and having my brain tied up in this book, I'm not sleeping well or sufficiently. I'm *really* trying to do better, but it's probably going to be touch and go until the end of the month.

Allergy issues aren't helping, but I invested in some Tylenol Day/Night formula for Robin (who's also been suffering), and it appears to be really wonderful stuff. Haven't tried the nighttime stuff yet; it knocked Robin on her ass last weekend, so I've been kind of leery.

Of course she *does* have her father's nonexistant tolerance for those kind of medications...but on the other hand, I haven't been suffering all that much.

Things around the apartment have been surprisingly calm. We're entering another week of Dad charting reasonable/normal bloodsugar readings, so for the first time in nearly a year I'm not dreading his labs next week. Everything else has gotten more manageable as well -- he's listening to Mom and I more, and actually *asking* for help instead of trying to pretend he can still do things. I'm probably going to have to bite the bullet and just handle helping him get dressed while we're away Thanksgiving week, but I definitely want to ease Mom back into that position as quickly as possible.

Not surprisingly (to me, at any rate), Mom is doing *much* better. She's still going in for surgery on the 27th (and needs to), but she hasn't suffered any adverse effects from cutting back the valium dosage. In fact, she's had a lot more energy -- last weekend was the first in far too long that she didn't spend most of it in bed. She's also been offered the possibility of more temp work in December at the Clerk's office, and is considering the possibility that she could be able to do it with a walker. If her doctor agrees -- I think it would be *great* for her self-esteem and recovery.

Gods -- I think what this is all boiling down to is that things are all right. Maybe even...good, with the possibility of better in the future.

Shower. Shower, then back to work! *brandishes pen*

"Convicted in Absentia"

7,102 / 100,000 (7.1%)

That's nearly 1500 words today. Not the massive dreamy word count I hope to eventually see, but quite respectable on what turned out to be a very social day.

The mood did take an upturn around lunch time, but Robin and I still decided to slide out and see the "Nightmare Before Christmas" rerelease. Robin has *never* seen the movie (due to longstanding childhood scaredy-catedness), and I'm not sure I *ever* saw the whole thing all the way through, much *less* on the big screen.

It was incredible -- and Robin was beautifully up and happy as a result of seeing the film. She started to bemoan the fact that she hadn't had the guts to see it earlier, but finally decided that she appreciated it more seeing it for the first time like this.

Afterwards we went hunting for a new local anime' store that's opened up near her high school.

Day-um. Little tiny storefront, but dude has done his research. The things on his shelves are what the teens are buying, and he's stocking titles that all the teens are *talking* about, but very few people were carrying at the different shows I was at this summer.

I literally begged him to at least stay in business through the holidays. He's likely to save me a fortune in shipping costs.

The irony comes in that Robin and I talked *again* about Necronomicon. I suggested that instead of spending the money to go to Necro, she might just want to plan on blowing the cash she would have spent in the Dealer's Room at this guy's shop. She'd probably end up being *more* satisfied, and we'd save expense money in the long run.

She agreed. Happily.

Then we got home -- and there was an e-mail waiting for me regarding the Dealer's Room at Necronomicon. After being told in no uncertain terms that No Way was I getting a Dealer's Table...suddenly?

There's one available, and would I like it?

Oooookay. Well -- I've been racking my brains trying to figure out creative ways to bring in more money over the holidays. Guess this was the answer to at least part of my prayer. :)

But...I'm vending at a con in a week! Ack!

Had an e-mail waiting for me when I woke up this morning from a "Chet May", saying that he knew a Telaryn at Northwestern who graduated in 1988 and was big into sci-fi. Was I her?

For those of you who are new around here or who might have missed the facts along the way -- I'm *not*, but the Telaryn he's asking about *is* the woman I swiped my screenname from. Not to mention, I graduated in 1989.

Fellow Wildcats -- did we know anyone named Chet May? The name's not really ringing any bells, but it has been nearly twenty years.

Hard to believe it's Friday again -- this week definitely gets filed under, "huh?". Looking back, we've had an ER visit, writing, walking, cleaning, battling an infestation of fruit flies (ongoing), and buying an entire Homecoming ensemble for my fourteen year old.

Yep -- Homecoming tonight. Schedule is going to be IN-SANE. Robin's theoretically got anime' club after school, then the club is marching in the Homecoming parade which starts at 5pm, then the dance is at 8pm. Oy.

Somewhere in there is the game, and I can't see how the football players are supposed to fit in playing and then getting ready for the dance -- let alone anyone else who's planning on doing both.

Yes, there will be pictures (which reminds me -- I need to find the camera, like SOON), both amateur and professional. They're offering a good package with three poses (couple, individual female, individual male) that I proposed we split with Z's family. Lessen the cost, and each family gets a decent batch of professional shots.

I suppose it's no wonder I've been dozing off again in the mornings after getting Robin on the bus and having breakfast. That needs to stop, though. Messes up my head for getting through the rest of the day.