Thrihyrne

I tend to write for about 30 minutes in the early morning with my first cup of coffee, just small sections of things before I can handle looking at a computer. I've been primarily working on my Dreamspinner novella sequel, the one that may not ever be contracted, I realize. But maybe the first one will sell enough and they'll want to support a sequel. Anyway, I was writing it yesterday and the protagonist and his lover were discussing how they'd get from their cottage to Dowth, maybe a mile or two away. The protagonist asked if they were driving, and the lover noted he doesn't know how to drive a car, so they had bicycles. To which the protagonist surprised me and his lover by saying that he doesn't know how to ride a bicycle. I love it when my characters surprise me with information about themselves I hadn't planned out!!

Since I finished my Yuletide story so quickly, I went to the 'Dear Yuletide Letter' spreadsheet and have selected an Orphan Black request that I'd love to write. Just a short vignette missing moment from an episode in season two we watched a couple of weeks ago. I've never written a pure gift fic before, but I'm really excited to write something in a fandom I've both never written for, and one that I'm currently enjoying myself. ♥

I'm about to have the most social couple of weeks than I've had in maybe a year or more! We'll be enjoying Thanksgiving with our dear friends sanguinity and grrlpup, a tradition I feel so fortunate to get to share with them, then Thursday the 4th Evan and I will attend the Portland office Airbnb holiday extravaganza. This is only the third ever local event where a +1 has been invited. :P Should be interesting since I'm still remote and don't know a good 5/6 of the people who work at the office now. We'll plan to go right at 7:00 and hang out for 2 hours or so before coming home and letting the younger set get crazy with an open bar. Saturday the 6th we have another holiday event with dear friends who've returned to the area from Utah, and then Tuesday the 9th one of the highlights of my month happens: one of my very dear colleagues who's also a remote employee is coming to Portland to visit the office again. She's gathered up a bunch of us who are now 'old timers' in Airbnb-parlance (nearly 2.5 years or longer) and mostly remote or only-recently-not-remote women to go out to dinner. It's a foretaste of how I'm now viewing next year's One Airbnb 2.0 to be held at HQ in SF. I didn't go last year; I was very conflicted in how I felt about my employer at that time, and was personally struggling with a lot of things that I'm not now. I'll be attending this year, and really looking forward to getting to see all of my remote buddies and talking about non-work things. :)

Had a long but very meaningful and social day yesterday. There was intense work (as in, Airbnb work), and going on a currently secret afternoon excursion that involved cleaning and tidying, laundry, and spending much-appreciated time with evannichols's mother, Gwen, and then coming home and then going to a scumptiously social cookout at sanguinity and grrlpup's house and seeing the Maki family as well. Sang is an accomplished griller, and H. made amazing potato salad (I still need to get that recipe!) and meeting Nicole's young men in person was a delightful experience that I'll admit I didn't expect to feel to that level. I'm not much into other people's offspring in general (even my own siblings' children), and I haven't been around teenagers in… years?? Anyway, they were articulate, not-posing, independent souls and their genuine affection for each other and their parents was actually mind-blowing the more I think about it. Yay for a family unit that's healthy and respects everyone's individuality, and is effusive in affection.

As the years have gone on, I've recognized within myself (and also Sang has pointed out to me) that I don't really care about the pyrotechnics of fireworks and the sparkler bomb. It's true. I get nothing out of it. So this year, I enjoyed the food and companionship and conversation and social part of the evening and then came home to get in a run that I'd intended to have first thing Friday morning— except that I'd neglected to turn on my morning alarm at all so I overslept my ability to run before work. Oooops. I had a great run and then futzed around the internet looking at fun purple/wild orchid/lavender/magenta hair colors until it was time to go pick Evan back from the night's festivities. I was treated to bonus social time as everyone was still there! There was also ginger and caramel ice cream. NOMNOMNOM. And a second round of hugs, which was really wonderful to top it all off.

Today?
BLISS ON A STICK. A DAY AT HOME WITH EVAN DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IF I DON'T WISH IT.
Even Mod Physique was cancelled so Jessa could have a holiday weekend, so I truly have nothing on my calendar. There are only a few things I plan to accomplish:
~ giving emansil_12 a call
~ finishing my Reggie/Kelp story (only 1.5 scenes to go! then Grand Editing will commence)
~ doing a half hour or so of my favorite Mod Physique toning moves but no cardio today

and the usual of enjoying Evan's company and playing a helluva lot of Facebook games. :D

For the first time since this time last year, this morning I retrieved one of my composition notebooks and began writing on a new fic. This is all thanks to my beloved emansil_12. At the end of our conversation on Wednesday, she suggested that since I'd missed out on signing up for Yuletide, I just might consider looking at the prompts available for the ron_draco_fest 2013. I said I would, and now, two days later, I've claimed a prompt and started writing on it. I'm quietly thrilled. Don't really know how the story will meander, but I have my ideas and I'm going to see where R/D will take me in this new story, unrelated to any 'verses I've created in the past. In looking at my own website, it appears that the last one-shot R/D I wrote was done in July of 2011. So not as long ago as I'd imagined. Still, yay. ::welcomes Muse with open arms::

In other news, this week has been particularly wonderful in that I've had several conversations with friends that have me feeling far less isolated than I did a few days ago. I'm realizing that that will be key once Evan and I are living together and I'm alone all day working, with no pets for company. I do have my follow-up about my trial period for work with my former team lead; my leads changed in the midst of this scrutiny, and all I can do is see how this plays out.

But I feel marvelous. Happy Friday, all. ♥

In Portland!! :D :D
I'll be meeting up with emansil_12 in around 3½ hours. WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! ♥ I've only actually had the privilege of being with her in person one time before, now a little over four years ago. It was during my cross-country drive to Portland, the first time. And now we'll have most of a day to hang out, go have lunch with evannichols, visit a yarn store, maybe my wee library branch, see where I live, all kinds of marvelous things like that. And my beloved evannichols has generously offered up the use of his vehicle, so we'll be much more easily mobile.

I must make sure that my camera's battery is working properly!!!