Thrihyrne

Can't believe I posted nary a word in October. In all of my 12 years of blogging, I'm not sure that's ever happened— aside from a month or two when I was in rehab twice. Still.

( the state of kristi )

I did go in Saturday morning to work at the Opera, but since the weather was so nice, I reached almost nobody in the 2 1/2 hours I was there. Oh well. Today alone, however, I've re-colored my hair, been drinking loads of water (as opposed to Diet Coke, for once), am giddy with anticipation of seeing cim_halfling in a few hours, I do believe (!!!), and will very shortly have a Slave Breakers fic that I'd love to find a quick beta for. That seems to be one realm in which I can actually write in a more romantic mode, and it seems believable. Mac just created such endearing characters…

Wow. Hair's done, groceries were bought, a lovely rendition of Bairstow's "I Sat Down" was sung yesterday morning, fic's been written, and thanks to the Lord John books on tape, I'm about 2/3 the way done with the sleeves on my sweater. I like! Oh, need to take pictures of that project.

( two pictures below )

Lastly, a funny from work on Friday. One of the guys in the box office who I'm pretty sure is family (an irreverent, big bearish type guy) saw my outfit and said, "You wear the best clothes! You have such color coordination!" I had on some floral pants and an interesting top, that particular combination one I'd not put together until Friday. Before I left their office, he said, "I have a new title for you! You're Our Lady of Color Combination." I laughed at that and replied, "I need a tiara with a title like that." So I'm now OLCC. ;)

Work is quite busy- I'm really enjoying doing what my supervisor does since he's overseas until the middle of next week. It feels great to have some responsibility again, and I even had one of the people in the development department call me to thank me for getting everything done promptly and correctly. The first time! Sales are a bit more challenging, as you might expect, but I ended my shift tonight with a very enthusiastic and happy person in Boise, Idaho, who was thrilled that I'd called her and could get her lined up with seats for two of our modern operas for next year. Yay.

In having a long and much appreciated conversation with evannichols, I realized that not this weekend, but the following two are going to be really busy for me as well. The weekend of mother's day we open Rigoletto, and I'll be leaving early Saturday morning to drive up to Seattle/Bellevue for my grandmother's 90th birthday fête and not returning until Sunday evening. The next weekend is also Rigoletto, and I'll be working the Thursday and Saturday night performances. Still, busy and to do with work is definitely a plus. It's also rather a positive mind-blowing thing to realize that snottygrrl will soon be living here.

I emailed Storm to let her know my status on M+M; I really have got to stay cracking on it. I have no idea how many other projects she has going or how many times it will go back and forth. This is all new!! And because I was so delighted that my Aragorn/Halbarad story made it through the HASA reviewing pool, I signed up for the next in the Slashy Santa group, this one Ardor in August. But I really do want to treat myself to some Gimli-centric shorter gen fics this summer.

My exercise ball is pretty great in regards to my back and my sitting aches. My upper back is sore, though. Seeing as how the massages at the East West College are only $25, though, I think I'll go every 3 weeks or so until I get some progress made on the knots. The students need the practice and I need my bad to be worked on some more! ;)

Back to your regularly scheduled mid-weeks...

I don't know how this has happened, but it's already Wednesday and thanks to the changes in my increased responsibilities at work and the fact that we're now in training, for the first time since I started working at the Opera here, I've been bringing work home in my psyche. This morning I found myself looking in the mirror and saying, "Shut up!" because I was making a to-do list of things to bring up with my supervisors when I get into work. But these hours here this morning before I go in, they're mine, my precious hours to type up fic and get a wee package sent off to a friend, check email, etc.

A couple of squee-worthy things for today and this week:
☞ A lovely St. Patrick's day card from eldritchobbit
☞ A thoughtful postcard from niennaainur (which is now on my cubicle wall at work!)
☞ An invitation to join a Faramir-centric archive thanks to posting that one wee Faramir/Boromir story to the Of Elves and Men yahoo group. I do remain a bit baffled that that one is far more popular than the Aragorn/Halbarad, but it's also a lot shorter, less angsty, and F/B has a built-in following. Whatever. It's flattering!
☞ I wrote my contribution for the raythoo songfic challenge last night. It's on the short side, but given the content, you wouldn't want it to be any longer. It's really, really dark and I like the imagery in it. I do remain a bit confounded (in a good way) as to how fertile and cross-pollinating my enthusiasm for the new Battlestar Galactica has been with my other fandoms. I have no desire to write BSG fanfic, but the music from the series and some of the plots and themes are definitely seeping creatively into my other works.
☞ Some new and/or re-discovered words! In doing canon research for the Wraeththu story as well as some other reading, I have new words to add to my vocabulary in addition to the ones I get every day via Wordsmith.org. And the words are: pulchritudinous, lich, revenant, quodlibet, moue, peripatetic and pith. Words are great.


Back to it! Happy 'hump day' to one and all.

I'll not use my fun double dagger symbol, but:
~ I actually secured some donations tonight, so, yay! Not even for the possible commission for me (they weren't major gifts by any means), but I spoke with lovely people and it helps an art form I believe in, opera.
~ One of my colleagues said I was a ray of sunshine. And she was being serious.
~ I went to a health food-ish chain grocery store to look for a gluten-free pie crust (not exactly for me; I love wheat and pasta and all of that) and ran into the homeowner of the house where I live. It was fun to see him in a different context, and totally out of the blue.
~ I'm getting a massage tomorrow morning!!
~ My Ron/Remus story was posted today, here at the remus_ron_slash fest. It's locked as it's NC-17, and is on the longer side for this fest (a bit over 10K), so if you'd care to read a recently-written HP story from me, there 'tis. It needs some love. Or maybe just a comment or two. ;)
~ I'm going to go to at least one yarn store tomorrow, and take evannichols along with me.
~ I'm able to listen to EdgeRadio again! wolfiekins's station rocks.
~ I'm making progress on my yuletide fic. I'm not supposed to discuss any details about it publicly, but I think I'll feel quite accomplished and proud of it when finished.
~ I wrote cim_halfling a letter this morning. :)
~ To work tonight I wore a cool vest designed by Jade Starmore that I knitted several years ago, and felt pretty stoked about the number of interesting garments and gifts I've knitted over the years. Mine was knitted in a purple heathered yarn, not the goldenrod this person did, but it shows the pattern really well.
~ I think I'll now go and sign up for slashy_santa. Because I don't have enough on my plate. ;)

No lj-cut! Beware my joy!

I had a really great day at work today. I feel as though I've come light years in only 4 weeks of doing what I do, and I've received several voicemail accolades from the customers I've helped. This is all good. Primarily tonight I was thrilled that we didn't have calls in queue at 8 o'clock for once, and my last call was something to do with an older version of our product that I was able to successfully resolve with an 18 minute call. The same issue I dealt with two weeks ago when I was still fairly new took me two different remoting sessions into this person's computer and over an hour to fix. It is perhaps somewhat frightening to be able to remote into someone's computer, see their desktop and be able to quip, "Look! You've tidied up your number of items there on the desktop since last time." I do love that he homeschools his kids and has a World of Warcraft image as the desktop picture. Another perk of my job, I suppose.

I bought a new keyboard and mouse. I no longer have to whack my keyboard against my desk in order for the 'i', 'o' and varying other keys to work regularly. I brought home my mouse pad to use with my optical mouse which replaces the roller-ball one, and I'm no longer using the back of a hardback book as a mouse pad.

The breakfast visit this morning with my sister and her family and my parents and one somewhat wildcard adopted brother went well. There will be another event tomorrow, but that's tomorrow. I'll be making a birthday cake for my mother. And mowing. But those two events aren't necessarily related, except in my own psychology.

I finally had a long conversation with wolfiekins. I can't stress how much I realize it negatively affects my psyche when I don't actually have voice contact with my closest of friends, those very few with whom I speak in real time on a regular basis. Another friend sent me loads of cards and stationery, a belated Christmas and birthday gift, so I'll be writing even more correspondence. But it was such a relief finally to have a usually-weekly conversation with Wolfie. I'm going up to visit Kosh and him in the next month; I'll just take the time from work. I deserve it.

My internet works! And my keyboard works! Every key! Every time I press them!

I updated my website!

I watched a lot of Australia's Top Model last weekend; I really enjoy such frivolities, though it meant that in my dreams, there were both Australians (and/or people speaking with an Australian accent) and me uninstalling and reinstalling Rosetta Stone on a Mac three times. Oy. I do plan to unplug here in not too long and finish up my Ashmael/Seel Wraeththu story. Nobody asked for this; I have no idea if anyone in that community will like it, but it seemed like a gap-filler that wanted to be written.

I have the phrase "Nobody said it was easy" as my work AIM phrase, one stolen gratuitously from Coldplay, 'The Scientist.' Everything by Coldplay is bittersweet to me as it was being played in my former household with my wasband and my stepkids, back before I really knew who the band was, only I knew that I liked them. It's taken me a few years to properly breathe Coldplay into my system, and it's admittedly taking a bit of mental gymnastics to interpolate Coldplay/married life; Coldplay/reintroduced with fandom friends; Coldplay/'The Scientist' and the lyrics being perfect for my Wraeththu fanfic when my mother is a scientist, my father a dermatologist, my younger sister now a hospice doctor, and just wanting to melt into the voice and lyrics of the singer. I don't know his name; it's not relevant. He's a poet and for now, he and I share the same wavelength.

I grok Coldplay, androgyny, and being able to talk with a Rosetta Stone customer, calling from Germany. He was working on Arabic, and as I pulled up the Arabic script on my end, I commented to him on the phone that I swore some of the characters of their alphabet looked like Tengwar, as in, Tolkien script, Elvish. I don't hide my geekdom. He tried to suggest that JRRT was influenced by Arabic writing, but I was too captivated by the script itself to contradict him and let him know that JRRT was influenced as a child by looking at Welsh train boxcars.

I do rein in my geekdom a smidgen, but mostly it's on my sleeve. It's part of me, and I delight in mentioning my few papers and where I've presented them. Especially here in the Valley, it's not just anyone who's been a professional singer in Nashville, has a miniature version of the Shards of Narsil for a costume I made, knits many of the sweaters that I wear, and walked a 70-year old through setting up the date and time on his first computer so the activation code for his Rosetta Stone would stick. I shudder to think of the techology that will be around when I'm 70, especially if there's not someone like me around to feel that I'd made a difference in the first fifteen minutes of trying to help. I made a difference to him, y'know?

:::loves:::

Gotta go. ♥

It's been a primarily great weekend thus far: updated my website and my Wraeththu fic Friday night— at work. We had an ice storm Friday morning and I wasn't sure whether or not we'd have power at the house, much less that my satellite dish would work; when I'd left in the morning, it, like my car, was covered in a sheet of ice. The weather warmed up, though, and at long last all of the snow is gone. I've been working more on my Wraeththu WIP; many to most of you have commented to me that you feel a bit badly at seeing me so gung-ho about something you haven't read and, therefore, aren't/can't follow my newest writing sojourn. I did make a Wraeththu page on my website last weekend, and I'll post a few of the links I put there, here, as reference points for you:
‡here at Wikipedia
‡here at Storm Constantine's blog
‡here there be gorgeous pictures from a German-created photo book
‡here is fanfiction

Other cool intersections: stuckinsea pointed out that the gorgeous, lithe dancer who plays Bagoas in "Alexander" was also the actor who poses as Panthera in the photo book, listed above. I fell totally in love with "The Persian Boy" a few years ago; I listened to it as a book on tape while making my Éowyn green gown costume, actually. The creation of that dress and falling solidly in love with Bagoas/Alexander as well as Mary Renault will be forever a combined event for me. But I've watched the youtube video of Bagoas' dance for Alexander a few times, and it's very inspiring. Guh.

The only bad thing aside from the fact that it's back to work tomorrow and no news from the recruitment part of HR (I emailed twice as follow-up last week, into a yawning maw of silence. I'm quite underwhelmed. I'm an internal applicant, for goodness sake! Just let me know the damn status of the positions, is that so hard??) is that I slid down the lat few stairs of my staircase yesterday while I had a basket of laundry in my hands. My left foot curled under me, and I did some serious bruising/crunching of toes and hurt my ankle. It's still really, really sore. Thankfully earlier in the day I'd taken advantage of the lovely day to go for a 45-minute walk, ostensibly to clear my head, though I continued to think about "Maelstrom and Mage" anyway. But it was refreshing to get out and about. I won't be doing that today, though, as my big toe and whole top of my foot is still quite sore.

I've been hand-writing letters, so a few of you can expect to hear from me in that environment. I do keep up with you all here, though with the frenetic pace at work I no longer comment as much as I wish I did. I also watched my housemate's copy of "Cruel Intentions" last night. Darkly enjoyable.

So how are you all? ♥

I've never been one for resolutions, but as I've been busily productive around the house and online this morning, I realized that I do have a few goals, which I'll share.

‡ Get bodywork done on Bianca, my white Subaru, so that I'm not constantly reminded of the really poor choices I made last year around this time.

‡ Apply for a writer position at Rosetta Stone.

‡ Work on my original fic ideas in earnest this spring and see if I can discipline myself as much in that realm as I've tended to in the fanfic world.

‡ Travel to the UK and Ireland, California, and Australia to see friends. In the case of Ireland, visit a country I've wanted to since I was a child. If anyone has recommendations of where to go and what to see, I'd be more than welcome to hear your suggestions. I'll probably be heading over in September or October.

The biggie?
‡ To relax more, and be more of a human being, rather than a human doing. I think in some ways with my new living situation that's already happening, but I could stand not to judge myself on a constant and high quality stream of production, whether fiction or knitting projects or letters or whatever else. In less than 100 years, everything that I've put out into the world will have met its end and crumbled/become moth-eaten/vanished, as will I. Not a bad idea to savor the moments and indulge in reading and maybe even just being at rest instead of constantly feeling I must be pursuing something. Easier said than done, of course, especially since I'll be definitively without any recreational beverages for these next few months, which means my mind is never, ever off.

I hope that you all continue to stay around in 2008, a year in which I hope for far more calm, and self-actualization, less anxiety and a marrow-deep sense of peace. Thank you for hanging out in my virtual home here, for reading my stories, for letting me know when something I've posted about has affected you, and for your supportive affection and companionship.

I'm keeping this fairly public, so I'm taking out my proper name, and my supervisor's. Aside from those changes, this email was sent to my supervisor today. Because it just makes me feel good about what I do, and makes me feel a bit better about the fact that apparently my job isn't going to change and I won't be doing anything really supervisory (at least not anytime soon), I'm posting it. Then it's back to trolling LJ and writing on my ginger_lust fic. Packing for my move to the renovated farmhouse on 150 acres commences this weekend. ::squee::

( very, very complimentary email about Thev's customer service )