holli

 Actually not a terrible seat, either (I think because it was a singleton?) for March 29. It was that or worse seats for about the same money in May or June, or waiting til next fall for sub-$300 seats. My family gave me birthday money well in advance of my actual birthday for this specific purpose, which was very nice of them.

Apparently I ca't book Megabus tickets this far in advance, but I'm thinking I might go up the Saturday before, get a few days to do new York stuff, and head back on Wednesday (and probably enter the Ham4Ham lottery every chance I get, as well). WOO.

I bought a sewing machine from Craigslist for $35 last week; it works fine, but the carrying case has a broken latch and it's kind of basic.

I had emailed someone else about their (much nicer) $65 machine, but didn't hear back and so bought the cheaper one. But apparently they only just saw my email, do still have the machine, and may be willing to deliver it if I still want it.

Does anyone want a perfectly respectable vintage (all-metal!) sewing machine for $35? If I can rehome the first one I'd rather have the second.

So, I got tickets to Antiques Roadshow.

I kind of signed up on a whim? It's done by lottery, and I didn't think I'd actually win it. But apparently it is my lucky day, because now I have two tickets to the Charleston taping on August 8.

Which means I guess I need to figure out how to get to Charleston on August 8?

Does... anyone want to go to Charleston, the weekend of August 8?

 A lifehack for when you have over-optimistically turned off the heat for the season and had an unexpectedly cold day, and are now wearing two sweaters and a pair of gloves indoors:

Run the hottest bath your plumbing can produce. Let stand, with the bathroom door open, til it has cooled off enough to actually bathe in.

Take hot bath.

Leave stlll-hot water in the tub, bathroom door open. Allow water to cool entirely before draining. Bemoan your 80-year-old house's reliance on heating oil, again.

Good news: I designed myself some new business cards, and they are hella cute!

   

Bad news: Every time I try to figure out the requisite paperwork for opening my own vintage shop (or even try to figure out what paperwork needs doing, and how to get the necessary information for it) I last about fifteen minutes before I get so anxious that I have to stop and do something else.

Which... is one of the reasons I decided to make new business cards. Ugh.

It is a new year, and the odds of any of this fic ever being finished properly are, if I am being honest, basically nil, so here! have some WIPs! Not included: the handful of stories I am even remotely likely to complete anytime soon.

1. Pick up Where You Left Off: MCU, Peggy/Steve time travel shenanigans. Written before Cap 2 hit theaters and way too throughly Jossed. Missing the chunk in the middle where the story goes, but I did figure out how it ended.

( Peggy walks into Howard’s lab carrying a stack of files, but the room is empty. )

2. probably meant to be steve/bucky/nat, written pre-cap 2 and thus abandoned, but there were some lines I liked and should salvage for something else. hm.

( Steve’s reckless. Always had been. )

3. Steve/Bucky in a Canadian shack. As you do.

( It’s quiet here. )

4. Sam/Nat, possibly the one where they flirt with each other to embarrass Steve but then end up meaning it on accident? Not sure.

( It’s for emergencies. Sam knows this. )

5. This was going to be a thing about Steve working behind the scenes so Bucky could safely come in from the cold.

( Red Carpet Inn, Baltimore, MD )

6.The 2015 Howling Commando Family Reunion, which was definitely gonna get gate-crashed by supersoldiers who don't know how to talk about their feelings.

( When Bethy pulled in to the parking lot at the campground, Friday morning, Jill was already waiting with a clipboard and a harried expression. )

7. Relatedly, a thing about times the Howling Commandos met up after the war.

( None of the neighbors knew how they managed it, but the Moritas got their farm back after the war. )

8. MCU daemon AU, mostly Cap & Bucky. I got as far as figuring out what happened to Bucky's daemon (thankfully, nothing permanent) and figuring out most of the characters' daemons, and having done that sort of failed to write the actual story. Whoops?

( fic bit & list of daemons )

There is also a Pushing Daisies thing I am saving for later because it's the only not-MCU WIP of any substance, and also because I still think I might figure out how to write a sex scene in the Jim Dale narrator voice eventually.

Ah, Yuletide. This year I got two (count 'em, TWO!) seriously delightful Pushing Daisies stories: break the spell of trying, and In Praise of Half-Eaten Things. Both are GREAT, and you should all read them (and then write even more Ned/Chuck!)

Meanwhile, having finished my own Yuletide story, I've been trying to clear out some other WIPs. Anyone willing to beta 4k of GotG fic in which the Quill family has a sad yard sale?

 So, for reasons that don't need explaining at this juncture, I just googled the names of three girls who bullied me in junior high.

One of them does roller derby in Arizona and appears to have turned out to be an okay-ish human, and at least now she has an appropriate outlet for her excess aggression.

One is an event planner who takes a lot of duckface selfies, which is not even a tiny bit surprising.

And the third? The third is, apparently, currently suing the makers of the naked dating reality show she appeared on for not blurring out her ladyparts. Based on everything she's quoted as saying in various articles on the subject, she has not acquired one single ounce of self-awareness since we were fourteen.

Holy SHIT, you guys. I can't even gloat. This is too weird to gloat about.

I finally signed up for HabitRPG, because getting my shit organized and moved upstairs and everything put in its place is taking way, way longer than it should, and Unfuck Your Habitat turned out to be driven by shame-based motivation to a degree that wasn't useful. But this seems like it might work a little better; we'll see.

In the meantime, anyone not working a 9-5 would be SUPER welcome this week if they wanted come hang out at my place for a few hours-- just having another human around is, I find, really surprisingly useful as a way to get me to get things done. You don't have to help with the shit-organizing or anything, it is literally just that I am total balls at self-motivating and get more done in the presence of others.