The Omnivorous Geek

Dude, what is with all the spam on LJ lately? Almost every day it seems like I'm going to some old post and hitting SELECT SELECT DELETE AS SPAM. Cut it out, spammers. My site does not exist for your google optimization.

So I just watched the second to last White Collar episode and my heart just about burst with glee. THANKS FOR HITTING ALLLL OF MY BUTTONS, SHOW. Oh, Peter. Oh, Neal. Oh, El. Oh, MOZZIE. I ♥ them all, but especially Mozzie. He's so adorable with his little glasses and his fuzzy head and his, "Wait, WHAT?" and "I came on my own" and listening sympathetically to Neal being all wistful, oh, Moz, I would marry you if you were real.

Also I watched Girl, Interrupted yesterday for the time and was like WTF Misha, why always killers or sex hippies, eh? Until Castiel. WHOM I MISS. I am also caught up on Supernatural and there has not been even close to enough Castiel.

I did my federal taxes late last night because I was tired of worrying about it and just wanted to get it over with, and fortunately I'll be getting a nice refund this year, almost 500, which is like WHEW. Since a good chunk of my income last year was as an independent contractor without taxes withheld, I was afraid I would end up owing, but I'm still poor enough that I didn't, thankfully. My AGI was like 11k or something ridiculous like that. Seriously, guys, I'm tired of not making enough to live on without living in my parents' basement. I'm trying so hard to find something, to make it work, but I'm laid off from my "good job" at the moment (which isn't even full time, anyway), and everything else I try to find just isn't working. I wanted part-time work at a PetSmart, and I applied and got the first interview, and now I just keeping making phone call after phone call, "Have you made a decision, have you made a decision," and they're all "We'll call you back, we'll call you back," and they DON'T, and seriously, just tell me you don't want me so I can keep looking. It's just PART-TIME WORK AT A PETSMART, C'MON, WHY CAN'T I HAVE THAT.

Sigh.

I miss my rats so much lately. My heart hurts all the freaking time, thinking about them, and it's been going on for months. I want to get more, but I can't because I'm living in my parents' basement and my dad hates them like poison. I want to move out, but I can't because I'm not making enough money. I feel so trapped sometimes. And my eyes keep getting worse. Driving at night is, like, literally dangerous for me now, I think, but I keep doing it because what else am I gonna do? It's not like buses come out to little towns in the middle of Amish country, and if I didn't get to go visit my friends a couple of times a week I'd probably go nuts.

Wow, that went whiny fast. But, well, maybe you can see why I haven't been spending a lot of time on LJ lately.

So that back pain that was so horrible and kept getting worse and worse until I could hardly stand it? Apparently caused by a bug bite. Bizarre but true.

I am on antibiotics now and already feeling better after just a day, but it still hurts pretty bad, sometimes feels like just this hot, throbbing lump on my lower back. There's a patch of red, swollen skin on my back a little bigger than my hand, warm to the touch, with a worse spot in the middle that must have been where I was bitten. I'm still using ice packs because they make it feel better, and taking ibuprofen on a regular basis, and STILL hurting a lot. But it's getting better.

Before I finally got into the clinic and got some help, it was so bad that I was literally shaking and crying at the worst times. My hands would tremble and I wouldn't be able think, and my head would spin and I'd feel like throwing up. Had a patch of that today, too, but I think it's getting better.

And this might have been found out a long time ago if I'd just had someone look at my back. Maybe we would have noticed that it looked like a bite. Instead I assumed it was lower back pain like I sometimes get, and then later when just the left side hurt I thought maybe a kidney infection. So yeah. Chalk that up to experience, I guess.

Anyway. I might get back to having a life sometime soon.

Oh flist, please convince me why I should spend my free time writing instead of farking off to pet my kitten and watch Futurama. It's been a problem lately.

TWO DAYS HOLY CRAP.

Also, working to make money is a putting a serious crimp in my online social life. WHHHHHYYYYYYY can't I be independently wealthy, huh?

My netbook power cord got broked. This is what I get for having pet rats and letting them run around my room, obviously, even though the nest they made in my sock drawer is incredibly adorable (AHAHAHA THEY KEEP STEALING MY MAXI PADS AND SCRUNCHIES TO PAD IT WITH), and next time of course I will try to do a better job of protecting my cords, possibly by wrapping them entirely in citrus, which my ratties hate. But. For now, I have six hours of battery power and that is IT.

I ordered a new cord and even went for expedited shipping, but it's definitely taking too long. ::shakes usps.com to make more tracking information fall out:: What, yes, I only ordered it a few hours ago. Shut up.

Anyway. This is sad, because I don't know when I'll be able to download the new SPN ep and watch it. I spent this evening killing undead devourer thingies and harpies with my mad awesome elf rogue, and that was amazing, but what will I do with the rest of my time? :(

At least I still have the Netflix queue on my teevee. But Supernatural isn't on it.

Woe.

Urp, my back hurts so bad this morning that it's making me nauseated. Ow, ow, ow. Having flashbacks to when I was having bad back problems when I was thirteen or so. Got so bad I threw up water. Got really dehydrated and when we went in to get blood tests they had to take the blood from my wrist with a butterfly needle because they couldn't get the vein in my arm.

Youch. This back pain has been building for awhile, but I thought I could handle it. I know it's because of the work I do every morning, hauling an elderly gentleman from his bed to his scooter, to the commode, back again... Four pulls like that every morning. I've been feeling the soreness build up in my back for quite a while, but I thought I could manage it until my quitting day, just two weeks off now. But... I guess my back has had enough. It's so bad I almost cried, driving back home, thinking about nothing but getting some ibuprofen in me and taking the pressure off my spine.

Well. I'll just lie here on my bed and write fanfic. Take that, back.

LOL WTF, so the lodge here has wireless. Yes, lodge. We are staying in a couple of cabins at a state park in Brown County, and it's gorgeous here, though i fear being eaten by a deer. No, not bear, deer. There are a lot of them and they just randomly cross the road and kind of stare at you like, "Whatchoo doin' in my living room, beeyotch?" and we's all, "SORRY SORRY WE'RE LEAVING RIGHT AWAY PROMISE."

So yes, I am currently accompanying my siblings and little cousins to the indoor waterpark inside the main lodge here, because yeah, they have an indoor waterpark inside the main lodge, and I was working on a project so I brought my netbook along, and thought huh, guess I'll check and see if they have wireless here, and THEY DO. ??? Wish I had checked two days ago. I know I missed a bunch of checks in my MouseHunt game.

Anyways. Been a pretty good vacation so far, though I've spent in states of uncomfortableness ranging from mild to moderately severe due to various reasons--motion sickness, ear infection, THAT TIME OF MONTH. Yes, these three things have combined in very unpleasant ways. I spent most of today laying on my cot in the cabin of the living room instead of going hiking with my mom, grandma, and sibs, though I am feeling somewhat better now. Right ear hurts like the dickens at the moment, though. In an hour it will probably be the left. And then my abdomen will prolly join in, because menstrual cramps wait for no woman.

Oh well. I haven't gotten a whole lot of writing done, but I did spend most of today working on a soundtrack for Rain Falling Down, cuz that's what I do when I don't feel like writing, I guess. Except that I'm actually writing for this one, a snippet in Castiel's POV for each song. Still have about five to go. It's been a fun and interesting exercise.

Any artists on my flist interested in making a cover for me? Possibly with oatmeal_queen's gorgeous art? I would throw something together, but half of this screen is cracked, which makes working with GIMP (or anything, really) somewhat difficult. (As in very.)

I may very well have it ready for posting tomorrow.

ETA: Should have mentioned... Title of the soundtrack is Butterfly Against a Hurricane. It's twenty-two tracks. I just kinda put it together with just what I had on my netbook, but I like the results. Hopefully you guys will too.

Ooh! My last post was my 500th LJ entry! ::does a dance::

So, I would like to do more stuff, like read and write and rec, but my life has been kind of nuts for the past few days. For one thing, my work schedule is EFFED. Every morning I help a client from 6:30 to 7:30, and it takes fifteen minutes to get there, so you can see when I have to get up. I've managed it by getting up at 6:10, but that's really not a good idea. So there's that, and then now I'm also helping a client every morning from nine to noon, and that's quite a fair drive down to south Fort Wayne. And then also there is another client who doesn't have a schedule but just calls me when I'm needed, sometimes only a few hours ahead of time. For the past two days, that's been from four to nine and five to ten in the evening. (This is the one that sometimes/usually involves hours of walking around pushing a wheelchair.) Plus D&D on Monday and Thursday nights, which is important.

For those of you following along at home, YES, this means that it has been unpossible for me to get a full eight hours of sleep at night. I usually try to nap during the day, especially during my usually free afternoon, but it doesn't always work. This is slowly but surely wearing me down. When I get tired I tend to catch horrible and lingering respiratory infections. DO NOT WANT.

Also I have begun donating plamsa for teh monies, and this is another strain on my body. I think I do okay as long as I drink lots and lots of water and get my protein, though. But that means I have to pee all the time. Suddenly, I like drinking milk, which I never have before, because that's both water AND protein, like some kind of miracle.

Plus trying to exercise and keep up with my flist and spend time with my family and oh, yeah, write those stories I promised to write. I'M GOING TO WRITE SOMETHING THIS AFTERNOON I SWEAR I HAVE TO I MISS IT SO MUCH. Sweet Charity is already late and I really, really, really don't want to renege on summergen. :(

I wish there was some kind of magic button that let you fix your life.

Okay, this might sound bitchy or whiny or whatever, but I would really appreciate it if people on my flist would hide their reactions to new episodes behind lj cuts. Due to my schedule, I usually can't see the episode till Friday, and I hate being accidentally spoiled, even for very small things. I like watching the story unfold with no idea at all of what's going to happen. It just makes it more enjoyable for me. This is not a rant against any one person or anything--there was just a LOT LOT LOT of stuff outside cuts this week that had me running away from my friends page covering my eyes and singing loudly to forget what I'd just seen. Which is sad, because I really enjoy refreshing my friends page every so often to see what's going on with people, and I would hate to have to put that off until I have time to watch the new episode. If this keeps up I'm going to have to avoid LJ completely from 10 o'clock to whenever on Friday or even Saturday, and I don't want to do that. :( Yes, I'm selfish.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Do you like Dean whumping? Do you like Sam whumping, though to a lesser extent? Do you like hilarious banter and brothers taking care of each other but not being girly? Do you like MotWs that you've never seen before? Do you like Dean being bitchy and/or menacing? Do you like Sam being smart and likable in a story set in S4? Do you like unhealthy amounts of C4?

Well, then, you'll like this: The Quiet Man. I like it very much.

Also, you should TOTALLY be reading autumn_lilacs's "Our Father" 'verse. She just finished a really long, awesome futurefic full of family angst and scary, original monsters and amazing, strong, beautiful OFCs who I want to be BFFs with, every single one of them. (FOUR in this story, and each of them a treasure!) So yeah, run, don't walk.

Hmm, I need to do another author rec post soon.

♥ to you all, and Happy Friday!

I am coughing up gray-green chunks of ugliness and I'm pretty sure I have a fever, and yet I am become a popsicle, because hellllooooooo, parents' basement, home once more. ::sigh:: I'm going to miss so many things about having my own place...the light from the third-floor windows, being able to take a shower whenever the heck I want (and incidentally also walking around naked if I VERY WELL CHOOSE, THANK YOU), setting my own thermostat, having my own fridge and cupboards, living like a pig in a pigsty, letting my rats run around on the floor (will NOT be happening here), having so many keys on my keychain, watching semi-naughty movies and TV shows with the volume turned ALL THE WAY UP sans worrying about my ten-year-old sis hearing, saying the word "crap" without guilt, and basically, you know, living in squalor. I am surrounded by boxes and I have no idea where anything is and I'm still feeling horribly weak and light-headed, so yay, body o' mine, continue to bring the love why don't you. I'd like to die now, plz.

Had some really weird fever dreams last night, too. I think, maybe, I was John Winchester? And I was fighting an evil sickness monster called a Lindle? And the only way I could defeat it was by kicking the covers off the bed every hour or so, then going to the bathroom to pee and drink another glass of water. So I did, and I guess I won, because when I woke up this morning I knew that I was Maychorian again. So that's good.

::raps knuckles against temple:: Let's have some GOOD dreams tonight, yes? Thank you.

I miss my apartment.

I want more amazing, well-written, long, plotty, interesting and original Dean and Castiel gen stories. Every time I see one that looks intriguing, it's slash. And don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with slash, and hurrah for all those who love it. But I like friendship and bonding and conflict that gets worked out gradually and realistically with twists and turns and without kissing and sex. It's just the way I'm made. Also not villifying Sam because he messes with the OTP, you know, working him into the story and treating him as a good character and Dean's brother, which he is. And...and yeah, I've found some awesome gen with Dean and Castiel, notably by july_july_july and strangeandcharm and eighth_horizon and autumn_lilacs and others I am undoubtedly forgetting, but I want MORE.

::pouts at you::

The awesome gen writers on my list should totally get on this.

Yes, I am trying, too. Actually, I'm rather deeply buried in my big bang right now, and yisss, I has a Cas, because I wub him and wish to kiss his faaaaaace. More than once.

And hey! There are some very intriguing Castiel prompts over at the gen battle! E.g.:

Castiel - learning
Castiel - shave
Castiel and any - leaving, sword, hymn, light a candle for the dead
Castiel and Dean - conversing happiness
Castiel and Dean - irreverent (july_july_july wrote an awesome fic for this, but you can do another one!)
Castiel and Sam - the thin red line
Sam and Castiel - muffins, hospital, taxi cab, outer space
Any - mice, tacos, hair ribbons, farting
Any - post-apocalyptic, daily life

Do these not inspire you? Do these not make you passionately wish to write some good Castiel gen? Do these not melt your brain with the possibilities? Well? ::puts hands on hips and taps toe::

I'm waiting.