Aside from a brief fleeting thought that hey, maybe I could try to write a couple Yuletide treats -- quickly extinguished when I remembered that I don't know 99% of the sources and besides that I can't write -- I haven't participated in any of the end-of-the-year writing frenzy that's overtaken my friendslist. But don't feel sorry for me! Instead I've been keeping busy composing FAQs and conference call notes and funding requests and tl;dr emails and memos. I'm fairly confident that a few of them even end up getting read or at least skimmed.

But that's not what this is about -- I wanted to extend my praise and sympathies to the undersung legion of beta readers who make this season so merry and bright and typo-free. You have my deepest admiration, after having spent much of the last two days copy-editing stuff I didn't write and fighting the resulting urge to stab myself. Hyphenation is not a dark art! Parallel sentence structure really is your friend! Random capitalization doesn't make your tired jargon look more impressive!

So when I dive into this year's crop of Yuletide stories, dear betas, I'll be thinking of you, the watchful guardians of readability.

This entry is cross-posted to http://crypto.dreamwidth.org/89022.html ( comments there)

Endoscopy done. No ulcer. Astrid drove me home and I locked myself in the office and started typing as the anasthesia wore off. She made me a sandwich and brought me apple juice. Murphy screamed at the closed doors, and he retrieved Astrid to open the door for him. He sat in my lap for half a page.
I'm making tea now and I'm putting at least three more hours on the typewriter today. I started typing to Massive Attack's Mezzanine while I was still high, and now that I'm not I've got Godspeed You Black Emperor's "Riot For New Zero Kanada" and Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here." All vinyl. There's only vinyl in the office. I may still be punchy from the drugs. The teapot sounds like a jet engine.

According to some helpful website.


You will wear comfortable clothes or a gown.
In the endoscopy room you will be asked to lie on a table on your left side. The physician, a nurse, and a technician will be with you.
Your throat may be anesthetized with spray or gargle. Intravenous sedation will be given.
You will then be asked to swallow the endoscope, which is thinner than most food you swallow. This is surprisingly easy.
The endoscope does not interfere with your breathing.
The lights are lowered and the physician begins the examination. Air inserted during the procedure may cause you to burp.
When the procedure is completed, you will rest until the sedation wears off. Your pulse and blood pressure may be monitored during and after the procedure.

Who got 2 As and a B in school this semester? That's right, I did. *dances*

Kurt Cobain playing guitar and William Burroughs reading. It's a christmas story. Best with headphones.

"It's not that I literally think I’m a faerie. It's just that I feel so different from most people. And this idea of a race living underground in caverns, spending all their days dancing and playing the fiddle and eating flowers and reciting poetry and sharing their dreams, that to me sounds much more real that the way people live in this world, hating and fighting and wanting and hurting."

- Violet and Claire, by Francesca Lia Block

As soon as I finish typing this I am going to bed.


Work Christmas party was tonight. Food was fancy. A bit too fancy for my taste. We were the coolest table though, meaning we were laughing the loudest all night. A couple of times I was laughing so hard I was crying.


Also, shocking - I drank some wine tonight. I haven't drank in ... years. No real reason really, I just don't feel like it anymore. It's those bad influences I was sitting with.


All right, time to hit the pillow with everything I've got.

(there's background to this fic that i never wrote, and that you can't tell from the two previous bits, snapshot 1 and snapshot 2. so i read them all together and they don't seem to fit, but they're supposed to. also derry is now slightly more familiar with joy's neighborhood than the way i wrote him two years ago. as always, i apologize for essentially dropping you into the middle.)

Sunlight coming through the uncurtained windows wakes Derry up. He's still kind of surprised Will hasn't bothered to nail a sheet over them or something, anything to keep out the morning sun. But then, Will's still asleep, so clearly it doesn't bother him.

But it should. He's been sleeping a long time, and he should be awake.

Derry shakes Will's shoulder. "Hey, Will, wake up," he says. "You've been asleep like a whole day."

Will mumbles something. It's a sign. Derry shakes him again.

( Come on, wake up, he says again. )

Those first few months were definitely the hardest.
     Every night, Liesel would nightmare.
     Her brother's face.
     Staring at the floor.
     She would wake up swimming in her bed, screaming, and drowning in the flood of sheets. On the other side of the room, the bed that was meant for her brother floated boatlike in the darkness. Slowly, with the arrival of consciousness, it sank, seemingly into the floor. This vision didn't help matters, and it would usually be quite a while before the screaming stopped.
     Possibly the only good to come out of these nightmares was that it brought Hans Hubermann, her new papa, into the room, to soothe her, to love her.
     He came in every night and sat with her. The first couple of times, he simply stayed--a stranger to kill the aloneness. A few nights after that, he whispered, "Shhh, I'm here, it's all right." After three weeks, he held her. Trust was accumulated quickly, due primarily to the brute strength of the man's gentleness, his thereness. The girl knew from the outset that Hans Hubermann would always appear midscream, and he would not leave.


* * * A DEFINITION NOT FOUND * * *
IN THE DICTIONARY
Not leaving: an act of trust and love,
often deciphered by children


The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

how do i become a 'dame', e.g. like dame judi dench or maggie smith?? i want to be a dame! ;)

Awake at 8 am on my day off, absinthe dreaming in my bloodstream all night. deadletters is ghost letters, and even in my dreams the letters call me a coward and a creep. I keep burning down ideas, whole cities of them, because they're not good enough.
A long time ago, I wrote the line where Jacob explains, "I sold my soul, but I got a lot more for it than it was worth." This line is thrown back in his face when he discovers his girlfriend is in pornography. Last night, in a dream, my soul told me that the soul you have is the one you get, every morning, when you face the decisions from the night or the year before. Your soul renews if you allow it.

"People are dying and it's my fault."
"Everyone dies. What makes it your fault?"
"The world is going to end."
"The world is always ending."
"But I see it happening. The city wants me to know that it's dying. It keeps showing me signs.." his hands are open, palms raised, struggling to explain. Her face is unmoved.
"Everything dies, Jacob. Everybody dies. The world ends to make room for a new one."
He had begun to think Emma wasn't listening at all. He looked at his hands, the stained black fingernails.. Empty. She put her hand on his.
"Hey."
"Yeah."
"Have you ever read the book of Revelation?"
"From the bible? I didn't think you were a christian." Her face twisted, shaking her head, and she went across her room and pulled a thick book from the shelf. She sat down beside him again, flipping through pages as she spoke.
"No. I'm not anything. In Revelation, you have the last living Apostle- John, who was the youngest Apostle, was never martyred. All of the other saints were killed and died for their god. But John wasn't martyred, he was exiled to a horrible little Greek island. And there, at the end of his life, all by himself, god showed him the end of the world." He nodded intensely.
"I need to read it."
"Sure. I know what you're thinking, but hear me out. Revelation doesn't make sense. It's," she began using her hands like they were shaping clay. "It's poetry, it's codes, it's.. jibber-jabber, and I can see in your face that you think you might have an insight into it that other people don't, but that's a dangerous place to go. When you're obsessed, you can find a pattern anywhere you want. The book of Revelation can make sense to you, and you can probably find a pattern in the phone book that'll tell you the same thing if you look hard enough. Here's what I was looking for.." she sets her finger on a line in the dictionary. "This definition of Revelation is great because it explains the difference between Revelation and other forms of divination.. here. 'Revelation is inescapable destiny.' Okay." She closes the book. "All revelation means is 'revealing.' If the city is showing you things, listen to it. Let it show you. Not everybody gets to have a place choose you, so be patient and a good listener. If it's 'inescapable destiny', there's nothing you can do to stop it, or alter it, anyhow."
Jacob's hands loosely clasped as she talked. His jaws unlocked, the tense muscles in his face softened. They sat in the silence of her room, the small blue lights a starlit wreath around her bed.
"I thought you were just going to tell me I was crazy."
"Is that what you want?"
"I'm really not sure." He yawned, a good, long one that clicked a loud snap below his right ear.
"Ow." She laughs as he rubs his jaw.
"You worry too much, baby." His face lit from inside at the word 'baby.'
"Fuck, I feel old," still rubbing his jaw.
"You actually look really young right now." She slowly wrapped herself around him, squeezing him for a while.
"Let's go to sleep." He added, "Baby."
"Okay, but one more thing. Actually- two."
"Tell me."
"Tomorrow night we're watching Jacob's Ladder. I still cannot believe you've never seen this movie. Two, I know how Molly kisses, and you learned from her. You kiss like a dyke. Sometimes I think you're trying to eat my face. Slow down, okay?" She smiled, and he lowered his chin reflecting her smile back to her.
"...okay."
Emma reaches for a hidden switch, and the blue stars go out with a soft click. She arranges the blankets over them, kisses him on his cheek, and watches his dark shape lower into the pillow. He opens his mouth in an extended exhale.
She rolls over in the dark.
"Thank you for telling me." She waits in the silence. "Jacob?"
He was already dead asleep.

Weren't we all crazy in our sleep? What was sleep, after all, but the process by which we dumped our insanity into a dark subconscious pit and came out on the other side ready to eat cereal instead of the neighbor's children?

Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Jeff Lindsay

i got this from firinel and i'm reposting because a. i hope they find the poor girl, and b. i know there are some chicagoans out there. :D

(she's a relative of karnythia. the cops think she ran away but her family doesn't, so basically there's been no amber alert.)

From the release:

Brianna Lacey, 15, is missing. She is also known to go by the name of Brianna Wright. She was last seen Friday, December 18, 2009 leaving for school from her home in the vicinity of 80th Street and Eberhart and heading to Longwood Academy located at 95th Street and Throop, according to the Chicago Police Department.

Brianna is described as a African-American, 5 ft. 4 inches tall, weighing 110 lbs., with brown hair, brown eyes, and a fair complexion. She also has pierced ears. She was last seen wearing a navy blue polo shirt, navy blue sweater, gray pants, and a brown coat. She had on black gym shoes, as well. According to police, she frequents the area near her home, as well as the area near 105th Street and Yates in Chicago, Illinois.

Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to contact Chicago Police Area Two Detective Division Special Victims Unit at (312) 747-8274. Please note, If you are an adult and allowing a minor child to stay at your residence, without parental consent, you are breaking the law and can be prosecuted.

...and I'm still figuring out how to work this thing. Those of you who've been around here for a while know that every damned time I like someone, I get wrapped up in this anxiety feedback loop. I think I've figured out a few things about it:
( navel-gazing )

Happy Solstice to those who celebrate it. The kids and I opened stockings this morning. And now, off to work.