bluflamingo

It's barely nine o'clock and I'm already so done with today.

I woke up at 5.30am and finally went back to sleep about ten minutes before my alarm went off. Then the shelving in the shower fell on my head and dropped all my shampoo and shower gel on my foot, which has a lovely bruise now. I didn't have enough milk to make cereal, burnt the toast, and then when I was packing my bag to leave for work, discovered that the rat had chewed through a corner of it in the night to get at the cereal bar in there.

Nothing like a bad morning to make you *very* careful crossing the road - today really seems like the kind of day that could end with me getting run over by a bus.

Though assuming I survive today, I'm going on holiday tomorrow, for a whole week :)

Starting up a run of at least three posts coming this evening:

Why do my chocolate buttons taste of mint? That's disappointing.

Also ( Mild spoilers for episode one of Sherlock )

Also, it's so going to rain when I just spent 15 minutes watering my plants. I knew I shouldn't have bothered!

You know, I'd actually forgotten that shaky, freaked out feeling that comes with coming out to family members.

I can't say I'm enjoying remembering it all that much.

In other words: while I'm out to my mother, my father, my sister, my sister's boyfriend, and both my grandmothers (my grandfathers are dead), I haven't ever come out to my aunt and uncle (my mother's brother and his wife). Mainly because my mum felt my aunt wouldn't take it well. Personally, I think that's rubbish and also that they've probably figured it out for themselves. Regardless, I just hit the point where I decided this was stupid, and sent my uncle a text saying 'you know I'm gay, right?'

So now I'm sitting here shaking, waiting for a reply (I don't do coming out over the phone, and I can't do it face to face because next time I see them will be with my elderly and infirm grandmother and my very stressed mother, so if it goes badly, not good timing). Oh, how I didn't miss this feeling!

On the other hand, that covers all my family except for the great aunts, who I guess will find out at my sister's eventual wedding (assuming she doesn't ban me from giving the real reason when nosy family who I never see ask why, as the oldest, I'm not married yet).

Should have done it by letter, like I did to my father's mother, when he kept saying I couldn't tell her because she'd freak (yes, that's always my family's reason. I prefer not to think too hard about why they say this) and I got sick of that and wrote to her. Apparently she called my mother to ask if she knew! Then she wrote to me and said okay, fine, thanks for telling me, and now asks if I've met any nice women. My grandmother was in the WAAF in WWII, so she's not as sheltered as my father seems to think. Interestingly, that was four years ago, and my father doesn't seem to have noticed that I've done it yet.

Good things:
1. I just bought a car! It's old and I think might be a bit temperamental, but thank God I no longer have to rely on buses to get where I'm going (note I don't say 'on time.' That's never happened to me, in two and half years here).
2. I just got paid for a story I sold. Only $45 (£28, what happened to the exchange rate?!) but wow, someone gave me money for something I wrote :))))

Less good things:
1. My boss (one of them) is a crazy control freak and if she doesn't stop, I'm going to snap.
2. I'm so tired! I want to sleep, and instead I wake up at 4 in the morning. I don't want to be awake then! And I have so much work to do, and my family is descending this weekend, which wouldn't be so bad except that I'm working Saturday. I have no idea when my minutes will get done, none. Particularly since I'm so tired I'm having trouble focussing - makes reading my shorthand really difficult.

Time stamp ficlets coming along, slowly.

1. I have a job interview! Which is a surprise, because it closed ages ago and I thought that was that. Apparently not.

2. My training course on Saturday just got cancelled, which means I now have a three day weekend.

3. First draft of the minutes for my clerking job is done, thank *God*. I hate doing minutes, mostly because I can't read my own shorthand very well.

4. I finally found a radio station in Bristol I that plays music I like and doesn't have much talking - thanks to being interviewed by them about domestic violence and abuse on Wednesday.

5. I have a ticket to Riverdance. Which, okay, not until April, but still - I went last year, and it's a great show.

Also: fic to follow as soon as I find the file, help_haiti fic is started, and I got my prompt for satedan_grabass yesterday and I'm so thrilled with it, and already have a vague idea, and keep scribbling down notes for it.

So, that's my good day - how's everyone else doing?

There's nothing like finding your perfect job, at a place you'd love to work, getting an interview, finding out the people there are all great, being told you did a good interview and an excellent test...

And then being told they gave it to someone else.

I've never cried over a job before this, but I wanted it so much, and the interview went so well, I guess I'd started to think I was going to get it. Instead, I have to spend 6 hours *on a Saturday* with my boss who drives me crazy.

Why can't someone just come along and offer to pay me to write?

Did I mention that, in a fit of insanity, or possibly just because I'm really broke, I signed up a few months ago to be a canvasser for elections? Which basically means I knock on the door of everyone who didn't return their form to go on the register of electors for my area, and ask them to sign it now instead. The canvassing period runs from last weekend to the one after next, and I had 523 houses, which I have to go to twice if no-one's home the first time.

Since I just got back from working 14 hour days for lit fest, have a cold, and haven't had a day off work since the 4th of October, this was possibly not the best decision I ever made in my life (for the record, the best decision I ever made was to say yes when Bristol offered me a place on a masters course).

All of which is a long introduction so I can say:
I have been to every house once, got 238 forms signed, and have only 198 houses to go back to. The fact that I have fewer than 200 to do makes me very very happy.

As does working out how much I'm going to get paid for this. What can I say? Sometimes it's all about the power of democracy, sometimes it's all about the money, and since it's currently wet and windy, the latter is absolutely winning out.

Also, because it usually works for me - pre-end of the the year deadline time:
1 Dec: original fic for an anthology (the theme is surprise, and I even have an idea, kind of)
4 Dec: crossover exchange (currently notable for (well, okay, mainly for only existing in my head but also for) the number of times Castiel says something otherworldy and angelic and Dean rolls his eyes in mostly-fond exasperation)
7 Dec: rarepairings fic 1 (John/Cam, I am in love with where I am, but more in love with you; which, for the record, will not involve John leaving Atlantis for Cam, or Cam leaving Earth for John. In case you were wondering)
7 Dec: rarepairings fic 2 (John/Cam, worth the risk; the only one I've actually started, one more of my 'here's my backstory in fic form' fics, about John and Cam becoming 302 pilots, since I've used the idea a couple of times already)
13 Dec: Gen Kill exchange fic (for which I *finally* have an idea that I actually like and could write)

Plus, yuletide, probably, and then sg-flyboys for January (I want my prompt for this! I have to force myself not to go looking to see what people have asked for, or I'll pick out which one I want and be disappointed when I don't get it, which is never a good start).

1. If I read one more story where Keller decides not to go back to Atlantis at the end of season 5 because it's too frightening, I shall cry. She was *kidnapped* in early season 4, for pete's sake, and ended up shooting the guy. She nearly turned into a hive ship at the start of season 5. I don't think anything that happened since those events would suddenly convince her to leave.

I mean, I get that people need her out of the way so they can pair up John and Rodney, but what's wrong with them breaking up? Or her deciding to stay on Earth to be near her father? Or her getting an offer of a better job on Earth? She's tough, why can't people write her that way?

2. If you won't have the application pcks for a job ready until next week, would it not make sense to hold off on advertising it until next week? Seems like that would make the process a lot simpler for pretty much everyone.

In a slightly weird piece of timing, I'll have been at one of my part-time jobs for a year in a week and a half and, pretty much since I got here, I've been agitating for a total update of our website.

Tonight, it has happened :o)

I mean, I've been at work since 7 this morning, it's currently 8 in the evening, and I won't be leaving for another 2 hours, so I'm barely awake and it's possibly complete nonsense, but it is done.

I am victorious.

Want to see? Be warned - it's a website for a small, charity-run community centre, so it's not that exciting.