my regular Tuesday suit

[sab]

I don't have to be at work till 6:00 tonight, which offers me the longest stretch of downtime I've had since the 4th of July and I am trying very hard not to read HBP, because I want to save it for my plane flight on Wednesday. I'm on page 198, because what was supposed to be "just a little taste" turned out to be not so much, but that still leaves me plenty of Rowling for the five and a half hour flight from LA to Boston on Wednesday, provided I don't crack it open now and eat the whole thing before lunch.

I'm going home for a wedding, my cousin's wedding, the first wedding for any of us cousins on that side of the family, and what's more he's knocked up his hot French fiancee, so he's making an honest woman outta her which means that in six or seven months I get a little BABY cousin right here in Long Beach for babysitting purposes and for molding in my image and grooming to be the next Dread Pirate Roberts. I want a girl. The wedding's in the backyard of my parents' new, long-awaited Northampton home, 120 degrees in Massachussetts' Pioneer Valley and mosquitoes as big as yer fist. I'm gone Wednesday to Wednesday. It's practically a vacation except for all the long-lost relatives packed together in the Noho home looking for kisses and caterers and white folding chairs. It will be a welcome alternative to work. Let Bush name Edith Chambers to the bench while I'm gone. I'm looking forward not to standing in the line of fire, for once.

Four more hours, and HBP is taunting me, all big and purple. Here's a meme I found at pearl_o's house:

1. Name your ten favourite titles from stories you've written (or, if you're not a writer, just name your ten favourite titles).

Pissing in No-Man's Land, Bayliss/Kellerman, written for yuletide
A new device is being tested
Some Books About Crooks
Fan Interference is a Stand-Up Double written with wearemany, about Dan Rydell
Where Have You Gone, Tom Glavine?
Coming Back From the War: "the story was about coming back from the war but there was no mention of the war in it." -- Hemingway
Celebrated Blue Period: "If I'd met you during my celebrated blue period I don't know what I would have done." -- Hawkeye, to Carlie
In bed, I am an astronaut
The Largest Colonial Building in the World
General, dein Tank ist ein starker Wagen (used with permission from runpunkrun and Bertolt Brecht)

2: If you happen to be working on some creative writing project, fanfiction or NaNoWriMo or what have you, post exactly one sentence/paragraph/whatever from each of your current work(s) in progress in your journal. It should probably be your favorite or most intriguing sentence so far, but what you choose is entirely your discretion. Mention the title (and genre) if you like, but don't mention anything else -- this is merely to whet the general appetite for your forthcoming work(s).



Well, here's something fun. The start of my long-stalled Remix Redux III assignment, 30k and percolating here on my harddrive. Now's as good a time as any for the great REVEAL; there's an 80% chance I'll finish this thing and post it one day. Until then:

I'm remixing Reconciliation by inalasahl, which is really a lot of fun and full of sneaky inveigling and obfuscating. But for now, just a taste...

The beginning:

This time there were no dead bodies, but the postmaster shoved their mail at them in fistfuls anyhow, nodding and smiling in hyperactive silence and eager to see them gone. Simon slipped out into the corridor while Mal was signing customs reports and stopped under a sign that said THIS AREA UNDER CONSTANT VIDEO SURVEILLANCE YOU ARE BEING WATCHED to read his mail.

The Wu Lu Bai Center for Veterinary Studies wanted money; so did Amity Hospital, The David Wiesenstock Memorial, and -- in a remarkable exercise in audacity, Simon thought, slipping a finger under the envelope’s flap -- so did River’s alma mater, the Academy at Portia. Simon folded each of the other solicitations in half and stuffed them in his pocket. Later, dutifully, he’d send each institution a check. The one from the Academy he balled up and tossed in the trash chute. He got no other mail. He never got any other mail. No newspaper, no journals, no idea if his parents were enjoying the humiliating ruination they'd been promised when River busted free of the Academy Simon's parents had sunk half a mil into, tax-deductibly, the year before.

"Cap’n’s letting us stop for drinks," Kaylee hopped over, extending an elbow for Simon. He took it. "There’s a place down here’s got the best moonrise duststorms outside Felicity."

"And what exactly is in a moonrise duststorm?" Simon asked. "Which planet’s downhome brand of local hooch got the dubious honor of spending the best years of its life trapped in a vat with powderized street smack and food coloring in order to earn such a touristy name and jacked-up price?"

"Ni shi sha gua, Doc, ain‘t you ever just had a good time?" Jayne spat, elbowing past and careening off into the bar.

Kaylee looked up at Simon and he smiled, cutting her off at the apology. "It’s okay," he said. "It’s what Jayne and I do instead of sniffing each other’s asses."

*

And for fun, inalasahl's beginning:

This time when they picked up the mail there were no dead bodies, yet the postmaster was obviously still eager to see the back of them. It had been almost two weeks since they'd been off ship and no one wanted to head back right away.

"We got time to look around, don't we?" Kaylee asked Mal.

"Yeah," he said. He was still looking at the postmaster who kept glancing at them nervously. "How about we all stop for a drink?" Mal suggested. Everyone quickly agreed. Simon could see the disappointment on Kaylee's face and found it hard to stifle a groan. He never should have asked her out last time they'd stopped here. Most of the time he liked hanging out with Kaylee. She was becoming one of the best friends he'd ever had, but sometimes she could be overbearing.

Simon watched as Kaylee struggled for a moment, her inherently sunny nature finally winning out. "They make the best Moonrise Duststorms here," she told Simon as she took his hand. "You've got to try one." Simon smiled down at her. He wished he knew what was wrong with him. She was pretty and nice, and he got along better with her than he had with anyone other than River, but he felt only a slight warmth with her palm wrapped around his.

*Whump.* Jayne's solid mass caromed into Simon from behind, sending the shorter man stumbling. Simon turned in confusion. Jayne clutched a letter in his hand. He must have been reading it rather than paying attention to where he was walking. Jayne looked as startled as Simon, windmilling backwards to put distance between the two of them again and refusing to meet Simon's eyes. Simon sighed. No one had noticed yet, but it was only a matter of time. Things hadn't been the same between the two of them since the Lassiter job. It wouldn't be too long before someone noticed that Jayne, who had always been so eager to harass Simon in the past, had started ignoring him. When Simon had first realized it he'd been relieved, but he was starting to find it annoying. Simon didn't know what to do about it. He didn't even know that he wanted to. It still made him sick to think of what could have happened on Ariel. He still spent too many nights worrying whether River was safe on this ship after all. He turned back away from Jayne without saying anything.

[Read the rest of Inalasahl's "Reconcilation" HERE]
Read the rest of my remix...someday. *g*



Three more hours.

Damn you, big purple book.

Comments

[empressaurelius.livejournal.com]

Have fun at the wedding! Huge family occasions like that NEVER fail to be interesting....

I can't believe the willpower you're exerting NOT to be reading HBP omg! Go you! It's.....incredible. I finished it after about six hours of reading.

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

It's hard, believe me. *g* I left it in the other room so it would stop taunting me.

[sorlklewis.livejournal.com]

MK and I think you're insane, and don't understand why you're torturing yourself like that. :P

Actually, I'm at the exact same page as you are, and didn't have a chance to read any last night. But lunch! In 10 minutes! I shall read then.

[empressaurelius.livejournal.com]

*Shakes head* I do totally believe you! Leaving it in the other room might be a good idea, yeah. Maybe cover it w/ a blanket or something! Or put it away in whatever you're carrying on the plane w/ you.

Celebrated Blue Period

[gem225.livejournal.com]

I clicked on the link for Celebrated Blue Period, thinking that since it was a M*A*S*H quote it'd be a M*A*S*H story, which is pretty damned stupid come to think of it, but it was a WW story, which intrigued me, so I read it. Excellent story, although it's by you so that's no surprise. You're an excellent writer. :-)

I'm melting here in Cambridge in this utterly heavy weather. Have a safe trip, beware of the mosquitos, and have fun. :-)

Re: Celebrated Blue Period

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

Heh, it occurred to me after I posted that there was nothing there to suggest it WASN'T a M*A*S*H story, but, whatever. *g* Glad you enjoyed it regardless!

And, yeah, I jsut got off the phone with my mom who says it's miserable and humid but it might RAIN on Thursday, which would be refreshing. Any predictions you've heard?

I love your strawberries icon and I love YOU! Maybe if I'm lucky I'll get to go to Boston and spend some time with friends during the whirlwind wedding week. I'll e-mail you if so, yes?

Re: Celebrated Blue Period

[gem225.livejournal.com]

No problem. *g* I did enjoy it.

I've heard that tomorrow it'll be less humid here, thank someone or other, and there's supposed to be a thunderstorm coming this afternoon. Wish it'd get here.

I love you too, and I love your Head of Nurse icon. I am strawberry girl - you know, you've seen my hair! Yes, e-mail me if you look to get to Boston. I may not be able to meet up with you due to fucking period (coming any time here - yuck), but if I can I will. I'd love to see you. :-)

[samdonne.livejournal.com]

1. I Saw A Sibyl In A Jar
The Schrödinger Variant
Have Snake, Will Travel
Limping Toward Bethlehem
Please Hold Tightly
Two Is Swinging
As I Lay Me Down
Black (Ghosts)
Five Billion Years of Sunshine
Kansas -- on principle

2. "It is not until December of that year that Helen's dear friend and erstwhile lover Stanhope Rothschild, teetering on the hostile border of seventy, shows up on her doorstep and hands over custody of what could be called, in more forgiving quarters, a manuscript. By then it is much too late for Helen, or anyone who might have known where to begin -- the late Sal Monroe, perhaps, or Reverend Thomas O'Shea, whom Helen will not meet until the funeral -- to act upon the information contained in the sheaf of loose handwritten pages, plastic-wrapped and stained, and reeking of cheap paper, the scattered mess a gauntlet thrown at Helen's method and orderliness; a challenge, Stan says, thumping her dining room table with the disordered collection, a quest, a test worthy of the most vicious head librarian Cambridge has ever lured away from Magdalen College, Oxford.

That morning, a cantankerous torrent races the helpless battle-lines of off-roaders and sedans down Topanga Canyon. The weak sandstone of the hillsides, softened by a summer of firestorms and one of the wettest autumns on record, delivered its minefield of rocks, live oak and gutted willows in the still darkness of the pre-dawn. The boulevard is closed at the north end, and Los Angeles appears to the canyon dwellers like the distant dream of an Atlantis in the grip of a timeless struggle, defeated, overcome by antiquated storm drains.

In Helen's dining room, Stan trails a confused path of black mud and wet leaves across the floorboards. His surplus Army jacket, worn over a yellow dressing gown, is frayed at the elbows and around the button holes. Arthritic fingers scrub rivulets of rainwater off the hollow planes of a face once handsome but dried out by age and modern drugs, the chiseled beard a dark contrast to the ash-and-charcoal hair plastered to a gracile skull. When Stan stands still long enough to make a point, a puddle coalesces around his hospital-issue slippers and the sagging cuffs of his corduroys. All the while he gives chase to his own runaway words with hands like butterfly nets pierced through and through, the utterances like great shuddering wings that escape the trap of the throat, the cage of the ribs and sternum. At times, he catches sight of a wandering wrist and pauses mid-tirade to puzzle out the appendage, as if the knobby bridge between arm and hand were something foreign, alien, as if his physiology had availed itself of the odd protuberance overnight. After an interval of sincere puzzlement, he brings wrist to mouth and, with unseated teeth, chews on the plastic band looped snug around the limb. Yellow drool runs over chapped lips and down his chin to commune with the soup of mud and leaves on Helen's maple hardwood floors."

3. You've got mail.

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

I think Five Billion Years of Sunshine has been my favorite of your titles, despite the fact that I don't tend to read SG:1 fic. But MAN what a great title, with irony and apocalypse and and sarcasm and thrill.

Gotcher e-mails. Proceeding apace. And THANK YOU.

[mazily.livejournal.com]

You are a stronger person than I, resisting the HBP as you are. My copy showed up at 7:30 in the am on a Saturday, and I was finished reading by 10:30. A coffee and a doughnut later, and tangleofthorns and I were hip-deep in character analysis and discussion over the kitchen table.

It is like unto a swamp here in Boston. They keep threatening thunderstorms and rain, but I can still grab chunks of air in my hands. But it has to break sometime, yes? Or so I keep telling myself (they keep telling me). Ugh, and back to work I go.

I think you're putting too much faith in the power of a clean shirt.

[wearemany.livejournal.com]

Mmm, fan interference IS a stand-up title. The clerk at AmerApp seemed so perplexed that I got to dress you for the wedding but not be your date to it, and now that I think of it, so am I. Love and kisses to all your crazy family and the knocked-up bride-to-be. And be sure to come back alive, because California will miss you.

Re: I think you're putting too much faith in the power of a clean shirt.

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

Pleeeease come to Massachussetts with me for a week and be my date?!! The wedding's Saturday. Can't you skip town by then and come be with me?????

Re: I think you're putting too much faith in the power of a clean shirt.

[wearemany.livejournal.com]

baby, i wish i could. i have this newfangled thing called a job starting then, though.

and i have a big funeral on sunday. for which you will totally be neglecting your fake gf duties, too.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Argh for the no rest for the wicked lifestyle! Or is that no rest for the weary?

I almost signed you and SL up to go to a free Jude concert at Largo on the 1st of August:) Seems it's a good thing I didn't (they were only putting people who were at the show on the free list, and really they'd never know that Iamnotsab:)

Have a good vacation!

And I'd have to say, my favorite of those titles is In bed, I am an astronaut. It fits so perfectly, has enough tragedy just in it's wistfullness to suggest the things that will unfold in the story.

[tangleofthorns.livejournal.com]

Two of those stories were written for me!

Huzzah!

[qowf.livejournal.com]

Um, I was talking about you the other day.

I need to talk to you in person. So, what I'm saying is: come here. Before September 4th. Bring people. Or come alone.

But get here soon, okay?

[moireach.livejournal.com]

Coming Back From the War: "the story was about coming back from the war but there was no mention of the war in it." -- Hemingway

Sometimes I think about this quote, and your story, and the ways in which they go together and get happy. This is not a lie!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

"A new device is being tested" and "In bed I am an astronaut" deserve their own links, you know. They rocked, and just the other day someone asked me for Ciana recs!

[projectjulie.livejournal.com]

such a stunning beginning.

did you get that dress? what did everyone think of it??