To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive

Skating: Third back spin lesson with BF today. We tried a couple new techniques, and I did something resembling a back scratch spin at one point! He's given up on teaching me the start-with-free-leg-turned-out method, claiming I have so much turnout that it's counterproductive, as it winds up pulling me toward the inside. Or something. Anyway, we went straight to pulling the free leg up as parallel as possible to the skating leg--which for me, let's face it, is still turned out 90% of the time--and it's going better.

Humira: I had a miserable weekend where I couldn't go on after about 90 minutes of shopping (admittedly, this was after I spent $50 on Christmas tree ornaments, so maybe this was a blessing in disguise), then Monday and Tuesday were much better than usual. Today, eh, back to normal. I just took my third shot, so I'm starting week five. Eight more weeks before we can declare it a success or a failure. One of the common side effects is a sore throat, and unfortunately it's one I've got. About three times a week, I feel like I'm in the beginning stages of a cold, but the cold never shows up. Better than three colds a week, I suppose.

Fandom: I finally started on my Yuletide fic last weekend. Well, the one I think I'm actually going to finish, as opposed to the two false starts. 125 words. Onward...

O happy day. Well, technically yesterday was the happy day, but you know.

Oh, Agent Carter, sometimes the fact that you are set in 1946 rather than the 30s kind of cramps my style. And by style I mean my knowledge of pop culture, which is far greater for the 30s than it is for the 40s.

I may be writing more fic. A few more fics, actually. They all basically revolve around the theme of "Jack Thompson flirts very badly, often confusing flirting with being an annoying jerk. Peggy Carter finds this simultaneously irritating, amusing, confusing, and intriguing. She also verbally kicks his ass a lot."

...Looking at some of my favorite pairings, I do believe I see a theme.

*

In reviewing my medical records, I found that I have an arcuate uterus. This is largely an incidental finding, as the jury is still out on whether the increased difficulty in getting pregnant and increased number of miscarriages for women with this abnormality is statistically significant. (Anyway, it's a moot point for me, obviously.) It doesn't affect anything else. What I found amusing is that it basically causes the uterus to have devil horns.

I feel like this explains so much. Perhaps I should enlist the services of an exorcist as well as a gynecologist.

For Yuletide, I got not just one, but two charming Corner Gas fics!

Sparkle Balls (3707 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Corner Gas
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Karen Pelly, Davis Quinton, Mayor Fitzy Fitzgerald, Wanda Dollard, Lacey Burrows, Hank Yarbo
Additional Tags: Small Towns, Misses Clause Challenge
Summary: Davis has his heart set on a flashy lights display to bling up the police cruiser for the Dog River Days parade. Karen doesn't want to tell him that she broke the display weeks ago. Can she fix it before the day of the parade?

Casing The Joint (878 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Corner Gas
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Davis Quinton, Karen Pelly, Brent Leroy, Wanda Dollard, Lacey Burrows

I read a bunch of other stuff, too. Pretty much everything in the Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries section was good, as was everything in the Thrilling Adventure Hour section. But my favorite has to be the Beyond Belief/Thin Man crossover. It's pretty much the best thing ever. My favorite four drunken, married, adorable detectives solve a supernatural crime via alcohol consumption.

The Thing-Man (2835 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Thrilling Adventure Hour, Thin Man (Movies)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Frank Doyle/Sadie Doyle, Nick Charles/Nora Charles
Characters: Sadie Doyle, Frank Doyle (TAH), Nora Charles, Nick Charles, Original Characters
Additional Tags: Crossover, Vendettas, Drinking & Talking, Clink!
Summary: The Doyles are invited to a mysterious dinner party.

*

In writing news, I...think I am done with a complete draft of the angst!fic? All the words appear to be there, and in roughly the right places. (All THIRTY-EIGHT THOUSAND OF THEM.) I'm going to let it marinate for a few days, then proof and look for a beta.

Hooray! The show is over went fairly well. Someone did fall, but not at a super critical moment and she didn't take anyone else out with her. (If someone had fallen during the kickline, now that would've been a disaster. A kickline on ice is exactly as unstable as it sounds.) Other than that and a few timing glitches, it seems to have looked pretty good. Our pinwheel was straight, which was a minor miracle, and it looks very cool on the video.

I enjoyed getting to watch most of the show from the sidelines rather than spending the time sewing my dress together. We had a couple of guest pairs and a dance team, all of whom were excellent, especially the Novice pair. They were super good, very well-packaged with excellent choreography and presentation, and I absolutely expect to see them at the Olympics if they stay together long enough.

I invested in a pair of these tights for the show, and it may have been the best decision I made all year. The only way they could've been warmer is if they were fleece-lined. Between that and my long-sleeved leotard, I didn't freeze this year!

(I would totally buy a fleece-lined leotard, though. If and when I ever really learn how to sew, that's the first thing I'm making.)

*

34k and some change on the angst!fic. SO CLOSE. (I'll be looking for a beta shortly if anyone's interested and knows China Beach canon...)

*

I finished S2 of Miss Fisher this weekend. So cute! I loved the Christmas special, and the one before it, and the one with Jack undercover at the radio, and... It's light, but eventually became very satisfying. (Although, ummm, was it everyone in the cast's mission to interrupt Jack and Phryne in those last two episodes? Heh.)

You know what? I am going to post some good things, because the last month here has been a litany of woe and I'm tired of it.

1. Between my surgery and the post-op ER visit, I met my insurance's deductible and out of pocket maximum over the summer, and since then all my medical care except prescriptions has been free.* My ER visit two weeks ago had a sticker price of $2,000, and for me it was totally free, as were the followup appointment with my gyn and an unrelated appointment with my allergist. I think this also means my upcoming physical therapy will be free, as long as I can complete it by December 31.

(I am half-seriously thinking about trying to get my gyn to schedule a hysterectomy for December to take advantage of this...)

* Well, okay, I still pay the $60 premium each month, but you know what I mean.

2. If there had to be a year where we needed to use up all of our banked PTO time because they're going to stop letting it roll over, it's a good thing it was this year. I've taken almost a week of unscheduled sick time in the last month, but I can still have vacation time in the spring.

3. I hit 25k on the angst!fic. (I should really stop calling it that. It is about 40% angst by volume, but it's also fluffy in places, and features lots of kidfic and humor and introspection and other stuff. It's a post-series AU for, what else, China Beach.) I think I might be 3/4 done.

4. I definitely have an idea for my Yuletide assignment that I'm going to let marinate for another week or so (while I hopefully finish the other fic...) and then start writing.

5. I bought a bag of half-off Halloween candy yesterday. This is actually more bad for me than anything, but it sure feels good, and I kind of don't care after all my recent troubles.

Sleep! Sleep is so wonderful! I've been doing it all weekend. Blessings upon him or her who invented inhalers, for they are miraculous objects.

I am now thoroughly confused about when and where to post a link to my Yuletide letter. It sounds like it might be best to wait. Probably this is a good thing, because I'm not actually done with my letter yet. I'm debating whether to add a fifth request or not.

The angst!fic has broken 20,000 words, because of course it has. I'm still hoping to finish it by the time Yuletide assignments go out, because I want to not be distracted, but that hope gets dimmer by the day. It does at least feel about two-thirds done. I can write 10,000 words in 2-3 weeks, right?

You know you've officially crossed into not just longfic territory, but way-too-longfic territory when you not only need an outline, but you have to color-code your outline. And this is not even the not!drawerfic, which one might expect that of, but the new angst!fic, which is quickly growing much larger than I expected. My family has a running joke that every shrub or tree my mother buys for the yard gets 3 times bigger than she says it will, at a bare minimum.* (I believe there's one tree in particular that was supposed to be 15 feet, and is now well on its way to 50 in under ten years, if that gives you any reference point.) This fic is becoming like one of those trees. I may need to invest in the authorial equivalent of a hacksaw.

* To be fair, I'm pretty sure the national hardware store chains and the like print one care and growth expectation card for every member of a species they sell across the nation, and it's probably keyed off the northeast or midwest. Down here in the subtropics, we can grow things a lot better.

*

I've slacked off on my knee and ankle exercises for almost three weeks now, and this morning at practice, the medial meniscus in my left knee declared it was absolutely not doing any more turns, spins, or jumps. I still had five minutes left on the session, too. :( So I did them tonight. Hopefully things are better by Friday. I guess these are going to be a rest-of-my-life kind of thing...which I sort of knew, in the back of my head, but was in denial about. Argh.

*

I finished the gold bottles of allergen serum today, which means I move to a weekly schedule of shots for six more weeks as I build up the dosage of 1:1 serum, and finally a monthly schedule after I reach the maximum/maintenance dose. Assuming all goes well, anyway. So far, so good, though! I could still have a delayed reaction to this last dose up until noon tomorrow, but I'm well past the point where all my previous reactions have happened (typically three hours after getting the shot), so I'm reasonably confident I will actually make it to the red bottles next week. Of course, the 1:1 concentration will be its own adventure, I'm sure, but maybe re-doing the blue will have had lasting effects.

Pretty sure I'm about to fast-forward through an entire year in the not!drawerfic. Big, bold "One Year Later" and everything, BSG-style. If I do that, I can get to something more conflicty that much sooner, and that big conflicty thing is the climax of the story, so I might actually, you know, finish it this calendar year! The only flaw in my plan is that I should really make that "one year later" the beginning of a new section, and the section before it isn't that long. So far I have 38 chapters that average 3k each, divided into three sections of 30-40k each and a fourth that's going to be 10k if I go with this plan. I guess that's not the end of the world, but it offends my taste for symmetry.

...Oh, who cares. There's almost nothing interesting about the year I'm going to skip. Off it goes!

*

P started counting for me while I was doing my Waltz 8 in lesson today, and heeeey, what a dramatic improvement in my three turns! The rest of the figure was as crappy as ever, but the turns are much better. When I'm on the circle as opposed to just on a line where I can do whatever arc I want, I tend to fear and avoid the turn until the last possible second, so by that point I've over-prepared and can't hold the edge coming out of it. Doing it to a count meant I had to do it early-which-is-really-on-time, and so I could hold my edge coming out.

She also has me doing a spin exercise that actually gives me hope that someday I may actually be able to enter a spin on one foot. I was seriously questioning whether that would ever happen even just a couple weeks ago.

Finally, I wondered if it might be, and now I know: the exercise she gave me last Saturday to work mohawks is indeed the dreaded 5-Step Mohawk Sequence from Bronze MITF. Well, minus that slip thing at the end that I'm pretty sure would land me on my head right now. It's good to know it's not quite as scary as everyone I've ever heard talk about it makes it sound. Although that step forward after the back outside edge is something of a nail-biter, especially at a decent speed. I'm sure I flail very attractively every time I hit that point.

One of the other adult skaters had a bumper crop of blackberries this year, so she made jam and gave all the other adults a jar today. I've not had great experiences with blackberry jam in the past, but this is delicious. Tastes like summer!

*

I've been going through a Dar Williams renaissance over the past week. I think most of what I had from her came from Kenster, so there's a whole bunch of stuff I'd missed since then or just never knew about, so I've been exploring tracks I'd missed. Some particularly nice new-to-me songs are "This Was Pompeii" and "Troubled Times."

I have a sneaking suspicion that "Are You Out There" may make its way into a China Beach vid once I see the rest of the series. Obviously the song is about something very different, but the themes of alienation, and connection through music, seem like they would work well with the source from what I've seen so far.

I also suspect the box set may be a (very) early Christmas present to myself, at least unless the library gets the last two seasons in tout de suite.

I just wanted to record this momentous event in the life of the not!drawerfic. It only took 13.5 months.

(I'm still toiling in Part 3 of what used to be 4, but is now going to be 5 or possibly even 6, because Part 3 was originally supposed to cover 1992-1995, and here I am 30,000 words later still in spring of 1993. Argh.)

Did you know MS Word stops giving you the running word count at the bottom of the document once you hit 100,000? I am not pleased. Watching that word count climb is 50% of my motivation!