So, the blog that had been attached to my domain is now, well, gone. As I mentioned a few posts ago, I only went to BBaC when it was time to clear out the spam and I was rarely remembering to make a post whilst I was there. Therefore, I decided it was in my own best interest to just combine the two blogs and save myself half the work. I might shorten the name of the blog a bit: maybe take out the “struggling”. Thoughts?

I got a first draft of a potential cover for Amaranth: The Preterhumans Book 1 today. Other than one small error (the lack of the letter “h” in my name), it looked fantastic. I’m so excited about this! Once it’s approved, then marketing for the book can start.

(Once it’s approved, I’m posting it on my profile at Fanfiction.net and MyFandoms.com to get my fanfiction readers to pick it up. If even half of my readers get it, that will be a fair number sold right there.)

I’ve got a short day at work tomorrow (8 hours, instead of 9 — I stayed late on Tuesday, so I get to make up the time), so I’m going to take some of my extra and work on my website. I think it’s about time a lot of this information started going up there. At least, if nothing else, I’m going to work on the wiki, to help me get it straight in my own mind.

And now, I need to go take my contacts out, try to work some, and then maybe crash early.

Currently feeling:// Exhausted
Currently hearing:// Drain STH – Black
Currently reading:// Knight Life by Peter David

I am a Nightwish fan.

Said that way, it sounds almost dirty. Nonetheless, I do adore the band and its music, and I would love to see them live someday.

I came into liking Nightwish during the End of an Era tour. In fact, I was only a fan a few weeks before Tarja left. That didn’t stop me buying all the albums and singles I could get my hands on. That also didn’t stop me from following the contest to get a new lead singer or from buying Dark Passion Play when it came out.

Here’s a revelation: I like Tarja and Annette. I might even like Annette a bit more because she is easier for me to understand (and my cats don’t go insane if she hits a note that frightens them). I don’t dislike Tarja, and I’m still taking the whole events of her leaving the band with a grain of salt. (It’s been said that there are three sides to the truth: your side, their side, and what really happened.)

However, in looking at Nightwish videos, images, and even lyrics, I have noticed a disturbing trend: Annette bashing from Tarja fans. I have even noticed that this trend only goes one way: Annette fans don’t return the bashing by saying things against Tarja. It is always the Tarja fans heaping the abuse on Annette (Tarja is prettier, Tarja dressed more sophisticated, Tarja did this, Tarja did that).

The psychology minor in me knows that this is their way of coping. The fan in me wants to yell that Tarja has left the band, she still has a solo career, and if they don’t like the new direction the band is going in, why don’t they quit listening to it… and stalking the message boards… and acting like little jerks every chance they get.

But that would be the grown-up thing to do.

And now my rant is over.

Currently feeling:// Tired
Currently hearing:// Meat Loaf – Left in the Dark
Currently reading:// Rogue by Rachel Vincent

Sometimes when you’ve had a bad day/weekend, the best things about the following Monday are:

* Meeting with your boss (inevitably leads to giggles)
* Treating the office to Starbucks (someone always gets irrationally happy about free coffee)
* Eating the foam off your hot chocolate
* Eating anything and everything chocolate you can get your hands on

Yes, it is in the high 80s outside, but it’s a bit chilly inside, so I am having hot chocolate. It was a long, not so great weekend, so I’m having way too much chocolate, including hot chocolate.

So, since sometime Sunday evening, I have a headache. Yesterday was distinctly miserable thanks to it. Today it was no better, but I went in to work to get arrangements made for the candidates. I managed to get that done, but by 11:30 the headache was even worse, so I went home. Well, I stopped by the post office and picked up my long-awaited and eagerly anticipated birthday present from one of my best friends, Dirjanka, then I came home, had a quick lunch… and slept from 1 p.m. till nearly 6 p.m.

Oddly enough, I feel a bit better now. Maybe it was just the stress and the lack of sleep resulting from the stress after all. It would be nice if I could get my current doctor to give me the prescription drugs that my old doctor gave me a free sample of recently: Wellbutrin. It seemed to help me. I don’t take it often because I only 7 left, though.

Jumping back a subject, my birthday present from Dirjanka was a million kinds of awesome. I love getting candy, especially candy I can’t get here in the U.S.: Old Dutch Boterwafeltjes, Dubbel spekken, and Napoleon Lempur candies are my favorites. My father’s former fiancèe was from the Netherlands, and her father used to share his Boterwafeltjes with me. I could have lived on those things. I’m not any better now.

Dirjanka also offered me some proper bribery: one candy for every paragraph. I think I have enough stashed now to do that. Once I get to feeling a bit better, I might have to start on that. When I feel a bit less like I have either the flu or major exhaustion, I’ll start trying that.

I’m going to try to start recording a bit of “current meta” at the end of each post, starting on this one. It would just be like “currently feeling”, “currently hearing” or listening to, and “currently reading”. Honestly, as much as music inspires me, it couldn’t be a bad thing; for example, “Something to Talk about” by Bonnie Raitt plays in my head every time I write one of those scenes where someone thinks Lizzy and Murdock are a couple.

Anyway, later, my freaky darlings!

Currently Feeling:// Sick
Currently Hearing:// Spiderbait – Riders in the Sky, Bonnie Raitt – Something to Talk about
Currently Reading:// Neil Gaiman – Stardust

So, we went to see Iron Man yesterday — and I have to say that I actually like Movie!Tony better than Comic!Tony, especially better than Ultimates-verse Tony. Overall, I would even go so far as to say it was one of the best comic book movies in the last few years.

So, my roommate, muse, and reluctant commenter, D. Marie, now has her own blog: Ink to Page! Okay, I set it up and all, but the rest is all D. Marie. (Wow, look at all the differences in layout and colors!)

And that’s about it. I’ve been working on this post the better part of the morning — and it’s now afternoon. Therefore, it’s time to leave off.

Somehow 2008 has been a new sort of movie year for D. Marie and me. Until this year, I had never seen a single chick flick in the theater. Not a single one. In fact, until this year, I could count on my hands just how many chick flicks I had seen — and that is counting the so-called genre “romantic comedies”.

Suddenly, we’ve been to see three in the theater: 27 Dresses, Definitely Maybe, and yesterday, Made of Honor. Kevin McKidd (Lucius Vorenus of Rome) might have impacted my reasons for Made of Honor; I’m a dork like that. I will follow an actor’s movies, especially if they make an action or horror movie/series I enjoy. That’s why I’ve seen most of Keanu Reeves movies (I liked Speed), as well as Kiefer Sutherland’s (that one is thanks to Lost Boys, definitely not 24 — the more I hear about that, the more I want to scream).

However, this weekend, we’re tempering the chick flick with blowing things up: going to see Iron Man. Now granted, even in the original Marvel universe, I didn’t care for Tony Stark, but I have to admire the chuztpah of the casting director, getting Robert Downey, Jr (an alcoholic) to play Stark (also an alcoholic). Plus I heard a rumor of what was supposed to be playing after the credits.

Anyway, our movie is at 10 a.m., so I need to start getting ready now.

I have major kitty love. I’ve watched an episode of Bones and (glee!) Poltergeist: The Legacy. My day has improved. Just sometimes my job gets me a bit down.

Probably a lot of what sent me spiraling today was a PayPal screwup. I bought an eReader for myself. I marked it for PayPal to put it on my credit card. Instead they charged it to the main bank account I have listed with them. What happened? Yep, you guessed it. So, cue cursing, money transferring, and an unhappy (but polite) email to PayPal, which I sent this morning but still haven’t heard back from. So much for that “customer service will reply promptly” bit they have on their website, huh?

Anyway, right now I have my headphones plugged into my computer, listening to a nice mix of European Goth Rock (Edenbridge, Epica, Within Temptation, Nightwish, Lacuna Coil, Kamelot, Xandria), with an affectionate kitty in my lap. This is not usually the kitty to be so affectionate. Usually she just claims a lap and bathes.

Anyway, sweet kitty and music. I would be singing along, but that usually gets me dirty looks, so I’m being quiet. I can do that sometimes. I’m ignoring writing, both Verdant and the fanfiction, at the moment and just taking a mental health evening.

But on another note… Dude! Someone just made a hit on this blog looking for Thomas Raith fanfiction. Rock on!

Also, they need to hurry up and release the rest of Poltergeist: The Legacy on DVD sooner rather than later. I would kill for better quality releases than the VHS episodes I recorded off Showtime way back when. The tapes are old, and the picture is fading. It’s still better than my VHS of Roar, but at least that’s come out on DVD now. I haven’t even seen the fourth season of Poltergeist: The Legacy; after the third season, Showtime sent it down the river to the SciFi channel, at the time where good shows went to die.

And that’s about it for me for tonight. I’m going to sit here and enjoy kitty affection, maybe read some fanfiction (I’m thinking Supernatural), and crash early. Ciao!

Some days at work, I need an assistant. Then again, I’ve said something similar to that one before. I rush trying to finish something for 1 boss, only to have the other boss toss three or four more things my direction. (It’s never one: it’s almost always three or four, at least: make flight reservations for X, Y, and Z; make copies of all these resumes; assemble packages about Tallahassee to give out to candidates; why haven’t you gone to pick up your travel card yet; et cetera.

Some days at work, I want to tear my hair/eyes/flesh off or burst out into tears if someone else hands me something else to do or finds something else they want me to take over/do or they think I’m not doing well enough. I’m well aware I’m not doing some of the things my predecessor did. Guess what? She was only one person’s assistant and I belong to two masters — she had more free time to do all these extra things that I don’t.

Some days at work, I miss antidepressants. Some days at work, I miss going to the Employee Assistance Program.

Some days at work, I hate everything, every second, and everyone — starting with me…

…and I hate that.

It’s not every day that I update Bell, Book, and Candle before I update Thoughts of a Struggling Writer. To some extent, the reasons behind all this are very simple:

1) I only update BBaC when I have writing news to share. This is my more all around journal: still concerning writing, but also fanficcing, reading, the pleasures of working in a public university, and other such bits of trivial joy.
2) I was on BBaC deleting entirely too many spam messages for the number of comments (read: zero) received, so whilst I was there, I did a quickie update.

I have entertained notions of being rid of BBaC and linking this journal to my author website. I’ve even thought about copying all the posts over to it. Of course, the nice thing about being a domain owner is that I could do some interesting domain masking tricks and have this blog show up under the URL for BBaC and hide it away that way. I do update this more frequently after all.

And in other news, I felt so proud of myself for writing as much as I did on Verdant at the doctor’s yesterday. At least, I was proud till I realized I only wrote about 500 words. Till I get to feeling better, I can’t guarantee how much I’ll be able to get done writing-wise. My concentration is shot, I’m exhausted all the time, I’m palming Tums like they’re candy, I can’t seem to catch my breath, my shoulders are a constant ache, and my bottle of ibuprofen is disappearing fast. That was why I was writing at the doctor’s yesterday. My (non-primary) doc and I think it might be a bad reaction to some medicine I was taking. We’ve switched me to another one now. Here’s hoping it works better. And we’ll see what my primary doctor has to say when I go to see him later in the month.

I think it might be about time for a new layout here. This one is just so… pastel. I’m not a pastel person; Lizzy is, but not me. I much prefer darker, deeper colors. So next time someone comes to check this the colors may have changed… again. Too many options, not enough time to test them — and none of them exactly to my liking. (I know: it sounds like an entitled Yuppie thing to say, of which I like to think I am neither – especially not a Yuppie, seeing as how I grew up in a town with less than 100,000 people in it – but I’m the one that looks at this blog the most. I would like it to be pleasing to my eye.)

And that was a ramble and a half. Wow, whoops.

Anyway, I have an hour and a half left until it’s time for me to head out for the day. In that time, I plan to look at new layouts, try to write, and attempt to stay awake. Why, oh why isn’t it the weekend yet?