Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Servalan's LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Monday, April 30th, 2012
9:55 pm	Fiesta Week This post wraps up my week in San Antonio, TX. (No, there haven't been any other posts about it. You're not missing anything.) Having never been to San Antonio, nor even to Texas, I had no idea what to expect. Other than the heat, of course. The internet prepped me for that one. And then I made sure xyon prepped too...with six hours of hunting down the perfect lightweight shirt. The most important thing I've done while in SATX: Attend a friend's wedding. (In her father's gigantic backyard with about 120 guests, a margarita machine, and fire dancers.) The things I've learned about the Riverwalk: It's very pretty with green water that supports cute little ducklings and a water-taxi tour. Everyone drinks frozen margaritas and eats Blue Bell ice cream. Most of the restaurants are terrible, with the exception of Saltgrass which turns out to be a chain steakhouse. The thing party-lovers should know: The week of April 22-29 is Fiesta Week. Everyone congregates downtown for parades and street fairs. There is much drunken revelry. Participants come from all over Texas (though half my hotel was filled with locals), especially as regards the court since the Fiesta Queen could be from anywhere in the state. All in all, it's been fun (and sunny!), but I'm ready to head back to Seattle for sure. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, April 16th, 2012
8:29 am	Dear LJ Ummm. I'm way more than 100 entries behind on my f-list. Like, I was out of it for 4 weeks with 4 different sicknesses (each requiring some sort of opiate medication that made me unable to read). Meep! (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 13th, 2012
10:31 pm	How many jobs do you have? Well, soon, I won't have any of the PAYING variety. Next week (or maybe the weeks after; jury's out), my current contract writing for videogames comes to a close. Sad. I love that contract. Why, just last week I wrote a children's book for a society which lost all its wars and is highly defeatist. (The child's cute-companion dies, disturbingly eaten whole, and said child vows never to steal again. There may also have been fairy tales and a ridiculous anthropolgist's journal, but the creepy kids book is my fave.) Of the non-paying variety (at least, largely), I have: * my next writing project -- a YA action-adventure space opera * learning spoken Spanish -- 'cuz in high school, we learned to write, not to talk * music stuff -- 4 gigs this week! for St. Pat's Anyone wanna speak Spanish with me? In completely different news, the water through our basement isn't draining. There are little lakes on the basement floor. Sadly, the guy who came to look at it today was all, "Gotta come back with cameras because your pipes are super long and super clogged." So, maybe Thursday I can get to the fuse box and use the washing machine? (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 28th, 2012
11:42 pm	Apparently, I'll need a poetry contest So, I'm doing this experiment where I'm outlining a story COMPLETELY before I write it. I bought a copy of KM Weiland's Outlining Your Novel and am working my way through, doing every single exercise. So far, I have approx 20 pages of notes. Anyway, I've accidentally written myself into a position where I have a whole planet (complete with its own space colonies) originally settled by the Welsh. So, I kind of need a starting point for the most important things to know, and Wikipedia/BBC Wales/Britannia.com are kind of failing me about everything that doesn't include poetry contests. I mean, the poetry contests are awesome and will be integrated, but I can't base an entire society on them, y'know. So... can I beg anyone connect to Wales to suggest some Welsh history/news/culture blogs? Or does anyone have a fave Welsh musical artists I can use for soundtracking? (I'm looking at you on that last one, cannons_at_dawn.) All this because I wanted to name my spaceship Ceridwen's Cauldron and then have the protag rename it Manawyddan's Mousetrap when she gets mad at everyone who takes advantage of her. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, January 20th, 2012
5:38 pm	Off my old computer Whoa. I've finally pulled a bunch of writing off my previous computer. So far, the two most interesting things I've found are: 1) A completed space-opera epic poem. (Around 3K alliterative words.) 2) A half-started collection with the disturbingly current cover copy pitch Ayn is an ultra-modern office manager with plenty of friends and a good head on her shoulders, but she’s never had any luck with love. Maybe, she thinks, she just isn’t loveable. When she and some friends are (unauthorizedly) kidnapped by time-travelling space vampires, her life takes a turn for the weird. At least she knows now why men didn’t seem to flock to her before; she was searching in the wrong species. Though space pirates may cause trouble and some of the dashing Captain Roberts’ crew are less than supportive, Ayn finds herself more at home in this strange world that she ever was at home. Someday, when Captain Roberts is finally able to return to her time and planet, Ayn may not want to leave. Wow. I wrote cool stuff on my old computer. Of course, very little of the things I'm excavating ever got finished. (Comment on this)
Sunday, December 4th, 2011
3:41 pm	Rambling Update Whew! It's been an interesting few weeks since my last update. Here are the key points of loveliness: ( 1) Finally been to Canada! ) ( 2) Oh, look. Contract #4 with the same videogame company. ) ( 3) Yes! We're moving back to the city. Thank goodness. ) ( 4) After a year of writing, I've finished my steampunk erotica story collection. Well, sorta. ) ( 5) My parents visit next week. Yay! ) Oh! And if you're in Seattle on Christmas Eve, I'm playing a dinner show at A Terrible Beauty (the Irish Pub) in West Seattle. They're doing a 4 course dinner and called to ask if I'd play live music that day since their regular person (with a weekly show) is on vacation. Also, they've given me a biweekly show on Sundays, starting in the new year. Yes! (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 1st, 2011
8:59 am	Egg On My Face Watching Penn & Teller a week or two ago, xyon and I saw a segment where people tried and failed to crush an egg by exerting pressure from the two pointy (well, pointier) ends. Being unable to break an egg had us both enamored. Last night, I needed an egg for dinner-making. But first: can I get the shell to crack by putting a finger at each end and squeezing? Answer: no. It works! Or, um, it doesn't work. Then I had the bright idea to try the egg shortways. Surely, it should be difficult to smush, but not impossible. So, xyon tries it...and egg goes shooting out the ends (after a few moments of pressure). It got all over the floor, the kitchen counters and drawers, my sweater, xyon's hair, and (of course) my face. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011
9:37 pm	Hassidic Amazon AKA the story I'm not writing So, tonight at my writing group, we each created a scene based around a photo of a woman getting a tattoo. Mine had backstory like crazy. ( See, it's the 1960s ) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 2nd, 2011
4:45 pm	No internet! So, driving and cooking Well, this weekend (starting Friday) our Internet went down. I'd love to blame Verizon, but really...the Internet closet (the closet in our house which holds a case-less computer and all of its 10-yo friends) stopped working properly. But! That's fine because I had plenty of other things to do. I first headed out to learn stick shift on Jeremy's car. Now, this is a huge thing because that car is babied. It has never been subjected to a driver who is completely befuddled by the idea of a third pedal. But, by end-of-day Friday, I had mastered first gear and switching into second. Yay me! I was also very familiar with the mostly-empty parking lot at Microsoft's Building 26 (which has a nice straightway for people taking their cars up to second gear). On Saturday, I abandoned my lessons in automatic-transmission-appreciation for shopping (Kohl's coupons!) and food (because I am becoming domestic). Kohl's included lovely things like...a t-shirt already on sale and some socks. Food got a little out of hand. Yesterday's dinner included: - lemon butter salmon - caramelized endives with membrane-free orange sections - an applesauce tart for dessert (I made the applesauce from scratch) Verdict on dinner: salmon is always good; endives got too burned to know if we liked them; leftover Fuji applesauce is yummy. Note about endives: I knew nothing about them and had to ask someone stocking the shelves at the grocery store about them. (His name is Greg; he has a lovely accent and works at Metropolitan Market in Kirkland.) Greg not only knew where the endives were, he figured out that I needed Belgian endives (as opposed to curly endives), and showed me which were large and which were medium sized. Yay Greg! This brings us to today: * I can now drive in 3rd gear and leave parking lots. * I made ricotta cheese. * Internet!!!!!!! (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, September 30th, 2011
9:04 am	So much for THAT plan Have you tried, in recent years, to rent a car with a manual transmission? I hadn't until last night, seeing as I only drive automatic and never learned the other one. Now, I can recall a time when I had to request automatic, and the prettiest cars never came with one. However, I've been toying with the idea of learning to drive stick, especially since xyon has a manual car. (I know, you're thinking, "Good for him; keeps his wife from driving his car!" But, this is very unfortunate when Jeremy drives somewhere and then acquires a headache or desire to take a nap. I'd like to be able to say, "Don't worry. You just close your eyes while I drive back.") Anyway, today is supposed to be one of our last few non-rainy days of the year, so I figured it was time to jump in: rent a car, have Jeremy take off work to show me the basics, and then drive on empty roads all day. Problem: You can't do that. I started with Avis (because we have membership discounts). They claim to have a Mini Cooper Convertible in stock (and a Chevy Camaro) which may or may not have a manual transmission. (This isn't me saying: "Oooh, convertible!" It's me saying, "This is the only car that doesn't advertise its automatic transmission.) But when you click the "reserve this car" button, you can't reserve it. It doesn't exist anywhere near us at all. Hertz, Enterprise, it's all the same. If nothing else, you'd think that sports car rentals would come manual. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 21st, 2011
10:30 am	Editor/Beta reader desired - short story Anyone with an editorial eye want to beta an original short story? Vampires, threesomes, Highlander-esque flashbacks. (I got asked to write some vampire erotica last week; can you tell? Although, I haven't heard back from the editor since sending her some questions, so who knows what's really going to happen to this piece.) I'm undecided on whether the first scene is necessary, and I'm worried that my vampires aren't...sparkly enough for the modern audience. Editrices? (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 20th, 2011
5:20 pm	Friends: Wanna vacation? I'm thinking about taking a Winter Sun vacation in Florida in early November. Found ridiculously cheap tix to Ft. Lauderdale on Virgin Air and have a "book in the next 15 hours" awesome rate at the 4.5 star Atlantic Hotel. Anyone else want to go? We could make a friendship week of it... (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 13th, 2011
12:29 pm	not even a real update I have this anti-itch cream that I really like the scent of. It drives me crazy that I can't smear my whole body with it (because then I'd be numb all over and have to tell people they shouldn't touch me, or (if they do) that they should wash their hands). Somehow, this feels like it ought to be significant. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, September 12th, 2011
3:15 pm	Comparisons you don't expect to make Here's one: What do Paul Simon and Katy Perry have in common? They've both written a song that sounded dated as soon as it hit the radio. Feelin' Groovy versus Last Friday Night. I'd like to point out that I enjoy both of these songs, but I can't help giggling over "groovy" and "epic fail". (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 1st, 2011
3:25 am	Cackle Was being all depressed and lame and sleep deprived when just discovered the world of obnoxiously cute Sherlock fanfic. Now am still sleep deprived, but in a much better mood. In other news, people who may have wondered how my solo gig went can check out a few videos (not the world's best, but hey) on the Youtube. (Comment on this)
Sunday, July 17th, 2011
11:50 pm	Mmmm, music and stuff Mmm, my band had a lovely gig last night at a bar down at Alki Beach called The Celtic Swell. The first time we played there, it was nearly empty, with only two people who cared about the band (a nice guy who wanted to make time with me and/or the fiddler . . . and the bartender). This second time, it was hopping! Lots of audience members, and plenty of patrons who got up and danced. And who stayed for the whole show. Whee! There might be photos of this later. But, right now, all my photo energy is going towards designing the CD covers. (We're selling CDs at shows soon.) How did I end up being the designer? I know more than everyone else in my band about design. That says something. Meep! I also spoke with someone in the management hierarchy about maybe doing an acoustic solo/duo night there during the week. **fingers crossed** They sounded like they might be interested in a regular Thursday show, which'd be: (a) fun and (b) lucrative. In totally different news, xyon and I have given up on selling his house anytime soon. It's been on the market for a while, and it's time to let it rest. (There comes a point where a prospective buyer has to think, "Why hasn't it sold yet? Let's not bother looking at it.") So, we're setting it up as a rental. This is going to make me a landlord. OMG, I know nothing about that. Thank goodness I'm the queen of researching and have already netted a property manager to deal with the whole thing. People who are not my property manager (1) The guys who haven't sold the house yet, but who keep saying it's going to happen if only we do X. (Then Y, then Z, and so on.) (2) The company whom I contacted with a request for information which didn't get back to me for five days; when they finally did call, I greatly enjoyed being able to tell them I'd already gone with someone else. We've gone through the house and done a whole bunch of re-cleaning (e.g., mopping the floors), and we're getting a professional crew in to do carpets, etc. Then: house available in Bothell, WA by both the 405 and I-5 freeways. Anyone interested? written from my new desk (Comment on this)
Thursday, July 14th, 2011
12:00 pm	Needs I need to get a helluva lot more work done. (Which probably means not checking LJ.) I need to find more productive ways of making money. ($0.50/hr for editing is not cutting it.) I need to learn to completely ignore friends and friends-of-friends who make political comments. (I thought I was getting better at this after anti-American pub-goers in England. But I'm backsliding. The problem being, of course, that I don't agree with anyone else entirely on anything.) (Comment on this)
Thursday, June 30th, 2011
10:51 am	blogs After all these years of maintaining corporate blogs for other people and only using LJ for myself (because my friends are here)...I'm taking the plunge. This is largely because: 1) I am broke and going to try the full-on freelancing thing. 2) My accountant is awesome so I'm going to try the full-on freelancing thing. This means I need web presence. Eeep. Thankfully, the utterly awesome niac has some pretty photos of me for "about" sections. Now I just need to do some design work and copywriting. This is a lot harder for oneself than for someone else! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 28th, 2011
8:25 am	Cheesecake! Yesterday, for the first time ever, I made a cheesecake. This also let me use my 9" springform pan and make my first crust ever. So, go me. Can we just ignore that I managed to zest my thumb? xyon tells me that it's pretty good (and is, in fact, the best homemade cheesecake he's ever had...by virtue of being the only), but I have no judgement of my own since I don't like the stuff. Supposedly, it could do with less lemon. You couldn't tell me that before I zested my thumb? There are pictures of its round crackedness on a camera in our house. Maybe I'll post them to FB and gloat about my mad cheesecake skillz. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011
10:21 pm	Oh, how I love rollerblading on the beach When I'm in a good mood, rollerblading on the beach just adds to life's...idyllic-ness. When I'm in a bad mood, it puts things in perspective. See, today I had a horrible time with my pays-pennies-on-the-hour editing job. ( Here's some specifics for the nosy people. ) But once I was out at the beach, wind on my face and blue water on my left, the sound of the surf and the smell of the fresh air, the boats sailing by and my husband keeping me company...then it all seemed so manageable. I still don't know what I want to do about the particular stressor, but I don't feel all tied up about it anymore. **grin** I almost feel like a Californian from a beach city again. Laid back, relaxed, and ready to take on the world. In completely different news, I've started reading a Sarah Caudwell novel because ellen_fremedon is wild about them. We'll see how it goes. (2 Comments |Comment on this)