It occurred to me that I need to be keeping a list of comics I'm reading so I don't forget any. Like I already have.

Ultimate X-Men
Ultimate Spiderman
Rabbit Doubt
Deadman Wonderland
Pluto
Fables
Desolation Jones
The Walking Dead

More to be added as I read more/remember which ones I need to catch up on.



ETA: What kind of stupid site won't let you date an entry as 3008? >:O

I went with company Z. Less money, more fun. They're super excited to have me work there, and I start next Monday. I'm both excited and nervous!

Hello, the flist. I have not talked to you much lately! Or seen you much. Or anything. Because I have been super busy doing things like, uh. Other. Things. ANYWAY. My most recent thing was a frantic job search! And now, internet, I have a massive fucking dilemma. It is kind of like a size two jeans problem, but I could still really use your advice, or the advice of everyone you know, especially if they have been in a similar position before.

( Torn between two job offers )

Hello, fair writer! How are you today? Herein, you can find more details about my yuletide request, which I am sure you find delightful and not at all annoyingly specific/unspecific!

( Yuletide Requests )

So I have this huge pile of books I bought but haven't read yet. And I do not know which one I want to read next! So here are the top twenty. Choose one for me to read.

Hello the internet! So, I am moving a third of the way across the country in December. I really do not want to take a lot of the shit that I have, though. I have a lot of CDs and DVDs and video games and books and computer parts and so on and so forth that I don't want.

So! Internet! Would you be interested in an internet garage sale next month? And possibly another one in November and a final one in December?

I'm doing eBay and Craigslist, too, but one more venue can't be a bad idea! So, what do you think, internet?

Internet, it is my last semester at school. One of the classes that I have to take to graduate, after attending college since 2004, is English 102. I must learn how to write research papers. No, really. So, I ask you, citizens of the internet, to please come up with a topic for me. I have to be able to make an argument (ie, my thesis must be something someone can disagree with) and it has to be "relevant," which I think means something which is still an active topic of study? So far those seem to be the only restrictions.

Internet, I really want to get on this, because I can not afford to fail this class because it becomes too much work in my crazy head and I stop going. :D?

Sometimes, when I find a skittle with another color skittle glued to it -- or even worse, a skittle with just a fragment of another color glued to it -- I worry that the main skittle is in the middle of consuming the other skittle. Then I worry about eating it, because it's kind of rude to eat someone when they're in the middle of eating.

Then I realize that if it can absorb another skittle like that, what could it do to my stomach, and I throw it out.

When I was 18 I, for all intents and purposes, moved out of my parents' house. It started with moving to college where, when I "went home," I meant that I was taking the train to a friend's house nearly every weekend. That summer, my parents' house became more of a stopping place while I bounced between friends' couches.

Sophomore year, I made it almost all the way through before I said fuck this shit and moved into an apartment up in Somerville. This was 2007. I made it there almost a year (and, in retrospect, I should have just stayed there) until I convinced a friend to move to Massachusetts and get an apartment with me in early 2008.

We stayed in that first apartment for six months, and then moved when the landlord wanted to jack the rent up by five hundred dollars or so. The next apartment was totally fucking awesome and I loved it, even though I didn't really ever leave my bedroom.

So this morning, I was thinking about how it's June, which means I've lived in this apartment for a year! And how great it was when I moved in, and I was... taking classes at Worcester State... and failing at GSOC during the summer... and oh dear god I've lived here for two whole years.

Two years.

Internet, this is longer than I have lived anywhere since I was eighteen. I've gone from living in four places in three years to... staying put? I assumed I'd be moving every six months or so for the rest of my life, since that's about the time when I start getting itchy feet. Realizing that I've lived here two whole years is weirdly jarring.

And now that I've been here so long, it's weird to think that I most likely won't make it through three years here, since I finally graduate in December.

Time: it's fucking hard.

HOORAY FOR ME! I have paid my rent and with the money I earned at the yard sale (people buy the dumbest shit, you guys, and also get all pissy when you won't sell them a never used furby for a dollar wtf?) I have paid all my bills for the month except my internet, which does not even come for another couple weeks. Thank you all so fucking much ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

IN OTHER NEWS. One of my cucumbers has a teeny tiny flower on it. I would post a picture, but it's A) covered by other leaves, and B) still tiny and closed. I'm all excited for it to bloom! My ocean sunburn is peeling for a second time, and my yard sale sunburn is on the verge of its first peel. I spent a couple hours outside with the dog today and lost his tennis ball down the drop off out back, so I have to get some rope and climb down after it on Wednesday.

I think my gf is coming to visit soon, and I'm embarrassingly invested in an embarrassing show and writing embarrassing fic for it. The bossman only yelled at me once in almost a week of work days (so almost two weeks of real time), and, while the landlord's husband did chuck my grill in the dumpster, I noticed it was in there in time and rescued it into the back of my car.

Basically: life is feeling pretty good right now!

Title: Anything You Say Can (And Will) Be Held Against You (format=light, style=mine, AO3)
Author: the_wanlorn
Fandom: Haven
Characters: Audrey Parker/Nathan Wuornos, Audrey Parker/Nathan Wuornos/Duke Crocker
Word Count: 3500
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Deliverance joke
Summary: It doesn’t count if you say it when you’re concussed, right?
Notes: Duke + concussion = hilarity, Y/Y/MFY? Thanks to kate for betaing

( Anything You Say Can (And Will) Be Held Against You )

Hello the internets! First of all, I have enough to cover my rent now, so I just want to say thank you again to all the delightful and wonderful and amazing people who helped me out. You guys are so frickin' awesome, and if there's anything I can ever do to spiritually repay you, let me know. ♥

In related to being a smuggo, I was pleased to see this post pop up on my reader the other day. Every time I see someone talking about Claro's study (summary: in VT, farmer's market products tend to be equal or lesser in price to their grocery store counterparts) a little bolt of HA! goes through my mind.

I'm glad to see a study going around that shows, in the limited area (although I've found it to be true in the markets near me), farmers markets aren't any more expensive than the grocery store*. I wish studies like this had been getting any sort of show a few years ago, so I could point them at people who kept asking why I was wasting money at markets when I was so poor.

ALSO: HOLY MOLY: A study that is adding weight to the idea that the epic classism in EAT LOCAL ALL THE TIME isn't in the monetary cost, but the ridiculous and inexcusable lack of access in most places? OH GOD THE WORLD MUST BE ENDING.

Hi. I went to the ocean today and stayed in the water for three hours and forgot to put sunscreen on one shoulder.

* Potentially necessary caveat: this is in regard to non-value-added foods only.

I'm sorry internet! I meant to make this post sooner -- I know I promised it to you on Friday -- but, well. On Friday I was too damned overwhelmed by the level of kindness and generosity the internet displayed to do much more than start at my paypal account and weep in gratitude. I can not thank you guys enough, or properly express how much it means to me that so many people were willing to help out. Thank you.

Then, on Saturday, I was at my parents' to do laundry and the cable/internet/phone had gone out on the entire street because of some lightning that hit new!neighbor's garage (and blew out all the windows and set things on fire and probably destroyed the wiring in her house*), which also blew out most of the internet-related electronics in my parents' house. So that was down all day and, when it finally worked again, I spent the rest of the time I was there setting up their fancypants new modem/router combo and convincing it to like linux. (I did, however, make massive headway in cleaning out their basement by both throwing things out and sorting things into keep, yardsale, and ebay boxes; I've gone through all my things that I planned on going through, and now I just need to get my sister down there for her things, but that is another entry).)

Yesterday I have no excuse beyond "lazy." BUT TODAY. TODAY I BRING YOU PICTURES OF MY SUCCULENTS. I have no idea what any of these are, except for the aloe plant. If anyone does know, I would not so no to information!

( Pictures! )

*I entertained some thoughts of talking to the woman who was selling it, because I'd known her all my life, and asking if she would be open to a rent-to-own deal. Before I did so, it sold. And, let me tell you internet, my first thought on hearing about the lightning was "Oh thank god I was too shy to talk to Nick's mum."

Hey, the internet. Man, the end of May sure is close, isn't it? I thought it was a whole hell of a lot further away than this.

I don't talk about my work here very often, if at all. There are a myriad of reasons for this, but most of them boil down to how my boss puts the H in "hostile work environment" and the C in "crying in the car before work every morning".

I make just enough to pay my rent, bills, and essentials every month for four months out of the year. The rest of the time, I make enough to pay my rent and bills, so long as I either forgo things like "groceries" or get my parents to give me money for them and the other essentials that, when push comes to shove, are not actually essential. I'm trying my damndest to find another job and pick up freelance work, but given that it took me nearly a year to find this job, and the lack of responses I've gotten for every job application, I am not too hopeful. And apparently I am wicked bad at convincing people that they want me to freelance for them.

The point is that I got a delightful two weeks' unpaid vacation this month, due to the bossman closing the office so he could go on vacation and cutting my hours for the rest of the month. So, when June rolls around, I'm going to be something like $400 short on rent alone. I thought I could make it up through selling my things on ebay and at a street-wide yard sale in Cowtown. Since the yard sale got moved to the middle of June, it doesn't look like that is happening.

So, I have come to you, the internet, to ask for help. I have a spreadsheet of DVDs that I'm selling up here. The NES games are here. And the CDs are here. Other things that aren't easy to put on a nice spreadsheet, plus a few more DVDs, are on ebay. All of these are being updated almost constantly, since I don't have work again until Tuesday, and I have a lot of things to go through and get up there.

If anything catches your fancy, I am more than willing to negotiate (especially on the DVDs, since I just rounded up to the nearest multiple of five). If you're the sort of person who wants knitted things but does not knit or does not have time to knit or just wants something that isn't knit by yourself, I'm sure we could work out some kind of deal. Shit, if you have any other ideas for things you would pay someone to do, I am open to those, too.

Regardless, if you want to buy anything, email me at the.wanlorn@gmail.com. Link this around if you can. For real, I love you internet. If you don't want to or can't buy anything from me, or don't care, or think this is tacky, that is okay, I still love you.

ON AN UPBEAT NOTE: tomorrow I will be posting pictures of my succulents! HOW EXCITING IS THAT. #allplantbloggingallthetime

Man, I do not even understand why spring in New England even exists. It is May, and it has been so warm lately, and this is what the ground in the apple orchard at my parents' looks like right now:

( ihni what these are but they are pretty from a distance )

But because it is May it has been raining the past couple days and the temperature is back in the lower fifties. I refuse to give in to the weather's little hissy fit over it being almost summer, so I still have the heat off and all the windows open.

I can see my breath.

But I am going to win and someday it will get warm again, damn it. Hopefully, before my hands freeze off.

Oh man internet, remember that time I said I'd post about my garden yesterday and instead I ended up starting to clean out my junk from my mum's basement? And remember that time I ended up throwing out* about eight reams of paper from all the way back to ninth grade?

So instead you get it today! AREN'T YOU THE LUCKY ONE.

( So, a bit of background: )

So that is how I came to have a container garden. BUT IT WAS NOT ALL EASY. See, my cats were content to leave the weeds that were coming up (from the backyard dirt) well enough along. But the seedlings I planted? Those were fucking delicious. So out I went to get some chicken wire. To protect it.

( This is what happened )

And now here come a series of closeups of the garden plants, cataloging my triumphs and failures. For instance, the cat grass? Used to be a sunberry seedling before the god damn cat ate the crap out of it. Any holes in seed leaves that you see are the fault of the god damn cat.

( OH GOD SO MANY PICTURES )

So! That there is my garden! Isn't it great? I have learned how to use both macro AND manual focus on my camera (after five years or so), so tomorrow I will post some pictures of the succulents, maybe!

* And by "throwing out" I mean "recycling" but that doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Hello, the internet! What have you done today?

Today, I have done knitting things. I finished a (heavily modified) baby hat that is probably not very proportionate. Also: ugly. I spent an obscene amount of time untangling yarn while watching Brimstone. I'm determined to finish the last pattern repeat in this sock (MEGHAN IF YOU ARE READING THIS AND YOU CLICK THAT LINK I WILL PUNCH YOU IN THE EYEBALL jsyk) that I am making. Tomorrow, I am thinking, is a day for finishing the toe of the sock and perhaps making a washcloth. I am trying to use up all my ugly cotton, as one does.

I should talk about my gardens tomorrow, Y/N/YOU'RE GOING TO FORGET SO WHAT'S THE POINT IN VOTING?

Hello, the internet! Remember that time I kept dropping off the face of the earth for no reason? And I would come back and make a post or two and swear I was back FOR REAL THIS TIME REALLY but then it turned out I wasn't and I would disappear again?

WELL THIS TIME WILL BE DIFFERENT OKAY. I SWEAR.

...So, what big things have I missed in the past couple months?

Today, while I was driving away from buying a shop light and a shelving unit*, I realized that my nails had gotten really fucking long.

( EVIDENCE OF THEIR LENGTHS )

I think I have a wrong definition of what super long is, but normally my nails look like this:

( THIS WAS DONE IN A PARKING LOT OKAY )

...I feel I have issues, maybe.

*I woke up this morning to find the seedlings I had put on the ledge under my windows and braced there with my aloe plant all over the floor. The four broccoli pots and one sunberry pot survived, the rest I have to start over.

Fucking cats.