I can't believe it's been over a week since Wincon and I haven't managed to post about it yet. I had a fantastic time this year, right up until the point when I didn't. Unfortunately, my Wincon was cut rather abruptly short by food poisioning which meant I missed the prom and festivities, a night I look forward to all year, and most of the saying goodbye which happens on Sunday. I did, however, get to have a great day out on the strip--Wincon was in Vegas this year--with beckaandzac on Thursday, window shopping in the Venitian and then eating an absolutely amazing steak lunch at the Paris hotel. We had escargot to start, which I hadn't tried since I was fifteen. I hadn't liked it much then, but I was all about its garlic-y herby deliciousness this time. Especially with the crusty French bread and fruity tart Sangria we had with it. My steak was perfectly cooked, tender, juicy, and served Au Poivre, which is my forevergirl steak sauce. It came with the most amazing pommes frites, thin and crispy and tender. It was as though a stack of pringles had sex with a plate of french fries and had a baby. A delicious baby. We definitely didn't need dessert, although as we were walking out, I spied some delicious looking bread pudding that I'd like to try sometime.

In the hotel, on my part there was a lot of screaming about the boys from One Direction and the girls from Little Mix, sharing of stickers and decorating of cups, playing of Spanking Yoda, and screaming about One Direction some more. A group of us also played a Breakfast Show drinking game along with Nick Grimshaw's breakfast show (which on Pacific time airs live at 10:30 at night). I gave up and went to bed just after midnight, though others stayed the 3.5 hour distance. I didn't make it to as many panels as I'd hoped, due to the whole sick thing, but the kink panel was excellent, and the incest panel was enthusiastic as always :D

I made it down to the strip a second time with itsthedetails, deirdre_c and beckaandzac and we wandered the casinos at the south end. We got back just in time for Becka and I to attend the 1D panel, which turned out to be all introductions and discussion of how we got into the fandom, but was no less awesome for that. I seem to be one of the very few people who never had 1D blacklisted on tumblr. I was always willing if not ready.

I've signed up for a fic exchange posting in January, in the hopes that it would kick-start my words. I managed 1500, which is great, but my problem the last few months has lain in finishing anything I start, so I am not out of the woods yet. Fingers crossed though.

And now my lunch break is nearly over, so I leave you. hopefully I will return soon, however!

last week we had a really quiet afternoon at work, and my colleague whom I was on the phones with was asking me about life on the California coast. This led to us both looking at property websites, as she and her brother and mom are thinking of buying a house down there. We found a place in Santa Cruz (home of my heart) that was amazing. 150 acres of meadowland and woods, with a huge, gorgeous main house, a guest cottage, and a caretakers cottage, three barns, an alpaca paddock, a swimming pool, sea views... incredible. A snip at fifteen million dollars. But whatever. That was also the week when people were posting the links to the plans for tiny houses websites and talking about that, and I went into full-on fantasy mode, thinking of all the little houses that could be built on the place, and how there could be a huge vegetable garden, and chickens, and it could be a real proper fangirl commune.

I imagined everyone having their own space, and then using the big house as communal area, with signups for the TV, and if someone was watching something you wanted, you could just join them, and I thought about cooking in the big kitchen, with people sitting around chatting to me, and maybe some other people helping to make big meals to put in the fridge, and people could come and heat up lasagne or meatloaf or stew or soup whenever they wanted. And we'd take turns working in the garden if that suited, or taking care of the animals, and spinners could spin to their hearts' content, and knitters could knit, and one of the barns could have a south-facing wall replaced with glass and it could be a huge artist's studio, and people could use it to paint or make jewelry or sculpt or whatever they liked, and we could have a little recording studio, and a fire ring, and bat boxes in the eaves, and hummingbird feeders everywhere.

And it made me really really happy to think about. I would love that so much. I never felt cut out for the communal living situations in like, Berkeley, because the people (from the looks of the ads) were not people with whom I had much in common. But yeah. This sounds great to me.

On the way home that night, I was talking to my mom, and she asked how my day was, and I told her about the gorgeous property, and how great it would be to buy it and build a fangirl commune. She immediately had a thousand practical reasons why it would never work (primarily that even with thirty people, you'd all need $500k mortgages to be able to afford it, and that's before you started making any changes to the property), and I was so taken aback. I realized, talking to her a little bit more, that she doesn't have places she goes to in her head that are nice to think about. If she wants fantasy, she reads a book or watches a movie. She only dreams of things if she can also logic a way for them to happen. I'll admit, at first, it made me feel like a freak.

But then I got off the phone with her, and remembered that being able to think like I do is what makes me be able to tell stories, and I am FAR from the only person who can do that.

Tonight I was lying in bed, trying to go to sleep so DST doesn't catch me, and I drifted off again, imagining the solar panels on all the roofs, and the windmill on the property's edge, and that wonderful kitchen, with all the counter space a girl could want, and bar stools for my friends to sit on, and, I'll admit, we were listening to the Radio 1 Breakfast Show and I was maybe shaking my ass a little in time with the music, and I thought I need to write this down. So, here I am.

and now I am going to get back to dreaming, and hopefully sleeping.

xojemmaxo has made a podfic of A Hero or a Grinder! Her post is here. I am super excited. I love podfic :D

One of the things I love most about fandom is that you can mention casually that you really need a gif of a certain moment of a video, and before you know it you have someone awesome like isweedan ripping it and someone awesome like annemaris making it for you :D :D :D



all the hearteyes in the universe for everything about this moment, from Gerard's face to the fangirls who made it possible for me to post it here.

I cannot even tell you the sound I made when I got this mix. Then after that noise, I sat for like five minutes flapping my hands and staring and making more sounds of joy. The cover art is absolute PERFECTION for my story, and the mix itself totally captures the atmosphere. I'm always in awe of mixers. dwg did such a great job, and I am so glad she claimed me!

Seriously. Look at this cover. I got so so so lucky with art all around in this Big Bang.





mix here


master post
THANK YOU SO MUCH dwg!!

and you should go to the art if you came here first

One of my favourite parts of Wincon every year is group writing badfic. It happened pretty much totally by accident this year, and involved a lot more alcohol than previous years' efforts, but it was still fun in the end, even though I had no idea what was happening at first. All the alcohol and confusion led to insane but ridiculous results. I'm pretty sure the whole thing is beyond random and into incomprehensible to anyone else, but lazy_daze has posted it here if you want to take a look :D

I am still missing all the fangirls from around the world like crazy, and cursing my inability to get a job at an airline when I was job hunting last year. Stupid airlines. I would be AWESOME at using my free flights to visit all the fangirls ever serving drinks and keeping people calm.

Oh Wincon, why can't you last all year????

ALSO. and totally changing the subject. I really want to marry this woman. She is hot and clearly awesome.

As many of you already know, deirdre_c is an amazing vidder (as well as just being generally amazing). She's made a White Nights vid. Like the movie with Gregory Hines and Mikhail Baryshnikov. IT'S AKSDJFSD BRILLIANT. Dancing! Eyefucking! Destiny's Child! You should watch it. Even if you haven't seen the movie. Then you should watch the movie, probably :D

This link (and the one above) goes to Dei's post where you can read about the vid, watch it on youtube, and download it if you want. Imma go do that some more. :D

As should be pretty obvious by now, Fandom is a really really happy place for me. This is because it's filled with some of the best people I've ever met. Also because it reminds me every day that we live in a world of infinite variety in experience and perception and that that can be a wonderful thing.

Today (in my part of the world), May 17th, is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. missyjack (one of the wonderful fangirls I'm lucky enough to have in my life) is hosting a coming out meme. Here's how it works:

Simply post a comment (or pic, vid or macramé pot hanger) sharing something about your experience related to coming out. It may be coming out to yourself, how you worked out your gender or sexuality, or maybe how you’re in the process of doing that now. It might be about why you haven’t come out, or experiences of coming out to your friends or family or workmates. Or maybe you just want to pop in and say Hi I’m (insert sexual or gender identity of your choice).

It's already chock full of wonderful, inspiring, touching, complicated, simple, familiar, and brand new stories. My heart is warm, and I'm a little verklempt.

While I have always been more a singer/songwriter-style-of-music fan, I have had a soft spot in my heart for Guns and Roses since I was in high school. And Welcome to the Jungle was always one of my favourite of their songs. Imagine my delight when Jesha84 on youtube made a vid of Adam Lambert being a total sex-ass rockstar with Jungle as the soundtrack! :D :D



Life is utterly insane at the moment, and starting today I'm adding working six days a week into the mix, too. But I'm hoping for things to calm down by March... ♥

Six years ago last night, Adam Lambert joined the Zodiac Show playing at the Music Box theater. He dressed in feathers and makeup, and poured his heart and soul and frustration into a performance of Change is Gonna Come. Four years later, the producers of American Idol asked him to sing it in the show's finale. Adam saw it as coming full circle. But last night the circle really came around as he performed the song again, on the same stage, same guitar player up there with him, after a six-month, nearly sold-out world tour, and with a Grammy Nomination under his belt. Last night I was too filled with the pleasure and joy and wonder of the moment to cry, but I'm writing this with tears in my eyes now. It was so incredible to be there, to think about the changes I've seen in the 20 years since I walked into my first queer students' meeting at UCSC, in the last two years since I watched Proposition 8 pass, in the last year since I stood in my aunt's living room at Thanksgiving with a newspaper in my hand, picture of Adam kissing Tommy at the AMAs in full color on the front and explained why it was so fucking important to me that it happened, and that Adam wasn't apologizing. That he'd done nothing wrong. Last night it felt like he was singing with heart and soul and hope.



( and before that, a lot of other awesome happened )

The other thing that happened was NOH8 posted the picture they took of Tommy Joe Ratliff. He is in every way the most amazing bass player Adam could possibly have found. I'm not cutting it because it's too damn pretty. Sorry if it confuses your browser.


you can buy this picture, or pictures of other people, or t-shirts, or bumper stickers, or many other things at http://www.noh8campaign.com/ to help support their cause. Funds raised by the NOH8 Campaign will be used to continue promoting and raising awareness for Marriage Equality and anti-discrimination on a global level through an educational and interactive media campaign. It's a spoke in the wheel.