Walls Inside My Head

Day 6

6,383 / 50,000 (12.8%)

I actually was able to start somewhat early this day – the computer I play Morrowind on sometimes decides randomly that it is having an error. It doesn’t know why, it just suddenly thinks that something HORRIBLE IS HAPPENING OMG and decides to say the game I am playing is no longer running. Now, I could understand if the game was hiccupping in any sort of way, but it always plays perfectly until the sudden error message drags me back to windows. Needless to say, I am dying to get my hands on my new computer. Also, this was the day that the final parts for new!compy came in – Vista and MS Office, sent with love from my own Microsoft corporate worker-bee brother. I resisted Vista for a very long time – I know there are bugs, and it looks strangely like the mac os, but I’ve heard most of those are fixed and the people who use Vista now are in love with it. I’ve used it before, and although I’ll miss my menu buttons, I know that to fight the tide of it now is sort of, well, dumb. All the games coming out now for PC will be coming out nearly exclusively for Vista, and although I don’t like the strong-arm tactics Microsoft is using to force gamers and other users into switching, I understand the need – just look at the newest Mac commercial (ps- does anyone like the PC better than that stupid self-satisfied Mac? Just from the commercials, I’d buy a PC. If I wanted an indie kid in my room, I’d go back to college). Plus, as a gift, my brother sent me Shadowrun, which is only playable on Vista. <3

As for writing, I almost reached my daily goal. The scene I had been working on was pretty long – it’s to catch everyone up on the month they missed, plus start up the plot of the chapter – so I stopped when I realized it was getting late and called it a night.

Snippet:

“We must talk, you and I,” he said firmly, in a tone that brokered no argument.

He nodded mutely, following the man out of the cottage with a heavy pit of dread sitting in his stomach. There were few cultures that took familial duty more seriously than the Nothmen; the dwarves were said to be one, but little better than myth and magic were they, having disappeared long enough ago that Arduus suspected they were like the dragon-kin, who had never existed. He thought the dog-demons were heavily bound by familial ties as well – little good that did him, since Kohar’s gold eyes marked him as both demon and Northman. He had often stood in front of the Hi-Jhannon for his willfulness, but Kohar did not have the obligatory fondness forced upon him by blood relation. He knew that a ‘speaking-to’ from the Northman would be far worse than he had endured before – partially because the blood relation that had kept physicality to a minimum between he and his forefathers would be no impediment to Kohar should he feel Arduus did not comprehend his words.

Day 7

8,620 / 50,000 (17.2%)

Gabe picked me up around noon-ish this day to bring me up to the apartment for the weekend. Originally, Gabe, J and I were supposed to go drapes shopping (hey, they wanted to. I didn’t even bring it up) but Gabe got called in for an emergency meeting on campus, so J and I had to go shopping. It took up longer to get to the mall than to get everything  – we were in and out in less than a half hour, and we had successfully resisted buying varying kitchen appliances. We chalked it up to our awesome shopping synergy (J was just glad we got home before 7, since if we had all gone together, there probably would have been a certain time everyone would have spent bickering over what was needed) and drove home. Also, we listened to Great Big Sea and Jonathan Coulton there and back. It made for an awesomely funny car ride.

Gabe came home only about five minutes after we got back, and after a failed attempt at trying to find powertools to hang up the curtains, we decided to save it until monday. After, we cooked a dinner of frenchbread pizza, egg noodles, and corn, and played Dokapon Kingdom. We managed to blow through a whole chapter (which took place on their view of Sweden, Norway, and Finland, populated by a strange sort of Sami/Inuit hybrid that had also populated Russia) and start the one in Afrike. And actually, it wasn’t nearly as offensive as I thought it would be. They all basically look like Sallah from the Indiana Jones franchise. Still, we’re all holding out from Crocodile Dundee mayors in Flinders.

As for writing, I blew through my word count – both me and Gabe wrote 2000 words or over, and we only stopped when I got to a good stopping place. I finished the beastly first scene, and got about halfway into the second.

Snippet:

“What are you two chatting about?” Saissa asked, stepping onto the stones that created a path that led to their cottage from the farm proper. She wrapped her shawl tightly around her shoulders, her smile faltering as she looked between them. “What is so important that is has you both wearing such grim face?”

“Ah, you see,” Kohar said with a beaming grin, “We cannot get anything past this clever wife of mine!”

“I am no wife!”

Day 8

8,840 / 50,000 (17.7%)

Creepy kid was again at the game – I don’t know why he shows up, since he’s not in the game, and we’re not letting him in it, and we start at 1 and end at 5 and his LARP doesn’t start until about 6. Also, no one can stand him.

I hate saying that, because it sounds snobby, but really, if you met this kid…he’s disruptive, self-centered, loud, and cannot pick up on social cues. In fact, he needs to have most of them explained to him. Like everything else. He managed to try to strike up a conversation with everyone in the game and, okay, we’re all pretty nice. J is probably the one with the shortest temper when it comes to social stuff, but he’s the last one to yell at you for it. Our ogre and our cleric (or well, fallen cleric, long story) are pretty much either experienced with dealing with people with low self-esteem (the ogre, who really softens just about any blow by making it a joke) or is new enough to not judge, since he might be just as annoying (our cleric, but he isn’t. He’s just over-enthusiastic. This is part of the long story). Gabe generally hates confrontation. Mike almost never loses his temper at anyone – he’s an RA, it takes a damn long time. Our irish mage and I are probably the people who cannot quite manage to be mean. And he pisses off all of us. Everyone save me and the mage lost their temper at him, and he latched on to either one of us at any time. I left to call my mum – I really was going to call her anyway, but I was going to wait until after the game until creepy kid decided to hit on me – and he followed me until I was outside, and on the phone. Despite the fact that I announced that I was calling my mother.

Listen, I’ll give anyone the benefit of the doubt, until they ask “are you two engaged or married” like it is the deciding factor of whether they can try to steal me away or not. Here’s a thought, kid: it doesn’t matter, because either way, I’m not looking for a new boyfriend. He then proceeded to try to move his chair closer to me, so our knees were touching. Twice, so it was no accident. That was when I called my mom. Whose response was “HAHAHAHAHAH, YOU NEED TO BE MEAN. Also, I’m very proud of you for not losing your temper.”

On the writing front, I got very little done. As I explained to SC, whenever you have two characters kissing, it is like each has become a goddamned spider-child, and how the hell did they get than many limbs? I also had the issue of the two people being of very different heights – one is about 6′1 or 6′2, the other is 5′6 or 5′7. It’s a large gap in heights. The tallest boyfriend I’ve ever had was 6′3, but I’m 5′10. Currently, Gabe is about 6′1 or 6′2. I have never been significantly shorter than the guy I’m kissing. I have never had to play the “stair game”. I was always just about the right height. From having smaller lady-friends who have tall boyfriends, I know that this is often an issue of balance vs romance.

To add to the situation, there is a box. So now, where do the hands go? One has to be holding the box. Her hands are on him. Where is his other hand? Gabe and I realized this may be an issue of balance as well – at our current heights, he could be holding a box, both of us could avoid being smooshed by the box, and neither of us are in danger of falling over. So he dragged out a text book, stood on it, and this time, it definitely was harder. If I balanced over him, I’d be on his center of gravity. With enough force (or, with enough lack of balance) I could easily topple him. Yeah, that would be really romantic. He obviously couldn’t use two hands to hold onto the box. There needs to be books on the physics of kissing or something.

Snippet (some names are asterisks, so as to avoid spoilers):

There would always be a few seconds he would not be able to recall about that night, and all of them occurred in the time it took for ****** to go from standing grimly before him to having her lips pressed against his.

Day 9

10,884 / 50,000 (21.8%)

Sunday we celebrated J’s birthday (it’s really on Tuesday, but I was going home later in the afternoon). He had asked for a White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake as his gift. So Saturday night, I baked him his cake and let it set over night. It looked like a slasher movie (it had cracked quite noticeably right in the center, where all the raspberry was), but it tasted delicious. He had chosen the winter oreos (which have red frosting) for the crust, which was an awesome choice – laying it down, it looked like i had poorly buried a bloody body in some CSI show, but when it cam out, it looked like i had put raspberries in the crust.

Writing went well after I got home, and I managed to make my word count.

Snippet:

“I best make my goodbyes to my dear sister,” Branor sighed. “I’m sure she has much to tell me, especially about my poor daughter.”

“She’s raised more than a few fine girls,” Aieinna observed, though there was a gleam in her eye that spoke of mischief.

“Ah, she has you too, I see. Well, now I’ll be hearing it from two women!” The Captain heaved a dramatic sigh and turned to Arduus. “Now, if you don’t have any child-rearing advice to impart on me from my sister, Master Arduus, you may feel free to load your things aboard. The boys will be helping you as soon as they’re finished making eyes at those fish-brains off the port bow.

“The mermaids have found you already?” Arduus laughed.“

Aye, they must have a nose for finding the silliest and stupidest boys sailing into port – and somehow they’re always on my ship.”