Hey, check it out, it's monsoon season again.*
Win: ...personal care, including hygiene and food, up to high standards (yay). Called doctor (after dilly-dallying about it for, oh, five hours). Also, CHOM 97.7 FM Online Player ♥.
Win Too Look Forward To: Castle, Bones (Hey, 5x14 has demons! I'm all over that shit. It'll be like research for the 11-fandom-crossover thing. Which will never happen.)
Fail: Job-hunting not done in favour of multiple crying bouts of utter wretchedness (yay). That's a pretty big fail right there. Caffeine-induced headache after half a mug brings what would have been a win squarely into the fail. Social interaction: 1 out of 10 (i.e. "hello" and "thank you" from public service workers). Email inbox checking: obsessive and disappointing. Zest for life: entering into the negatives.
Fail to Look Forward To: Job-hunting (let's see if we can at least google something). Body continues to be squishy and nothing's being done about that.
I Don't Know What This Is: Bought chocolate cake and sherry. Bought a birthday card for my brother, who's birthday was February 4. Went outside, but didn't take a long stroll.
Sickle's Reading List:
etherati's Watchmen Zombie 'Verse Series - 25 Stories (+ 9 AU, 9 AU Mashups, 2 OMFG, 11/65 drabbles) - Progress: 1 Story
marika_kailaya's Original Burning the Sound - 40 Chapters - Progress: 0
hmsbeta's Watchmen Partners - 66 Chapters - Progress: 0
Meme - 30 Days - Day 14 → A non-fictional book: As with Day 13, I'm taking this meme at its word. It wants a non-fictional book? It gets one. More specifically, it gets a fiction book. One of my favorites, to be exact.
Threshold (2001) by Caitlín R. Kiernan (greygirlbeat).
Amazon's Reader ; Kiernan's Livejournal Tag Entires
Chance Matthews has suffered enough tragedies. The latest - her grandfather's death - has left her shaken, convinced that she will always be alone. What she needs now is time - time to recover, time to determine what her future will be.
What she doesn't need is a strange girl with alabaster skin who knows things about Chance she can't possibly know.
This girl speaks of being charged by an angel to battle monsters and claims she cannot do it alone. She says she needs Chance's help.
Chance doesn't believe in angels. Or monsters. But among the artifacts left by her geologist grandparents, there lies a fossil of a creture that couldn't possibly have ever existed.
But it did.
And still does...
Words cannot express how much I love this book. I wish I could get my hands on other works by Keirnan, but I'm in the Netherlands, where the lesser known English books are hard to find.
One main reason I love this book - and have in fact read it over and over and over again - is the way Kiernan uses language. As she states in the author's note, this book is best read aloud. The use of run-on descriptions with odd turns and new adjectives, like
...the summer sun bleeds in through the trees on Red Mountain, seeps hot between dogwood and hackberry branches, and soon it will burn away the dew that sequin sparkles the front yard of her dead grandparents' house.
and
Just Sadie in black polyester and the eyeliner she never bothers to wash off, easier just to put more on so she always looks a little like an anemic raccoon.
Not only does the writing drag you in, leaving you breathless at it rolls on and on, but it swerves along with the character's emotions.
So not her grandfather's voice at all, only her memory of her grandfather's voice, some part of herself so sick of the loss and the guilt and the deadness inside speaking in a voice that maybe she'll pay attention to, maybe, and Chance leans forward, both palms open on the stillwarm hood of the Chevy and she's crying again before she can stop the tears, can't stop what she doesn't see coming.
At it's heart, this is a horror story with hidden, otherworldly monsters that are more terrifying because they are so hidden, creeping around in the dark and edges of doors, trying to take the shape of something normal but still being other. Every time I read this book, it always leaves me jumpy of the dark.
The snuffling stops as abruptly as it began but another sound to take its place, like a very big dog panting, breathless, wet pant from mottled, canine lips, and under that, much softer, hardly as loud as Chance's heartbeat, a noise no dog could make. A wheezing, satisfied sigh and then a laugh that isn't anything like a laugh, a thin and labored sound trying to pass itself off for a laugh.
The book may revolve around Chance, but has chapters from the point of view of the other main characters: Dancy, the albino girl who in Supernatural would be called a Hunter; Deacon, the alcoholic with a psychic gift who was in the tunnel with Chance in the Prologue, where everything starts; Sadie, Deacon's girlfriend who types out a novel for no one else to read but which has eerily familiar imagery.
And because I'm a Supernatural fan, and think that all fandoms bleed into each other, I've been working on laying out the crossover points between this book and Supernatural. The posts have SPOILERS (i.e. extensive quotes) and are incomplete - especially now with more Supernatural aired episodes - but here (Dancy and angels), here (monsters) and here (Dean praying). I might one day make a Fanvid (or Fantrailer) or even *gasp* write the Fanfic down. It would just work so well.
Previously:
Day 01 → Your favorite song
Day 02 → Your favorite movie
Day 03 → Your favorite television program
Day 04 → Your favorite book
Day 05 → Your favorite quote
Day 06 → Whatever tickles your fancy - GIFs
Day 07 → A photo that makes you happy
Day 08 → A photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 09 → A photo you took
Day 10 → A photo of you taken over ten years ago
Day 11 → A photo of you taken recently
Day 12 → Whatever tickles your fancy - Nature is awesome!
Day 13 → A fictional book
Coming Soon
Day 15 → A fanfic
Day 16 → A song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 → An art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.)
Day 18 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 19 → A talent of yours
Day 20 → A hobby of yours
Day 21 → A recipe
Day 22 → A website
Day 23 → A YouTube video
Day 24 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 25 → Your day, in great detail
Day 26 → Your week, in great detail
Day 27 → This month, in great detail
Day 28 → This year, in great detail
Day 29 → Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Meme - "My Fine Is..." via badspock
Just read the "offenses" and if you've done it, you owe that fine. Keep going until you've read each "offense" and added up your total fine. When you are done post this as "My fine is $ [...]" You don't have to confess your answers, just the amount of your fine. Tally it up and Title it..."My Fine Is..." copy and paste, then repost it in your journal too.
My fine is $145. I think some items are ridiculously overpriced. Seriously, the highest price is $100 for self-prostitution, followed by $80 for anal sex, whereas drunk driving goes for $20 and doing acid goes for a measly $5? What the fuck is wrong with this meme? Also, fail on making two prices less than a dollar, so that readers can totally figure them out from your total fine.
Offenses:
Smoked pot -- $10
Did acid -- $5
Ever had sex at church -- $25
Woke up in the morning and did not know the person who was next to you -- $40
Had sex with someone on MySpace -- $25
Had sex for money -- $100
Ever had sex with a Puerto Rican -- $20
Vandalized something -- $20
Had sex on your parents' bed -- $10
Beat up someone -- $20
Been jumped -- $10
Cross dressed -- $10
Given money to stripper -- $25
Been in love with a stripper -- $20
Kissed someone who's name you didn't know -- $0.10
Hit on some one of the same sex while at work -- $15
Ever drive and drank -- $20
Ever got drunk at work, or went to work while still drunk -- $50
Used toys while having sex -- $30
Got drunk, passed out and don't remember the night before -- $20
Went skinny dipping -- $5
Had sex in a pool -- $20
Kissed someone of the same sex -- $10
Had sex with someone of the same sex -- $20
Cheated on your significant other -- $10
Masturbated -- $10
Cheated on your significant other with their relative or close friend -- $20
Done oral -- $5
Got oral -- $5
Done / got oral in a car while it was moving -- $25
Stole something -- $10
Had sex with someone in jail -- $25
Made a nasty home video -- $15
Had a threesome -- $50
Had sex in the wild -- $20
Been in the same room while someone was having sex --$25
Stole something worth over more than a hundred dollars-- $20
Had sex with someone 10 years older -- $20
Had sex with someone under 21 and you are over 27 --$25
Been in love with two people or more at the same time-- $50
Said you love someone but didn't mean it -- $25
Went streaking -- $5
Went streaking in broad daylight -- $15
Been arrested -- $5
Spent time in jail -- $15
Peed in the pool -- $0.50
Played spin the bottle -- $5
Done something you regret -- $20
Had sex with your best friend -- $20
Had sex with someone you work with at work -- $25
Had anal sex -- $80
Lied to your mate -- $5
Lied to your mate about the sex being good -- $25
Video of the Day: "Here for a Good Time (Not a Long Time)", Trooper
Links of the Day:
Supernatural:
elizah_jane's Review The Song Remains The Same
vikki's Meta The Song Remains the Same: Timey-Wimey Theories
missyjack's Meta The Song Remains the Same: Thoughts on Castiel and his relationship with the Winchesters
lere8's Icons Team Free Will
London Supernatural Street Promo: The Marble Arch on Fire
Human Target:
elendar's Icons
Watchmen:
etherati's Fic Series Zombie 'Verse
Doctor Who:
zauberer_sirin's Fanmixes Master/Martha
Firefly:
Atlas of the 'Verse
Random Fandom:
whysosensitive's Multifandom Icons - Avatar, Disney, The Lightning Thief, Supernatural, The Office
safetytardis' Multifandom Icons - David Tennant, Casanova, John Simm, Doctor Who, GQMFs, Katie McGrath, Michaela Conlin
shiv5468's The Word According to Shiv - "In the beginning there was the word, and the word was gen for there was neither het nor slash..."
The Watcher's Lost and Supernatural: Have they become the same show?
Random:
bakebakebake - Bakealiscious!
wtf_taxidermy's Rocking horse warthog - *grabby hands*
"Why do the smartest women have the toughest time dating?" Because we deal with idiots. - Argh!
Natalie Merchant's Collected Songs, 1985 - 2005 (Piano Sheet Music)
* I Was A Teenage Billionaire Psychopath, JTRowland
Win Too Look Forward To: Castle, Bones (Hey, 5x14 has demons! I'm all over that shit. It'll be like research for the 11-fandom-crossover thing. Which will never happen.)
Fail: Job-hunting not done in favour of multiple crying bouts of utter wretchedness (yay). That's a pretty big fail right there. Caffeine-induced headache after half a mug brings what would have been a win squarely into the fail. Social interaction: 1 out of 10 (i.e. "hello" and "thank you" from public service workers). Email inbox checking: obsessive and disappointing. Zest for life: entering into the negatives.
Fail to Look Forward To: Job-hunting (let's see if we can at least google something). Body continues to be squishy and nothing's being done about that.
I Don't Know What This Is: Bought chocolate cake and sherry. Bought a birthday card for my brother, who's birthday was February 4. Went outside, but didn't take a long stroll.
Sickle's Reading List:
etherati's Watchmen Zombie 'Verse Series - 25 Stories (+ 9 AU, 9 AU Mashups, 2 OMFG, 11/65 drabbles) - Progress: 1 Story
marika_kailaya's Original Burning the Sound - 40 Chapters - Progress: 0
hmsbeta's Watchmen Partners - 66 Chapters - Progress: 0
Meme - 30 Days - Day 14 → A non-fictional book: As with Day 13, I'm taking this meme at its word. It wants a non-fictional book? It gets one. More specifically, it gets a fiction book. One of my favorites, to be exact.
Threshold (2001) by Caitlín R. Kiernan (greygirlbeat).
Amazon's Reader ; Kiernan's Livejournal Tag Entires
Chance Matthews has suffered enough tragedies. The latest - her grandfather's death - has left her shaken, convinced that she will always be alone. What she needs now is time - time to recover, time to determine what her future will be.
What she doesn't need is a strange girl with alabaster skin who knows things about Chance she can't possibly know.
This girl speaks of being charged by an angel to battle monsters and claims she cannot do it alone. She says she needs Chance's help.
Chance doesn't believe in angels. Or monsters. But among the artifacts left by her geologist grandparents, there lies a fossil of a creture that couldn't possibly have ever existed.
But it did.
And still does...
Words cannot express how much I love this book. I wish I could get my hands on other works by Keirnan, but I'm in the Netherlands, where the lesser known English books are hard to find.
One main reason I love this book - and have in fact read it over and over and over again - is the way Kiernan uses language. As she states in the author's note, this book is best read aloud. The use of run-on descriptions with odd turns and new adjectives, like
...the summer sun bleeds in through the trees on Red Mountain, seeps hot between dogwood and hackberry branches, and soon it will burn away the dew that sequin sparkles the front yard of her dead grandparents' house.
and
Just Sadie in black polyester and the eyeliner she never bothers to wash off, easier just to put more on so she always looks a little like an anemic raccoon.
Not only does the writing drag you in, leaving you breathless at it rolls on and on, but it swerves along with the character's emotions.
So not her grandfather's voice at all, only her memory of her grandfather's voice, some part of herself so sick of the loss and the guilt and the deadness inside speaking in a voice that maybe she'll pay attention to, maybe, and Chance leans forward, both palms open on the stillwarm hood of the Chevy and she's crying again before she can stop the tears, can't stop what she doesn't see coming.
At it's heart, this is a horror story with hidden, otherworldly monsters that are more terrifying because they are so hidden, creeping around in the dark and edges of doors, trying to take the shape of something normal but still being other. Every time I read this book, it always leaves me jumpy of the dark.
The snuffling stops as abruptly as it began but another sound to take its place, like a very big dog panting, breathless, wet pant from mottled, canine lips, and under that, much softer, hardly as loud as Chance's heartbeat, a noise no dog could make. A wheezing, satisfied sigh and then a laugh that isn't anything like a laugh, a thin and labored sound trying to pass itself off for a laugh.
The book may revolve around Chance, but has chapters from the point of view of the other main characters: Dancy, the albino girl who in Supernatural would be called a Hunter; Deacon, the alcoholic with a psychic gift who was in the tunnel with Chance in the Prologue, where everything starts; Sadie, Deacon's girlfriend who types out a novel for no one else to read but which has eerily familiar imagery.
And because I'm a Supernatural fan, and think that all fandoms bleed into each other, I've been working on laying out the crossover points between this book and Supernatural. The posts have SPOILERS (i.e. extensive quotes) and are incomplete - especially now with more Supernatural aired episodes - but here (Dancy and angels), here (monsters) and here (Dean praying). I might one day make a Fanvid (or Fantrailer) or even *gasp* write the Fanfic down. It would just work so well.
Previously:
Day 01 → Your favorite song
Day 02 → Your favorite movie
Day 03 → Your favorite television program
Day 04 → Your favorite book
Day 05 → Your favorite quote
Day 06 → Whatever tickles your fancy - GIFs
Day 07 → A photo that makes you happy
Day 08 → A photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 09 → A photo you took
Day 10 → A photo of you taken over ten years ago
Day 11 → A photo of you taken recently
Day 12 → Whatever tickles your fancy - Nature is awesome!
Day 13 → A fictional book
Coming Soon
Day 15 → A fanfic
Day 16 → A song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 → An art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.)
Day 18 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 19 → A talent of yours
Day 20 → A hobby of yours
Day 21 → A recipe
Day 22 → A website
Day 23 → A YouTube video
Day 24 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 25 → Your day, in great detail
Day 26 → Your week, in great detail
Day 27 → This month, in great detail
Day 28 → This year, in great detail
Day 29 → Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Meme - "My Fine Is..." via badspock
Just read the "offenses" and if you've done it, you owe that fine. Keep going until you've read each "offense" and added up your total fine. When you are done post this as "My fine is $ [...]" You don't have to confess your answers, just the amount of your fine. Tally it up and Title it..."My Fine Is..." copy and paste, then repost it in your journal too.
My fine is $145. I think some items are ridiculously overpriced. Seriously, the highest price is $100 for self-prostitution, followed by $80 for anal sex, whereas drunk driving goes for $20 and doing acid goes for a measly $5? What the fuck is wrong with this meme? Also, fail on making two prices less than a dollar, so that readers can totally figure them out from your total fine.
Offenses:
Smoked pot -- $10
Did acid -- $5
Ever had sex at church -- $25
Woke up in the morning and did not know the person who was next to you -- $40
Had sex with someone on MySpace -- $25
Had sex for money -- $100
Ever had sex with a Puerto Rican -- $20
Vandalized something -- $20
Had sex on your parents' bed -- $10
Beat up someone -- $20
Been jumped -- $10
Cross dressed -- $10
Given money to stripper -- $25
Been in love with a stripper -- $20
Kissed someone who's name you didn't know -- $0.10
Hit on some one of the same sex while at work -- $15
Ever drive and drank -- $20
Ever got drunk at work, or went to work while still drunk -- $50
Used toys while having sex -- $30
Got drunk, passed out and don't remember the night before -- $20
Went skinny dipping -- $5
Had sex in a pool -- $20
Kissed someone of the same sex -- $10
Had sex with someone of the same sex -- $20
Cheated on your significant other -- $10
Masturbated -- $10
Cheated on your significant other with their relative or close friend -- $20
Done oral -- $5
Got oral -- $5
Done / got oral in a car while it was moving -- $25
Stole something -- $10
Had sex with someone in jail -- $25
Made a nasty home video -- $15
Had a threesome -- $50
Had sex in the wild -- $20
Been in the same room while someone was having sex --$25
Stole something worth over more than a hundred dollars-- $20
Had sex with someone 10 years older -- $20
Had sex with someone under 21 and you are over 27 --$25
Been in love with two people or more at the same time-- $50
Said you love someone but didn't mean it -- $25
Went streaking -- $5
Went streaking in broad daylight -- $15
Been arrested -- $5
Spent time in jail -- $15
Peed in the pool -- $0.50
Played spin the bottle -- $5
Done something you regret -- $20
Had sex with your best friend -- $20
Had sex with someone you work with at work -- $25
Had anal sex -- $80
Lied to your mate -- $5
Lied to your mate about the sex being good -- $25
Video of the Day: "Here for a Good Time (Not a Long Time)", Trooper
Click to viewLinks of the Day:
Supernatural:
elizah_jane's Review The Song Remains The Same
vikki's Meta The Song Remains the Same: Timey-Wimey Theories
missyjack's Meta The Song Remains the Same: Thoughts on Castiel and his relationship with the Winchesters
lere8's Icons Team Free Will
London Supernatural Street Promo: The Marble Arch on Fire
Human Target:
elendar's Icons
Watchmen:
etherati's Fic Series Zombie 'Verse
Doctor Who:
zauberer_sirin's Fanmixes Master/Martha
Firefly:
Atlas of the 'Verse
Random Fandom:
whysosensitive's Multifandom Icons - Avatar, Disney, The Lightning Thief, Supernatural, The Office
safetytardis' Multifandom Icons - David Tennant, Casanova, John Simm, Doctor Who, GQMFs, Katie McGrath, Michaela Conlin
shiv5468's The Word According to Shiv - "In the beginning there was the word, and the word was gen for there was neither het nor slash..."
The Watcher's Lost and Supernatural: Have they become the same show?
Random:
bakebakebake - Bakealiscious!
wtf_taxidermy's Rocking horse warthog - *grabby hands*
"Why do the smartest women have the toughest time dating?" Because we deal with idiots. - Argh!
Natalie Merchant's Collected Songs, 1985 - 2005 (Piano Sheet Music)
* I Was A Teenage Billionaire Psychopath, JTRowland