Maledicte

Tonight was Barnes & Noble's Harry Potter Magical Holiday Ball. I went—because of course I was going to go—got all dressed up and wandered around a bit. I mingled with other nerds in Harry Potter garb and watched (mostly indulgently) as small children ran around waving wands. I ended up not staying for the full event, whatever that might have ultimately have entailed. It was fun, and almost captured the magic of the midnight releases of old. Almost.

Those were the good times.

But mostly I felt I could have been carrying a sign. "I'm looking for friends. I like Harry Potter, too. Will you be my friend?" I told one girl that I liked her awesome coat, and her friend said she liked my beetle-wing earrings and they both laughed at my, "They're appropriately Slytheriny!" reply. Making friends is hard for the socially anxious, and that was the extent of my friendly overtures. But it would have been nice to capture the magic—hah—what it used to be.

P.s. I don't have an Harry Potter icons. That seems strange to me now.

This entry was originally posted at DreamWidth. Please comment there with your journal or OpenID. [There are comments on DW.]

• I'm officially a Colorado state resident. (Well, ok, maybe not officially. I haven't gotten a new DL yet, but I did send in my voter registration yesterday.) Shockingly, it's not much different from New Mexico? There's a lot of Broncos merch everywhere, which is hilarious and terrifying. As I keep being told, I am deep, deep in the heart of Broncos country. (And apparently football season has started, or something. Who cares, though, since baseball season is about to be over?)

• You guys, moving is expensive. I've bought furniture and rugs and some art, and a whole host of other things that we need.

• I'm currently not working much. There's a product info workshop/training thing tomorrow, and there's a whole slew of online training manuals (which so far has been videos of text and a voiceover reading the text to me, and then a quiz to make sure I was paying attention) that I'm going through now. I'm seriously considering doing some knitting while I go through these things. I also now have a work email? I guess technically I'm sort of on the management team. I'm more like a team leader. Anyway. Work email. Training. Wooooo.

• We booked our wedding venue last week! We're going to be getting married at Tapestry House here in Colorado. The best part? They're an all-inclusive venue, so they'll do everything. Or at least, all the things we want them to. We'll probably go with an outside photographer and we have a friend who wants to DJ for us, but they'll do the food and the booze and the decorating (although my mom might do the centerpieces) and they'll even do the cake if we decide not to find someone else. It's a huge relief to not need to do all those things, let me tell you what. There are still things to do, obviously, but I feel so much more relaxed about the whole prospect now.

• I'm using all my OTP icons for these posts (which people reading on LJ won't be able to see) because of the wedding talk.

• Books! Since last I wrote, I did indeed get my hands on Ilona Andrews' Magic Binds and it was a really good addition to the series. It included, hilariously and helpfully, a wedding between the main character and her fiancé. (I say helpfully because it pointed out a few things about weddings that I'd forgotten and allowed me to chill a little. So. Yay for that!) I've also read Kendare Blake's most recent book, Three Dark Crowns, which was excellent, even if (at least) one of the twists was something I was expecting. I'm really looking forward to the next one in that series. Now I'm reading the latest Kara Gillian book, Legacy of the Demon, by Diana Rowland, which is proving to be very entertaining—although I don't remember with perfect clarity what happened in the previous book. (This is ok, because Urban Fantasy series tend to gloss over previous events in the beginning, so it's working out just fine for me.) After that I'm probably going to dive into the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas, since I really like her other stuff and there's a handful of them plus assorted novellas so it'll keep me entertained for a while. And then after that I plan to reread Garth Nix's Abhorsen books so that I can read the newest addition to that series, Goldenhand.

• Oh, also: NaNoWriMo is coming up. As always, I'm planning on participating. I can't even begin to imagine what my November is going to look like, but I'm hoping I'll have some time to put some words in. Fingers crossed and all that.

This entry was originally posted at DreamWidth. Please comment there with your journal or OpenID. [There are comments on DW.]

• There is just today, tomorrow, and Friday left. On Saturday we'll be packing up the cars and then driving away. I'm done with work, which means I have the next few weeks off, since my new gig won't start until mid-October. It's sort of nice to have that time, but also sort of stressful—in that I don't have any sort of income for these next few weeks, and yet still have bills and such to pay. But I think it will work out.

• But also... WOO NO WORK FOR A FEW WEEKS!

• But also packing. Which is really awful.

• Hmm books. I finished Ilona Andrews' newest, Magic Binds, and it was fun. And, considering that there was a wedding being planned and orchestrated in it, it was actually useful for me personally. So there's that. I'm currently reading Kendare Blake's newest, Three Dark Crowns which is really interesting. I'm curious how they're going to resolve the conflict, which is that two of the three main characters are basically slated for death.

• Made an appointment to look at a venue for the wedding. This is exciting! Also a little terrifying. I'm thinking about Saves the Dates and then invitations, and my dress, and whether or not I want a full bar or if I want centerpieces. It's a lot to think about, and I'm trying not to get overwhelmed, haha. But it's exciting!

Not a whole lot to say, but at least I'm updating?

This entry was originally posted at DreamWidth. Please comment there with your journal or OpenID. [There are comments on DW.]

Obviously this whole, "posting here more often or at all, really" thing is going to take a little while to get back into the swing of, so posts will likely be somewhat sporadic. Obviously I'd love to post once a week, but... I'll forget. I know I will. But I'm trying, and I have a plan. (More on that in a bit.)

• But first! My boyfriend proposed! I'm getting married! I mean, not right away. Next summer. My mom and I are in the early stages of planning a wedding--which is scary, you guys. Planning something this big, with so many pieces and people. Although, I'll be honest, fiance (hehe) and I still haven't totally ruled out the possibility of doing something really small, and then having a big party afterwards. But we'll see. I'm not letting the whole idea of this get too overwhelming or scary because I don't want to stress it. I want it to be fun to plan a fun day. Also I do not want my friends to remember me as a Bridezilla. So.

• I only have 7 (possibly 8, we'll see how it goes) more days at my current job. And only 13 more days until we get in our cars and drive away from New Mexico. Despite growing up here, I don't actually think of myself as from here. My heart belongs in the city. For 8 years it was New York City. When I was in Edinburgh, I thought it was a city I could certainly love. Now I think that Fort Collins (and it's Greater Metropolitan Area) will be city enough.

• We are just now starting to get into the beginning of the actual move. I hate the actual process of moving: the packing and disassembling of my whole life, the hefting and carrying of all that stuff and putting it into a vehicle, and then after you move those vehicles to your new place, you have to do it all again in reverse. We're starting early in the hopes of containing the chaos to something more manageable, but ahahahahaha hahaha hah. Yeah. It's moving. It makes me want to throw up. But this time is a little different! In case you weren't aware, I am marrying the most amazing guy, who informs me that he's specifically arranged enough help so that I don't have to do any of the heavy lifting. Because he knows how much this stresses me out and he loves me.

• Possibly related... I have all kinds of acne on my back. Even as a teen my skin wasn't particularly prone to breakouts. At most I'd have two, maybe three, pimples at any one time and usually it was less. I have pretty good skin. But now I've got it all over my back and it's driving me crazy. I haven't changed my skincare routine (or at least, I've changed it a little now that I have the acne, but I didn't change it until after it started) and I don't feel more stressed than usual (although, since I'm an anxiety sufferer, my normal levels of stress always seem pretty high to me). Or at least, the acne appeared before the actual moving stress kicked in. I know I'm not doing the other things that usually signal to me that I'm stressed—picking at my cuticles or chewing off the skin on the inside of my lips and cheeks—but maybe I am more stressed and I'm just not noticing? I don't know and this stuff on my back is, again, driving my nuts. Stop this shit, body. Stop it right now.

Uuuuh...

• Books! Seanan McGuire's latest October Daye book came out last week. It's called Once Broken Faith and it was really good! There was a short story attached to the end which really helped out the ending, and set up a new relationship, and I'm excited. I also decided to get my hands on Full of Briars, a Quentin novella! It was fun! Now I'm preparing to read Ilona Andrews' most recent Kate Daniels book, Magic Binds. This preparation consists of reading the novella's in that world, which are set before the last book and are really helping to explain some things. I'm going to get my hands on the new book as soon as I'm finished with the last novella.

• Bullet Journaling! I started one, then decided I'd fucked it up, and now I'm using a Moleskine journal for lists and such. I'll figure out how to do the whole BuJo thing eventually, but for now, I wrote a blog post about it on my "professional" blog thing. Possibly one of the things that I'll use it to do one day is update this thing more, haha. Anyway. Read all about it!

Ok, that's it for now.

This entry was originally posted at DreamWidth. Please comment there with your journal or OpenID. [There are comments on DW.]

• It's been a little over two years since I last wrote. Which means there's quite a lot to catch up on here... but I think I'm just going to skip over that. Most people reading this journal also follow me on Twitter or are also friends on Facebook, so they would have gotten little tidbits of it there. Still, I'm feeling the need for a more long-form way of telling the world what's been going on in my life, so here we are.

• At the end of September, boyfriend and I are going to pack up and move to Fort Collins, Colorado. Ok, technically I'll be living in Loveland, but I've come to think of that as part of the Fort Collins Greater Metropolitan Area, and I'll be working in Fort Collins. Because, oh yeah, I landed a job there. I'll be starting mid October. We have a really great little apartment, too, in a really great location. With both of those things taken care of, I'm free to go back to worrying about the actual move itself and living in a new and unfamiliar place. But I'm sure that will pass. And I'm excited to be starting a new adventure.

• I've been trying to read more this year. With the sole exception of July, during which I finished one book (which I had started at the end of June) and then continued to read one other (which I then finished on the 1st of August), I've been doing pretty good. This year's spread sheet has color coding for the gender of authors (because I'm curious) as well as different coding for things that are re-reads (aka comfort reading) and things that will end up on my "Best Books I Read in 2016" list at the end of the year. I'm having fun with it, and also enjoying reading—which was the whole point of this endeavor.

• Related: If you haven't read seanan_mcguire's Every Heart A Doorway, do so. It's short and won't take you very long, and you'll be happy you did. And if you haven't read Rachel Aaron's Heartstrikers series, definitely do that too. The third book, No Good Dragon Goes Unpunished came out last week, you should do that too. I mean, start with the first two if you also haven't read those, but then definitely read #3 because it's so so so good.

• This morning I woke from a dream in which I had agreed to be a gangster boss's mistress, in a time when cars and horses were on the streets together. It considering that it was mostly the two of us talking, and me realizing that he was really a nice guy who missed his dead wife terribly and really wanted to build this beautiful house... it was a pretty nice dream. This dream also featured FAO Schwarz, but some weird version of it, and me cryptically saying that it looked different than the last time I'd seen it, because I was also, apparently, a time traveller. Sometimes I really love my brain.

That's it for now. More things as I think of them, I suppose.

This entry was originally posted at DreamWidth. Please comment there with your journal or OpenID. [There are comments on DW.]

When last we saw our intrepid heroine... on June 18th wtf, self, you were supposed to be getting better at this...

• I changed jobs. The part time gig was good and all, but now I have a full time gig that I like and I like the people I work with and the people seem to like me too. It's better all around, not to mention the fact that I will likely be able to actually pay my bills a little easier and maybe even save some money. And, since I'm now working at a Japanese Spa, I get all kinds of awesome benefits, like discounts and gift cards and such. This job is pretty awesome, guys.

• I also got a new tattoo on Saturday. I got the "Not all those who wander are lost" part of Strider's riddle, translated into Quenya, on my back. I'm happy with it, although it does make putting on jackets, reaching for things up high at work, and sleeping occasionally interesting. I am also considering getting something while I'm in Ireland. We shall see.

• Only about a week til my UK trip! I decided to take a little trip to Glasgow between London and Dublin, and I might use one of the three days I'm there to take a day trip to Edinburgh as well. I'm also considering a day trip up to Belfast from Dublin, as well as trekking out from London for an evening to see my favorite band at a festival they're playing at. I have all these options!

• It's chilly and rainy out, which means I am eating warm things to keep a little on the warmer side. I'd have considered staying late at work for free hot tub soaking, but lightning. And I wanted to come home and read my book.

That's about it, in terms of news.

This entry was originally posted at DreamWidth. Please comment there with your journal or OpenID. [There are comments on DW.]

Aw yis, keeping to a vague posting schedule. Go me.

• Job still and unsurprisingly continues. I will likely apply to another thing as my current gig is just part time, and then we'll see how that could work.

• Actual planning for August travel to London and Dublin has commenced! I am very excited. There might be a day in Amsterdam with my mom and stepdude if they have the time. Which would be very neat. And if not, I will still have been to London and Dublin, so it will have been awesome.

• I haven't posted to my new blog since the Maleficent reaction, but there's a post coming on Friday that I am very pleased with. So you all should keep an eye out for it. c:

• My feet hurt. Always and forever with this job, apparently.

• Guys, I still haven't gotten over X-Men: Days of Future Past and I think I need to see it again this weekend. So that I can take notes. And allow Erik Lehnsherr further into my head. Because he's there, and he's angry and loud and amazing, and I sort of need to see that airplane scene again.

And that's the State of Sky for the week. c:

This entry was originally posted at DreamWidth. Please comment there with your journal or OpenID. [There are comments on DW.]

Whoops. I forgot to post in the first week of June. Darn.

• Job continues. I'm learning quickly and starting to feel like I know how to do things. Which is nice. Management has decided that I'm good for closing shifts, which is... not my preferred shift. But it's money. Hopefully the week after next I'll have some shifts that aren't closing.

• I started a blog as a "professional" type presence. Already I've posted about Amazon and Hachette, as well as my reaction to seeing Maleficent last night. :) More things to come as they happen or as I think of them.

• Also I saw Maleficent and it was awesome. Badass fairy lady.

• I've been wavering between being mostly satisfied with the things I have right now as a means of moving forward, and being impatient to do something else, be someplace else. I have this vague idea of a thing I'd like to do, and sort of no idea how to get there, or if I'd like where that would physically take me, or if people are going to just laugh at me if I try to apply for new things. It's definitely scary. And it requires some thinking about, I guess.

• In less frustrating and sad news...

Nope. I got nothing. That was all my news.

This entry was originally posted at DreamWidth. Please comment there with your journal or OpenID. [There are comments on DW.]

• So. That job that I hadn't exactly applied for but was probably qualified for anyway? I got it. I am employed, at least part time. It's nothing fancy, nothing I'm actually using my degree at all for—but that's what I wanted, so I'm satisfied with that—I'm just a tiny bit player in a massive conglomerate chain store. (Although I did proofread an email for a coworker, so that's sort of using my degree.) I was scheduled for three days of training videos and interactive powerpoints, but got everything done in one 7-hour shift yesterday and an hour and a half this morning. So I ended up actually working a whole shift today. And now my feets hurt. I got myself some gel insets for my shoes on the way home, for my whole shift tomorrow. Also black pants. Because I didn't own any.

• Wooo employment!

• Bonus: work is only about 4-5 blocks from where I live, so I've just been walking. It's been pretty consistently warm so it's been a pretty nice walk. (It was supposed to rain today, but didn't. Just to be on the safe side, I bought myself an umbrella when I was getting pants and gel inserts. Because I didn't actually own one, or really own anything that had a hood. And now I'll have an umbrella for when I'm in the UK this summer.) Yay minimal exercise!

• Ow ow ow ow feet.

• I'm maybe reading again? I mean, I didn't really stop reading entirely, I just stopped reading things that Goodreads counts towards my 2014 challenge. I reread a whole bunch of Tamora Pierce, and I reread Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, and I reread some Nora Roberts. Now I'm reading a book I've never read before. I read while I scarfed down a lunch sandwich at Panera (because it's just across the parking lot from work), and I'll probably read some more tonight. The new Merry Gentry book is coming out on Tuesday next, which will be the first new Laurel K. Hamilton book I've actually been interested in reading in a while.

And there's your weekly summer dose of Sky's life.

This entry was originally posted at DreamWidth. Please comment there with your journal or OpenID. [There are comments on DW.]

Just what it says on the tin.

Before I get into anything that might be spoilery, I will say that I liked the movie! I thought it was full of cool things, and interesting plot devices. Also: Michael Fassbender. He makes a movie worth it for me. James McAvoy was good too—although that hair, yikes—and obviously so was Hugh Jackman. I recommend the movie to anyone who likes this sort of thing. You'll probably like this one too.

Now. Spoilery things. This is your last warning.

( Collapse )

Yeah, that's all I got. It was good. Michael Fassbender still gets me all hot and bothered.

[x-posted to my Tumblr.]

This entry was originally posted at DreamWidth. Please comment there with your journal or OpenID. [There are comments on DW.]