Well, I've written and re-written this post in my head about a million times over the past few weeks, and I still haven't figured out how to make it any less awkward. So, I shall be swift and to the point.

I know not many of you probably care what's going on with me anymore, and really, I'm cool with that - I've disappeared enough times to've earned your disregard. But I want to offer some small explanation for myself, I guess.

Basically, I went through a really shit break-up after my ex had more or less spent all my money and left me broke. I gave up internet in favor of working constantly and trying to rebuild my financial security, and in the meantime, I met the guy I've spent the last 2 years with and who is pretty much the best thing ever. Late last year, I tried starting up a new LJ, because I missed being part of the HP community and, well.. having friends, really, but I ended up deleting it because it wasn't the same, and I was trying to be someone I wasn't just to get back what I once had.

I realize I can't ever have what I once did, which was this - a wonderful group of friends who meant worlds to me, even though I did a shit job of returning the favor. And I wanted you lot to know just what you did mean to me, and how lonely I am without you all.

And on that note, I do have a new journal. It's third_times  (yes, as in 'third time's the charm'). It's a place where I'm being completely and utterly true to myself, and as of yet, I don't have any friends. So, if any of you are still interested - and again, I won't at all fault anyone who wants nothing to do with me - I'd love to reunite with you. And this time, I will promise no long disappearances, and I'm going to try my best not to be a flaky friend ever again.

I've disabled comments, as this is the last time I'll likely visit this journal. Hopefully I'll be talking to some of you soon, and for those of you walking away, then this is my very fond good-bye.

My ratio of time I used to spend on the Internet versus time I now spend on the Internet kind of makes me laugh. It's something like...

5-8 hours a day then : 5-8 hours a week now

Oh work and real life, you've eaten my old hobbies. :|

I worked 60 hours this week. It sucked except for the part where my paycheck next week will be full of awesome. Plus I'm celebrating Stuart's birthday next week (a few days early, but I don't think he minds) and I've got reservations for a nice hotel room with private jacuzzi. So in my head, this week's ridiculous amount of working has earned me next weekend's ridiculously awesome piece of ass. ;)

Ha, I just realized I unintentionally avoided the Internet through the whole Gay!Dumbledore fallout. Ah well. My opinion seems to be the same as most: who cares, really? In my head, half the characters are gay anyway...

Holy crap, it's almost November. Craziness. Anyone want a Christmas card? With all the overtime I've been working lately, I may even have money for little gifts! Here, I'll do it the easy way:

Poll #1078838 The Annual Christmas Card Poll
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: None, participants: 2

Who am I mailing to? (i.e., your name)

Street address?

City/State/Country/Zip?

Any special mailing instructions?

I should send you:

If you'd like a small gift, what might you like? (ideas plzkthx)

More gift ideas? (my, but I'm generous)

Will you send me a Christmas card back?

Obligatory meaningless ticky box question!

I signed up for hpvalensmut, so hopefully my muses aren't all dead, just a little musty-smelling.

ETA: I should check out last.fm, y/n? Everyone else seems to be using it and as I am a lemming...

ETA the Second: Nearly forgot - I have an InsaneJournal now, just for dodging LJ's TOS purposes. If you have one and feel like friending, go for it. Mostly it's for writing and joining comms over there, but it's always nice to have friends. :)

Life is exhausting, for the record. I almost had to work every day this week, but I got out of my Sunday hours by promising a 6-pack of beer to one of my co-workers if he would work it for me. So yay for a semi-weekend.

I do have to brag for a moment though, because I'm really kind of proud of this - I'm down to about 125-130lbs and now wearing a (very loose) size 3/4. Work may be dominating my life, but it's giving me a wickedly awesome body. :P

If any of you don't filter and/or skim my entries anymore, drop me a quick comment and let me know how life is treating you these days. I miss a lot of you, and even though I don't comment, I do read everyone's entries on a daily basis. I should start commenting, shouldn't I? I'll try to do that.

Also, I said I was going to do an anonymous meme to get some things off my chest, and I will momentarily, but first a slightly happier meme that I've seen bouncing around.

Stolen from slumber who stole from el_em_en_oh_pee who stole from acidpop25. Hee, I like lists.

Make a list of 12 characters, from multiple fandoms or just one, and only then look behind the cut for the questions.

1) Draco Malfoy
2) Seamus Finnigan
3) Pansy Parkinson
4) Marcus Flint
5) Oliver Wood
6) Hermione Granger
7) Harry Potter
8) Narcissa Malfoy
9) Lily Potter
10) Romilda Vane
11) Zacharias Smith
12) Parvati Patil

( Questions )

Okay. Anonymous meme. I've put a lot of thought into this, and it's really, really not meant to offend anyone. It's just... well, I'm sure a lot of you have had a go at me (and rightly so, as often as I've cut out on you all), but there are things I've always meant to say to you all as well that I just never had the courage to. So... anonymous commenting is on, if you want to say something. Nothing's screened though, so if someone really lays into me, whether it's deserved or not, you'll all get to read the unfolding drama.

( Anonymously Yours... )

Yeah. Now I'm just kind of depressed.

I've also realised that I used to post a lot of journal entries just in hopes of getting responses from my flist. Which is kind of silly, not because I don't value what my flist has to say (or did have to say, rather), but because I wasn't truly giving a full picture of myself by editing out everything except the funny or commentable bits.

And that would be my thought of minor intelligence for the day.

Also, my last post was kind of snotty and cold, wasn't it? I'm not sure why I get so defensive sometimes, except I think I know I hurt a lot of people with this last disappearance, and I'm running out of ways to apologise.

Okay, wtf, my journal is all psycho-analytical of myself now. *boggles*

ANYWAY. I could actually talk about my life, couldn't I?

Things That Have Changed Since My Last Online Appearance
(which was roughly six months ago)

Thing the First: I no longer live in the scary, Podunk town of West Unity, Ohio. I am back in my beloved familiar Bryan, in an awesomely huge two bedroom apartment that I share with Stuart.

Thing the Second: STUART. Oh my god, where do I even start? He looks quite a bit like John Krasinski from The Office, by which I mean he is the hottest man alive. He drives a Mustang, owns a motorcycle, and keeps a collection of intelligent books to rival my own. He's ridiculously smart and effortlessly sexy, and treats me better than any man ever has before. We've been together around 5 months now, and I can't begin to describe the happiness he's brought me in that short time. Remember how I said I didn't need to escape online anymore, because real life was great? He's the reason why. From the first day I met him, there was such... chemistry between us, I don't know how to properly explain. I always seem to run out of words when I try to say how much he means to me. He's made me believe in soulmates, and true love, because he's definitely mine. (Omg, so sappy, I know, but that's how he makes me feel.)

Thing the Third: After a tumultuous five months on first shift, in which I pretty much hated every second of my job with the burning passion of ten thousand white hot suns, I'm finally back on third. I'm even in a completely different department than I was - instead of making fabric-covered plastic parts for Honda cars, I make trunk liners. ... Which honestly doesn't sound that different, I now see, but trust me that it is. And now I'm finally enjoying my job again. The people are amazingly fun, the work is hard, honest labour that keeps me busy and lets me sleep well at night. And! I get a pay raise. ;)

So how awesome is all of the above? Super Awesome, of course. :P I could probably say about a dozen more things, but my mind's not inclined to focus any longer.

ETA: Erm, also. I think I'm going to do one of those anonymous list type thingies. Where I say stuff about the people on my flist and not say specifically who it's about. Because there are things I'd like to say that I'm just too wussy to be direct about. Not that it's a bunch of bad stuff! :P But stuff that wants to be said nonetheless. And I'm being repetitive. Yes. Going now.

I think I should change my username to "houdini" in honor of all my random disappearances of indefinite length.

What can I say? Real life is finally treating me better than Online was. The HP fandom, RPing and all of those sort of things were always my escape when real life just wasn't a place I wanted to deal with. And now, real life is... amazing, simply put. I'm happy with my job, I'm happy with my financial situation, and I've found the love of my life - a man who treats me better than I probably deserve some days - and I'm so, so in love with him.

So that is my way of explaining why I've been gone - I just haven't needed to escape, because life is fucking good.

That's not an excuse, however, to the people I let down. I think I justified being flaky because it was to people who I'd never meet in real life. But now that I've had (plenty of) time to think about it, I'm about as disappointed in myself as I'm sure some of you were. I am sorry for my behavior.

I can't promise my constant presence from now on, like I used to after my long disappearances. But I'll be here, on and off, when I'm not spending time with my honey, Stuart, or my friends. This time of the year always triggers something in my writer's mind, so maybe I'll start writing again. Or not.

No promises.

I just spent like, three hours revamping my journal and profile. *facedesk* But at least it looks new and shiny and reflects my... shiny... newness. Yeah.

GUESS WHAT??

I am so done with third shift! That means I'm back on first and I'll have normal hours andandand asdkjljsadf! I'm so happy. And they also approved my vacation days for next week, so like, my joy knows no bounds right now, whoo. XD

PICSPAM TIME! Some from the pic meme I mentioned in my last entry, and the rest are just me camera-whoring.

( Look! It's me in a towel! )

So what does everyone think of the new book covers? I like the US version better, but if you look at the UK version, it looks like there's a goblin (or House elf??) behind Harry, holding Gryffindor's sword. Wtf? And Hermione's face looks like she's experiencing anal sex for the first time. :| Craziness.

You would think I'd've learned by now not to update while intoxictaed, but clearly not. :P

Aww, my LJ! *pets* I missed you!

Yeah, I suck at updating. But I've been around! RPing mostly. (Hint hint - if you haven't already, you should join my RP because it's full of awesomeness and crazy people. And because I like new people. And because I am strangely fascinated by the look of my typing appering on screen right now omgwtf.)

Because I know you are all insanely interested in my personal life, I will now tell you waht I've been up the to past months. I gave up my supervisor-type job because of the stres and am now back at operator status. I rather like it though - no bosses bitching at me, no employees to cater to. And I get to leave at the end of the day no matter what, even if stuff isn't finished. So needles to say, I am much less stressed.

And still drunk.

Hah, wow, I still type pretty decent ofr a drunk chick. :P

So I saw this meme going around where you get to ask me to take a picture of soemthing with my digital camera and I knda want to do it.

So, erm... I have a digi-camera. ANd I like picutres. So ask me to take a picutre of something!

Oh dear, my typing's getting worse, I susperct.

I lvoe you guys! *more drunkern ramblings* I'll be back soon. I missed my LJ. *clings to LJ* I love it only slightly less than I love Jack Daniels right snow.

Okay, I'mma stop now. XD

Three days away and that's what my flist looks like. Whyyyyy am I a member of so many communities?

Oh. That's right. Because they amuse me. Stfu Gin.

Anyway, as some of you already know, I had a bit of surgery on Saturday. Nothing too serious - a little outpatient surgery to remove a cyst from the lining of my uterus. (Thus forth to be known as The Thing That Invaded My Girly Bits and Wasn't Supposed To Be There.) My doctor says all is well once more in the kingdom of my Girly Bits and I shouldn't have a recurrence. He also said that was why I'd gotten a false positive result on that pregnancy test I took. (Wtf, cysts can do that?!)

Almost done with my round of antibiotics, so I'm starting to feel much more myself and not so run down. Except for how I can't seem to stop eating salads and yogurt all the sudden. I mean, not that that's a bad thing, but it's weird. For me. :|

I need to get to work on my hp_springsmut fic, since it's due the 19th, and I haven't even started it yet. Oh, procrastination. Procrastination/Gin = OTP omg stfu Gin you're not funny

Also? Wtf Ohio weather? You stayed in the 40's all through December with no snow, and now that we've hit February, you want to be -5 with crazy wind chills and blinding white-outs of snow? You suck so hardcore.

Another year, then? Sure, why not. :)

From posts on the flist, seems you all had quite a bit of fun on New Year's Eve. Mine wasn't anything too special, but I did learn to play Texas Hold 'Em poker, and then I went on to dominate the whole game and win. (If it wasn't for beginner's luck, I probably wouldn't have any. :)

Well, I've finally finished The Secret Project. Or as finished as it's going to be, I suppose. So without further ado... *deep breath*

Asylum Arcanum



January 2001. The Second War against Voldemort has been over for six months. Left in shambles, the Wizarding World struggles to put the pieces back together. Casualties on both sides were devastating, and the survivors are left to cope with the aftermath. Some of the greatest heroes of the war are now the most hopeless patients to the psychiatric healers at St. Mungos. The question has arisen: with so many seemingly "unfit" to rejoin society, how to help them?

| Plot | Character List | Cast List | Rules | Application | FAQ |


... Yeah, that's right. The girl who should probably never RP again wants to mod one. This has kind of become my "unofficial" New Years resolution, since I didn't make any this year. I'm going to stick with this -- and you lot -- for as long as you'll let me.

I'm showing this to you all first with the invitation that, if you want a character, he/she/it is yours. No application required. I know all of you well enough, and have RP'd with the vast majority of you, to know that you're all excellent players. So if you want someone before I start advertising to the rpg ad communities, please let me know.

And now I'm going to go get ready to go back to work after my week-long vacation. :| Yeah, I'm thrilled. Really.

So it's still a little early here, but Happy Christmas, Everyone!

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what message to leave you all with this year. Half of you I don't talk to any more, most of you I wish I did still talk to you, and those of you I didn't talk to much last year are now the ones I'm closest to. Some of you aren't around any more and I miss you so much, and all of you have changed, which was inevitable. But that doesn't mean I don't still wish it could go back to the way it was sometimes.

But you've all been special and important to me in some way -- and, above all, I've loved every single one of you, whether I said it proper or not.

So, wherever you are, whatever is happening to you, I wish you all a Happy Christmas full of love.




Also, I debated sharing this just yet, but I'm working on something of a special project. As soon as I have it finished, which should be in the next day or so, I plan to post here with the details. I think most of you will be surprised, and some of you might even be annoyed with me, but I hope you'll give it -- and me -- a chance and hopefully make it something spectacular and fun.


Happy Christmas, darlings. Love you all still. ♥