This is an email I got today from my mom:

I live in Central Florida and in our local paper they are running a poll on should Florida reconsider its ban on gay marriage. You can go to orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/ to vote. I have been watching our numbers all weekend and we had been leading until just a few minutes ago when the votes for no went from 1200 to over 2000 in less than 3 minutes. They state the poll is unscientific but the ramifications could be enormous. Can you help?

You can close your browser and vote again and again, so I say, stuff the ballot box for a good cause.

xo

I've been away for longer than I thought.

I am told Muskrat Jamboree is on this weekend: have fun, you crazy kids.

laurashapiro is gardening!

prillalar is writing 20 mintues a day!

runpunkrun is also writing, and making John an accidental sociopath!

katallison is taking a well deserved break from the horrors of registration!

spike21 is walking for MS!

lucitania is celebrating her 2 year Panniversary!

Um. Me, I have little to report. I had dinner with our dear eliade last week and may well lunch with our darling katallison when she returns from the Jamboree.

Work is awful beyond the telling, but I have a job, and don't sleep in a tent, and hey, no one has shot at me today, so. I'm gonna take that as a win.

Besides, gritkitty sent me a package! Handmade paper! Made of poo. :D

Postcards and poo, babies. We're keepin' it real.

Be sweet, my cupcakes.

You are so splendiferous. After eliade posted to say thanks, a few more of you raised your hands and gave to the cause. We got to $3100 bucks!

You are all made of pure, sweet love.

This morning I came in to work a half day, and I was up very late the night before and for the first time since I can remember, the alarm clock had to wake me. Saturday morning, the grass lacy with frost, a random sheet of newspaper glazed with disco glitter, empty streets except for one jogger with a bobble hat and a guy walking a pair of those dogs that don’t look like dogs so much as Tina Turner wigs with feet.

As I walked along I thought about how much I love to live here, and how much I owe Anna.

I swear, and I’m not even lying, that 62 – 76% of everything I like about my life at this moment is due, in some way, to Anna.

When I first started out in X-Files, Anna is one of the first people who stopped me in my tracks. In A Dark Time was utterly lush, with magnificent vocabulary, a deadly knack for setting and mood, and sex scenes so intensely incendiary they stole my breath away. We exchanged a few emails, mine full of giddy praise, hers full of... what? Shy wit? Self-deprecating brilliance?

I think of all I’d owe her even if I’d never met her: the absolute kick of reading one of her X-Files, with her dangerously complicated Mulder, somehow re-drawn and more himself when Anna wrote him. Her passionate and underhanded Krycek. I fell in love with Jack O’Neill because of her – if you haven’t read The Other Half, jump to it. Every installment of her Buffy Season Noir was absolutely hypnotic, addictive, thrilling, in every sense of the word. Just the sheer amount of time I’ve spent reading and re-reading her stories alone would be enough to say she’s made measurable cheerful improvement to my life.

With her around, I fell in with such a crowd, babies. Old school X-philes like torch, Te, Hal, Spike, Kat Allison, Jane Mortimer, Laura Shapiro... August company indeed. And when I first came to the West Coast, I stayed with her. I met one of my most cherished friends live and in person (you may know her as McSwain! Or lucitania) because Anna offered to let me stay on her couch (after, you know, helping me meet McSwain! and years later McSwain! letting me stay with her while I looked for work in northern Washington), and I moved to my beautiful city because Anna let me stay on her couch while I got a job in town when Northern Washington didn’t work out. She later, in fact, gave me that most beloved couch (and much of the rest of my furnished apartment)—and I cried bitter tears when I had to move and the couch was too magnificent (and long) for me to fit into my tiny teabox apartment.

Without Anna and her X-Files catching the eye of other superb people with excellent taste, it is likely I’d never have met anyone on LJ at all. Without Anna, it is absolutely certain I would never have met Mr. Pants, because without Anna I could never have managed to get on my feet, and would never have been able to stay on here.

So, I say to you, to know Anna is to love her. Even to only know of her through any of the stories she’s given us, is to love her. And this love has been materially demonstrated by the sending of an astonishing influx of cash to help her ride out this rough patch.

You lovelies, each and every one of you. With your incredible kindness, we raised a pretty sweet chunk of change. By which I mean we broke $2,000 bucks. In 24 hours. On a weekend. You guys. You guys! 2 grand!! (Total: $2285.00.)

Oh, you are all made of love. Also magic beans. And solid gold dancers. With hearts of gold.

Such kindness can never be repaid, but perhaps it can be duplicated. I know this is not the last act of charming generosity I see while you guys draw breath.

Hugs all around. And gold stars on all your foreheads. My sweet people!

Happy Birthday, my dearest darling Anna. As you see, you are loved by many, and that is always very nice to know.

Love,

kormantic

[By the way, just so you know, I gave Anna a $500.00 chunk in person and will be getting the rest to her after the PayPal donations clear in my bank account, which may take until Jan 28 or so. I don’t know about youse guys out there, but I don’t have that kind of cash just lying around, so I couldn't actually front her the whole amount at once. (g) Your generosity was literally overwhelming, and I will smile every time I think of it for the rest of my life.]

Hello there, kiddos. I unlocked this - better to spoil the surprise if it means a little more help from abroad. :)

Many of you know Anna S (eliade) and you know that Anna sightings can be rare. I just got in touch with her for the first time since Election Day and she's not exactly on top of the world.

Anna has given much to the fannish community - brilliant X-Files, pitch-perfect SG-1 and SGA and some of the most amazing Buffy fic I've ever seen. She, like all of us, has been feeling the squeeze of the economic downturn, but just recently, she's had it rougher than most. She's been jobless for a while and her unemployment insurance ran out in October.

Nothing is more demoralizing than being out of work, and nothing is harder to do than to ask for help. On top of that, it's her birthday tomorrow. So now would be a pretty good time to do something to help out, I'm thinking. (g)

Five or ten dollars from anyone reading this who's got it to spare would be useful for gas money and groceries and to help make ends meet until she can land something more than occasional temp work. (I will front Anna any cash raised by the time I see her at 4 tomorrow, and then wait for the PayPal hold to clear, with the understanding that PayPal will take a cut. Any cash received after that will also go to her, probably by mail as a check drawn on my account.)

Anna is also famously shy, so keep in mind that she may not post on LJ to say thank you - but any dough collected can be vouched for by katallison, so you don't feel like your money was funneled directly into my oh-so-deep pockets.

And you don't need to send cash to lend a hand: locals who know of contract gigs in the tech writing field, or who may know of something related, could contact me with leads, writers who love Anna could post a little something you think she might like, and anyone at all could send her some groovy birthday wishes on 1/24 in any way that moves them.

Feel free to cut and paste this or just link back to this page if you've a mind to.

http://kormantic.livejournal.com/200541.html

Thank you for taking a moment to read this. You're splendid.

ETA: Please let me know in the PayPal comments to the seller option if you wish to be named or anonymous on the Birthday Card I'll sign with all names on your behalf.

Also, naturally, I will post the amount raised.

Stay classy, San Diego fannish community at large!

You know, I didn't write much this year (and technically, I wrote Mr. Karaoke [a personal favorite of mine- it will NEVER not be funny to me to think of Rodney singing Cherry Pie, babies] years ago), but here's a recap just the same:

Rising (The Last Unicorn, a Shmendrick story written for sandlion) for Yuletide.
Amplexus Rodney, John and Rodney's arms.
Water A Teyla story.
Mr. Karaoke Um. Rodney sings Cherry Pie. Shut up, it's comedy gold!
Moment of Truth Not so much *bad* TV as... evil TV. But Rodney would so pwn that shit.
Prompt-O-Rama A grab bag of mostly SGA.
Transmission Line Theory Rodney in the 80s.

2008 was ultimately very kind to me: a boy I love, lavish praise and a modest raise when I thought for sure I'd get the sack, a President I can believe in. Well. Yeah. Yeah!

I don't need 2009 to top it; just maintain. That's not too much to ask, right?

Killa, what did you want for bucadibitchin'??? Anything more specific than "Methos"?

In your faces, Yuletiders. I got a very charming little moment with Stephen Maturin for Christmas this year. Actually, you did, too.

A Contemplation of the Rearing of Phoca Grypus

Thank you, Yuletide Santa!!

Now I'm off to Maine. Be good, and see you in 2009!

Happy Merry Generic Holiday Seasonal Greetings to all, and to all a good night.

Brought to you by spike21. I know I'm a bit scarce these days, but I do think about youse guys. Witness the meme below, and let us all tremble under the strain of the last few episodes of SGA together.

The Rules:

A. People who have been tagged must, if they choose to participate, write their answers on their blog and replace any question that they dislike with a new, original question. Please italicize the new question if you do that.

B. Tag eight people. Don't refuse to do that. Don't tag who tagged you.

tag: eliade, katallison, chicklet_girl, gritkitty, mrs_laugh_track, belmanoir, branman1975, devildoll

( meme-o-rama! )

You know, both the lovely gritkitty and the delightful and long-missed laurashapiro were in town recently and then I went to Orlando for a week, so there's been a lot of traveling of late. If you are very lucky, perhaps gritkitty and/or laurashapiro will visit you. Have you been very good all year? And you could always bake some delicious porn...

Meanwhile, some mild spoilers for my vacation and also Twilight and last night's SGA behind the cut( ... )

Just like when I was 10!

So, now that I have a cable modem again, I am all caught up on SGA and am now treating myself to an early afternoon of... Jem and the Holograms. Shut up. It's so totally awesome 80s!

But which band is better?

Poll #1285164 No one else is the same!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Jem or The Misfits?

So, on Monday, I got to hang out with the delightful chicklet_girl and her pack of lively roving vacation pals, musesfool, hwmitzy and devildoll. (Ask chicklet_girl if she dug the decaf espresso caramel milkshake at the B & O.) Fangirls continue to prove themselves the best company in any given situation. Dude, think about it: what if you were selected for sequestered jury duty... with a bunch of other fangirls? Paradise!

Anyway, good times were had, we spoke fandoms of yore, and of potato chips, poutine and jellyfish. (Not on one plate, though.)

This morning, I've been catching up on SGA, and 5 minutes into Inquisition, I was like ( no, seriously? )

Okay, so you know how it is when a friend of yours buys a house and it consumes their lives and they never talk about anything else? Ever, ever again? (Oh, homeowners, you know it's true!) That's sort of what it's like for me when it comes to Mr. Pants. In a good way? Except instead of going on and an about plumbing woes and the neighbor's shitty fencing and how much time I spend working on the lawn, I'm tempted to wax poetic about his Fred Flintstone laugh and the difference between the smile he gives you when when he thinks he should vs the one on his face when he's absently delighted. And I don't want to be that guy, making you all roll your eyes and furtively edge toward the door as I drone on and on about his lovely wrists and the way he thinks Ryan North should play Scrabble with us and how he once sent me an asbestos box with a goat cheese pizza and a barrrnicle in it. So I'll shut up about that.

In other news, thanks in a very large part to you exceptionally groovy people, I met my cashola fundraising goal for the American Diabetes Association "Step Out" event. Go team Battlestar Diabetica!

As for writing, as you may have noticed, I haven't finished, or even started, a single thing since early in the summer, and with grant season breathing down my neck, I doubt I'll have the energy or the time to finish anything until well into November. It is to weep. And yet. I've been thinking about Yuletide, my very favorite holiday, quite wistfully. Maybe I'll write a Thief of Attolia story. Or a Temeraire story about Iskierka trying her hand at persuasion; if only she could recruit Perscitia into a life of privateering! And please, tell me someone will write a Twilight story that won't make me hate myself...? (Um. Did I mention that I read them, all of them, as if in the grip of a fever, and that the last one cured me for good and all of ever wanting to read another of that woman's wretched [yet so appallingly page-turn-y and weirdly satisfying?] weaving? Well. I did. Don't you judge me!)

I miss Punk. I wish SGA hadn't been cancelled. Why don't mashed potatoes make you sleek and clever? They could give you a glossy coat, your teeth a pearly sheen! And yet. They do not. Well. Maybe the glossy coat part, if you use enough butter.

I rail against the unfairness of a cruelly potatoed world.

xoxo kiddos.

Things I have done in the past two weeks:

♦ went kayaking

♦ had brunch with katallison 

♦ drove a motorboat

♦ played Rockband

♦ went on the Ferris wheel at the Grays Harbor County Fair (twice)

♦ saw Tropic Thunder

♦ ate a mugful of Cocoa Krispies with milk and Baileys Irish Cream. Don't try this at home, folks. It was NOT a taste sensation.

What have you been getting up to, kids?

lucitania had her ear to the ground and was able to point out that resonant8, besides being delightful in every way, was today especially, specifically delightful, as she kindly listed me as a person who makes her day. Being clever and a person of excellent taste, she had already listed tevere and thefourthvine as others who make her day, and so I shall not repeat them in my own list. Except that I so totally just did! Take that, list of 10! ( in which I go on at extreme length about the people I know and love in real life ) who should already know that they make my day, and go on to list people who I have never met in person, but who I should very much like to (that resonant8 is on this list is of course naturally heavily implied) and who are reasons (better even than bacon) to get out of bed every morning. And heck, I figured, why stop at ten? So I listed 35, one for each and every birthday so far:

aesc
basingstoke
chicklet_girl
devildoll
eleveninches
flambeau
giddygeek
gritkitty
isilya
j_bluestocking
katie_m
kaneko
seperis
minnow1212
shrift
newkidfan
toft_froggy
trinityofone
rageprufrock
nestra
slodwick
scrunchy
iamsab
lallybroch
almostnever
saffronhouse
pearl_o
panisdead
rydra_wong
seigeofangels
siriaeve
spaggel
toomuchplor
thingswithwings
seraphcelene
rusty76

♥

Truly, each person mentioned here today has inspired countless moments of absolute joy to be long treasured in even my shoddy memory. You have shot my ordinary days with threads of gold, babies, and I thank you for it. I love you for it.

Speaking of memorable times, the ever-groovy belmanoir and her really very charming friend Ursula (who can knit with four needles at once!) and I had the opportunity to hang about with the splendid astolat on Monday. As is only right, we spent a large portion of our time talking about cute boys, and let me say to whoever decided to cast Robert Downey Jr as the next Sherlock Holmes: I approve! astolat also gave us wise advice on how to survive a plane crash, and first-hand tips on what do to when menaced by amorous elephants on the prowl.

Come back soon, astolat!

And, in closing, I promised astolat that I'd say this, and after all, it's coming up on six whole months:

♥ I love my boyfriend.♥

So freakin' much, people. One day I'll try to explain, but I doubt I'll be able to.

♥

As you may already know, brynnmck and I had a birthday around the same time, so we decided to have a Disco Skate Party at the local Skate King. I fell down, and knocked my poor sweetheart over, too. Twice.

Behind the cut, you can see my terrifying birthday cake and my gore-spattered carcass!

( I'm gonna have a bitchin' scar! )

So Obama clinched the nomination, and Mr. Pants tells me he will formally accept the nomination for president on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s "I have a dream" speech. Gay marriage is legal in California on June 17. My mom, who’s been out of work for over two years while recovering from two knee-replacement surgeries, got a job yesterday.

This is a glorious moment to be breathing, babies, and I want all of you gorgeous creatures to breathe deeply with me, and in the words of Homer Simpson, "Savor it. Savor it."

All morning, every time I walked past a bank of newspapers saying HISTORIC I’d mist up all over again. It’s just so tremendous, I can hardly stand it. Plus, my friend Connie put signs up all over the building (in the elevator, in the bathroom) proclaiming my birthday status. So all day, people have been stopping by to wish me happy birthday. Woo! There were two cakes! and my sweetheart (Mr. Pants) is taking me out for delicious suuuuuuuushi!

On Saturday, there will be a Disco Skate with the local Bitchin’ Party kids to commemorate brynnmck’s birthday, as well as my own, as we are both Geminis who scoff at danger.

I’m glad to be alive. I'm glad all of you are alive alongside of me. Oh, hurry up, November!

xo

I may have, um. Slacked off at work. A lot. And written this for runpunkrun's birthday. On The Man's time!

Anyway, she's splendid. She and lucitania gave it a glance, and yet I neglected all their sage advice.

( Amplexus )

Dude, it's so totally runpunkrun's birthday. You should write her something pretty.

Punk, you're the bee's knees and I would be glad to give you something groovy. What would you like?