A Special Guest

(Unrelated picture: Steampunk Ethan, per his special request.)

It's the end of August. That means it's been a whole year since my husband left home to work overseas, and his contract is now officially complete. He's stateside again, finishing his outprocessing/debriefing crapola and will be home soon, soon as in maybe in a few hours, maybe tonight, maybe first thing in the morning, maybe maybe maybe. It sucks not knowing any more than that!

But we persevere, wielding our large cleaning brush and a vacuum-cleaner hose, washing the linens and sweeping the floors so it will look like we've been living in a clean, tidy house the entire time he's been gone. "Yes dear, that's right. I am supermom."

He won't believe it for a second.

What has he missed? Oktoberfest. Home-cooked meals (including lots of tofu and more pizza nights than I can remember). PMS (lucky him). An entire year of school, minus those two weeks in November when he was able to sneak away for just a little vacation and see us. Christmas in Oregon. Ethan's first DS. Mommy's malware incident. THE WORST SPIDER SEASON EVER. Those soba noodles that introduced tiny noodle-eating pests to the pantry and launched a spring-cleaning war.

He's missed poorly-sung karaoke, Super Dance-Moves Mondays, a dozen new CDs and the addition of a stereo to the living room. He's missed Ethan's Jet-Li obsession, his anime obsession, and most of all his obsession with subtitles on every show or movie EVER.

My hair has grown 10 inches longer in his absence. I hope he doesn't mind that I threw out let Ethan use up all the shampoo and bought bar soap instead.

He missed my affairs with LOTRO, doodling, hair care, D&D, Le Creuset, finding a houseplant I can't kill (go go kalanchoe) and real, honest-to-god snow that lasted a whole day.

I know he's missed us a lot. But I'm also pretty sure he wouldn't care if the house looked it'd hosted its own personal hurricane, so long as we're here.

But no. I am going to clean ALL the things!

Catch y'all on the flip side. I'll be sure to tell hubby that my invisible internet people are glad he's home.

It's a Fuck You Friday [PG-13. Fuck you, gratuitous profanity!]

Good friggin' morning, ain't it just a grand old sunshine suppository of a day? I'm not typically fond of rampant bitching, but it's just One of Those Days and if I'm gonna complain without being constructive, I may as well save it all up for a good old-fashioned Fuck You Friday!

Fuck you, Nancy Grace. You're a gossipy old hack. I guess if your relentless ululating throat-punch style works for you, you should milk it for all it's worth. Right? RIGHT! Fuck you!

Fuck you, CNN, for tricking me into watching even one second of a Nancy Grace clip. NOT COOL.

Fuck you, feet, for being cold all the time.

Fuck you, forum posters who condemn the RP scene as nonexistent without ever having done anything but sit conspicuously in a bar emoting heavy sighs and being vaguely provocative. "Please pay attention to me! My character is so deep and you would know if you would only sit and hear my sad, mysterious, sexy and important tale!" Grats on being the 14292358th person who couldn't be assed to try.

Fuck you, salt, for being so goddam delicious.

Fuck you, $224 million Megamillions jackpot that I won't win. Fuck you, sticky change in the bottom of my cupholder. Fuck you, people who write and propagate malware. Fuck you, coffee pot, for scorching my second cup. Fuck you, Friday, for being almost indistinguishable from Monday.

Now for some special guest submissions on this lovely FYF:

"Hey Friday? Fuck you. It's stormy, my net connection is trying to shit the bed, and I may end up actually having to do laundry. So, double fuck you." - Reggie

[Author's Note: I am super-jealous that I wasn't the one to think of the ol' double fuck-you for today's post. Fuck you, creativity!]

Fuck you, needing 7 hours of sleep to function. Fuck you, guy on the highway, for cutting me off only to slow down. - Greg

"Dear filthy club whore who came into my store at 3 AM: Fuck you.

Fuck your condoms.

Fuck you for scoffing at me when I ask if you have a fucking CVS card. I know, you're too drunk to know whether you're in CVS, W

algreen's or the tattoo parlor.

No, I'm not staring at your withered tits. I'm looking at your nasty hickey from last night, and NO you can't use my bathroom to wash up." - Branden

Getting fed up listening to old men whine. "Back in my day, we didn't text, we talked to people". Yeah, well, back in your day you were amazed by indoor plumbing and electricity. "My daughter never picks up the phone when it's me". All you do is gripe and complain, why would she? - Anon.

[Author's Note: "Back in my day, we talked to people. And made damn sure Those People didn't drink out of our water fountains." Amirite? Fuck you, misplaced nostalgia!]

Who wants to get in on the action? Consider this your one-day pass to get your gripes off your chest. Show me your best FYF face in the comments.

Tomorrow: 'It's Not You, It's Me' Saturday!

Current Events in RP!

**Thanks to Ghaar, who reminds me that I am indeed missing something... a super sekrit plot involving Astrani, the brickwit troll. However, part of being sekrit means I'm not spilling any details! Neener!

I have several long story arcs in the works for two of my characters. It's slow work and I am lazy, so it's just being pieced together in spurts and I honestly don't know if I'll ever be able to finish them, let alone do them justice. I'm going to try, though!

Since it's hard to keep track of everything, I'm just gonna post what's happening with each of my active characters and what sort of project to expect from them.

• A slim file, obviously new, and containing extremely sparse information on one Adelaide "Skulley" Skelton now sits on Agent Jeremiah Newhall's desk.
• After narrowly avoiding a run-in with Booty Bay guards, Skulley is taking a breather before her next big job... a hunt for CURSED TROLL TREASURE! Yarr. Does she know it's cursed? Not yet!
• Unbeknownst to Skulley, an account of her life as Adelaide is being constructed by a certain ham-fisted wielder of words. Don't worry, it's a very happy story. Up until everyone dies.

• After class one evening, Thiyenn eats a massive meal of banana bread, goat cheese, pickles, chocolate cake and an entire jar of mustard. This leads to a very public heaving of guts and embarrassing revelation to nearly half of her friends, teachers and academic peers that didn't already know or guess that she was pregnant.
• Professor Arrens Caltrains, the headmaster of Stormwind University, is skilled in shoving his foot in his mouth. When he asked where her husband was, Thiyenn lied. Apparently the nuances of her relationship with the father of her child and his current whereabouts aren't meant to be discussed in front of half of the student body (and the professor's bride-to-be).
• But hey, Thiyenn now has a Super Special Job, that being the crafting of Miss Aely's wedding dress. Take THAT, Delion!
• Having been encouraged by an instructor to improve her writing (and more importantly, handwriting--she prints no better than a child), Thiyenn has taken up the task of putting down what she remembers about growing up with the Darkmoon tribe. It's good for taking her mind off more recent events. It's also her first foray into introspection, so I expect some personal conflict.

• Libby, the Rainsinger, is engaged (!) to elf (!) hunter Fenniel (!!), the original geeky belf hunter. They are getting married (!) in a ceremony (!) in Mulgore this May. Firael has been roped into the role of Best Man and will be sporting some fashionable tribal garb (read: leather straps). Oops, I forgot to (!) that.

• On the verge of a breakthrough in eye replacement technology, Ysani has put on the weight she lost during her Haydren-terror phase, mostly due to sitting around working on projects all day with Firael and Fenniel, the wonder twins.
• It's been a while since there was a frenzy of speculation on the particulars of Yissy's relationship with Firael, however, several members of the PoL tease her privately. She is adamant on the point that they are Just Friends, and, in fact, everything seems to be quite fine with her and Keilos.
• Dir creeps her the hell out. Quit staring at her tits, already!
• Where the hell IS Haydren, anyway? God only knows what sort of terrible things he's planning. One hopes he's given up, but I think we all know that's not the case.

• Ambika is readjusting to her life as a troll and seems pleased with that particular development, but grows increasingly distant. Her quest to gain more power, as far as she's concerned, has yielded paltry gains; this may lead her to new and dangerous paths as the world moves on.

• Sergeant Harker has traded the relentless heat of Hellfire for the chill winds of the North and oh MAN is she pissed. Her attitude leaves something to be desired, but she's working hard (and dressing warm), which gets her at least a modicum of respect from her peers and superiors. Something exceedingly strange happened to her the other night, perhaps she'll tell us about it soon...?

I've got a lot on my plate, certainly, and I really need to learn to stop biting off more than I can chew. Here's hoping that all these and more will get proper documentation. Did I miss anything?

8 Things I've Learned This Week

1. You can get a permanent crease in your face if you always sleep with your left cheek smooshed into your pillow.

2. Guitars are pretty easy to restring.

3. It helps if you choose the right string.

4. Tuning the wrong string to the right note will sometimes let you know, with shocking suddenness, that you have chosen the wrong string.

5. People will deep-fry anything.

6. Garlic cloves make smelly chips. Okra makes inexplicably slimy-yet-crunchy chips.

7. I. Love. Gin and tonic. No, really. I will marry it. Sorry, honey.

8. I will continue to write lists, no matter how incomplete or inane, until the day I die. Or until the day my hands fall off and I have no access to studly young orderlies to take dictation. Whichever comes first.