FACT 146 – sweet freedom!

well, not entirely. i still live in my parent’s house, but at least i no longer have to go to class each day. i no longer have to pay $1200 a quarter for one stinking class, to edge one eeking little tiptoe closer to graduation. i AM graduating. THIS SUNDAY. yaaaaay! w000000t! the crowd goes WWWIIILLLDDD!!! okay, seriously, 10 years and 6 months later, i’ve about had enough college, and i am ready to move ON with my existance. and so i spent today at work planning to do just that! i bought this cool business planning thing from barnes & noble (with my All To Myself paycheck mentioned last time!) and now i’m filling it out, and thinking all about product lines, and marketing, and deciding what kind of sale i’ll be having this weekend. that’s right, i’ll be having some massive kind of sale this weekend, so that while i’m enjoying myself at the graduation ceremony, you might make your own weekend more enjoyable with the thoughts of blank pages. (^_^) also, i am planning on going all out with my shop in 2010, so i need to clear some inventory room. this means that it will be one massive sale. normally i do free shipping, but this time it’s none of the pansy stuff. (^_^) i’m going for buy one get one! i’ll be putting a sign up in my shop on friday, but for those of you who read this blog, you get a little advanced notice. (^_^) so get ready! graduation and BOGO await!

NaNoWriMo 2009 – recap

well, this should have been done yesterday, but i was so dreadfully ill yesterday that actually i’m still a little ill today. at least i am upright today. yesterday, not so much. (T_T) nano this year was strange. i had so many other things going on, and then my final paper and attendant presentation was suddenly due a hell of a lot sooner than i had thought (like, a week sooner), so now that it’s over, i mean everything, really over, i’m suffering from severe post-nano let down! (^^;) i keep wandering around, like, um, shouldn’t i be doing something, like urgently, like right now? no. actually, i have precisely zero projects. my nano story actually isn’t done, i’ve still got a couple of scenes to finish, but w/out the looming deadline of nano to back me up, i think that’s going to be a bit slower in coming. and of course the fact that i literally spent the entirety of yesterday splayed out on the couch, barely able to lift my water bottle to my mouth to prevent total dehydration didn’t help my ambition. (^^;) not that meredeth ever stays idle for long. oh no. (^_^) i got about five entries behind on my YOUkun translation blog, so i did a couple of those entries (i’ll catch up soon, folks, i promise!) and i cut out paper for two book blocks, which i’m punching and sewing right this very moment (more non-traditional books made from candy boxes to come, watch the shop, folks!), so it’s not like i’m doing nothing, but the absence of deadlines is definitely disconcerting. (^^;) for instance, i got paid the day after thanksgiving, as usual, so i went out on black friday and spent nearly the entire thing, as 100% NOT usual. i can’t even remember the last time i got to spend my paycheck, my /whole/ paycheck on whatever i wanted. it was glorious. i bought a fancy new keyboard for our media pc, and a brand spanking new flat panel monitor to replace the 19″ crt monitor we still had on the regular desktop, and i found the perfect present for my mother, which, because there is a possibillity, no matter how remote, that she may read this blog, i shall fail to name here but trust me it’s cool. my last couple of paychecks for the year will be going to christmas presents and saving up for an apartment (i hope to move in late january or early february) so it won’t be happening again any time soon, but it was really nice to have no restrictions and nothing i had to buy. christmas this year is going to be fun. (^_^) looking ahead to next year, i’m (hopefully) going to spend january and february either preparing to move, moving, or settling in to a shiny new apartment (and adjusting to life w/out five other people constantly walking in and out of the room), and then i think i’m really going to throw my back into my business. i 100% neglected my etsy shop this year, and yet i’m pretty sure it managed to make me a fair amount of money. i was already planning on going official in 2010, getting a vendor’s license and all the attendant tax payments that go with it, but maybe i can even save up and get to a few workshops this year. i am currently 100% self-taught as a bookbinder, and it would be really nice to get some instruction on advanced techniques and maybe see how others do the binding thing. certainly meeting otheer bookbinders face to face would be awesome. our bookbinding etsy street team (BESTbooks!) is 100% awesome, but i wouldn’t mind talking to some of them across a table, rather than just typing at them in a chat room. (^^;) for now, though, i have plenty of time to chill out and do nothing for a while. it’s already growing on me. (^_^) … normally, i guess, year-in-review posts happen in december, but i think for many Wrimos, the close of NaNoWriMo feels more like the end of the year than december does. puts us all in nostalgic/recap modes. it certainly does that for me~ anyway, i guess i’m off to do something 100% unproductive w/ my time. maybe i’ll go play harvest moon! (^_^) this post brought to you 100% by the urge to do nothing. .

NaNoWriMo 2009 – day twenty-eight

i very nearly didn’t put a hyphen in that. just a little word count boosting tip, ladies and gentlemen, hyphens are the enemy. (^_^) in a related note, i caught up from a four day deficit and am now approximately half a day ahead of myself. i don’t know how many of you have been through a final quarter of college, but let me just say, for those of you who have yet to experience that peculiar joy in life, ZOMBIEJESUSLETMEOOOOUUUUTTT!!! seriously, i graduated from high school ten years and six months ago, and i am 100% ready to graduate from college and stop paying people money just so that i can learn about stuff i no longer have the mental capacity to care about. especially the part where you have to write 15 page papers on topic that you literally are physically incapable of caring less about than you currently do. (X_X) … okay, actually, there really is not anything i am not curious about, at least a little bit, but the problem is that you have to fill out 800 slips of paper just to take one class that you only care about a little bit, and then you have to hope that the miminum-wage/work-study employees who are supposed to be teaching you how to fill out which slips might actually be pretending to care about their job on that paticular day. the classes themselves weren’t bad, many of the professors were even great, but the paperwork made me want to jump in a lake. however, in more important news, the RSVPs for my graduation party are coming in! so far we just have the expected SORRYs from those too far away to make it, but i’m hoping tomorrow will bring some YESes from church members. for you here on the internet, here are some shots of the invitations, since i can’t send invites to all of you. (^_^) i don’t have any regular pictures of the insides, but the top just announces the graduation ceremony (december 13er at 2 PM!!!) and the bottom gives all kinds of details, like the web address where OSU will be putting up a live video feed of the event (http://commencement.osu.edu). then the little slip of paper with the weird colored thing on the side is the actual party invite. some people didn’t get them, only because we got to fifty invitees and decided we might not have that much house space, so we had to cut it down a little. the weird colored thing is a pocky, which is what we will be eating at my party. for those of you who are unaware of pocky, check the amazon page for hideous details. i never knew there were so bloody may kinds of pocky, but i am eager to eat as many as i can! (^_^) these days, i’m getting used to not having any urgent projects that must must must be done. i really have nothing that i have to do this weekend, so i’m kind of like, … what? for the moment, i’ll try upping my current 47409 words (o YEAH babee~) and maybe i’ll (gasp!) make some art! gasp. .

NaNoWriMo 2009 – day eleven

now with 500% more recycled plots! keep your environment green! #fail speaking of fail, my word count currently stands at 17,949 words. i know! sadness! (for those of you who have no idea what i’m talking about, you must be in the wrong place. or you’ve come in from my new round of google ads. you want http://yatsu.etsy.com for blank books.) for the rest of you, just know that i should be at 18,337 by the end of the day. not that that isn’t possible, just that i have EIGHTEEN HUNDRED OTHER THINGS TO DO before i’m allowed to write. (T_T) let’s see, shall i depress myself by listing them? … … for your amusement, yes. i shall. (^_^) actually, it’s not all bad. for instance, the graduation announcements i’m making (at LAST!) are very cool, very shiny, and … well, frankly, very glittery. (^^;) seriously, there is glitter all OVER this table right now. (T_T) after my shower the other day, i found still more glitter on me. IT’S EVERYWHERE~ anyhow, i’ll have some pictures of the real things when i’m done with them, but for now, i can at least show you the paper i’m using for the outsides. the silver pack is just screenprinted designs, so that’s not so glittery, but the black and white pack has a couple of papers that are simply swimming in glitter, and so now so am i. (T_T) let’s see, what else is on my to do list. oh yeah! my book for the BESTbooks holiday giveaway! i was hoping to ship it out, um, oh wait, TWO DAYS AGO (T_T) but of course, that didn’t work out, so i’ve been feverishly trying to get it finished. it’s due at the organizer’s house on the 24th, so i really need to ship it out this week if i want it to get there in anything like an appropriate time frame. in fact, i was so dedicated to finishing the bloody thing that i took it to work with me today. now, today being a national holiday (super thanks veterans!) (seriously, i like my freedoms. make a point of enjoying at least one of them every day.) i figured we’d be super dead at work today (i work as an intake at a medical/insurance call center). why we were even there today, i seriously do not know. (in retrospect, i think i may have been there to hear adan call himself ‘the great’ one more time. (^_^) ) (now don’t worry, adan has enough ego to survive any slights he may get from my little blog. anyway, he reads this thing regularly, and i know he reads this thing regularly, and he knows that i know he reads this thing regularly, and i know that he knows that i know that this recursive crap has gone on far too long now, so to summarize: you know i love you, adan! we cool, right? (^_^) have no fears, etiquette masters.) eternal parentheses aside, i brought my christmas book to work with me, hoping to finish it while we were dead. well, as anyone with a good sense of story can guess by now, we were totally not dead. indeed we were the opposite of dead. that didn’t stop me from completing my book (that’s right adan, i was sewing while we were chatting it up. take that! (^_^) ) and so i prove my point by presenting you with a photo i took at work with my cell phone. (p.s., g1s rawk~) … … or at least i would if the server would talk to me. hellooo, server! … … speaking of #fail … fine. for now, you can look at my flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/notuboc/4096614177/ anyhow, i didn’t really have a plan on how to bind it, so i think this style of binding is called “i made that shit up” but everybody seems to like it, so i guess we just won’t tell them. will we? (hint: the correct answer is, “no ma’am.” (^_^) ) it’s got 50 pages of cold press watercolor paper in it, and the cover’s actually made from leftover matt board and a sticker i found at my local paper dive. they also had a halloween sticker, which i didn’t find until it was a little too late for the holiday, but i’ll make it just the same and have it up for next year. (^_^) i broke a needle making it, and nearly got the broken needle stuck in the book, since i wasn’t able to bring all my fancy tools to work with me. i am one sad girl without my fancy tools. (T_T) … i also have to address these silly graduation announcements. which, you wouldn’t think would be crazy time consuming, but i’m sending like 50+ of these things out, so it’s taking me a while just to gather the necessary addresses, let alone apply the addresses to the envelopes. as some of you may have seen on my twitter stream earlier this week, i never fully appreciated the complexity of my friends’ life situations until i had to find the correct way to address envelopes to, for instance, two guys, two girls, two brothers, two sisters, family members with varying last names, family members with the same last name, married couples with completely different last names, et-liberal-cetera. on the scale of hardness, i guess, not much past graphite (if you get that joke, you are officially too NERdy. return to whichever science building you just came out of) but for easily-amused me, it was super fun. i’ve never had a party this large before, and i’ve certainly never thrown a party this large before. in fact, i’m pretty sure i’ve never even been to a party this large — well, that’s not true. i’ve been to a couple of wedding receptions larger than 50 people before, but i quickly made an excuse to duck out. meredeth is not a party person, she does not enjoy crowds (which for her means any group larger than three people), and she really does not enjoy being the center of attention (despite what she’d like to put up as a front). i much prefer to come up with an idea, implement the thing, fix whatever problem existed, and then go on about my life. a little thank you card is plenty sufficient, thanks. i do not need parties, big announcements, whatever. but in this case, i’m making an exception. a) because i really want some pocky (we’re having a pocky tasting party), b) because i have the idea that some of my friends would really be surprised by some of my other friends, and also c) because i worked fucking hard this year, and i need some drinking. basically there have been so many moments over the past six or eight months when i thought i might not graduate after all, that i decided to throw a big party just as a symbolic flip of the bird to OSU. and of course it gives me an excuse to get glitter all over everything. (^_^) anyhow, the other thing i have to do this quarter is write a ginormous paper. a 20 page paper AND a 15 minute presentation, due at the end of this month. not that i’m working too hard. as my friend says, a C = graduation. i don’t have to get an A in this class to graduate, so i’m not going to be terribly disappointed if i’m not on the dean’s list or whatever. it’s not like i have any chance of getting honors or even substatially improving my GPA, so i might as well reduce my stress level. not that perfectionist me isn’t gonna be pissed off about my sucktastic final paper whenever it does get finished. it does, however, mean that perfectionist me will just have to stuff a sock in it. … well, in the two hours it took me to write this post, i’ve finished 18 graduation announcements, eaten dinner, checked my email, listened to the macarena, wished i hadn’t listened to the macarena, gotten glitter over myself all over again, etc etc, blah blah. what i have not done is written any story. ~meredeth. 388 words behind at 11 pm… (this post brought to you by the neverending parenthesis. like the neverending story, but with less flying furries.)

NaNoWriMo 2009 – day six

well, here it is, day six, and i’ve only now gotten my first chance to post a blog-a-blog about it. seriously, this week (well, actually this whole year, but that’s a whole other rant) has been CRAZY. i’m at just over 10990 words as of tonight, which, considering is was ~150 words down as of this morning, ain’t to shabby, even if i do say so myself. i’m resurrecting one of my old ScriptFrenzy plots, one i’ve had kicking around in my story idea folder for several years. i’ve decided ScriptFrenzy isn’t for me (two attempts, so sooper fails) but i owe it to the story ideas to at least try writing them. they weren’t bad, just not screen plays. (^^;) tomorrow, i’ve got a write-in down at the main library on campus. so, if any of you want to join the excrutiating fun, please join us about noon at the library on the oval down at OSU. the newly renovated building is actually awesome, despite my disgruntledness over the price tag, so it should be a cool write-in. to tell you the truth, i hardly ever go to write-ins. i find i’m more comfortable writing when i’m 100% alone, but this year, i can’t resist the pull of writing at the new library. anyhow, i’m not about to post my entire NaNovel online (i do have some dignity left, you know~) but i will put up the prologue. it’s got some severe (and i do mean severe) tense issues, but it should meet minimum standards of readability anyway. i.e., there are words, sentences, /and/ paragraphs. this does not mean they are necessarily related to one another… seriously, NaNo is about quantity, not quality. NaNovel prologue

NaNoWriMo 2009

= prologue = As seen from Earth, it was terribly small, just a tiny speck in the night sky. Two full days passed before anyone realized how dangerous the situation was, before the astronomers finally compared the marks they’d made on the first day to the marks they’d made on the second day, before they realized it was coming straight for them. By then, of course, it was much too late to do anything about it. Humanity as a whole remained largely unaware of the danger they were in. Civilian astronomers, of course, saw the thing, took note of it, could calculate velocity and trejectory as well as their military counterparts, but they lacked full knowledge of just what was hurtling towards them. They demanded answers, of course, filed petitions, had news conferences, but the government didn’t budge. They knew they had only to wait. Those that did know what was headed their way took their last days in stride. They knew what they had gotten into when they started, they were all aware of the risks involved. None of them alerted the media, none of them tried to run away. They knew there was nowhere to go. Behind the thick walls of a supposedly abandoned military facility in northern California, the two high-ranking military officials who had started the program shared cups of instant coffee and rice cakes they’d commendeered from the local grocery store the previous day. “Just seems a waste, that’s all I’m saying,” said the older man. The younger one shook his head. “I’m not disagreeing with you, sir.” “All that work, months of planning. Not to mention all the man power it took to even attempt to get that thing into orbit.” “To say nothing of the entire human endevour.” “Well, not nothing. The whitecoats upstairs said a few pockets might survive.” The younger man gave his superior a sarcastic look. “Do you see any of those white coats around here, sir?” After a moment, the older man cracked a bit of a smile. “You’ve been pretty sassy to me today, Lieutenant.” “Looking to courtmartial me, sir? We’ve got a few minutes left.” The older man laughs out loud, the surprising loud noise carrying down the empty halls and reverberating off spilled filing cabinets. On the roof above them, a small group of those whitecoats huddled together with their faces pointed skyward. The tiny speck had grown considerably larger, and was now recognizable as a man-made object. To those who knew what it was, it was recognizable as a satellite, put into orbit by the United Stated government in the hopes of controlling the weather in the western half of the country. One of the scientists on the roof pointed a finger. “Look,” she said wryly, “the flaps are up.” “Great,” one of her compatriots mumbled, “now we’ll spread it all over the country.” *** On a residential street not terribly far from the scientists’ last stand is a civilian who knows what the dot in the sky is. He’s always known, in fact he knew before the scientists did, before they ever started their fated project. Cale [who has no last name at the moment, sorry] lurks outside the livingroom window of a middle-class home, watching TV with a young man who doesn’t know he’s sharing his news broadcast. “The president has been missing in action since late yesterday,” the news anchorwoman says, “with Press Secretary Adam Mitchell still claiming that the President is down with pneumonia, all but chained to the bed by Presidential physicians. “Meanwhile, astronomers around the world are being joined by other scientists in their demands for more information. Some astronomers have put out images within the last twelve hours of the object they believe is headed straight for us.” A picture of the satellite fills the screen. At the window, Cale stops breathing. He knows he shouldn’t move, that there’s nothing he can do, but he’s wondering if maybe there wasn’t something else he’d been hoping to accomplish with his thirty-four years on this earth. He’s thinking about stealing this poor man’s car and racing up to the abandoned military base to see if there’s anything he can do. The anchorwoman continues. “As you can see, the object does carry the markings of a United States military satellite, but thus far its exact origins and purpose remain unclear. The State Department has repeatedly denied all knowledge of the object, and the Pentagon, in what can only be described as a highly unusual move, has made all its employees unavailable for even off-the-record comments.” Eyeing the brand-new silver compact in the driveway, Cale sighs. “All right, fine,” he whispers. “If I fail it won’t matter anyway.” Leaving the news anchor to interview on of the petition-filing scientists, Cale sneaks around to the car and tries the door handle. Only mildly surprised to find it unlocked, he reaches below the steering column and removes the plastic guard from the wires. After a quick inspection, he removes his shoe and knocks off a portion of metal from below the steering column. The falling metal makes a rather loud clang, and Cale keeps very still until he’s sure he hasn’t been found out. He slips into the driver’s seat and roots about under the steering wheel for three specific. He twists two of them together and then touches the third to the first two and the car starts. “Thank God,” he whispers. He takes a moment to scribble out an apologetic note and leave it in his benefactor’s mailbox before pulling out onto the street and speeding away.

FACT 145 – hippo birdies to me~

an update on my year’s goals, since i recently finished one of them, and am half-way done with The Big One. (^_^) college – anthropology 421.08, native american studies something. | actually turning out not to be a horribly boring class. we get a lot of films, a lot of speakers, even some field trips, so that should be cool! on the fail plan though, there is a 20 page paper and a 15 minute presentation due the first week of december. really, NaNo should be a valid excuse from doing class work. (^^;) i guess i should just stop complaining and be happy that something finally worked itself out so i could graduate this quarter. YAY!!! bills (nearly finished!!!) – discovercard | aka rape lady nouveau. TOTALLY DONE! zombiejesus i’m so happy about this. i now have no car payment AND no credit cards! (!!) i was joking the other day i should go out and get a credit card now. but i won’t, mostly because i’ve still got: – tuition payments (ouch) | well, some headway has been made, but it’s still not pretty. at least i don’t have any other bills clogging up my wallet! (yay!) crafts – replica of the national treasure 2 president’s book for my fav customer in the UK | ok, seriously, how long has this thing been on my Working On It list? like a year? six months or something? anyway, i am still shaving leather, it’s just taking forever, coz a) i’m slow, and b) i’m using a paint scraper instead of a real paring knife, but WHATEVER. i found some buttons the other day that were totally perfect, so i’m happy about that… – vendor’s license | still on the back burner, planning for january. – blank books due in oct/nov | my etsy bookbinding team is having a halloween contest, and my entry is now up (shameless plug: dr jekyll and mr hyde ! ). it’s my first try at making a slipcover for a book, and i think it turned out pretty well. i also shipped my book for the etsy journals project (i’d shameless plug here, too, but i seriously can’t remember the url… bad me.). i also also have yet to make and ship my book for the etsybooks fall book swap. i have not one single idea even what i’m making for that, let alone when or how i will ever finish it. so yeah, it’s gonna be writing writing and bookbinding for me this november. sleep? what? i think i’ve heard of that, but i’m not really familiar with what it actually is. yeah. in other news, that’s right, it’s my birthday~ or at least it was on this past thursday! yay for me! seriously, i can hardly believe i survived another year. just think of all the times i could have murdered someone this year. i could have been killed in self defence! or maybe caught and thrown in prison! or even (gasp!) prevented from bookbinding! (oh noes! the horror!) … okay, seriously, 27 sucked, let’s make 28 less sucky, mkay? .

FACT 144 – dr jekyll and mr hyde

this is what i’ve been doing while waiting for my internets to come back up: mm? why is there a skull? and some kind of green vial thing… and what in the name of the gods is up with all those ruffles? meredeth, what have you made??? a calm classy exterior… but a gruesome and bloody interior!!! that’s right, it’s a jekyll/hyde book. (^_^) i took 11 pictures, but only 5 fit in my etsy listing, so here in this fancy blog post, i present to you the results of my over-happy shutter finger. (^_^) it’s on sale in my etsy shop, and it’s my entry for this year’s BESTbooks Zombie Award, so if you like it, i’d appreciate a vote when the tally goes up friday the 23rd on our blog. thankies~