Happy Thanksgiving to all you lovely LJ people :)

I was just looking at my Last.fm profile. It says that the following are my most listened to artists:

1. Metric (#1 by about 600 plays.)
2. Camera Obscura
3. Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass (achieving #3 in the space of two months)
4. Old 97's (tied with Camera Obscura if you add Rhett's solo work)
5. M.I.A.
6. Santogold
7. Little Jackie
8. Glee cast
9. Lady Gaga
10. The Clientele
11. Neil Gaiman
12. The Sundays
13. The Ting Tings
14. Janet Jackson
15. The Strokes

That list is a LOT less indie-oriented and guitar-driven than I expected. And it's not because I'm listening to less indie music, it's because I'm listening to more mainstream stuff. So basically more music all around. :)

Thanks to Television Without Pity, I found out what songs were going to be on this week's Glee, and my little fangirl heart asploded. (In a good way.) And then I found out that they're already on iTunes. So I downloaded all of them (even the song I really, really don't like). Putting this behind a cut in case anyone considers song titles and stuff from the trailer for this week's episode to be spoilers.

( Lots of babbling about the songs, clicky at own risk. )

Ah, fangirling. I've missed this. I've been watching the last five episodes while I work on the giant squid pillow (five tentacles down!), thanks to Hulu. Can I just say how much I love the internets? I don't have to worry about owning a VCR or a DVR or anything to record shows with, and whenever I want to watch something, I probably can. And I don't have to wait until Wednesday to listen to these songs eleventy billion times. :D

Seems like I post maybe every ten days or so and do a proper update even less frequently. I promise to get better at this, but it's just so much easier to Twitter instead. I do read my friends list every day, though, and am trying to be better at commenting, but when I'm, er, not here, this is what I've been up to:

- NaNoWriMo. This year's project is a follow-up to last year's [one of that book's sidekicks in her own adventure], and I'm at almost 27,000 words. My actual goal for this month is 30,000 words across multiple projects, but at this rate it looks like 50,000 on the one novel is attainable. But we'll see -- I was doing about this well last year when sickness and travel derailed me.

- Speaking of travel, looks like that's not on the horizon for the holidays. Financially I could probably swing it but I'm not sure I'm up to it psychologically... and my immune system has been so jacked up this year that I'm not really digging on the idea of being in an enclosed cabin for six hours with all those recirculated germs. I may yet change my mind about Christmas, but I have plans close enough to that day that it might be difficult.

- Those plans? Tickets to Lady Gaga! I was so disappointed when I missed the pre-sale for her December 21 show, but was smart enough to sign up for the Goldenvoice mailing list and was able to access the pre-sale when they announced a second show on the 22nd. The last big-name mainstream concert I went to was Lily Allen and the last big show I went to was The Shins/Belle and Sebastian at the Hollywood Bowl a few years ago, but nobody at those shows wore giant gyroscopes while performing. This is going to be epic. (I love Lady Gaga. She's absolutely insane, but I dig her music and her crazy-ass videos. I dressed as her for Halloween, although I would have fared better in the office costume contest if I had made the giant gyroscope to wear.)

- This past weekend I went with rotatingpies and two Friends Of No Known LJs to the Hello Kitty 35th anniversary exhibit at Royal/T, the maid cafe/gallery in Culver City. The exhibit was rather small (there may have been more, but the back room was closed off for a fashion show) but the Hello Kitty-themed menu was tasty and the people-watching was fantastic. And of course the company was lovely. There were a few panicked minutes there where I thought we weren't going to get in, because there was a line all the way down the block, but it turned out that the line was for the gift shop and we were able to walk right in :)

- Glee is hands-down my favorite thing in the world right now. It makes me flail like a crazy squeeing fangirl and I have many songs from it on my iPod. It may be the only show in the world named after the emotion it inspires. Also, if anyone would like to send me Mr. Schue and/or Finn for Christmas I would be most grateful. (Also, Puck is an epic douchebag but his version of "Sweet Caroline" made me go askdgkhfl;j)

- Project Runway is my second-favorite thing in the world right now, even if the judging this season makes me go WTF on a regular basis. I have been Netflixing the previous seasons.

- Recent domesticity: cheese shortbread (epic win), three-cheese bread (fail), chocolate pudding (same as usual), oatmeal soda bread (eh). Lately I have been so busy going to NaNoWriMo write outs or working on script reading assignments that I haven't been able to cook on weeknights, but I'm hoping to start cooking more soon.

- I'm also making this. Yes, that is a giant plush squid. I've been seeing squids and octopi all over the internets, and I wanted one, and making was far cheaper than buying even if the cost of fabric is terrifying. Fortunately, the least expensive material option was also the softest... I'm using cotton flannel in maroon for the outside and light blue for the underbelly. Tonight I need to get the tentacles done... and, yes, I am hand-sewing something that large. Clearly I have lost my mind. But I have missed doing crafty things, and when I'm done I will have a giant squid pillow, so yay.

- I cannot BELIEVE I didn't post anything about my two most recent concertgoing experiences. A few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to see Hope Sandoval play the last U.S. show of her tour -- possibly a once-in-a-lifetime experience, as she NEVER tours and it's been eight years since her last album! It was at the Mayan downtown, which is a really beautiful old venue, and there were two opening acts: Suki Ewers, who used to play with Mazzy Star and who is made of epic win, and Dirt Blue Gene, who are Hope's backing band for this tour and also excellent. Hope herself is one of a kind... she performs in almost total darkness and barely says anything to the audience, which amplifies the effect of her amazing voice when she sings. There was no need for banter or stories between songs (not that I don't enjoy that at other people's shows)... the music stood alone, except for the surreal filmed images (ranging from rain on flowers to flames to early-silent-era dancers) playing on a screen behind the band. The crowd was mostly respectful, except for a couple of idiots who kept yelling out requests, and a kind gentleman invited me up to the front row because there was a little bit of space next to him and I "don't take up much space". I will NEVER argue with the opportunity to stand in the front row (especially because I couldn't have seen Hope at all from a few rows back), even though I spent half the show needing to pee and afraid to go lest someone steal my spot :P

- The other concert was Lenka at the Hotel Cafe in Hollywood. This was another weeknight show, and it started at 10:30, which is really, really late for me because I am apparently old or something. I arrived early, in time to see the second half of Katie Costello's set, and fell in love with her music -- I came right home and bought her album on iTunes, and it's excellent, so that was a lovely unexpected surprise. I also chatted with a friendly dude who was also at the show alone... he was there to see Katie because his friend is in her band, so he left before Lenka, but it was a good conversation. (I seem to be having really good luck running into friendly people at shows lately.) And Lenka is charming and fun and talented and exactly the way I imagined she would be based on her music and videos... imagine if Charlotte Charles from Pushing Daisies started a band :)

- While I'm on the subject of concerts, I really miss the Old 97's and Rhett. I saw Rhett play three times and the full band once in the space of seven months over the past year, so I am spoiled. The optimum amount of time between their shows for me is about four months... I'm at the point where, if not for the travel issues mentioned above, I'd fly to an out-of-state show. Which is kind of sad, but there it is.

- Daylight savings time ending is still screwing with me. I keep thinking it's a LOT later than it is... at 7:15 I was convinced that it was almost time for bed! But it IS getting a bit closer to bedtime, so I should probably wrap this up for now :)

via maybe_sparrow6
1. Pick 10 of your favorite books or series.
2. Post the first sentence of each book. (If one sentence seems too short, post two or three!)
3. Let everyone try to guess the titles and authors of your books.
(I'm going to redact any names that would make the answers too obvious.)

1. Last night I dreamt I went to [name] again. globetrotter1 Rebecca
2. Once upon a time there were two cities within a city.
3. [name] once read that the tale of the world is like a tree.
4. In later years, holding forth to an interviewer or to an audience of aging fans at a comic book convention, [name] liked to declare, apropos of his and [name]'s greatest creation, that back when he was a boy, sealed and hog-tied inside the airtight vessel known as Brooklyn, New York, he had been haunted by dreams of Harry Houdini. maybe_sparrow6 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
5. The book was thick and black and covered with dust.
6. The night before he went to London, [name] was not enjoying himself. chimeraesque, Neverwhere
7. "Please tell me that's not going to be part of my birthday dinner this evening."
8. The year [name] started at [name] College, the Office of Residential Life had spent the summer removing from all the dormitories the old wooden bookcases that, once filled with books, fell over unless wedged. globetrotter1 Tam Lin
9. The fairies flew suspended on wires despite their tendency to get tangled together.
10. By day, the Nicollet Mall winds through Minneapolis like a paved canal.

The meme:

RULES:
→ Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper at their LiveJournal.
→ Explain in five sentences why you're using that wallpaper!
→ Don't change your wallpaper before doing this! The point is to see what you had on.

This is my wallpaper both on my laptop and on my Blackberry [and I have an LJ icon made from it as well]. It's my favorite picture of Los Angeles at night -- a slightly more spectacular version of what one sees coming around/over the mountains on the freeway. Every time I see the city stretching out in front of me like that I'm awestruck that I actually get to live here, and this picture captures that feeling without my having to, you know, get on the freeway. ;) It also perfectly illustrates Neil Gaiman's description of the city from American Gods -- "the heavens laid out here on earth." Fact: if you Google the phrase "heavens laid out on earth" the only hit is my writing blog. :)

-----------

Current Playlist: Lady Gaga

Current Guilty Pleasure: BBC adaptations of kids' books that I grew up on.

Current Colour: Cobalt blue.

Current Drink: Water.

Current Food: Nothing at the moment.

Current Favourite Show: Glee, Dollhouse, Project Runway

Current Wishlist: To be healthier and to be out of debt

Current Needs: To stop giving myself such a hard time over things I can't control. <--- this

Current Triumphs: Putting together a Halloween costume that looks like it involves effort. This is not one of my strong suits. :)

Current Bane of My Existence: Overinvesting emotionally in things that I know better than to get invested in.

Current Celebrity Crush: Matthew Morrison, Alexis Denisof circa 1999

Current Indulgence: The dress I bought at Bloomingdales. It's a sweater dress. Which means I will be able to wear it ONCE with the way the weather is going these days.

Current Blessing: That I have money to buy myself a dress I don't strictly NEED.

Current Slang: I... don't think I have anything new

Current Outfit: Black capris, tank top, sweatshirt. Was a silk blouse... I dressed for the forecast of 79 :P

Current Excitement: Nothing I can think of

Current Mood: Gloomy

Happy birthday jaina!

Happy birthday voleuse!

Happy Birthday globetrotter1!

- I was sitting outside yesterday early evening and had to put a denim jacket on over my t-shirt. After months of heat and quite a few three-digit temps/heat indices, this makes me very, very happy. I sleep better when it's cool, and I can cook without sweating to death.

- We are getting a new oven. This makes me happier than it probably should. I am already thinking of it as MINE and plotting what I will bake in it after I finish eating all the food I have cooked.

- Speaking of which: this recipe is tasty. I made a loaf and twelve muffins and ate two of the muffins while I was puttering around the kitchen.

- One-click purchases of MP3 albums: great invention or greatest invention? Also extremely bad for my wallet.

- Recent additions to my music library, or completion of albums I had a few songs from already: Lady Gaga The Fame, Lenka self-titled, Lykke Li Youth Novels, Ed Harcourt The Beautiful Lie, Jill Scott The Real Thing, Gwen Stefani Love.Angel.Music.Baby, about half the songs from Glee, a couple of Psychedelic Furs I didn't have, Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions Through The Devil Softly [*pauses to flail in a fangirly manner*], The Noisettes What's The Time, Mr. Wolf?. And the new Clientele is coming out this week and El Perro Del Mar in two weeks. Good music makes me happy.

- Yoga also makes me happy. I haven't been in a month and I didn't realize how much I missed my practice until this afternoon. My body feels right again and I didn't even realize it felt wrong until I went to class.

- My new personal theme song is "The Show" by Lenka, but the song I keep singing in the car and catching myself before I start singing it at the office is "Summerboy" by Lady Gaga. Who I thought was awesome on Saturday Night Live this week.

Today...

Outside my window... hot hot sun

I am thinking... that chocolate pudding for breakfast was a good idea

I am thankful for... work

From the kitchen... homemade chocolate pudding, and instant coffee

I am wearing... blue and aqua pajamas with a fish pattern

I am creating... coverage

I am going... to finish the coverage before I let myself leave the house

I'm reading... Tribute by Nora Roberts

I am hoping... that it won't take too long to do this coverage

I am hearing... the fan

Around the house... the dishwasher is running

One of my favorite things... is Topher Brink. Dollhouse FTW.

A few plans for the rest of the week... work and sleep

A picture to share... Lots of them over at Seen on Flickr. Today's is particularly awesome. *is a history geek*

Happy birthday sora_blue! Hope it's a good one :)

Happiest of birthdays to orionnebula! I hope this year is a good one.

Today's LJ "writer's block" question is, what is the most played song in your music library? So I looked, and if you don't count plays on my iPod (I don't have my cable with me to hook it up) is "Razorblade" by the Strokes, with 39 plays. A close second is "French Navy" by Camera Obscura with 35. Guess I don't listen to music on the computer as much as I used to... on the Dell my most played had 300 plays or something crazy like that :)

Today is a writing day. I am currently installed in my usual coffee shop with laptop and headphones, working on my SF detective story. (That would be science fiction, not San Francisco, although this LA is rather rainy.) Then there will be writer's church. I got all the stuff I HAD to do out of the way early, so I don't have anything hanging over my head. Long weekends for the win.

My tiny story with the giant title, "Found in an Antique Shop, Postmarked October 10, 1907", is up on PostcardShorts.com. :)

Is California on Fire?

[The fire is currently very near Mt. Wilson Observatory, where the picture in my icon was taken. Containment not expected for another ten days. Air quality all over LA is bad; smoke had drifted all the way over to my area this morning and I'm not near the fire.]

Finished The Neddiad last night. While it was a fun read, I won't be reading it again, so that's one more book off the overcrowded shelf. Next up is The Stepsister Scheme, although there are a couple of things on the list that I'm skeptical about and should probably at least start reading them to see if they're worth keeping around.

Because maybe if I write it all out I will be shamed by the sheer epic-ness of the list and actually Get Things Read. All of these are on my actual bookshelf... the "to buy" and the "to check out of library" lists are a bit more nebulous and quite a bit larger in size.

Behold:

The Shadow in the North by Philip Pullman
Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Stray by Rachel Vincent
Ill Wind by Rachel Caine
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
Extraordinary Engines anthology
Whitechapel Gods by S.M. Peters
Moonlight and Vines by Charles de Lint
The Sandman Book of Dreams anthology
Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin
The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt
The Magicians and Mrs. Quent by Galen Beckett
Forever by Pete Hamill
The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint
The Secret History of Moscow by Ekaterina Sedia
The Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake
The Bell at Sealey Head by Patricia McKillip
Wondrous Strange by Lesley Livingston
The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling
The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines
The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
The Seduction of the Crimson Rose by Lauren Willig
In Ashes Lie by Marie Brennan
Lost Island by Phyllis Whitney

In progress:
The Neddiad by Daniel Pinkwater (which opens at the La Brea Tar Pits, which automatically means it is going to be awesome.)

Recently read:
Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev (I [heart] this book.)
The House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones (enjoyable, but I would rather have had either a book entirely about Charmain or entirely about the Pendragons and Calcifer)
Romancing Mr. Bridgerton by Julia Quinn (fun!)

Today my roommate and I got rid of enough stuff to set up a studio apartment.

No, really. It broke down something like this:

3 bags sheets/towels
5 bags clothes
2 bags shoes
2 bags random household items
5 bags kitchen items including Foreman grill
1 floor lamp
1 dish chair
2 wooden folding chairs
1 full/double futon frame
2 13" televisions, one with built-in VCR
1 small plastic patio table

It amazes me to no end that we had THAT MUCH stuff lying around the house, most of it unused and taking up space that could be put to much better use. There is now more space to move around on the tiny balcony, and more space to get to the kitchen stuff we do use, and safer space to store the kitchen stuff I don't use as often. And replacing the futon frame with a real bed meant finally using the unused bed slats that have been in my closet for three years, so that gave me more usable storage space. It is beyond awesome.

- read Eyes Like Stars in one sitting from 11pm-1:30am. I probably would have done this even if I had to work today, because I had to get up at normal "work" time to wait for my delivery. [I have really missed this "reading" thing, and need to do it more often.]
- emptied the dishwasher and made breakfast before the delivery guy and the cable/phone/internet guy arrived [both at the same time].
- put together my new bed all by myself!
- moved the old futon frame out of the room, with my roommate's help. It now gets in the way in the living room until it can be hauled off. It's much, much heavier than I remembered!
- verified that my old all-in-one printer still works so it can be donated.
- decided that I really don't need the ginormous black dish chair I've had since my previous apartment, and found other places for all the junk I had dumped in it [I have not used it as a chair since moving in here].
- called the National Council of Jewish Women thrift store to arrange pickup of futon frame, dish chair, old TV and nine garbage bags full of clothes, shoes and household objects.
- inventoried the pantry so I could see what it would be possible to cook without going grocery shopping again.
- went grocery shopping again because I had no protein in the house except peanut butter. Which I love, but which is getting a little old, and eating it three meals a day is not necessarily healthy.
- took clothes to the dry cleaners.
- rearranged/sorted my dresser drawers and put all out-of-season clothes in storage under the bed. [Now with 25% more storage space due to the fact that the new bed does not need cinderblocks to hold it up. Also, lack of cinderblocks and crossbeam things means it's much easier to access even the items in the far back corner of under-the-bed.]
- put all the clean clothes that have accumulated in the bathroom in their proper drawers, on hangers etc.
- baked blueberry/mandarin orange crisp, in the interest of using the blueberries before they go bad and the mandarin oranges because they're taking up pantry space.

All that and it's only 6pm now. I'd say that's pretty productive for a day off! And I did it all with fewer internet breaks -- and thus much less typing -- than usual, which was a nice rest for my poor wrists, which did not like doing Cat/Cow and two other hands-and-knees poses in yoga this weekend.

My work is not quite done because I need to buy another small bookshelf for the remaining books and other items that are arranged in less-than-attractive ways around the room, and I'd like to replace the plastic drawers in the bathroom that house socks, PJs, yoga clothes etc. And a box spring would probably be a good idea because the metal sides of the bed come up almost to the top edge of the mattress and avoiding smashing my knee on them would be nice. But all of those things can wait for another day, and another paycheck, and another person to help me haul things around. Tonight there will be laundry [assuming I can locate the quarters I know I have around here somewhere] and a little bit of dusting, wiping down walls, etc. And then I will finally be settled in and can maybe start focusing on writing again.