Below are the most recent 4 friends' journal entries.

Sunday, December 20th, 2009
mousse	4:29p	Gripe Time: Final Fantasy VII Compilation I think I've pinpointed what bothers me so much about the other FF7 franchise games and movies that have been developed to expand upon the original game, and it basically amounts to a corruption of several of the important themes and plot points in the game. ( Uh, I guess cut for spoilers for anyone who still hasn't played this game ) Current Mood: contemplative (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
mousse	11:52a	2009 in brief ( Welcome to my world ) Current Mood: blah (Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
polaris134	12:10p	Life is Full I hope this may not be me succumbing to consumerism, but I admit there is something satisfying to buying nice clothes for myself--not from a thrift store (which brings its own pleasure of fortuitous luck and a feeling of subversive cleverness), but new off-the-rack from a big store. It's the feeling I get from doing something nice for myself, a careless let-myself-go-wild-and-buy-that-really-pretty-shirt feeling. I've always tried to be relatively careful with my spending so that when I do buy things for myself, I don't feel too bad about it because it balances out, overall. It doesn't hurt that I tend to buy things on sale/clearance, and two of the three tops I bought were for work. I admit it's been a little frustrating that I don't have a wide variety of work-appropriate attire, especially for cold weather, so I can honestly say that I needed (most of) what I purchased. The gorgeous sweater that was the color of the Aegean Sea (trust me, you'll have to see it) was less of a necessity, but one can never have too many comfy sweaters :) In short, I spent most of this weekend Christmas shopping. Brian and I spent Sunday in Monroeville; shopping can be a pain, and it is at times like this that I am really glad to have him by my side through all the frustrating work. We know to go easy on each other, and to treat ourselves and to go at as calm a pace as this time of year will allow. That said, we spent a ton of money and got a good chunk of our Christmas shopping done, which is a huge load off my mind. Still a lot to get done, but a lot less than what I had to get done at the beginning of this weekend. And Brian looks darn good in a new suit :) In other news, my exercise regimen is going forward. Not as steadily as I would like, but steadily enough that I'm not kicking myself. Editing on Mae Fortune is not going as quickly, but at this stage of writing, I need a lot of quiet time and I haven't been getting that this month until this weekend, really. I have made a lot of progress with the red-penning, and am only 14 pages away from the end!! But the editing, now that is going to take some time. I do hope to finish it before the end of the year, which was my goal. But I am going to have to take as much advantage of my time off from work (and my down-time at work) as possible. That said, I have been feeling very creatively "full" lately. I'm almost done with Mae's second draft (which is farther than I've ever gotten with a novel ever), I've got the Sira story waiting just below in my mental queue, and I gave the Tanna story to a beta reader months ago, with the plan that we would touch base again at the beginning of 2010. Though they all need various levels of work, and Sira's story doesn't have a complete draft yet, I'm very happy with all three of the novels--where they're at, where they're going, what chances they have in the long run. Plus, with the coming of my first sale, I'm psyched to send out another round of short story submissions come January. I have never gotten this far before. Current Mood: full (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
polaris134	9:34a	Here We Come A-Caroling I meant to post about this earlier, but last Saturday my church choir had its annual Christmas party, and it was fabulous :) A few hours before the party, my friend Grace came over and we baked chocolate chip cookies (the ready-made-dough variety, which has always been my favorite). Surprisingly, we managed to bake a whole small tub of dough, and got about 35 cookies baked in less than an hour. I should do this more often, it's so simple! But then, there aren't that many occasions that justify baking 35 chocolate chip cookies at one go. It had been cold and rainy all day, and by the time we left the outside temperature was below freezing, but luckily the roads had dried up enough that we didn't have any problems with ice. And the people who hosted it have such an absolutely lovely house! It's a classic Pittsburgh house, older, lots of dark wood, thick dark banisters, stained glass windows, etc. I really love hanging out with the choir folks. Not least of which because any choir party inevitably devolves into music-making. It doesn't hurt that whoever hosts the Christmas party every year invariably has at least a piano in their house, if not a baby grand. And there was a sweet baby grand at Bob's house (since he actually is a composer, and has written some of the music the choir sings). He also had stacks of caroling books, so not too long after everyone had gotten their food into their tummies, a few people got into a group and started doing a capella versions of a few of the songs we've been doing lately. Soon we all gathered around the piano, passed out caroling books and started singing Christmas carols. Ken, our organist, played only a couple of songs, but one of them was "Do You Hear What I Hear?" which is his wife Lisa's favorite carol (and one of mine, too!). She directed us, holding up a poster with a shortened form of the lyrics so we'd know what to sing, when, and most of us instinctively fell into parts and made up harmonies that actually sounded quite lovely together :) I enjoy doing things like that! And "Do You Hear What I Hear?" is pretty easy to create a harmony for. So there was lots of singing, and various people traded off playing on the piano (there are many good piano players, unsurprisingly, in our choir). There were also a few songs performed without singing, as they were instrumental arrangements intended to be played as solos or duets on the piano, and they were quite lovely, too. Nancy had brought her violin and Bob pulled out his cello (which he is only just beginning to learn to play), and they did a duet; Nancy also accompanied a couple of piano pieces. Even I managed to snag the piano for a little bit, but having barely touched a piano in months, I kept to a couple of slower pieces, including "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day." I did well enough, though, and got a few compliments :) Speaking of which, I am now the proud owner of a book of Christmas music for the piano, and another one is on its way to me now :) I will be extremely Christmas-ful, and when I go home to Albany for the holidays I will be able to play my merry little heart out! Also, I need a Christmas icon... Current Mood: awake (Comment on this)