Thoughts on the Journey

I'm currently sitting in Brooklyn after a day of travel to New York City and lots of reading in various cafes around Union Square. I'm up here because my life is rather strange, the University of Victoria invited me as an alumna to a lecture and reception at the UN tomorrow night. That means I get to see skygiants and arushindoll for a few days before heading back down to Delaware for my father's 75th birthday party. Then on Monday, I get to start volunteering at my local library and there's a job opening for a youth librarian at the library near where my brother lives in New Jersey. I feel like good things are coming my way and that its time to get to work creating the sort of life I want. That means focusing more on looking for jobs and cover letters and putting myself out there to be seen by the people I want to see me. Also just being in New York City always revitalizes me because it gives me a great sense of how diverse and wonderful the world is and how I can connect to it. I spent most of my afternoon sitting in a gorgeous cafe called Argo Tea reading the newest October Daye novel and feeling tired but content.

I love that Uncle Rob has hit upon where I am beautifully.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): If you were about to run in a long-distance
race, you wouldn't eat a dozen doughnuts. Right? If you were planning to
leave your native land and spend a year living in Ethiopia, you wouldn't
immerse yourself in learning how to speak Chinese in the month before
you departed. Right? In that spirit, I hope you'll be smart about the
preparations you make in the coming weeks. This will be a time to prime
yourself for the adventures in self-expression that will bloom in late
September and the month of October. What is it you want to create at
that time? What would you like to show the world about yourself?

In that same spirit, I recently complete two fics for exchanges that I can't share yet but I'm proud of both of them. They were in fandoms I know but focusing on characters that I don't normally write about and I hope their recipients end up liking them.

Fic Friday last week was wonderful and I wrote a good deal.
( Twitter Fics )

I just realized that I forgot to post my Twitter fics and I always like to post them before the weekend is gone. This was an interesting Fic Friday, some nice ideas and I have so many things bubbling in my brain. My Narnia fic exchange is finally in motion and I have ideas about Pacific Rim and Teen Wolf fics that I need to pin down. I just feel like I'm finally moving forward. In the next few days, I'm going to be a little slower in terms of tagging as I'm off to visit friends in other parts of Michigan.

For @notsuestorm

Charles, one perfect moment

Erik was smiling, a true open smile and Charles was afraid his knees would go weak for the beauty of seeing him so fulfilled.

For @quiverby

Joshua/Moist:
far away

Moist watched the road stretch out in front of the car and Joshua poked him, "Where are you?" "Wondering about the end of the road."

wishes granted

Joshua ruffled his hair and whispered in his ear, "I know you might never tell me but if you do, I won't tell." "Mm, its Moist."

Moist/Helena:
sparkle

Helena hid her laugh behind a fan as Moist commanded the room, when he wanted to, he could dazzle anyone he wished to with a smile

last minute plans

"There's been a change of plans." "Darling, what sort of change?" "Just follow my lead and we'll be fine." "That's not an answer."

Charles-anyone
letters

Charles has always loved letters, Raven wasn't a great writer of them but she enjoyed sending him gossip digests of their friends.

promotion And I missed this one on the day of so filling now.

Charles looked at Ororo's somber face and said, "I think its time you went from student to teacher." She laughed as she said, "Yes."

I just had a conversation with my parents about how its easier to break this lease than the one in Ann Arbor since this area of Michigan has a lot of people pass through. To say aloud, I don't want to be in Michigan anymore, especially not this part of Michigan feels amazing. A huge weight is off me as I start thinking about moving east again, working at the library in Lewes as I search for a job in the part of the country I actually want to be in.

Chances to hang out with friends who live in Maryland and Virgina and on the east coast instead of feeling stuck in limbo out here in Michigan. I don't know how quickly any of this will happen. I'm going to run some errands and on my way back stop in at the rental office to see how tricky it is to end the lease early. I think as long as I give thirty days notice, I should be okay since the lease is far kinder than the one in Ann Arbor where housing was tougher to find. I also realized that yesterday was a month since the last day of school. Time feels so out of joint for me since it hasn't been that long, but my life is in a strange spot.

Oh and I found another job to apply for, a teen librarian position in Arizona. I'm happy to move again for a job, but next time I'm going to be more prepared. If a job wants me, I'd like their help in settling in. That doesn't have to be money just advice and some care.

The next step starts to feel closer and more hopeful. Since its Friday and FicFriday on Twitter has been quiet due to the holiday weekend, I'll take prompts here and on Twitter. Just @ me over there.

Leave me a prompt and I'll write you a one to two sentence fic, possibly more but I try to keep it short to work with the Twitter part.

ETA: It looks like this move will be simpler than my other one. Next part is to contact the movers and find out their dates, then get back to the rental company.

Well, all my words decided to come out today in a librarian post as well as a fic.

First off a big signal boost to Marvel Femslash Prompt Fest because its a great idea.

Then in tougher news, I wrote End of the Year: Changed for good over on my professional librarian blog. This wasn't easy to write but I needed to put on that blog about looking for a job before I can start doing the sorts of posts I want. The next ones will be about school culture and what I learned.

The other piece that I wrote today was Last Midnight, a smutty Charles/Erik piece for one of my Tumblr followers. She was having a very hard night and this was something I could do and I'm happy with it. It reminded me of how there's a lot still to write with Charles and Erik. It contains quite explicit sex as she wanted smutty.

Tomorrow I hope to order myself some business cards as I found a design that really works for me and start the next stage of my life as I look for a job. I feel like since Wednesday, I've been in what my mother calls decompression as I shift from one experience to the next. And ten days from today, I will be on a train to Chicago for the ALA conference.

Also there was FicFriday, need to include those as well.
( Twitter Fic )

I just posted my first fic over on queer_fest which is one that clicked for me when I read the prompt and this FicFriday was busy. Life is full of various good things as I'm currently hanging out with the_croupier and got to go to Dawn Treader where I picked up many wonderful books. I've really needed this break.

Misfits and Lovers (3503 words) by FiKate
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: X-Men: First Class (2011)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Charles Xavier, Raven Darkholme, Erik Lehnsherr, Hank McCoy, Moira MacTaggert
Additional Tags: Bisexuality, Bisexual Character, Community: queer_fest, Prompt Fic, Backstory, Siblings, References to Homophobia
Summary:

Written for Queer Fest 2013 and the prompt: X-Men: First Class, Charles Xavier(/Erik Lehnsherr), Erik is the first person Charles has ever been completely honest with. Though Raven may have known about his telepathy, she didn't know he was queer.

Told from Charles and Raven's points of view as they navigate this new aspect of their relationship. Sexual tension between Charles and Erik is present but not acted upon. References to period fears of being queer in the 1950s and 1960s.

Title from The Wallflowers' song Misfits and Lovers.

For FicFriday, I wrote a few fics on this journal and then was very busy on Twitter.

( Twitter Fics )

I ended up doing my grocery shopping which helped me feel a little better. The next few weeks are going to be strange but I'll get through them. I also discovered that there's some sort of art fair happening in one of the towns near where I live on my birthday, so that's something I might do.

This Friday was a really good one for fic as the AU meme was going around and I filled prompts on my LJ and on DW. They ended up getting rather longer, I do plan on spinning out that teen!Charles at the Warehouse into a larger fic and I'm still open to more prompts.

Over on Twitter, I did a few prompts, Fic Friday's been quiet but then this has been a hard year for a lot of people. Lots of sickness and life being tough.

( Twitter Fics )

More things are getting done today. I feel quite accomplished as I created a gmail account that's tied to my actual name for sending to jobs. I'm working on what else I might want to send to it. One reason I don't want to disentangle all the threads of my personal and professional life is I don't think its possible and I want to teach about how this is becoming the norm. How online our hobbies and all of our connections work together and help us. From my current job, I know what a difference it makes to a kid to say, oh you're talking about Doctor Who or let me argue Marvel movies with you or I get Twitter. I want to harness that but its still a learning experience.

Along the same lines, I'm realizing it might be a good idea to finally get myself a tumblr so that I can follow everyone. This will be purely for the pretties and I'm trying to figure out a good name. I have no idea but want something I haven't had before.

I needed today as well to get my head in order, the sun even decided to come out after it rained and even briefly snowed.

Please leave suggestions a tumblr name.

My break is off to a nice start. On my drive down, I had a wonderful stop with muji where we had lunch and ice cream and a great time talking. The timing for getting off the road was perfect and hope its not too long before we can talk again. Then the rest of the drive went well and I ended up watching Thor with my parents. They ended up liking it, my mother more than my father, which make sense. He doesn't like movies with fast cuts, but my mom wants to see all the other films in that verse.

Yesterday was very full as there was a progressive Easter dinner, appetizers at a house a block over then the main meal at my parents' house and dessert. It was delicious food, good company and I kept getting all sorts of interesting advice on how to deal with my work stuff. A real range from speak your truth and get out of there to you just have to put up with this kind of stuff at times. Its given me a lot to think about.

After I finish this post, I'm going to walk into town for some lunch and tonight, there might be an EP of someone. I'm just enjoying feeling relaxed and that I don't have to do anything.

Since I was on the road on Friday, I spent the night in my hotel writing a lot of Friday Fic.
( FicFriday )

Since I work on Fridays and don't feel comfortable making prompt requests on Twitter until after 4 pm, I thought I'd take up ladyoflorien's idea.

Work is being fairly good other than some boys acting immature during lunch and the school is pretty quiet with a lot of kids off on a field trip.

Leave me a prompt and I will write you a comment length fic, it won't be 140 characters but I'm still aiming for brevity. I'm going to try and not go over two or three sentences but some might grow on me.

After work, I'll move my prompting to Twitter.

I'm using this icon because of Tumnus and snow not yuletide as it captures how I've felt this weekend, tucked at home as it snows outside. The snow will let up and then come back and sometimes be rain all this week, which has made it hard to find the energy to do much. The sun briefly came out on Friday, but other than that, its been cloudy. As I've also been fighting off feeling sick, I've slept a lot this weekend and realized I really needed it. I didn't work on Friday as I decided a day of rest would help me more than trying to push through the day. Going by just how much I've been sleeping, I think this was the right idea. I'm still a little tired today, but not as out of it as I felt last week.

Though on Friday, I did go out to a book club meeting from meetup.com that was wonderful. I think I've started to find my people in this area, even though I hadn't read the book, the conversation was wonderful. We talked about gaming, fantasy and all sorts of fascinating stuff. One of the people in group even knows one of my favorite teachers from Michigan. There was also an adorable and big black dog who decided he liked me and let me give him all sorts of scritches. I'm planning on using meetup to try and find a dance group as the combination of being social and active works well for me.

Since I stayed in yesterday due to the snow falling, I watched up to episode 10 of Capital Scandal and wow, all the feelings for that show. I love all of it, the depth of the characters, the beautiful setting and music and the humor that slips its way in.

Today I went out into the world and used the time to finish reading City of Dark Magic by Magnus Flyte, which is a book I wanted to like more than I did. Its a book that could easily be called a genre bender or crosser as it had fantasy, mystery and romance, sadly the balance wasn't always right in it. The two point of view characters were both a little too brilliant and the feel of the story would veer rather suddenly from alchemy and history to sex against statues. Its the kind of book that I would enjoy reading on a long plane or train ride where I could just sink into it and read it in one gulp, but reading it in stops and starts made me not enjoy it as much. As I would come out of it and be aware of how it didn't all fit together.

Life is going along steadily at work, I still feel like I'm out of some loops but I've got a chance to discuss my status report, which I hope will be helpful. Also I had an amazing connection with a new teacher that made me feel like I know what I'm doing. I know that I haven't spoken out as much as I need to and I'm going to work on that. They hired me because they think I can do this job and I am doing it and will keep improving. Also I have a chance to propose some classes for next year, which will get me more involved and be exciting. I finally have a Michigan license and this month paid off the last of my smaller loan from the University of Michigan, which is a great feeling. I have a break coming up in the third week of February, which I plan on going to Jackson and having some nice days of watching stuff. I also have a break in the first week of April and I'll be joining them for an opera in NYC on the fourth. If its possible, I would love to try and connect with anyone in New York for coffee or lunch or something. There's more flexibility in terms of going rather than leaving so Wednesday or Thursday. I miss you guys a lot and want to try and reconnect.

On Friday, FicFriday was interesting. I like this new way of giving prompts and then people have the option of deciding which character or world to write them for.
( Twitter fiction )