Meet Rusty and Sugar.

This is Rusty:


This is Sugar:


( This is Sugar's favorite place to sit: )

This tale of pictures is a sad one, for today is the day of yearly vet check-ups, during which 1. Rusty becomes a deranged and violent wildebeest and 2. We discover he has (pick one) thyroid condition/liver disease/the heebling jeeblies/the necrotic rot/the exploding gawhoopdies/anything else we can't afford to fix, but will attempt to fix anyway. It is also a day in which we are told "Sugar must lose weight," to which Sugar replies, glancing sidelong at the vet's tasty fingers, "Yum." Wish us luck. For we will need it.

In other, write-y news, thewritething.org, sent Dani and me some awesome questions about Havemercy, which we had way too much fun answering. The Result is Here. Potential spoilers for those who haven't read the book, but lots of talk about the city and the culture and the magic system and all sorts of fun stuff.

Also, while I was coding the cat pictures, I got a comment on facebook saying I should have a Havemercy FAQ LJ entry. Should I do this? Are there frequently asked questions? (And if so, what are they? Are they about Balfour or Ghislain? They totally should be.) If you ask questions in the comments and we get enough to make an FAQ then we'll totally do it.

(And finally. Check out this awesome icon of Rook and Thom. The icon was made by pirategoddess from art by zanai, and I love it.)

Are you in the New York area? Do you like metal dragons? Would you like to watch me make a fool of myself? Then this is totally the event for you!

July 16, 7:00 PM
Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Park Slope
267 7th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11215
718-832-9066

Author Event
Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennett: Havemercy

I'm posting this now because the other day my cousin was over, and he said, "Jaida, are you going to actually post about this event in advance, unlike the New York Comic Con thing, which you only posted about about five hours before it happened?" And I thought, "Why cousin, you are so clever, of course I shall!" So yes. If you come, I will be forever grateful. If you tell other people to come, I will be even more grateful. This gratitude might involve cookies alongside the chance to see my skills as a public speaker, which are, you know, they're. Okay anyway.

That being said, impromptu audience poll: at signings/author events, do you guys like readings or a song-and-dance kind of routine better? Trying to decide what to do is difficult.

Note: my to-do list is to 1. reply to some comments, now that all visitors have left the building, and 2. make some more livejournal posts with more interesting questions in them. Once Dani and I finish the second book. Which is due so soon. Oh heavens.

It took us until 8:30 pm to get our acts together and get to a bookstore--the Union Square Barnes & Noble, in fact. On the shelf, ll but one copy of Havemercy were gone:



I told Dani to make a face and this is what she did:



Then a woman yelled at me because apparently you're not allowed to take pictures in Barnes and Noble.

Anyway, Havemercy has appeared in some bookstores. Hope those of you who ordered it/bought it/etc. enjoy(ed?) it! The wonderful and smart search_soleil and splintercat have made a fan community, thremedon, for those looking for more stuff. Whoo!

I'm so nervous I can't even cope. Time to curl up with my cat and watch that Japanese Game Show thing. And maybe go to another bookstore. Uhm.

First of all, for those of you who want a sneak peak at the first three chapters of Havemercy, they've been posted here at Issuu.com. You have to sign in to read them as they are mature content (hooo hoooo!) but it's super quick to make an account. Hope that you enjoy!

/pimp

Now, for the content of this post, which I'm making in response to the slew of video games to which I've been introduced by danibennett, her brother, and my cousin! In any case, some of the heroes of these games are the dark, broody, mysterious, troubled-past types, while some of the heroes are the strike-a-pose, "let's rock!" kind of dudes whom the game is kind of, sort of, maybe a lot making fun of. (But with love.) While the former category--let's call them the brooders--have a certain air of poetry to them, I guess these days I've gravitated towards loving the second category--let's call them the goobers.

So what about you? Brooder or Goober? And, while we're at it, who is the absolute epitome of the deliciously tormented brooder or the hilariously quirky goober?

Or--what category of leading man am I completely missing in this binary division who never fails to win your heart?

Vote away!

Poll #1209057 Male heroes.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Who wins your heart?

Notice: I am completely addicted to pupe.jp and if you join you should come favorite me over here. That is all.



ANYWAY, I was all set to make a big post today about how Havemercy is coming out on June 24th, which is one week from today, and wahoo and eek and all that jazz. So I sat down to start typing and then I realized, well, actually, the 24th is one week from yesterday, and I am an idiot.

So. Havemercy! It's coming to a bookstore near you one week from yesterday--a much less exciting statement than "one week from today!" but nevertheless a true statement. I know that I am biased, but if you haven't already pre-ordered it on Amazon or BN.com or Chapters.com or whathave, you should definitely go support your local bookstore on June 24th and pick up a copy of Havemercy! That is, if the idea of reading about big metal dragons excites you. (And I hope it does.)

And then you should take a picture of yourself making a goofy face with the book and post it in your livejournal or in a comment to me or something (believe me, there will be a post made 6 Days From Now wherein I make goofy faces next to every copy of the book I can find in NYC while danibennett looks on and makes utterly pained faces of utter pain at how embarrassing I am).

It will look something like this.

If you would like to read something unbelievably cool written about Havemercy just yesterday, then check this out.

Yep. Less than a week. The only thing that can sum up how I'm feeling right now is a line from Sondheim's Into the Woods, in which Little Red Riding Hood--singing of her experiences with the Big Bad Wolf--recounts, "And he made me feel excited! Well... Excited and scared."

I'm in Canada right now, where it is easily 30 degrees cooler than it was in NYC when I left last week. Of course, I'm completely jet-lagged even though it's only a three hour time difference. Most of my time has been devoted to:

1. Not getting out of my pajamas at all
2. Trying to catch up on 8 million things and failing
3. Working on ending The Second Book That Will Not End But Is Nevertheless Due August First
4. Playing Rock Band for the Playstation 3 with danibennett and her brother, who is top notch on the drums, let me tell you

Rock Band is awesome because it feeds into my love of dressing up avatars. Nothing is cooler--seriously, nothing--than buying fake clothes and tattoos for a fake person whom you've accessorized with fake accessories and whose fake hair you've fake-styled. My Rock Band persona is named Caius and he's about four feet tall with a blond mop and possibly five hundred tattoos all over his pale, scrawny body. He's approximately seven million times cooler than I am--and isn't that the point?

I could seriously spend all day crapping around in fake stores buying fake clothes for a fake person, in the same way that, when I was little, I could just stare and stare and stare at an American Girl Dolls catalog. Mini-clothes for mini-people! It's the same reason why I sign up for every single "customize your avatar!" sites like pupe.jp. Anyone else have this experience-slash-problem?

meronine and bonhwa_seong are here, so there has been much exploration of NYC in the past 48 hours. I always forget how crowded Times Square is. In any case, I am just popping on for a brief moment to share THIS --



( Two more naked hardcovers beneath the cut. )

It is embossed. I keep rubbing my hands over it like a total dweebo. But the best part is taking the cover off and staring at our names on the binding.

Poll #1192406 Ultimate Showdown
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

There can only be one.

This is very difficult for me. I don't know the answer myself. I'm going to have to think long and hard about it. What are your thoughts?

Also, if there's a third option you feel I haven't addressed in this either/or scenario, please chastise me in the comments.

ETA: the best of the best.



vs.

I was in a class recently (I will not say which), in which a professor, as an end-of-semester summary, decided to give the students a rundown of How Things Were. Not "How Things Were For Me, The Professor, Speaking," but how things Were, a blanket statement, that indicated How Things Would Be For All Of Us--and that bothered me. T

There is no "How Things Are." There is always an exception. More accurately, there are always exceptions. Which is why I'm generally so awkward when it comes to talking about writing and publishing and my experiences so far--because they've been my experiences but so, so, so not necessarily everyone's experiences.

In fact, very recently, the beginning of the time I had been dreading most dawned upon the horizon. Reviews. Considering I was the sort of person in high school who focused solely on the negative assessments given by teachers--I'm still not the sort who, er, accentuates the positive and eliminates the negative by any means--the idea of "reviews" were very upsetting because, I suppose, of different experiences. Every review comes from a person--a different person with different experiences; every person will come to a book expecting and wanting different things, and every person will leave it with different opinions.

I have stopped being friends with people based on different opinions of books. Opinions of books are serious business.

Naturally, I would like for everybody in the entire universe, including space-time-traveling aliens with green skin and inverted eyeballs, to enjoy reading Havemercy. Getting reviews puts an end to this beautiful and alien-inclusive fantasy. So it was that I, with trepidation and a tendency to focus upon the negative with a dedication and tenacity I only wish I had displayed for actual, I don't know, work--faced this period in my life, braced and cringing and hoping for the best. I continue to face it. In the immortal words of Ned Flanders, I am a "Nervous Pervis," which makes this stuff super hard for me and also everyone around me who might want to use the bathroom that I'm hiding in.

Nonetheless, I'm excited to say that I did not focus on the negative aspects of this review of Havemercy which (and yes, it's one of my firsts, so that means it will always have a special place in my heart) is definitely an amazing thing.

No book is perfect (I tell myself, haw-hawing). If you've written the perfect book then what's left to improve upon next time? What's left to discover about yourself, and your writing?

I'm just glad to write anything that can be a part of someone else's experience. Granted, I'd like everyone, including all the aliens, to feel that the pros outweigh the cons--this would be ideal. But IN MY EXPERIENCE, the big thing has been accepting both pros and cons, crying for the good stuff and the bad stuff hand in hand, and making it a part of that experience. That review, for example, has positive and negative things to say and I'm grateful for all of them. The bad makes the good more real; the good means the bad can be improved upon; and Queer Eye for the Sorcerous Guy is a TV show I hope one day to write for.

So that's all for now! Tomorrow I graduate and hopefully don't trip on stage, and after that I try to figure out what to do with this journal.

eta because of my lack of coherence: 1. What to post in this journal, because I can no longer complain about Japanese; and 2. I loved the linked review, I love the linked review, and I will always love the linked review.

School's out for the summer ever.

So apparently Persona 3 is a game in which you must balance social and academic obligations until, desperate to relieve the stress this imparts, you are forced to shoot yourself over and over to kill the shadow demons that arise in response to these pressures.

Cool. Cool. I can dig it. In fact it's a particularly awesome game to be playing right before finals.

Has anyone else here played this game? Am I the only one blown away by the insane homosexuality that runs rampant throughout it? Yes? No? Why is everybody hitting on my character? How do I avoid offending all these people?!

And another weird question--allergies acting up majorly these past few days for anyone? I have a headache like I have never had before. My brains feel squoze.

Going to NY COMIC CON?

danibennett and I will be on a panel, about which I personally am somewhat terrified. So if you're intrigued, please do stop by so I feel like less of a goober. The information is as follows:

Women in Fantasy and SF
Friday, April 18
Panel Room 3 (1E15)
5-6 PM

Immortal names like Asimov, Heinlein, and Tolkien have defined the science fiction and fantasy realms, but genres which were once shaped by the hands of men are now being molded by fingers with a fairer touch.  Spend an hour with some of fantasy and science fiction's leading ladies and learn about how they're re-envisioning the future (and the past).

I know there are some other fabulous names on this panel as well. Come to see them be coherent!

Okay so here's a question guys.

If say one were to graduate in under a month, and one were to be ready to move out of one's parents' house like last year, and one were wishing to remain in the city of New York or its immediate environs, and one were to realize that this is extremely expensive and pretty apartments that aren't seventy gabillion dollars don't exist, and one were new anyway to this entire process, what advice would you give to...one in this position?

Also, "one" is me.

I've been doing so much schoolwork lately, it has left me no time for actual fun writing. It has, however, given me lots of time to procrastinate vis-à-vis some cool manga, which I am now going to talk about. Get ready.

: This has been a preview of what's inside the cut.

( D.GRAY-MAN )

( KUROSHITSUJI )

( DOLLS )

That's about it right now, although I'm looking into Amatsuki -- it's about monsters in Edo Japan, which is relevant as always to my interests -- and Nabari no Ou, which I think may be about teachers and ninjas.

What's cool right now that everyone should be into? That's the real question I would like to ask you. BRING ON THE OBSCURITY* GUYS!





*not that D.Gray-Man is obscure. But the other two are. So it counts.

I've been feeling pretty weird the past few weeks. In fact, let's just say the past month. It was really starting to freak me out, honestly, because I had no idea what it was or where it was coming from. Now I think that maybe it has a little something to do with the slow realization that I'm graduating in May, in way less than two months—that, come tomorrow, I will even be able to say, I am graduating next month. Whether or not I've enjoyed school (for the most part, I've enjoyed aspects of school, but otherwise I've been really unhappy most of college because of college itself) this is still a big deal. If I'd assumed feeling ready to be done meant I was actually ready to be done, that I was above or below actually experiencing anything other than immense relief knowing I'd never have to study for another exam again, then I was so, so wrong. Whatever this experience has been for me, it's basically been the experience for me so far. And there's a definite comfort in the routine.

Sometimes, I get on the train in the morning and think it's time to head back to the same school building I attended from K through 12. It's been four years since the last time I did that. I'm definitely a creature of habit.

Anyway, it's clear that I was a big jerk for thinking this would be a simple enough end for me; just because I'll be out of school, and just because I want to be out of school, doesn't mean I'm at all comfortable about what I'm actually going to do once I'm no longer a student. There's certainly a lot I want to do, but will it happen? I'll have to get a job, I'll have to find a place of my own, I'll have to save up to travel.

And perhaps my dissatisfaction with my school experience has me feeling more nostalgic than if I'd truly loved it. Maybe, I think to myself sometimes, I should have done more: activities, readings, clubs. Maybe I should have met more people and availed myself of more opportunities I will, essentially, never see in the same form again. Mostly, I just feel constantly surrounded by the anticipation of change and not the change itself; that hasn't come yet. At last, after all four years of college, four years spent wondering why MS Word always highlights "liminal" in red, I finally fucking know exactly what it means. And yeah. It is a real word, spell check, however abused it may be.

I have a lot of crap to do before the change can actually come, and of course I never like that feeling, either. Between me and the actual change there's all this other stuff, mucking up the works.

So I indulged in a little something this weekend from, perhaps, another liminal time in my life: when I was thirteen years old. (Not a good year, but definitely a liminal one.) I went deep into my closet and dug out a collection of extremely old, extremely bootleg VHS tapes—a gift from my uncle when I first got into "the anime"—of the series Fushigi Yuugi. I watched thirty five episodes in two days, which, given my current attention span, is a big deal. Nonetheless, this show is the fucking comfort food of television.

When I watched Fushigi Yuugi at the tender and confused age of thirteen, one of the characters presented me with my first lesson on having to think about gender and sexuality. In the series, when that character dies, the main character says: "Male or female, it didn't matter. Nuriko was Nuriko."

For whatever reason, when I watched the scene this time around, I could not stop crying. Not to get all "Everything I learned about world-building, character development, and Japan, I learned from Fushigi Yuugi" on anyone—that's for another time, maybe soon if I can actually find some valid sources about freaking Tamerlane—but I had a Moment nonetheless.

One of these days, I want to feel like that. Even if for now, comfort food is just going to have to be enough. In the meantime, I'm going to try to let this other character, an obnoxious red-haired bandit with fangs, teach me how to be a better person. Hopefully.

Took one midterm today; one tomorrow, and one a week from tomorrow. I hate exams and I hate everything they stand for. I think having to memorize seven hundred dates is stupid and I wish more than anything I'd taken classes this semester in which I was required to write essays. Why do I always do this to myself? Why do these classes that sound so interesting always involve exams? Auuuugh. Gastro-intestinal distress! I've been riding that train for the past week.

Of course, I've been spending all my time wasting my time and feeling guilty, because I assume that's how studying works everywhere. This is the first time in the history of all time that I have actually not done reading for a class when it is due. I'll get to it and I feel like a LOST CAUSE but whatever. Not gonna happen. I don't even care. SUCK THAT.

Also I decided a couple of nights ago that the most amazing thing in the entire world would be a livejournal-based RP that was like... about the Greek pantheon. (I know, I know, I need to shut up about Ancient Greece.) But it would be. So. Amazing. I don't know what would be more amazing: if it was actually Ancient Greek style, or if it was set in the modern world and everyone lived in like, New York or something, and they all had livejournals, and Dionysos threw crazy parties and Hephaistos worked at a Gothic Cabinet Craft and Artemis was, I don't know, a veterinarian and Zeus owned an art gallery and Apollo was his favorite of all his obnoxious, pretentious art friends and Ganymede lived out of his car for a while like that kid from American Idol who made me really sad. It would be great. I want someone to make this happen for me. I am right. Right? GUYS?!

In order to tell this story I must begin with the fact that I have not slept like a human being for a month. What it boils down to is that I currently sleep once every three to four days. The other nights I will sleep anywhere from between two to three hours. This has gone on for far too long because I am an idiot who still hopes that my body and my brain are going to sort themselves out. (Hahaha!) Finally, with midterms upon me and a sense of deadened despair only true exhaustion can inspire in a person, I grew sick of my nightly useless concoctions of kava tea and melatonin and chamomile, depressed that I actually had faith in a relaxation tape, hot baths, blah blah blah, all that stuff that doesn't work. So I decided that I would put my faith in the system and go to Barnard's walk-in center, harboring some delusion that they would do anything other than tell me I have mono, which is what they always tell me, and everyone, no matter what the symptoms. (Hey. I could go for a little mono right now, since isn't that supposed to make you sleep eight jabillion years?)

So I go to the walk-in center, I wait in the germ-infested waiting room reading the germ-infested Christina Aguilera's Baby edition of People magazine, I get taken by a nurse, I discuss my symptoms, I do not get told I have mono. This is a good sign. Unfortunately, I have to take a blood test, which sucks, but I man up and I bear it and it's not so bad and she bandaids me up and everything's going to be OK, and we're discussing more possibilities--maybe I have low electrolytes! maybe they abandoned this sinking ship! I wouldn't want to be one of my own electrolytes, either--when suddenly I'm like, why is my arm wet and cold?

And I look down.

And my entire arm is like, gushing blood. It's all over my jeans, all over my favorite white sweater, all over my arm, all over the seat, everywhere. I don't even blame the nurse--despite having told her the medication I'm on, which apparently (now I know!) slows down clotting speed--because this moment in her life was just a byproduct of all the moments in my life that have led up to sitting in that room while the nurse tried to clean the blood off my sweater with those tiny little alcohol swabs.

Anyone have any blood stain cures? Alternately, anyone want to come to my place tonight and smash my head with a mallet? That's my new plan for sleepytime.

I just opened an email from my high school notifying me of the death of one of the students from my grade. He was one of the bravest people I've ever met, if not the bravest. I don't know what to say other than that, but my heart goes out to his family. Rest in peace, Max.

( I am so happy right now. )

Maybe I'm the only person shitting my pants excited about this movie. Who knows. I love it!

This poll is brought to you by the amazingly awesome lecture I just had that has restored my faith in paying attention.

Poll #1132945 Panic at the Pantheon
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Choose the best of the 12 Olympians.

Choose the Olympian you would most like to shack up with.

I don't know how to include a poll that lists eight billion more members of the Pantheon, so if I have left out your favorite--like, say, Hades or uh...Asclepius--feel free to kick my butt in the comments.

One of the traumas of my past that I never overcame was both Hercules and Xena being canceled before I was able to fulfill my childhood dream of being an extra on one of those shoes. I could have been a kidnapped daughter or a street urchin, a vendor, one of those people who shouted, ecstatic, from off-stage "It's Hercules!" or "I can't believe it!" Of course, the true dream was to be an Amazon--I was tall and I had long hair, I had high hopes--but fate was not on my side, nor did I ever get to don a leather and iron boob-mantle.

Poll #1131955 This is the story of a time long ago
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Xena or Hercules?

Gabrielle or Iolaus?

Xena/Gabrielle or Hercules/Iolaus?

Choose one:

Best chests go to...

Seriously, the breasts on that show have not been duplicated since. They were monumental events, aided by mythical wonderbras, worthy of goddesses; now, they are extinct.

But seriously, did anyone else watch these shows religiously on Saturday nights? It was one of the most substantive ways my father and I actually bonded when I was thirteen and spent the rest of my time being sullen and/or embarrassed.

Heath Ledger found dead. Probably everywhere right now but I feel as though I'm actually going to throw up. So talented, so unexpected, so fucking sad.

Wow--I haven't posted in forever! This is mostly because I'm so super boring I don't want to inflict myself on my inbox, much less on livejournal. Nonetheless, I had my first day of classes of the semester this morning. It looks like it's going to be pretty sweet:

Monday
10:35 - 11:50 Religion, Myth, Ritual: The Greek City State
1:10 - 2:25 The Arts of Japan
6:10 - 8:00 Intro to Fiction Writing

Tuesday
9:00 - 10:50 The Mongols in History

Wednesday
10:35 - 11:50 Religion, Myth, Ritual: The Greek City State
1:10 - 2:25 The Arts of Japan

I've been trying to get into this Mongols course since my second semester freshman year, but it's always closed out before the first day of limited-enrollment course sign ups, which is only for seniors, so this is the first time I even had a chance. And the first lecture was awesome.

Even though school itself fills me with enormous dread, I actually got to choose courses this semester based on what I thought would be inspiring and exciting and fun, since I don't have requirements left. This is also the very first semester I haven't had Japanese exams hanging over my head every two seconds. I wonder how that will work for me. I like to pretend I'll be less stressed, but of course this is a lie. And finally: FOUR DAY WEEKEND. My weekend begins at 2:30, Wednesday afternoon, and lasts through Sunday. Small blessings.

I really wish I had taken more ancient Greece type history classes during the past semesters though. It's my secret passion. Ancient Greece (I want this book so much--"sexy tyrants, potent pathics, and seductive perverts" is essentially the trifecta of shit I love); The Scarlet Pimpernel; and Jack the Giant Killer. Yep. That about sums it up.

What are you super into right now? Let's have some excitement!

Wow.

I can't believe that I was so moved by the ending of a video game. A video game! Me! How crazy is that? But there was this one moment in Tales of the Abyss wherein you're fighting the final boss (for the third time, I might add; the dude will not die) and you get to a certain point where you've beaten him, but the fight keeps going for long enough for one of the main characters to finish casting a spell by singing to the end of her song. She's been singing parts of the song during fight scenes to cast her spells throughout the entire game, but during this final battle, she finally knows the entire song the whole way through. The battle stops counting--you and your enemy are whaling on each other like crazy, but no damage registers--it's just so that the song can be completed. For some reason, this moment is so lyrical and bittersweet: it's the culmination of countless hours of playing, of all the characters' arcs, of their hopes and dreams and losses, and the juxtaposition of the wild, mad-dash fighting with the swelling of the otherwise slow-moving, delicate melody is absolutely stunning. It absolutely gutted me for reasons I don't even understand. Maybe it was liking the characters so much, coming to know them so well; maybe it was that it was my first real video game (wow); maybe it was not sleeping or eating properly for days on end just to get to the resolution... Whatever it was, it was a truly lovely, moving moment. It lasted about 30 seconds and it made my heart hurt.

I know it's silly, but it definitely goes on my list of "Most Moving Scenes of All Time." I have to pack for Canada now, but I've been wondering what scenes are on your list (if you have a list). What scene from a book or film or tv series or whatever chewed you up and spit you out? I must know! This particular scene has left me bizarrely haunted for days. What did that to you?

2007 was pretty good to me. Here's hoping 2008 is even better!

I was going to make a long rambling introspective entry about all the new things I've done and the great things that have happened, but then I realized that it all comes down to this: for the first time ever, I had someone to kiss at midnight who wasn't my mother. Not that I don't love my mother, because I do, but I was starting to wonder if I would ever have someone to kiss at midnight who wasn't my mother. It's a milestone. I done kissed a non-relative after the countdown.

Happy New Year, everyone! I really hope 2008 treats you well--I hope it's treating you well already.

danibennett has introduced me to video games. I'll never be seen again; I'll just sit on the couch and watch her play until I die of malnutrition. It helps that I need about five years of vegetation before I can recover from finals week. But it doesn't help that Dani got a PS2 and a PSP for Christmas from her family so I got her 8 billion games to go along with them, and now we've been playing Tales of the Abyss since yesterday morning. I'm starting to get sores on delicate areas--like my mouth, because while playing video games all you can eat is Christmas cookie after Christmas cookie, and when you eat about 22 lemon squares in a row your upper palate starts to be eaten away by a delicate chemical reaction between sugar and acid.

Here are the things I wanted to say:

1. Did everyone who celebrates have an awesome Christmas? Did you all get what you wanted? What were your best gifts so I can be jealous? (I got the best gift of all time: Dani got me a custom-made Schuldig jacket from fanplusfriend and it's GORGEOUS. I've wanted one for seven years. It has gold buttons and a wide lapel!)

2. How awesome is Tales of the Abyss? Who knew I loved video games? (Not playing them--just watching other people play them like they're extremely protracted and slightly repetitive movies.) I need some video game recommendations, stat! Or I need to talk about Tales of the Abyss because I think I just deleted half my icons to upload icons of Jade and Ion and Dist.

3. WHY IS IT THAT MY FAVORITE CHARACTER ALWAYS DIES? Watch out, guys. If I ever say I like one of your favorite characters from a TV show or a book series or a video game or whatever, then I apologize in advance for their untimely and tragic death by tuberculosis or kitten mauling.

I hate the end of the semester. Most of the time I feel pressured, cranky, stressed, and just pissed off that I have to do any of this crap when what nature really wants is for me to sleep and eat cookies. Thankfully, my thesis is about 99% done, which means I just have to figure out when it's due (soon) and how to format it (apparently this is super important, so I have to pay a kinkos in order to hand in a freakin' paper). Then I have two finals next week, and then I'm going to hibernate. I know there are people out there who don't feel sick over taking exams, but I resent them too much to talk to them and therefore cannot ask for their secret.

Some nice things in life include the Narnia trailer, which I would love to gush about, and the half-off sale at the Japanese bookstore in Rockefeller Center, Kinokuniya, which I took extreme advantage of. I have bought so much manga, causing me to relive my sordid past as a fan of extremely cheesy Boy's Love one-shots where the characters' hands are larger than their heads and "Please, stop, it hurts!" is roughly translated as "I love you, do me harder!"

I'm always vaguely mortified when I buy those things. It's sort of like buying porn, except it's like buying porn in Japanese from Japanese people, who stare at you as they ring up your collection of such titles as "BROTHER X BROTHER" and "EROTIC APPLE" and you busily bustle through your wallet in order to avoid all eye contact because the shame burns like fire.

It's been a long time since I seriously got into manga, but come on: three volumes of Saiyuki Gaiden for only 18 dollars? All of Seimaden--my favorite manga when I was fourteen years old and had to make up my own version because I'd only taken half a semester of Japanese and didn't know scanlations existed on the internet and also, I had dial up--for half off?!

My favorite thing about shopping for manga, however--aside from snagging that volume of whatever you've been waiting for all your life--is picking up random series and opening them on the train, only to discover they're amazing. I like to buy manga I've never heard of based solely on whether or not I like the cover artwork. It's always a pleasant surprise if things work out. My greatest purchase by far was the first two volumes of Black Butler (or Kuroshitsuji) and a charming series called Rustblaster (these words do not mean what you think they mean), both by a mangaka named Toboso Yana whose art reminds me a great deal of meronine's. The former title is about a butler who seems to harbor "special feelings"--purely Platonic, I'm sure--for his tiny, spicy ward, whose name is "Ciel." Ciel wears teeny tiny top hats perched atop his head. The latter title is about some special vampire dude who goes to a special vampire school with his special vampire friends. The school is run by his special vampire father, who may be a homosexual, and is my favorite character. Anyway, the special vampire dude has some bizarre connection with a human transfer student, wherein the transfer student offers up his tasty, tasty blood in order to give the vampire special vampire powers. Both these series made no sense until I discovered that the mangaka was once a Boy's Love author, and then I was able to process all the neck-sucking.

The only problem with getting super into these random purchases is that I am thwarted forever because no one has ever heard of this stuff. I'm off to put "Rustblaster" into my interests, although I have no idea why this series is called Rustblaster. I think it should be called "Special Vampire Dude's Gay Father," but then again, this is why I'm not allowed to be in charge of important things.

As you can see, I am procrastinating, because I have two enormous finals to study for. Ask me about my manga! Or recommend some to me. Or tell me what it's like to take an exam without vomiting first, because there is so much vomiting on the horizon.

Well, another birthday has arrived! This one's a big deal. I can now do all sorts of irresponsible things more responsibly. Today, I will spend my birthday editing my senior thesis and writing another research paper and working on a Japanese powerpoint presentation and some other stuff. I'm definitely the sort of person who knows how to celebrate in style.

I remember when I turned 13 and I wrote ten poems about how that was definitely the end of everything: childhood, presents, goofing around, the works. Now I am officially an adult, and all bets on Peter Pan are off, but I feel satisfied more than scared.

Because: I slept well last night. It was snowing beautifully when I woke up. Dani gave me the complete volume of Moomin comic strips and a hilarious out-of-print children's book about the great friendship of Marco Polo and Kublai Khan. My parents bought us tickets to see the new Tom Stoppard play on Broadway with Rufus Sewell (who is currently under deep consideration for the family's fantasy cast of Havemercy). There have been other lovely gifts, including a typewriter virtual livejournal gift, and I love both typewriters and virtual livejournal gifts. Also--and this is the greatest gift of all--only two weeks left in the semester, Dani and I are going to spend Christmas together, and next semester I don't have classes on either Thursdays or Fridays. (Four day weekend whoooooo!)

I'm lucky to know so many awesome people, pretty much all of them through livejournal, and to have promises on the horizon of doing what I love with people I respect, adore, and admire. Plus, oh my God you guys, the first snow of the year was on MY BIRTHDAY. How cool is THAT?!

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I'd wanted to do an ARC (advance reader's copy) raffle on my journal. Well, I got the extra ARC copies and the go-ahead from the powers that be at Bantam--aka our fabulous editor's assistant Josh, whom we adore--and so there's gonna be a raffle! By which I mean, if you're interested in getting an advance reader's copy, you can leave a comment here with your name and address and maybe your favorite book of all time or your favorite movie or actor or a hilarious story about your childhood where you ate an entire pumpkin pie while no one was looking or whatever the tale might be. All comments will of course be screened.

Then, I will print all the names out and cut them into little squares of paper and put them in my top hat (I knew my top hat would be useful one day!) and pull three names out of the hat. Those three folks will get a copy of the book sent to them early. (Probably not before January, though, just as a warning.) But then you will receive one of these!

The raffle is totally free. The only stipulation is that, as I am going to probably post the same opportunity at