slr2moons

A: A LOT.

Yesterday I took the day off running to repot my lilies. I should have done it last year, but never found the time until it was too late. I'm glad I did this year, because wow. What started as a single bulb in 2010 turned into a root mass 6 inches in diameter, and I'm not exaggerating! O.O

In the end, I used the new tall pot I bought, all of both long troughs, and the half-sized trough. Lily bulbs everywhere! I don't know where the all-white or the pink-tinged ones ended up. It will be interesting to find out, come June. ^^ The crop will likely be still bigger next year, unless plant disaster strikes. Anyone want dibs on some lily bulbs??

In work news, script for Clay 23 has arrived!! This volume has more talking than fighting, something which I am always happy to see in Clay. :D I finished Natsume 14's first pass, and now only await corrections. The BL title will be done in about a week. Oho, and come to find out it isn't a oneshot like I thought, there's a sequel! I'm signed on to letter that one, too, again with my beloved Clay Editor #3. :3

Also it's been two days, and I'm holding true to my promise to draw something for myself every day. Yay! Last night in particular was incredibly fun. I want to finish it and post it sometime, for you all to see. It's my OTP from one of my fave webcomics, the fun and surprisingly epic DMFA. Safe for work, unless someone objects to scantily clad characters of both sexes. *laughs*

And don't forget: if you want to remain on my friend's list and haven't spoken to me in a few months, leave a comment here or on this post before March 1st!! Hope to hear from you soon. ^^V

In light of what I observed about hometown friends from my 2012 retrospective post, and because I was feeling worse about life by the minute, I decided to be pro-active and called up a friend I haven't spoken to in months.

It was wonderful! X3 I love my friends, particularly the ones who have seen my at my worst and like me anyway. *hugs for everyone*

On a manga-esque note, I realized 2012 was The Year of Shounen Manga. Thanks to needing to catch up to the digital version of English Shonen Jump magazine, I had to marathon a LOT of shounen manga. I don't recall the exact numbers for all of the series, but here's a guesstimate: (OMG Chrome recognizes "guesstimate" as a word!)

Bakuman - 150 chapters
Bleach - 150 chapters
Naruto - 80 chapters
Nura - 180 chapters (the whole thing up to January '12...)
One Piece - 55 chapters
Toriko - 170 chapters (the whole thing up to January '12...)

And the above is why I haven't really tried any new webcomics this year. (Note: Chrome does NOT recognize "webcomic" as a word.) I've been so busy doing manga homework! Next on my list of webcomics to start is Gunnerkreigg Court. I read the hard copy of vol 1 last year (in the middle of all that shounen) and want to catch up. I'm still making my way through all those digital Jumps from last year, mostly because I DIDN'T keep up with reading every week, and am still in June '12 for Bleach, Nura, and One Piece. At least I've stayed caught up with Naruto and Toriko.

Though now I have to catch up to Nisekoi and Blue Exorcist, both of which started in digital Jump a few months ago...at chapter 50. *headdesk*

So far for 2012, I am doing better with reading less fic, more manga and comics, and working on my original manga, too. HEY YOU GUYS! I FIXED A PLOT HOLE AND FOUND MY FOCUS!! PLOTTING IS SO MUCH EASIER NOW!!! XD

This holiday season has turned me into a social butterfly, I must say! I've seen just about all of my IRL friends at least once, much to my delight. :3

In addition to the usual book club, I arranged the four Holiday Fic Exchange write-ins, which were a resounding success--as you already know. :D

A-chan from Salem invited knastymike and I to a home-cooked meal, which we both jumped at. She made this delicious chicken roast that, IIR, she just made up on the spot. Also this dish we dubbed the "corn thing" because it was, and delicious sweet pota'to wedges, and a mint lima bean dish I had to pass on because allergies, but I did try a small bite and it was great. :9

Also at A-chan's, I saw my first blu-ray movie on an HD tv, and I was blown away. WOW. The movie in question was The Avengers, and the picture was so sharp and clear, it was like I could reach out and touch RDJ's stubble. O.o More often that not, the image distracted me from the actual movie. I was so busy marveling (badum-chinnnng) how it looked like I was right there, in the action.

On Thursday was another anime night, and traffic wasn't that bad, for once! Great amusement and much oogling of animated men happened with the usual suspects: winnett and saladbats. I convinced them to try the first ep of the original Macross. Winnett was caught up in Robotech nostalgia, and saladbats had much fun mocking everything. XD I joined in the latter, just a bit. I mean, we meet the four main ladies of the ship, and what are they talking about? Not the weather, not their favorite book, not who they voted for in the last election, nope. Can you guess the subject??? That's right! MEN!! Wheee! (Bechdel test results: FAIL.) I still like the series, even if it is rather dated. *laughs*

Then on Friday night, I went to my first ever solstice celebration. Burned a yule log and watched my worries go up in sweet-smelling smoke, and everything! It was terribly fun! It was a "Souper Solstice" party, as five huge pots of soup were the main course. I tried them all. The buffalo chili and tomato bisque were my faves. :9 I knew lots of people who were there, all from book club, including A-chan and knastymike again. Had a bit of an adventure finding the host's house, because they live in a hilly part of SW Portland between I-5 and the river, and I have discovered that Portland does not believe in frequent street signs. And the ones they DO believe in, you can't read. Particularly at night, and in the rain. :P But I found the place eventually, and even made it back home after only two turn-arounds. Heh!

All this socializing has me further behind on work than I'd like, but I have only two pink pages in Skip 31 left, at least! Things are about to rev up for my third BL oneshot with CE3, too. Busy busy busy!

Oh yes, and I am delighted to say that my own Yuletide gift fic was posted about an hour before the deadline on Thursday. YAY! :D OMG, I can't wait to read it!! There's a coding loophole that lets you "shake" your presents by investigating the tags for a story, but I'm not doing it. I want to be completely 100% surprised!!

And now, work calls. Be well, everyone!

Today started off pretty good. I took the day off running, since on Monday I increased the intensity (up to 2.5 minutes running to 1 of walking for the first half, then 2 minutes run to 1 walk for the 2nd, from 2 min run/1 walk for the entire 50 min) and I could feel it. I decided to do a little housework. Vacuumed, disassembled my bed, laundry, reassembled bed with more blankets--including the electric one, since last night I didn't sleep well because I couldn't stay warm. Cats make intermittent bed warmers. :P

Then I cooked breakfast while I finished reading the wonderful manga House of Five Leaves, by Natsume Ono. Guys, I was bawling at the end. It's that good. I'm going to make a list of my personal manga top ten best, and House5 is definitely going to be included. I even sent Clay Editor 2 a gushy fan letter, thanking her for her role in bringing the title to Viz, because I probably never would have read it if she hadn't needed me to pinch-hit those early two chapters. I'm so glad I could contribute to this wonderful manga! T.T I will try to make a dedicated post about it, and why I love it so much.

It's also on my wishlist of Yuletide fics, and I'm offering to write it for someone else. So far, I'm the only House5 requester, but someone else is willing to write it, too! *has sparkly eyes*

I'm now painting the South Park bros pic. Had several false starts with the background, but I think I got it. Started on the boys' skin tone, and Photoshop decided to be difficult. The brushes palette has always been buggy for me, and somehow my newly made brush ended up painting with both foreground and background colors together. I finally fixed it. I think. Ugh. Things were just not going well, so I threw in the towel and decided to relax for a couple hours before bed.

Tomorrow will be my second anime night with saladbats and winnett at winnett's place. The first one was fun, and definitely worth the hour and forty-five minutes I was stuck in rush-hour traffic to get there. *facepalm* I'm leaving later tomorrow, at the tail end of rush hour. Hopefully it won't take more than an hour this time. Winnett lives across the river in Washington, so public transportation isn't an efficient option.

Oh yeah, I went to a YA panel on Sunday, with my fave YA author Sarah Rees Brennan in attendance. It was fun, Sarah was awesome, and she gave me a hug and let me have my picture taken with her!! (I look so short!) I gotta post that so you guys can see. :D

TODAY IS A WONDERFUL DAY! BEHOLD MY CAPSLOCK OF JOY!!!

VIZ RESCUED THE LOVELESS MANGA! VOL 9 IS OUT TODAY! THE 2-IN-1 REPRINT OF EARLY VOLS STARTS NEXT MONTH! WITH COLOR PAGES AND NEW CONTENT!!! AND NO MORE CRAPPY TOKYOPOP SCANS!

MY FAVE YA AUTHOR, SARAH REES BRENNAN, IS COMING BACK TO PORTLAND, AT MY FAVE BOOKSTORE!!!!

AAAAGHHHHHH!!!! XD XD XD

*is goo*

It's clear I have a new fan-favorite of all my works at AO3: the HP fanart pic. 17 more hits and it will dethrone the current winner, which is my Yuletide fic from last Giftmas. The switch should happen by Tuesday. Heh!

My fandom sempai, Star-chan, and I have made a pact: we will work on our original stuff for a set time every day. Her an hour, and me 30 minutes--to start. You know, until I get in the habit. This means that, yes, I am plugging away once more at my original manga, starring Laurie and her demon.

The last time I worked on it, I was coloring the first page at an agonizingly slow pace. Like with a new manga title, the first few pages will be in color, then I'll switch to b&w. Now I'm back at it, with the HP fanart pic under my belt...it's like I'm a whole different person. Guys, I'm getting more done in half an hour than I did in three hours before the HP pic. My confidence as improved that much. WOW.

I am really amused at myself, because I left all these scrawled notes to myself on the pic about my uncertainty on what I was doing. And I never deleted or merged any layers, so Laurie's hair consists of 8 different layers. ^^;;; I want to go back in time when I was freaking out over the page, give myself a hug, and tell me to relax. I'll figure it out!

( Fannish and IRL stuff behind the cut! )

In work news, I'm plugging away at Clay 22. Doing at least one Pink page a day, to get as many out of the way as I can before Natsume 14 hits. Still no fourth regular title, but I remain ever hopeful! And if I'm lucky, it'll be a good one, too. ^^

ETA: I am incredibly behind on my flist, since I pretty much didn't get online outside of email for the past week and a half. I'm not even going to try to catch up with tumblr.

My cousin and her hubby's visit was incredibly fun. It felt like they just got here, then turned around and left! They were here for a week and a day. *happy sigh* We did all sorts of fun things! Saturday Market, Powell's, one of the Portland hills walks I've been wanting to do, Uwajimaya (twice!), Toshi's Japanese restaurant (twice!), and Voodoo Donuts (though all the homeless people who converge there for easy tourist pickings make it not much fun at all). They taught me how to play Cribbage (I'm not too bad at it...), I introduced R-chan to True Blood and MLP:FiM (Yay to the first, WTH is this? to the second), and the best part--shelves!! R-chan's husband, M-kun, helped his father build shelves just like I wanted, so they showed me the ropes. The wall next to my front door is now covered in 6 book shelves, that stretch all the way to the corner and around it to my patio door. And it's now chock-full of manga! *happy dance* I took "before" photos, and will take "after" ones once I get my prose and all my movies out of boxes and onto my older shelves, which we had to empty so we could rearrange.

I didn't do much work or art while they were here, and now I'm getting back in the habit. Skip 30 is well under control, and today I dive back into working on the Big Bang fanart pic. ^^V Clay 22 is due to arrive in a couple weeks!

One of the town houses in the neighborhood I've been admiring since I moved here is for sale. It's forced me to sit back and take a good look at my finances and future. It's not very hopeful, either. Drawback to being single: you have to pay for everything yourself. Nrgh.

And on that note, back to work for me!

July is going pretty good, so far. ^^V

( First, I received the most amazing review ever, for my beloved first fanfic. Click for fannish squees!! )

The Fourth of July is my favorite holiday, and this was the first 4th I've had since moving to OR when I didn't have a ton of work keeping me indoors. I decided I wanted to continue my family's tradition of imbibing copious amounts of ice cream on the holiday. And to justify it, I walked for 50 minutes to my fave self-serve frozen yogurt place, did the tradition justice, and then hiked all the way back. :D

At the last minute, I invited knastymike to join me, and he was free, and thus we chatted about fun things while giving ourselves brain freezes. I also tried not to be too obvious about oogling the guy behind the fro-yo counter, for he was a fine-looking young man who made me think naughty things. Oh my! *fans herself*

We swung by my fave bookstore, since it's in the same strip mall as the fro-yo place, and I found a copy of "Cactus Secret" 4 for only $3.50! I bought it, since I quite enjoyed vols 1 and 2. Some good retouch in that series. Props to the letterer! I also tried the first half of one of Viz's new shoujo series, "Jiu Jiu". I like the art, but the pacing and framing made the story difficult to follow. I must admit, it is difficult for me to concentrate on reading in a public place (particularly when I'm in a sports bra and tank top, thus showing a lot of skin [for me]. IOW: I was feeling rather self-conscious), so I'm sure that affected my reading comprehension. If you like shoujo, try the series yourself. I'm going to give it another read when I can focus more. I did have a couple of funny moments while reading when I turned the page and had to check for no nearby kids or over-protective parents. Nothing technically naughty, but there was an awful lot of mixed-company skin showing on the page! XD

Today I went for a good run, and even with my water bottle along, I was HOT when I finished. I decided I was going to use my apartment complex's pool for the first time this year, regardless of how many kids or obnoxious teenagers or anyone else who might already be in it. Lucky for me, the pool was empty anyway. ^^ I took along my fave black river-rock diving stone and splashed in cool, wet goodness for 10 minutes. It was great. *happy sigh* I love swimming! I wanna go to the beach this summer!

I'm continuing my reading of the amazing manga "Hikaru no Go", which is just as good as I remember. This time, I'll be able to finish the entire series!! Some of you might recall my previous post on this manga, the last time I read all the volumes I had. Here's the post. Be warned, I was overwhelmed when I wrote it!

Speaking of which, when I sat down to do some artwork this afternoon, what do I find waiting for me but script for the first chapter of Skip 30! And the raw pages from Japan on the server! WOOT! XD

To review: I received an amazing review on my beloved fanfic! My current fic is going well and being so much fun to write! I had delicious frozen yogurt! I swam! I'm reading one of my fave manga titles, and it's still completely amazing! I have Skip again! YAY!!! *dances through a field of flowers, just like Hagu in her icon*

Now, back to work for me. *dopey grin*

I lost two days of my life this weekend to an incredible HP fic epic...and to the heat. I've officially lived in the Pacific NW long enough to have lost my tolerance for hot humid days. Wheee! Anyway, that fic was amazing and I loved every minute of the entire 330,000 word experience, and I regret nothing! My only disappointment is that the fic never became Harry/Draco, but danced alll around it. Harry with long hair...and Draco tending it!! Pardon me while I swoon. *swoons* I am such a sucker for pretty men with pretty long hair!! X3 I must save the fic and its sequel to my hard drive so they WILL BE MINE FOREVER and eternally hope that the author decides to write more and tackle her fanon's version of Voldie's defeat...and maybe give me more litle tidbits of allllmost Drarry to flail over. *gazes up beseechingly at the fic gods* PLEEEZE!!!

If anyone is interested in experiencing the fic for themselves, be my guest: Blood Magic by GatewayGirl. *paws at her screen* I WANT MOAAAARRRRR...

Ahem. Yes, that fic and the all-too-short sequel (which at 26,00 words is still longer than my own longest fic) are both shoo-ins for my recs page. :D

Last Wednesday I headed across the river to hang out for several hours with fellow HP fans, though amusingly enough we barely talked about HP. ^^ I had tons of fun with saladbats, snottygirl, winnett, and met a new friend in katelinmr. I also had whiskey in my coffee, and pear juice with brandy! Both were very tasty. Would drink again! :9

Before the HP fangirl meetup, I tried to stalk the Goose Hollow Portland neighborhood with my digital camera, for background reference picture taking. Only my already low batteries finally died, and ALL THREE of my extra batteries died, too! O.o WTH? I've decided there must have been a ghost that sucked the juice dry. I think I took about 10 pics before the battery crisis. I'll have to buy a new package of AAs and give it a try again. :P

( Non-fandom stuff: an upcoming trip, exercising, and some new art I'm making. )

Tired and woozy slr2moons is also kinda prone to rambling in her LJ posts. Hmm. I'd better sign off now. Quit while I'm ahead!

I've been quite sociable the past two weeks! (Shocking, right?) Saturday the 19th I helped knastymike with the heavy lifting part of his move into a new apartment. It wasn't that bad...except the leather recliner. That thing was SO HEAVY OMG. >< I was sore for two days! Small price to pay for good company, though. And Mike boughtinkytwist (who tackled packing and unpacking the kitchen...YEEK!) and me food at Old Chicago Pizza (OM NOM NOM), and frozen yogurt after we saw the Avengers.

Speaking of which, fun film! Even with me not knowing much Avengers canon at all. :B I do know enough to want a Loki movie, where he can be badass and awesome and crack that smile and wear more tuxedos. :3

The next day, I drove down to Salem to meet up with one of my Sci-Fi book club buds, Acacia, and we went to see Battleship. It was fun! I liked it more than Avengers, too. *dodges tomatoes* It's true! Even if they killed off the actor we went to see the film for. :P~~~ At least he took his shirt off at one point. ^///^ And yes, he also appeared on-screen in uniform, which is what we bought our tickets for in the first place. This was Alexander Skaarsgard, BTW. Best-known as Eric Northman, sexy Viking vampire in True Blood. Rowr! We ate at an El Salvadorian place. It was very tasty. :9

After that, I scrambled like mad to finish Naruto 59 and Skip 29 on time, which I did manage. ^^ Skip is now completely in the can, still awaiting corrections on Naruto. Clay 21 is almost done, I'm waiting for either more corrections or the go-ahead to upload. Now I'm powering along with Natsume 13! And this volume is making my BL-loving heart just pitter-pat. *giggles like she's 14*

Then this weekend, I lost my beloved pocketknife on Friday morning, during my usual run. I didn't notice it was gone until I was emptying my pockets after finishing, and the knife wasn't there. I immediately retraced my entire 3.5 mile loop, and no knife. T.T As much foot traffic as this area has, it could have been on the ground as short as 20 seconds before someone scooped it up.

I've had that knife since 1998, when my Dad gave it to me before I headed off to art school. *cries* I keep telling myself it's just an object, and if someone decides to commit murder with it, that they'll wipe my fingerprints off it, too. >< My mom says Dad will have fun shopping for a replacement for me. This gives me something to anticipate, at least. I feel naked when I go outside without my knife. I alllways carried that knife with me everywhere. *sniffle*

On Friday evening, knastymike and inkytwist sent me an impromptu invite to Mongolian grill, after they finished cleaning up knastymike's old apartment. I'd just eaten dinner, so I had ice cream while they had real food. Good company and conversation!

And on Monday, it was saladbats' birthday! I headed out to a Doctor Who-themed room inside a fish-and-chips place in the NE of Portland. Only took me 15 minutes to drive! I could have ridden the Max, but by the time I realized how simple it would have been, it was already too late to make it that way. :P No matter, driving was fun! I made a new friend,winnett, sawsnottygirl again, and hope to hang out with all of them more, soon! We are all writers or appreciators of same, and the whole lot of us are complete geeks. FUN! XD Even if all the Doctor Who themed stuff was wasted on me. *makes flyby noise*

Oho, and I ordered a Scottish soda. "Irn Bru". Tastes like bubblegum. I liked it, though I couldn't drink it every day. Far too sweet!

One of the webcomics I enjoy every week, Candi, is asking for guest strips. I'm going for it! OMG SO EXCITING!! XD I'm going to try to finish it before the 1st. KYAAA!! It will be my first guest webcomic strip, the first of many I hope! :D

And finally, I have a dreamwidth account. Not sure how much I'll use it, but it's there if I need it! I'm slr2moons there too, of course. ^^