Once again, I'm trying Nanowrimo. (see www.nanowrimo.org) I'm going for 50000 words, but I don't guarantee that all of those words will be part of the same story arc. We shall see. My arthritic spine and four herniated disks are already feeling the effects of the colder weather, ( Read more... )

I thought I may have dreamed hearing that the British government has categorically denied that British troops in Iraq released man-eating badgers into the area around Basra - it was just too weird. I mean, Badger is a character from The Wind in the Willows - a kind of cute, rotund creature who carries a walking stick and wears a tiny pair of spectacles perched on the end of his snout. I've seen footage on TV of Brits who let the badgers come into their family room to eat - I forget what they were feeding the badgers, but it wasn't even meat. Upon further reading, it turns out that there are badgers indigenous to Iraq, and while they might be nastier than their UK cousins, they don't really eat humans. The scientific theory is that environmental conditions made these Iraqi badgers move closer to where people live. I'm not sure who started the rumor that the British troops were putting these badgers in town to cause havoc. Anyway, I had to mention whole badger-thing to chainedinbeadsand here's what she said: "I'm seeing these two sets of badgers, one in desert clothing and the other in a tweed suit with a bowler hat." LOL - exactly what I was thinking.

chainedinbeads and I have been dealing with real life for many months. Unfortunataly AI (animalinstincts) has suffered for it. We are once again working on this story and will be posting on a somewhat regular schedule.

There will be a difference with posting however. We have decided that we are not going to be doing the posting in chronological order. This is due to the fact that we are using AI as a rough draft for the final story. I will try
to post a who's who and a timeline at some point in the not to distant future so that things will be less complicated. We will also put authors' notes in to explain who the characters are.

The other difference is that nothing is written in stone. If we need to change something - anything from a character's age to a major plot point - we will do it. We will note it so that the confusion is kept to a minimum.

Thank you all for being so patient with us.

Others have expressed more eloquently than I ever could their disappointment in the "result" of the Nov. 2 election. Suffice it to say that I don't share the "moral values" of those who see nothing wrong with 1) killing innocent people who are already living, breathing human beings, 2) denying the state recognition of love and family status to same-sex couples while avidly watching TV "reality" shows like "Married by America", 3) allowing contamination of our water and air by government-subsidized corporations and selling off or leasing public and protected lands to mining, logging, gas and oil companies as payback for campaign contributions. The list goes on.

I also believe that voting and election fraud has gone much further than most people guess. How can we have an honest election when the CEO of Diebold (the company that makes many of the machines and optical scanning equipment for voting) promised a win for Bush?

If you believe that our current voting machines and processes allow for way too much fraud and manipulation, check out this website and see what you can do:

www.blackboxvoting.org

Thanks.

Here's a story that just sort of popped out as the result of a chat with Ravyn - between two of our boys who never quite cooperate or do anything that we expect. Victor is one of Bell's cousins, another of the pantera boys, and Bat is Ravyn's boy, who is a fallen angel. And because Ravyn never got a story for Cindy's Ficathon, this is for her - along with the other one that I was really writing as her Ficathon story. It's taken me forever - sorry.



From his six-year-old height, Victor looked up and up at the tall man with the black wings and long, black hair. His first thought was that the man was prettier than his mother. His second thought was that this must be an angel, even though everyone said angels had white wings. Because nothing else with wings could possibly be so beautiful. And nothing besides an angel or your parents would ever look at you with so much love in their eyes.

"I'm lost," Victor told the man. ( more of the kitty and his birdie )

Happy Birthday to chainedinbeads

*hugs and smooches* I hope you have a good day, sweetie.

You can never have enough beads - I came to this conclusion years ago. Years before it was "popular". I really wish I'd had the money to open a bead store years ago, so that now I could ride the wave of popularity that bead shops are enjoying now. It seems like bead shops are popping up all over - 3 in my area, which didn't have any before.

When I had cancer and stopped working 3 years ago, writing and beading kept me going. There's something zen about beads and beadwork - ravyns_lair and I have discussed this, and decided that the repetitive nature of bead weaving kind of gets you into that zone where you're totally focused in the moment. It helps take your mind away from pain - which is something I desperately need to do - and it's satisfying when you're finished a piece and can sit back and admire it. I'm into tangible accomplishments these days - as opposed to the extremely vague and mostly pointless "accomplishments" of the business world.

There's also something about the feel of beads - the textures are mesmerizing, the way they roll under your fingers. OK, so you think I may be nuts - but if so, I have company! Besides ravyns_lair, of course, who is now totally addicted to beading. *g* My massage therapist is going to be heading up a program for cancer and dialysis patients at one of our local hospitals' Wellness Center - which is what they call anything that might smack of alternative medicine. And she's asked me to teach beading and run a sort of "beading circle" so that patients undergoing dialysis or chemo have something creative they can do - something to take their minds off the pain and stress of treatment. She thought I'd be perfect for it, since I'm a two-time kidney cancer survivor - so I can relate to the cancer as well as to the kidney problems. I'm not sure when this program is starting, but I'll be ready! I think more hospitals should have programs like this one - programs that acknowledge and try to deal with the patients' mental wellbeing in the face of life-threatening diseases. I'm glad I had my beads and my writing to turn to during the year and a half that I was basically house-bound.

Besides the bead-weaving projects, I also work on bead stringing and wire-wrapping - lately I've been very into vintage Swarovski crystal beads, which are mega-sparkly - and eventually my hubby and I are going to have a lampwork studio in our basement. Making glass beads in front of a propane torch, watching the flame make the glass flow and trying to control the shape and the colors - it's addictive. I started collecting lampwork beads three years ago, and the prospect of actually making beautiful glass beads is just thrilling.

Beads make me happy!

Once I get my website up, I'll post a link with pictures.

Wheeeeeeeeee! Hubby and I drove up here yesterday (in the snow) to visit Ravyn, and we got to meet Ravyn's roomie and all their babies: Spike, Dru, Pebbles, Bell, Fen, Ducky and the new kittens! The kittens are so adorable!!!! I'm going to have a very hard time keeping only two of them. This afternoon we drove onto the Cape and went to the Dunbar Tea Shoppe. It was very civilized, and quite tasty. (Please - no jokes about clotted cream). It was a cozy atmosphere, with dark wood furniture and a fireplace - and it was snowing outside...I could spend every winter afternoon in a tea shop.

Funny incident: Ravyn chose Courtship Tea (a tea flavored with ginger) - and her roomie thought she said "Corn Chip Tea". Hee! That would taste interesting!

Then we drove to Provincetown. Apparently not many of the shops are open off-season, but we managed to find a gay bookstore that was open, and we bought some interesting stuff. More on that later...

I've been working at the bead shop for a little over a month now, and I still love it. One of the interesting and fun things we do is hold beading birthday parties for children. ( Cut for my observations of creativity in children )

On a lighter note, take a look at the new icons ravyns_lair made for Bell!

Oh, and I'm still thinking of names for two black kittens....

Well, a new boy showed up - popped into my brain in all his grinning glory. His name is Flick. He's short, he's cute, he kisses other boys in the woods - and he says he's a leprechaun. Like I need a leprechaun with all these panteras and elves and weres and such running around in my head! OK! He's making a correction - he says he only kisses one boy in the woods, whose name is Dorian (Dori). But he's still a leprechaun.

( Dori is 16 )

*bounce*! I have some cool new icons! ( Icon warnings and acknowledgements )

Check out pussface for Chase Walters' lj - Chase is a distant cousin of Bell's. Today he's telling the story of how he was told he was a pantera. Oh and Chase has a boyfriend, Taryhn, who can be found at pixie_boi. Taryhn is one of ravyns_lair's boys. So far, they're good boys. *g*

So, it's now 2004, and I haven't been around for quite a while - for some good reasons and some not-so-good reasons. I'll start with the bad things and end with the good things:( Cut for list of bad and good things )


Anyway, Happy New Year to all of you! I hope all of us are successful in our creative endeavors! *Hugs to all*

I took this from ravyns_lair

Many of these characters haven't appeared yet, but if Ravyn and I can get animalinstincts off the ground, you'll get to see quite a few of them. And yes, I will eventually get Inlay finished. I decided that Bell and Vance deserved more than I could give them in one Nano month, half of which time I was incapacitated and on heavy duty pain meds. I couldn't have done them justice in November. Sorry if I disappointed anyone. Anyway on to the Muse Meme!( Click here to catch a glimpse of my nutty muses )

Well, I'm off to a slow start, thanks to my 16th anniversary (lovely romantic dinner and demanding hubby), followed by a bad back day and a migraine. But I will catch up!

Now for the important stuff, particularly for any newcomers who might be confused jumping into the middle of Inlay - the Index, up till this point:

Inlay: Part 1
Inlay: Part 2
Inlay: Bell'sPOV:First Meeting
Inlay: Part 3
Inlay: Part 4
Inlay: Part 5
Inlay: Part 6
Inlay: Part 7
Inlay: Part 8
Inlay: Part 9.1
Inlay: Home in a Lover's Heart
Inlay: Part 9.2

Next post will be Part 10!

Vance's Journal: October 14, 2001

The first thing that came to mind when I woke was a line from a gay advice column that I'd read: "If you ever find a man who can make you come without touching your prick, keep him!" I chuckled to myself. If there was any way to keep Bell, I was determined to do it. No one had ever made me feel the way Bell did.

( A little love, a little angst )

1000 words

I learned early on not to try to feed Bell vegetarian meals. I'd known him for about three weeks when I made eggplant parmesan for dinner one night. He tried his best to conceal his expression of abject horror when I told him what I was making, but I saw it. You would have thought I'd told him I was making monkey brains for dinner or something - like that scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.( Ick - eggplant! )

Remember the other day when I told all you nice people to friend this lj and animalinstincts because they're going friends only?

Well, I was wrong. What you need to do to see the friends only posts - of which there is a test one - is to actually 'join' the AI community.

So if you join it and do not see the friends only post - leave a comment on this entry and ravyns_lair and I will figure out what we did wrong.

Thanks to everyone for being patient with us and for wanting to read about our boys! And welcome to new friends sleepfighter, gzl, daennea, eidolon_bird hakuyama, tygerseye, and last, but certainly not least, sky_dark! I hope you'll all have fun here in the upcoming month, since I've decided to work on the Inlay story as an unofficial Nano - so 50,000 words should be coming up in November.

Here I am at a hotel near the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire, with the lovely Ravyn (ravyns_lair. We've had a great time at the Faire - and we found The Bead Lady there today! Yes, I spent too much money on beads, but I have some beautiful ones now (from the Beadfest on Friday and from the Bead Lady today). So I'll be making some jewelry to sell soon.

But, what everyone will be more interested in is the plan for Inlay (here on my LJ) and AnimalInstincts (animalinstincts. Some things are going to change - nothing major, just a few things to make the timelines mesh a bit better. But, if you're reading either journal and haven't friended them yet, you might want to do it now, cause both journals are going to be locked down to friends only. Ravyn and I are going to be pulling down the posts from AI, until they reappear in their revised form, and any future Vance and Bell posts will also be locked to friends only. So please, friend the journals now so you can continue to read about the pantera boys.

More about our weekend later! Lots of yummy pretty boys, and clothing that my boy, Dal, would wear...along with the irridescent fairy wings.