a long-ish post about very little

Happy Fourth of July!

So, I haven't posted in awhile. I would apologize, except there has been absolutely nothing of interest about which to post. There still isn't, really, but sometimes I get this nagging fear that if I don't post anything for a long enough period of time, I'll simply cease to exist. Okay, not really.

_{(Sort of.)}

Anyway, here we are. The reasons for my lack of online activity lately are many and varied—well, that's a lie. There are three basic reasons: I've either been at Dad's and unable to find a wireless signal (sometimes true), or I've been sleeping (often true), or I've been working (virtually always true, seems like). 'Cause I've been working rather a lot. And by "a lot" I mean I've been scheduled an average of 38 hours per week, and actually working between 40 and 42. And of course, this isn't counting my second job of the summer, which I just started this week: custodian of Seminary church (the one Mom goes to) in Roanoke. They needed somebody, and I was there, and voila! Another four hours of my life sold weekly to The Man.

Of course, it's nice that I'm working a lot, because it means I'm getting paid for a significant portion of my time that would otherwise be spent not making money in some form or another, but it also means that I'm tired a lot more, and when I'm not working, I'm quite often sleeping. This means that time I would otherwise be spending in at least a semi-productive manner ends up slept away, and thus I have written nothing (I had so many ideas at the end of last term!), read nothing (my list of must-reads grows steadily longer), and just generally done very little that makes my life feel worthwhile.

That's not to say I haven't done anything, of course. They've just been mostly little things. For example, in mid-June, I made two rhubarb pies, which were delicious. I also did a lot of online shopping, intending to purchase a Game Cube, but I ended up deciding to wait and ask for one for Christmas instead, because a) I am cheap, and b) my brother has one here and I will be abroad fall term, so I wouldn't have much call for one of my own until January anyway.

More recently, I have re-discovered The Shoebox Project, which, in case you didn't know, is basically the end-all be-all of Harry Potter fanfiction.* Seriously. I mean, I don't really get much into fanfics—I had a brief, mild obsession with fanfiction.net when the first LotR movie came out, but that, like my flirtation with MSN chat and my ninth grade crush, eventually faded. However, a friend sent me the link to this one and insisted I read it, so despite my misgivings (which were many—there's a lot of baaaaad fanfiction out there), I skimmed through part one, and then I had to go back and read it again, and then part two, and on and on and...it's so amazing. But anyway, the other day, I happened to go check it out again, and there was a post up from May that I hadn't seen, so I had to read that, and then I went back and reread some old parts, and and then of course I had to go reread HP 7, and part of 6, and now everything in the world reminds me of HP, or Shoebox, or both. Yes, I'm a dork, we've been over this, I know.

I must say though, going back, I was a little disappointed with the actual books after reading the fanfic. I mean, don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed them immensely, and I still bawled like a baby at that one part in book seven (gets me every time!), but after taking Fiction Workshop last year and looking so closely at what makes good writing *good*, it struck me how very mediocre J.K.'s is at times. I mean, I like the stories—the plots and action are excellent, and the characters are for the most part good—but word choice, J.K., word choice! (Though it was nothing near as bad as Eragon—I picked that up on a number of friends' recommendations and couldn't even finish it, and that was my senior year of high school!)

Shoebox, however, seems to suffer much less from this sort of problem; granted, it's a piece of fanfiction posted on the internet, so there are the occasional errors and things that a good editor would otherwise catch, but it is so SO excellent in terms of character and sheer wit that I simply cannot compare it to the original books. It is co-authored by two girls, one of whom has just recently had an actual original book published (co-authored with somebody else), which I really really want to find and read now, because it sounds rather fabulous.

Anyway, I really have very little else to say just now, so I think I'll go to bed. Bed sounds nice. (Bed always sounds nice lately.) Cheerio, darlings.

_{*It's a slash fic (Remus/Sirius), just FYI for any snitty canon-worshiping link-clickers out there. Wouldn't want to offend anyone's delicate sensibilities by letting them get all caught up in such a wonderful story only to have it go someplace they don't want it to (but seriously, after reading the first half-dozen or so parts, who wouldn't want it to?).}