quite a lot of trouble for such a pretty little girl

THINGS WE SHOULD FOCUS ON INSTEAD OF MY APPARENT INABILITY TO UPDATE MY LIVEJOURNAL: OOH, COLIN MORGAN. OOOOOOH. I've told you guys about my deep and abiding obsession I have with Colin's profile, right, and how I believe that it is the most perfect profile in the universe, from which all perfect profiles are thus derived? In case I haven't, those are my feelings. OOH COLIN MORGAN. I WOULD FEEL SWOONY AND FAINT AROUND YOU, BUT THAT WOULD MAKE YOU DEEPLY UNCOMFORTABLE.

Guys, I wish I had, like, a legitimate and good reason why I can't seem to post a lot lately. I wish I had a secret project or was a secret government agent. I wish I had gotten a new puppy/unicorn/whatever. The truth is I've been busy with really boring stuff. Like yesterday I had a meeting in Harvard Square in the morning and then I napped the afternoon away because I'm not used to having to be conscious in the morning. The day before that, I was busy shoveling two feet of snow. And then there have been a bunch of days where it's like wrote an article! Spent all day making phone calls! I've been posting on tumblr a lot because you don't really have to say anything on tumblr and it's v. v. convenient. Tumblr is also a place where it is not only socially acceptable but encouraged to blather for roughly one paragraph about eighteen times a day and no one is like kasjflkjdsfl STOP SPAMMING ME. So here are some things that, were it socially acceptable on Livejournal to spam you with four-sentence updates, I would have one so, as illustrated by .gifs:

( LONG WORDY LIST GOES HERE. )

Urgh, the first week back to real life after the holidays, why must you suck so hard and be so boring? I keep meaning to update, I do, but by time I'm finished with my to-do list for the day it's late and I'm tired and I'm like "aw, fuck it". It's been a long week of cleaning this and moving that there and calling that doctor and re-scheduling that appointment and trying to sign up for this class only to realize that's the one night I can't go so attempting to get permission to take this other class blah blah telephone calls blah blah blah. There's no way even I, the master of making ordinary shit sound fake-exciting, can make that fake-exciting.

The most exciting stuff to happen to me are the four following things:

ONE - I have been having cracktacular fandom mashup dreams. I don't remember most of them, I just remember that they were fandom-y. But the one I do remember was last night's, which started with me and JGL somewhere where he was explaining what the shit his now second-to-last tweet meant. (He wrote "THE TREE OF LIFE", allcaps included, which I spent a bunch of time puzzling over. Did he see a trailer and therefore was excited for the upcoming film? Did he get drunk on Manaschevitz and have a reunion with old Hebrew School buddies and they were drunkenly singing that horrible song that's been stuck in my head ever since? (IT IS A TREE OF LIFE TO THEM THAT HOLD FAST TO IT AND ALL OF ITS SUPPORTERS ARE [clap] HAP-PY! Sing with me, fellow Jews. I can't have gone to the only Hebrew School on the planet that inflicted that monstrosity upon their students.) Was he just drunk and putting together random words because he could? I wish I could remember my dream, because I just have so many questions, real!Joe.)

Then somehow I was in this game with BBC!John and Sherlock, and it was like an escape the room game (been playing WAY too many of those) but had the same rules as the dreams in Inception. But we couldn't kill ourselves because it would compromise the investigation. Only I kept ruining that by accident and Sherlock was mad and eventually somehow this brought John and Sherlock together enough to admit their feelings and make out a lot. Which was cute for a few seconds, but then got awkward, so I went to walk around, only to find Ryan Murphy had left me a spray-painted graffiti note saying he'd come across my writing on the internet, loved it, and wanted me to move out to LA and start writing Glee with him. And then I woke up, and Dearest by Buddy Holly was stuck in my head.

Qu'est-ce que le quoi?

There are two types of dreams, in my experience, the ones where your subconscious tells you something meaningful and the ones where it's just throwing all the leftover shit together for the day and hoping you just roll with it. This week I am clearly taking a hefty sample of column B.

TWO - So, Merlin fandom, this is coming out in March:

If I don't see every variety and pairing of Sim getting it on and Sim babies, I'm gonna be disappointed in you, is all I'm saying.

THREE - Two nights ago I stayed up until 5 AM attempting to explain American politics to alexi_lupin and mcgooglykins, which, as always, just boils down to me explaining the whole American dream/bootstraps phenomenon. And when I explain that, I have never met a non-American who didn't go that is the stupidest fucking thing I have ever heard. Because it is. And it sort of made me like, aw, America, why are you such a shitty country? Why do I still love you more than anything?

But then I was browsing the Best of Wikipedia archives to see if I came across anything cool, and I found the perfect example of why America is my favorite. It's because we have a Supreme Court case dedicated entirely to arguing if tomatoes legally count as a fruit or vegetable.

Is there any other country in the universe that would be that wholly ridiculous? No! (Well, by common law in Europe, apparently a carrot is considered a fruit? I am unclear on why, but wikipedia tells me it is for "jam classification purposes". Which is kind of a delightful explanation.) Only in America would we fight the Supreme Court for the right to declare tomatoes a vegetable because that's how they're used, and besides, it would get us out of that pesky tariff.

OH CRAZY COUNTRY OF MINE, NEVER STOP BEING ADORABLE.

FOUR - for no reason I can discern, my bosses bought and sent me S2 of Merlin. Was it for my birthday? An addition to my Christmas bonus? They neither said when I asked nor left a note/return address with a name in it, which worried me because I forgot what town they live in an was like OH MY GOD WHO IS THIS THAT KNOWS WHERE I LIVE, IS THIS DVD TRAPPED?!?!? Thank Jesus for reverse address check-up, or I'd have been full-on Admiral Ackbar-ing it for way, way longer. Also, thank God for the best bosses ever. Seriously, the entire disc set? AW YOU GUYS. THIS MAKES UP FOR MY LACK OF SALARY.

So yeah, homes. Crazy week! Because that's how I roll.

saldfjdslkfj hello, hi, I am not dead, hi.

So most of you know why I have been conspicuously absent all week and if you don't, you can ask, uh, anyone else, and they will tell you. I'm not going into it because it's my work and I try to keep work and play as separate as I can (which is like, 95% impossible when my work is play), so yeah, thank you to everyone who's been respecting that, you are all magnificent and I love you.

But omg, completely unsympathetic complaint (well, not complaint so much as... venting?) time, I am so fucking tired. Like, I don't think I even realized how tired I was until I got home from my checkup and went to my e-mail and re-read one of my recent posts for work and was like "oh, fucknuggets, I sound so bitchy". I mean, in my defense, everyone gets bitchy sometimes, especially when they're tired, and I was doing like five things at once while I was typing that up, and I often forget that sarcasm cannot be read over the internet, but I only forget that when I'm really tired. And by tired I mean, I have been too adrenaline-crazy between work/my final yesterday which I vastly over-studied for/attempting to get Christmas presents out to sleep more than four or five hours a night. (Note: if I promised you something for Christmas, expect it for New Year's. If I promised you something and you are not American, expect it in time for Valentine's Day.) And thank God Bones is over for the year because I have like a week's worth of dishes I've been too busy to do sitting in the kitchen, plus I have to put in a laundry and vacuum the living room. Tonight. So for obvious reasons, I'm sort of eschewing the whole finale review/picspam thing for some later date when I am bored and Merlin fandom is quiet, and then I will be all SURPRISE! NINJA ATTACK OF MERLIN! And everyone will be all HOORAH HOORAH and we will celebrate jubilantly.

But tomorrow is my birthday, and you know what I'm giving myself for my birthday? A day of doing absolutely nothing. (Well, I will probably be finishing Christmas cards, and doing silly stuff like updating my fanvid wishlist because I have about five more ideas and one actually got made (!!!), but that's a fun sort of chore.) I will be lolling around the internet basking in the warm fuzzy glow cast by the re-ignition of the fandom squee machine, and then at night I am having what I consider to be The Formula For The Best Night Ever. And by that, I mean it will be me, my sister, my BFF, and my dog marathoning 30 Rock while eating Chinese food, and then the dog will sleep over curled up against my tummy. Because clearly, I am a hardcore party animal like that. You know what else I'm giving myself for my birthday? A GIANT NAP. WHICH IS REALLY THE ONLY THING LEFT THAT I WANT FROM THE UNIVERSE. Well, at least on my realistic wishlist, because I don't think that, say, I will grow three inches overnight, or Joseph Gordon-Levitt is going to ring the doorbell tomorrow and ask me out with a sidebar of marrying him.

UNTIL THEN! PLEASE SQUEE AT ME. ACCEPTABLE TOPICS OF DISCUSSION INCLUDE BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO:

- SCOTT CAAN AND THAT PICTURE OF HIM EATING A TRIPLE ORGASM CAKE TO CELEBRATE HIS GOLDEN GLOBE NOM BECAUSE OMG WTF ADORABLE
- THE PETITION THAT SOMEONE NEEDS TO START TO MAKE SCOTT CAAN BE SHIRTLESS BECAUSE REALLY NOW
- THIS MUSIC VIDEO WHICH I HAVE WATCHED LIKE EIGHT BILLION TIMES AND THE FIRST TIME I SAW IT I WAS SO HAPPY I NEARLY THREW UP FROM SMILING TOO HARD
- ALEX O'LOUGHLIN IS RIDICULOUS AND ADORABLE UNTIL HE SPEAKS WITH AN AUSTRALIAN ACCENT, AT WHICH POINT SUDDENLY HE IS IRRESISTIBLY ATTRACTIVE AND I WANT TO HUG HIM UNTIL HIS EYES POP OUT LIKE ONE OF THOSE STRESS DOLLS
- BASICALLY ANYTHING RELATING TO HAWAII 5-0 BECAUSE OMG THAT SHOW IS LIKE A LITTLE OASIS OF GAY IN A BIG OLD HETEROSEXUAL DESERT
- FUZZY PUPPIES/KITTENS/GERBILS/COLIN MORGAN'S HAIR
- MY NEWEST THEORY ON COLIN MORGAN AS DISCUSSED WITH copperiisulfate: HE IS ACTUALLY ONE OF SANTA'S ELVES, BUT HE GOT KICKED OUT OF THE NORTH POLE BECAUSE HE WAS CAUSING ALL THE OTHER ELVES TO HAVE SEXUALITY CRISES AND IT WAS SLOWING DOWN PRODUCTIVITY
- THE WAY COLIN MORGAN SAYS WORDS
- THE FACT THAT BRADLEY JAMES TOTALLY UNSECRETLY READS LIVEJOURNAL BECAUSE AHAHAHAH, BRADLEY JAMES, YOU ARE SO RIDICULOUS I CAN'T EVEN BELIEVE YOU EXIST
- THIS EXISTS AND IS TRUE.
- YOU KNOW WHAT'S REALLY DELICIOUS? CAKE IS REALLY DELICIOUS
- SO ARE CUPCAKES
- OR PIE
- I LOVE BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH'S FACE AND I FEEL WE DON'T DISCUSS THIS ENOUGH, BUT IT IS SO LOVELY SOMETIMES I WANT TO CREATE CHARTS DISCUSSING, LIKE, HOW HIS EYES ARE MAGNIFICENT
- I'M ON A BOAT. (DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO!)

Do you ever get in one of those moods where you wake up and you're all GRR ARG DO ALL THE THINGS and then you do, except your brain is still hopping on crazy adrenaline like WHAT ELSE WHAT ELSE WHAT ELSE?!?! WE NEED TO DO ALL THE THINGS!!!! Because that is my brain today, and by god, its annoying. Like, chill, self, I responded to three e-mails, renewed my prescription, made two doctor's appointments, helped my mom clean the bathroom, and posted an article for work. All I need to do is watch Modern Family and Cougar Town (not exactly strenuous) and do the dishes.

Welcome to my brain. 95% of the time it's a lazy bastard, but that 5% of the time where it's not, it's a total bitch.

In more exciting news, I'm writing again! As in, fic, and not for work! Hooray! Though it will probably disappoint most of you to know that it's Hawaii 5-0 fic. Look, I'm sorry, dudes, but I haven't been able to write since Big Bang. Like, I think my brain was suffering from writing PTSD. Because LJ entries and blog posts were totally fine, but the second I opened a google doc or any form of word processor, my brain would shut down completely. And so then I thought, maybe I am burnt out on the fic for this fandom, if not the squee. So after regular Merlin I tried Merlin RPS. Nothing. Inception/Merlin crossover AU? Nothing. Inception? Nothing. Sherlock? Nothing. So at this point, I'd be excited to write fucking Smurf fanfiction, I don't even give a fuck. Also, these are the guys I'm writing about:

Okay, that is not fan-made video, that is official promotional material. I'm pretty sure when life hands you that kind of gay on a silver platter it is your prerogative - nay, your duty - to write crazy fanfiction all up in this bitch. Right now I'm not sure of the quality of my writing - it feels sort of chopped-up and lumpy. It's a lot of really great dialogue with not a lot of anything else. As in, like, descriptors. Or an actual plot. But the dialogue is so super snappy, you guys.

Also, I'm fighting really hard with myself to not name this story "How Danny Williams Got Lei'd" because 1. that's the most horrible, overused pun in the history of time and 2. That's totally not what the story is even about, but how has no one in the Hawaii 5-0 fandom used that joke yet? I'm not sure who I'm more ashamed of, myself, or everyone else.

ANYWAY, I'm boring, you don't care, here are three links for you to peruse:

ONE!
I'm normally not that much of a fan of Hyperbole and a Half. Like, it's fun, but I don't see the big deal - maybe because it was so over-hyped to me. But I still follow it because, well, fun. ANYWAY, pretty much all of her entries are meh and cute, but yesterday she wrote an entry about how her dogs reacted to her moving that almost made me pee my pants laughing so hard. Like, I was crying. Seriously. I was reading this entry last night while my parents and sister were having a Serious and Upsetting Grown-Up Conversation (About Serious and Upsetting Things) in the kitchen, and I was half-listening because I wanted to know what was going on but didn't want to actually get involved. And I knew I couldn't laugh to hard out loud because, well, the mood of the house was very solemn, but OH MY GOD THIS ARTICLE. So I ended up sitting there making these choking sobby noises, and eventually my mom was like "...Julia, are you okay? Are you.... crying?!?!" and I was like "NO!" except I sort of sounded like I was crying because I couldn't really speak. Also, I Was crying, it was just from laughter.

I don't know what it is about when she writes about her dogs, but I want her to write about them ALL THE TIME because when she wrote about the canine intelligence test? Also completely lost it. I'm not sure why I find this so funny. Maybe it has to do with having worked in a dog daycare so I can look at that ridiculous behavior and go "OH MY GOD IT'S SO TRUE AHAHHHAHAHAH DOGS". WHAT RIDICULOUS ANIMALS.

TWO!
Not for the faint of heart, but there are new stills of Colin in Parked and OH MY GOD, COLIN MORGAN. YOU ARE SO STUPIDLY BEAUTIFUL AND HEARTBREAKING. HOW DO YOU MAKE ME CRY IN THE AWESOMEST POSSIBLE WAY?!!?!?

THREE!
Because I think Bradley James secretly has a psychic connection to my brain, this is the (very late) quest:

HE AND COLIN DISCUSS THEIR BODIES. BY WHICH HE MEANS, SWAPPING THEM. AS IN, HE AND COLIN WRITE BODYSWAP FIC IN THEIR SPARE TIME. AHAHAHAHAHA WHO ARE YOU BOYS, SERIOUSLY. ALSO, SOMEONE PLEASE PUT BRADLEY JAMES ON THE WRITING TEAM OF MERLIN, STAT. HE CLEARLY HAS THE BEST IDEAS.

EDIT: OH GREAT FRIENDSLIST, does anyone know how to code? I want to change my LJ layout very slightly - tweak it so it has a background image, widen the area the entries are in, change the colors, that sort of thing - but don't know enough about CSS to do so. If you can do so, please let me know, and I'll make out with you. A lot.