clo_again

I really need to get back in the habit of doing this. I mean, I'm procrastinating from writing to do this but when did I ever post to LJ when I wasn't procrastinating from writing? (tip: I was always procrastinating from writing).

I mean, writing is going pretty well at the moment. For me, anyway; I've posted something within the last week which is a rare enough occurrence to rate as 'pretty well', and the thing I wrote when I had writer's block on the other thing is 2k plus and climbing, so I figure I'll get that done pretty soon before I work on the next chapter of before you come to evening. And I reread 10k of reaction-fic I wrote after Novak lost Wimbledon last year, which I'd relegated to my Dead Letter Box folder (for fic I have no intention of finishing) because I hated it and thought it was boring, but today I enjoyed it and was sad to hit the end of what I'd written, and frustrated. What were you thinking past self? I don't understand; you were on a roll. Quit quitting stuff.

I don't know if I'll finish it. Elements of it surfaced in the coming of the fall which I wrote a couple of months after, but all the set-up is done; the sticking point is that the scene I didn't write was The Scene That Was the Entire Point and Reason which are always the worst. But this one had snuggling. Maybe when Wimbledon rolls around again I'll be reinspired, or I'll post it undone over at clofic maybe, or maybe it'll be my writer's block fic for the next chapter of before. I guess clofic is going to be my work-in-progress dump over here, since all finished stuff is now going on AO3. If you want free snippets, or wips, or fic fanmixes or whatever, follow over there.

The other weird thought that occurred after rereading the Wimbledon Reject Fic; I've spent almost ten months now musing on The Fall of Novak Djokovic in one way or another, and I'm still no closer to having a grip on it or why I care. I've never liked Novak the way I like Roger, or Roddick or Muzz, not in the simple and uncomplicated way of wanting them to win everything they touch and being happy when they do. Novak's disingenuous and desperate for attention; I never quite believe him when he says the sky is blue and grass is green (like when he falls and hurts himself only to win the match, when he says he's injured, when he says he isn't, when he says he's fine when he's clearly losing weight, about to burst into genuine pained tears in the US Open final, when he falls and hits his head so hard in Qatar that Muzz came across the court to check on him), but I'm so used to resenting him for beating Roger and begging for attention and being gloriously untouchable, having him broken and off-colour is disconcerting. I know what I think happened after the French last year but Becker's gone and Jelena's pregnant again because we all know having a second kid when things are miserable is a surefire way to fix life's problems (except for all the ways it isn't) and Novak's still this weird echo of himself.

I don't like worrying about goddamn Novak Djokovic but apparently I am, anyway.

At least Roger is back on glorious GOAT form this year and is doing me a solid by skipping the clay season which I can never watch because it's on when I'm in work. Work is a whole 'nother kettle of fish (mostly not awful, but complicated).

The housing situation is at the opposite end of the extreme and is all kinds of ongoing disaster but I've procrastinated all my time away and anyway, there's not much I can say about it that isn't a complaint. Basically it's stressful and come June (our contract here ends July 3rd) I'm going to be a lot less chill about it than I am right now. Get back to me in a month.

Roger just lost at Wimbledon so, in the traditions of the last twelve years, I'm sulking on LJ. Hurrah and yay and all that muchness.

(Roger, you had so many break points. You bloody sodding moron.)

Anyway, in addition to now getting entirely soused on Pimms because of idiot Swiss tennis players, I saw this on Twitter today about Russia's bugfuck crazy data laws affecting LJ and wondered sadly if it would be LJ's final straw. I mean, my flist is mostly a wasteland these days (not helped by my useless lack of posts) and I hang out mostly on Twitter (find me at @aomaakutu) but I don't want LJ to disappear entirely. It feels like it should stand forever as an archive to the early-ish days of fandom and online social networking and also, I have a lot of fic (all the old stuff of which is reposted over at Insanejournal, with apologies for how terrible it is) and nonsense and old conversations from over a decade of fandom sitting on here. I don't want that to disappear. AO3 is great and Twitter is great and tumblr is basically a disaster that hasn't got the sense to fall over under the weight of its own nonsense, and none of it does what LJ did. But if LJ does go, look me up on Twitter (@aomaakutu), or AO3 (clo) or Insanejournal (clofic) whatever. Maybe one day fandom will swing back around to blogging again. Then I can yell at people drunkenly about Roger being an idiot in more than 140 characters (which are nowhere near adequate to express my righteous indignation tbh).

Anyway! While LJ is still here and kicking, maybe I should actually use it for something? Idk, I hit a massive writer's block back in February and it took me forever to get over it so I started writing whatever got me writing anything again and it's left me with a bunch of weird WiPs, one of which is 30k and counting. As I'm a little drunk and a lot annoyed, how about some snippets of things that may, or may not, ever be finished? Why not? Snippets for everyone! (er, or everyone who likes tennis fic snippets since I have yet to find another fandom after twelve years. Never let it be said that I don't drag things out to the bitter end).



( tennis fic wips snippets )

I wonder if I'll ever forget LJ html. Weird.

Because I'm me, the next thing I really want to write isn't any of these but I only have it outlined rather than written and it's in that weird stage of being thought-perfect before I have to try and wrestle it into words. I like it though. If I can keep writing despite being back in work on Monday, it might even get snippeted, or maybe it'll just get posted. I don't think it'll be that. Except, I always say that and 50k later it's still half finished.

I can't believe Roger lost. What an idiot.

So I've talked about my odd dreams before. Giant butterflies, redesigned Londons, Philip Glenister shouting at politicians, faeries kidnapping people. I like my dreams. My subconscious puts effort into them, or at least into making them entertainingly random.

But. The last few days, I've sensed a theme. Friday night, I dreamed that Roger Federer had called a press conference to announce he wanted more points/money for winning matches against top ten players and the ensuing uproar.

Last night I dreamed I was at Wimbledon, which for some inexplicable reason seemed to have been transported in its entirety into the Australian outback, and while walking around backstage we bumped into John McEnroe who was shouting at someone else. (I don't know about what. Possibly that Wimbledon had just fallen through the Earth to the opposite side of the planet and they could not be serious about wanting to make it an Australian tournament from now on).

And just now I took a two hour nap, during which I dreamed that my neighbours had opened a Michelin starred restaurant in their house and Novak Djokovic had brought a coachload of friends (for some reason, this included some cowboys?) to try it out and I spent the whole time pressed to the window, wondering if could go and get him to sign every tennis-related thing I own. He saw me. He waved. But I still wussed out, probably because my subscious failed to provide a dream!kindoftrouble to yell at me for not tackling him to the ground for a hug immediately.

So. Tennis players. I never dream about tennis players, at least nowhere near as often as I'd expect to considering it's my only obsession other than Casper to last longer than five years. Dear brain, what are you trying to say? Should I rob a bank and use my ill-gotten gains to become a professional tennis player stalker? You're seriously recomending that as a sensible life direction?

...Sounds good to me. ;-)

*

In other news! I have set up Dreamwidth crossposting. In theory, this will make my Dreamwidth account more interesting but it'll probably mostly change nothing at all. I do have a couple of Dreamwidth codes available if anyone wants one? First come, first served basis. Leave me your email in a comment if you want one (I just typed 'if you want me'. *blinks* Idek what kind of Freudian slip that is).

You can also read/comment on this entry here http://aomakutu.dreamwidth.org/1375.html .

Title: Super, Thanks For Asking (1/6)
Author: aomakutu(DW)/Clo(LJ)
Rating: PG (future parts may be rated higher)
Pairing/Characters: (eventually) Roger Federer/Novak Djokovic, Robin Söderling/Juan Martin Del Potro, Roger Federer/Mirka Vavrinec, implied past Roger Federer/Andy Roddick. All the singles players from the 2009 World Tour Finals, plus some doubles players, some coaches and some RL girlfriends.
Word Count (this part): 20,292

Summary: Making the World Tour Finals doesn't make you a superhero. Except when it does.



follow the fake!cut for the fic, disclaimers and author's notes



(a.n. please don't die of shock at me posting fic. Or actually, posting at all. Those four horsemen outside your window are out for a perfectly innocent trek and I don't have a flying pig in my icon. Ahem.)

So this morning I dragged myself into awakeness around 8:20am and tried to work out why the BBC was showing a repeat of Murray vs Isner instead of Roger's live match. It was only when I checked the AO site that I realised the evening matches started at half eight our time instead (they used to start at 7pm Australia time didn't they? Or not?) and I had to sit in bed and stare blankly at the internet to keep myself awake until the BBC interative coverage started and I could put it on. At which point I snuggled down in bed and spent about an hour attempting to watch tennis while mostly asleep. Thankfully Roger wasn't doing anything horribly stupid but I wouldn't say I actually watched most of the first two sets.

And then I fell asleep completely and woke up to Roger being asked by Jim Courier what he remembers about his first match with Lleyton and Roger admitting they were a. fourteen and b. he cheated. Essentially. Oh Roger you rebel you.

Possibly if I want to watch Murray tomorrow - and I do; I need to yell at the TV in hope of him winning - I should make it downstairs to the sofa. Yeah.

Not that falling asleep was a total loss; I had a bizarre dream that the Roger vs Lleyton match was taking place in my back garden in Wales which needless to say isn't big enough for a tennis court, never mind the entire Rod Laver Arena but by some TARDIS logic they'd fitted it in. I was watching and half-meandering around to be nosy and I found the showers and was amused that Roger had a massive bottle of custom-made shampoo. I was annoyed that I got chased out the showers by security before I found out how it smelled so I could be accurate in fic. Then after Roger won he had a hideously ugly suit to put on before he could talk to Courier; it was a black jacket covered in multi-coloured splashes of paint, a bright purple silk shirt and an orange tie. No trousers so I'm assuming he was going to wear it with his shorts. I told him it was so bad, it actually crossed the so-bad-it's-awesome line and he seemed somewhat offended; i was probably custom-made for him by the Prada elves or something. Then I offered Mirka a cup of tea because she was standing in my kitchen looking lost.

I don't know what's up with my subconscious sometimes. I won't even go into the part where we had to move to a concert hall for the next match (I assume they'd realised with some horror that they were playing in someone's tiny garden) and all the old WWE wrestlers (including Hornswoggle. Oh dear brain, really?) were there and they explained to me why tennis and wrestling were secretly the same thing. Sadly it was such thrilling reasoning that I can't remember it. Oh well.

I should watch tennis before falling asleep more often. Maybe next time I'll get to find out what flavour shampoo Roger uses.

~

On the downside, I've slept in again today and I meant to get up and apply for jobs and be a productive members of society. It's a little worrying how little I've done for two weeks. Okay, a lot worrying. All-night and all-morning tennis hasn't helped but... really. I need to be motivated and soon.

In case anyone is wondering, I have not been away from LJ because I've been flooded out! The floods are the opposite end of Cumbria to where I live and when I texted parentals earlier they said it's fine, just wet.

This news also came as a relief to me as I've been in London since Tuesday and I idly turned on the news this morning to see Cumbria attempting to imitate Atlantis, which wasn't quite what I'd pictured when kindoftrouble mentioned last night that there was some flooding. I tell you what, it's enough to make me want a house on top of a tall hill.

In news of London! I went to the WTF draw at the London Eye on Wednesday but left late and tube was delayed so I only saw them coming out of the pod and not going in. Spotted Murray, the Bryans and Petch though so it counted as a win. :) I hung around the Embankment (they're staying in the hotel over the Aquarium there) a bit this afternoon but didn't spot anyone. Admittedly I was distracted by the awesome Christmas market and German mini-pancakes but I feel this was a fair trade. German mini-pancakes with Nutella = om nom nom.

Vague plans to player-stalk at the O2 tomorrow; we'll see how that goes. I have a feeling I may ask Robin Soderling for a hug if we get the chance because his twitter is rather sweet and I've seen him twice at Wimbledon now so I'm practically an official fan. Naturally I'm gleeful over getting to see Roger on Sunday too. Twice in one year! Awesomesauce.

Hah hah tennis players are now on the tellybox! I totally wish I'd been able to stalk their photoshoot. Damn.

Of course they show an interview with Andy Murrsay. Please smile Murray. It doesn't bother me that you're an android in interviews but it would make it easier to defend you to people. BE HAPPY. YOU'RE ALMOST-BEST IN THE WORLD.

Anyway, that's pretty much all the news I have. NaNo is still going slowly, but at least going. Yay! Tennis players this weekend. Double yay!! I got lost finding Harrods yesterday!* McFail!


*I came out the wrong Tube exit. In front of me where Harrods usually is was Harvey Nichols. I went "!!!!! HARVEY NICHOLS HAS HOSTILE-TAKEOVERED HARRODS AND NO ONE HAS NOTICED. WHUT." Then I occurred to me I'd thought the exit didn't look right and I wandered back the other way to see Harrods just around the corner. Somewhat relieved that Harrods had not been turned into a Harvey Nichols. I decided Harrods is too supremely awesome to be hostile-takeovered.**

**Then it ate £25+ of my money without me expending any effort at all and I thought maybe it would've been better if it'd been hostile-takeovered by Pound Stretcher.

Is ( this ) the least flattering image of Nadal ever? It is entirely possible. Yes I laughed, because I'm a bad person sometimes. But it was posted on the main page of the ATP site; it's not as though I went hunting for it.

~

I'm in such a bad mood today. And now my useless father is yelling up the stairs about something. As you were.

Things I've just discovered that make me happy; I'm planning to go see Up when I head to Lancaster for my birthday next week and on checking the film times just now, apparently they're showing it in 3D as well as 2D. Hurrah! The tickets are more expensive than for 2D but they're Super Saver Tickets because it's on a weekday before 5pm so it actually works out the same price as a normal ticket.

Birthday happys. Awesome. :D jesse_kips you're welcome to come with if you want. If not I shall be cheesecaking and coffeeing and shopping for some time before! ^_^ I could see you in Starbucks say... half one?

~

So yeah, I haven't posted for a bit. S'up with that? Nothing really, except my general apathy toward life in general right now. I'm not doing anything which is really ridiculous when you consider that I only worked two hours today and only four yesterday and four Monday. It's just that working across the middle of the day seems to eat time to do anything and I come home only to bum around because I'm tired from work. I'm actually annoying myself immensely but don't know what to do about it.

Signed up for NaNo again and I'm officially in training, by writing a hundred more words a day to hopefully get myself in the habit. On Monday my word target was 200 words and I hit 350+. Yesterday target 300 and I hit 330. Today is 400 and I've been sitting around for seven hours now without so much as typing a word. I even opened the damn fic I'm working on earlier only to close it and have a nap instead. I can't be doing this when my word count needs to be 1600+ a day instead of 400. I'm going to have to start as soon as I get home from work, not right before I go to sleep. Argh. But, I guess, I knew I'd be like this which is why I'm trying to get in the habit. I'm off to watch In Treatment with my laptop now and hopefully I'll hit 400 words before I have to drag myself off to bed because I have two days of getting up early and three hours to work Saturday. I couldn't say no to working Saturday because I'd already asked for my birthday off. Meh. -_- Working six days in a row sucks, even when when it's just for a few hours some days. I really don't think this ridiculous job is helping the apathy at all, but I suspect it'll be great for NaNo (if I actually use the spare time) to be only working a few hours a day Monday-Wednesday.

Plus with all the extra hours I'm thinking I may as well stick it until Christmas because it's enough money to pay back my 'rents and considering basically everything tripwise is paid for now (London, hotel for Cardiff, train tickets except the ones from London-Cardiff because it worked out much cheaper to have an extra night in London around the Cardiff weekend. Dear British Rail, you are stupid) I might even have money left over for Christmas presents. :D Which is good!

Less good is my inability to accomplish even the simplest thing, like fill in application forms. I really need to take NaNo seriously this year. Some sort of daily goal would be awesome right now.

~

I never talked about how much fun I had in Edinburgh, partly because I started a post and got too lazy to finish halfway through so in my mind I did talk about it, only I never posted, and partly because I had such an awful cold that week and I came home and sleep-walked through the next few days because walking all over Edinburgh is exhausting when you're only breathing at half-capacity.

But I did have fun! Once I got there that is; I got to the train station early on the Saturday morning only to discover my train to Lancaster where I'd connect up to Edinburgh was cancelled, possibly ( due to the appalling amount of fog ) although I still can't see why fog would affect the trains enough to be cancelled. The parental drove me the forty minutes to Lancaster though and, thanks to having a half-hour wait between connections, I even had time to go get a Starbucks before my train. Did occur to me that that was the second thing to go wrong (first was my hotel being overbooked) and I spent the rest of the weekend in fear of the Third Thing (because these things happen in threes right?) but it was all fine. My hotel fears were baseless; the hotel I'd been moved to was very nice and I had an exec room which was decorated much nicer than the eye-scouring blue the website showed the basic rooms in. It was the wrong end of Prince's Street for everything I wanted (and Prince's Street is an epically long goddamn street) but I found the venue just fine and I found Grassmarket which was as full of cool shops as I remember it (the really cool sci-fi/fantasy bookshop had a plushy Cthulhu. I did not buy it but I really really wanted to).

I'd forgotten how staggeringly pretty Edinburgh is. All I could think walking around is that if they chose to film a fantasy film there and claim it was any sort of fantasy city? No CGI required. It's all turrets and arched windows and elaborate carvings, especially around the Royal Mile. I wish I'd had a day to just chill and wander a bit slower but it was still fun. I do like Edinburgh. Don't know if I've spent enough time there to officially love it but it's certainly right up there with Cardiff and Sydney on the 'cities I like to spend time bumming around just for the sake of being there' short-list.

I also managed one other thing I wanted to do while I was there, which was to go check out the ( Scott Monument ) in Prince's Street Gardens just because DAAS* did one of their Big Gig shows from there and I wanted to get a picture of it today. It was only later that I realised they might've done their show from the other side but from what I can remember (I haven't got around to checking on the DVD) it was definitely the side away from the road. It was a bit odd seeing something DAAS-related in such a decidedly UK setting. It kind of made me miss Australia more.

And then I got a bit more of Australia-in-the-UK with, of course, the entire reason I went; Tim Minchin who was brilliant. I had ( a spectacular view ) if you can tell from my appalling phone camera pictures, slightly to the side but almost as close as the front row and no one in front of me because I was in the front row of the balcony. The amazing seat totally made up for the ridiculous sore throat I had from walking around all day with a cold, because I didn't have to cheer too loud to make up for being right at the back. ^_^ He really is fantastic live. Canvas Bags got such an epic cheer so clearly the whole place was mostly full of previous Minchin-ers and although he didn't encore with Not Perfect, he did White Wine in the Sun which is enough to make me think I'll be buying the whole show off iTunes when I've got a bit more money. I'm jealous of mayakitten for getting to see him now, because I'd love to go again. *wistful* If I'd been in London this weekend I would've gone to the ones he's doing at Hammersmith (though I'm not totally missing those because uh, I was regretting not buying a signed DVD so kindoftrouble offered to try to get me one from Hammersmith, even though she isn't going to the show. So I'm kind of there in spirit! :D And also owe my soul to kindoftrouble. Again. I could do with several hundred souls by now).

But on his next tour, I am so there. And so dragging along everyone else in sight because as fun as he was when I was by myself, it'd be even better with a bunch of people.

So kinda sad that's over but still to come this year: Roger Federer, Andy Roddick (as confirmed this week, yay!) and John Barrowman² so I haven't exactly got a boring lead-up to Xmas. :DDDD

~

It's actually gone 11pm now and I still haven't written anything or moved off my bed. Right. Yes. In Treatment (which is already losing my interest on the third week but I like the girl on Wednesdays so I'm quite happy for tonight) and writing and I really need to start DVDing some of the Top Gear off the Sky box. After all, we should be getting a new series soon. I need the space. :D

You've been reading This Is Clo's Life. Hopefully I won't leave it over a week between posts next time so the next post won't need to be so epically long and rambling.


~

*Speaking of DAAS, I know why I'm not getting GNW uploads to Mininova; the person was using Demonoid to get them and it's down. I'm hoping when Demonoid goes back up, I'll be able to catch up. Really really hoping. I'm missing my weekly dose of McDermott something terrible. :( Damn you Demonoid.

I'm going home tomorrow (but I don't get home until the day after! Fun times!). *sadface* It's close enough for me to check the weather for when I land on Friday (it's barely 15 degrees over the next few days; I was expecting at least up to the twenties from what I've been hearing about crazy weather back there wtf?) and my 'rentals want my flight details and you know, I have less than no money left so it's good I'm going, and yes I know I've been complaining about hostels and repacking my backpack for the forty millionth time but... that was when I wasn't two days from going home. There's still stuff I haven't bought! There's still stuff I haven't done! Except the Rod Lave arena tour which we're planning to do Thursday as one of my Last Day Things so I can giggle at the locker rooms and spend too much in the little shop (I don't know if they have a little shop but I'm guessing they do. If backpacking has taught me anything, it's that everywhere will have a little shop).

irradiatedsoup we're planning on heading in for the tennis centre tour at 1pm, then do the acquarium after (the tennis tour should finish around 2:15-2:30pm) so you can come do the tennis tour with us or just the acquarium or whatever. :) I have my phone but don't have any credit left, so let me know on the interwebs tonight or just text me where you are tomorrow and we'll come find you.

And that'll be it.Which is weird but you know, home will be nice. And I'm only there a week before I head to Newcastle & London anyway, so it's not like I'll have time to get bored. It's just oh, Australia. Why do you have to be so far away?

But anyway right now I have some time to kill so have That Icon Meme, gacked from kindoftrouble:
( icon meme! )


If you want me to pick some of your icons, you might be waiting until Saturday because tomorrow night I'm spending almost twenty-four hours travelling and then at least eight sleeping that off. I won't have forgotten! It's taken me five days to finish this post though. Um. Maybe make that Sunday.

Later I have to pack for the last time. Mmmm, that cannot be over soon enough.