there be snakes here

We had our second sighting of the Blotched Water Snake, a totes harmless slithering maw of evil that was first glimpsed by yours truly dripping down the side of my niece's kitchen playset like someone had turned on a faucet set to 'pure evil', at which time I learned to levitate, balancing on the edge of the patio couch to throw myself bodily at the glass door and bang on it until God himself wondered what the hell and leaped across the space separating me from safety, because--and I know this was subtle here, so you might have missed it--I really don't like snakes.

The only time I claim to be a Creationist is to an evangelical Reptiphilist, because God knows they don't take "slither", "scary", "faucet of evil", or "did I mention slither?" as arguments, but "the Bible told me so" is like magic and they go away. Recommended to deal with anyone who loves snakes trying to convert you: it works.

The upshot is everything that moves in my general vicinity, including dogs, cats, rats, cicadas, squirrels, frogs, and wind, is a Potential Snake and generally my evenings are shot-full of enough adrenaline that a twelve-step program may be in order, either for me or for the poor creatures that deal with my reaction to their existence before I verify they are Not Snake, since dude, they probably have a pan-species alert out for me at this point, "Approach with caution, kinda jumpy", and if we're lucky, a collective bounty on the snake because seriously, their lives were better before when I didn't react to leaves falling like they were coming after my ankles with (a thousand) fanged (non-venemous) teeth and bear live young by the thousands (dozen or so) that could be anywhere, or rather, near me, because I don't have a problem with anywhere, but more here.

Which is why I have bichon frise of questionable courage and bitter animosity sitting outside with me hating me so much right now.

In Other News



Fulfilled my promise to Child and ordered a new tablet, ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity TF700T since so far, my experiences with Asus are good, and two, I decided against a new laptop for both budget and for configuration purposes at least until January. I've been budgeting for it, since my limit is two years and this one is coming up on finishing three, but thing you might not know; this is the first laptop I ever bought new and not refurbished and therefore not already a year or two old model, and actually, this one was worth the actual painful amount I paid for it. Installing a second solid state drive with an i7 processor pretty much makes it faster than anything I can get that's start value isn't just higher than I need, but that I can even use. And also, I don't like any laptop that I can't take apart and understand what it's doing, and about half of them I've looked at make me want to strangle engineers everywhere.

Which is a very long-winded justification that my tablet was desperately in need of upgrading, because to be fair, I use it at work like a lot for meetings and I'm spoiled now. With wifi in the entire building, I can access all my files and take notes and dropbox my way to organization like you have no idea. Or play sudoku. Which no, I'm not above, why'd you ask?

I want my tablet now. It's in Missouri. What the everloving hell, Missouri?

Fic

My current word count of the story I've been working on for sixteen months is 375,000 words, or 804 pages Times New Roman 12 pt. The parts I cut are roughly 160,000 words, give or take. I did math, and terrifyingly, this is about double what I'd write in any given year on average, period. This is about three War Games or two and a half Jus Ad Bellum, and it's not done, it's not even close. I've not yet nailed down how this happened, but my best guess is that either I've become an unexpectedly delicate flower or I'm getting way more out of writing this thing than I'd get posting it. I mean, to put it in utilitarian terms, once I'm done, all that's left is a few weeks of feedback, which is great, but if I keep writing, it can go on forever. Which is the most terrifying thought I've had that isn't related to attacking snakes in a while. Jesus, what does a million word story even look like?



My world, in short, is snake-filled and strange.