The Road So Far

 I have, for the last three months, been taking an anxiety medication. Now a days, that's not new. Honestly, it's a wonder I haven't asked for them before. I took depression meds after my son was born and for all the years that followed. But somehow, anxiety never figured into my diagnosis. I finally, at fifty six, had a legitimate diagnosis. In retrospect, the timing could not have been more perfect what with the covid thing and all. And there have been some interesting side effects. Less hyperawareness so the oven gets left on sometimes. Freakouts are distant and when I think about them, I have a hard time remembering what I was freaking out about. I've slowed down a bunch, less jumping from point to point and more riding the car in the dips as well as the swells. Fannishly, I find myself seeing my obsessions with different eyes. Not in a sustained high of squee, more of a who are these guys and what are they doing? I mean, I still see the slash and all but there's a story there that I never really paid much attention to and looking back, I'm sure that's because my brain was just not wired to see reality in real time. Everything was hyper real. 

Unfortunately, this made me not a very nice person to know. I'm still making amends for that.

A couple of weeks ago it occurred to me that I'd written a few stories so I should maybe gather them up and put them all in one place at AO3. All the cool kids are doing it, anyway.  And a bunch of my stuff dutifully went up, (whatever I could find) and I was surprised to see that I'd written so far over a hundred thousand words. Dude, that's a novel. Took me a few days to metabolize that. After that I looked through my old print outs and found a few more which I'll add at some point. They have to be transcribed as they're only in hard copy. And some are early writing, so, yeah there's been growth. I'd been putting off getting my two old roxtor drives going so I could see what was on them and guess what? I found TREASURE!!!

Old stories, tons of pix and icons and a slew of vids I'd saved. So much emotion watching those vids again. I was relieved to be swept up in those vids. The stories not so much. Mostly I think it's covid brain and a complete lack of concentration skills. I found old feedback and a couple hundred html saved sites of fic I loved and thought I'd lost. 

I've been doing a fannish re-watch and I mistakenly started with newer fandoms, POTC and LOTR, when I guess I was yearning for my older fandoms, crazily enough. I'd written a couple of SG-1 fics and upon re-reading, I found them entertaining but lacking in substance so I went back to the show and started a re-watch and let me tell you, it's like I've never seen them before. Daniel is a man. M.A.N. Like, heavy beard and off hand remarks and all. And Sam is a Himbo, just drinking beer and being one of the guys. What a great character. In season one, there's not much character play yet between Jack and Daniel but already I can tell that any fic I finish now or start will have different characterizations than I'd written before. So away I went to the wayback machine and dug out some of the really old sg-1 fic that were mostly canon. I never paid much attention to how writers moved Jack from sass to ass, so to speak. It's not a giant leap but given the times, th early aughts, and don't ask don't tell, how exactly do you move Jack from brother to lover? Rhetorically speaking that is. Also? Daniel is a MAN. I'm really interested in that. Also, SAM. 

While trying to update my AO3 page, I've run into a problem with photo loading. All my attempts end in "no follow". I'm waiting for AO3 help desk to return my message. Once it's sorted out, major stories will have their book covers and icons and lots of the Morgan's Rangers Art will go up. I also feel like a wrote a few more side stories for MFR which I hope to dig out.

Sometime soon, I'll write about the perception of deep time in fic and how one of my big pet peeves is how characters go for centuries without ever changing their goals, aim, passions or griefs. J.R.R. Tolkein, I'm looking at you. We've been in lockdown for eight weeks, I could have walked to Round top by then and I would KNOW those damn hobbits and we'd have a well worn patter of actions and quips that we'd rely on to keep us sane. Jokes. Stories. Silence, Arguments. Alliances. 

In conclusion, Daniel Jackson is a man. 

 We've been eating a low carb diet since September. I feel lucky that we were solidly fat adapted by the time of the lock down because our meals and meal planning have become so much simpler and hunger pangs are a thing of the past. We eat mostly protein with a little salad or cooked veg though we've moved away from veggies for the last few weeks. (unquiet tummies) And we're down to one meal a day with a bulletproof coffee in the morning and strawberries (a low carb fruit) with full fat yogurt at night. 
We started out eating all sorts of proteins; chicken, fish, tuna, ham, eggs, beef, but it became pretty obvious to us really fast that beef was what made us feel the best and healthiest. Oh, we still eat other meats just mostly beef; steaks, hamburgers, stroganoff, chili with no beans. It's delicious, filling and simple if a bit boring.
Still, after eight weeks of lock down and all the weirdness of the day we get bored and want to eat something crazy. And we always feel like crap the next day. We're both stress eaters so for me it's salty crunch like chips and I replaced them with peanuts in the shell. A bit more carb than I like and for Mom it's pasta. Needless to say, we've eaten a lot of peanuts.
I think it's variety that's part of the pleasure so I found an italian deli open in Sac and we went over and splurged on mortadella and capra cola and corned beef. We got salmon cakes (to die for) and chicken parmesan. (both eaten way too quickly) And we had a nice deli platter for lunch.
I miss eating someone else's actual cooking. Going to restaurants was big entertainment for me. I'm jonesing for Ruth's Chris or some El Navallero. 
 

Well, it’s official, I’ve run out of TV. But not time. And having just re-read all my fic, (yes, even the embarrassing SG-1 stuff) it’s time for a fandom re-watch.

Starting with Pirates of the Caribbean! (Never wrote in this fandom but Orlando is my favorite little black dress)

I do love Jack Sparrow!

Coercion Notes: written for Karitawyr for the jedi_santa challenge. Beta's by randomalia and dragonkal to whom I owe so much for such great insights. All mistakes remaining are mine. 2004 ish.

Hey, hi! I'm looking for an old story about tattoos. I remember the first line was: that was the summer Dean smoked a lot of weed. It's wincest, teenagers, no John and pretty dirty. At one point, Dean licks Sams tattoo. Also, I'm pretty sure Sams tattoo was a Celtic knot.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Dear Aaron Sorkin,

FUCK. YEAH.

Love, cfj.

Thing one:

I've been watching House for 8 years. It only just occurred to me while watching the retrospective that House and Wilson are Holmes and Watson...Make of that what you will.


Thing two:

Being skinny will never feel as good as bacon tastes.

I loved this like pie. It's awesome. Like the Loser's is awesome. And I love the whole steampunk/scifi cross over look and let's face it, two hours of Taylor Kitsch in a loin cloth? DID WONDERS FOR MY MOOD.

Also? That boy can deliver a line AND he has some gravitas. If he can manage to stick around and pick up a few more meaty roles, he might actually become a good actor.

And I'm so happy to see some good, old fashioned, early 20th century sci-fi with victorian costumes and magical transit between planets.

Did I mention Taylor Kitsch in a loin cloth?