I haven't been reading much fic for, oh, probably the last 6 months. So I was pretty surprised when I was suddenly overcome with the urge to read epic Merlin fic. I did finally watch all of s4 a month or two ago (which I enjoyed a lot and ughhh why do I have to wait for s5?!), but even at the time I just wasn't in the mood for fic.

So, look at what I came across in my recent AO3 search! You've probably all read this already, but if you haven't, you MUST.

Gadarene by unpossible. Arthur/Merlin. A sort of AU with slavery, but this is no badfic. Arthur's wonderfully socially aware. Well-written, epic and plotty, with some mmmmm great porn. Just what you need. =D

I'm in the mood for epic Arthur/Merlin (maybe even some Gwaine/Merlin) stories, both historical and modern, so if you've got any recs for anything written since last summer, SEND THEM TO MEEEEEE. (Please.)

ETA: On a complete and utter side note, I'm itching to get another tattoo but not only do I not have the money for it, I'm also still job-hunting, so it's not gonna happen any time soon. Getting inked is a serious addiction, folks; don't let anyone tell you different.

I've really got to get back into the habit of posting again, I really hate going a whole week without checking my flist and then having to play catch-up and missing awesome things like music friending memes and M&G/concert reports, and then also having like a million things to update about, too. So here goes.

Drove down to Philly on Tuesday so Juliet and I could get inked. This was also THE DAY OF THE DC EARTHQUAKE WTF. Juliet had to take the bus back that night so Nicole did her first; I stayed over and she did me and I drove back to NYC on Wednesday afternoon. So actually, these weren't as painful as the chest tats I had done a couple years ago (and didn't take as long, either -- 5 hours altogether instead of 8), but the aftermath has been way worse. My upper arms are very swollen, which is sometimes uncomfortable and sometimes very painful; I've got heat rash from the humidity like you wouldn't believe. Don't even ask me to describe it because it's horrible and icky and you don't want to know. The redness probably won't go away for another two weeks, but I'm hoping the swelling will lessen soon because it SUCKS. And also I've got a fucking P!ATD concert to go to on Thursday and I'm going to be on the fucking rail if it kills me. Which, let's face it, it won't, because it's a P!ATD concert and I'll have to restrain myself from popping 15-year olds in the face, but maybe I can find a bunch of guys and convince them to start a mosh pit with me. LOLZ.

Anyway, I'm not posting pics of the back-of-the-arm tats til they look better. But here's a pic of the third one, on my right forearm. A prize for you if it rings a bell:



The other big news of the day is that I'M GOING TO INDONESIA FOR SIX WEEKS!!! Um, yeah. So, I'm currently unemployed and I've got relatives there that I can stay with for free and a dollar goes a LOT farther there than here, so... yeah. I'm sort of SUPER EXCITED and also like, SIX FUCKING WEEKS, WTF. But I mean, I've meant to go to Indonesia for a couple of years now and what better time to go than when I don't actually have to take vacation days to do it? Liz is going to come with for 10 days at the beginning and then leave to go back to work. I'm ecstatic over that because while I still would've gone, it just wouldn't be the same without her. And meeting a hundred relatives for the first time, most of whom don't speak English, will be a lot less intimidating and a lot easier to handle when we've got each other. =D

You know what's going to be the weirdest? I'm going to a place where I will BLEND IN WITH THE NATIVES. Think about that for a second. And I don't mean that I will, really, because I'm sure I'll be dressed differently and relatively easily-identified as a foreigner (or a freak), but-- I could theoretically just disappear into the crowd. I've never, NEVER, looked like anyone else. In NYC there are so many ethnicities -- and I've only ever lived in areas that have extremely diverse populations (Queens is really good at that) -- but the Indonesian population here is relatively small and I've never really been part of it and I've NEVER looked like everyone else. This whole idea is sort of freaking me out!

So, two things of note:

1. Indonesia is 11 HOURS AHEAD. Which means, tweeps, that I will try to stalk your twitters anyway and DON'T LEAVE ME OUT OF ANY IMPORTANT CONVOS OR UPDATES, OR I WILL BE VERY DISSAPOINT. #wolfpack
   
   
2. Do you or someone you trust happen to be looking for a room in NYC to sublet for 4-6 weeks? If so, please point them my way!

To reiterate: INDONESIA. SIX WEEKS.
Spencer Smith is now going to demonstrate how I feel:






ETA:...oh yeah, that whole itinerary thing I meant to post:

Friday 09/09/11:
CX 841 JFK 10:05 → HKG 14:05
CX 719 HKG 16:00 → CGK 19:40 (arrive Saturday evening)
[22.5 hours travel time]

Monday 10/24/11:
CX 798 CGK 00:05 → HKG 05:50
CX 830 HKG 09:20 → JFK 13:10
[24 hours travel time]

So, in case you didn't see me spamming the rest of my social networks with Flux Pavillion updates, the show was awesome and I danced for ever! 1. There was a MOSH PIT. At a dubstep show. This is total win. 2. I was so soaked through with (my own and others') sweat that it looked like I got caught in a rain shower; my hair was plastered to my head. 3. Pot. People shared. I took a toke here and there and didn't have to pay and it was perfect. 4. I slapped some hot girl's ass. With permission, of course. <3 5. DIRTY BASS. THERE WAS SO MUCH OF IT. FUCK YES. I'm always disappointed when I go to a dubstep party and the DJs aren't spinning stuff with lots of dirty or wobbly bass. IT IS SO MY THING.

Can I just go to a different concert every week? That's not greedy, right?

So I will be getting inked again a week and a half from now. Yeah, no, I kind of can't really afford it. But I've been planning to get these tats done for months now, and even at that point it was getting to be an urgent feeling. I've only lasted this long because I had a date to look forward to. LAKJSDLFJASLFJLSAJFL;AJ GUYS, I WANT THESE TATS SO BAD I COULD CRY. RIGHT NOW.

This is for MY WOLFPACK (ILU GUYS). And also just because SPENCER FUCKING SMITH.

I'd been thinking a little about making a sticky welcome post but with this recent friending meme I decided to actually go ahead and make one since it's not related to any specific fandom and thus broader interests/discussions are relevant.

So, if you're interested you can check that out here: HI NEW FRANDS!

But then I realized that, along with my 30th birthday last month, it was also the 10th anniversary of creating this livejournal (way back in May 2001)! Looking back I felt like there were long stretches where I didn't actually do much with it... and that's not far off, in terms of what I wrote in it and whether I was interacting with people or just recording random things for posterity or, you know, just to hear myself talk.

So I checked my calendar of posts and realized... there were only NINE MONTHS where I didn't post even just once -- out of TEN YEARS on LJ, and they're spread only between 2003-04.

I know plenty of people do posting challenges -- 365 days/year, for example! -- and I can't even commit to doing a 30-day meme in actually 30 days! But lol, have I mentioned how I tried doing that when I got a diary for my birthday when I was six? I'd forget to write in it for a week and then I'd come back and feel like I had to rip out the pages I'd written in because I had to start over. It had to be completely filled in, or in other words, perfect.

I've gotten over that feeling, clearly, but it also makes me happy to know that I've actually stuck with writing in a diary for TEN YEARS. In some ways, it's something I think I've wanted to do since I was a child and didn't quite realize I was already doing?

Ahaha, okay, randomly-introspective!Sara hour is over now.

Ooooooh, look at today's Google logo! It's Takashi Murakami's art! I'm totally getting his flat jellyfish eyes tattooed on my arms (above the elbows) next; I've been wanting that for too long now... I just have to save up some money since it'll probably cost a good $500+.

So I read something this morning with the word shoals in it and I flashed back HARD to listening to due South music. Of course I thought immediately of Stan Rogers' Canadian folk song, Northwest Passage, which I fell utterly in love with from the first.

Happily, I played the song... then put it on repeat. I quickly realized that it wasn't the song with shoals in it (that's Paul Gross's Robert Mackenzie), but Northwest Passage is still on repeat now because I love it so much, it's so poignant and sad and hopeful. This is my favorite version. <3

You may or may not have noticed my fangirling and flailing from several weeks ago over going to see The Headstones in Toronto in February? Well, a bunch of the ladies who will also be going are getting commemorative tattoos. Not matching ones, but we're all going as a group to Yonge Street Tattoos to get inked.

I AM SO EXCITED! \o/

I'm getting a little bitty tat, only 2 inches long so I doubt it'll take longer than 10 minutes at most, but just the prospect of it makes me so happy! It's going to be one of the lines from the chorus of Northwest Passage: "one warm line" on the inside of my left wrist. I thought it was fitting.

15 days to go and I can barely contain myself. I keep re-writing it whenever the ink washes off because I'm absolutely in love with it. ♥_♥

It's kind of funny, it's actually going to be my most visible tattoo. The sparrows on my chest are pretty visible but they're also really easy to cover up and it's not like I notice them very much even when I'm wearing a tanktop or something that shows them off. All my other tats are also easily/always hidden. I'll be able to actually look at this one on my wrist all the time! How lovely~!


ETA: OMG I NEED TO REWATCH DUE SOUTH LIKE BURNING NOW. (Also, this would help with the whole big bang thing...)

ETA2: Ahahahah, did you guys ever see this live version of Ride Forever (from 1999)? With rows and rows and rows of Mounties standing behind PG & David Keeley. LOLZ FOREVER. I wonder what this event was for... It was for Canada Day, apparently.

If we have NA on Wednesday at WR, I'll be able to meet up after class. If NA is this Thursday I won't be able to make it as I'm going to meet up with a few old friends after work at the highly praised Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden in Astoria for food/drinks.

If anyone is interested in joining me at the Beer Garden on Thursday, you're more than welcome. It's right off the Astoria Blvd stop on the N/W line, which is about a 20-25 minute train ride to/from the midtown area.


( philly recap )

Anyway, I leave you with this quick cell phone pic of my new tat. It says "w;t", because I like the word "wit": what it means and how it's used. The semi-colon is a reference to John Donne poetry (which I love), by way of this play (which I saw when I was 17 or 18, and also love).

Today is my last day at this data entry job. Very happy about that. Yesterday I was insanely busy all day, so the day went by pretty darn quickly. But today I seem to be somewhat less busy and I've hit a lull here just before I take lunch at 1pm. There are a couple of things that I just don't want to deal with, and since I'm leaving, I'm just going to leave them for whoever's taking over my tasks. Somewhat mean of me, I know, but whatever.

One of the examiners here got another tattoo last night -- from somewhere down on Stanton. It looks very nice and I'm quite jealous. I want to hurry up and have some extra money so that I can get more tattoos! Gotta pay off bills first, though.

Earlier, I neglected to talk about Carol O'Connell's latest installment in her Detective Kathy Mallory mystery series, Find Me. This was one of the best books in the series, I really enjoyed seeing a part of Mallory that we rarely get to see (but which was better done than some of the other times we got to see it). I really love it when Mallory is badass, and O'Connell did not disappoint.

In a few of the other novels, the mystery itself wasn't as intriguing as the characters, but in this one I was very interested in the whole setting (old Route 66 - NOT a spoiler) and story that surrounded this long-term serial killer. I really need to find my copy of the first book in the series to lend to Sean and/or AJ.

I was also reading a history of Japan, which was very interesting. However, I reached the halfway point of the book, which is just at about WWI, and my interest has waned. I'll have to renew the book so that I can finish it up soon.

Instead, Sean lent me Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay, which is what the HBO series is based on. I'm not technically done yet, but I have just the epilogue left to read, so I'll be done by the end of lunch. It's been quite entertaining. I really like the contrast between Dexter's lack of typical emotions like concern, love, etc., yet his quirky and witty view of his own situation in life. I can't quite decide if I can sit back and accept it that way, or if I'd rather explain it as the author being unable to keep his own voice out of the narration. Whichever, it's still quite entertaining. I do have to admit that his sister was just as annoying as I remember her being from those first two episodes I watched. Actually, it was also quite funny that for everything that goes along with being Dexter, he was surrounded and quite harrassed by the women in his life. ^^;

It's now pretty much time for lunch. =D

On Wednesday, I wanted to go to the PacSun (Pacific Sunwear) in the village to buy some pants, but guess what? They went out of business there. ::sigh:: Now the only one in the area is at Roosevelt Field. (And how often do I go to Roosevelt Field on Long Island? Practically never.) Well, the location of that PacSun in the village is actually across the street and down the block from my favorite tattoo/piercing parlor (called Crazy Fantasy). So, we ended up going to get Angelica's ear pierced.

Oddly enough, on the train ride there I had been thinking aloud about where I planned on getting my next piercing, and I finally decided that I'd have to get it above the lone cartilage piercing on my left ear. Just FYI, on my left ear I had (up until a few hours ago) 3 earrings in the lobe, one in my cartilage and one where the cartilege and lobe meet, right at the middle of the outside curve of the ear. On my right ear I have 3 earrings in the lobe.

In any case, the reason I decided to get my next one above the cartilage piercing is because the one in the middle of my ear isn't completely done healing yet, so I don't want to get another piercing right near it and tempt fate, ne? And the reason I don't want to get any more piercings in my right ear (for the moment) is because I DO want to eventually get a barbell put in my right ear. I'm working up the courage. So until then, I have to leave the cartilage unpierced so as to have the space to place the barbell exactly how I want it. I do have room for one more piercing in the lobes of my ears, but I like to get those done in pairs, so I can't get a 4th hole in my lobes because the one in the left ear would be too close for (my) comfort to the middle (as-yet-not-completely-healed) earring.

So that's my long explanation of why I'd want to get my latest piercing above the cartilage piercing I already had in my left ear.

Well, that's exactly where Angelica decided to get hers on Wednesday. Go figure. Hn.

But it looks really kawaii, of course. She chose the pink stud, and -- I'm SO proud of her -- she actually got it done with the needle! It was my Christmas gift to her, actually. I told her when she was ready for her next piercing that I'd pay for it. It cost $25.00 (which is pretty inexpensive compared to the lengths we've gone to for each other in the past), but of course $15.00 of that was simply because she was getting her ear pierced with a needle.

It was cute; when she realized they were going to use a needle instead of the gun, she kind of panicked and asked why she couldn't have them use the gun. The guy (who looks like the lead singer of The Foo Fighters, a band I'm kind of ambiguous about) said that the gun was "out of date." ::rolls eyes:: Imagine that; the gun is antiquated, but the needle is "in the now". Well, she finally sucked in her gut and got it done. Oh, I felt so proud, ::wipes a tear:: so proud!

::snicker::

So today, after work, Liz and Angelica and I were trying to figure out what to do. Angelica suggested we go to Chinatown and then on the way back home, go get MY ear pierced. Hmmm... I wasn't too sure, although I had been considering it earlier. We ended up going to Chinatown to eat, we browsed the anime video store and Tony finally gave me some of my anime tapes back. Of course, we got some new stuff from him, too. (I really do love our business relationship; we provide him with new stuff to copy & distribute, he provides us with new stuff, free of charge. It's so satisfyingly... satisfying?)

Then we went to the Barnes & Noble on 53rd & Lexington, so I could show Angelica a certain picture I was dying over by one of my two favorite fantasy artists, Brom (the other being Jody Lee -- or something like that -- she does the covers for Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books, Kate Elliot's books, and some other authors too). I was STILL trying to decide whether I wanted to get my ear pierced. When we finally left B&N at 9:00, we went down into the subway to take the E back downtown, this time to the village. I was still undecided until we got to the turnstile. Then I figured, what the heck, I'll just do it.

So I did.

I knew I'd get it done by needle 'cause the needle didn't bother me that much the first time I got it, so if they prefer to use the needle, I'm not going to stop them. Of course, I bet they prefer to use the needle so they can charge more, but I guess I don't mind too much... I'm a little masochistic that way. In any case, I was just deciding whether to get a stud earring or a hoop. Remember last time I got the hoop put in as the starter earring? The guy said I couldn't play with it. So this time I asked the guy, if I get the hoop, can I play with it? He said yes, so I said okay to the hoop.

It looks SO kirei! Especially with the other five silver hoops in my ear. I really like silver hoops. Obviously. But no big ones. Yech. Anyway, I think it's a slightly darker shade of silver (of course, it could be the bad lighting in my bathroom) than the other ones, with a silver ball, of course. But that's okay; silver wa silver da yo.

Having the needle pierce my ear hurt only a tiny bit more than it did last time (and in comparison with the gun), but I think it's better overall because when I got my first cartilege piercing, my ear was throbbing for quite a while soon after the piercing took place. But today my ear didn't even throb at all! I didn't even realize how little it bothered me until I started comparing it with the first time I got it pierced!

Oh, I've also been itching to get a tattoo. I've known for quite some time that I want to get one that says, in (5) kanji, Shinigami no Koibito, which translates to Love of the God of Death. I printed out the kanji from a wonderful website called Kanji Tattoos and asked the piercing guy approximately how much it would be to have the 5 kanji -- in about half the size shown on the print out -- done on my leg. He said around $70. Which isn't bad at all! Then again, Angelica's mom knows someone who apparently makes house calls and would probably charge less for her, so I think Angelica's going to ask her mom to find out how much he'd charge for it. But even if that doesn't work out, $70 isn't bad. I'm so relieved.

In case you're interested, the five kanji would be made up of Death, then God, then the hiragana symbol for "no" (translation: "of"), then Lover, which is made up of Love and Person. You can look up all of these kanji at www.kanjitattoos.com.

When I got home I started cleaning my ears again... it seems that this hoop is slightly less thick than the one in the middle of my ear -- I know it's gauge 16 and I thought the one in the middle of my ear is gauge 16, too, but it seems to be much easier to turn in my ear than the one in the middle. Do you think it might have to do with the fact that one is in the soft skin of the ear and one is in the cartilege?

I hope the easy time I've had of it so far is a good omen. ::crosses fingers::

You know what's funny? I'm another piercing closer to authenticity in my Kozi cosplay! LOL!