I'm sitting in the study, printing out some documents from the laptop for tomorrow's committee meeting. The USB cable runs from the dock to the laptop, all the way across the room, blocking my access to the door.
While the printer is chugging away, I'm supposed to be getting ready to go, finding socks, that sort of thing. So I consider the cable for a few moments, trying to decide whether to limbo under it or try and climb over it, before it finally occurs to me that I could just pick up the laptop. 
I'd claim it was just because it's too early for me, but to be fair I have this dilemma every time I print...

 Quick note to anybody who follows this but doesn't follow  plotbunniesinc (and why would you do that? plotbunniesinc  is so much more interesting...)

Refraction is currently posted at  plotbunniesinc, if you'd like to take a look...

 Thursdays are rehearsal nights. 
We blocked the opening number last week.

 

 

And now I really must rush and get changed as I'm picking Josh up in five minutes, it's pissing it down and I don't want to leave the poor guy standing out in the rain waiting for me....

I have just worked out that the guy I was lusting after this weekend is younger than our Sarah, and I feel grubby...

 The dental infection is back. It's lower this time, under my chin instead of on the jaw. It's odd, because although it hurts you wouldn't know it was there, unless you looked really closely and realised that my chin is... wonky. Bigger and lower on one side. And I guess that unless you really knew me, you wouldn't mention it, just in case my face had always been that shape...

Sketch rehearsal tonight. We've only had the scripts a week but we need to have them learnt as soon as we can. (Might find out if I got anything from the music audition as well!! Eeep!!)
I have two parts in sketches, both male. There's something very odd about playing both Ronnie Corbett and Admiral Nelson in the same show. Or indeed at all.
I'm not exactly the right shape to pass myself off as a bloke, either, if you catch my drift...

I dreamt last night that I was talking to my grandfather about the show, telling him about the parts I'd got. He was interested and proud, and it was very real. I woke up feeling sad, because in the dream he was ill and he was dying, and then I remembered that he died nearly 18 months ago. He would have been really proud of me. He was really proud of me. 
It's not the first time I've had that dream, although we talk about something different every time.
I miss him more than I thought I would.

Dialect meme, acquired from demotu and seize. I'm from the south of England, about 40 miles south west of London. I speak either Estuary English or RP, depending on who I'm talking to. I also have a few inflections picked up from studying in Yorkshire, but this only comes out in the occasional pronounciation, and a tendency to say "lass" instead of "girl" in some contexts. (When we lived in Yorkshire, theninthdoctorand I could have conversations in Estuary that nobody else could follow...)

 Yesterday was the first time I really felt that I'd had a proper grown up birthday.
Last year, my parents took my to Brussels for the weekend because I wanted to see the Breughels in the National Art Museum. Whilst this in itself was terribly grown up, there's something about spending the weekend with one's parents that leaves one still feeling like a child. Although I did drink quite a lot of beer.
The year before that I think I went to the pub with some colleagues. Whatever I did, it wasn't interesting enough to put in my journal, which was all about counting down to my new job. Which I'm still in.
The year before that, my friend Liz came to stay and she took me to the Build-A-Bear workshop. Which wasn't even remotely grown-up. (Dave The Bear still lives on my bed...)

This year, my birthday was a Sunday. When my birthday is a Sunday, it's the day the clocks go forward and I only have 23 hours of birthday. This happened on my twenty-first, and I wasn't impressed. I was going to take the extra hour at the end of October and celebrate that too, but by that time I'd left uni and had a job where I started work at 0600, so that never really came to anything... This year I'm not too worried about it.
My mother took me shopping on Saturday. We were ostensibly going for "jeans and a top" for my birthday present, which somehow became "jeans, a dress and three tops" because I am spoilt. Then we went out for dinner in the evening.
That was lovely, because not only was the food good, but the maitre'd was a guy I used to work with when I first left uni and was head waitress on the day shift at a hotel. Nick was  night porter/receptionist, and wanted to get into the restaurant team. He used to help out at banquets, and I will never forget watching him carry eight plates of dessert stacked all the way up his arm, down two flights of stairs. It was pretty scary to follow him, but he was good. Anyway, it was nice to see him doing well, even if he was too busy for us to catch up properly.

On the day itself, I went to the pub for lunch, Anna and Dave wanted to take me out for lunch, so we went to my local pub/restaurant, which is a bit off the main road and has a lovely atmosphere. 'Cole, Stuart, Hayleigh, Tracy, Gareth and Freya also came out. Freya is Tracy and Gareth's daughter, she's nineteen months old and a total scene stealer.
We had lunch, and then chilled out all afternoon. Stuart, Hayleigh and I were still there at six pm, talking about the play which I have now agreed to Assistant Direct.
It was exactly what I wanted from the day.

 For anybody who had to listen to me going on and on about the hat I had for the finale of Oklahoma!, this is it.
I loved this hat. It upstaged me on the dress rehearsal and on opening night, but I loved it, and I was very sad when I had to give it back.

Title: The Torchwood Account - The Crown
Pairing: None
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None
Summary: It's not just the team who make a living from Torchwood...

 I'm staying with my parents for Easter. My mum's gone a bit mad in a Christmas sort of a way and is steadily shovelling far too much food into the family (which is just Dad and I...) and producing cooked breakfasts, big buffet style teas and ongoing evening snacks of a cheese-and-biscuits nature.
So much for all the weight I've lost recently...

This is the first in a series of short, stand-alone fics written around a theme. So far I have three of these written, and more will follow as the bunnies bite... 

 

In some bizarre way, I don't mind working overtime.
I spent six hours at work this morning, but that's okay because they'll pay me for nine and I really need the money right now.
Working on a Saturday is odd, because the time moves differently. When I haven't got people coming up to ask obvious questions, or try to get me to stop doing one thing and do something else, or read things in foreign languages to them, I can get so much more done.
Plus I get a certain amount of amusement from checking up on the emergency helpline staff. Saturday morning for me is late Saturday night / early Sunday morning for New Zealand, and they don't expect to hear from me... there's a bit of a pause while they try to work out what day of the week it is. 
I think I woke one of them up today. He shouldn't have been sleeping at his desk...

We have the parents coming to dinner tonight. 'Cole and I have been living together for almost eighteen months, and this is the first time we've managed to get both sets of parents together. Note that my parents live furthest away, and that's only ten miles...

I am sick of vacuuming. I mean, my mother KNOWS I'm not a naturally tidy person, and yet I have the urge to try and prove that I'm a grown up when she comes round...

 It's the worst day of the run, the Sunday. After months of rehearsals, and the frantic pace of the last couple of weeks with costumes and sets, tech rehearsal band call dress rehearsal... the run. 

We played to pack houses. We sold out every performance. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, twice on Saturday...

And there were speeches, and a party, and so much wine... And people re-enacting the bits with the kisses.

And I rolled into bed some time after three... now it's Sunday.

There is no more show, but I have the music still lodged in my head. There is no more show, there are no more performances, no rehearsals...
We start on the Summer Show (which is a variety show) on April 3rd, but what do I do with myself until then?

I know what I'll be doing, the9thdoctorand I have been talking about our next collaboration and we're almost ready to start writing it - so that's what I'll be doing for the next month.  Getting Caught will have the last chapters posted before long, and then I have some one-shot pieces to post.

It's just hard, the come down, getting on with your life...

I don't know how long this link will be live for, but for now at least, I am pictured on the bbc...
 And there's a link to John Barrowman ON THE SAME PAGE. Eep.

 Ladies and gentlemen...

does anybody actually read this?

We, that is,  the9thdoctorand I, have posted the first chapter of our new fic over at plotbunniesinc. It's called Getting Caught - go and read it. 
There are eight chapters, all set up and ready to post. I'm going to be very very busy over the next couple of weeks, as Oklahoma! is about to open and we're into the final run of rehearsals. the9thdoctoris going to post a new chapter every couple of days, and then I have a piece of my own in several parts to share with you, and hopefully once that's out in the world we'll be well on the way to finishing something else and the fic will just keep coming.
That's the idea, anyway...

I have a dental appointment at 0830, for further treatment of my ongoing root canal. What a way to start Monday...

Although to be honest I don't consider it any worse that going to the office for 0830, which is what I would otherwise be doing. And as there is no reason at all to get to the dentist 20 minutes in advance, it means that I am only half dressed and messing about on the internet when I would otherwise be preparing to go and chip the ice off my car.

This is my third session of root canal treatment. I had an anaesthetic for the first one, but didn't need it for the second and so won't be getting one today either - which means I can go straight back to work with no fear of getting hysterics.
We complain about the NHS, and particularly NHS dentistry, but it's things like this that make me realise how lucky I am. There aren't enough NHS dentists to go round any more, but I've been registered with this practice all my life. When I went to university at the other end of the country I moved doctor but I kept my dentist and just had my check-ups in the holidays. Now I need this treatment, and the entire thing cost be £47, for as many sessions as necessary. Had I gone private, I could have seen a specialist and had it all done in one go - at a cost of £300 - £500. I don't have that kind of money just lying around waiting for me to spend... 

Anyhoo...

I'm hoping that work will be less stressed this week, but I'm not counting on it. At least I start my next study course this week and I don't go into the office on Wednesday mornings for the next 6 weeks.

And

the9thdoctor and I have outlined the plot for our next fic, which should be on your screens in the next couple of weeks... 

 

 On balance, today was a good day.

Work was not good. There is a lot to do at the moment. The team I am on has just gained a new member of staff who has taken over some of our admininstration - and whilst she had worked for the company as a temp previously and knows how our systems and processes work, she was on a different team, and it has fallen to me to train her on the aspects of our job that differ from the other teams. I was the most recent transfer to our team - I had previously been practically running another team, but without the senior status or paycheque, naturally. It strikes me as odd that as the (now second-) most junior member of the team I have to do the training, but then again the rest of the team are either short tempered or Southern Europeans. I suppose it makes sense for the most patient member of the team (again, what sort of parallel world is it where that's me?) to do the training. 
Anyway, today I have been trying to do my own job, help the new girl, handle queries from the team I used to look after, and be polite to people who wanted me to translate things. I am currently the department's only French speaker, and so I'm translating incomming paperwork from France / Lebanon / Various countries in West Africa on behalf of the UK and Middle East offices, and even on occasion the New Zealand office. 

Oh, and everything had to be done RIGHT NOW.

But...

I finally managed to get hold of a pair of boots that I've been after for weeks, that they didn't have in the right size and colour until today. Not only that, but as it has taken me until the end of January to get them, they are now literally half the price they were when I originally decided to buy them.

And when I got to Fat Club tonight, I'd lost six pounds. Serious, Root Canal Treatment works as a weight loss tool...

That was scary.
Sending my first solo fic out there to fend for itself...

Strictly speaking it wasn't my first solo fic. I used to write Harry Potter, back in the day, when I lived in France and actually wrote properly instead of having a proper job like I do now. I used to post on fanfiction.net (look, it was YEARS ago, okay?) and the responses were nothing like as immediate as they are here.
The other thing that makes it scary is that I've been lurking here for long enough to have favourite authors whose work I really admire, and when some of those writers left positive comments on Something Exotic, that was.... wow.
Something Exotic, however, was co-authored by the9thdoctorand posting that was nowhere near as scary as posting my own. Even if the9thdoctordid have to post it in the comms for me because I'm new to LJ and couldn't make it work...