i turned 21 in prison, doing life without parole!

The subject line is a big huge lie. LIE! The truth value is NIL.

In reality, I turned twenty-one lying on the couch in my parents' living room, watching Buster Bluth get his hand bitten off by a seal. I am sure you can see how that is PRACTICALLY the same thing, though!

In conclusion, BIRTHDAY.

*cough*

(Random note: I am loving pandora.com, but why are all the good songs unable to be bought on iTunes? It played me a cover of "Blitzkrieg Bop" the other day by a band called the Beautiful South and it was the best thing I have ever heard. *covets*)

Here is my list of every single book I read as a 20-year-old:

( Books read, 12/13/2004-12/12/2005 )

This includes every single book I completed this year. This includes graphic novels, but not individual comic books, magazines, or anything like that. Short story collections only counted if I read every story.

Number of books read: 131
Number of books read for the first time: 122

The shortest book is Project Princess by Meg Cabot, which was under 70 pages; the longest was probably Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which was 800 pages.

Incredible authors I found for the first time included Elinor Lipman, Laura Kinsale and Sarah Caudwell (the last of whom I've now devoured the entire catalog of). I finished the rest of the Jennifer Crusies I hadn't managed in fall 2004, and moved on into historical romance for the first time. I also devoured everything of Meg Cabot's, and continued with more girly YA lit with the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books, Guitar Girl, and Libba Bray's stuff. Plus, tons more Amelia Peabody.

10 other books from the above list that I enjoyed a lot and haven't mentioned yet in the summary: The Invention of Love, Tom Stoppard; As Meat Loves Salt, Maria McCann; Sunshine, Robin McKinley; We So Seldom Look on Love, Barbara Gowdy; A Hat Full of Sky, Terry Pratchett; The Egyptologist, Arthur Phillips; Ship Fever Andrea Barrett; The Moon and the Sun Vonda McIntyre; Hammered, Elizabeth Bear; The Lions of Al-Rassan, Guy Gavriel Kay.

end of year writing round-up!

Counting last year's Yuletide and DS Seekrit Santa stories, I have written 22 stories this year, two of which were co-written. This is a lot more than I would have guessed I'd written, since I've felt like I've had a really vague writer's block for much of the year.

( Stories I wrote this year )

My favorite story this year (of my own): Merry Bells Keep Ringing. THEY ARE OLD AND SNARKY AND IN LOVE AND IT'S CHRISTMAS. I AM A BIG SQUISHY GIRL HELLO. Also, in the lj snippets that aren't really stories, I am totally in love with the one where Fraser tells Ray polar exploration stories.

My best story this year: When There's Nothing Left to Burn, You Have to Set Yourself On Fire. Dude, I poured my heart into that thing, and I am SO PLEASED by how it turned out. This is probably the only Twitch City fic I'll ever finish, but I'm okay with that.

Story most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion: Friday Nights had an audience of, like, me, BLG and Estrella, but I love it anyway and am actually really really proud of the Amy and Cutter (and Lennox, I suppose) voices in it.

Most fun story: A Strange But True Story. Bizarrely parental aliens = love.

Most sexy story: Uh, assuming the random gendefuck snippets don't count -- hmm. Probably Shake Trip and Fall, I think.

Story with single sexiest moment: Um, I'm seriously twisted, so although nobody else in the world would think so, I think the making out in the Vecchiocest is weirdly hot in a wrongwrongwrong way. Alternatively: DEPOT ORGY.

Hardest story to write: Ahahahahahahaha. I'm only gonna say this once. SO MUCH. I was practically CRYING trying to get that one out. LIKE PULLING TEETH.

There's also the "unintentionally telling" question, but I think that's the sort of thing that anyone at all who's not me would probably be better qualified to answer.

this just in:

I will be breaking my long-standing policy of not seeing movies with purportedly tragic endings in order to watch BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (aka the “gay cowboy movie”). I urge you to see it as well, and not just because it co-stars THE PRINCESS DIARIES’s Anne Hathaway and RANDY QUAID. Even though, as my brother Matt put it this weekend, there is only one “crying show” allowed per week--and that show is, of course, EXTREME HOME MAKEOVER--I think it’s very, very important to support movies in which hot guys kiss each other.

MEG CABOT I LOVE YOU <3<3<3<3<3.