Hi gang,

I've sent an unpublish request to one of our site admins to have Aria Blade taken down. There are a number of reasons, but MAINLY, Aria Blade was an experiment in writing style that, I feel, utterly flopped.

I may at some point in the future go back and do a complete rewrite and re-post it, but for now, I've asked that it be taken down. So if you want to save your comments, please do so, or PM me and I'll copy them over for you. They won't be deleted; they just won't be visible until/unless I decide to republish at a later date.

I sometimes wonder if I am actually making any progress, or if I am just going around in circles. I feel like a mental conjoined twin - one side is female, the other is male, but neither can really live without the other. After having my male side resurface, I am back to having sleepless nights and fevered prayers to finally be at peace. But I have patrolled the limits of my cage, and I simply do not see any exits. I went to a wiener roast at my church's pastor's new place yesterday, and one of the women there insisted that one day soon I would be sharing my story in public.

An odd evening. The weather has been atrocious, and I have been sheltering indoors and writing. I gave uP tonight, and went out for music, catching up to three other club members cycling in. I am afraid that being out on the bike at last meantn that I just surged past them and was waiting with half a beer by the time they arrived.
I didn't play, but the guests were good, if a little too slick, and I had a good conversation on the train back with another member about the joy of making music, and how great it was to see so many young and not so young new chums there.

The general indifference to Chapter 2 of 'The Van ...' has been quite deafening. I have therefore decided to discontinue it. At least as a TG/TV tale. I still think there is mileage in the idea and am toying with rewriting and perhaps posting in on Fictioneer in due course. I enjoy writing and, if other commitments permit, that is perhaps the way forward for me.

Here's a little tease:

I've been thinking about a sequel in my head...I think it'll be called How to Become of Hero or some such nonsense. It'll take place a few months later with the Green Arrow trying her hardest to fight crime and finding that she doesn't really know what she's doing. She'll end up taking hero lessons, all the while investigating who hired Merlyn and dodging a deadly assassin with her in his sights. There's also the issue of high school, boys (Roy?) and trying to fit into a world she knows nothing about (girlhood).

I saw this news article on Spanish dad's and breast feeding leave! Whatever next? Heres the link ...

www.madeformums.com/mums-and-dads/dads-in-spain-entitled-to-...

This is a true halloween story that happened to me and my family the first halloween after we arrived in England in 1953.
We were living in Cambridge, in a house that had been built in 1863, per the date etched into a stone, above the front door on the second floor. The house was a three story house, and did indeed look old.

I had to make my morning fritatta with no eggs in the house this morning.

Been out for a run last night, my first real big hill route since my ankle tendon decided to complain in May. Only 4 or 5 miles and the legs still remember what I forced them to do.
Still good it is good to be able to go out even if I am about 25% slower. I do hope my speed and endurance recovers soon as I am now looking forward to which races I might do. Edale skyline next year is favourite at the mo

My Nanay aka mother-in-law suffered two ischemic strokes last Saturday. At first we thought Nanay may recover from them, but beginning Tuesday she started sliding badly. An MRI today showed Nanay's brain to have more damage than first diagnosed. Nanay is all but gone now.

Had a very sad moment with my daughter tonight. She sometimes slips and uses female pronouns for me, and she actually wondered out loud today why she does that. It took every bit of self control I possessed not to tell her why I think she does it. I am breaking apart here.

Another entry so soon!

I've been thinking about how "he" was not only a facade - and I am speaking only for myself on that - because "he" had a presence in this world, an influence, a purpose. "He" was still never the real me, of course, make no mistake there. However, there was a reason for "him" to exist. There were things "he" did that affected other people, like songs "he" wrote and stories "he" wrote and things "he" did. "He" had a very real and very valuable purpose in this world.

And thank God that's over with. lol

I had asked a number of you to pray for for brother Jeff. It is with Deeppest sorrow I share with you that at sometime around 2:30 this morning PST my brothher died.

While rough around the edges Jeff absolutely addoredd me growing up. I was his big brother. Please keep the family in your prayers. This has been a horrid shock to the whole family. He was 44 years old.

Well the end is almost upon us, part 239 of the Gaby saga is now up for you to read at http://www.maddybell.com/Gaby279.htm.

Enjoy

Maddy

Today we say goodbye to Hazel, my aunt and godmother. It's going to be tough on me, so I don't know what sort of state I shall be in later and therefore can't comment on whether or not I'll be able to do the next episode of Bike.

Apologies for last night, but I went to pay my personal respects and it took quite a lot out of me. Today, I am next of kin and presumably leading the mourning. I'm presenting a celebration of Hazel's life which I hope won't be too depressing, after all she had a wicked sense of humour and very dirty laugh. I shall try and remember both in the days ahead.

It's been a rough few months. My wife of 36 years passed in mid-June after a 9 years of being bed-ridden during which I was her primary caregiver. She had MS with complications and we both knew the outcome. Still, it took a lot out of me. We'd been dating since high school, 41 years ago, and I've never done anything as an adult without taking her into consideration, especially during her illness. While I miss her, she's in a better place waiting for me. She told me she'd be waiting for me but that I should take my time.

I have just had a ’phone call from Angharad to ask me to warn all you Bikefans that EAFOAB Part 1128 might not appear on BC tonight. Her ex-partner and their daughter are arriving by train during the evening for her Aunt's funeral tomorrow, so she will probably be unable to find time to write it.

She said not to rule it out completely, but that it was highly unlikely that she will find time tonight.

Gabi

For what it's worth, I'll be taking down the "body" of several of my short stories in the next few weeks. They're the non-TG stories and I've another place I may be sharing them, and I'd prefer people NOT be able to find my work here (yet) when they read them (If anyone does).

I dont know if its because i have been working too much or what, but it feels like my creative well has run dry. I hope this doesnt last.

So I just finished the rough draft on a Halloween-themed story. Like Becoming Robin this is seated very much in the Sweet / Sentimental category. Unlike Robin this isn't a novel-going-on-serial :-P

It's an actual, real-live short story, from me, the Queen of babbling endlessly. Can you believe it? ^_^

Well whatever the glitch was the site is now updated so you can now access more fanfics, Peaches and Gaby as well as details of some book buying offers (there is an extension to this coming weekend on the short offer!)

enjoy

Maddy

Despite living in the city, I spent Saturday helping a neighbor cut down several dead trees. This was after two days of indulging myself in front of the computer comfortably dressed in a skirt and blouse. Each time I fired up the chain saw this tune ran through my head:

I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK...

You know the rest!

I came back from my trip to forn paartz and tonight was the evening of my folk club. I played....and you have to understand the difference between the music and "the dots", which is the written notation.
A member of the club I really respect as a musician came up to me after my bit and complimented me on how I had made the piece my own.
It is difficult to get across to a non-player exactly how nice a compliment that is.

Happy bounce!

...about people you thought you knew: video link. :)

Hugs,
Erin

Well, as the story continues I begin to delve deeper into Cultural Anthropology and the crazy coolness of it. It is actually a pretty interesting topic and one that is I had the money I would go back to school for, specifically the Ethnolinguistics, where Culture and Language make sweet, sweet love. :)

here is a really sad video about a tg girl who was murdered.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8J8FmbvBcQ&feature=grec_browse

Ok, life intrudes on my ability to continue at the pace I would like to write at. If I wasn't currently running 12 credit hours (about 36 hours of work per week) and had a 40 hour per week job, I might be able to spend the 28 hours a week it takes me to keep producing TGL daily.

Tonight my family will eating food from a recipe passed down from my parents to me. Unfortunately the children aren't so crazy about we're having(Dad can we go to Lindburgers instead?). So what is the meal?

Tuna Casserole

The ingredients three cans of tuna fish
One can campbell's cream of mushroom soup
One pound ziti macaroni
butter
milk
bread crumbs

The meal takes 55 minutes in the oven at 350F

Spotted on the Telegraph's website:

"The secret life of the harvest mouse - cute pictures by Jean Louis Klein and Marie Luce Hubert"

So assuming life in a certain household manages to settle down in the next year¹, those are the cute critters that the matriarch will be showcasing...
 
 

For some unknown reason this weeks update despite being uploaded to the server isn't appearing. I have no power over this, i'm not getting any replies to my webmeister queries and my geek squad aren't talking either.

I quite enjoy doing the site but maybe it's outlived its usefulness so if i can't get it sorted by the weekend i'm taking a break from the updates until further notice.

I'm just sitting here, taking a break from processing apples to dry. Got the first batch going now, and have decided that slicing them in 1/4 thickness is high risk for me; almost cut a finger off twice!

Just thought I'd introduce myself. I'm Rachael Ross or just plain rache. I've been writing for awhile and I don't really have a preference for subject matter, it's all good. I use a lot of pen names and for TG/TS stories I generally like to use "T.S.Severe" and she's one of my many alter-egos (the one who dresses better than the rest of me) ...Uhhh, let's see. I have a website hosted by ASSTR at:

http://www1.asstr.org/~rache/index.htm

I've just discovered my recent Chapter 7 post is sans single quotes. Fixing requires reading the entire story as HTML... *whimper*

If anyone can suggest the preferred way to get text (containing italics) from RoughDraft (MS rich text) into "Create Content", I would appreciated it; as my way seems to require multiple editing passes.

update: Some partial search-and-replace fixes have been done, but I know there's more to do. I'll give it another pass tonight.

another update: I think I've got them all. Ouch. :)

Pardon me if this story resembles a Rube Goldberg contraption but...

Around the 4th of July I went out to the garage to get something and discovered the neighborhood stray cat had decided to have her kittens on top of our camping gear. Not wanting a new batch of strays in the neighborhood I took the kittens inside, firmly intending to give them away or call the ASPCA or something.

Thinking about the October contest last night, this opening idea came to me while I was dreaming, and was sufficiently wacky for me to recall it after waking...

Hey there,
I've had some real rough things going on in my life. Starting last October.

Same day I was injured at work, wife was informed job of 29 years going away to Minn.

Stage One breast cancer for wife.

She had the surgery.

Wife had car accident.

Radiation treatments.

Mother diagnosed Stage Four cancer in June.

Mother went in to hospital in July. Died july 20 in a crappy hospise. Thankfully she went peacefully.

August 10 I lost my job. By the way, I was born on Friday August 13. Happy Frigging Birthday to me.

With all the wonderful Retcon stories on BCTS it seems logical that the ''SUPERMARIONATION'' classics such as, Captain Scarlet, Stingray and Thunderbirds would lend themselves to some genderbending action.

Just thinking about Captain Scarlet in an elegant evening dress might make it easier to find (attract) the mysterons !

Today I read a most interesting article that appeared in the New York Times on-line paper.

Having resorted to shaving my arms and legs, and face, with disposable shavers, and suffering innumerable cuts and so forth, I tried a new little shaver that works VERY well. It's called The Microforce and it's only ten dollars at Wal-Mart. To my pleased amazement, it works VERY well indeed, and not only on my appendages, but my face as well. It's battery operated, no recharging, and works dry or wet. I debated with myself about whether to buy a more expensive shaver, but I thought I'd try this little one first.

Well, I am really up against some hard choices. I let slip my trans status to a couple of co-workers, and I had a amazing response - My blood pressure, which was high, dropped, and my cluster headache went away. Then today, as I had to go back into hiding, the headache came back and my bp went back up. So I finally realize the truth - i either live honestly, and suffer the consequences, or I keep myself in the closet, and risk a serious health problem. Pray I make the wisest choice.

Too sick to talk about it.

- Erin

I am away from tomorrow for a few days, to a rocky place in the sun. I have just about finished the story, and will post the other episodes on my return. May I suggest for anyone reading my tale that they read my other one as well. Thank you for your patience.

Since some of you liked the other 500 word story I wrote for a local radio competition I suppose I may as well post the second one (the competition allowed 2 entries per person). This isn't a tear jerker but may raise a wry smile.

Love in the slow lane

John self-consciously fingered the red carnation in the buttonhole of his sports jacket. He wasn’t used to it, not sports jackets nor buttonholes nor the flowers that go in them. He searched the tables in the Motorway café. Then he saw her sitting alone reading The Spectator, and walked nervously over.

I have just had a ’phone call from Angharad to say that her Aunt (who had lived with her since 1987) died this afternoon at the age of 83. She had been unwell for a number of days.

Ang says that she might not be able to post an a chapter of EAFOAB tonight, it very much depends how she feels. She hopes everyone will understand if she doesn't get "the muse" this evening. I don't know if she will be on her ’puter this evening, but you could PM her, or PM me and I will pass on any messages when she ’phones me later.

Gabi