The aliens have a cousin who was born less than a week after they were. I'm sure that those of you who have been around remember when she was born, but I'll summarize for anyone who doesn't. Literally, she's about six days younger than they are. Technically, she's six weeks older. The aliens were 4 weeks early, she was two weeks late.

A lot of you probably also remember that we planned for everything to go absolutely apeshit crazy go nuts with the aliens delivery. The only thing that's usually predictable about twin deliveries is that they're ridiculously unpredictable. So we prepared for the worst--as much as anyone can prepare for that--and ended up with a really straightforward, fast, uncomplicated delivery. My niece was not so lucky.

It was nearly three days of unproductive labour, epidurals that didn't work, pushing that went nowhere before she was delivered by c-section. They had to go in fast, and her mother couldn't even be awake for her birth, her father couldn't be in the room. Within 24 hours, they realized something wasn't right, and before she was two days old, she was having brain surgery due to bleeding in her brain. The surgery was a success, and as far as all that's concerned, she's doing really well.

Now she's dealing with another issue altogether, although I honestly don't know if it's at all related to the surgery, or just my little bad luck baby niece getting yet another thing thrown at her, poor wee one. I don't know the medical term exactly, but her brain has "turned off" one of her eyes. They tried using drops and a patch (ever tried to keep a patch on the eye of a 15 month old? Yeah, pretty much not happening), but it didn't work, and today, she's having surgery to correct the problem.

They're saying it's not complicated, they're saying it's relatively minor. I'm sure that the 'they' who are saying this are right. But this is a little girl who's already had to have her head poked around with, and it just hurts my heart that she's having to have it done again before she's hit a year and a half old.

So, if you could spare some good thoughts for my niece today, as she has surgery at 12:30pm, PST, that would mean a lot to me.

Thank you all. Love the Jay.

Many of you are aware of the Academic Husband. If you are not, he is both an academic (personally and at times, professionally), and my husband, so, kind of what it says on the box. Most of you know that he is also awesome, long-suffering, and has been my main research go-to guy for all things well. Anything, really, since he's scary smart, and has a wealth of seemingly random knowledge available at the snap of a finger--a one man 'little details'. I've floated RPG and fanfic bunnies at him more times than I can count, and bless his heart, he's always come through for me.

What you may not know is that he's been writing long before I ever started, and while I haven't managed to get him writing fanfic (yet), he is working on a few projects of his own. And now he's asked me to ask you for help on one of them.

---

From the Academic Husband:

The question, if you could post it to those who know:

I'm hoping to do a Quirk Classics-style ("Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," "Android Karenin," etc.) version of a classic CanLit novel that won't be in the public domain for another sixty years. I'm not interested in waiting that long, naturally, and am pretty sure that this would mostly be an exercise in fun and gaining writing chops than something done for profit. With that the case, I'd likely publish it in a blog format instead. That said, I don't want to lose whatever copyright I would be entitled to, either.

If I am to proceed with this endeavour:
1) What sorts of legal declarations need to be made, both for my rights and the rights of the dead author? (I think I know where his estate's agents are, even. Would they need to know, or just be mentioned?) I'm pretty sure I gain any rights to which I am entitled by mere mention of "all rights reserved" or some such, but I'd like to know. Or is there a Creative Commons declaration that fits for this?

2) What sort of venue is best for reading this sort of creation? I'd love to have this be a first step towards a greater writing career, so I'd like it to be as reputable as possible.

3) Anything else I should know, either that's not been asked here (but needs be answered!) or from personal experience with some sort of (sorry) "blovel" effort?

Thanks for whatever info you can provide!

---

If you have any information that I can pass on to him, that would be beyond awesome. If you don't, but you can think of anyone who might know, or if you'd be able to boost the signal further, that would be beyond amazing. I can't promise that there'll be fanfic in it for you (although he does keep threatening to write his epic Bob Balaban/Fred Willard RPS fic, so consider that either a carrot or a stick), but we would both be very grateful. Thanks!

Both my family and the Academic Husband's family have a habit/flaw/whatever you want to call it that drives me absolutely crazy. They don't tell you things. They aren't generally keeping them from you, no. It's not as simple as that. They just... don't pass important information on--information that other people might really like to have.

The AH's cousin is due to have her first baby this month, July 25th. She and her husband were lovely when we had the twins, and I've been looking forward to being able to give a little bit of that back. She came and visited me in the hospital when I was trapped there for almost two weeks, and was generally lovely. So, when I talked to my mother in law this afternoon, and asked her how T was doing, and asked what her due date was again (because I'd forgotten), she kind of went 'oh, just wait until I tell you' in that wry way that is textbook my mother in law (I love my mother in law, btw. She is made of awesome and sunshine, and she never does this to me).

She tells me that T's doing great, since she's just been released from the hospital for the weekend, where she's been for a week, on mandated bed rest, due to skyrocketing blood pressure. Oh, and she's being induced on Monday, about 3 weeks early.

O.o

I go "UH!" and she goes, but wait wait--the reason why she didn't tell me is that her sister, this baby's about-to-be-grandmother, didn't tell anyone that T was in the hospital until this morning.

*FLAIL*

So... just to make this a little bit less about me, and a lot more about where it should be, which is thinking of T and her husband and their wee one... can you please all do that? I'm not sure of anything medically regarding how she's doing, just that it seems they can't be panicking that much if they're willing to let her go the weekend at home from the hospital so that she can be induced on Monday when it's not a long weekend. But even still, high blood pressure and early babies and inductions make me worry. So if you could please think good thoughts for T and her little person, I'd appreciate it.

If you can't afford to hold the Olympics without slashing the fuck out of education, financially crippling teachers and support staff and fucking up the opportunities of students? DON'T HOLD THE FUCKING OLYMPICS!

Why is this not obvious? Why is this not utterly and completely fucking obvious? Imagine if private citizens decided to hold a giant party in their backyard, redecorate their house, add a few rooms, change the bathrooms and the kitchen, do landscaping, and then when the bill game due went 'oh, shit... guess I didn't have enough money for that. No worries--I'll just cut back the amount of money I pay in taxes per month... I'm sure that the government can get the money from somewhere else. Plenty of other sources out there for them to get money from!'

Yeah. Okay. Probably not the most fluid of all analogies, but come on, here. We don't get to pay for things we can't afford without being the ones to suffer the consequences. But when they do it... we suffer the consequences.

I'm a fan of sport. I see the value in it, and I see the value in athletics, and athletic competition. I also see the value in building infrastructure that holding an event like the Olympics requires, and the benefit to the city and province that comes from having that infrastructure built. I see that it creates jobs.

But you can't sell me on the benefit of the Olympics and how it creates jobs when you turn around and gut the education system. When you cut the jobs from thousands of people, either entirely, or down to part-time, or even casual and substitute work. People who have held jobs for years now are going to be back on the substitute and casual lists in BC because all of a sudden, just coincidentally a few months after the Olympics have been held, the schools budgets have been drastically, devastatingly cut.

And you can't sell me on the concept that we don't have money enough to pay for education when not only did you just hold a giant party in our backyard, but it turns out that millions of dollars were spent on free tickets and complimentary this and that for VIPs.

Because wow. I'm so glad that I'll be working two jobs this fall just to break even, if we're lucky. I'm so glad that I'll be working twelve hour days, at least three days of the week to pay for daycare because the only job I could work that has benefits is smack in the middle of the day--meaning that I have to pay for a full day and not just a half day of daycare--but doesn't pay enough to cover daycare because it's only part time hours. I'm so glad that my husband's going to be substitute teaching for his eighth year running, because, you've raised class sizes, cut programs, and removed actual teaching positions. Again.

No, really. All of this was completely worth it, so long as we managed to impress and wine and dine and entertain the VIPs. And if teachers and support staff are affected by the cuts to education, if children are affected, well. All part of the cost of doing business.

Title: Small Town
Authors: ashinae and linden_jay
Fandom: Sports Night
Pairing(s): Dan/Casey; Casey/Sally, Dan/Bobby
Rating/Warning: NC-17 for m/m sex
Word Count: 41750
Summary: Welcome to Port Bowmore, Nova Scotia. Population 700.

Dan and Casey, roommates since college, co-manage the town's sporting goods store. Dan (who is not-so-secretly in love with Casey) spends most of his time hunting the local longshoremen. Casey (who is very secretly in love with Dan) is sleeping with Sally Sasser, the town's ambulance chasing lawyer. When Bobby Bernstein comes to town to recruit Dan for a GM position at SportChek in Halifax, Casey has to confront his feelings for Dan, or lose him to the 'big city'.

Notes: For au_bigbang. Thanks to sabrinagb and fiercy for their beta work. Liberty has been taken with Sports Night canon in making Casey, Dan, and Dana the same age. Also, Bobbi Bernstein is a boy. Quotations from the show sprinkled liberally throughout.

And the disclaimer: Sports Night is the brainchild of Aaron Sorkin. We are not Aaron Sorkin. The following work of fiction was written for fun and not for profit.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7

Playlist

Castiel: This isn't funny, Dean! The voice says I'm almost out of minutes.

So there was going to be sleep, and then there were babies, and then there wasn't sleep and now I'm going to toss out some of the last of the thinky thoughts that I had relating-but-not-really to the contents of my last post.

That wasn't in any way a coherent sentence, was it? Imma try again. This is tangential. It's definitely a rant. And it's about something that's very much a side note in this whole discussion that's been going on. But it's making my brain do seething, and that's not good for my blood pressure, I'm pretty sure, so I'm gonna try and see if I can make it make sense.

This is one of those things that I'm sure for most of the people that I know is just common sense. In fact, it outright says on the S&P for Wincon that people are not to be douches toward hotel staff (okay, maybe they didn't put it exactly like that, but still). Tip your bell-people and the housekeepers. Be polite to the front desk staff, especially if you're asking them for things. Don't be loud and obnoxious. Don't describe Two Girls, One Cup in the lobby of the hotel, right across from the group of little old men and ladies from the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Daughters of Rebekah who are checking in for their own convention. Don't drink in public spaces where drinking is not permitted.

And do you know why? Because when you don't? The person whose life you make difficult is me. ( Yeah, I work in a hotel. )

Okay. I have Things, and I've decided to separate them into two different posts, because they're whoa nelly different, and combining them would feel wrong. This post is all made up of good things. Thinky things and bad things will come later.

( Today, I had a low-key and totally awesome birthday, which is just the way I like them. )

Oh, also randomly, I have a Wonder. Is there an icon that you particularly associate with being 'me'? I ask this because there are people who are much more locked into a default than I have always been, and I don't know that I've got an icon that I super regularly use as 'me', and yet there are lots of people who I totally associate with a particular icon.

This came up tonight a few times, once when I linked to an icon which was totally blank and unfancy, with no name attached, but just from the specific picture, the person I was talking to said 'oh that's [so and so's] icon!'. So now I'm curious. What icon do you think of when you think of me? What says 'Jay'? (And if this is over on dreamwidth, I really need to get on that whole paid account thing so I can actually have my 'me' icons uploaded, and not just a few!)

1) I am tired. Raise your hand if you're shocked. Really, I need to find a new #1 thing to whine about, but it's just so, well. True.

2) The aliens have been getting slightly better about sleeping now that they're not sick anymore, but that didn't stop them from having a truly epically wretched night last night. Poor Monkey kept falling asleep and waking up in hysterics, like she was having nightmares, and the Frog was just completely stubborn and Do Not Want as regards sleep. I blame it on them having shit naps on Sunday in the daytime. Hopefully I can break the cycle if I can get them down for two good naps today.

3) Work continues to be... interesting. I only get one more training shift at my actual job before I'm all on my own on a weekend *cue panic*. I left a note for my boss that said I didn't feel ready and that I'd like one more training shift before my last training shift, but he never called me back. Which leads me to:

4) Work has called me three times already today. At nine am. NINE AM. 1) I have babies, and 2), dude, I know I didn't work last night, but I work the night shift. Who calls someone who works the night shift at nine am!?!?! The first was to ask me about my tax forms (which I left in a pile with the note that never got answered, so clearly he didn't find those), the second was to ask me for my Social Insurance Number, and the third was to ask me for my birthday. This is all for my paycheque, so y'know. I'll take the calls, but he better not have been kidding when he promised not to call again today.

5) I am on episode 12 of Season Two of Doctor Who. I have been warned by ashinae that my opinions re: some things/characters/whatnot might be considered heretical in circles, so I will tread carefully until I know what kind of Whosits I have on my flist. I will say this though--watching Doctor Who? Making Torchwood make OH so very much more sense.

6) It may be Monday, but I have hot chocolate, three cattens curled up on my bed, and napping aliens. I'll take that as a win, for now.