borgmama1of5

Thought I'd try this meme as an experiment--
My LJ tells the truth about my year 2009; write down the first sentence of the first post for each month.

My conclusion: I was obviously on another planet in March, July, and August. Wish I could remember where...hope it was fun.
A side observation, when I discovered Supernatural and its fanfic world in August my LJ useage about quadrupled :)

January
So I decided to take yesterday (Sunday) off from life and stay in bed except for the necessities (like donuts.)

February
Realized I haven't posted anything for a while.

March
---

April
I haven't posted anything for a very long time.

May
Names have been changed to protect the innocent(?)

June
So, at the end of 3 weeks on the new job I scheduled myself to take the 'on-call' for the weekend.

July
---

August
---

September
So being out of work for a month, and waiting for unemployment to kick in (whole 'nuther story), I decided to sell my Barbie doll collection.

October
Just watched the most recent episode so I am UP-TO-DATE on my obsession at last!

November
Friday morning a dear friend stopped by to visit as I convalesced.

December
Probably of interest to my Supernatural friends only...
(Just about every post from mid-November onhas this caveat...)

Thinking I should frame this email I got from my 20-year-old today:

Thank you for raising me to be a competent human being. I spent the first hour and a half at work this morning cleaning up the other girl's messes from yesterday- sorting out orders, following up on things, fixing her mistakes...

So 6 weeks ago I had some minor foot surgery and have been walking around with one of those protective boot things on my left foot since then.

Last week the doctor finally reduced the bandaging to where I can put on a regular sock, but not quite fit my toes in my regular shoes. So with complete disregard for fashion ethics I spent last week wearing socks with sandals.

Monday it snowed. Socks plus sandals plus snow equals major fail. I spent the day with cold soggy feet and moaned about it to everyone who would listen. I whined to my husband on my lunch hour and he said:

"On your way home stop at a shoe store and buy a pair of shoes you can wear even if it's only for now."

Husband telling wife to go buy shoes--epic win!

(Husband got extra hug when I modeled my new shoes.)

(Icon created by mysticwaters)


( Probably of interest to my Supernatural friends only... )

I am taking the liberty positng this everywhere I can because this is potentially a big breakthrough for mydaughter's Sarah's band "Mustang Sally!"

I am copying the email Sarah wrote to me. The upshot is, the band's single is the "new band free download of the week" and what happens to the band next hinges on how many people download the song. So if you can download it AND pass the info along--let's see if we can get this viral web promotion to work!

THANK YOU!
Betty

Hi everybody,

Pardon a moment of shameless self-promotion, but... Mustang Sally is
appearing in the Dec. 7th issue of Country Weekly Magazine, which is
available in stores and newsstands now! We're very excited about this,
as it is our first appearance in a national magazine.

Part of what Country Weekly is offering is a free download of our single, "C'Mon
DJ", from their website. http://www.countryweekly.com/freemusic
We are asking everyone to please download our song, because if we can
show Country Weekly that our fans are wonderful, brilliant, and most
importantly numerous, they will do a feature article on us sometime in
the spring.

Our song will only be available to download until Dec.14th, so act quickly,
please and thank you. And really, we're asking
you to get something for free while looking at a picture of pretty
girls. What's not to love?

And while you are recovering from your fabulous Thanksgiving dinner
and procrastinating about doing the dishes, take a moment and check
out our music video on YouTube- www.youtube.com/mustangsallyband -
again, the more folks who watch it, the quicker the powers that be at
CMT will perk up their ears and pay attention.

Thank you for giving us a moment of your Thanksgiving day. Have a
beautiful holiday, and may all your turkeys be tender and juicy.

Much love,
Sarah and the Mustang Sally crew

A meme from another LJ friend--pass it along!

1. My username is ______ because ______.
"Borgmama1of5" because plain 'borgmama' was already taken--I have been a Star Trek fan since I was 11 years old and, when my girls were younger, our family operated like the Borg collective. There are 5 of us, and well, I am #1...

2. My name is _____ because ______.
"Betty" because my parents named me Elizabeth. On the day I was born my mom wrote "Elizabeth Sue was born" in her journal. The next day she wrote 'Betty.' Why I was named Elizabeth I don't know. I do remember her telling me she didn't like the nickname Liz, though.

3. My journal is titled ____ because ____.
"Life" because I wasn't feeling terribly creative when I picked it.

4. My friends page is called ____ because ____.
Um, I don't think my friends page has a name...I'm still proud of myself for figuring out how to put a post under a cut.

5. My default userpic is ____ because ____.
Now there is a nifty story! I have been a Barbie lover since I was little, and I used to have a large collection of dolls that I kept in their boxes and displayed. A few years ago I stumbled across the website of a fabulous woman who 'remakes' Barbies--what she does is exquisite, here is her site, http://www.dolls-n-daggers.com/Dolls/OOAK_latest.php go look!--and told my family about it. For my 50th birthday my big sister ordered a custom doll for me, based on a painting of me in a LARP costume. So my userpic is actually a picture of me as a Barbie doll.

And if you want to know about my LARPing days, just ask :)

And Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

( Under the cut to prevent spoilers for those not current... )
It's kind of a good thing that there won't be a new episode till January, at least from my family's perspective...

So I needed some time to digest my experience before writing about it.

Background (which some people already know)--
In August, thanks to Erica, I discovered and became obsessed with the tv show "Supernatural." At that time I discovered, to my glee, that there was going to be a Supernatural Convention in Chicago this past weekend. Then I discovered to my dismay that all the tickets, including general admission, for Sunday when the two main actors were coming, were already sold out.

So I pouted until Saturday, periodically checking the website just in case tickets would magically be available. Which they never were. However, Saturday I noticed a small line, new, that any still available tickets would be sold at the door. Clearly tickets were still available for Saturday. Sunday was still listed as sold out.

And at 10 pm Saturday night I decided what did I have to lose besides some sleep. I would go to the hotel early in the morning, stand in line, and see if I could get lucky. I completely did not expect success, BUT if I didn't try, I'd never know if I could've gotten in.

My long-suffering spouse drove me to Rosemont, fortunately very close, at 8 am Sunday morning. I wondered around, asking if anyone knew about tickets, and eventually was told to stand in the check-in line and talk to the staff in the next room when the doors opened.

As I waited in line, I struck up a conversation with a nifty lady who was sympathetic to my plight, and we shared our fandom-geekiness. Making a new friend alone was worth getting up at 8 am.

Then the doors opened, the line moved, I got in to the check-in table, and...

TICKETS WERE STILL AVAILABLE!

And, to be perfectly honest, the fact that my faith in the universe being good panned out was the best part of the experience.

( And about the actual con )

When my kid calls me up exhilarated because she made a breakthrough connecting with one of her students, and she animatedly analyzes how she did it.

I love that all my girls share my passion for making a difference in other peoples' lives, that they delight in figuring out what works, and that they get excited about making connections!

Thought Number 1--

It occurred to me tonight that those in the fandom who read the fanfic stories have a different experience than those who just watch the show.

In the half-dozen or so episodes that show the Winchester boys' childhood and the interactions with their dad when they are adults, Kripke has written sketches to show the audience the primary type of family relationship--John is hard, Dean is Sam's protector, Sam is the rebel--and also clearly shows how bonded they all are to each other.

What the really good fanfic does is take those sketches and fill in specifics, both pre-show and between episodes, that investigate the nuances to the relationships. What is interesting to me is, that after an intense immersion in fanfic in a short time period, I find that the basic interpretation of the family dynamics is pretty darn close between the different authors. Differences in the details, but one can (okay, I did) print out stories from a variety of writers, put them in time sequence, and they mesh pretty fluidly with each other and with the show.

So that, when I watch the season 5 episodes now, I have a really deep backstory to put the episode in context.

It is quite possible that everyone else already knew this and is going 'duh,' but hey, I just figured it out.

And now, for my spoiler-y thought on season 5
( The Last 2 Episodes )

Friday morning a dear friend stopped by to visit as I convalesced. She was very upset because she had just been informed by one of her daughter's high school peers that her daughter was smoking--and her daughter has serious asthma.

My friend wanted to talk out how to broach the subject with her daughter, and was leaning towards asking directly "Are you smoking?"

My mind went to the episode in season 4 where Dean asks Sam straight out if he was using his demon powers and Sam flat-out lied and said no. I realized that was the start of the breakdown of their relationship. Dean wanted to hear 'no' and didn't press, and once Sam lied he couldn't come back later and admit he'd lied then, and the untruths piled up from that point.

So I counseled my friend to NOT ask a question that her daughter could lie to. I suggested she state that she found out that her daughter has been smoking and continue with "I am really concerned about this," and not to let the conversation get sidetracked into how did she find out.

My friend grasped the difference in the approach as I explained what happened between Sam and Dean,(she has never watched the show, but has PATIENTLY listened to me obsess for the last 3 months...she is really a good friend!) and is going to try what I suggested and let me know how it turns out.

So I stick my tongue out at my family members who think I've lost it. :P

When I went to the doctor for the followup visit for my toe surgery, he said when he cut it open there was a lot of fluid that came out and I must have been in a lot of pain.

Um, no, never bothered me at all except for the fact that every pair of shoes gave me a blister on the toe knuckle that was sticking up.

And he sent me home with vicodin and instructions to take it at the first sign of discomfort...and the toe hasn't bothered me AT ALL. My back hurts because my gait is off from having to wear the big boot, and I know I don't want to kick something, but I haven't felt any stirrings of pain, not even in the middle of the night when pain is always worse.

I am left to conclude that my nerves must be insensitive in that spot. And right now that is okay with me.

And I am rewatching Supernatural Season One and reading fanfic and having a marvelous time being an invalid. (Better than a vacation, I can't possibly do any chores with my foot needing to be kept elevated, you know.) Four days left to enjoy.

Should there be warnings about not posting while recovering from surgery and still feeling no pain?

So this morning I had minor out-patient foot-surgery. I will have to stay off my foot for a week.

To prepare for this week of luxury, I spent the last 3 weeks printing out some of the awesome fanfic in the Supernatural forums--skimming enough to pick my favorite authors but not really reading the stories. So now I have a big binder of wonderful Winchesterness to sit on the couch and submerge myself in, and I am about halfway through the season one stories (yes, I sequenced them and put post-it note tabs on them before I hole-punched and bindered them...) and I feel so happy even when the boys are suffering...

You guys are frickin' amazing: adrenalineshots, authoressnebula, bardicvoice, callistosh65, claire_bear27, deangirl1, debbiel66, ficwriter1966, trys_writer, wordsothewitch, xwacky--I love you all! And I know there are a couple more of you and I will try to add a shout-out to you a bit later!

I figured why not:

The problem with LJ: We all think we are so close, but really we know nothing about one another. So I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Ask away.

Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don't know about you.

My 20-yr old just presented a fait accompli that I must salute, even though she pulled it on me.

So I have spent the last 2 days reading pages and pages of wonderful Sam-and-Dean whumping stories (there are some incredible writers out there!) and being reduced to tears multiple times.

But...
Last night I had to write this:

( Just an interlude--sometime around now )

So the reviews seem to be coming in positive.

( And I thought... )

Fiction: The Words They Never Said
Word Count: 1195
Spoilers: Up through 5.05
Disclaimer: Not mine. I'd have taken better care of them.
Rating: PG-13 for language

Because I couldn't take it any more.

( What they should have said, damn Kripke. )

Spoilers through almost the end of season 3!

( My First Ever Fan-Fic )

Just watched the most recent episode so I am UP-TO-DATE on my obsession at last!

And how do I feel about where things are hanging?
( ohhh--possible spoiler )

So the final episode I watched on Monday (On the Head of a Pin) ended with one character totally broken and no way to resolve it without more major emotional pain (for the character and the viewer.)

Next episode begins with major WTF moment (and you know I don't usually use that language) and proceeds to create total chaos in my brain to only resolve in a completely "out of left field" manner.

It wasn't perfect--but it was awesome--and it took a seriously creative mind to come up with this solution. Hats off to Kripke, and that's why he's the tv writer and not me...

And the episode that followed it was the most frickin' hilarious one ever until the last few minutes...

PS Sorry if I've become a rather one-note blogger right now, but it's my live journal and I'll write what I want to. :)

Sitting here shaking over the episode of Supernatural I just watched.

I am not a scary movie enjoying person, and my absorption in this show is somewhat of an aberration. I have been unfazed by the scary camera angles, impending danger to unsuspecting innocents, nasty gore and creepy monsters because I have been hypnotized by the relationship between the two brothers, and the "got each others' back no matter what" storytelling.

But tonight the writers took the flawed but "fighting for redemption anyway" brother and broke him. They created the situation that required him to willingly and deliberately do a monstrous act. He had to do this for a good cause--but he knew he was doing evil, even if it was to an evil being.

It broke my heart. And watching one fictional man lose his humanity and be fully aware of what he was doing was excruciating.

Yes, it's a tv show. But the question exists in the real world too. How can evil be done in the name of good? And why do those who could stop it let it happen?