Published

Short Stories
"Taction" by J. Rocci. Coming soon from Torquere Press.

Anthologies
"This Home We Defend" by J. Rocci in Bite Me! Love Bites 2. Coming August 26, 2009, from Torquere Press.

"This Home We Make" by J.Rocci in Shifting Them, ed. Vincent Diamond.

"Oxers and Spreads" by J. Rocci in Men in Uniform II, ed. M. Rode.

"Puppy Tax" by J. Rocci in Animal Attraction, ed. Vincent Diamond.

http://j-rocci.livejournal.com/

Personal Note:
General and fandom-related entries are still public. Feel free to friend/de-friend at will, but I won't friend back people I don't know.

Life as I know it:

1. Aaron's car engine imploded (piston through engine block, so I suppose exploded is more appropriate...) and now we're down to one vehicle. Have been car shopping. Hate cars. And car salesmen.

2. Had two stories accepted for publication-- One's in an anthology, "This Home We Defend" (a sequel to my other short story "This Home We Make") and the other is going to be a Single Shot at Torquere, "Taction" (a story about an Army Specialist injured in combat who goes back to his grandparents' farm and meets a hot cowboy). So yay feeling accomplished.

3. Still working on the basement-- We decided we wanted to tile the floors and build a dais for our washer and dryer to sit on. I love how our little house projects manage to turn epic.

4. Starting the birthday/holiday season. Yay for lots of stuff to do...

Just saw Star Trek.

Dudes, I was that girl. The one squeeing every time Karl Urban opened his mouth. Karl Urban. As Bones.

(I totally should have worn my Bones name badge pin... Don't judge me, you so would too if you had one!)

Needless to say, I loved it and flailed almost as much as I flailed during the G.I. Joe preview. This year is the year of awesome films-- Esp. since the past few years of movie-going have seemed pretty meh for me.

What I really want now is some Kirk/Bones or Spock/Uhura or Spock/Kirk or Kirk/Sulu-- You know what? I'll take any pairing for this movie. Any.

I would go on about the plot and the hope and the taking responsibility and being held responsible and the being more than you think you can be-- But I still need to process. And maybe see it a couple more times.

To sum: Star Trek movie = awesomesauce.

My nine pound cat literally sneezed from her spot on the futon and spooked my 70 pound dog, who just steamrolled her way onto my lap in fear. My lap, which she barely fits even her leg on as is, considering she takes up half the couch.

...

sooo embarrassed on her behalf...

We were going to go up to DC on Sunday for the We Are One celebration at the Lincoln Memorial, but we had a political dinner party and watched it on HBO instead (some people do sports gatherings, we do politics...) Same with today-- We could do the whole "I was there!" or we could sit in the comfort of our home and go yay at the TV.

Guess what we chose.

I feel like doing a zombie-apocalypse-esque entry-- "All the highways are closed. Traffic isn't moving. Cars are abandoned on the road and people are walking. Our food is dwindling. The world's gone--"

Only, we went food shopping Sunday morning, so we're good through the week ^.^

*watching World of Warcraft Ozzie Osbourne commercial*

Ozzie: I've been the Prince of Darkness since 1979!
Bay: Have you been the Prince of Darkness since 1979, Bae?
Me: *sniff* I am the Pretty Pretty Princess of Darkness, thank you. Techncally, you would be the Prince of Darkness since you married the Pretty Pretty Princess of Darkness.
Bay: Ah. I stand corrected.

So there was revelry and craziness and all that:

1. Worked my behind off the month of December. Got the entire week of x-mas off. Was struck down by the plague. Karma?

2. Family in town. Still have not sat at home for one day straight since Dec 20-- No, check that. I took a sick day this past Tuesday and slept for 18 hours straight, kid you not. Ebola! The niece had her first b-day. Took 12 hour round trip to PA to visit grandparents-- Chickenhead did very well in the car and everyone was impressed by her manners when we were up there. No drywall was eaten. Mum, virtasquee, pheephee, Chickenhead, and me went downtown yesterday to walk around and have coffee-- she did really well there, too, esp. since it was her first time walking in a city. Did manage to wash dishes and do laundry yesterday for the first time this month. Yay clothes!

3. Received free contrib trade paperback of Shifting Them. Made of awesomeness. I'm going to put a shelf in my study for all my professionally published works-- fiction and nonfiction. I just have to hit Ikea at some point (and paint the damn study walls). But I did get a little bit more writing done this break, too.

4. Fell in love with the Tin Man miniseries. (In my defense, my dad told me it sucked the first time it aired, but the man had me specal order Phantasm 2 from Europe for x-mas, so his opinion no longer counts.) We've also been playing the latest Prince of Persia (he's sarcastic! and funny! very Han Solo-ish!), Katamari Beautiful (it appeases my OCD), and Fable 2 (My badass warrior married a bisexual raunchy monk. This game is awesome.)

So yes. Hope everyone had a happy and safe holiday season! Can't wait to see what the new year will bring.

carolinecraneposted an awesome meme-- Describing yourself/personality in pictures.


Rules:

01. Answer each of the questions below the cut using the [Flickr] search engine.
02. Choose a photo from the first three pages.
03. Copy the URL of your favorite photos [here].
04. Then share with the world.

( This way, down the rabbit hole... )

Now, is this how I see myself-- Or how people see me?

Bweee! We just saw My Name Is Bruce at the Landmark E Street Theater in DC, with the man himself doing a Q&A afterwards. To sum his answers up: No, he is not doing another Evil Dead/Army of Darkness movie or a tv show. Yes, he still wants to destroy Sam Raimi's car with his bare hands.

The movie was funny, too ^.^

Hah. David de Lautour, who plays RJ on Power Rangers Jungle Fury, is now on Legend of the Seeker.

I didn't recognize him at all with short hair and a goatee.

For the first time in 40 years, since Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat has won the state of Virginia.

President Obama.

Hell yeah. I think I can sleep now.

ETA: Democrats have control of the House and the Senate. The President-elect is an eloquent speaker who inspires pride and hope in our country.

Yes, we can.

Hah. Random book publishing:

"This Family We Make" in Shifting Them, ed. Vincent Diamond

Didn't know the release date was so soon. How time flies these days. But hey-- I have a story that was printed in trade paperback! Woot!

One random musing before I go to bed:

Botox = Clostridium botulinum derivative

Clostridium botulinum = biological weapon

It smoothes your wrinkles because it is inhibiting your neurotransmitters and paralyzing your face. Originally, it was used to treat people with muscles spasms and life-inhibiting illnesses.

Major health problem = botulism remedy = no better choices

Wrinkles = botulism remedy = WTF, world?

*headdesk*

I'm sitting on the couch with the window open, cool October air chilling my toes while I listen to jazz and type. We just had rare steak, Bay opened a new Merlot, and all the furry children behaved themselves long enough for us to sit down and relax. There are the sounds of peeper frogs, sirens, and the distant interstate outside my window.

Today I cleaned and painted more, and called to have our old appliances donated. Tomorrow looks to be much of the same. All I did was sleep and watch Gankutsuou with Bay and read two of the Dresden books during these past two days. I got an e-mail from the anthology editor that edits are coming out next week. Bay is considering whether or not to volunteer at the polls on election day. I don't have to be back at work until Monday.

I can hear Bay typing on his computer downstairs, and the tumble of the clothes dryer, and there's a Pasfu sleeping on the back of the couch, wiggling her furry black toes at me.

Life is good.

Not dead yet. Just have no spare time, really, as we're still painting, moving the last bits of our belongings from the four corners of the world they were scattered to, and dying of a stomach flu.

Good times.

Both Bay and I were struck down by the plague last weekend, and we're still blargy but we can both eat solid food again! Yay! To celebrate, I experimented for lunch-- Sliced a Gala apple really thin, toasted some honey wheat bread, slathered some Better Than Cream Cheese on one side, arranged the apple slices and toasted it open-faced under the broiler for three minutes. Mmm. Steamy apples and cheese. Sweet, but not cloyingly so.

Aside from the plague, life is good ^.^ I'm supposed to go up to the Iota Club in Arlington tonight to catch a band-- don't ask me who, I have no idea, but Anne's wanted to go to the show for a while, so I'm going to go nap beforehand and try not to die.

... and I decide I'm going to post these instead:

Georgia Man Starts Massive Letter-Writing Campaign for Troops

The Folds of Honor Foundation

Fisher House

Operation Happy Note

Freedom Walk

If you don't agree with what's going on in the world, stand up and change it. Start a movement. Talk to people, put up a flyer at your local library or coffee shop, get people thinking and talking about what you believe. This is America-- You have that right. Even if what you say is unpopular, or you think your voice is too small, too quiet-- Ask yourself what you believe. Speak up. March. Change. Anything to set yourself in motion. The little things we do in our everyday lives ripple so far, affect so many lives, that we never see what we leave behind.

You may support the wars, you may not. But the reality is-- Our soldiers fight for us, they die for us, they come back in pieces. In my family, I was taught that you get angry at the system, not the ordinary people trying to make a living-- the people living for an ideal. Because that's someone's father, mother, spouse, child. That's someone putting their life on the line for just the hope that they can make a difference for someone else, and they have a family to come home to at the end of the day.

Make this a world where they don't have to go out there and give up pieces of themselves. Change the system. Find your voice.

I-- am beyond exhausted, actually. We signed on the house Monday, wherein the seller cried a little and turned out to be younger than me, and her agent was still a douche. But it's over with! Legally own house, yay! Changed the locks and started cleaning yesterday, so everything is prepped to paint tomorrow after some sanding. Yay!

Today was Warped Tour-- I loved hanging out with ms. virtasquee for the entire day. However, the heat sucked so hard and I wanted to kick in so many heads, it wasn't even funny-- from the asshole literally heaving crowd surfers onto little 100 lbs teenagers at The Academy Is... to spontaneous mosh pits during slow songs to the whacko starting a fistfight in the crowd and interrupting the Forever the Sickest Kids' performance to the teenage couple getting off with their hands down each other's pants in the middle of the lawn to the drunk teenage girls-- I accept that I'm just not meant to go to those sorts of concerts anymore. Seriously. Overall rudest fans ever, beyond Ozzfest and I had sod thrown at me then. We hid out in the 21+ bar area for a bit-- dark, shaded, with fans-- and drank a lot of water/lemonade/Monster, but I could only eat half a hot dog all day because of the heat, so we left after TAI and didn't stay for Gym Class Heroes :(

(For real, the TAI crowd? I literally couldn't move my arms up or down, it was so packed, and all the little teeny bopper girls up front were getting trampled by the moshers and crowd surfers. One got kicked in the face. I barely watched the show because people weren't giving any warnings with the crowd surfing-- just throwing bodies at the backs of people's heads. And that was TAI-- no way were we gonna survive GCH.)

Other than that, saw some cool bands:
Behold the Flood, who handled the early morning crowd very well. They had no tent or merch that I could find, tho, so I was sad.
Know Lyfe had an awesome stageshow and were just so into playing and getting the crowd worked up that I had to respect that. They sound good, too ^.^
Forever the Sickest Kids-- I bought a little sling bag with their logo. The lead singer actually interrupted singing to tell the crazy girl to chill out and leave if she was gonna be a hater, because we're all family and there's only love here. It was really cute, even if the girl was psycho scary and shrieking her way out of the crowd. I honestly thought someone was attacking her until I saw that she was the one randomly punching people. Bad trip?
The Audition, who had no bus for the past two weeks, so was just the lead singer and this dude, Seth, on acoustic guitar/drum machine/vocals. I really liked their acoustic playing, but listening to their myspace, I dunno. They're a little too whiny for me... :(

And of course there was the Bouncing Souls (20th band anniversary this year. 20 whole years!) and The Academy Is...

We also caught some Relient K, Say Anything, and a little Madina Lake (sp?) but I'm meh about them.

So I'm tired, and going to go sleep for another full day of painting tomorrow. I hope we can move everything in this weekend :/

So, I noticed it's been a while since I've done a restaurant report (and tagged it properly), so I said, Hey, why not a blurb on the place I frequently eat lunch?

For those of you in the DC metro area, I recommend: 

Akasaka Japanese Restaurant (It doesn't have a website of its own, so I linked to a dining info website.)

Located at Van Dorn Station-- not far from the metro stop (Blue line, one stop from the Yellow connect at King St), but kinda halfway between the metro and Landmark Mall-- this looks like just another sushi restaurant in a strip mall that has Thai, Vietnamese, Italian, Middle Eastern, etc.  BUT.  The food here is awesome and the prices rock.  

I've tried quite a few of the specialty rolls-- Dragon Rolls!-- and they run about $12, but the seafood is fresh and you get nice portions (not as large as some places, but still enough to fill you, definitely).  Their sushi rice is usually very good-- not too dry, not too sticky-- which is something I'm picky about.

For lunch they have bento boxes for $8 that include miso soup, small salad, your choice of meat (chicken teriyaki!  salmon!), a heap of rice, dumplings or shumai depending on the day, 6 pc California roll, bean sprout salad, and veggie/shrimp tempura.  Seriously, they put it on the table and you wonder how it all will fit.

The tempura batter is a little greasy, but has a light crunchy texture that I find palatable.  Their teriyaki sauce rocks my socks, and they give you enough of it that you can dip your left over rice in it.  The peanut/miso dressing on the salad is also made of awesome.  Plus, if you just get water to drink, it doesn't taste like it came from a tap (always a plus in my book).

At least around lunch time, it's a very mellow place.  I think it's a family-run business, and the staff are really friendly and attentive (and willing to split checks for you at the last minute).  Lunch service is usually quick, the restaurant's very clean with natural lighting, and the sushi bar is at the back.  Standard dining utensils are chopsticks, but if that isn't your thing, you can request flatware. 

 Guess where I'll be tomorrow?

CAPITAL PRIDE 2008

Parade starts at 1800, yo.