not that I was secretly worried about this or anything...

I officially have con_txt Friday off of work! w0000t!

Now I just have to persuade them to let me have a week for the Midwest Travelstravaganza that will be iuliamentis's wedding shower followed by vividcon with maybe a quick jaunt to Canada to say hello to my country next door and pick up those work visa application forms.

I received a comment on my very first due South story today, which made me realize that said story is a couple of months past three years old. It reminded me of that meme-ish thing that went around a while back, people describing their successive fandoms as children--at the time, I think I just had the one, and in its infancy, which wasn't terribly interesting.

But now I'm imagining due South as a spiky-blond-headed three-year-old with a perpetual Kool Aid mustache and a dirty t-shirt, feeling sorely neglected in favor of his dark-haired baby brother Numb3rs, almost fifteen months old now and toddling around the place bouncing off walls (if I didn't keep a sharp eye on them, I suspect Numb3rs would be taking an oh-so-accidental trip down the basement stairs, diapered ass over teakettle, not that this ever happened between my next-younger and very-youngest brothers or anything).

(Meanwhile, somewhere far away in the care of nice, loving people, The X-Files is a red-headed girl turning ten, and wondering who her mother was and why she gave her up.)

(Why yes, it's a horrendously slow morning at work.)

speaking of problem children.

God knows when there'll be another word-count update on the Numb3rs epic, as progress so far has been much of the two-steps-forward-one-back variety. I've just cut all of yesterday's (not very many) words for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, but as I'm fond of them and they're not particularly spoilery for what's going on in the story, ( I reproduce them here. )