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January 17th, 2006
04:54 pm - And if that wasn't clear enough...
Shut up about it already. I'm doing fine.
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04:37 pm - Concerns about my duplication
Sigh. It seems like some people are concerned about the whole duplication thing, that it's somehow bad for me -- or that I should "switch off" to bring my more superpowered Slaying half to do more babysitting and have my more reading, web-designing, and mommy half presumably go out patrolling or something.
But what people may not see is that it's all me. I am spending 100% of my time fighting evil, and 100% of my time taking care of our home, website, and Brigid. That's what I wanted, and as it turns out, because of the woman I love, that was what I got. I may even be a bit greedy and also wish that people would stop looking for the subtle cues about which me is which. We're both really the same person -- the same person who you knew before. I just hope you all can look past surface things like "how strong is this version of Dot" and just have fun hanging out with me, either of me.
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January 10th, 2006
10:13 pm - Late-night Thoughts
Dude, this is weird -- blogging and patrolling at the same time. So I finally managed to get Brigid to sleep. You know, I wonder if it's the pregnancy thing, but I'm starting to accept KMEL. So, like Aaliyah used to mean sure-fire retching sounds from me. It makes me long for oldies like Roxanne Shante or Lauryn Hill. But I've been listening to a bunch of the femmy hip-hop stuff, because Brigid will sit through it so much better. And while it is totally mocking to say that it puts babies to sleep, I do find that I'm able to stand it better now.
Anyhow, I think everyone is getting along well -- but we really need to get together more so we can plan about what to do. I'd like to get everyone's input on this, especially Roberta's.
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10:11 pm - My Start on a Plan
So I'm about to head out on patrol tonight -- as well as taking care of the baby. Damn but I love my honey and her spells!! Being in two places at once rocks. So right now I'm just patroling for baddies, and checking the mortuary again -- but I think we've got to get a handle on our plan. I'm not sure of everything, but from what I have thus far, here's my ordering...
1) Take on the FBI conspiracy -- they're the most mundane ones. So let's press Rufus for information on it, and also spy a bunch on Anton. We should at a minimum search his office, home, and computer files. Hopefully we'll find enough to give us pointers where these guys are based -- quite possibly D.C. Taking a plane would probably give them warning, so let's be prepared for a road trip. If we can get where they are, then let's knock on the head bee-atch's door and take her out.
2) Chat up Ariel a bit. We know we can trust it, since it'll be one of our allies. After the ice is broken, I want to try to make a deal with it -- that Ariel sells out the cat-creature (that's Chris or another one of its kind). I don't want to pick a fight with Ariel by capturing its buddy Chris, so best to get permission and conditions. Hopefully Ariel will agree, so we capture Chris and interrogate it using that truth-sensing spell.
3) Keep our eyes and ears open for the flood monsters and the agents. If we do the road trip, perhaps we should visit New Orleans to try some poking around, spell casting, and research there. We know less about these things.
Hopefully after we do that, we'll have a better idea of what to do next.
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June 29th, 2005
12:31 pm - What's in a name?
OK, I've been putting off the name issue for a while, but I think it's time to bring it up again. Max and I are still in the brainstorming stage. We both have the idea of liking "classical" names, but that covers a wide range.
So one line I have is names out of Shakespeare. My picks for those were Miranda, Phoebe, Perdita, Emilia, and Hero. We're anti-Biblical, though I kind of liked Jezebel. Then there's the more pagany names like Autumn or Raven or Webb. Anyhow, if you have ideas, pipe up here. It'll be good to get it out of your system's, at least (I'm talking about you here, Chip!).
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June 2nd, 2005
03:47 pm - Reflections and Plans
OK, as predicted before, we took out Devins. Well, sort of. Really I understand it was Kat who foiled his plans (launching some kind of missle) and his own stupidity which took him out (getting arrested as a terrorist). Really, I was just involved in our side of things which was saving the world. And I didn't even do that. Max cast a spell to give Uma a choice before she went all evil, and I guess Carlos convinced her to choose correctly.
Now that I'm in it, working for Monique is not really bad -- certainly not as bad as I was expecting (which admittedly isn't saying much). The offices are still mostly the same. Well, except Roberta left and Carlos quit. Carlos: I don't really understand the real estate thing, but it seems Roberta still has rights to the building but she's subletting out to Monique who (quite rightly) doesn't think she can get us to move out to Walnut Creek. She's apparently planning to build out a replacement Vampster server farm in Walnut Creek -- with 24-hour SA's and security people. She gave an icky talk last week about how we were "her creative team", but it amounted to that we still control the Vampster design while her people take over more the administration.
Just so we're clear -- my super-secret plan is that I don't want to have to job search just to go on leave in a few months. I plan to stick around until I pop and rake in the nice benefits which Roberta set up and required Monique to maintain. From that point, I'm going to take at least a year doing just baby + slaying rather than baby + web design + slaying. Actually, I'm not sure how long I'll be out of the slaying business, but I expect I'll have to pick it up again before too long.
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April 9th, 2005
11:18 am - Dealing with Family
I'm blogging from the hospital here, where a nice nurse showed me a terminal for access.
Aagh!! Uma's dead, and she nearly killed Chip. He and Kat are here in the hospital. I know it's stupid, but it gives me second thoughts about having a family of my own. I mean, what the heck was I thinking? How am I going to protect a baby from all this?
OK, just a mild moment of panic. Probably hormones or something. Practically speaking, we've just got to take out Devins, and then hopefully things will go back to normal.
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March 30th, 2005
09:39 pm - What's Your Superpower?
OK, so ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) doc_carlos 's last post started me thinking about invisibility, which sort of inspired this:
Stop the clock! Your inner superpower is TIME TRAVEL! Your answers show a keen sense of insight for all the mysteries of time. Whether you enjoy reminiscing about thepast or find yourself lost in thoughts of the future, your energies definitely point away from the present. Maybe you're mere seconds ahead or behind the rest of us, but you could also be days or even years out of sync. Your unique position in time and space gives you a wider perspective on daily events and makes you an especially wise person. You're probably a great planner. And since time is yours to play with, it's almost a given that you manage it well. If you haven't yet taken a trip through the fourth dimension, you're in for the ride of your life. Don't delay! Visit the future. Fix the past. And when you come across a very special moment, make it last as long as you like.
What's Your Superpower?
So, this one is kind of cool. It's not the sort of thing I had pictured, but it makes me think. When I was younger (pre real superpowers), I think one of my favorites was stretching (like Mr. Fantastic or Plastic Man). I don't know what one I'd want now. Time travel seems hugely tempting, which is probably a bad thing because I would mess things up somehow. I also don't feel like I have mastery of time right now, and in fact I feel it ticking a lot, but maybe that just makes sense.
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March 19th, 2005
08:27 am - Bitching
The more I think about it, the more it bothers me. What the hell is up with Monique? So she brings a fucking demon into our offices and it gets loose during the demo, not to mention the whole throwing some of us into another dimension or whatever. And then somehow she talks us into letting her waltz into our offices again. And it's not like she helped us. She didn't provide a damn bit of useful information about the thing, and her only action during the fight was to make it stronger. Yet somehow she talked us into it and walked away without anyone commenting. Now, I was obviously influenced by Chip here, but it's not like I normally listen to him. Am I going soft? Is it hormones or something?
Come to think of it, wasn't Ned showing up a little bit conveniently timed? So he shows up just a second too late to "warn" her not to make it stronger. And so now it seems that he, too, can appear in our offices any time he wants. So what the fuck?!? When did that happen? Arg. And yet I bet when I see her again she'll just act innocent again and what am I going to do about it? And what am I?
If that's right, I almost admire the fucking balls it takes to just walk in the middle of us and play us like that. She's got 'em, and it probably makes her a good CEO, too. But something needs to be done about it.
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March 2nd, 2005
01:15 pm - Ten Things Meme
Ten things that I've done and you probably haven't:
1) Been electrified, died, and revived... while pregnant!
2) Given birth at 16 with no drugs.
3) Talked to a dream-stealing demon via Mac Help.
4) Thrown a vampire at a bunch of FBI guys.
5) Fallen for a jerk with a Crown of Lothario.
6) Head-butted an walking HumVee.
7) Threatened to sue an evil nanotechnologist.
8) Apologized to someone for letting his head be chopped off.
9) Thrown/toppled a Porsche onto a demon.
10) Been impregnated by the woman I love.
You know, it feels more impressive now that I write it out, but I guess that's the point. I probably wouldn't have written #1, #2, or #10 just a short time ago -- but this is the new, more open, more in-touch-with-herself me. Roar!
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February 12th, 2005
01:18 pm - Too far!
So Roberta and Carlos and Chip are still wigged out over this weird dream they had when the chaos demon got loose last week. And yeah, it sounds screwed up and all. But in the meantime, I think we have to do something about this pointy-shoe-wearing b*tch. I think a can of whoop-ass needs to be opened on her. Also, in retrospect, I think it was dumb to let them into our offices for the demo. But I suppose that's just hindsight.
Still, how many times do demons have to get loose in our damn building before we do something about it?! Anti-demon bigot that I am, I think we need a strict access policy. i.e. No non-employees get in without being checked. I don't know whether it takes anal probes or what, but we need something. And speaking of anal, I'm a little disappointed that we let Ken go without more, er, something. Wiping his memories, maybe? OK, that's a little extreme, but I consider it a high probability that he's going to be trouble in the future.
All this diapering talk makes me think that I really need to get out and take care of things now, well before September. Offhand, I would propose a late-night off-site to head out to Walnut Creek and kick their butts.
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January 24th, 2005
07:51 pm - Knocked Up Again
So the cat is out of the bag now. I haven't been blogging in, well, months. I think it's because I was keeping things to myself on several fronts. The short form -- for any of the small, secure readership of my blog who missed the actual events -- is...
I'd been keeping a secret for a while, which I think was reasonable. However, Chip, who has occaisional moments of lucidity, thought I should tell Max, her being the love of my life and all. So in November, after dealing with the violent kids with video-game super-powers, I did. Long story short, I had a kid back in high school. I still don't like to talk about that, but I guess it's a sign of recovery or maturity or something that I'm admitting it now.
But the thing that's really news is that I am again in a state of bun-in-the-oven-ness, via the genius, magical talent, and donated genetic material of Max. I think the title "co-mother" is appropriate, but we're still debating that point. As for plans, well, we'll do like everyone else does. I'll take a bunch of time off. We'll have babysitting for slaying nights. We'll probably need a bigger place at some point but for the time we're living simply and saving. It's... I don't know. I mean, it'll happen one way or the other. And I happen to have the most brilliant, stellar, and talented partner in the world -- plus being superpowered myself. So, yes, I think we can handle this.
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October 30th, 2004
11:12 pm - Coming Out
So I finally got it over with, though it took me over a week to get up the nerve. During which time, I kept thinking how I would prefer to be surrouded by menacing demons. But, you know, it's really about fear of the unknown. And for me, things that go bump in the night are all pretty much known, but this sort of thing is way the hell out there.
For the late-comers or clueless, I'm on vacation here in my hometown of Aurora, Illinois; and I just told my parents that I'm a lesbian. Whew! Naturally, Max wanted to come with me, but, well, my head might have exploded or worse. Anyone seen Punch-Drunk Love? I felt chilled and moved by that movie. I feel weird identifying with Adam Sandler, but that's some piece of me. Like I'd prefer to smash a wall in than be confronted over my feelings.
My parents have a lot of faults, and they can be pretty backwards, but it's not like they're violent gay-bashers or anything. They said a lot of stupid things, mostly just stupid stereotypes and ignorance, but it's not anything worse than I've dealt with before from them. But the big thing, which I guess is what I was afraid of, is just that they look at me a little differently now. Not bad, just different. And I guess I wanted it to stay the same.
On the other hand, it was painful talking to people I love and keeping secrets. I wouldn't lie, I'd just be non-specific or not mention it or say that I didn't want to talk about it. I guess I've gotten used to keeping secrets, given my situation. And I'd like to get out of it, but it's hard.
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October 14th, 2004
04:12 pm - Real Estate
So it looks like we'll be moving to new offices now. Long story short: Roberta found a new location via this weird old lady realtor, but it was infested with zombies. Turns out they've been there for a while, but they just started getting used by this nasty bug-demon (Victor Roche) who had bought the company and was trying to squeeze some life out of it.
I hear we'll be out of our old place by the end of the month. Which is good, because we had this nasty problem of vampires who were lurking around our offices apparently with some plan to infiltrate or take over the company or something. Stupid bloodsuckers.
Oh, yeah, but the real question is: where do I live now? Should I set myself up in the new offices, too? I don't have an excuse to do that anymore, since vampires apparently can't get in or even find the place. So I guess I'm looking for a place... Maybe Miss Jagar knows apartments? But really this is about Max. I'm over there a lot anyhow, but frankly I'm chicken about moving in together. It's, well, I guess I have commitment issues due to my own screwed-up relationship history which has nothing to do with her. And she's been super nice about it ("whatever I'm comfortable with") but that just makes me more unsure.
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September 18th, 2004
12:56 am - Oops!
No, I haven't died. I just got out of the blogging habit somehow. In general, the summer's been cool. Max and I are peachy. I've been kind of slacking about the softball stuff, but well, no one really notices. It's a little tough living in the office, but I am more financially sound than I'd thought possible at the moment.
So Vampster has been getting damn popular. We've got a bunch of reciprocal deals now and an ever-growing user base. Max and I revamped (heh!) the message boards in July, so now they look cooler and are more scalable. But it's getting harder to spot the real vampires and the victim-stalking in the mounds of user data. We have a ton of new reqs, and we need more server space. I'm continuing to deal with the vampires in a find-intercept-stake pattern, and it seems to be making progress, but I figure this can't keep up forever.
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April 1st, 2004
10:33 am - End of the World, in brief
Oops. Oh, I guess I forgot to update my blog what with saving the world last weekend and all. I kind of wanted to play some kind of April Fools' thing on Ifurita and Chip, but I think Ifurita is still pretty shaky and so it wouldn't go over well.
Oh, so for those who missed it, we saved the world. So I got a call from Drake to meet him at Ben-David's house. But then Special Agent fuckwad comes to our offices all complaining about how Roberta lied to him and we were involved in Tran's murder and whatnot. Thus, Max, Chip, and I slip out the conference room window and drive off. We get chased by a ton of police, but make it there. There, and get this, Drake tells me that after he went with Mr. Screwed-Up-Vampire-Alchemist who then proceeded to kidnap Tiff and uses her to threaten him into bringing him Ifurita. So I'm just like "And this is your attempt to make me not hit you." Then he tried to talk some more, so I hit him.
I can sum up the problem in one word. Men. I mean, did Special Agent Overzealous bother to ask about why she had to lie to him. And the whole Drake/Tiff thing is just screwed up and he's way too old for her to boot. And, of course, there's Mr. Vampire-Alchemist who I'm sure was all obsessed because he couldn't get laid in real life. So while Anton and even Drake did manage to come to their senses, the source of the problem was their being fuckwads in the first place.
Anyhow, so there we are with police prepared to batter down are door for something fucking Drake did. But luckily Ifurita showed up and played havoc with the pigs outside and then airlifted us out. And then we laid a trap for Mr. I'm-An-Incompetant-Kidnapper, whom Tiff naturally escaped from without our help. So the plan was to have a bunch of fluffy illusions there which he'd try to animate instead of real cars and statues and things. I'm still a little fuzzy on the events of the trap springing, because we got caught up in this psychedelic reality-warping field. But basically we all started kicking X's ass. Chip messed with his mind, Max blasted him, I held him down, and then Tiff chopped his head off. But the mind-messing somehow caused this weird reality-distortion field and then it seemed like Ifurita was about to explode. So Chip grabbed her, and then Max tried to get them both out but she got stuck, and then I grabbed Max and then everything went wonky. I seem to remember seeing Andrea (i.e. pre-change Ifurita) and Ifurita side-by-side, and there was this feral-looking black girl with white body paint, and a mess of other stuff.
So I gather from Tiff that actually Drake saved us by sacrificing some magical gizmo that he stole. And he obeidiantly went with the police after, and Anton helped with that. It's not like I hate men or think they're all evil or anything. But I have no confidence in their problem-solving skills, shall we say.
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March 25th, 2004
03:31 pm - Better Now
OK, after my little freakout yesterday, we went and have been doing research on what Tran (that's beheaded-super-ninja) told us, and things are looking better. Oh, and when I say "we" here, I pretty much mean Max -- who has heroically been comforting my emotionally screwed-up self at the same time as she is researching obscure histori-magically stuff. So it seems like Mr. I'm-Make-Driveway-Monsters is really Rene Xavier, an English alchemist who lived in, well, a while ago. So because he was all screwed-up in the head, he got all obsessed with his formulas and decided to become a vampire so he could eventually complete his "great project". Skip forward to today, and he hired out Dr. Ben-David to make his immortality serum for him (using Ifurita and other vampires as test subjects). I guess he wasn't so smart after all. Hah. (Don't take any of that too seriously, BTW. Max has the real research, but I don't want to interrupt her at the moment.)
And while we're on the subject, can I say how great it is having a SO who you don't have to lie to? Truth be told, I've never had what I would call a "mature" relationship. And with Max, I don't have to lie about how I am super-strong and kill vampires, or about how I love Voyager and Kim Possible, or how I take 20 minutes to decide which t-shirt I'm going to wear. It's all different and easier.
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March 24th, 2004
11:49 am - Saying Sorry
Sometimes it just feels really stupid. I mean, is there a point? Yeah, so I didn't do everything perfect. Do I regret what happened? Yes. And yet still I feel really frustrated and annoyed to say "I'm sorry".
So, tonight we went and talked with Mr. buddhist super-ninja. Yes, the one who had his head cut off. We (Max, Chip, and I) snuck into the temple he frequented to do the speak-with-dead thing. So there I am talking with this guy, who's annoyed at having his head chopped off and brought back for a chat. (Oh, and I knocked out the local priest.) So for a while I get read the riot act for what we did, and I apologize, and eventually he tells us some stuff about the bad guy.
And yet... I mean... what the hell? Here's a guy who takes our co-worker hostage and threatens us and chopped at Tiff with a sword (although in retrospect maybe she deserved it). I figure he's just as responsible as I am for what happened. But can I say that? No, because he had his head chopped off and I didn't. And of course I regret the whole thing, but what's done is done. It just seems unfair that after all the shit going around, I get the grief and the lectures and the finger-wagging. I mean, after being decapitated, wouldn't he want to help out getting the guy who did it? Wouldn't you think the first thing would be "how can I get that jerk" rather than "how can I make this girl feel bad"? I'm just trying really hard here and it seems like the harder I try it just gets me into more trouble and dead people bitching and your own interns going off with head-chopping bastards. So go ahead and call me a bitch for speaking ill of the dead.
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March 23rd, 2004
01:03 am - I knew it!
OK, so I still haven't made complete sense of all this yet, but clearly the disaster I predicted is coming. So someone -- I think Mr I-Hate-Drake -- tried to break into our servers. Max planted some false info for the hacker suggesting that there was a meeting tonight.
We all went to the coffee shop to hang out pre-meeting, when Max suddenly gets a call from Laney. She says to meet her around the corner -- but when Max and I go there, it turns out that she's being held hostage by the super-ninja minion of Mr I-Hate-Drake. He demands that we back off. (To which I think, "From what?") At this point, I'm getting pretty fed up. So I ask him in the nicest possible way, "You and what army." He blathers some more about how mysterious he and his employer are. At this point I swing at him.
Now, I feel kind of bad about this in retrospect. He somehow duplicated himself and his super-ninja-duplicate cut up Tiff pretty bad before we took him down. He was really tough and super-fast. His employer Mr. I-Hate-Drake then showed up, but was chased away by a huge animated stick-figure of broken glass.
We take him back to the Batcave for interrogation. But damn super-ninja just goes on about how he's just not going to stop even if we let him go. He's some kind of pseudo-Buddhist fanatic or something, though that doesn't stop him from threatening product managers and slicing up interns. He does give some useful information that Drake was some non-human thing cursed into human form, and now he's trying to collect enough power to change himself back. I maybe should have seen this coming, but Drake then chopped his head off.
Drake immediately dropped it, and tried to weasel his way out of it. We argue for a time. The thing was, I was facing the same dilemma now about Drake. Here's a guy who's probably mostly evil. Do I drive a stake through his heart? If not (and it seems like it would be overmuch), then what do we do with him? At this point, though, the driveway comes alive, and a vampire sorcerer who calls himself "Mr. X" shows up to liberate Drake. The killer thing is, Tiff goes with him. Ack! Angst! Still turning it all over and can't come to resolution.
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March 22nd, 2004
02:45 am - Dammit
Aaargh! I just missed our fucking meeting with Orkut to have lunch with a totally annoying schmuck. OK, he didn't really eat lunch with us. So we went out to check out this Buddhist temple at lunch because someone suspected it was connected with a ninja who broke into Drake's place last night. We didn't find out much, but some guy in a car was watching us. We followed him to a fancy hotel in SF, and the guy acts all nonchalant and comes to sit at our table.
He calls himself "Mr Cool" -- I'll call him I-Hate-Drake. So apparently he sends this ninja because he's trying to stop Drake from achieving his goal. So big surprise -- Drake's up to no good. But Mr I-Hate-Drake is so damn close-lipped I can't tell anything about what the issue is. I get the vague impression that Drake is some other-dimensional being who's trying to grab power (?). But it's mostly just gibberish.
The thing is, truthfully I would love it to be given an excuse to beat up the drug-dealing schmuck. But it's not like I trust Mr I-Hate-Drake any more than I trust Drake. I trust both of them much, MUCH less than I can throw them. Hopefully Max can figure this all out. I just wish I had given the lunch a miss and made the Orkut meeting.
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