My heart bleeded, girl

What do we have here? Something we haven't seen in a long, long time. A fannish post! Yes, I'm posting about something other than my ridiculous children or stink bugs.

(I could talk a lot about stink bugs and how the outside of hour house is plastered with them and how every window has 4 or 5 of them between the screens and windows so that I can't open the windows and how the tree on our patio that hangs over our outdoor furniture is crawling with them so we can't eat outside and how I sometimes feel like Tippi Hedron in "The Birds" and how our new hobby involves Larry and I circling the exterior of the house with cans of stink bug spray like crazed killers and now the table outside is covered with dead stink bugs, but I won't. That would be gross.)

I stopped watching SPN partway through last season, mostly due to all the packing and moving and upheaval that went on from January to May, plus the fact that all the episodes I'd recorded to catch up on were obviously lost when we moved and changed cable companies. They don't have Verizon in Columbus, something I find annoying. We have WOW, which sounds made up to me, and they don't have the NHL Network.

Anyway, the point is that I'm pretty excited about Season 10, which I can't believe is actually happening, and am planning on catching up with S9 at some point or another.

I realized the other day just how long it's been since I've written anything. It'll be two years in December. Someone has been translating the last story I wrote, "You Want Me to Act Like We've Never Kissed," into Russian and had a few questions about it, which prompted me to read it. Aside from all the typos I somehow didn't notice when I posted it, it's not bad. It really made me want to think about writing again. I'm not sure why I stopped, all I know is that whenever I think about it, I can feel my brain skittering away from the very idea at top speed. I can barely compose a tweet these days, and a journal post is hard enough.

But I thought maybe if I read a few more of my stories, I might be inspired to give it a try.

I have two WIPS that I pretty much abandoned after I finished my last story. I've always pretty much only worked on one, maybe two, stories at a time, so it's not like I have a whole backlog of stuff sitting around. One of those stories was supposed to be for j2_everafter and is a J2 version of "Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken," with Jared as the young girl horse diver and Jensen as the horse. The other is a Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews inverted trope story (can't tell the truth instead of can't lie) that takes place during the lockout because that's how long ago I started writing it. I would like very much to finish them both, and I can't think of any reason why I shouldn't give it a try when we get back from Japan.

(I also have a lot of notes for a hockey version of Pride and Prejudice starring Sid, Geno, and all four Staal brothers that I never could quite work out, but I don't think that's going to happen.)

Speaking of Japan, I think I'm packed and ready to go. Lois, Marcia, and Ashley are coming over tomorrow. Lois is house/dog/cat-sitting while we're gone, which is so, so nice of her. Adam and Kae are exhausted from the wedding planning, Marcia is worried about exchanging money, Erin is nervous about leaving Sebastian and about getting to the airport by herself on Monday and flying home alone, Ashley is nervous about getting airsick, I'm worried about restless leg syndrome on the long flight - I have Valium - and Larry is worried about dragging his tux all over Japan. I think we're taking a train five different times with our luggage, so he's not thrilled about the whole tux thing. He has to make a speech at the wedding and the interpreter wants a copy of it beforehand, but I think he's going to make it up as he goes along. We're having dinner with Kae's family Saturday night and there are going to be three interpreters at the table, since Kae is the only one who speaks both English and Japanese, and as the bride she may want to enjoy the dinner instead of translating for sixteen people. I've packed all the toothpaste and deodorant that Adam uses that he can't find over there, plus presents for Kae's family and Adam's boss and co-workers. I have only to water my plants, give Neville a bath, and program the DVR for Project Runway, and I think that's it.

Our Blue Jackets season tickets passes should arrive while we're gone. I hope so, since there's a pre-season game just three days after we get back. \o/! It's only pre-season, but it's hockey. All-Star Game tickets have been purchased, and we're all set for the season.

Well, except for the fact that Ryan Johansen won't sign a damn contract. They've agreed on term, two years, but the team wants to pay him $3.5M/year and he wants $7M. That's quite a gap. Kid, you had one good year. Get your ass on the ice with a bridge contract, and if you're as good as you think you are, you'll get paid. Even other people in the NHL think you're good and they usually don't remember that Columbus exists. Be patient.

I mean, obviously they're going to have to give him $5M, which I think they should just do and get it over with so he doesn't end up holding out of camp. Last month the Jackets had a community cleanup project and I spent 3 hours picking up trash - lots of beer bottles - and there were door prizes. I won a Johansen signed hockey stick, which was fabulous, since I never win anything, but I'd rather see that signature on a contract than in my TV room.

While I may not be writing, I did get to have some input into the most fabulous story. From the moment I started reading fanfiction, I've been kind of cringing whenever there's a story involving deafness. I may not be a member of the Deaf community, but I have a degree in interpreting and worked as an interpreter for many years. It kills me every time someone does it wrong, and most of the time they do. I remember a Sentinel story where Jim lost his hearing and Blair went out and bought The Joy of Signing and voila, they were both signing like native signers in no time. I've avoided writing my own story involving a deaf character for a variety of reasons. It felt weird doing that when I was actually interpreting, and I just really had no interest in making Lance Bass or Dean Winchester deaf. It might be fun to explore what Jim Ellison's other senses would do if he lost his hearing, but I never did think to do that. But I just hate to see it done carelessly or without any knowledge when someone else writes it.

So when I had the opportunity to be the "deafness beta" on a story, I jumped at the chance. The author did the most fabulous job, she really, really did, and I was really happy to have a small part in that. She conveyed beautifully what it's like to grow up deaf in a hearing family, to work in a hearing environment, and on the other side of the coin, to struggle to learn sign language because you care about a deaf person, but it doesn't come so easily to you, because it's hard to learn, especially after puberty. She didn't do anything weird with the ASL grammar or dialogue, and it's just a lovely story.

So, even if you don't read hockey rpf, if you want to read a story that does a Deaf character right, go read Learning As We Go by aohatsu. You won't be sorry.