A snippet of dialogue from the other fic I'm working on, from much earlier in the story:

"Ah, Route 66. Brings back memories, this does. There was this one time in Albuquerque, right after I nicked this car --"

"If you start talking about good times with Drusilla I swear I'll jump out of the car."

"Fine. But that goes both ways, y'know. Start talking about Angel, and *I'll* jump. ... Not that there's much in the way of good times to talk about there."

"If *you* keep talking about Angel, I'll *throw* you out of the car."

"I'm just saying ... from what I saw all you two ever did was make each other miserable."

"You didn't see everything. Besides, making each other miserable ... seems to be something you and I are getting pretty good at."

"Do I look miserable to you?"

Sometime soon I'm going to have to take a day and just veg. Not leave the house, not get dressed, not write anything, but just hang out and watch videos and read comics and paint my toenails and not even think about all the crap I have to get done. But alas, today is not the day for that.

I didn't go to church today. Easter Sunday, and I didn't go to church. I haven't been to church in a great long while, and I feel terrible about it. Usually it's because Sunday is the only day I have to catch up on sleep, but today it was because I just have too much to do. I realize that my priorities are way screwed up right now, but, man. SO much to get done.

I'll be taking the summer off. I thought I'd go to summer classes, at least get one of my internships out of the way, but I really need to take the summer off. Then I'll get back in church. When your schedule's all hectic like mine is now I find it's much easier to make things fit that you're already doing than to make time for new things.

Today I have to finish up the newsletter and make fliers (flyers?) for all sorts of things. And I need to work on DL. I shouldn't be stressing about fanfic on Easter Sunday, but the writer who was originally supposed to produce this chapter dropped out at the last minute, and my friend Adj, who ROCKS, stepped in to help me co-write it so we won't end up way behind schedule. And she's busting her arse on it so that means I have to bust mine too.

Oh. By the way, Episode 2 went online last night.

I'm also stressing over what ME is going to do with Spike. I'm pretty unspoiled, but I read an interview with Marti Noxon (I don't have a link, and I realize that makes me a bad blogger, but there you go; it was in Wanda's column on E! Online if you want to go read it) wherein she talked about <SPOILERY STUFF> how Spike and Buffy weren't meant to work out for the long term and how they're having to reiterate why it can never work. Which I fear means that the whole redemption thing was a ruse, or something we were never supposed to glean from the text in the first place, and they're going to drive home that Spike is evil and will always be evil and all of the characer development we witnessed over the last two seasons means nothing. Whch, if it turns out to be the case, will really anger me, and I'll have to be so disappointed in ME for dropping the ball on such a great character and missing the potential to tell a fantastic story. </SPOILERY STUFF> They can redeem Spike without buggering up the Joss-verse canon about what it means to be a vampire. I mean, if there is one vampire in the whole history of the world who is defiant enough and rebellious enough to become a good guy through sheer force of will, and to keep fighting the good fight if for no other reason than to stick it to those who said it couldn't be done and to spit in the face of everything Buffy was ever taught about vampires, that vampire is Spike. To have him return to full-on evil now would be to have him give in to everybody's expectations and do what he's supposed to do, and from what we've seen that just isn't in his character. It's funny to talk about doing good as an act of rebellion, but there you go. If you're supposed to be evil, then doing evil isn't exactly all that rebellious, is it?

I realized the other day that I'm still delusional. Despite recent evidence to the contrary, I still expect Spike to achieve some sort of redemption, and I still expect him to get back together with Buffy. My reasons for believing such are too numerous to list in this entry, but despite Ms. Noxon's best efforts to make me despair, I remain hopeful.

Yes, I realize I spend way too much time worrying about the fates of fictional characters; but part of it is writerly hubris. I've been so certain that I've picked up on all the signposts and read them correctly and that I can see the direction in which Spike's story is heading, and I hate the thought that I'll be proven wrong and, even worse, completely clueless.

Ah, well. Back to the salt mines.

Here's a rough cut of a scene from the fic I mentioned earlier. First scene written, but it's near the end of the story. Note that I said *near* the end, not *the* end. I'm not sure whether I want to work up to this scene or begin with it and then go into flashback for the rest of the story. Anyway. It's S/B, natch. Contains pottymouth words.

***

The hiss of the hydraulics as the doors swished shut and the bus geared up to leave sounded Spike's cue to turn away. He couldn't take watching it go. Watching it carry her out of his life.

He squeezed his eyes shut, holding back tears, holding at bay the image of her leaving, and leaned on the hood of his car. "Buffy," he whispered. Then, "Fuck!" He wiped at his eyes with the palm of his hand, then balled it into a fist and slammed it against the hood. "Stupid ... sodding ... buggering ... stubborn ... bloody ..." With each word he hit the car, again and again, until his hand bled and lost all feeling. He reared back to kick it instead. "Bint!" he finished, leaving a boot-shaped dent in the fender. He stumbled back, but regrouped and raised his leg to kick it again. Then he froze, leg in mid-air. He thought he could feel ...

"You wanna say that to my face?"

Spike lost his balance as he spun to face her and fell against the car. He recovered and pulled himself together, half sitting, half leaning against the hood, staring at her like she was a mirage.

Her eyes dropped to his damaged hand. "God, Spike," she muttered, gently picking it up to examine it. "What the hell did you do that for?"

He stood up and jerked his hand away. "Missed your bus," he said, shoving both hands in his pockets.

Buffy looked back to where the bus had been, and shrugged. She looked back up at him. "Guess you'll have to take me home."

It took everything Spike had not to run to the passenger side and open the door for her, not to sigh with relief and smile and be grateful that she was still willing to have him in her life ... not to hope that this time, things really had changed between them. He wanted to do all of those things, make no mistake; but he wouldn't. Not this time. This time, he knew better.

He stood his ground. "Why should I?"

Buffy rolled her eyes skyward, as if she might find the answer in the swarm of bugs that buzzed around the lampost behind him. "How about, because you're the one who brought me here, and you're responsible for getting me home?"

"I paid your bus fair," Spike said. "I did my part. This was *supposed* to be goodbye. You want me to take you home? Then tell me." He stepped close to her -- too close. He could smell her, smell himself on her, could feel the hum and thrum of life coursing through her. It made her that much harder to resist. He bore into her eyes with his own, carefully enunciating each word. "Why ... should ... I?"

Her bottom lip began to tremble, ever so slightly, and she looked away.

The knife twisted in his gut. He wished he could die from the wound, and that he could do so before the temptation to throttle her overwhelmed him. Why the hell couldn't she have just stayed on the bus? Then they could both be getting on with their lives right now.

He didn't die, and he didn't throttle her. Instead he brushed past her, towards the bus depot.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"To get you a new ticket."

"Spike --"

He stopped. There was a hitch of desperation in her voice, a pleading that, despite his best judgment, made him think maybe. Just maybe. One more try wouldn't kill him.

Without looking back at her, he said, "Say it, Buffy. For God's sake, just spit it out." He meant the words to sound harsh, but he was too weary. "If you want me to stay, love ... you know the magic words. Say them, and we can both go home."

He waited. He imagined that the silence that met him must be what it's like in that moment, after the stake pierces your heart, when you dissolve out of this world and into nothing. Only this hurt a hell of a lot more. He wished she would just stake him and be done with it. It'd be so much more kind of her than this.

When the silence from her became too thunderous, he continued towards the station. He said nothing. If she couldn't speak the words he needed to hear, then there was nothing more to say.

He wished he could hate her. It'd make this all so much easier. But as he reached the ticket line, he knew he had only himself to blame. He should've just pulled up stakes and left Sunnydale, nice and quiet-like, instead of dragging her into this, setting them both up for such a painful goodbye.

He should have known it would all end like this.

I hate my life. Well, not really. I actually like it pretty well right now. It could be improved by the presence of a straight, unattached male who thinks I'm gooooorgeous and wants to keeeeees me, but, whatever. I'm just terribly overextended right now, and very very tired. I think my biggest mistake was joining the university's Psychology club. Well, no, my biggest mistake was letting them make me the editor. It'll look great on a grad school application, but damn, that's a lot of work that I just don't have time for.

Especially not since I started managing Last Exit. Not much of a story there, really. I went to their last show, Stacie asked me if I wanted to manage them, I said how much, he said he'd get back to me with a percentage, and then he did, and now I am. Managing them, that is. It's a whole lotta work, and the whole learning what the hell I'm doing as I go bit isn't making it any easier. I've gotten them one gig so far. So if you live in the Northeastern Oklahoma area, come to Java Dave's in Claremore on Saturday, April 13th, and see the show. They're putting together an accoustic set. It's dee-lovely.

I'm also suffering from angst over turning 29 in a week. TWENTY-NINE, people! I'm really not handling it well. And I'm beginning to notice these lines around my eyes, and that's just depressing. At least there's no gray hair yet. Thank God for small favors. 29. Wah.

On a writing front, I've thrown out Soul Consequences and Enter the Dragon. If you read these, and you were left hanging, I'm sorry. But my reasons for writing them are pretty much moot now (and SC had all kinds of plot holes anyway), and it's time to move on to bigger and better things. I've got one more non-DL fic in the works (I'm considering posting rough snippets of it here just to get it out there and keep me going on it), but once Dancing Lessons is finished, I'm finished with fanfic.

I've also decided to throw out my first novel. I know I should have shopped it around to more than one publisher, but looking at it now, my writing has improved a lot since I wrote it. So we're just going to call that one practice. I'm developing an idea for a new novel, which I'll start on in earnest once DL is done. Like I said, bigger and better things. It's time to put up or shut up. If this new book doesn't do it for me, I'll shut up and get my School Psych degree and be a less annoying Mr. Mackee, mm'kay? and relegate writing to a hobby. Yeesh, I'm fatalistic today. You know that'll turn out to be bullshit, right? I thought so.

When they tried to pry [Halle] off the stage, she made that screeching Bilbo Baggins monster addiction-face when he Wants the Ring. It was a heavy, strange, grand-mal meltdown. America squirmed.

Snerk.

One of the things I need to update y'all on is how I came to be managing a rock band. But right now I'm just here to pimp their new web site.

Their domain is lastexitonline.com, for future reference. I'm still working on getting it transferred and pointing to the new site.

Q: Hey, Jean, are you ever going to update your blog again? With, like, info about your life and stuff, and not just retarded quiz scores?

A: Yeah, eventually. Possibly even tonight. But right now I'm just here to pimp my fic.

Foundation, the first episode of Restoration, which is the third and final leg of the Dancing Lessons trilogy, is up at Dancing-Lessons.org.

you have an ominosity quotient of five. you are somewhat more ominous than average. find out your ominosity quotient.

Dude, that's pretty fucked up right there.

A wedding shower is taking place tonight, at my house (my mother is hosting), which kind of precludes my being able to beg off and go watch TV. Grr.

So I'll be watching Buffy on a tape delay. If anybody (read: Terrence) calls me after it airs and spoils me on anything, the consequences will be dire.

On a side note, if Wesley dies, I'm going to have to slap somebody.

That is all.

First order of business: Because I'm sick and tired of having to wade through 2 pages of spam every time I log into my web mail, I've changed my address. I'm now at hotmail.com instead of cybergeek.com. Everything else is the same. Now the spammers have to find me all over again. Mua ha ha ha ha!

Hey! Check it out, there's a blog here!

Eugh. I'll post some updates and stuff when I have more time. But at least I'm back on the board. Stupid ADDR and their lack of notification of server address changes.

I think it's fixed ...