Subdued Intrinsic

Personal Note: We're going to a family bonfire (er, I mean a bonfire hosted by family, not one where we roast our relatives) and there will be various foods cooking on sticks, old tool style. As you might guess, there will be S'mores. I'm not big on S'mores. For one thing, I'm kind of a DO NOT MIX THE FOODS variety of OCD, and secondly, the concept of a square millimeter of my skin getting *shivers* sticky for a nanosecond freaks me out like you would not believe. Adhesives are a personal Hell, folks. Anyway, as irony would have it, I was tapped to bring along the fixin's for the S'mores. I got all the regular stuff, and then, because I'm a wild and crazy guy (I need a Steve Martin here), I bought a large bar of Hershey's Cookies-n-Creme chocolate, to experiment with. I'll let you know how that turns out.

And now, for the main feature of this blog post. I know I've not been writing a lot of helpful blogs right now, but I'm claiming holiday chaos. I'm not doing a lot of revision or other writing, either, because I know myself; if I try and interruption after interruption were to dog me I would eventually try to kill someone. And I love all the people I live with. I did not give birth to three of them only to take their lives back in a homicidal rage X number of years later.

So, I've been posting rather egoscentric, fluff posts (you're probably getting another one tomorrow, just forewarning, because my betas, friends, and readers have their own opinions of who would make good Dionadir characters, and I am entirely pro-supporting-reader-insight). I do plan on writing more thoughtful posts by the start of next week, promise. But for today, as with yesterday, I give you this kind of awesome bit if 'Yay! For me!" news.

This morning my husband surprised me buy going to Dell.com and sitting me down to pick and choose the features I wanted for my Christmas present, a new Dell Netbook (Don't worry, Bales; I made absolutely sure it came with the newest edition of Microsoft Office, and Windows 7, so I'll still have SpellCheck, which we know is something I desperately depend on). N. even paid a little more so I could have the Product (Red) colored one. You guys know how I feel about supporting charities whenever financially possible, and since that shade of red is my favorite (hello, look at my hair!) it's a Double Bonus, right. Anyway, it'll look like this:



It won't come in for anywhere between one and two weeks, but it finally sort of sank in I'd have a computer all my own, just for my work. That's what N. said. It's a gift to show his faith in my writing and how much he supports my dreams. And now I think I'm gonna cry.

;)

Personal note: Paramore's "Fences" is totally big-band-swinging around and around in my head. Dig it.

You might have wandered over here from one of a few places, and more than likely I've had pretty much the same name at all of them. There's a fantastic reason for this.

Simply put, my name's my name. I was born with it. Hades, actually I was conceived with it. My dad once said to my mother something like, "Dear, one day we'll have a daughter, and we'll name her 'Amethyst Greye'," and my mother replied something like "Wonderful! And we can call her 'Amy' for short . . . but first we have to get married."

I put an end to the 'Amy' nonsense at the age of twelve. 'Amy' was the most popular girl's name the year I came into the world and therefore much too common for an original individual such as myself.

My mother is pretty sure the 'Greye' comes from my father's biggest literary obsession, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Remember, Gandalf started out as 'Gandalf the Grey'. Dad threw on an extra 'e' to make it more feminine, and there you have it.

I like to think--even though he passed away when I was four--my dad somehow knew I would grow up to be someone who needed an outstanding name and that's why he obliged.

Amethyst Greye Alexander. Doesn't it sound like it'd be right at home on the cover of novels?

ALSO! Please look to your left at the heading entitled 'Declarations'. That, my friends, is my triumph over technology for today. Every time you refresh this page you get another favorite quote of mine randomly displayed. Only ten right now, but I have evil plans!