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Prison Break FanfictionI write primarily non-shipper general fiction, and some Lincoln/Michael slash pieces as well. Yes, I know they’re brothers… and no, I normally wouldn’t be writing brothercest. That said, if it’s not your thing then please stick to the General Fiction section.

                  Prison Break Gen Fiction                      Prison Break Slash Fiction

Supernatural FanfictionSupernatural also deals with two brothers, who in this case are bound together in the pursuit of demons and vengeance. An excellent overview of this show and its characters can be found here.

                  Supernatural Gen Fiction                      Supernatural Slash Fiction

Other Fanfiction: Iron Man, Die Hard 4, Chuck, White Collar, Burn Notice, Reaper, and more

Original Fiction and Non-Fiction Stories: Miscellaneous Original Fiction // Real LJ Idol Season 8 // LJ Idol Exhibit A // LJ Idol Exhibit B // LJ Idol Season 9 // LJ Idol Friends And Rivals // LJ Idol Season 10 // LJ Idol Prize Fight // LJ Idol Season 11

I rode outside Saturday and Sunday, and the higher handlebars worked out great! A little discomfort in my left hand, but none of the brutal numbness that has plagued me for so long. The rides themselves, though... god, the heat. Saturday's ride finished at 91^o, and needed an additional rest stop to let my heart rate slow down again. On Sunday's ride, that extra stop came two miles earlier! :( I finished that ride at 90^o, but the Real-Feel temperature was 100. Gah. I didn't feel especially hot, mainly just tired.

The Sunday ride the week before was only slightly less sucky. We've been having some humidity, which is unusual for Sacramento, and that makes everything unpredictable. But I saw some more tiny quail babies this weekend,and HalfshellHusband saw a baby bunny on his ride. So cute! \o/

When we had guests a couple of weekends ago, we finally had enough strong people to move our bedroom furniture to where we've wanted it to be. Only took a year and a half! I did something to my right wrist the first week after we moved back in, and it sometimes gets a little painful and weak. It feels like something needs to "pop," but that doesn't happen. It's made me useless at moving heavy things, which is really disappointing. But! We're finally done with that! I'm slowly putting pictures and other decorations on our bedroom wall now, and will eventually be able to get rid of the storage bin that's been sitting on the floor all this time.

Now, if I could only figure out what to do with the rest of the pictures (or even whether to keep them). Our daughter did a great job of hanging the bulk of our artwork, but most things are spaced farther apart than they used to be, so some pictures are still pending. I also have a couple of things that need frames. Both are on canvases that are nearly 1/2 thick, which makes that harder. One is a copy of "Starry Night on the Rhone" that my mother painted, and it's large— 20"x18". The other is a Southwestern-style picture our daughter painted, which I love, but it's predominantly orange and the colors don't go with any of the rest of our art or wall colors (apart from the white walls). Plus, I can't figure out what color the frame should be. :( And then we have family pictures but less room for those (fewer flat surfaces) now. Ugh. Decisions! Will the house ever feel complete?

I was able to ride my bike outdoors last Sunday and test out the handlebar changes. From what I can tell (only one ride), raising them 2 inches has helped with the numbness in my hands. It'll take some getting used to, but I'm optimistic so far!

My bike was in the shop for a WEEK, and I lost some speed. Expected, but boo. :( I got it back just in time for another heat wave, so Sunday was the one manageable outdoor day in the last week. Maybe tomorrow? But mostly, I'll be stuck in the garage some more. I just finished S3 of Arrested Development out there (leading me to believe that I never actually saw the S3 finale when the show originally aired). I'm curious to see how the Netflix seasons 4 and 5 work out. Almost done with S2 of Beef, so I need to consider my next series. Indoors, we finished Glitch (Netflix) and have now introduced The Boy to the awesomeness of Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect (BritBox). Meanwhile, I'm closing out S5 of Hope Street, so I need another nighttime me-only show...

Book-wise, I finished TJ Klune's Somewhere Beyond The Sea. I didn't enjoy it as much as the first book, which was terrific. The second book was less heartfelt and more goopy, and the author's wish-fulfillment was in overdrive. Still, some fun bits. Theodore! Chauncey! Mudmen!

I also read Men Like Ours, which features a neighborhood of Indian men and women in New Jersey who are jolted by the apparent suicide of one of their own. The plot and structure were good, and the dialogue was clever. But the characters were portrayed so negatively that it was rough going. It's deliberate, but why? Self-loathing? An attempt to hold a mirror up to the author's society? No idea. :(

Now I'm in the middle of On Earth As It Is On Television. The title tempted me, for obvious reasons, but also the story: what if aliens came to earth, and then just left? Are they coming back? What does it say about us that they didn't even try to establish contact?

I'm not sure what my next book will be, but I introduced my sister to Dungeon Crawler Carl, and she inhaled it. It's making book 5 look really attractive to me right now!

We had family visiting us over the 4th, which was great, but it meant I didn't get around to posting any updates. The day itself was kind of weird, in that the 250th would normally be a big deal and instead inspired a "meh" feeling, thanks to Trump ruining it for everyone (both by killing the celebration and by putting the country in the state it's in). Our daughter bought some fireworks, though, and so we had a little show at the bottom of the driveway. First time for that since my brother moved North about 4 years ago. He used to go nuts on the 4th -- it was his favorite holiday! And now he's passed on, so I have a lot of bittersweet feelings about the date.

I was shopping for something at Amazon this week, and it remembered that I've been looking at book nooks, so it suggested a Dolphin Island set to me. Is that a thing? I guess it must be. Anyway, this was a much better set than the one it suggested, though still not as good as other book nooks I've seen. AKA,

* Dinosaur Museum

* Magic Station (Harry Potter Hogwort's train)

* Voyage Memories

* Whatever This Dreamy Seafaring Thing Is

* Steampunk

* Zodiac

* Tarot

* Pirate Bay

* Dark Family (Netflix's Wednesday show)

Whoo!

In TV viewing, we watched The Vow on Netflix last weekend and enjoyed it, and I've been bingeing on Hope Street (Britbox) before it gets removed. I was unprepared for the cast shakeups that happen each season, especially since Nicole and Clint and their toxic, histrionic relationship is one of the storylines I least like, and yet they're still around and still yelling at each other. :(

We've also started S2 of The Good Girl's Guide To Murder, which we both like. The lead character is played by the actress who plays Enid in Wednesday, so that's nice. She's very likeable. But looking through my Netflix list yesterday, I can see that I really need to finish S2 of Beef (disappointing) and get to one of the other 30 or so series in my queue. Probably this week, since we're having a heatwave and I'll be biking in the garage for-e-ver. \o?

HalfshellHusband and I watched Voicemails For Isabella on Netflix this weekend, and really enjoyed it. It was funny and sweet, and the leads weren't impossibly young (yes, that's a thing for us).

On Britbox, I've been whipping through Hope Street as fast as possible, since it's leaving soon. Possibly today. :O It's about policing in a small, Irish village. I'm sorry one of the S1 actors didn't return for S2, but I like the cast overall. HSH and I have also been watching Jack Ryan on Amazon. So far, S2 and S3 just haven't been as interesting as S1, and it's hard to stay focused when everything is SO DARK (even with the overhead lights out) that you can't always tell what's going on. Ugh, Amazon. Give it a rest already!

I finished TJ Klune's The House In The Cerulean Sea yesterday. It was magical (literally), and I liked it very much. Theodore! Chauncey! I didn't find the romance aspect as believable as I would have liked, which is a problem I've run into with Klune before. He makes the main character sound so unattractive (here, he's a schlub) that it's hard to imagine anyone falling for him. Everyone else was charming, though, and there's a lot of humor and heartfelt feeling in it.

Now I've moved onto A Sorceress Comes To Call by T. Kingfisher. There is, as usual for most of her adult fantasies, an overweight woman in her 40s/50s as one of the main characters. I wouldn't mind that so much except that it comes off as relentless self-insertion, and I wish she would resist the urge. But storywise? So far, so good! I'm running out of her books, so I hope she's writing some new ones. :D

I finished a new model last weekend— a 3-D Van Gogh-themed wooden bookend kit. This was a gift from our daughter a year-and-a-half ago, and I'd delayed it in favor of LEGO-like sets and because I hadn't put anything wooden together before. :O

It's a book-nook type of puzzle, where the pieces come in pre-printed wooden sheets and most of them interlock. There were only a few parts that required gluing. Very impressive, though it doesn't open back up again after assembly like some of them. Once it's built, it stays shut. But it has a back mirror to help show the full set, and a motion-detector light-up mechanism to illuminate the whole interior when someone stops to look at it, which is neat.

It just makes me covet things like these Dinosaur Museum and Steampunk Workshop sets all the more, not to mention the ones that are more Lego-like instead of wood. I want all of the magic and Steampunk and absurd things! The problem is the expense, and then what to do with them afterwards. :O

I mean, I just finished photographing our kids' remaining Build-A-Bear toys and various outfits last weekend, and posted them up for sale at Facebook yesterday! I'm at war with myself trying to clear out the storage room a little while also gathering all the cool things in before they stop being made. /o\

I saw a couple of baby quail again the last couple of days, and they just seem impossibly small compared to the adults. They could fit inside a chicken egg! And yet, they have feathers.

The "pile-driving" sound was going on again at my first cycling rest stop today. When I go downstream, I pass under the Highway 99/Business 80 overpass and a Southern Pacific railroad trestle, and then I rest under the Highway 160 overpass just before the Western Pacific railroad trestle. In the almost 40 years I've been biking on that path, I think the Western Pacific tracks have been in use maybe a total of 5 times? And that includes after an arsonist burned the Southern Pacific trestle during the Pandemic, and rail traffic had to be re-routed for 6 months during the rebuild (that trestle is concrete now).

Anyway, I actually spotted a piece of construction equipment from the project-o'-mystery yesterday. It was a small backhoe, working near the base of one of the trestle supports. Maybe they're replacing some of those supports? The tracks do angle in a way that puts them in the vicinity of the hidden noise. Because otherwise, the only thing I can think of that would be behind those bushes is... more bushes. And those do not need construction equipment!

We finished watching S2 of The Pitt yesterday. Disappointed that there isn't more! That show is so addictive. Now it's just The Glitch, Ashes To Ashes, and Leverage:Redemption in rotation. Time to add a 4th show!

First, one of the things I did during those 5 days off was take my bike into the shop to start the process of raising the handlebars about 1.5 inches. \o/ I notice the issue even more on my downstream rides, where I have two back-to-back legs that are 9.5 miles and my left hand has a limit of about 7.5 miles before the numbness becomes a serious problem. I'd like to be able to tune out more while riding instead of constantly moving my hand around to try to postpone the numbness. So, parts are on order now! It'll be expensive, though, because the brake and derailleur cables have to be redone (they'll be too short), and the disk brakes will need to be redone. I guess?

I keep coming back to the question of what was so bad about having handlebar stems that were easily adjustable, and shifters on the slanting cross bar instead of built into the handles. Not to mention my hatred of the through-axle mechanism that disk brakes require. I was perfectly happy with rim brakes!

I also tried a new-to-me cocktail while we were out for Father's Day dinner at the Thai restaurant. It was a cosmopolitan, which sounded good. But it had a bitter aftertaste, and the flavor of cranberry juice was indiscernible. \o? I would have tried a strawberry daiquiri if they'd offered it, but they only had "regular" daiquiris and margaritas. Hmph. Maybe I'll try a blue ocean next time? Though I fear that might be bitter as well. I am not a fan of bitter! And who knows what an old-fashioned would be like. Probably fairly sweet (a plus), but possibly too similar to a mai-tai? I really don't like those, even though everyone else seems to love them.

As you might have guessed, I'm not a big drinker. :O

I was able to bike outdoors 4 times last week, which was great considering that it was a single day each of the two weeks before that. Stupid heat! I've lost a little speed, but not too much.

I saw a cottontail bunny, and yesterday it was baby quail. They were so tiny, even though they were old enough to have feathers. One of the stragglers even took to the air! They don't seem to enjoy flying much, because they rarely do it. But they can. Just not very high. :O

I probably won't see any turtles downstream again, since the slough is almost dried up. The turnaround point there where I drink water and rest my left hand has some long term construction project-o'-mystery that I can't see, due to dense, high bushes. But whatever they were doing Monday sounded like it involved a pile driver. \o?

Sad to say, the property I pass going to and from the bike path has gotten rid of their sheep. We're in the unincorporated part of Sacramento County, so zoning laws are a little loose. I went past those sheep most of the last 25 years (across two different owners), so it's odd not to see them anymore. Heck, I still miss the horse that used to live in the pasture on Fair Oaks Boulevard (a very busy street in an area dominated by businesses).

In TV news, I wound up watching two BritBox series that I really enjoyed. One was Loverman (my weakness for Lenny James is unrelenting), and the other was The Cleaner (in which a crime-scene cleaner meets a lot of very strange people during the course of his work). We also started watching The Glitch with the Boy (Netflix), and S2 of The Pitt (what a show!). And for Father's Day, we went out for Thai food and then saw Disclosure Day. All of us liked it very much.

Well, I've had 5 days off and it's really been nice. Got more stuff cleaned up around the house and donated, AND we went to the passport application office today and completed the final step in the process. That's been on my TODO list for at least 5 years! :O Now, we wait. And hope they're speedy, because HalfshellHusband will have surgery on his right foot this fall, and it'll be months before he can go anywhere then. We may not wind up vacationing anyplace where we'd need passports, but it would be nice to have the option. And we WILL go somewhere!

I sped my way through T.J. Klune's The Bones Beneath My Skin this week. Boy, I did not see that mixed-genre plot coming! Which is interesting, because the last book I read of his was In The Lives Of Puppets, and that was also largely sci-fi. The Bones was apparently something he wrote in 2017, but it was shelved due to weirdness with his then-current agent. It's nice that he finally published it. It was well-written overall (I LOVED Art), though the couple of mentions and then all-out step-by-step explicit sex scene felt kind of out-of-place. They leaned really heavily on "romance/erotica" when the novel was more sci-fi overall.

Now I'm reading the 5th Dungeon Crawler Carl book. Oh, how I have missed these characters! They are such a colorful bunch. :D

TV-wise, we're watching S2 of The Pitt on Hulu. What a fantastic show that is. I only wish there were more episodes! HalfshellHusband and I also watched People You Meet On Vacation (Netflix) over the weekend, and that was honestly pretty good.

In my private garage and late-night viewing, I'm in S2 of Beef (Netflix), which is not anywhere as good as S1, and I've crossed into S3 of Arrested Development. I also just finished Dublin Murders (BritBox), which was really gripping but also a little frustrating. I wish the ending had been happier, though I can't say that it was unrealistic. I might go back to watching Euphoria on Hulu next, or (more likely) I'll stumble onto something else on BritBox. Still waiting for AppleTV to put out S3 of Silo so I can do a short-term subscription for it and the most recent season of Slow Horses. It's too much to hope for a third season of Severance anytime soon...

And for Amazon? WHAT is taking so long re: the third season of The Devil's Hour? I need that yesterday!