Hello, Livejournal! Today I bring you awesome news:
a) it's Mandy's birthday! Happy birthday, awesome girl! ♥ I guess I've tried to write you a birthday fic, but you kind of already know it turned into badfiction. Um.
b) I kind of usually/very often have to deal with customers; I do not get paid at all, I work twelve hours a day, but sometimes I think that all the hilarious conversations I have with some of the customers make it worth it. An example:

Tina: that's four fifty.
Dude: hey, are you interested in having a boyfriend?
Tina: no.
Dude: why not? You're young and Chinese! Why do you not like boyfriends?
Tina: because.
Dude: you like women? you like men? what?
Tina: in reality I'm a man.
Dude: that means you like women?
Tina: yep.
Dude: I like China! I've worked in Africa for six years, there are lots and lots of Chinese girls there!
Tina: uh. I'm still a man.
Dude: so, you're a man now, you'll still be a man in twenty-five years?
Tina: pretty sure.
Dude: so, you're a man?
Tina: uh, yes.
Dude: well, I'm a woman!
Tina: *cracks up*

Seriously. Seriously. They are annoying, they bitch about prices, they bitch about everything, but sometimes they're hilarious weird dudes.

I've... kind of changed my journal's layout? Except I don't like it very much, because well. I like the colors, but the whole thing kind of kills my eyesight; also, I'm too lazy to do something about it. Mmm. *ponders* (It's okay, though. I'm already blind all on my own.)

I also should be working, but I kind of am not, and it's totally okay, because I'm mentally plotting an Olympics AU and it's all Mandy's fault. WHAT? She's the one who makes me write things like I'd write an Olympics AU just for the sake of plotting a scene where Ryan freaks out over etiquette. "SPENCER, IS THERE SOME KIND OF ETIQUETTE WHEN YOU GET A MEDAL AT THE OLYMPICS? AND WHAT SCARF SHOULD I WEAR IN CASE I WIN SOMETHING??". I like to blame her for pretty much everything. Shhhhh, I have not forgotten about all the Bobfics I promised a while ago. I'll probably get around to writing them when I'll be done with the grocery AU. Probably. Uh.

The worst part of a) living in Italy and b) working twelve hours a day - well, the worst part is going home, turning the tv on and finding out people talking about the swimming teams all over again. I don't want to talk about how Phelps is good at what he does! I don't want to hear about how good the Italian team has been! I want to watch these Olympic games, people, I don't want to hear about them. It shouldn't be that hard, really.

Would you believe me if I told you last night I had an incredibly detailed and awfully macabre dream? Because I did. I do not remember much of it, just the parts where someone (me?) gets to work and finds the doors already unlocked and goes downstairs and sees blood everywhere - on the walls, on the floor, on random chairs and things - and the dead bodies of people they know. Also, the ones where in the end people drink water from plastic bottles. I don't know why my brain decided to keep and remember that part. I bet it was a very scary dream.

Mandy is the best (seriously, the best) and she's written an amazing, harlequin-esque summary for our grocery AU:

After a last-minute major change from creative writing to fashion design, Ryan Ross jumps at the chance to be a designer for a prestigious Milan-based label upon completion of his degree. Unfortunately, between writing classes and design classes, he's never taken any Italian, and he finds himself in an unfamiliar land, surrounded by unfamiliar people, and unable to speak a lick of the local language. Caught up in a whirlwind of flowers, good coffee, gourmet ice cream, and fine wine, Ryan wakes up one day to find himself running a small green grocer's in out-of-the-way Sanremo in northern Italy and apparently courting his talented but secretive neighbor, Gerardo Strada.

Though not Milan by any extent, Sanremo is gorgeous and it and Gerardo are just what Ryan needs to re-attune himself with his artistic soul after the chaos of his early days in Italy. His art reawakens and blossoms just as the flowers of Sanremo blossom around him, even as the grocer's begins to falter and fail under Ryan's inattentiveness. As Ryan struggles to keep the store afloat and at the same time make his name as a designer, a figure comes out of his past to take Ryan's hand and help steady his feet on the path to success... and possibly love.

Isn't it just awesome? I guess I should feel embarassed, because it really, really, really is just that sappy and ridiculous, but I still can blame her for being extremely awesome. It isn't my fault if a tiny, super random idea became so silly! and huge. Like, when we manage to be chatty together with the support of Gchat or MSN? We totally come up with other stuff that we just have to add! \o?

Jeff Buckley never stops getting me teary-eyed. :(

I am the lamest friend you have on your friendlist, guys. I am supposed to be working, but I, in fact, am not, which would be extremely disastrous if my parents weren't quite far away from home. My sister, I love her. She understands my obsessions. Or something like that in actual English, I don't know, it's pretty early (10:21 am is definitely early) and I haven't read any fiction yet. *pokes at the internet* Stop talking about all the fics you're writing and post some snippets already! I have my very not amused face on.

Apparently, when I am allowed to check the internets for bandom news, nothing ever happens! It is making me sadface! Why so absolutely ungracious with me, universe? Thus, I am going to make a list out of the things that are making me happy.

♦ sekkritbandomlj's new shiny universe. You guys, I am constantly amazed by how talented she is. She manages to draw funny little comics and write incredibly adorable notfics that often turn into lovely epic stories - that I'm incredibly fond of - and still be okay with me draping myself all over her. Virtually, obviously, 'cause she's probably asleep now and also living in another continent. (Her bandom/Doctor Who crossover is +60 000 words and definitely one of the fics that I'd read again and again pretty much for forever. It's mostly hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, often adorable and features oblivious silly boys being in ridiculous love. What's there not to love? ♥)
♦ The one where Brendon is a fairy, by disarm_d. No need to explain why.
♦ veecious being still alive! Yay!
♦ zephyrina!
♦ harlequin_bands. (This community is probably why I'm now reading a poorly punctuated beautiful book and mentally recasting it with bandom boys.)
♦ Olympic games! Even if I don't have the time to follow them, like, at all. anne_elliot feels my pain.

Also, I want to facepalm at Ryan Ross for looking silly. ...just. What? This is one of the pics of his where I definitely don't want to do wicked things to him. He looks silly! Like pretty much always! But this is not the usual "SO RIDICULOUS. LOVE HIM." silly, it's more of a "...so ridiculous. Why do I adore him?" silly. It doesn't happen very often (the "...so ridiculous. Why do I adore him?" thing, I mean), but it happens. And makes me sad, because I wanna be a good fangirl! Really! Just. He's not helping me, you know? Oh god, how stupid do I sound?

There was something else I wanted to babble about, like how my sister is getting engaged and a friend of mine gave me her turtles to keep an eye on them while she's away, but I chose not to, mostly because I am lazy and typing on this keyboard is a pain in the ass.

harlequin_bands IS PURE GOLDEN. \o/! First, there's no deadline; second, IT IS HARLEQUIN NOVELS, you guys! Harlequin! Sappy! Demented! Absolutely wonderful! Novels! Now in bandom form! What's there not to love, is what I wonder. I am pretty sure I'm not ashamed anymore of my secret Harlequin past, because it's sort of turned out that everyone's secret past is somehow Harlequin novels-related. Yay? I mean, yay! I'm not the only one who's read all of Kathleen E. Woodiwiss's books! But also, yay? Uh? My life is already complicated on its own, I really do not need to daydream about recasting with bandom boys that book with the ~poker player and the duke and EVERYONE's secret miserable past and the pining over hot mysterious girls and the fake identities and the hot mysterious girl's young, handsome brother and the rushed wedding and the pining (have I mentioned the pining?) and the happy ending. Do. Not. Need. (\o/! CEE! VEE! GERARD/LYN-Z STORY Y/Y? Lyn-Z is clearly the duke and Gerard the hot mysterious girl.)

There also was that extremely unvolontarily hilarious book about captains and ships and artist girls and runaways and babies and happy endings. And storms, I think. Mmm. (Ryan Ross is the damsel in distress who's saved by a captain Jon Walker. Captain Jon Walker feels oddly attracted to that mysterious, poorly-dressed maybe-hooker boy, only to find out that he's not a hooker, after all, he's just his (how surprising!) godmother's nephew! Also, his past crush's best friend. No need to say that baby Jon had been absolutely obvious about his crush on Spencer Smith-the-son-of-the-family-next-door, and no need to say that baby Spencer had been extremely mean to baby Jon. Sigh. It ends in Panic GSF, of course, after a lot of guilty makeouts in the corners and massive pining. Oh! Oh! Captain Jon can't stay in England for too much, which is why he takes Ryan with him when he leaves for America. Blahblahblah Ryan meets Brendon (who is clearly that girl who is all over Jon and has already planned the wedding with him, only a little less stupid and a lot more adorably cute) and shockedly meets Spencer after whole years without him (... he left England for some reasons, I don't know, maybe family problems? Spencer feels guilty because Ryan was left alone with his father and had to run away from... someone. Which is why he met Jon in the first place. Mmm.) and blahblahblah guilty pining blahblahblah storms blahblahblah insert something here blahblahblah happy boys being in love. The end.

I really should be working.

I want to curl up in a corner and sleep forever. No, seriously. Forever. Summer afternoons make me want to take long, peaceful naps, which doesn't make any sense because I just spent all morning doing nothing and planning on doing more nothing! I shouldn't be feeling so tired and sleepy and grumpy; there's clearly something wrong with me. Sigh.

Apparently, my definition of 'nothing' is strictly related to the Cabbabies. Primer! *shifty* Do you remember that time when I said I didn't like their songs? I still don't, but I'm getting addicted to them anyway. My friends always said bandom was bad for me, but I didn't quite believe their mean words. They were so right, and they're so mocking me right now. I still can't tell apart the Cabbabies, but by next week I'll be able to point at one of them and say, "This is the adorable one! I think his name is Marshall, but I'm a bit confused - someone told me he was Spanish and his surname was Mariscal? Oh, well, now I remember. Mariscal happened in the grocery store fic, then he got killed by a better idea."

I've seen this pic posted around, and it is a really pretty picture. That's why I'm reposting it here. Cee, one day you'll wake up and you'll love this kid here. I know you will. (I'm joking, don't kill me with your mind. But wouldn't it be hilarious if Baby-Z was just like him?)

( Pretty, pretty face. )

On a final note --

hot Mediterranean climate is hot. :( I will never truly understand people who want to visit Italy in June or July or, worse, August, because it's hot as hell and I always feel like suffocating. That is said very meanly because, even if I work in an air-conditioned place, the hot weather gets me when I go to that nice place down the road to buy my monthly copy of Paperino (Donald Duck. Shut up, please, don't judge me). Mediterranean climate, why so awfully hot?

I should have expected that. Hell, I knew I should've expected that happening, but I didn't really pay attention, and sure as hell next time I'll do. I think I maybe hoped that, if I didn't get involved too much into it, it would have faded away. How silly. Apparently bandom means you don't have any other choice than be prepared to do many things you normally wouldn't even think of.
That's why I'm now shamefully looking for more info about The Cab. No, really. The Cab. I didn't even like them a week ago! I thought Cash looked like a dickhead! (Sorry, Cash. I promise I won't do it again.) I didn't like their songs! (I still quite don't. *facepalm*) But I did like the thought of having three Alexes in one band, and that's why I talked Mandy into using them in our silly notfic. I thought, "Why not, really? Three Alexes would be so much fun! Except, now I have to search for info about them." Three hours later, I was giggling like a giggling thing because Marshall looks so cute and adorable! I wanted to be able to share the pics with Mandy! I wanted to read more fiction about him! I thought Singer looked girly with his hair straightened! I thought that those pics with Cash and Singer were endearing! "They were born in 1989, Tina, oh god, stop fangirling them so much. *facepalm*"

So! Really, that's just a post to make sure you know bandom is evil and bad and doesn't let you live your life like you'd like to. Really.


In other, boring news, my sister's got a black eye and is currently cooking. So hungry! Mmm, Italian pasta. :D