Bob Loblaw's Law Blog

hp6

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:31:50 GMT

WAKEFIELD DIDN'T GET TO PITCH! MY ANGRY FACE! LET ME SHOW YOU IT!

It's morganalefaye's birthday today, so yay for that!

I am... delightfully delirious; I got perhaps two hours of sleep. So, I give you,

Where do I begin? I can't do a thorough dissection of the film because I don't think I have it in me. I will touch upon two things first.

WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT BURROW SCENE!? Yes, I was alerted to it's addition but what was the POINT!? To set up Remus and Tonks? I sincerely hope not, because they weren't supposed to officially be "WHEEE! TOGETHER!" until at/after Dumbledore's funeral. And they didn't really explain Fenrir Greyback like... at all, so that's going to be a difficult set up for the next film.

I am so sad that they didn't include the funeral in the film. That really had a sense of closure for a lot of the characters that I liked and set up the next book very well (the next being Lord of the Sissies: Harry Potter Romps Through the Forest for Seven Chapters). How they tried to achieve that felt very half-assed to me and reminded me of the Verizon commercial when the people at the concert all raise their cell phones in the air.

Dumbledore's dead but... more bars, more places.

Jim Broadbent: I thought he was delightful as Slughorn, I did. Though Slughorn to be a bit taller, but otherwise, I thought it was spot on.

MOTHERFUCKING SEVERUS SNAPE IS THE BADASSEST OF THE BADASSES. Guh, Snape, can I just tell you how wonderful I think you are? During that Unbreakable Vow... OMGOMGOMGOMG. SPINNERS END! SNAPE'S PAD! WHUT!? YAY!

And I'll stop because I really need to but, I was crying something fierce when Dumbledore said, "Severus, please." OMG SNAPE! YOU'RE SUCH A GOOD MAN! ILU! ILU!

Soooooo, that's that and I'll leave you with a photo of this GQMF.

Seriously? SREIOUSLY?!

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:13:17 GMT

Do you have this incredible urge to throttle people? To scream at people to get their head out of their ass? To stop being lazy, live in reality, to just shut the hell up about the same thing they've been going on about for ages? Today is one of those days. I read one thing that someone wrote and was just, "Yeah. I'm done."

There's a hearing today that I've been working to help my boss prepare for; it's basically a hearing regarding medical marijuana and anti question two nonsense (which lifts the criminal penalty for possession of small quantities of marijuana). But...

There's also a hearing regarding the Transgender Rights and Hate Crimes bill. This of course means that there are very conservative "pro-family" groups protesting in front of the State House today. As I attempted to enter the building, several people tried to hand me pamphlets. I had to stand in line, waiting to sign in for testimony with people who don't believe transgendered people should be protected under our laws.

This, of course, won't pass in Massachusetts, but it's still infuriating to hear someone yell, "Transgenderism is considered a mental disorder by the mental health community!" These are the people that make Leslie seriously want to light someone on fire.

I'm eagerly awaiting this evening. Going to a rockin' All Star Game party (American League, what up!?) and then to Harry Potter. Now if I can only get through this horrid day.

Spam me with some nice!

summer is kinda here!

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:58:47 GMT

This is awful: Massachusetts zoos to close due to budget cuts.

I have gotten many things done this weekend:

Helped Gini and Rosie with their wedding invitations, learned what embossing is. Found that I am quite into wedding planning.

Went to The Banshee; listened to attractive, Irish footballers just... talk. Delightful.

Learned that I shouldn't eat Tostitos fake cheese ever again.

Outlined my SVU RPF; promptly showered.

Bought tickets to Ingrid Michaelson and will be seeing Taylor Hanson's "new" band Tinted Windows with lowriseflare

Got my Harry Potter midnight showing tickets. Gonna be bomb... as long as they play up the Lupin/Tonks...

Posted some bitchin' music here. It's friends only, so friend me if you'd like.

Ari loves Llyod SO MUCH! (We'll begin with this, because I need to squee a little bit.) Big tough Ari Gold is scared of losing not only the best assistant he's ever had (he had five in the thirteen months before Llyod? Was that the figure?) but of losing his friend. And Llyod is his friend.

They've been together through thick and thin. Llyod stuck with him as his career was unraveling, as he lost movie deals. Llyod put himself on the line so many times for Ari and Ari's done the same for him. And he just doesn't want to see him fail. This is of course because it would reflect poorly on his reputation, but he also doesn't want to witness his friend perform career suicide, and I think that's so sweet. It's also sweet that Mrs. Ari and the kids are so invested in Llyod's well being because they're well aware that without him, Ari would fall completely to pieces.

Lol @ the losing weight for Tom's sake; that man is hard to please.

Debbie Mazar! You're back! I love you and everything you stand for because you're fierce, you're profane and you never fail to give it back as good as you get it from Ari. They need to utilize your awesomeness more, they really do. Beverly D'Angelo, you're in the same category. (hated you in SVU though, sorry!) Keep Ari in check because you're amazing and angry and gosh, I love ya.

Moving on to Vince. Vince all mopey? Not my preference, but then I don't watch the show for him anyhow. I find it charming that he's so alone without his boys in the house, that he doesn't know what to do without his closest friends around. But Vinny, it's time to grow up a little bit. Just because E and Turtle are out doing their thing, it doesn't mean that they love you any less.

Gary Cole... I can't get used to the idea of you in this role.

Sloane, you are annoying. Please to be going away immediately. Thanks so much.

Also, Red Sox midseason report card. Julio Lugo got a D-?! I'm SHOCKED! Why not an F? Because he showed up!?

Oh and the home run derby is tonight. I'll be... half watching.

And go to Psych's USA website and watch the promo for the upcoming season. It makes me giggle.

This morning, I called Phil "magniflorious"...

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:06:34 GMT

A BETTER OFF TED PIMP! WATCH THIS SHOW!

	Ted (Crisp): is the head of research and development for Veridian Dynamics. (They made a sheep once!) He is a single dad to his daughter Rose, as his ex-wife ran off to the other side of the world to, well, try to save it. Ted does not eat yogurt, but he does have a thing for Linda. This isn't a spoiler, it pretty much comes up in the first few minutes of the first episode. Ted is flustered by Linda frequently, which is amusing because as you'll read, Linda doesn't fluster all that easily. He frequently narrates scenes; it's cute.
	Veronica (Palmer): Ted's boss, she is largely emotionless. She keeps her hair in a tight bun, because that's what women of power are supposed to look like. Veronica is largely without a conscience and looks for loopholes to circumvent the issues that arise in Veridian's products. Her personality complements the company well because the company too values profits over morals. So there's that.
	Linda (Zworlding): is part of the testing department and is therefore... a product tester. She works in the bullpen, the cubicle farm and has an... odd sense of humor. Linda is very forward and witty and tends to speak without thinking. She has a thing for Ted, so you'd think that since he has a thing for her, all things would be peachy. Wrong, because where would a show be if it premiered with an established, main-character relationship? Linda's a little (maybe a lot?) crazy, which appeals to me.
	Phil (Mymen): is one of the lab techs who Ted supervises. He's brilliant, but his wife hates him. Phil is manipulated easily, which sucks because Veronica enjoys manipulating people. His biffle is Lem.
	Lem (Hewitt): is biffles with Phil. He has no play with the ladies because he's such a huge nerd. He's also not no stones when it comes to dealing with upper management which makes things awkward sometimes, like when the company "ignores" black people. (Watch 'Racial Diversity', you'll get it.)
	Rose (Crisp): is Ted's daughter. She is a good child and believes it's wrong to break the rules. She's pretty much the antithesis of everything that Veridian is. Also, she's super cute in that "Ah! My backpack is too big for my body!" sort of way.

There are so many wonderful things about this show. The pace is great, with the comedy smoothed out like an awesome frosting job. Yes, I just compared this show to good cake.

The one-liners punctuate the transition scenes perfectly; I mean, they actually leave you laughing quite out loud. Each plot is fresh and they make use of all of their characters. Though Ted is technically the leading man, lab nerds Lem and Phil get nearly equal screen time.

It's got the air of absurdity that Pushing Daisies did, balanced with the wit you might find on Arrested Development.

I love it, you should check it out. It's currently on hulu!

Guys! surreallis posted some new, sick ass SVU photos at her journal. They're pretty drool-worthy.

And a man falls into a vat of chocolate and dies. While that is incredibly tragic I say two things: 1. There are far worse ways to go. 2. Better than being drowned in molasses.

TOMORROW! I'm going to share some music. Does anyone have any requests? Does anyone WANT some new music... or am I just uploading for the sake of uploading something...?

and then it exploded.

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:54:18 GMT

SHARE!
Yes, I'd like to share with you an album that I've been listening to. It's gooey, it's romantic, it's inspiring, it's poppy. If you like Jason Mraz or OAR or Howie Day or Matt Kearney, you'll like this. YES, he's exploded onto the scene lately and YES this is his latest album, but I still really enjoy it. He's been around for awhile, so if you like this and you want one of the "older" albums, let me know. You can grab it here, copy and paste link location into browser window, change hxxp to http.

Leave me a comment (you have to specifically tell me you want a letter) and I will give you a letter. Then, write 10 things that you love starting with that letter. Post the list in your journal. Give out letters to your commenters in return.

surreallis gave me the letter 'B' and lemme tell ya, there's just so much I can do with this.

Boston

Well, it is my home. It's America's Walking City. It's got tons of history and yeah, I was born and raised here and will probably never leave. That never leaving part should say something...

Baseball

From April to October, this is one of the things that occupies a lot of my time. From scoring, to watching the standings to attending games, baseball is the best.

Booze

If you know me, you should know that I'm a pretty big lush. Chances are, I will drink you under the table. Unless you give me tequila, no tequila please.

Bacon

The one food that ALL of my vegetarian friends say that they miss/crave. It's such a... versatile meat product. Sandwiches are automatically better when there's bacon on them, the end.

Birds

I can't help it! The way they hop around and tweet and such, I just think they're freakin' adorable.

Barenaked Ladies

BNL, how I loved thee. How I love thee still, though when I listen to you I tend to become depressed, nowadays. Oh BNL, you were so good to me...

Billiards

Isn't the sound of a cue ball making an awesome break not one of the most fantastic sounds? I love playing pool, though I'm absolutely terrible at it. This is embarrassing, because my dad used to be semi pro.

Baths

A glass of wine, some bubbles, a little Vivaldi... the perfect evening. If only my tub were big enough to allow for a proper bath. Damn you, tenement apartment!

Braque

My favorite cubist, really. He worked closely with Picasso, though Braque has more of a handle on structure. He just shatters things so perfectly. I love his Fauve works too...

Books

Well, that's a given. Who doesn't love books?! My love for books, literature in general is thanks in large part to my mother and grandmother, who allowed me to spend my summer days as a youth in the basement of the public library.

I'm particularly fond of collecting editions of Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I've recently come to revive my craving for Agatha Christie and, with the help of mom, have been pulling books out of the attic.

You know what would make me happy? If you went and read

My SVU fic, Lonely People Are Always Up In the Middle of the Night and

My West Wing fic, 3B.

ETA: CAN SOMEONE PLEEEEEASE ICONISIZE THIS FOR ME? I've attempted to tighten it and brighten it and make it pretty, but I gave it up...

Just another lonely day.

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:11:38 GMT

I hate this summer; it's too hectic. There hasn't been enough sun (but you've all heard about that) or free time or money (I refuse to work more hours than I already do, so THERE). I've taken on the responsibilities that should be handled by another person, but alas, Suffolk is in a hiring freeze and so yours truly gets to do twice the work with a 0% raise. Oh, and I get to work for two of the most condescending, disorganized people at the university. (Mind you, I understand that they're frustrated with this not being able to hire their OWN help thing, but still.)

Also, I'm tech-tarded and can't seem to make anything happen in GIMP, no matter how much I work with it. I guess the annual newsletter won't be looking as snazzy as I had hoped. I'll put in some more time on it, perhaps take it on vacation with me but we'll see. I shouldn't be working on vacation, right?

I have a doctor's appointment this morning (all the way out in Melrose, dumb!) and I'll be having some stitches put in my thigh and so I won't be able to run later on, which totally sucks because I have field hockey tonight and will have to "coach" from the sidelines and not participate. Yeah, I have awesome orange cones and everything, but doing it yourself is seventy-five percent of the fun.

A positive attitude really does go a long way, so I'm going to get some coffee, put on some music and just work through the douchiness that is today. I'm thankful for amazing friends who always seem to keep my spirits up, a great hair day, getting a free gift at Sephora and surprisingly, Nomar's smile (because he's still hot as hell, even if the A's slaughtered us).

How, pray tell, is everyone else?

Lonely People Are Always Up in the Middle of the Night

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:16:06 GMT

Well ladies and germs, Wakefield finally made the All Star team. This makes me incredibly happy. If you heard the story how Tito told him he snagged it, SUPER CUTE!

title: Lonely People Are Always Up in the Middle of the Night
author: scullyseviltwin
rating: Mature
spoilers: I don't... think so?
notes: I felt a little dirty, writing this. I never enjoyed entertaining the notion that Elliot wasn't faithful, but surreallis accidentally put this is my head awhile back.
thanks: To the unreal lowriseflare who doesn't hold back; this is fifty-percent her because without her "nitpicking" this wouldn't have happened. Big woots to her. (All mistakes are mine).
summary: Strange how every time they stilled and came together, he could feel it in her, and knew that she could feel that it was in him too.

disclaimer: Dick Wolf > me. The end.
second note: I made a mix to go along with this fic... though as it turns out, the songs aren't too fitting anymore, but hey, it's still fun and can be found here at eoshippers.

“And he hated himself and he hated her, too, for the ruin they’d made of each other.” – Dennis Lehane, The Given Day

---

The column of her throat was the first thing he touched, with his lips; his hands hadn't even deigned to move. But her throat, it was the one thing that betrayed her always, when she would swallow with the weight of it all, sigh or laugh, it gave it all away and he took it all, had to place his mouth there and taste. Olivia's pulse beat strong, quick against his tongue and Elliot held there for a moment, listened to, felt her breathe against him.

His forehead had rolled against hers, her back against the weathered door to her apartment. And his mouth had moved of its own accord, it seemed. Forehead, temple, cheekbone, jaw, throat. Her throat. That was the point at which he had no idea what he was doing, but the sound of her20head falling back against the door snapped something so real in him that Elliot's hands covered her hips and he hovered over her mouth panting silently, "Please, please, please."

They were both in it, thick as thieves, equally to blame.

That evening they tried to one-up the other; take this, take that, you're not the one carrying the guilt in the morning. But the too-present weight of the band on his ring finger meant that he'd be burdened with what they had done until he could manage to look his wife in the eye again.

Surprisingly, there were no excuses made for what they began doing. What was the point? Neither one of them tended to speak much to begin with, save for moans-turned-words as they came or pressed close to something perfect. Always bitten lips and carefully averted eyes and if it was anyone touching the other's cheek to beg a glance, it was always him. Elliot with the outer crest of his hand against her cheek and she couldn't help but look.

Nine times in three years wasn't close to being a lot, and it certainly wasn't enough; never planned, just happened, after this and after that and neither one of them saw it coming. A particularly poetic goodbye in the sedan, rain pelting the roof; when he'd returned from a family vacation to Virginia Beach; that night she decided to buy a pack of cigarettes one last time and he'd caught her coming out of a 7/11.

It was always about the nevers between them. Never speaking, never staying over, never saying goodbye. And the never that was Elliot's home was an always for her apartment. Between, on top, around the sheets of her bed, he knew just what to do, how to move, when to swallow her cries in a kiss. In those minutes, those hours, they weren't afraid to admit that they knew everything about one another, that they knew more about the other than anything, anyone, ever.

Nine times stretched across too many days, levied by overly eager minds. There was never a time when he rushed with her, and it was he who took the lead, something that neither of them had expected. Elliot had figured she would be the one calling the shots, pulling and clawing and holding him down. Exactly the opposite was what he found; being between Kathy's thighs had never felt quite as deep and he'd never shuddered so deeply when he'd been held in his wife's arms.

He'd learned her body twenty minutes in and he was tortured with that knowledge for three-hundred and twenty-two days before he could put it to use again; nights he'd wake up in a sweat that wasn't quite cold, palms itching to create friction against her skin. In the night he remembered how hard he had to hold her to feel complete, how unwilling he'd been to let her go as their bodies cooled. Nothing in the realm of a goodnight kiss, just a shift of weight and a harried body sliding into clothes that never felt quite right afterwards.

Not even an exchange of names in bed; Olivia had once dared to mutter "El," and then his index finger had found it's way into her mouth and he'd had to close his eyes against the beauty of it. Fuck it all, that couldn't be him, it wasn't him, and it wasn't her. Really, but it was, it was her beneath him so alive, so real, looked-tasted-touched-smelled like Olivia but not his partner. Couldn't be. (Then who?) What he hadn't been so prepared for when it had all began, the thing he never thought to anticipate was how he never thought of the word 'wrong' while he was inside of her, and it wasn't until he saw Kathy's face that he second-guessed.

The evening phasing into a new day, and he was ready to make an exit, again. "You need to walk away," she'd whispered, one evening with her spine to him. He wondered in amazement how she was able to keep it so straight. Under all the tendons and muscle and that skin, her spine was still so straight after all of these years. Her unmanicured fingers worried the pillow at her cheek and he could tell she was so nervous, but it still came out too harsh.

"I need to walk away?" Jaw set in a straight line, his eyes fell on her shoulder and he wished for a moment that he hadn't wound up in her bed that evening. There were things that just shouldn't, shouldn't be faced.

He blinked, clawed at the walls in his dreams and wondered when the next time he'd be able to try to place just how she tasted. Three a.m. and they both felt a little off, a little midnight drunk and she began talking, "You think would have happened otherwise? I don't know what to say about this."

The voice that came out of him was incredulous, breathless, aghast. "I need to walk away?" Hand on the mattress between them, pressed down and in, it created the line between them. Barely enough light in the room, she looked like caramel and he almost moved to blanket her, sink in slowly. Every second he was inside of her, it was as if his skin still ached to be pressed to hers, that his fingers needed to be everywhere at once in order to leave nothing untouched. Even now, when he didn’t know what to say, how to express the anger that she’d managed to trigger in him, he couldn’t help wanting to touch all of her at once.

The muscles in her back flexed, sinews slowly pulling against one another and Elliot watched, ran his hands over the roughness of his cheeks and pulled them downwards. He wanted to ask her why she chose, now, why it was now that they had to discuss this. Why did it have to be now, after three years of casually avoiding all the things they stirred up when he was clenched around him, clawing at his back, asking for more.

All of a sudden it just didn’t feel like enough, the countless hours spent rationalizing his decisions; late nights spent sitting outside of his church in the sedan, wondering if he had the balls to go in and confess, confess that he knew what he was doing was wrong, but it felt so right he couldn’t bear not to be with her. Laying in bed next to his wife, covered in sweat, in something so much worse-so much better-than sin, nothing came together, he couldn’t make any of it work in his head. How the fuck he’d come to lay his hands on his partner, how she’d too readily accepted his just all, all over her skin. How it all felt just a little too perfect for it to be real.

Things that perfect eventually just broke. He could feel the fucking fissures already.
And then his hands were on her shoulders, pulling her body flush against the mattress, the sheets barely covering her breasts. Olivia, with wide eyes, refused to look at him, instead staring at the ceiling, unblinking, unyielding. “That’s what you think?” In the space between them, the silence hung, his gaze burning across the bed. “How? Tell me how?” Accusatory, his words laced with some more, something heavier and then, “That’s just bullshit. You’re saying it and you know it.”

It was really all too heavy. This thing they had, it was born of frustration of years of distance, of every word that had ever gone unspoken. Fingers curl around her shoulder and Elliot clambered up onto the bed, moving himself into her line of sight, making it all simply unavoidable. Nothing simple would suffice in moments like this, nothing like a kiss, a pressing of bodies together; they were the two who would let it fester just beneath the surface until it became all too painful to address. Again, it would all go unspoken.

Monsters in the closet, come out, come out, wherever you are.

He thought about their partnership, early on, and how he was so certain that she’d be asking to be transferred to another squad straight out of the gate. Four weeks in and she had brought him coffee and had smiled at him, “I pay attention.” The smile that they shared had been that of friends. When they’d shared that smile, some years later, her eyes had been different, her eyes had been different and something had changed. Elliot couldn’t recall a time when he didn’t know those eyes, didn’t want those eyes on him.

The nights where she would rescue him, calling him just as he had been about to call her, saving him the infidelity. When she’d come to understand both sides of him, that she wasn’t terrified of his anger, how it consumed him all too often, that she was the only person he’d talked to about the atrocities he’d seen in the Corp. And how neither one of them talked about better days because they knew in all likelihood, they didn’t exist outside of one another.

“Elliot,” the first time the name had been uttered as anything other than a cry for release. He almost felt responsible, regretted that they were about to sully the place they had come together, that they were allowing reality to breach the sanctuary. Neither one of them spoke about loving the other, but neither one of them felt worse for the wear either; it was par for the course, those type of feelings. The wanting, the needing, the needing. Nothing, honestly nothing could have them apart and that was the problem.

It was no longer about skin on skin but the intermingling of ideas of forever, and the romantic ideas that neither one spoke. The solace they found in one another’s bodies, the immediate calm, the steady breaths taken. Last pieces of the puzzle filtering into place-

He thought about tiny rooms, rooms like hers and his occupied by people doing the exact same thing that they were doing. Tenement-sized dwellings in the boroughs, housing lovers and others, but people who knew passion was more important than some other things. Loving without words, secretly slipping back into the anonymity of the city and thought about how sad that was. True, he also thought about how many men still wanted her, how attractive she was, even at an age when some would consider her over the hill and how that made him crazy, fucking insane. Elliot thought about every wrong he’d made, about his children and how he loved them more than life itself and how bizarre it was that their mother that he couldn’t love enough.

Like a hand curling around a .22, his hand dove into her skin and he responded. “What is it that you don’t have?” What other way was there to ask if she was happy? Perhaps he had dreamt the entire thing, perhaps it was all wishful thinking… but that was a defense mechanism for an imminently broken heart. If it wasn‘t love, it was something far more distinct, that sort of forever thing that no one had taken the time to try and define yet. And how fucking carelessly they’d tumbled into it, almost entirely by accident. He’d never say it was either of their fault.

He thought about it then, the gold light from the standard streetlamps laying sweetly all over her skin, how they were both all hard, jagged edges and yet so fragile when they touched the other. What was it about either of them that made the other fall apart so completely. When he’d registered the first pangs of that something else he felt for her, there were excuses made, explanations concocted; to fall for the woman you interacted with every day, the person who was bound by the job to trust you, it seemed only logical that feelings would develop, it seemed inevitable. That had to be the only reason.

But things would filter through his carefully veneered walls, how much he hurt when he saw her smile and why he craved the sound of her laugh. Elliot was sure he couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment he let himself crack; perhaps there was never a moment between those laugh, the shared gazes, the lunches and dinners and nights in the crib that he didn’t love her. It wasn’t at first sight, because he’d simply looked at her so many times… love at first breakdown. And he knew, just knew, if he asked her when she’d fond herself in amongst the breakdown, she’d tell him with hard eyes that she hadn’t.

He had wished, once while inside of her, that he could keep a piece, just a whisper of her when like this. How depressing it was to k now that her scent would never linger on a pillow, that he left himself with her every night as he left, marked her sheets and her home and her heart and he couldn’t return that intimacy.

In that moment he was furious at no one but himself, for being the antithesis of the man he wanted to be. To be weak. “It’s bullshit,” and still he couldn’t let it go. Elliot slid his body into the bed next to her, chest to her back, hand at her hip. When he pressed his forehead to the gentle curve of her shoulder, he was shocked to discover how chilled it was and wondered if this was some sort of sign, a foreshadowing of an end. And even as his lips burned to touch her nape, he hated himself for needing her, for wishing that he didn’t, for wishing her could stop and not wanting to at the same time.

Everything had an opposing force. Positive and negative, black and white, right and wrong; it was startling to realize that when they’d begun this, he’d never really speculated on how it would all end. Elliot had just assumed that it wouldn’t, that it was safer to believe that the stolen moments together were independent of time.

Against him, she shifted onto her back, his arm still clutching at her. Eyes focused back on the ceiling, “Why?” The gruffness of her voice cut through him, the absolute hurt, confusion, craving.

And he could taste her on his lips when he said, “Because now I know.” She tilted her head towards him in question and although he was certain she understood, it hurt to voice it. “I know what you feel like, like this.”

A warmth spread through his chest, tightened there and constricted his throat. If it was spoken, neither could retreat behind the guise of ignorance, not anymore. And he was prepared for the deluge, the fallout, to just finally voice it all. “I try to make justifications for this… and there’s something in me that doesn’t have to.” Al l his thoughts, jumbled together, it was difficult to emote what he was trying to. “Kathy and I,” he hated saying her name with another woman in his arms, but if he could simply get it all out…

“Kathy and I were married young and there’s a part of me- Olivia, I love my children and I love her for being their mother but, you know that you...” Jaw set tight and throat dry, he pushed through the mire. “It’s a need, Liv, a need to, when I’m not here with you, when we’re not alone, all I can think about is trying to prove to you, to make you understand that this is…” His words were becoming jilted and bogged down with too much.

Olivia waited, not wanting but hearing what he was speaking, softening against his body, just a bit. “Yeah,” she whispered and tilted her head towards his; being close like this, it’s all he’d ever wanted until he finally touched her. She looked past him at the clock on the bedside table. “It’s four-thirty.”

The sun would be up in an hour and change and he’d have to be making his way back to Queens, back to a house that wasn’t a home and a bed that he found no rest in. “Yeah,” he mumbled, sliding a leg over hers and resting his lips against her temple, his palm reaching up to smooth over the apple of her cheek. He wanted it all for her, to give it all to her. He wanted the thrill of slipping her notes with enamored words on it, wanted the freedom to take her to dinner, to tell people that she was his own and he was hers. He wanted everything that they couldn’t have, and hated himself for that too.

That sealed it, the hand on her cheek. “El, I,” and her voice was lost on rush of air; she surged up to meet his mouth, arms pulling erratically at him, forcing his body hard down on top of her. “It hurts to think about it,” rushed past his lips and he quickly pulled back to look at her; their eyes held for a moment before she admitted, “It hurts to think about being with you because… I’m not.”

“Stop,” he pleaded, needing to breathe. If she was just quiet, he could breathe, they could
breathe together.

Olivia pressed her lips to the corner of his, “I can’t.” And with her hands gripping his shoulders, she reminded insistently, “The sun’ll be up soon.”

That’s where the harried exploration of her body began, at the cessation of her words. His lips fell everywhere, he thinking that if this was to be the last time, he’d want to remember, Jesus, Mary and Joseph he’d want to remember every delicate sliver of it.

He pressed into her, mouth open at the crown of her head as his hips worked, “You have to know, Liv, you have to know.” Arms up and under hers, locked around her body, holding her as close to his skin as he could; their chests, crushed together, brushed against each other as he mumbled, breathed her in. If he could only consume her entirely, it would be so much simpler. “You have-ta know.” He’d never asked her for anything, never taken anything that she hadn’t been willing to give and all he wanted to do was give at all back to her, tenfold. How awful, that he was a better person in her arms. Funny, that he didn’t hold it against he r, that she never said “stop” when they were like this.

Strange how every time they stilled and came together, he could feel it in her, and knew that she could feel that it was in him too. If only that was all it took; if only people understood about situations of fates, that it didn’t call on you when convenient. He wished, as he bit down on her shoulder and came, that people could get it through their heads that sometimes the wrong thing was just as righteous.

Elliot looked at her one last time and rolled away, found himself perched on the edge of the bed, head in his hands. More than an affair, it had to be; he was never that person and he was just trying his best. To keep his family together, to be happy, to get it all off of his chest, how fucking much he loved her. His best, his best it seemed was just never enough. It made him wonder if anything ever would.

“I do,” she said to him as he pulled on his shirt and haphazardly buttoned it. He didn’t meet her eyes as he moved to leave, but he did linger at the threshold of her door, feeling her gaze on him. With a breath to steady himself, he walked down the hall, through her living room, but didn’t let himself linger.

He never let himself linger.

as always
comments & crit
are welcome

How did I miss Rupert Grint getting the swine flu?!?! And I call myself a fan.

That reminds me, Potter is only 8 days and change away (if you're going to the midnight showing, which I am, because uh, hellllllooo?) and the excitement about this in The Laboratory cannot be contained.

Anyone got any news about Lupin/Tonks in this film?! Srsly, I will cut a bitch...

ETA: Keith Lockhart and Craig Ferguson dancing to the Pops rendition of 'Shipping Up to Boston' which is uh... pretty awesome.

party down.

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 01:47:07 GMT

Actually pretty sure I'm going to fall over, but I'm going out anyhow. Mostly because I'm a little pissed off, but hey, dancing is always good for that.

And I could use a nice cola over some bar ice.

If you don't hear from me tomorrow it's only because I'm out eating BBQ, avoiding fucking tourists and seeing fireworks that are NOT those that are over the Esplanade (Lincoln, what up!?).

But Craig Ferguson is hosting our 4th spectacular, so... I'm missing that. (AND A LIVE SWEET CAROLINE!?! THIS IS GOING TO BE EPIC!)

And, as always, Keith Lockhart and my dear Pops. This may be the first year that I don't actually get to hear the cannons during the 1812. Shucks.

Happy Independence Day.

fic, west wing '3B'... I basically wanna be CJ.

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:26:04 GMT

Holy mother of god, the sky opened up this morning. I literally walked out of my apartment (in my stylish, yet functional lobster boots) and thought it was four o'clock in November, the sky was that dark at 9 a.m. Also, cuh-razy thunder and lightning! This is just ri-cock-ulous.

By now, I'm sure everyone has heard about Al Franken. About damned time. You concede NOW!? Anyway, it's been amusing, watching all of the status updates filter in on my facebook, about how now it's a super majority and the Senate is going to hell and... "how are you liberal fucks like see you utility bill go up 75%? America is officially dead until November 2010. then I'll watch you liberal heathens burn!"

Heathens! I actually kind of like the ring to that. I should change my political view to 'heathen' and see if this particular person happens to notice. L to the O to the L.

I am blown away by Richard Schiff in this episode, honestly. When he calls Andy and CJ yells, "I see her on tv!" and he just reacts? He brings his hand up as if to wave with the cell phone up to his ear and a look of absolute relief. It's brilliant, and it's as though he's ad-libbing it, he's reacting for the first time. "Are you kidding? Have you heard about the time decent interval? ...Go away!" And yet, he still managed to capture the essence that is Toby.

This juxtaposed with Bradley Whitford's agitation throughout the episode and particularly his rant about "We should just kill them!" make this such a dynamic, genius episode. This is obviously where the feelings Josh has for Donna bleeds directly through and during the scene in Leo's office, the entire senior staff acknowledges it. That they don't react, that the aftermath of his blow up is so subtle is shaking.

Bartlet's grief over Fitzwallace is particularly palpable and cuts be through to the core. The President juxtaposes his grief with his anger, and you really get the sense of a leader in strife. Also, I find myself particularly touched by this because Fitz was one of my favorite supporting characters.

God, everything about this episode is so genuine (including the KABOOM! scenes of destruction, which Chris Misiano pulled off so well) it really agitates me to watch it.

And so I'm watching it. AND I WROTE FIC. Booyah! 5000 words in an hour and a half. Who knew I still had it in me?!

title: 3B
author: scullyseviltwin
rating: y-teen
disclaimer: not mine, not even close.
words: 5400
spoilers: for Gaza, Inauguration: Over There, various others...
thanks: to hyacinthian because she's always got my back with this stuff; also, she is brilliant, so there's that.
summary: One might beg to differ, but he is indeed after all, only human. He muses about his assistant often and in depth.

author's notes: this came to be as a reached down onto my floor for a book and I thought... Donna's apartment! Must write.

I've had West Wing on the mind for quite awhile now but haven't had the... ability? to write it. But a bit ago, csinut214 mentioned that maybe I should write West Wing and maybe she'd enjoy it. So really this is for her.

---

There have been many times during which he's allowed his mind to wander. In those rare moments between meetings, while he's drying his hands in the men's room, in the seconds after he's made a decision between the mess and take out, he allows his mind to wander over various topics. He, of course, speculates about the Mets quite a bit and allows that to slide into the space between his ears when he's on the Hill far too often.

Even he, one of the most magnanimous political minds in the United States (and he knows because he's Josh Lyman and come on, he's Josh Lyman) is susceptible to flights of fancy, of daydreaming, of drifting off during a Senior Staff meeting about the upcoming Bipartisan Luncheon (because breakfasts are far too volatile). One might beg to differ, but he is indeed after all, only human.

He muses about his assistant often and in depth. Who she's dating (why on earth she's dating them) and if that's a new blouse. How her parents are doing, how she's getting home, what's that brand of yogurt she's constantly eating?

Sometimes, he muses on one thing for hours, or days, filling in the blanks of her life before she came to New Hampshire for himself. One of his earliest lengthy mind-wanders had been over what her apartment looked like. Josh hasn't thought specifically of her bedroom (but then again, that's where all men's minds went first, so he certainly didn't rule it out) but of the whole of her living space. How it might be laid out, what sort of objects she chose to furnish with.

Colors morphed from muse to muse, from light, airy colors to deep, passionate blues, reds, greens. There were warm oranges on the walls of her bedroom with an earthy theme one week, and the next her walls would be buttercup with a warm, cabin feel. In those early days, he'd never really gotten a gauge on who Donna was. Sure, he knew what she liked, who she knew, the music she listened to and what authors she found distasteful, but he didn't know her. Now he knew, and still, he wonders about her apartment and what it hides of her that he has yet to discover.

---

This first time he manages to find himself inside her apartment is during a chilly evening in November and as usual, he has forgotten just how quickly Jim Beam wraps its way around his brain. Bourbon has never been his drink and he finds this particularly reprehensible, as he's known since his early days at Harvard that it is America's official spirit. The fact he's never been able to stomach it has in no way deterred him from indulging in that particular beverage when out meeting Jimmy Glovin from the Georgia 8th.

He's made an ass of himself, he's sure of it, because he winds up on Donna's doorstep thirty-two minutes after having left the bar. This, Donna's apartment, is in fact not his apartment. He'd been aiming for Georgetown and ended up... so far off. That hadn't--Josh Lyman isn't easily deterred, for whatever reason--stopped him from pressing the flat of his palm against the raised button indicating her apartment number. "Donna, DONNA! This isn't, this is not my apartment!" he yells at the puckered grate of her intercom.

All he hears from the other end is a muted sigh quickly halted by the buzzing of the door coming unlocked. Like the gentleman he is, he tosses himself through the door and manages his graceful self all three flights until he's at her door. Donna is, of course, waiting for him, clad in oversized pajamas and an exasperated expression. "Maybe next time you'll listen to me," she grumbles and steps aside, allowing him to tumble in.

"Bathroom?" he asked and she points away from her, averting her eyes as though he's a fright. He probably is; Josh has never been a composed drunk and he knows this, wonders for a brief second if he should have burdened her with seeing him like this. Two seconds later he's emptying his bladder into her toilet. His head tilts towards the ceiling as he's sure he's finished as he's lowering his head, he sees it, a rubber ducky.

It's situated next to a bottle of body wash he knows is hers; it's melon, the gel on the other side being gardenia and he knows, knows what she smells like even if he doesn't want to. So, she has a rubber ducky. Josh laughs and turns to wash his hands, glancing at his reflection in her spotless mirror, speculating as to why he knows how she smells. Do all supervisors know how their subordinates smell? Are they charmed by the sight of a novelty item in a place where they wouldn't expect it?

As he makes his way back, down the dim hallway, his eyes catch the left side of the hallway; a woman he's never seen is featured in most of them and he takes it for her roommate, immediately abandoning the search of the wall. Turning right, he is met with the sigh of two flaxen haired infants plopped down on a picnic blanket amongst tall grass. He recognizes her immediately, smile having not changed in twenty years. It makes him smile, makes him take his time as he makes his way back, giving ample attention to each framed print.

Donna catches him at the second-to-last photo and she smiles, embarrassed at him. "You all set?" Her voice is soft and it's probably because he's three-sheets but it makes him grin goofily.

Taking two steps towards her, he nods. "Need a cab but, yeah, need to sit for a... minute." Together they shift back into the living room and she sees to it that he sits safely down on the couch. They are silent for a long time; Donna settles back and Josh remains alert, his eyes restless.

He glances around. There are papers everywhere, strewn about, a dozen highlighters adorning them like forgotten confetti. The television is on, droning around an episode of Designing Women and when Delta Burke begins on a rant about not messing with her, he notices that the walls are sage and realizes that he'd always figured her for a red person. In that moment, Josh first wonders about the motives of his assistant, if she'd been the one to choose the color in the first place. If she knows that he knows the colors of her eyes.

"Yes," Josh muses belatedly, "Maybe next time I'll listen."

He smiles back at her and she smiles back at him, but it's all lost when he asks, "Hey, doesn't your roommate have cats?! Here kit-tay, kit-tay, kit-ay..."
---

Her air conditioner doesn't work, but it's nothing new to her. She's a renter after all, and three months out of the year, her landlord is on his ranch in Montana. June happens to be one of those months and the number that he disseminated to the tenants keeps going to voicemail.

Not that she's home much; not that he allows her to be home much. She's there long enough to do the essentials: eat, sleep, eat a quick meal and then back out the door. Her laundry has to be sent out because she'd once started a load and been forced to leave it sitting in the machine for a day and a half before she'd been by to retrieve it. By then, most of her towels had been scavenged.

He knows that her a/c is on the fritz and he knows because she ranted about it this morning when they were both at the coffee maker. When she was not getting him coffee (she did, however, dare to pass the creamer) he'd heard all about it. About what a bitch it is to sleep in what she had called "The Amazon of the Beltway." And he-being the caring, doting boss he was-couldn't stand to listen to h er complain a minute more.

And like the caring, doting boss he is, he's made his way to a hardware store around 2nd Street and manages to pick her up a cheap oscillating fan. Not that he can't afford an air conditioning unit (and he can afford a spiffy one), he just doesn't feel like lugging it across town (in his car) and having to install it. What if he lost his grip and it falls the three stories, crushing some poor soul beneath it? He simply can't live with that.

At eleven forty-five on a Tuesday, just an hour after he'd allowed her to take off for the evening, he heads over towards her neck of the woods. A large cardboard box nearly blocks his view out the rear, but it's a small consolation if his assistant is to be well rested, and truth be told, less testy.

The drive over doesn't take him as long as he remembers it taking, and he manages to grab the box out with little cussing. He'll have this delivered and be off before midnight. The key she gave him last year is on her ring, so he uses it to bypass her front door, figuring the surprise will be much more surprising if he simply shows up. Three flights and he's sweating a bit, even for him, so he places the box at his feet, unbuttons the first two on his oxford tie long since gone) and rolls his sleeves to the hollow of his elbow.

Then he knocks.

A careful shuffling greets his ears and he grins, knowing that Donna is peering at him through the peephole. "Oh god, what..." she begins and throw the door open.

It's a little too much. Her hair is pulled back, graceful neck on display. Her legs are encased in short, short (really, too short) shorts that have racing stripes down the side. Bare shoulders greet him, as she's wearing a small tank top, straps impossibly thin. 'Well,' he thinks, 'At least she's cool.'

Josh presents the fan to her and she rolls her eyes. "Couldn't have sprung for a Panasonic or something?"

He blinks at her. "Panasonic makes fans?" It's deadpan; her cheeks flush just a bit.

"They make air conditioners, Josh." They take to opening the box and assembling the small unit. It takes them only a few short minutes, and would have probably taken them less if Josh had allowed them to follow the directions provided. As they stand back to glance at it, he sneaks an indulged look around the room. It is immaculately clean, floor to ceiling. There are fewer knick-knacks than he remembers, and the carpet is a lighter color. He glances down at it and peeks at her toes, bright red.

Josh swallows hard and notices the wind chimes hanging over the central window in the living room, and the strange, brass sculpture that occupies one of her end tables. A copy of "Love in the Time of Cholera" is open on the couch, surely abandoned when he had knocked; Josh makes a notes to ask her about Marquez.

It smells of lilacs and he notices the few candles dotted throughout the space, in the kitchen, the dining room, the living room. One gives off the faint smoke of recently-snuffed and he finds it odd, that scent paralleled with such oppressing humidity. She burns candles even when it's sweltering, he finds it amusing, comforting. "This place was a sty the last time I came by, you clean?"

"Lucy moved out, that was her med school stuff," Donna claims and moves gracelessly (for her, which is still quite graceful) towards the refrigerator to retrieve a pitcher of lemonade. "You want some?" she asks but is already pouring two full glasses. "It's sugar free."

And though Josh cringes at this, he moves towards the breakfast bar and plunks down on a stool across from her. "Where is Lucy, anyway?" He's glancing around, taking it all in for only the second time.

Donna shrugs and brings the glass to her lips. "She moved out two weeks ago, I told you." Her throat works to move the liquid down her throat and he's curiously captivated for a moment. It's apparent when he shakes it off; he notices that she notices and they both blush, despite the oppressive heat.

"Oh," he replies and makes a mental note to help her place some ads for new roommates tomorrow.

---

The files he needs all of a sudden are sitting on the coffee table at her place; she makes this known the evening before she comes in, asking if he needs them. Josh steadfastly refuses; they won't need to work on that for at least another month. And she, well, she should have learned that when Josh makes this claim, he also has no sense of time. He doesn't keep the calendar, she does.

She should have been smart enough to check the schedule before today, so clearly, this is all her fault. That's how they end up in a cab back to her apartment at lunch. "I'll buy you... a salad on the way back or something," he promises when she complains about losing a whole hour just retrieving the documents and why can't they just begin on this tomorrow?

"I need to grab my dry cleaning on the way back anyway. And it'd be good to get out of the office, why are you complaining?" he asks as he gives the cabbie her address and they begin their trek. In the car, she has her book and they talk about the schedule for the upcoming two days, though she voices that she doesn't know why, he's going to forget anyway.

He replies with "Well then what are we going to chat about on the way to your place and jesus, Donna, you live far away!" She retorts that if she was better paid she could afford to live closer to downtown and therefore avail herself more fully to his beckoning. Even this doesn't deter him and they ride the rest of the way bickering about governmental pay scales and how she doesn't qualify and blah, blah, blah.

She notices that he doesn't tip the cabbie enough and mumbles something about of course he's cheap and digs in her bag for her keys. They ascend the steps together even though she's told him that he can wait for her down here, he doesn't have to climb the entire way up. Josh refuses, suggesting instead that they begin looking over the material at her place and order take out, as it would take forever to get something back at the office anyway.

Her huff is heavy when she drops her things on the couch and she nods, rushing off to the kitchen to retrieve menus. "Why are you always eating salads anyway?" he asks, as he sifts through the detritus on her table to come upon the things he needs.

"We're all not blessed with your girlish figure," she calls from the kitchen, coquettishly and he can hear her hands rummaging about for what she's looking for. And for a brief guilty moment, the first time he's been in her home since he's realized that no, she's not just anything to him, he imagines reclining here at night with her next to him, the two of them doing nothing but existing in a space together.

He fills in the silence easily with a response, "So you've noticed." His voice is thick with his own brand of ego and he can hear her scoff vocally.

"Yeah, okay," Donna tosses a few sheets of paper at him. "Sushi, pizza, Thai, Japanese, or a new Mexican place I don't exactly trust that's three blocks over."

For a moment, he pretends to consider it and then looks at her, half of his mouth lifting in an obvious gesture. "Is there even a choice there? Thai, come on." He says it like she should already know it and as he glances down at the materials in his lap, he catches her smile. She knew he would go for Thai too and was trying not to show her cards. And so she knows him and he knows her and they know each other and it creates a warmth in his chest that he can't explain, and so he tosses her his cell and wallet. "You order, put it on the AmEx."

Donna pops up from the chair where she'd perched a moment before and trails away again; it's an effort, not to watch her go. "Alright, but I'm not paying you back for this!" She is dialing as she adds, "Or the cab!"

"Didn't expect you to," he claims with forced aggravation. She is in the other room and he has the opportunity to sift through the collection of catalogues that rests on the shelf beneath the table. IKEA, Best Buy, Ann Taylor. The last one is the most tattered-Anthropologie-and, glancing behind him to assure himself that he won't be caught, he opens it, the pages slipping though his fingers until he finds a bright red circle around an item on the page. A simple, aquamarine dress, flowers embroidered along the sides and hem. Josh closes his eyes and for a stolen second imagines her in it, how lovely she would look but just as quickly shuts the magazine and replaces it.

He's never more wanted to see her closet, but will have to settle for knowing the contents of the one in her entryway.

"It'll be here in a half an hour, we need flash cards?" she asks as she walks back in, two bottle of water in hand.

Josh can't help but look at her, imagine how lovely she'd look in the dress and guess how the fabric would feel against his fingers as he slid it off onto the floor of a bedroom he was almost certain he would never see.

---

Three a.m. and they weren't going to take the party back to the White House; it had been a work night that had morphed into them rushing about to get things done. It hadn't put a damper on the night, as most of the calls were made, dates were set, meetings were organized in the span of three hours. After all, most of Washington's elite were out on the town to begin with.

Five out of eight balls and far more than eight drinks consumed amongst the ten of them and it had seemed like a good idea at the time, to take the part back to Donna's. After all, she was the one with the fully-stocked liquor cabinet, as she rarely touched the stuff and Lucy's replacement had left her more than enough to keep a full-fledged kegger inebriated. And so they'd managed to fit themselves into two taxis and make it back to her place before any of them realized that consuming any more alcohol was probably unwise at best.

Will had been the most reluctant to accompany them, but once Donna had managed to mix up makeshift mojitos, he'd unraveled easier enough. He and Toby had taken to discussing-more like yelling-tax credits and she had to warn the elder writer that smoking was strictly forbidden in her complex. Otherwise, everyone seemed to settle in easy enough; it always stunned Josh, how easily they all seemed to come together like this, that they'd all managed to form such bonds.

C.J. had assisted Donna in emptying the contents of her makeshift liquor cabinet. Scotch and vodka and bourbon and, and, and, lined up along her kitchen island. As having not anticipated having multiple guests, she had no ice and thus her guests took to skimming snow from the ledges along her windows to place in their glasses.

He's shocked, really, that so many people can fit so comfortably between these walls; when he'd been inside, he'd always felt he was being suffocated, as though he was too, too close to her, wherever he happened to be. It seemed to have expanded, the bookcases pressing back the walls to allow her apartment to accept all of their friends. And with so many inside, the light falls against every object differently; for a long while he is content to catalogue the way the shadows fall against her belongings.

Three-forty rolls around and Josh is perched on the arm of her couch, staring down at his scotch-slush. "Acid rain, acid snow more like it, you can really taste it, you know?" He glances up, having not meant the comment for anyone in particular, but she is there, in her gown still, cheeks flush and hair coming undone. It's something about the disheveled look that has his shoulders lowering, his lids dipping, his eyes skimming over the curves of her body.

"Get to cleaning up the environment then," she suggests and angles her hip away from him; sexy, she is ungodly sexy and she's no longer with Reese and that's an excellent, amazing, fortunate thing. Not that Josh is with her, not by a long-shot but at least she's not with Jack Reese, it makes it easier not to hate himself for admiring her.

Josh laughs and brings the glass to his lips, the edge clinking against the front of his teeth, betraying his tipsiness. But it's alright, because she laughs and settles herself on her sofa, along the dip where the cushions meet and glances up to him, asking him silently to join her. Charlie is on the other side, his gaze focused across the room on Zoe who tagged along sans Jean Paul and Josh takes a moment to gauge the admiration in the young man's eyes; it makes him wonder how he looks at Donna.

There is animation in her apartment and whereas he viewed it as quiet, her haven, her workplace before, Josh sees it as a gathering place of the people he cares about, that she cares about, that they care about. If he was upset earlier, he's positively full of mirth now, away from the office with the few people he cares to allow to know him.

And her. "You know," he begins, "What you did was entirely irresponsible."

Donna sighs, her right arm going slack in the space besides him as she allows her head to fall against the back of the couch in resignation. "I know, I wasn't thinking, I just, Jack-"

"You love him?" his eyes are angled away, at the group gathered by the window, his lips on his glass and he's doing his very best to feign a sort of disinterest she'll accept. It doesn't matter to him, or it shouldn't, but this question has weighed on him since Christmas when she chose to forego her family holiday activities to be with Reese.

Her answer is slow in coming, but he does feel her shift a bit closer. It's well within her right to tell him that it's absolutely none of his business, that it's inappropriate for him to ask at all, and where does he get off? But her knuckles slowly brush the leg of his trousers as she replies, simply, evenly. "No."

Beside her, he nods and for a moment they just breathe together. He'll remember the way they fit together on her sofa, the way the sounds of chatter resonate along with the clink of glass on glass, the liquid sound of libations being poured. Mostly he'll remember how white her knuckles are against the fabric of his trousers and how white her carpet remains, even after twenty shoes have paced across it.

---

It's after Gaza that he outdoes his quota, using his key to enter her home because she can't let him in; she can't. Then again, he has a feeling that if she was able, she would choose not to. Something had cracked in him, watching her wake up in that hospital bed and she had seen it.

All of that bullshit about red lights was just that, bullshit. On the flight to Germany-to her-he'd counted the red lights on the runway as they had taxied and taxied and he'd nearly gone out of his mind, almost raced to ask the pilot to fly the fucking thing already. He'd come undone but not in the way she had.

Though she assures him that her mother and father can take care of her perfectly well, he insists on seeing her. Penance perhaps, but it’s so much more. That old cliché about losing and loving and he’d almost lost without having really loved at all.

When they are together, there are things he brings her and though she thanks him, talks with him, thanks him again, there's something missing from her voice. Josh can't put a finger on it, so he manages to focus on his own trepidation that he'll have to be the one to answer her phone when Colin calls, he'll have to answer the door, that he'll have to be the one to allow the journalist in.

Her mother arrives first and Josh fills her in on Donna's appointments, her medications, the complications of this and that; they shared evenings together, the three of them just watching television or playing Monopoly but she doesn't speak to him much, just watches on as he makes attempts at conversation. It's when her father arrives and he sees the terror and anger in the older man's eyes that he can see that he's no longer wanted. Josh leaves his number on a slip of paper and tacks it to the bulletin board in the kitchen, tells her mother that if she needs anything, anything, to call.

On the way out of her place, he stops by the wind chimes hanging in the living room. There's dust collected along the smooth curves of it and unthinkingly, he blows a breath over it, relieving the chime of the mites; she hasn't been home much, hasn't had the opportunity to open her windows to allow the spring breeze to cleanse out the ghosts that winter has left hanging about.

The metal clinks desperately against itself and he wonders briefly if she can hear it from the bedroom, the sweet sound of stillness interrupted.

Her clothing is still scattered about from where her mother had haphazardly pulled articles from her suitcase; papers litter every available service, papers that contain instructions for bathing, for physical therapy, who to call in the event of every possible occurrence. Her apartment doesn't look like hers anymore and perhaps that is suitable because she doesn't seem like herself anymore.

There is a guilt that consumes him; it burns down his spine as his eyes fall on a framed photographed on the mantle of her bricked-up fireplace. It is Donna, CJ and himself, all with their arms slung low around the other. She is wearing a charming smile and peering down at his hand, CJ is laughing and speaking to someone to the right of the camera and Josh is, well, he’s outwardly admiring his assistant.

It has never, ever been so clear to him that he’s changed, that she’s changed, that they can never be those people again. Even as he knows this, he wishes for the days when she laughed like that, when she was that carefree. But never again, never, never again. They couldn’t go back.

Josh is very aware that this is almost entirely his fault and as he leaves, he notices a smudge that his shoe has left, just to the right of the entrance to her hallway. It’s muddy, the imprint of the ball of his foot on linoleum. He's left a piece of himself there; she'll surely wipe it away as soon as she's able.

---

It is a year and a half later and he’s finally invited into her bedroom; it seems only fair, after all. She has been in his home, in his bedroom, in his bed more times than he can count because it is-as he’d pointed out to her once, years ago-so much closer to the office and there are times where they just can’t wait that long to get the other out of their clothes.

But this is different, he is in her room as she readies herself for bed, the only sounds the running water from the bathroom and the rhythmic ticking of her kitchen clock echoing down the hallway. Josh lies back in the bed and searches around with his eyes.

Her dresser is rich cherry, the fixtures worn and dark; he wonders if it is an antique and speculates whom it might have come from. The walls are a burnt orange that reminds him instantly of New England in autumn and he… well, he loves her room already. There is a small iPod dock with a clock on the table by her bed, a water glass, empty. There are planter boxes outside of her windows with no plants in them and he speculates what had been growing in there before.

She has a large trunk at the foot of her bed, and he doesn’t know what’s inside, but he can only imagine an entire container full of her cardigans, neatly folded, side by side. The rug beneath her bed is tightly woven wool in a rich maroon and for a moment he toys with the idea of running his feet over it. But really, he’s more content to lay back and listen to her go about her nightly routine and bask in the domesticity of it.

This is something he can get used to, and quickly, and when she pads back into the room in her pajamas, he smiles at her and says, “I like your room.”

Donna tilts her head and gazes at him, a warm smile on her lips. “I like you in my room.”

They share a moment, one of those moments in which they are the only two in the world, a moment during which it actually feels like it’s just them. Donna moves and climbs up onto the bed and sits against him, her hip to his. They just recline for the longest time, she running her thumb over his knuckles and he just keeps thinking and thinking that this is perfect.

When she begins nodding off, he sheds his pants and shirt and maneuvers them both beneath the rich bedding; as his skin adapts to the new linen, Josh sighs and sinks into the mattress. He will sleep so, so well tonight.

“I was thinking, maybe we should… move in here instead.” His arm is around her waist loosely, lips in her hair and this is perfect. There’s nothing he’s ever felt before that he’s been so intensely sure about (save for, perhaps, Bartlet’s campaign) and it’s overwhelming and perfect.

She shifts over so that they are face to face, her brow wrinkled. “Your place is so much closer though.” He’s so close to her, so close and still he realizes that it’ll never be enough; he will never get enough of her to satisfy his craving.

It all comes together now, how he needs to slow down, take his time with her, revel in everything that he hasn’t been able to have over these past seven years. And he wants them here, he wants to find out what is in that trunk and place his suits in her closet (dear god, it’s huge, too) and have a toothbrush in her bathroom and perhaps re-carpet the living room. “I like it here,” he whispers to the crown of her head and she just nods and settles in to sleep.

He makes a note that they’ll have to change their names on her mailbox and wonders how long it will be before it says only ‘Lyman.’

That is a while off, he supposes, but he allows his mind to wander. Allows himself to muse about proposing to her, and the house they will buy and the family they will have and the future that is finally more than certain.

He is, after all, Josh Lyman and when he is certain about something, it’s pretty much gospel.

---

&&end
&&comment and crit always welcome!

And I shall leave you with one of my favorite scenes from The West Wing of which there are many.

gray.

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:30:37 GMT

Stopped by the house in Everett to pick up my field hockey gear, as I will be "coaching" a few people tonight. Should be interesting.

I've gotten so much done today, I just needed to share this with someone. I've finally caught up at the office and managed to have both a productive visit with my internship guy (even though ANOTHER meeting went totally horribly) as well as fit in a dentist appointment. And microgirl8225 met me for my morning fix, which was great.

Other than that, I've been following the All-Star voting, the NHL draft, went to trivia last night (our team name was 'Psychic Prostitutes: They Know What's Coming') and got third place, cleaned my room, worked out loan payments, had Lori chop off all my hair, hated on the weather some more, got drunk (for srs) with moyawyvern, microgirl8225 and snowydragon1776, worked at Michael's, found out the name of the bouncer I have a crush on, got NO writing done and finally managed to realize that I'd like to date again.

All of that said, I got an instent review one of my Psych fics, The Three P's.

are you going to finish it? i really want 2 hear the rest

Okay well, I guess I should WRITE IT then? Because if you want to hear it (not read it, but hear it) then I should write it. Heh, that's not how that works.

So, ZOMG REQUEST! Rec me or upload me some angsty tunes that I can finish this SVU fic (that I've been harping on for weeks even though it's only like 1500 words right now) to!

yum, yum?

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:48:56 GMT

Guys, Smoltz is back tonight! This is going to be-for lack of a better word-epic. Last night's game should not have been by such a close score, but whatever. (How embarrassing would that have been? Going down to the sixteen-games-back Nationals, ugh!)

Did anyone see Rescue Me? I need to discuss it with someone. The dance/song numbers, oh goodness.

I've decided to create an informal meme: gents who just do it for me. Did little croppy-crops with photos of hot men and decided to share, basically.

	Chris Meloni; there is no man that I would more like to see shirtless, honestly. When he is Elliot and Elliot gets pissed off... I need to fan myself down. Literally. I find Chris so unbearably attractive for a lot of reasons: he's a goof, he loves Mariska, he takes chances with roles, his eyes, the fact that he was in Wet Hot American Summer... just, there's so much about him that's... yummy.
	Conan O'Brien: is one of the funniest people on the planet. He's a hometown boy which of course is a plus for him. He's zany, he's intelligent, he's tall and his personality is too big for my tv. There's never been a time he hasn't opened his mouth that I haven't laughed.
	Alec Baldwin: as Jack Donaghy. Best thing ever? Maybe. Alec's voice is something else and I heart his eyes. Plus, he's fucking HILARIOUS and was in Beetlejuice. Sha-bang!
	Steven Page: has the most emotive voice I've ever heard. I just, he's one of the only singers I will never, ever get sick of. His lyrics, gorgeous. And I just wanna hug him. I've enjoyed him for as long as I've enjoyed music and he's honestly one of the nicest celebs I've met.
	Joel McHale: has the most emotive eyebrows ever. He's a nerd, a goof and just plain hilarious. I think I may just love him for his oddly hideous choice of neck wear.
	Taye Diggs: What about this man does not positively scream sex? Seriously. SERIOUSLY. If I had to rank my list, there's a pretty good chance that he would be smack dab at the top. Oh god, I can't even go into what I like about him, I'm currently melting just thinking about it.
	Ben Bailey: is on Cash Cab which happens to be one of the greatest ideas of all time. I enjoy his quirky smile, and how odd he acts when people first get into his cab. Also, he looks like Chris Meloni, so... that explains that. He kinda seems like the kind of guy who would treat you like a lady in public and be a MENACE in the boudoir. Juss'sayin.
	Adam Richman: from Man Vs. Food is attractive because I could go out on a date with him, eat ribs, get BBQ sauce all over my face and he'd probably be totally down with it. Also, he's a bit chubby, so there's something to hold onto. He's quick to turn a phrase and has the goofiest smile. Color me CHARMED.
	Jason Bay: is the current left fielder for the Sox and is by far the most well-spoken one on the team. He's charming and he never takes the credit for all the amazing things he does. Also, CANADIAN, helllooooo and the leader in slugging for the team.
	John Farrell: is the pitching coach for the Red Sox. He's a little rough around the edges, but he's... well, he should be a baseball exec, but he looks so good in that uniform. When he picks up that phone to call to the bullpen, I swoon.
	Daniel Sunjata: has had me since he appeared as Hot!CSU tech in SVU. On Rescue Me, he has many opportunities to take his shirt off and I like that too. He's hilarious, has an amazing smile and a chest you just wanna run your fingernails over.
	Jay Harrington: from Better Off Ted... :::Thud::: Also a hometown boy. Smile, check. Hair, check. Amazing effing skin, check. SCRUFF, OMG CHECK. He's fucking ADORABLE, right?
	John Krasinski: is probably the cutest thing on the planet, no lie. Kittens have nothing on him. Yet another hometown boy, I love that he loves the Red Sox... and the Patriots... and the Celtics. He has yet to declare his love for my B's but... once they win the cup, he'll change his tune. Jim Halpert is one of the most adorable characters on television, and can you IMAGINE anyone else playing him? P.S., he's super smart.
	Jon Stewart: IS the reason I started watching The Daily Show. I got cable in my room very early on and loved Comedy Central but didn't like Craig Kilborn at ALL. When Jon took over, I was hooked. He's just lovely looking. Hilarious, witty, intelligent... and that kissing scene between he and Gillian in Playing By Heart? OMG can the man kiss (I'm sure...)
	Joseph Gordon-Levitt: is actually age appropriate for me! That is all, hahah.
	Robert Downey Jr.: is Iron Man. He is Sherlock Holmes. He is ridiculously hot. Love his voice, his abs, his eyes. He's just eye candy for me, obvs.
	Jonathan Frakes: has wonderful facial hair. Honestly, that does it for me with him. And something in his voice, it's so deliberate and exacting. Plus, he was Riker, so he's automatically win. Amirite?
	Terrence Howard: has this level of genius I don't understand. He's brilliant, he really is. Positively outstanding in Hustle and Flow and Crash. He's so versatile and fun to watch. And when he sets his jaw and stares someone down... oh yes please may I have another?
	James Roday: just has that boyish, goofiness that I enjoy. He seems so carefree and silly. He has great hair... what else... oh yeah. He pulls off the innocent thing way too well.

And that about does it for the moment.

OMG WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PRETTY!?

Gini just took me to lunch at P.F. Chang's. In an MSG coma. Must. Finish. Work...

a smorgasboard of stuff.

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:44:02 GMT

I can't get the Water Country jingle out of my head. God damn it. GOD. DAMN. IT.

So this might be in poor taste but... it's also tasty...

	Tek!
	Beckett, talking to Kottaras.
	Derek Lowe makes his way out to the cheers of the Fenway Faithful.
	Not the seventh inning, but a fine time for a STREEEEETCH!
	Is it strange that I have a fairly large crush on John Farrell?
	Beckett, warming.
	What turns out to be his last pitch of the evening.

I know that I've missed some... will update as they come back to me. Please keep in mind that some of these were FREE shows.I would not have PAID to see some of these acts. Ex: The Fray, Los Lonely Boys, Avril Lavigne.

Celebrities/bands I've seen, met or spoken to:

Bands
Barenaked Ladies
Guster
Train
Aerosmith
The Rolling Stones
counting Crows
John Mayer
Marylin Manson SR-71
Lisa Loeb
Garbage
Joshua Radin
Ingrid Michaelson
Cary Brothers
Gavin DeGraw
The Moody Blues
Steely Dan
Hanson
Dispatch
Backstreet Boys
Los Lonely Boys
Def Leppard
The Killers
Everlast
N'Sync
Jack Johnson
Ben Folds
Pink
New Kids on the Block
Journey
Heart
Cheap Trick
Kelly Clarkson
Citizen Cope
Jason Reeves
Jason Mraz
Doobie Brothers
Sister Hazel
The Fray
Goo Goo Dolls
Howie Day
Duncan Sheik
Edwin McCain
Chicago
James Taylor
Modest Mouse
Jay-Z
Dropkick Murphys
Mighty Mighty Bosstones
Moby
Eve 6
Vertical Horizon
Castine
Letters to Cleo
Michael Buble
LFO
Ray LaMontagne
Chad Perrone
Our Lady Peace
OAR
Mike Doughty
Cranberries
Better Than Ezra
Nine Inch Nails
The Verve Pipe
David Gray
Stroke 9
A Fine Frenzy
Third Eye Blind
Paula Cole
Blessed Union of Souls
David Ford
Tegan and Sara
Vienna Teng
Newfound Glory
Sarah McLachlan
Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers
Dido
Semisonic
Durran Durran
Ferras
Cold Play
Alanis Morrissette
Averi
Lenny Kravitz
Vertical Horizon
Rubyhorse
Aslyn
The Brothers Creegan
Avril Lavigne (by accident! She was opening for Gavin DeGraw)
Sheryl Crow
Sugar Ray
Sting
Gin Blossoms
Nickel Creek
Toad the Wet Sprocket
Royal Crown Revue
The Presidents of the United States of America
Beach Boys
Ben Harper
YoYo Ma

Celebs
Jon Stewart
Nick Lea
William B. Davis
Dane Cook
John Lithgow
Mitch Pileggi
Dena Haglund
Bruce Harwood
Leslie Ann Warren
Mo Vaughn (lol!)
Drew Bledsoe
Ira Glass
Sarah Vowell
David Rakoff
Anna Deveare Smith
Lenny Clarke
George Bush
Shirley Manson
William Petersen
Jorja Fox
Jon Wellner
David Berman
Curt Schilling
John Kerry
Ted Kennedy
Half of the 1998 New England Patriots
Larry Bird
Bill Russell
Dennis Lehane
Amy Ryan

I do not know when it was uploaded, but there's a new Teen Girl Squad. It's by far the oddest yet. On that note, I'll share with you one of my favorite Strong Bad emails. En-freakin'-joy.

Elizabeth Hasselbeck is sued for plagiarism but does that really come as a surprise to anyone. I mean, did anyone really believe that that dumb broad could write something ON HER OWN!?

This summer looks AMAZING for movies. Transformers II, G.I. Joe, POTTER! FUCK YES! (that's the "working" title), Public Enemies (I happen to be a Dillinger enthusiast, though Billy Crudup as J. Edgar Hoover makes me LOL like something else...) One that I'm particularly excited to see, though that doesn't come out until October is Zombieland. Check it out!

And lastly, one of the professors brought me in an old-timey Singer sewing machine... this should be amusing. Watch Leslie mangle fabric!

Good morning, have some links.

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:08:37 GMT

Ed McMahon dies at 86. What a way to start the morning!

Oh wait, there's more. Two trains collide in D.C., 9 dead. Okay, well... that's terrifying. Of COURSE the new signal systems were supposed to render a crash like this impossible, and yet... IT HAPPENED. What about cities like Boston that don't have even medicore signalling systems?!

Dice-K sucks balls. Too bad he has a no trade clause in his contract. Fuckers.

I've got nothing else, too much work to do. Will perhaps update later.

blink? blink?

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 06:01:59 GMT

Some fun links:
@ facebook
@ twitter
Friend me, or not... but friend me!

Here are some things. Breaking it down bullet style:

Went to the range with padre on Saturday. Finally became proficient with the .45. The .22 kept jamming and I didn't like the Glock and didn't wait around to try the Sig. Next time.

Fell asleep at ten on Friday night; woke up at ELEVEN on Saturday.

Dinner with Meghan on Saturday before the game, then met up with morganalefaye and her roomie and we saw FUCKING DEREK LOWE PITCH which was epic, because I love him and wtf Braves.

I scored the game all by my lonesome. (Nearly) buzzlikeneon happened to be at the same game, with her brother. Took photos to prove her Beckett lust.

surreallis put this idea in my head... though not intentionally... about Liv and El getting it on while Elliot was still married. I feel dirty. I'm writing it.

I'm writing it to a bunch of songs I've compiled into a mix. HERE'S THE MIX!

Check Amongst the Wreckage For the Guilt

01. She's a Jar | Wilco
a sleepy kisser a pretty war with feelings hid she begs me not to miss her

02. Okay | KaiserCartel
it's okay if you can't stay long it's okay if all our answers are wrong it's okay if you want to move on

03. Angels of The Silences | Counting Crows
every night these silhouettes appear above my head little angels of the silences that climb into my bed and whisper every time I fall asleep, every time I dream did you come? would you lie?

04. She Runs Away | Duncan Sheik
she saw the symptoms right away and spoke to me in poetry "sometimes the more you wonder why the worse it seems to get"

05. Nobody Knows | Keaton Simons
i know every inch of you but i will barely speak to you tonight that's just how it's gotta be everybody wants you but you're going home with me

06. Quiet | Rachael Yamagata
all the waves of blame arrange as broken scenery as they steal your best memories away what if I was someone different in your only history?

07. Tonight, Not Again | Jason Mraz
still I'm unable to inhale all the riches as I'm awkward as a wound on my bones still I've got cobblestone joints and plate glass points as I'm all by myself tonight not again not again...

08. Walking On Broken Glass | Annie Lennox
now everyone of us is made to suffer everyone of us is made to weep but we've been hurting one another and now the pain has cut too deep...

09. Time Is A Lion | Joe Henry
so sleep here with me and I’ll keep you close for now while i try to live up to you you can’t see the challenge of this I suppose, but time is a dare and I’m trying to

10. Carriage | Counting Crows
Surprise surprise, another pair of lips and eyes and that is the consequence of actually feeling it was all inside of you...

11. Packing For The Crash | Tom McRae
sudden preasure we fall through the floor and kill this moment before it takes hold...

12. Thanks That Was Fun | Barenaked Ladies
this sentimentality doesnt look good on me. i thought that you would be begging to be with me. i'm the one on my knees, blubbering, please, let me stay...

13. Drama | Bitter:Sweet
what does it mean when all is lost, but nothing is forgotten ? i'll swallow my grief just so I can walk the other way i will never be the same...

DOWNLOAD HERE! Copy link location, paste into browser window, change HXXP to HTTP.

Lesseee... Perez Hilton accuses Will.i.am of assault on Twitter. Yeah, he claims he needs police asap but... finds the strength to TWEET about it first? What the hell.

And Bradley Whitford and Jane Kaczmarek are splitsville. This makes me sadface.

Hey, happy birthday to hadria, she's kind of a big deal, if you didn't already know that.

ZING!

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 05:50:12 GMT

It's probably not a good idea to eat the Green Monster cupcake from Kickass Cupcakes that your roommate bought you at 2am.

Just saying, is all.

Gonna try and tamper this with a codeine chaser, yep.

Rain rain... no seriously rain, fuck off.

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:59:56 GMT

Well, dude, this sucks... and also scared the crap out of me.

A tradition to stay alive! I love Elliot. I love Jordan's Furniture. I absolutely love that they did this. It's very, very sweet. Elliot Tatelman will continue the tradition, and my mother claims that she doesn't care if she has to walk through a sea of sofas to see it.

meme
A meme in which you break it down old school style and use a pen and paper. 1. Write your username. 2. Write your 2 favorite bands/groups of the moment. 3. Write something you ♥, aka lemme see your heart. 4. Write the name of your favorite person of all time. 5. Write the name of your recent favored person. 6. Tag 6 people to do this meme.

CLICK FOR LARGER VERSION

I'm bored today, will be at my desk, doing research allllll day long. Looking orward to tomorrow though, accidentally came into Sox/Braves tickets. Too bad it's going to rain, 90% chance. My checking account is back to normal, though I really should be tightening my spending... but I'm doing my friend who gave me the tickets... a big favor, so he... owes me?

It's raining out AGAIN. I'm... so sick of this. It's really putting a damper (heeeeeey oh!) on my mood.

Anyone want new music? Season 2 or 3 of Beyond Belief. Help me, help you, mmmkay?

wtf, weather?

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:06:30 GMT

First off, I know I'm late to the party, but is anyone REALLY surprised that Sammy Sosa was using performance enhancing drugs? Find me one person who is shocked by this allegation. Just par for the course, Sammy; just par for the course.

Jon on Obama killing a fly: One thing you gotta admit, motherfucker's got Miyagi-like reflexes. If you didn't see The Daily Show last night, you should Hulu it up. It's probably one of the funniest I've seen in awhile. Why? Because Dan Rather uses the word pussy and it's amazing.

On that note, PETA freaks out about him killing the fly. WHAT!? Really? Come the fuck on. You see a centipede in your bedroom, you're not going to step on it? Give me a fucking break.

Some more interesting news: Man steals panties from neighbor, is caught.

Saw The Hangover last night. Pretty funny. Not the FUNNIEST by far, but worth seeing. Much male nudity, which I was not expecting. I mean, I love Zach Galifianakis, but come on.

Request! Does anyone have a decent copy of Photoshop that I could get? Tried one and got a keygen, but the keygen was fucked, so I had to abandon it. I need it so I can do snazzy things for the Sociology Department's newsletter. Will trade sexual favors, fics... or whatever else. Please, please, please?

SQUIRRMUNK!

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:19:11 GMT

If there is one person or more on your friends list who makes your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.

Thought I'd do a quick run down of the whirlwind day in NYC.

The ride down was quick and painless. We found a parking spot in Brooklyn, went to lunch at Katz's (because Samantha is the BIGGEST fan of When Harry Met Sally) checked out the NBC store (because I have to, whenever I'm in town) saw The Daily Show (oh, Ed Helms; oh waiting in line for three hours; oh Jon Stewart being so unbearably charming!), Sam and Lori went to Avenue Q, and the rest of us got some pizza and beer and watched 30 Rock back home.

On the way back to Boston, we stopped at Traveler's Food and Books and had what was probably the most delicious mint-chocolate milkshake any of us had ever tasted.

And discovered the Squirrmunk.

Because I'm too lazy to make a snazzy table, click here for photos!

Hey, so Monday's Conan was BADASS. Will Arnett, Joe Torre AND Spinal Tap (listened to the new album; it's bomb.)? Holler the fuck at me. Here's an excerpt:

Conan: First of all, as you're probably aware. I am born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. I grew up, die, die hard and still am, a Red Sox Fan, but I want to pay you a compliment. :::someone boos::: That's okay, we can settle that in the parking lot. I want to tell you something about the last ten/twelve years in Boston, Red Sox fans will trash any of the Yankees, any of them, with I think two exceptions. You and Derek Jeter. They have a respect for both of you guys and they seem to leave, they give you a wide berth. It's a grudgingly and I repeat a grudging respect.
Torre: I understand that, and I love the city of Boston and you know I make speaking appearances, and I talk to people and they ask questions, oh are you from Boston. And I ask, why are you so nice now, because when you go through that turnstile, something happens to you.
Conan: Yes.
Torre: I don't know what happens to the people, whether they jab them in the rear end with a needle or something because they get nasty. I was coming down the elevator last day of the series in Boston and this guy gets on and he says to me, "Are you Joe Torre?" And I say, "Yes." "We're gonna beat you tonight." I said, "Well, I hope not. You know, if that's the case, that's the case." And we continue on down and we're at the third floor and I can see something's going on.

And just as about we're reaching the lobby he says, "You know, if I had a choice of capturing Saddam Hussein or beating the Yankees, I would pick beating the Yankees." With that, the doors opened, he walked out and then the doors closed on me, I went back upstairs because I didn't know how to respond to that.
Conan: I would like to apologize for my father's behavior... that's wrong.

And for those Revolutionary War buffs (and people who live in Suffolk County who wonder why we can't get this day off, too...) Happy Bunker Hill Day!

Grrrrrrrrgh.

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:39:38 GMT

Journeying to NYC on zero hours of sleep will not be fun at all.

Jon Stewart, if I fall asleep on you, I sincerely apologize.

Crashing with Aiah in Brooklyn. Back tomorrow afternoon, if all goes according to plan.

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 06:23:09 GMT

90's night... because that's how we do, and by we, I mean myself and Meghan. Course we felt pretty bad that we couldn't go and hang with buzzlikeneon, but we needed to see Game 7.

And what, the Penguins won?! Yes, so, no one played the left post, like at all... but yay Pens. Not that I dislike the Red Wings but... hurrah for the Pens. I digress...

A gent got me to dance (I mean, we're not supposed to get them to dance) with him. Nate. Claimed to be from Newton but worked in Beijing. Awesome story. I truly hope that story was fabricated, because he disappeared towards 2 AM.

Chatted quite a bit while we danced. And the hip-check too, quite stylish, very nice. And he was indecently attractive... it was very strange.

Well, Nate from Newton/Beijing... you were quite the conversationalist, and the dancer and I really hope you actually work in Beijing because... GREAT STORY. Even if not, way to weave it. This is why girls like me don't take home men from bars.

Also, my fave bouncer was there. We chatted. I flirted. HE TOTALLY FLIRTED BACK. I don't even care, it was awesome.

Meghan, do NOT let me forget, I owe you TWELVE DOLLARS.

A bit tipsy now, so 3rd Rock (Yay, html tag!) and bed!

fuck you walt whitman; fuck you, and leaves of grass.

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:51:49 GMT

PAUL AND CONAN SAY "YAY FRIDAY!"

And we sweep the Yankees.

Gotta say though, last night in the eighth inning (Samantha: Wait, is it really raining like that outside?) I was kinda antsy, waiting for them to pull the tarp. I'm thinking "They're shredding the infield, they're shredding the infield... DEAR GOD THEY'RE SHREDDING THE INFIELD!"

In other baseball news, I'm going to begin sporadically scoring the game at home, just so I can get into the habit or doing it again. And because I don't want d0wnbytheriver to kill me next time we go to a game together.

Celtic Pride: I don't know what I find about most amusing about this movie, that the Utah Jazz are in the playoffs, or Dan Akroyd's attempt at an accent. I used to watch this all the time with my father, and hadn't seen it in years, so I had it on in the office today...

Oh Paul Guilfoyle. Oh Darrel Hammond. Oh writers Judd Apatow and Colin Quinn. Oh cameo by Larry Bird. OH ORIGINAL BOSTON GARDEN :::sheds tear::: "Ugh, I'm never gonna drink hard liquor again, just beer, wine and creme de menth." There is just... so much amazing about this film. And, of course, there's so much ridiculous... but it's Dan Akroyd and Damon Wayans!

And speaking of Dan Akroyd, he confirmed that Ghostbusters 3 is a go. I don't know what to think about this. Clearly, the first two are two of my favorite films... but this could all go horribly, horribly wrong. Discuss.

1142

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:45:33 GMT

I've wanted this for so, so long. I went back to the website today and just stared at the awesome... but where would I put it? We have a few prints of back-in-the-day Fenway that we can't fit on our walls. Look at East Boston out there all by it's lonesome. Awwwww.

Every evening before bed, Samantha, Lori and myself gather in my room, turn off all of the lights and watch an episode of either Unsolved Mysteries or Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction. I used to watch this show all the time with my mother (you see, we're both huge Frakes fans) and was psyched to come across this program on the interwebs. Lo and behold, I have uploaded them for your pleasure! BONUS! Lauren Lee Smith is in the first episode!

SEASON 4 @ my megaupload folder, by episode. Copy, paste, change hxxp to http.

I'm having lunch with the former slm4gsr at cutting_rm_flr's place (AKA DIESEL CAFE... as I seem to be confusing people) and then drinks this evening with lowriseflare! It's going to be a good day, regardless of the dreary weather.

But before I end this entry, I need to comment on something I read in that "Anonymous fandom criticism" (or whatever it was called!) meme that's been going around. I read a comment on the lovely dashakay's journal that really had me thinking. Someone posted that they didn't understand why the hell Scully was still with Mulder, ESPECIALLY after the second movie, because he continues to treat her like shit.

So, as I lay in bed last night, I began thinking about that. Of all the couples I ship, they really have to be the most dysfunctional. I mean, I've always seen Scully as this "kick ass and take names" kind of female heroine. I've always found her to be courageous, independent and intelligent.

They why, WHY does she continue on with Mulder... when he abandons her time and again. When he's irresponsible and inconsiderate? I know that I wouldn't put up with that sort of behavior, so, why Scully?

And so there's that.

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:57:09 GMT

To begin: lowriseflare POSTED NEW SVU FIC! READ Black and White and Red All Over!!! And I wrote fic too, but it's nowhere near as fantastic as hers.

I had dinner with my cousin last night. Among the things we chatted about (family, family issues of which there are many, dating, what have you) we got to talking about the Kennedys. You see, ten (perhaps fewer, I honestly can't remember) years ago, she was dating Patrick.

And she went on vacation with him.

And Teddy.

I don't know why I never asked her about this before, but needless to say... I don't think I've ever been quite that jealous before.

AHEM. ZOMG DEXTER CASTING SPOILER THAT I HADN'T HEARD! :::dies from the awesome::: Does anyone have ANY idea how much I happen to fucking LOVE this person!? Who's excited? THIS GIRL! Also, someone is returning and it has me allllll a-tingle.

In the grand tradition of keeping each other entertained at work, morganalefaye sent me a link to basically the coolest thing ever.

So Jimmy Fallon desperately wants a Saved By the Bell reunion, and thus Mark Paul Gossaler shows up on Late Night as Zach Morris, and it might be the best thing ever.

And in baseball stuff, I find the Marlin Mermaids... the epitome of whatthefuckery. Seriously, why. I know they're not the ONLY cheerleads in baseball ever, but they're certainly the WORST. 2006 clearly has the best outfits though the sluttiest, grossest girls. This is what I have spent my morning talking about, and I'm okay with it.
Aiah: If they're calling themselves the "Mermaids," I'd appreciate a little connection between that and the getups
Leslie: I'd like to see them with tails, you know, attempting to hit baseballs with their tails.
Leslie: Then they could jump around as they're supposed to, but tie it all in together

Sommmmmmebody is hot stuff...

svu fic, best lenses for hindsight

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:32:35 GMT

I just helped a professor set up a Facebook account. How strange. Her reaction: "Oh my, this is so exciting! I should friend my daughter... she'll kill me!"

Also had something of a major scare this morning when I could not retrieve any information on my hard drive. I frantically had to contact IT and was delighted when my favorite IT person showed up to fix it! We chatted about the Bruins and the Sox, and discussed the plans for his wedding and compared this season of CSI to previous seasons. It was a nice morning, except... you know, for the FEAR that I'd lost all of my data.

title: best lenses for hindsight
author: scullyseviltwin
rating: teen
pairing: elliot/olivia
words: 2,600
SPOILERS: for Zebras, post-ep.
thanks: underthepiano for her amazing insight and cutting_rm_flr for the beta.
summary: Elliot's movements had seemed so present, so effortless and swift as he was strapped in the chair that for the first time in her life, Olivia wondered if she was dreaming the whole scenario.

It resonated, the feel of his skin against the palm of her hand; a searing, painful sting that made her flesh feel as though it were vibrating. Even hours after it had happened, it wouldn't go away, a phantom pain that Olivia was sure would remain with her for years to come.

The shock she had felt at walking in on the scene had quickly subsided, her analytical skills quickly taking over. Swimmingly, it had gone just fine, even as she pressed her mouth to the lab tech's and felt the bile rise in her throat. Even as she saw Elliot struggle against his bonds, as she saw his eyes flash hot, red anger that she imagined felt like the heat in her hand.

The way it had played out, so fast, had her mind moving in slow-motion-black-and-white; it didn't quite make sense. Each of her movements was precise but as she watched herself move, eyes processing the actions, she'd appeared sluggish. Elliot's movements had seemed so present, so effortless and swift as he was strapped in the chair that for the first time in her life, Olivia wondered if she was dreaming the whole scenario.

She could hear it, the breathing of the moment, the tension. It had beat out a steady, deafening rhythm between her ears. Like fire, hissing and spitting, like static... complete cacophony of white noise.

But the too-present scent of copper and the heaviness in the air reminded her that O'Halloran was at her feet, kept her morbidly grounded in the present; it reminded her that someone would have to be informing his family of their loss, that Melinda would have to examine the body that she and Elliot's fate hung in the grasp of the mousy tech who wielded Elliot Stabler's Sig Sauer. It was then that Olivia broke out in a freezing sweat.

His Sig Sauer. DAK trigger, threaded barrel, front caulking serrations. Olivia imagined that tiny man pumping brass into her partner's chest at nearly 900 miles per hour. The sound of the casing tinkling against the floor, she imagined that too, could nearly see the anonymous lab techs-who had at one time or another filtered through the very room that they were hostage in-bagging and tagging it.

All too real, that gun in his hand, the way in which he quivered, betraying his inexperience not only with firearms, but in such high-stress situations. Game, set, her advantage. The absolute, sudden resolve to grasp control of the situation touched her eyes, set her jaw, spoke volumes to her partner silently as she attempted to whittle away at Dale's bravado. Olivia's brain divided tasks amongst itself in the moment. The right half set to diffuse the situation, while the left side dealt with worrying about her partner, thedepthsofhiswoundsdidhehaveaconcussionwhatthehellelsediddalehaveuphissleeve. Working together, as always, they'd managed to put Stuckey on his back and both come out of it alive.

Not before she had spat insults across the room hating them even as she thought them, not before she'd had them slung back, not before she blurred the line between reality and fiction too thoroughly. Not before they had both... lost something. When his eyes had met hers, Dale between them, she felt something flare inside of her that she didn't recognize, just as an unrecognizable spark flared in his eyes.

Those few short minutes felt like eons, had worn against her psyche, her bones, sapped most of the strength out of her.

Shock had set in almost immediately; it was a full minute of the two of them staring at Ryan's body before either thought to call the situation in, another two before Olivia thought to slap the cuffs on Stuckey's wrists and a full five before either one of them spoke again. "You're really bleeding," she mentioned, her tone not apropos for the amount of blood that had seeped through his shirt. "Shit." And then she was a whirlwind, seeking out adequate compresses for his wounds, tearing at his shirt, sitting him in a chair.

All the while, Elliot did as told, dazed, not speaking, moving this way and that as her shaky hands prodded his flesh, continued to do so when backup arrived. She tended to him as they hauled Stuckey out, whimpering. Olivia had to nearly be torn away from him, answering the responding officer's questions as she mopped drying blood from his sternum with an alcohol pad tossing the evidence all over the floor, so carelessly; their gazes never parted.

But all of that had been hours ago, in another world.

As she sat slumped in a chair at New York Mercy, sweat and his blood caked on her skin, her hands hummed with the impact of his cheek, they tickled with the knowledge that he had the faintest stubble against his jaw. Tired, but not too, she clenched her fist hard and allowed her head to fall back against the thin plaster wall behind her.

They'd told her she could see him in an hour.

Thing was, she didn't know what exactly to say when she did.

---

The air outside of the hospital was heavy with impending rain, but so crisp and clean, Olivia had to wonder if she'd ever really drawn a breath before. Stretching her back muscles, she leaned back, face to the sky and thought of absolutely nothing. Short hairs on the back of her neck stuck to her skin, but she didn't crave a shower, didn't wish for a night's sleep. Truth be told, she had no idea what to do, what to want or need.

'How many scars,' she wondered, 'could Elliot endure?' The realization hit her between the eyes, caused her to straighten and move to a bench, throwing her body onto it. There was no point in wondering, because there was no answer. Elliot would bear as many scars as his soul could stand because he didn't know how to stop, be at rest.

And neither did she. The both of them, a mess of kinetic energy.

Wrapping her arms around herself, it occurred to her that she could count her own scars on one hand; that hardly seemed fair. A quick gust of wind picked up her hair, obscured her vision, didn't allow her to ascertain the identity of the person who was approaching her.

His scent was what reached her first, and she nearly smiled at the reassuring presence. "Hear he's fine... hear he's... just swell," Munch said, his tone as light as she was sure he could manage. "Just spoke with the Chief, you been in yet?"

Olivia swept the hair out of her eyes and glanced at him, appreciative. John had always had a read on her, hadn't always been subtle about it; this time around, that was just fine with her. The words didn't come, but she was fairly certain that she didn't have to tell him, didn't really need to speak the truth: that she was frightened to face him, that she was frightened to find out what it was that had been lurking in his gaze, just before Stuckey was disarmed.

There was a beat and Munch gave her a long look. "You okay?" All she could muster was a blink. "Stupid question," he responded, and for the next few minutes, she watched as he bounced his hand off of his knee. He knew not to ask why; she could have been in that room with him the whole time, watched as the doctors stitched him up, listened as they informed him of his condition, but she couldn’t handle it or didn’t want to.

Munch would have stayed with Finn, she was sure, and what did that mean, then?

Her voice sounded so unlike hers when she finally spoke to him, addressing the air between them. "John, do you ever wonder... if you're past your breaking point and you just don't realize it?"

They both considered her question for a great while, and when he was moved to respond, the sky opened. "I think there's something in all of us that breaks with every case," they meandered back into the ambulance bay. "Problem comes when you don't realize you've stopped trying to fix it."

The doors slid open and accepted them back inside.

Elliot was one giant bruise when they saw him, all gauze and raw skin. Her mouth didn't move but she swallowed, her throat suddenly tight. There were things to resolve, apologies to be made but nothing seemed appropriate at the present. Nothing seemed appropriate because she could see the stark outline of where her hand had met his cheek…

He greeted them both with a half-smile, his right leg dragging slightly behind the left. "Alright, so I look like shit," he said in jest, playing off what Olivia could only assume were their matching expressions of shock. "Least I get to sleep in my own bed." Munch clamped a gentle hand on Elliot's shoulder before pulling away.

None of them cried, but looking at them you could see the toll it had taken on them, and none of them wanted to speak about it. Not really now, who knew if ever.

"Not filleted too thin then, comrade?" From anyone other than John it would have been crass, in poor taste. But the comment from the older detective made them both smile and managed to relieve some of the tightness in Olivia's chest. Elliot managed a chuckle and it shocked her, managed to wipe the smile off of her face. Together, they stood in the hall, watching as patients and nurses filtered around them, none knowing what to say.

John turned away and managed to croak out, "O'Halloran, ah, Finn's taking care of the notification and-"

"Yeah, yeah," she answered back, in a hushed, pained rush, effectively preventing John from saying anything further. "Yeah..." The memory of the man was still too fresh in her mind; she wasn't ready to begin a grieving process she wasn't sure she'd be able to stop.

Holding his head low, Munch bid his farewell, "I'm going to go check on my fearless partner," and dropped one more light tap on Elliot's shoulder. "You two take care." Tips of their chin as their farewell, Elliot and Olivia watching him go.

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and the movement caught his attention, Elliot caulking his chin to watch her. "You ready to check out?" In her pocket, she fingered the keys to her car, needing a distraction, any, from looking in his eyes.

Slowly, he nodded, moving towards the nurse's station. "We should see Donnelly before we head out," he whispered, somehow managing to fit his hand to the small of her back.

‘You scared the hell out of me,” she wanted to tell him. Wanted to tell him that he’d always scared the hell out of her, but this time particularly. All she could imagine was him responding in kind, ‘You scared the hell out of me,” and seeing his bruised cheek move as he spoke the words.

---

If anything was fodder for a nice heaping of PTSD, this would be it, she mused to herself as she maneuvered her hands around the steering wheel of the sedan; neither of them had succumbed yet, and she’d bet that this wouldn’t be the thing that pushed them over. “Cathy on her way back?” Olivia managed, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, vision swimming slightly.

His head was against the window, hands limp in his lap, eyes on the sky. “Couldn’t get a flight back tonight, she’ll be back in the afternoon tomorrow.” His words were lifeless and quiet and she had to refrain from commenting on what he’d said. It struck her as incredibly strange that Kathy wouldn’t want to be with her husband immediately, that she wouldn’t just rent a car, drive back, call his partner to make sure that someone would be around to care for him. Anything.

But then, it struck Olivia as odd that they were still together in the first place and- “I can’t go back to the house tonight,” he said, an air of immediacy to his voice. “Just, just drop me at the squad.”

Pulling up to a red light, she was thrown off guard, thankful that the car was stationary, “What, why? Didn’t you-“

“I just, please, I can’t go back to the house right now,” he pleaded with her and she nodded, barely. Olivia took the next right and headed back towards Manhattan, trying not to think about how she wanted to see his home, and how it looked with just the two of them inside of it, tried not to think of how she’d rehearsed how she would have invited herself in and helped him into bed and sat with him the entire night because she was so, so scared now.

All of a sudden, for the past few years.

She’d hit the Triborough Bridge before she realized how ludicrous his request was. Go back to work, after what they’d been through, to people who would look at him funny and not know whether to ask about it or avoid him. Even at 3 A.M., the water cooler gossip flowed like it did at noon and she knew she didn’t want him to have to deal with that. Flicking on her right hand blinker, she merged into the thin traffic and took the exit for Brooklyn. Even as he picked his head up from off of the window, noticing they were heading back south, he didn’t say anything, just allowed a relieved sigh to escape his lips, as though he’d been hoping she’d take him home with her the entire time.

They weren’t ever going to discuss this, she was entirely sure. Of all the things they’d not discussed in their years as partners, the particularly trying times were least likely to come up. They were both so good at pretending to repress; god, they were a therapist’s dream.

She was sure that it had occurred to him, the psychology behind her scheme even if it hadn’t occurred to her, in the moment. Why she had chosen something as simple as a kiss to secure Stuckey’s trust. He, like everyone else, surely knew that a bond she and her partner shared. So why then, had a kiss been more of a blow then the slaps she’d delivered, the awful words she had forced herself to speak. Elliot had to have noticed, as she did, that Stuckey had only given up, given in when she’d dared to feign a connection with the man. There was too much underlying those actions; she couldn’t wrap her mind around them, not now, not with him sitting right next to her.

It was so upsetting, she knew, that these situations in which they were forced to see each other in the shadow of the barrel of a gun were the only times either one of them would allow the other to see that look in their eyes. Olivia remembered what she had said to John and it struck her that she didn’t know if she was talking about the job or her partner, or both.

Pulling into a spot at the end of the block, Olivia threw the car in park but didn’t remove the key from the ignition. “I’m not going to sleep tonight,” she admitted, the rasp in her voice betraying everything she didn’t know how to say.

Elliot blinked in her direction and said, “Neither am I.”

“Okay,” the key slid from the ignition and they exited into the damp pre-dawn.

So, my friend Erica and I were sort of joking around the other day saying that we wanted to book a flight to Iceland because their economy is in the toilet and well, wouldn't it be fun to go somewhere where you had no obligations? Turns out flights were too expensive, so... I said, "Hey, what about Vegas?"

I've been looking at flights to Vegas all morning; they're dirt cheap.

I want to go (again) and just, hang around by the pool, ~~and gamble~~ and drink and go out dancing and be as carefree and silly as I want to be. Now, question is, who wants to come with me? Requirements: must like to dance (even if you claim you can't); must like to over indulge in beverages of the alcoholic variety; must be able to be happy with just reading a novel by the pool.

I really want to go, want to go and do nothing. August 17-21.

bnlxphile12@aol.com — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:07:23 GMT

It's augrasshopper's birthday.

She's one of the raddest people I've ever met.

Truth.

I hope she has an amazing day.

Another truth.