My fun with the spellchecker is when I get to add words to it. Like "asshole." And "fuck." And "motherfucking fuckwad." And "snark."

I get much joy from that.

I was quite surprised at the number of obscenities I've had to add to the dictionary. Not shocked, just surprised. I suspect I am no lady in my work.

I get much joy from that.

You're not alone. I use a UK spellchecker for the current series, and I was absolutely livid to find that it refused to recognise "gobsmack".

I added it. Take that!

Deb, my husband (aka the librarian) asked if I could show him your page, and I can't find the link. Could you post it again?

Website page?

Http://www.deborahgrabien.com

Yes, and thank you. My stupidity knows no bounds today. Your name, yes, that one was really hard to remember.

heh. Listen, I forget it all the time - why shouldn't anyone else?

I always use "normality".

Uhhh, that's all I have. Except that I really love Fay but that's no surprise to anyone.

And all these people posting are making me feel awful and unproductive. I'm holding my hat over a bunch of Things that Aren't True (Willow), for the fic challenge, but I haven't finished yet so I won't post. Because occasionally, I have some self-restraint.

Rebecca, as of this precise moment, I am making with the unpostingness for rather a bit.

Strudel in the oven, salad being prepped, table to set, catboxes to clean, floors to hoover (or electrolux): in short, several people doing the Buffydance at around half past five and I haven't showered yet.

(heading towards chores and cleaner armpits, applauding Rebecca's self-restraint)

more of "Needfire" (note change in last line of first paragraph, continuation of previous):

My mother rang the bell of Carolan. We waited on the doorstep, listening to the echoes shrilling behind the gaily painted red barrier. The door opened, and I got my first look at Richard Giles.

It would be pleasant, soothing to my self-esteem, to look back at that first meeting and say that I saw something, anything, of what was to come. I can't offer myself that sop, however; it would be a lie. I felt nothing at all. Perhaps the rising need in me, the part of me that was Slayer, had taken on enough importance to smother or at least overlay the witch power I had always had. Even now, I don't know.

"You're Amanda?"

At that point, the first warning, the first trip of my web of survival, slid across my nerves. I disliked him - he had opened his mouth and spoken two words, and I disliked him. I disliked the question, which was asinine; how many young girls was he expecting, then? I disliked the voice in which he asked the question. It was a careful voice, coming from a careful mouth. His lips were too thin, without a trace of humour. I disliked how masked off he seemed; that was in part due to the eyeglasses he wore, a thick-lensed pair that I would come to learn, soon enough, was as much a weapon as an aid to vision.

But most of all, I disliked his treatment of my mother. She stood there beside me, her right hand resting on my shoulder, and he did not once turn the reflective glasses her way, or acknowledge her presence. I felt her hand tremble slightly, was aware that the corners of her mouth trembled, and understood that she felt dismissed, humiliated, invisible. A sudden anger came up in me. How dare this arrogant man treat my mother so?

"Of course I'm Amanda," I told the glasses, and watched his jaw tighten. "That's a really silly question. But you ought to be asking my mother that. Haven't you any manners? She's brought me down here and you haven't even said hello, or introduced yourself properly."

My mother swallowed a noise, undefinable, perhaps a protest. The man's thin lips stretched out, and I realised that this was, for him, a genuine smile of amusement.

"Outspoken." He fixed the glasses on me, and I knew what he was trying to do. He must be shown that I wasn't so easily awed, or put inwhat he seemed to think was my place. I fell back on one of my own favourite tricks of intimidation, raising my left eyebrow nearly to my widow's peak, leaving the right eyebrow where it was; that quickly, then, were the lines of battle between us set. His head jerked, then turned to face my mother.

"Mrs. Lisle? Please, come in. The girl is right, my manners need some review. I hope the train down wasn't too stuffy?"

My mother murmured something conventional. I pushed back my habitual exasperation with her timidity. Yes, I understood that she was an unwed mother. Yes, I understood that my father, that black-browed Frenchman whom I remembered from visits when I was very small, had been a man outside the fold, different, with talents and habits outside what the Church would overlook. And yes, I understood her terror of me. How could I not? From the day she had found her toddler daughter muttering in French, a language never spoken in our house and one which I could have had no way of knowing, she had been in terror of me. She watched me grow, my instinctive knowledge of how to manipulate objects, of how to make weather match my moods and a hated terrier who had snapped at her whimper away in protest after a muttered spell. She watched me grow and with me, her own sense of helplessness grew. I understood my mother's desire to stay small and hidden and to not upset anything or anyone, but this took nothing from my impatience, my exasperation, my wish that once, only once, she might stand and face the world and show some inner steel.