U.S. Nationals!

You guys are watching the U.S. National Championships now, aren't you?

Go, go, go!

Oh, what an intense, strong, jump-filled and totally professional proformance from this high school kid who just moved up from juniors this year, Mroz. Fun performance (with whoopsies) by the sexy playful Ryan Bradley.

And now, the ringer for John Sheppard, Evan Lysacek is about to perform.

Wooooo!

( ETA: Cut to avoid spoilers. )

You know? NBC kind of blew it. The exciting competition was Friday night, at the short program. Thrills and chills, with a close race between Lysacek and Abbott with Abbott's best ever score, followed by one unexpectedly good performance after another. I'm so glad I stayed late at the library Friday to watch it online.

Instrumental music hunt.

Working on the music for John's competitors for the long program.

I have John's music for the short and long program (of course). I (probably) have all the necessary competitor's short program music. I have all but one of the needed music for the long program.

I've got most of the music, but I'm looking for a "bouncy" piece (can't have any lyrics) that's 4:30 minutes or longer. I need something with "pep." Could be classical, jazz, flamenco, or rock instrumental.

(I had to delete some practice music because it came out after 1999.)

Any ideas? Thoughts? Those who follow figure skating, anything I could steal from this year's competitions?

An open letter to my anonymous reviewer.

Whoever sent me this review -- I can't respond unless you give me your email.

I'll respond here, and hope that you'll see it. I don't know if you're on my f-list or not, so I'm not able to f-lock it the way I normally would. But I am glad you brought up the subject of Rodney's weight because I haven't had a chance to address this yet.

Anonymous wrote: ( Cut-tagged for those who didn't send me an anonymous email about my (apparent) hatred of Rodney in Out Of Bounds. )

I hope you have enjoyed this photo essay. I will now return you to your regularly scheduled Out Of Bounds. For a more personal reply, in the future, please include your email address.

I'm glad you're enjoying the story otherwise. I hope that weighing (pun intended) Rodney's physical fitness against the requirements of competitive skating gives the proper context. It's a little like standards of beauty in Hollywood: not exactly reasonable, but part of that world.


P.S. Nowhere in Out Of Bounds is it ever said that Rodney is ugly. I don't know why anyone would consider "overweight" to equal "ugly," frankly. My mother is overweight and drop dead gorgeous. But it is telling that these two were automatically equated. I sense a fic about Keller and her struggles with her body image from being a chubby preteen in here somewhere....