geekturnedvamp | Reading

I spent yesterday evening re-reading Helen Dewitt's The English Understand Wool, one of the best books I've read in the past few years, and reading T. Kingfisher's Snake-Eater, which I loved.

A friend is stopping by to keep me company while I make snickerdoodles, and this has prompted me to sweep and run the vacuum cleaner; this evening I will go to needlecrafting and there will be a colleague there.

Watched completely on Apple +: Down Cemetery Road, a new series (I would have written miniseries, except I hear there'll be a second season), based on an earlier novel by Slow Horses author Mick Heron. Starring Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson, both cast somewhat against type and having fun with it. Emma Thompson plays Zoe, a cynical private detective right out of the hard boiled age, if that one had female cynical hard drinking PI's, Ruth Wilson plays Sarah, starting out as somewhat naive, idealistic and disorganized. (I have seen Ruth Wilson in roles where she isn't a brilliant sociopath before! I swear I did! But Alice and Marisa Coulter are just so memorable!) Zoe starts out the story married, to another P.I. who is more the benevolent goodshoe type and whom she has feelings for but cheats on and generally argues a lot with, while Sarah is with a guy hiding total jerkness between a placid facade, but before the pilot is over, neither of these relationships are existent anymore. Both women - who live in Oxford, not London, which is a change, but the action doesn't stay there - through different ways find themselves uncovering the central dastardly plot which unsurprising given the author the show is based on involves fuck-ups by awful government agencies and the attempt to cover this up which leads to an ever higher body count. The Zoe and the Sarah storylines after a brief meeting in the pilot stay apart for half the season, and I was about to complain, but then the second half reunites them and gives me these actresses playing superbly against each other. If I have one complaint, it's that there wasn't really a pay-off for the existence of Talia the new defense secretary. But presumably in the second season?

Started to watch and stopped watching: Gunpowder on Amazon Prime. Look, show, two podcasts managed to turn me around on James VI and I and got me interested in Stuarts beyond the Restoration era, I'm in the market for this ! I'm also with you pointing out Catholics got a truly rough deal in the late Elizabethan and in the James era. But Kit Harrington brooding as Robert Catesby isn't going to cut it, and who does Mark Gatiss as Robert Cecil think he's playing, Shakespeare's Richard III?

Started watching, may or may not continue: The Name of the Rose, new tv version on Disney +. I mean, if there is an early 1980s novel begging for the miniseries treatment, it's absolutely that one, the OG Murders at a Monastery story. I would have thought a mniseries could offer the chance to include a lot more from the novel than the movie was able to, but foolish me, the show creators instead thought they needed some adiditional subplots. Adson now starts out as not really a novice, though he wants to be, because his father wants him with the imperial army instead. That's right, he now has Daddy Issues. (This is where you can tell there must be some American money involved.) William of Baskerville, aka the cleverest Holmes avatar in another setting before House, is played by John Turturro, who doesn't look anymore like the (reddish blonde) William of the book than Sean Connery did but does a decent job playing him. Somewhat unsurprisingly, like the movie, the series beefs up the part of Bernard(o) Gui. Who in the book shows up only in the second half and leaves again long before the big showdown, but Jean-Jacques Annoud already decided he didn't want an evil inquistor going to waste, but apparantly so did the creators of this one, so while Gui still doesn't arrive in the monastery before half point, we see him being evil and fanatical en route in every freaking episode. Did I mention there are new subplots? About which Adson, who is our narrator (voiced as an old man by Peter Davison, omg, that was a nice surprise), can't know?

( More spoilery observations for the first part of the series )

Incidentally, the excellent podcast History of the Germans (currently in its "Fall and Rise of the House of Habsburg" season where the family with the famous chin and lower lip first seemingly hits rock bottom in three generations before young Maximilian marries Marie of Burgundy) did a great episode last year about the actual political and theological background of the rl events The Name of the Rose touches on, hilariously summarized as "Der Kurverein zu Rhens - starring William of Ockham and the cast of the Name of the Rose". You can listen to it or read the transcript here.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Munich

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... I just beat Ornstein and Smough.

For anyone who would like context -- Symbalily meets and gets to grips with O&S, from the timestamp: https://youtu.be/3TKhwbveyVE?si=14uuwYlVq1ywUwRk&t=5681

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dark souls,
games

It's almost nomination time for the Hugo Awards! As someone invested in recommendations as a type of critique/conversation, I'm thriving.

Worldcon in 2026 will be in LA. If you'd like to nominate for the 2026 Hugo Award, you can do so by being a member of the Seattle Worldcon or purchasing at least a WSFS membership from LAcon V. There's a medium-length guide here on the whole process. Nomination is step one: Seattle and LA WSFS members build the short lists as a collective.

However! Even if you don't plan to become a member (the membership fee is $50 and times are hard), everyone can share the things they would nominate if they could via the Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom, or make their own lists and post them on socials with the #HugoAward tag. Lots of people (it's me; I'm people) have gaps on their nomination forms and are looking for cool stuff to check out. Consider making a rec list/thread!

A disclaimer: the following are my personal nominations that I'll submit next year, not official Hugo finalists. I know the nominations/finalist language can be confusing. ( Read more... )

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awards: hugo awards

Eating Apples

Every time I eat an apple, I think
of my Uncle Buck eating apples,
or rather I think of my mom
telling me how he ate them,
my quiet uncle who loved horses
and who cracked open
the fresh wounds of our hearts
when the cancer claimed him
so soon after it claimed his brother,
my father. I might have seen it—
Uncle Buck eating lunch
in the shop office, air conditioner hissing,
the smell of oil and gas
laced with sweet apple
as he ate skin and flesh,
his eyes closed as he pushed on,
down and around and down,
biting through the green crunch of core
and the hard black seeds
until all that remained
was a slim brown crook of stem,
a comma that once linked fruit to tree.

— Carrie Green
originally published in Salvation South

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monday poems

Pick a date below and give me a topic, and I'll ramble on. I'm good at talking. It can be anything from fandom-related (specific characters, actors, storylines, episodes, which Disney Marvel shows are my faves and why, why the world should give the Tudors a rest and make a Stuarts era show or several instead, which 18th century ladies need their own series, etc.) to life-related to favorite tea brands to whatever you want.

They will probably be brief, or not, depending on the subject. Also, I reserve the right to decline prompts that I don't feel equipped to meet.

Topics: you can get an idea from my tags/from the stuff I usually ramble about/from things you maybe wish I talked about more but don't. Also, please feel free to check out the 2025 meme, the 2024 meme, the 2023 January meme, the2022 January meme, the 2021 January Meme, the January Meme: 2020 Edition, the 2019 one, the 2018 meme, the 2017 edition , and the 2016 January meme to see which topics I've written about in past years.

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January 2 - Five places everyone should visit in Germany (

redfiona99)

January 3 - Which incarnations of the Doctor would get on best with which Starfleet Captains of Star Trek? (

lightofdaye)

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Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: Munich

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january meme

I haven't listened to Night Vale in a few years, but I happened to see this mentioned by one of the creators on bluesky and I am listening now and it is so weird and delightful.

Welcome to Night Vale, ep 280: The Story of Hanukkah

I'm not sure I knew that Cecil and Carlos are both canonically Jewish? (Or at least -- Cecil has a bubbe and a zaide, from whom he inherited a chanukiyah?) Though I suppose the fact of a floating cat named Choshech should've tipped me off.

(Needless to say, the story of Chanukah articulated in this episode does not initially seem to have anything to do with Chanukah. But stick with it. It's wonderful.)

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On my way out the door to a vigil for last night's mass casualty incident; today is also the thirteenth anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting, and there was an antisemitic mass shooting in Bondi Beach, Australia yesterday.

I do not know how I am going to get through this vigil and come home and light my chanukiyah, with its engraving, More life. The great work begins.

ETA: Ran into some coworkers at the extremely well-attended vigil and they came home with me to light the chanukiyah, and that helped.

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Current Mood: lethargic

Aka the third Benoit Blanc mystery plotted and directed by Rian Johnson. Now, each of these movies has a main character who is not Blanc whose fate and/or motivation to solve the mystery is at the heart of the story - Martha in Knives Out and Helen in Glass Onion respectively - and in this case it's Father Jud, played (well and movingly) by Josh O'Connor. In each case, the movie's structure harks back to the classic age of detective mysteries with various twists and turns and a grand denouemonet while also commenting on the here and now in its social satire. If Glass Onion among other things went for the tech bros and the self satisfied "disruptors", Wake up, Dead Man! is very much about the US under the Orange Menace despite his name not mentioned even once. And lo and behold - it even offers hope. And hey, there is even a Star Wars gag. (Just for the record, I still stand by The Last Jedi being the only one of the sequel movies which actually tries to do something new and creative with the franchise. #RianJohnsonwasRight . The gag has nothing to do with that at all, though.)

( Vague spoilers have to offer from their own free will in order for it to mean something )

Current Mood: calm

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film review

I started playing Assassin's Creed: Unity and realised that I know almost nothing about the French Revolution. We did study it in grade 10, but I missed a lot of time due to a never-identified virus -- I was out for most of the American Revolution and all of the French, and mostly passed the class because I knew more about the Chinese Communist Revolution than my teacher. (It's not her fault, she was an art teacher who was roped in to teach history for ... reasons which I'm sure made sense at the time.)

Anyway, I've decided to fill the gap in my knowledge. I started out by trying to listen to The Rest Is History, a podcast my mum recommended, but the hosts are two English men, and they spend a weird amount of time comparing Marie Antoinette to Meghan Markle, but in a derogatory "maybe we should decapitate the Duchess of Sussex" way that I did not care for.

Then I read The French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert, which I think is from 1980. It was a solemn, dispassionate accounting of events and personalities, but didn't get into the question of, for example, why the Parisian mob went from zero to heads on pikes in the storming of the Bastille.

I've requested an inter-library loan for Citizens by Simon Schama, which I've seen recommended a lot, but I would also be eager to read a history that's not ... British? Because the British, for understandable reasons (I guess) weren't really down with the beheading of the monarch and the end of the monarchy (even though they did it first), and I feel like a pro-aristocratic bias has pervaded a lot of what I've encountered. And obviously the Terror was bad, but, like, maybe Robespierre was an asexual smol bean who was a convenient scapegoat! I'm open to the possibility!

I am open to suggestions, is what I'm saying.

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history

I've been teased with snow before, and I'm hoping I won't get teased again tomorrow. It'll be somewhat inconvenient on Sunday, but I've been inconvenienced in such ways before. I can handle it. I know workarounds.

Earlier today, buying fresh eggs, I told someone I'd be using them for cake. "Tis the season," she said. "Cake's always in season," I told her, and got an earnest laugh.

Current Mood: blank
Current Music: nothing now

In which we get a crossover between a Werner Herzog movie and a Robert Altmann one.

( Manousos or the Wrath of God… )

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: on the train

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I've been tasked not only to make challah tomorrow, not just one cake for my dad's book group, but two cakes for a small party he's hosting. The request was only for one cake for the party, and there's no way I'm making only one cake when I can manage two. It'll be a long day of baking. I welcome the work. While the work's helped by already having a lot of what I need for the cakes, the time it'll take is what I'll need to look into - dividing it up, assessing how best to parse it out, that kind of thing.

In addition to all the other chores and errands of the day.

I've sent two fics off to beta readers, and I've got that last original project which I need to start tackling to edit. That there's a very nice feeling by itself, too. Just going from one project right to the next. It's not always something I can pull off, and I value it when I can manage.

Current Mood: restless
Current Music: Fifteen Minutes - Voxtrot

Yes, about a year after it was released in the English speaking world, The Return finally made it to German cinemas, thus still arriving before Christopher Nolan's big budget take on the Odyssey next year. Like many another person, I assume sight unseen that Nolan's take will be pretty much the opposite, given that The Return focuses exclusively on, well, the story of the suitors harrassing Penelope and Telemachus and Odysseuys' return to Ithaca with ensueing consequences, has thrown out the Gods and any other magical elements entirely from the story and takes place solely on Ithaca within a few days with a small ensemble of characters. (Incidentally, the "Penelope and Telemachus on Ithaca/ The Homecoming" part of the story actually is the main tale of the Homeric epic, which reliably surprises everyone who reads it. The adventures with Sirens, Cyclops and Sea Monsters part is contained in the middle where Odysseus (not the most reliable narrator under the best of circumstances) is narrating it to his hosts and a relatively short portion of the story.) All this being said, having now watched it, I would call The Return a good movie with some stellar performances by our leads - Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes uniting their actory prowess for the third time - , but that it fails in one important regard as an adaptation of the Odyssey, and no, it's not because there are no Gods and other supernatural beings around. But again: as a film, it is great and immensely watchable.

( Tell me, Muse, about a PTSD ridden war veteran and an island under occupation )

Current Mood: pensive
Current Location: Munich

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ride_4ever just let me know about a donation, so I wrote:

Make my wish come true (100 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: due South
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski
Characters: Benton Fraser, Ray Kowalski
Additional Tags: Drabble, Christmas Fluff
Summary:

Ray observes a holiday tradition.

*

If you donate 25 USD in cash or in kind to a food bank or food pantry, tell me about it and I'll write for you!

Current Mood: festive
Current Music: I won't even ask for snow

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Happy "It's December Tenth" to all who observe it.

I have not written my Dark Outside pieces yet, far less addressed and sent the mail, so I will send cards When I Get To It.

I am still going to write for people; it'll just be in your email inbox come Solstice, not your physical mailbox come whenever. People who just wanted cards will get cards at some date TBD.

Current Mood: the SAD is winning
Current Music: Why are they complaining? It could've been raining!

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holiday cards

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...to the kind anonymous person who hooked me up with a paid account. <3 <3 <3

(Apologies for not responding sooner. I don't check the email account linked to DW very often, anymore.)

My Xmas Playlist on YouTube. (ETA: I fixed the access.)

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music,
playlist

Waiting for the traffic light, listening to the noise around me, I looked down and saw a dog - one that was shaped like an actual dog, with short black fur, a proper nose, bright eyes, and a remarkable amount of patience for being so quiet in the face of all the noise. Cars, trucks, horns, traffic all around, a cement mixer driving by that whined and gave off these weird high-pitched noises as the mixer turned, and I thought that if it was loud for me, it must be unbearable for her. She was very well-trained in leash work and boundaries, and as well-trained and well-adjusted as she was, it made me think: New York City isn't good for her.

She was mostly quiet, except for one point where she made something like a whine mixed with a whimper. I told her, "I don't blame you." But I don't think she heard me what with all the noise around us.

At the next corner, I complimented her behavior on who I thought was her owner; she said she was just the walker, and the dog's name was Kato, and she was impressed at her, too. I didn't ask to pet her, just looked at her, watching a little kid ask if she could pet Kato herself instead. I thought about how her owners needed to commission a walker's services, and how it could be a brief thing due to a family emergency or it could be a standing commitment, and knowing Manhattan, it's likely the latter. It still strikes me as strange to keep an animal like a dog as a pet in a big city, and looking at her today, it feels even stranger. I walked across the park and listened to the sounds of the vehicles and thought about how unpleasant I found it, and how the city isn't designed for auditory comfort. It could be, and it isn't, and it saddened me to think how much worse Kato must have things.

Current Mood: cynical
Current Music: nothing now

Anybody have any recommendations for recent Romance novels focused on holidays, specifically winter-type holidays?

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holidays,
romance

( I have read so many things in the past six months. )

Current Mood: blah

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could you repeat that?

More than a decade ago, the tv show Spartacus was a guilty pleasure of mine. I started watching because BtVS and AtS alumnus Steven DeKnight was the showrunner (since then, he's also gathered additional geek cred with the first season of the Netflix Daredevil), and kept watching because as gory and pulpy and trashy as it was, it (after a bad pilot) turned into something compulsively watchable, with interesting characters galore, complicated relationships and good acting. You can read my review of the first season and the prequel season here, of the second season here, and of the third and final season here.

Now a spin-off of said show has just started (in my part of the world, you can watch it on Amazon Prime, but this seems to be different in different countries - like the original show, it gets shown on STARZ in the US) with the first two episodes released. I was alerted to this a few months ago when Steven DeKnight entertainingly shot down the whiny "Woke!" complaints by the usual suspects that started as soon as the first pics were released, showing, OMG, a black woman in a central role among the cast. (Given the original show had several prominent female characters, some of which were poc, and also had canon on screen important m/m relationships, and of course had at its central subject a slave revolt, it beats me why anoyne familiar with said original show should have assumed the show creators being inclined towards the Orance Menace type of entertainment and (lack of) ethos beats me, but there we are. Anyway, the premise of the show per se didn't feel like a must watch to me (more about this later), and I might have hesitated given all the Darth Real Life stuff dodging me, but all the indignation of ignorant fanatics definitely worked as great advertisement. What is the premise? Basically a canon AU, with the title of the spin-off: "Spartacus: House of Ashur" being a giveaway. I.e. it shows what would have happened if one of the original show's villains hadn't ( spoiler for the original show ) - what would have to Ashur, personally, that is, since everything else that happened in the third season of the original show still did happen in the canon AU which starts in what sounds like not even a year after the original show ended. While Ashur had been a good and entertaining villain, I hadn't exactly yearned for a "What if?" about him, yet, see above, external circumstances plus the fact the show really HAD been compulsive watching for me made me tune in and check out the first two episodes.

( Gratitude! )

Current Mood: pensive
Current Location: Munich

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The View from T'Khut (50669 words) by Laura JV
Chapters: 9/9
Fandom: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Spock/Nyota Uhura, James T. Kirk/Spock, Sarek & Spock (Star Trek), Spock & Spock Prime, James T. Kirk & Spock
Characters: Spock (Star Trek), Spock Prime, James T. Kirk, Nyota Uhura, T'Pau (Star Trek), Sarek (Star Trek), Vulcan Characters (Star Trek), Crew of the Starship Enterprise
Additional Tags: Vulcan Culture (Star Trek), Vulcan Mind Melds (Star Trek), Vulcan Language (Star Trek), jj abrams should be ashamed of himself, Vulcan history, Vulcan mythology, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, symbiotic red algae
Series: Part 1 of The View from T'Khut
Summary:

Part I: The Absent World. The planet vanishes, but her people go on.

Part II: An Archaeology of Loss. The world-death left a scar in spacetime, and a void in the heart of the Federation.

Part III: Time and Darkness. In which Ambassador Spock fires unexpected shots.

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I have watched the first two episodes of Heated Rivalry, and omg it is so much fun (and I find it better than the book tbh; the book sometimes felt awkwardly written and the show just smooths out and amplifies so many great moments). I haven't watched the third episode yet and am desperate to, but I also kind of want to reread Game Changer first, just slam through it this morning, so I can better recognize the ways it's been adapted. (And of course I want to reread the book of Heated Rivalry as well, just to see if my memory is betraying me!) And I just learned twenty minutes ago that a sequel series to Spartacus just dropped and I'm dying to check it out. And how did I miss that there was a third series of Leverage: Redemption? (And on top of all those things that are sitting on my hard drive absolutely alluring me, I'm watching The Pitt with a friend -- her first time through it; my second -- and watching the current series of Shetland both with Geoff and with another friend, and already counting the days until the Call the Midwife Christmas special drops -- and omg it's specials, plural, we get one on the 25th and a second one on the 26th and then the new series presumably sometime in the spring.)

I have to prep to help lead service at church tomorrow morning, and all I want to do today is read Rachel Reid and watch TV. Can't I just stay home and worship at the Church of Bubble Butts?

All the Stars We Steal From the Night Sky (1385 words) by anr
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Push (2009)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage Sex, Rape/Non-Con
Relationships: Nick Gant/Cassie Holmes
Characters: Nick Gant, Cassie Holmes, Kira Hudson
Additional Tags: Sex, Kissing, First Time, Touching, 5 Times, Dubious Consent, Someone Made Them Do It, Loss of Virginity, Older Man/Younger Woman, mental manipulation
Summary: Her first time.

(aka, Five times Cassie loses her virginity with Nick for the first time.)

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: McKenna Grace - Haunted House

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Title: Sirens
Characters/Pairing: Philip Swift/Syrena
Movie: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Music: Sirens by Fleurie
Length: 3:08
Streaming/download at: DW | Tumblr

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movie: pirates of the caribbean (series)

That's right - next month More Joy Day is back for the 19th year in a row!

What's More Joy Day? In short it's this:

Every year since 2008, in the interest of spreading more joy, I’ve proposed that on a designated day in early January we each engage in one act, either online or physical space (or both!), which brings joy to another person, in the hopes that that person will spread that joy further, and exponentially onward.

This act can be as simple as leaving a comment on a fanwork to as complicated as planting a tree or flower in someone's honor and sharing a photo of it and why you chose that person. If you want the longer version (and more suggestions) you can check out this tumblr post from 2024 which provides both.

In 2026, More Joy Day will be Thursday, January 8!

(The first MJ Days were on Thursdays, and then I moved them to Fridays, but I'm going back to Thursday this year because I think a regular work day could use more joy than a Friday. Let's see how it goes.)

On More Joy Day, I'll post here and you can share your MJ Day activity so other people can feel the radiating waves of joy just from reading about it. :) I hope to see you there!

Current Mood: mellow
Current Music: My now 16 year old Puplet doing something I think making pizza? Who knows.

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On this Bandcamp Friday, I have purchased the entirety of Dessa's discography; made a loaf of bread for potluck Shabbat services tonight; gone to the makerspace to continue sanding the drawer divider pieces I made with the laser cutter earlier this week; picked up my CSA box; nearly froze to death waiting for the bus home.

So, I've been stuck at home for 3 weeks now with a broken ankle. I've watched so much TV. SO. MUCH. TV. Some of it utterly delightful ("The Summer I Turned Pretty", "Queen of the South"), some of it utterly forgettable. Then "Heated Rivalry" came out, and due to the tragic circumstances of being stuck at home, I've watched the first 2 episodes. Let us acknowledge this up front: I should have only watched this show after it finished airing. Like, week-to-week is a very bad format for me with this show.

However, episodes have been consumed, this show is already doing numbers in fannish circles for obvious reasons, my guess is that that trend will continue, and so I need to get stuff off my chest I guess. Think of this not as a public statement but more as a private space where I process stuff, just for the sake of framing the below.

( thoughts in no particular order )

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fandom: hockey,
tv

I don't actually ship Rex/Echo, but that doesn't stop me from wanting a Lord King Bad Vid to For Good for the very simple reason that Rex is going to be with Echo like a handprint on his heart.

I feel like this needs a good bunch of Bad Batch, which I have not seen, in much the same way that I have only seen Wicked on stage once, and haven't seen the movies.

I also can't listen to the song without tearing up because I've sung it at too many funerals.

Clearly I am highly qualified to care about this vid. I must've gotten someone else's inspiration particle.

Current Mood: ludicrous
Current Music: Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes the sun

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Back in the day, the 213 things Skippy is no longer allowed to do in the U.S. Army made the rounds of the internet.

The one that stuck with me hardest:

87. If the thought of something makes me giggle for longer than 15 seconds, I am to assume that I am not allowed to do it.

This came to mind because I thought of a great tag that will baffle the good wranglers at the AO3, but which I will apply to the story forthwith, despite its having made me giggle for longer than 15 seconds.

Then I started wondering.

These are the fanworks on AO3 tagged with Skippy's List. Happily, various people have written Clone Wars versions so I don't have to.

Current Mood: giggly
Current Music: The next day he saluted a Good Humor man, an usher, and a nun

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Largely the same as before:

Currently trying to support a friend in a Very Bad Situation and it's desperately anxiety-inducing and my brain is trying to eat itself, which also makes me less useful as support, which is bad.

So if anyone would like to ask or discuss anything about Prophet or Dark Souls or IWTV or climbing or, you know, any of the somewhat cheering topics I sometimes ramble about, PLEASE DO. "More of a comment than a question" questions also very welcome.

I cannot guarantee replies in a timely or consistent manner (because of the Situation and also the bad state of my brain) but it would be deeply appreciated nonetheless.

Except that THANK FUCK my friend is now out of the Very Bad Situation (and please let him remain so, please please please).

My brain is just trying to eat itself because it's prone to doing that and it's been a very very hard year (and I'm having yet another IC flare-up, joy).

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In which I had to google this week's celebrity cameo because his fame had eluded me in my corner of the world for now, but I was amused by the rest, and felt for Carol.

( Spoilers have Zoom-calls twice a week )

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: Bad Wiessee

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Every time I think of posting, I'm so overwhelmed by how shitty my life is right now and how nearly suicidal I feel that I can't do it. I'm just too depressing. It just seems like it's never-ending and I'm literally throwing money in the toilet and I feel so alone and hopeless. It's funny, I've never cried over the cancer diagnosis (diagnoses, I guess, since I'm being stalked by it), but I'm literally sitting here sobbing in front of my computer because of all the things. It's just. All the things.

A short list (it looks long, but it's the short list): I bought a new used laptop from Back Market when my old 2012 workhorse started having these weird spasms and would shut down. The new one, a 2020, I picked specifically because it had an intel processor instead of the new M1 chips, because I had a couple older programs that are crucial to my work that I wasn't sure would run on an M1. It went great until last month, when it wouldn't boot at all. I sent it back to the refurbisher and they said they couldn't repair it (a lie, I'm positive) so would send a replacement. Unforch, it wasn't what I ordered (it had an M1), so I had to mail it back via UPS last week (before turkey day).

Even more unfortunate, apparently UPS "never picked it up" from the mailing center, it's not in the system, so they won't give me a refund. Back Market forced me to do the refund option instead of sending me a replacement again since that's their policy. So assuming I would have a refund coming, I bought an entirely new 2020 just like the first one.

But now I guess I'm completely screwed out of over $700. Which I really don't have. Because I cannot prove a negative, and the mailing center dropoff of course doesn't give receipts for prelabeled packages. Which, even if I'd scheduled UPS to come to my house and pick it up, I wouldn't have a receipt either, if I didn't think to like wait by the door or something and make sure he scanned it. So there is nothing apparently I can do, because no one has this tracking number and I can't prove I sent it. Maybe it was stolen, maybe the UPS guy was a fuckup, who knows. All I know is Back Market won't give me my refund. They were like "bye, Felicia."

Even better, I cannot get the new 2020 laptop I had to buy to work, by installing from my backup so I can port over all my crucial programs. Mr.

minim_calibre helped me with my first install problem when they came by on thanksgiving for min's annual drive-by pieing (she makes the best pumpkin pies, just like I would make them so now I don't have to make them myself!), and then again when I was having a completely new issue and he solved it, the day min and I went to see Wake Up Dead Man (which is cute! although the lack of a comma in the title is beyond irritating!). So those issues solved, I have attempted at this point to use migration assistant to get my old macbook air stuff over to the new one now probably 12 times, and it never works. The boxes are all checked, it says it's taking an hour or whatever to install from the backup, and nothing. Nothing in the restored files or any other folder they could exist in.

Apparently, you cannot use the apple genius bar for this type of thing. I was hoping to go there today but this isn't an issue they will assist with. They send you to articles, all of which I've read, and all of which tell you steps I have indeed taken. I did not have this problem with the laptop in April, which is making me even angrier. On top of losing over seven hundred bucks, I'll have to probably pay someone to help me be able to use this laptop, or maybe--I'm seriously considering this--send back the new one (with receipts this time so that means drive all the way to the nearest UPS store a half hour away and watch them while they scan it), then get a refund for it, and buy another one somewhere else. At this point I almost don't care about the programs and should just get an Mwhatever number they're on because getting a refurbished on is turning into such a nightmare. I keep thinking I might semi retire, but now I need money so I don't know. I just am not sure what to do.

Because on top of all this misery, my furnace was making dying noises and so I had to suddenly replace that. Furnaces are expensive, y'all. It was not a great time, but when they showed me the condition of the old furnace, I knew it had to go. It's beyond its lifespan, I knew that, but till now, it had been a pretty decent performer. The only good thing was that the new one has the same footprint as the old one, so they were able to put it right on top of the metal base, and use the existing pipe work for the gas and venting. It makes noises, but I was assured they were normal, though when it's blowing the air, it's quieter than the old one.

But of course, nothing ever goes right for me (seriously, this has been a longstanding joke with my friends, that I'm a walking Murphy's Law and whenever something can go wrong, it will, when it involves me), they charged me the full amount of over 8k on top of the 50 percent deposit I'd already given them, and when I called they were like "oh no! we'll refund it of course" but it's going to take 5-10 business days. I have to pay interest on that, since I put it on my credit card because I wanted to get the points, figuring I'd just move money over right away from my line of credit. It stings, since I will be paying for the roof for a while, and now this on top of everything...just so not what I needed. Financially, this has been a catastrophic year.

All my hopes of getting a new car (I love my Beetle, I do, but she's 20 years old now and there are parts of her that are literally falling apart and sometimes can't be replaced) have vanished now. I don't know what to do about the new laptop yet, I'm just sick and sad and hopeless. I'm taking a new drug because I guess my thyroid is hypo now?? which everyone is like, could just be normal happenstance, could be related to chemo, shrug, but I'm not super fond of some of the side effects. I'm supposed to talk with her about it at end of December after I've been on it for two months. But it sounds like one more drug I'll be on for life, however long that is.

I've been trying to not make this horrible list longer, but I may have to have a root canal, but won't be able to do it for quite a while despite tooth pain (still have to get to the dentist but ya know, funds) because one of the chemo drugs I get infusions of has a major side effect called necrosis of the jaw. Like. It's horrifying. If they do dental work that goes into your jaw bones, zometa can cause the jaw to become necrotic (dead) and your teeth come out, etc. See? Horrifying. Someone in my support group lost a huge section of his jaw and all his teeth to it, and had to have everything rebuilt. They say that they now know a lot more than they did years ago, so if you stop the infusions for 3 to 4 months or something, and don't have them for a month or so afterward, it should be okay. But I'm not sanguine about my chances.

Anyways. I'm sorry for so much doom and gloom. I did have a lovely birthday, so there was that! It was an exceptionally rare sunny day birthday--I can count on one hand the number of times it's been sunny on my birthday so it was extra nice because I treated myself to a mani-pedi and was afraid I'd be out walking in flip-flops in bare feet in pouring rain. (Tho as it was, I stepped off the curb and my foot was immediately covered by mushy leaves and cold water, so ha ha, it happened anyway.) Then my friend Keith and I went out to a pricey seafood place I really wish I went to more often (should fix that), here in West Seattle, and they do all this nice stuff for your birthday including giving you the really good tables with the spectacular views across Elliott Bay to downtown Seattle. Their special that night was lobster, and I am nuts for lobster, so perfect timing.

I think I might try to find somewhere in the budget (ha ha ha ha) to get a mani-pedi more often. One of my meds has ruined my hands and feet, my skin is like slick paper and the edges of the nails peel away all the time. Not necessarily for polish, but just to have someone help me maintain them, because it's hard on me at this point, especially my feet. We'll see, I guess.

Current Mood: depressed
Current Music: Heroes - Tove Lo

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It wasn't exactly a bar crawl or a pub crawl since one was very much a pub and the other was very much a bar, and it was still one of each of those, starting at the pub and ending at the bar. Two drinks in two locations full of the sound of human voices. It counts as a crawl. I've done art crawls before, and this was my first crawl of this type, however you want to describe it, whatever the specific and precise nomenclature. I've never done one before and it'll be a while before I have another one like this again, in large part because there's no chance to repeat it. Because the pub's closing tonight.

I'd read about it closing a few days ago, and went there last night to check it out, indulge in fish and chips, have a cider that tasted like college and a margarita that meant business - and the cider really did taste like the ciders I had in college, sweet and soft, the bottle the same shape on my lips. It brought back a host of good memories of being afraid of new things and doing them anyway, the thrill of being someplace very grown-up and learning how to handle myself in that kind of world. It didn't quite have the smell of some of those places, but this pub was only in its present location about twelve years, and you need at least fifteen to build up that kind of aroma. If there was a scented candle of such an aroma, I'd seriously consider buying one, and while the smell wasn't there last night, the feeling was. My younger brother was on the fence about going last night, but was up for it tonight if it'd still be open. Tonight was its last night, so I called him up and off we went.

We stopped for hot dogs first. I got to the pub and saw that they were going a step beyond having the last night in that they were actively dismantling the jukebox - the jukebox that the night before had played the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Kansas, those kinds of bands - and figured that if they were taking that apart, there probably wasn't a kitchen anymore. Myself, I'd decided that I could do pub drinks two nights in a row but not pub foods, so I'd eaten before I left. But he was still waiting on dinner. So we went to a corner hot dog place a block away and he got one with onions and mustard, and another with ketchup, sauerkraut, and relish, plus a papaya drink. That's seriously what it was. Not papaya juice. The menu said "papaya drink." It tasted more like the melon the fruit is than the fruit itself usually does. We hung around as he ate, marveling in the old school accents that wandered through and ordered hot dogs well-done. Armed and ready, we made our way down the block, and down three steps, and into a place full of the human voice. The music was almost gone - sometime during our stay there, someone played "Piano Man", and if that's the last song in a place open until two AM with smokers hanging around outside, it's a suitable one. I had a cider and he had a beer, and we both did a shot of Jameson's straight up. Earlier that night, I saw a guy come in on roller blades, wearing hockey gear and bearing a stick, and during our hour and a half there, we saw people pass on well-wishes and old stories to the bartenders, thanking them for so many years and all the memories they'd helped make.

The only music that played was one song. Nothing else. Everything that I heard was the sound of the bar itself, and the sound of the human voice. Up and down the bar, in front and behind, throughout the guts of the place as the kitchen got cleaned out and the empty bottles taken away. It was a fantastic sound, with nothing getting in its way, and the rarity of it was both that there was nothing in its way and that it was overall quite happy. A place for people to meet and greet and take some of the world away for a while can have alcohol, it can have food, it can be indoors or outdoors, there's a lot of variance and possibilities, and for a moment, while I had it indoors, nothing got in its way. Just this beautiful sound that I could usually only catch a few syllables of at a time. Next to me was my brother, who spoke about his in-laws. Next to me was someone asking for a drink, or someone catching up with a friend and telling him to meet another friend who'd know who sent him, or trying to move through a narrow space to get to the bathroom without making anyone spill.

We had our drinks, and we walked out. It was a few degrees above freezing with an almost full moon high above and we were bolstered to walk seven blocks from a pub in its last hours to a bar comfortably set for the foreseeable future. Even less space, even less overhead, three steps up instead of three steps down. More music, though. A range from the same kind of music as the night before - Creedence Clearwater Revival, Cream - to songs that came out earlier this calendar year. Another beer for him, an Irish coffee for me because I'd wanted one for a while and the first place wasn't equipped to make coffee anymore. Not as many people around, but still close enough to the first place in that it wasn't too loud we couldn't hear the presence of the people around us. It wasn't an overwhelming amount of sound to hide the fact that the place wasn't very good or a lot of screens as a way to keep you from realizing you aren't having a good time. There were screens, but no sound, and none in the back. There was music, but not so loud it cut through the conversations. It was remarkably well-balanced and arranged, and we talked about travel and friends and real estate and made each other laugh until it was time for us to head on out. I might live on the same island, but he had an hour's travel at the very least, and wanted to get back home before tomorrow.

We started at one spot and ended at another. Drinks and talk at both. Two links still make up a crawl. There's other places in both our neighborhoods for us to do it again, and it'll never be quite the same. And I'm good with it having been this way once, because it was the kind of thing that even if both were staying around, wouldn't feel the same for it being something so new. It wasn't college in the bottle of cider so much as it was the memory of how it felt, and now I've made a new set of memories.

Current Mood: enthralled
Current Music: Los Angeles - Big Thief

I do not keep up with DC Comics canon anymore. I haven't for a long-ass time. But people on my Tumblr dash do, and they share just enough to confuse me.

I remember when Bruce Wayne adopted Tim Drake because I immediately wrote a story about it in which a) they have sex and b) they have issues. I mean -- so many issues.

The punchline of that story has always been, for me, that Bruce has no goddamn business adopting the 16-year-old son of people he knew.

20 and a bit years on, Tim is 16 again despite the theoretical passage of time in comics, various other characters aging, and assorted other nonsense, and DC Editorial has him ( Cut for spoilers )

There was also a page that went by on my Tumblr dash recently that drew Tim with Shoulders and Muscles, from who knows when, which was also #notmytimdrake, but in a way that made my brain convinced that Bernard was cheating on Tim with Kon.

Current Mood: baffled
Current Music: What's next? The fourth? The fifth?

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meta: dcu

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