burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

( gym )

On Sunday when I was making Fourth of July plans with Carolyn, I thought, "Aww, I remember the Fourth of July weekend I spent staying home doing fireworks.  I wonder if they're gonna do that this year; I don't think they did it last year."  Lo, "from now until midnight EST this Thursday (July 2nd), we'll be collecting prompts"

I took a field trip to Lamont Library (in the rain, actually using an umbrella) today -- where they could not locate the book I was looking for.  *shrug*

I found myself singing Dar Williams' "This Was Pompeii" -- not because I'm saddened by the rain at all, but because I feel like it hasn't actually been raining much at all (despite everyone's griping).

Over lunch, Katie and I were talking about how so many of our agemates or younger (i.e., age 23-26) are buying houses/condos and what's up with that.  She said, "Even if someone handed me $2M right now, I wouldn't buy a house."  I said I would, but that I grew up a renter and never liked the idea of being tied down to a place even though I also didn't plan to move around much, and that it's only this past year that I've felt like "Yeah, if I could, I would buy a condo in Davis Square right now."

Red Line after work, I saw Keith and was chatting with him, and then I saw Jason and lit up and threw myself at him.  *shrugs*  I am both easy and predictable.

***

[FirstChurch Mailing List] Like Noah, we're building an ark for Rest and Bread

Dear Beloved,

Continuing our Rest and Bread series of biographies of folks in the Bible, today, we're going to meet Noah.

We will also pray for sun, for each other, and for the world. We will strengthen our connection to God and to our community by telling Jesus' story about how to live centered in God regardless of what it is doing outside. Come, let's be community together.

Music for meditation starts at 6, our service at 6:15.

The Growth Committee will meet at 7:15.

Love,
Laura Ruth

Psalm 29 (when I was looking at it before service, I realized it was the Psalm Carolyn had used on Sunday; also, knowing we were doing Noah, I thought, "Yay thematically connected Psalm")
Genesis 7(ish)

Laura Ruth opened her Reflection by saying that she knew she had to do the story of Noah because it had been raining for 30 days.  I said, "It hasn't been raining for 30 days.  It's been cloudy for 30 days, but we've barely had any rain?"

It took 150 years for Noah to build the ark?  I frequently thought of the Bill Cosby routine, of course, but then at one point I thought, "motherfucking boat" thanks to Sharon's recent post.

Laura Ruth said that in part of the Noah story, it says that God "remembered" and "rescued" Noah.  She also mentioned that Noah's name means "rest," though she didn't really elaborate on that, just said that Noah marked a rest from the post-Edenic curse to labor hard, which I didn't really follow.

She said something like, "One of the other stories we have about Noah," and I thought, "You are not going to tell that story," and she said that Noah is the first story we have of someone tending a vineyard and also of someone getting drunk, and I said, "This story ends badly," and she in fact went on to talk about how Noah's son Ham "saw his father's nakedness" and a couple of the things that might mean (neither of which were exactly what I've heard it said to mean, but after the second one she mentioned I thought, "That could be triggery to someone with a certain history" [at least, I imagine it could be]) and she said that this story of Ham was used to say that Africans were destined to be slaves.  I had been remembering it as being Cain (because he actually gets marked, even though that wouldn't make sense since the mark is to warn people not to hurt Cain), but apparently I was wrong.

I emailed Laura Ruth last week about maybe making some changes to Rest and Bread, and one thing I mentioned was that I feel like I'm supposed to be just lifting up on Prayer at a time but that's not a good system.  During Passing of the Peace tonight (which occurs after the Prayers of the People), Laura Ruth said to me, "You can say as many prayers as you want."  I said, "Yeah, that's what I decided."  (When we got to the Petitions for community, loved ones, and ourselves, I listed all the stuff I could think of -- and then later said one that I'd forgotten.)  She said, "Yes!" and did a fistpump.

In the Invitation to Communion, Laura Ruth said, "this table is a high dry land, come join the ark of love."

I had my head down, eyes closed, during all of Communion until the Blessing of the Elements, and I learned that I can indeed recite the Sanctus with my eyes closed, but when I didn't pick up my program for the Thanksgiving at the end, yeah, that didn't work out so well.  I think that's partly because I already have a Thanksgiving in my head [the CWM one, as I've posted about before -- edit: or maybe I'm just thinking of having blogged about The Blessing of the Elements].

After Rest and Bread next week, Laura Ruth and Keith and whomever else are meeting to talk about Rest and Bread -- what we like, what we want to change, and if we want to have more people attending and if so how to do it -- and so yes of course I will be staying for that.

***

Edit: la bff and I phoned tonight (as per usual), and I gotta say, it is really good to be able to just sit (on the phone) with someone who knows all your stuff -- patterns, history, redacted bits.

( gym )

It was like 65F when we went to get lunch today.  Just about nice enough to eat outside (though we didn't).
MaryAlice: "We'll remember this on January 17th when we get 24 inches of snow."
me: "If only.  I would be deliriously happy."
MaryAlice: "Come on.  A little snow is fine, but that much?  You don't even ski."

I didn't even think of skiing.  I think of ski places as existing in their own little pocket of the universe that always has enough snow (especially since they can make their own, after all), even though I should know that's not true 'cause my brother's roommate his first year at college worked at a ski place and was seriously bumming at the really warm winter we had.

I chatted with Nicole briefly today (we clearly do not talk enough; it was news to her that I am/have been taking ASL class), and she said she is cultivating groups of people around each of the schools she's applied to who can stage an intervention in case she starts turning into one of the students.  I approve of this plan.

Walking from work to the T station this evening, Katie said (paraphrased from memory) "I feel like we're going to die together one of these days" (after I had stepped off the curb and the car at the head of the line of stopped cars blew through the intersection).

In small group tonight, Gary mentioned that only 3 of the Ten Commandments are actually U.S. law.  I said that adultery is illegal in some places, like Massachusetts.  He said it used to be illegal everywhere in the country but all those laws got taken off the books about twenty years ago (federal sweep or state-by-state he wasn't sure).  I am unconvinced.  Can anyone tell me definitively?

My Affirmation tonight was that despite my hesitancy to believe that people's enthusiasm will actually translate to anything concrete, I went ahead and ordered new massage sheets and oils.  Jenny and Michelle totally volunteered as practice subjects.  (Michelle said she would feel most comfortable being worked on by someone she already knew than a stranger.)  P.S. The sheets I ordered arrived today, and they're a brighter (and greener) blue than I was expecting, but I think I'll be okay.  I am of course now feeling doubtful about my ability to fit this into my schedule, but we shall see.

[thanks to Ari for the heads up] secret_slasha now (through Nov. 20) open for sign-ups!  I decided on my requests *checks* Sept. 16 of this year.

lilithchilde pointed out to me: alien_altars: f/f cliche fic challenge.  None of the cliches pique my interest, but I put the information out there for interested parties.

What has caught my interest is the girl!Sam/Dean that musesfool and luzdeestrellas are writing in the comment thread of an entry luzdeestrellas started thanks to a conversation with ignipes about competitiveness in sex (specifically talking about Sam and Dean of Supernatural -- original post contains spoilers for "Home," fwiw -- but it reminded me of Macha's Nice Southern Girls -- which I just reread and which totally feeds my fantasy life re: a particular relationship-which-will-not-be-consummated).

Thinking about personal kinks (in narrative/fantasy/life) and the perennial "People should write more of [blank]" question prompted me to finally finish my writeup of "Best Lesbian Erotica 2007."  Near the end of Emma Donoghue's Introduction to the collection, she writes, "I was surprised by how little anal sex came up this year.  Lynna Jamneck's story is one of the only ones to feature even an uneasy moment of butch-butch desire."  My immediate response was to want to write femmes-with-strap-ons in like every fandom I know.  I remember being hesitant to write/post one of my fireworks [an f/f porn battle this past July] fics because it involved a woman fucking another woman with a dildo, and I was aware that there had been some mini-furor about that.  [I I hadn't really followed it, though I could guess at the arguments -- variants on: it says that women can only have sex with other women by imitating the way men have sex with women, which then brings in issues of heternormativity, patriarchy, etc.).  My rationale was that I was a (queer) woman writing sex that made me happy, and wasn't that what this was all about?  We can also talk about the danger of policing people's fantasies (and even their bedrooms) and how you're still letting the patriarchy set the standards and all that -- but unless someone is gonna come here and actually tell me I'm being a bad feminist and/or queer for wanting to fuck people with strap-ons and/or write about women doing the same, then I think we can just move on to the porn writing.  I neglected to close that square-bracket, didn't I?

I bought groceries today and brought them home in my new canvas tote bag.  I felt so earthy.

I am still tempted to get the "Liberal Advisory: I Am An Evil Conservative" one.

*

I bought a Western Digital external hard drive and it's giving me an error message.  I e-mailed tech support but still, technology why are you mean to me recently?  (My mouse squeaking every time I left-click is also starting to really get on my nerves.)

*

penknife writes:

I thought it would be fun to try a multifandom, low-pressure challenge: the "I Never ..." challenge. It's your chance to stretch yourself by writing something you've never tried before [...]

I don't think I actually want to sign up, but it was interesting, thinking about what haven't I written?

I was looking at thete1's cliché list.  Hooker AU is a Thing?  It occurred to me that I'm actually writing that in "Five People Who Never Had Sex With Malcolm Reynolds."  I had started talking more about this, but who really needs to hear me talk about how everything I'm working on right now apparently has dark at least slightly fucked-up relationship themes/dynamics?

Well, the morning commute was no big deal (I'd guess about an inch of snowfall and the flakes falling were small, though kinda coarse), but I expect the evening commute to be worse with the whole freezing rain thing. Again, though, I have no expectations. I was glad to hear that Katie agreed with me that she honestly would not have been surprised if she woke up this morning to no snow.

I think a bouquet of black [or some approximation thereto] tulips would be fabulous, but honestly I've been happy with complete non-engagement with this Hallmark holiday.

*

The femslash_today "love bites" porn battle was up to 3 pages already yesterday [it went live on Sunday], though I was unimpressed by the quality when I skimmed said pages.

There are a huge number of prompts. There are no BSC prompts, and in HP no McGonagall (or Tonks, now that I think of it) prompts. I disapprove.

Some of the prompts are really intriguing, though, and I may snag them for development into fuller ideas later.

Also, Eden in Heroes? Totally hadn't occurred to me until I saw her name in the prompts for that fandom that one could do really interesting stuff given her power. [I am feeling oddly squicky about writing Claire-porn. Though apparently not squicked enough, since I wrote Eden/Claire -- though it turns out I'd misread the prompt, which was actually Eden/Charlie. Oops.]

I also endorse the The "Imperfect Sex Is Not the End of the World" Challenge.

*

Oh, speaking of VDay.

I am frustrated that something that is supposed to empowering etc. for women uses incorrect terminology for girly bits. I'm speaking, of course, of the Vagina Monologues.

To quote Wiki, In common speech, the term "vagina" is often used inaccurately to refer to the vulva or female genitals generally; strictly speaking, the vagina is a specific internal structure and the vulva is the exterior genitalia only.

I know I'm being a prescriptivist, but I like language being precise. I mean, if a perfectly good word already exists, why use a word that doesn't mean that?

This doesn't even touch my discomfort with that weird anthropomorphization of one's girly bits, which also (to my mind) has shades of defining one by one's bits.

*

P.S. All y'alls who dislike LJ's VDay style know you can switch out of Horizon, right? [Yes, I know, some people actually like Horizon and that doesn't mean they should be forced to endure holiday decoration schemes. I am personally anti-pink, but what little I saw before I logged in this morning I actually didn't mind as much as I'd expected to given the outcry.]

Also, why did no one tell me there are new LJ gift options including a ripped-out heart and a black rose? [Oh, it didn't even show up on news until like 10:30am Pacific today. That would do it.]

Edit: Okay, I approve of the Google Doodle. /edit

*

Looking ahead to other holidays:

Join IHOP to celebrate National Pancake Day (also known as Mardi Gras, or Shrove Tuesday) on Tuesday, February 20, 2007. From 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., we'll give you one free short stack (three) of our famous buttermilk pancakes. All we ask is that you consider making a donation to support local children's hospitals through Children's Miracle Network, or other local charities.

[...]

There is a limit of one free short stack per guest. The offer is valid at participating restaurants for dine-in only while supplies last, and is not valid with any other offer, special, coupon or discount.

How do you know which restaurants are participating? 'Cause I was recently reminded that there is an IHOP in Harvard Square. Though I don't really like anyone's pancakes except my mom's sourdough anyway.

In discussing her then-impending visit to me&ANTS, Ari said "then to embark on a New Adventure" which I commented sounded like out of Winnie Ther Pooh, which led to her saying, "Tomorrow, the Exciting Adventure in the Hundred Acre Wood that is Boston and Surrounding Suburbs begins."

This begged the question of which characters we are -- which was answered by the note she left me Friday morning addressed to Rabbit and signed Piglet.

Saturday

I got up about a half an hour before noon (rather later than I'd intended) and it smelled like summer.  Huh.  (We probably should have had lunch outside on Friday, but I didn't think of it until after everyone had gone to get lunch and Cailin came by and mentioned eating outside.)

I didn't really feel like going anywhere to do anything, but sleeping late plus no physical activity was likely to lead to an inability to sleep that night, so....

I stopped by the HBS Community Fall Party (free food!), which turned out to be primarily aimed at young children, so I felt awkward plus I didn't recognize anybody (would have loved to see Greg's wee ones) so after I finished my lemonade I left to do some other stuff downtown.  Waiting for the Red Line I saw Jill (one of the HBS employees I interact with a lot) and her boyfriend Nick -- first year MBA student.

I came home via College Ave./Powderhouse Blvd. so I could make a mental list of all the nearby churches (yes, the giant rainbow flag church is "First Congregational Church of Somerville: United Church of Christ.") and their service times.  Later I Googled to see where the closest UU church is (answer: Harvard Square) and learned that they're doing a four-session series on the letters of Paul.  However, it's Monday nights, which conflicts with CAUMC.  (Trelawney's on honeymoon in Turkey, but we're still having group tomorrow -- book of Esther.  The e-mail announcing that also said, "Also, there is going to be a young adult luncheon next Sunday (September 17) at Gary ’s house after church."  So I guess I'll be putting off ecumenical church-hopping for a week, 'cause socialness is of the good.)

+

OriginalRoomie's been looking for a futon mattress so there is additional sleeping spaces for when her mother and grandmother come to visit this weekend.  A guy just up the street was giving away a very decent couch (on reflection, I think our current couch is better for sleeping, and with the aerobed in storage that's really sufficient, but whatever).  So I helped her move it to our apartment.  (Turns out he'd moved it from Seattle, but the doorways in his new apartment are so low/small that the couch -- which has an arched back -- won't fit.)  It's currently on our (closed-in) porch and I'm not entirely sure it'll fit through our top doorway, but we shall see.

Ari was super-punchy due to tiredness that night, but we ended up staying up talking forever.  (Not that we've ever done that before ;) )  We discussed tagging and other issues of categorizing information, as well as other issues in/around LJ.  So wonderful to discuss things with someone who gets it.

Thanks to the magic of joule, we learned that she and I have been mutually friended almost a year less long than she and sk8eeyore.  Yes, I flew down to Virginia in March to meet someone I had LJ-friended in November of the preceding year :)  [Though Sarah and I had been mutually friended since long before November 2004.]  And of course now that we're in the same state it's taken over a year for another meatspace meetup :)

We discussed Secret Slasha requesting and she mentioned Lilah/Fred as her f/f pairing of choice for Secret Slasha -- which reminded me that the Angelverse women were also an option.  Yeah, mine is totally gonna be an entirely f/f request.  (Affirmative Action, yay! ;) )  We talked about the issue of people not wanting to participate because they feel incapable of writing f/f (or m/m as the case may be) and I said that while I very much understood that, surely we could all think of two pairings and an any character we couldn't slash [translation: two slash pairings they can't write and one character they can't slash].  She fairly quickly came up with a personal Secret Slasha request list of undreaminess which I much concur with (though of course there are plenty of other requests I wouldn't want either) but it was interesting (and comforting) coming up with ideas as to how we could manage to write each of the requests (and Secret Slasha only requires that you fulfill one of the three requests you're given).  We also discussed the problem of liking a pairing but not liking how most of fandom tends to write it.

At one point, Ari (who was near the clock) said: I think we shouldn't go to church in the morning.  I'm hardly committed (had Trelawney been here I would have wanted her to meet her, but she's not) but I was surprised to hear that from her.  (I had forgotten she had already been twice this weekend.  Yeah seminary.)  She informed me that it was 4:42am.  my reaction: !!!  Yeah, we went to bed shortly thereafter.

Sunday

In contrast to yesterday's high of I think 83, today's predicted high was 67.  Hello, autumn.

We went to Little Joe's Coffee House around the corner so that Ari could get coffee that wasn't Instant Coffee of Grossness.  I'd never been in there before, but we learned that the ($2.75) Large Iced Coffee is huge.  (And yet there is even an Extra-Large option.)  Also there bumped into Mark (sp?) -- the couch guy.  He invited us to sit down with him, but we had to get Ari to her train.  (My house to South Station was an even 45 minutes.  Good to know.)  He talked to OriginalRoomie later and she invited him to the apartment-warming (with my okay).  Sure we barely know him, but he seemed cool (when we were moving the couch down his stairs he asked us if we wanted a beer or a soda, and he has two cats -- pound rescues, siblings -- named Milan and Prague) and yay neighbors, and they're be plenty of people around all day at the party, so it shouldn't be sketchy.  OriginalRoomie's inviting a couple area friends of hers as well.

At the Davis T Station there were wee Tufts students and I was so confused until I remembered that yes, Tufts has an undergrad program.  (NewRoomie is a grad student at Tufts, so I now think of it in that context exclusively.)

Tonight Joe IMed me -- lovely as always -- and I also had good AIM conversation with immortalavalamp riffing off of this article and with offbalance about Crash because I was going to see Jam.  (I basically went because Gina Torres is made of hotness.  I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend the film, but I did enjoy the experience.  Amusingly, Gina Torres' girlfriend in the film played Nancy in "The Wish."  I wasn't grabbed by any of the films looking at the BFF website, but looking at the actual booklet I'm tempted by a lot more.  Decisions, decisions.)

So, I finished my FemGen story and didn’t feel that it sucked. The recipient hasn’t feedbacked it yet (but she hasn’t posted her own fic for the ‘thon, so I figure she hasn’t read it yet) but I got 3 positive feedbacks. And zomg, one of them actually recced it on her journal. (Hey, Ari, she recced two of your fics.)

Also: I suck at coming up with requests when I’m signing up for ficathons, so for FemGen I put Dawn as my first request and River as my second, and my prompts were just words you could go a million ways with. Since they’re two of my favorite characters, I figured odds were in my favor that the fic I got wouldn’t suck... hopefully. Gee, can we tell that I’ve been burned in ficathons before? So I see alixtii is writing for me and he often writes good stuff and I hop over to his LJ and see it has River and Dawn and the Authorial Summary is “There are only so many stories,” and we all know what a sucker I am for stories.

Oh so much to read. (And I feel lame that I spent so much time in front of the tv screen tonight when I could have been reading lj entries of substance or whatever.)

Five Things Archive (for Five Things... stories in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel the series 'verse)

Multifandom Feedback Challenge (signups end Jan. 13)
I think there was something like this a while back and I meant to go through the works of the authors who signed up ‘cause people who *want* feedback are exciting, but I don’t think I ever did. Anyway, I get whiny ‘cause no one comments on my stuff, so I signed up. Though now of course I am in one of my “Everything I have written is shite save a very few things” headspaces.

And I go back to work tomorrow -- a full 5-day week, a rarity -- and I've really gotta stop doing the late-to-bed thing. Three of us have to be up in ~5 hours, and we're all still up; though at least two of us are heading to bed shortly.

P.S. Postal rates went up.

The sun is out at 7:15 in the morning.  Who knew? :)

I left work early on Friday for the farewell drinks and had phear that Prof. N. would call while I was out and be grouchy that I couldn't do anything last minute for her, but no messages were waiting when I came in this morning.

I completely forgot to submit my etimesheet until last night so I had fear about that as it needs to be approved by Monday noon and my listed supervisor was out of town at a conference today, but it turns out Jessica is listed as my approver so it was fine.

So yeah, good day.

Did basically nothing since both profs were out.  (Technically I support 3 profs, but Prof. D. never asks me to do anything.)  Feedbacked about 30 fics [yes I have a mondo backlog of stuff I've read and I try really hard to feedback almost everything], which made me feel productive.

Had lunch with co-workers.  Conversation included Weight Watchers points.  Never thought I would miss the talk of the evils of Coke, but . . . food-related discussion that revolves around restriction diets, even when it's not done in any unhealthy dysfunctional way, discomfits me.

---

Am tempted to do Tara for fanfic100 -- probably because it's Tara week at femslash_minis, so I keep seeing lovely looking Tara fic on my flist.  Really I have enough on my plate, though -- plus the prompts kinda bore me.    Am excited that Scroll has claimed Dawn for crossovers100, though, 'cause Dawn=♥  And mollita's doing Mal and River for au100, so I might have to friend that comm as well.

Apparently I "WIN AT LIFE!!" for my Hansel/Gretel double-drabble. ♥ 'cause I do so love that fic.

Have been thinking of making a recs post within the week -- though as it nears on the first of the month I wonder if I should just skip it since I'll be doing a site update.

musesfool updated unfitforsociety and I was filled with joy to see so much overlap with this mythical list of mine since I know far more fannish types read her than do me, so I left her a comment and she replied, "I found the Angel and the Sandman cross off your recs page, so ... *g* // I admit, I haven't read a lot of Firefly fic that doesn't pop up on my flist, [snip] but I'd love to see more recs from you."

*is all warm and glowy inside*

Thursday night weather.com told me: Friday: high of 83, Saturday: high of 68.  Glee indeed.  Last night's low was 32!  Eventually I will close the windows, but for now there is no way I am shutting this air out.  And I do have blankets, after all.

The big weekend event was the surprise 50th anniversary party for Bob&Ruthie last night.  Was nice to see former-UCN people *not* at a funeral.

Ruthie had asked Bonnie (her daughter) not to throw a big party, but Bonnie already had it in the works.  "Just family," Ruthie said, -- but hey, we are her family, as somebody pointed out.  And she said her big worry was that people would be left out, but no one was.  (Jimmy -- Bonnie's son -- went through Ruthie's computer to get addresses, and the invitees were told to spread the word to anyone who had been left off the mailing list.)

When we arrived, we saw a young woman in a spaghetti strap shimmery magenta-pink dress and I realized it must be Kristi (Bonnie's daughter).  I immediately thought she was 16 -- 14 minimum.  She's 11.  (Jimmy's 16.)  She's tall -- though all straight lines -- and also has that easy confidence (nevemind high energy).

Eventually they opened up the dance floor, and her whole family seems to know how to swing dance, and when the music changed to stuff she didn't know she just faked it (and didn't care that she was dancing off-beat -- which I wouldn't even have noticed had she not mentioned it to me).  She took off her heels as her feet were hurting, and in her swirly dress I was reminded of River in "Objects in Space."  (Or really, River ever, since Joss is so in love with her feet.)

Has been about 11 years since I last saw that family -- i.e., since they moved down to the Cape area.

Also saw Hayley and Chelsey -- whom I used to babysit for and whom I've barely seen since they left UCN (while I was still in high school, I believe).  6th and 4th grade respectively.  Last time I saw them, that was approximately their ages.  They're much the same as I remember them, though also growing up.  Will be interesting to see whom they turn into.  I miss getting to see "my" kids grow up.

Did some unintended networking as I chatted with a woman I knew from my Food Pantry volunteering days who said there might be job opportunities at the company she works at.

Weekend glee included Justine loving my feedback on her "The Pillow Book of Inara Serra" latest installment.  ("You are the English Godess," she said.)

Ages back I wanted to link someone (probably Zia or Marauder) to monkeycrackmary's Rosie Cotton thoughts, but she had done lots of Internet freshstarting and I couldn't find it.  But lots of her website is back now, and rosiesamfrodo.com has this (see this in particular).

fabu has Pirates of the Caribbean Ghost Stories Challenge.  In her previous post she mentioned her Multifandom Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) Challenge from last year, which made me think of fox1013's Firefly fic Day of the Dead.

From this article on Serenity:

Although the big screen adventure presents the same challenges for the crew, there were new ones to overcome for first-time movie director Whedon.

"It's a question of opening it up, and it's a question of closing it down," Whedon said. "You know, opening it up in the sense of: We need a giant, epic story that is not the kind of thing these people usually get involved in in a TV series, which is more mundane. You need a reason for this to be a movie. The closing comes in making sure that it is accessible to everybody: that you explain everybody as much as you need to, that you explain the world as much as you need to, that you begin and you end, that you have an arc for the character, as well as a plot that has a question and then an answer."

Whether or not Whedon succeeded in this endeavour, he evidently fired the enthusiasm of at least some of his cast for any sequels that might follow.

"Yes, I'm looking forward to sequels," said Morena Baccarin in an interview in Starlog magazine. "I would like to do anything Joss Whedon ever does.”

She described “Serenity” as an amazing movie and had no hesitation in recommending it to fans.

“The movie will be a roller-coaster ride for audiences and that’s what is so great about it,” she said. “It’s really funny; I’ve seen it three times and I laugh every time. But it’s also heart-breaking and gut-wrenching.”

Why is it that the more pressing something is, the less motivation i have to get it done? So much fandom these past couple days, so little homework. My seminar paper is eating my brain, though -- in a good way. I've gone through all the tales i have on hand (save Zipes) and included in my preliminary bibliography all the short stories and poems i suspect i'll be using, though some of them may only be passing references, and others may end up not getting incorporated at all. I haven't yet read all the nonfiction i have, so the secondary sources are just books rather than specific articles. My preliminary bibliography does not include any of the stuff from my second ILL round (i.e. the books i don't yet have in my possession). I also keep finding more stuff on the web via SurLaLune. Oh and then there's the academic databases stuff, some of which i'm ILL-ing and some of which i have to go fetch. Currently my preliminary bibliography is nearly 3 pages long.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is, like Frankenstein, a story which has become part of the collective consciousness, but whose original form was rather more complex and also just different.

     "I suppose, Lanyon," said he [Mr. Utterson, whom the narrative follows], "you and I must be the two oldest friends Henry Jekyll has."
     "I wish the friends were younger," chuckled Dr. Lanyon. "But I suppose we are. And what of that? I see little of him now. [...] would have estranged Damon and Pythias" *coughs* [Fandom!Dork sidenote: Axis of Pythia]
To someone who doesn't know the story (or, ya know, to the people living in the story) it looks like Jekyll cut off ties with everyone and gave this brutish newcomer Hyde intimate access to everything he had. That combined with talk about friendship at the beginning, and how Jekyll inspires visceral disgust/repulsion in people... It doesn't help that i was reading X-Men fic with Charles and Erik in the 1950s talking about homophiles and mutants. The pages that follow in the book don't help, though.
Utterson: "It turns me cold to think of this creature stealing like a thief to Harry's bedside; poor Harry [Jekyll], what a wakening!"
Jekyll to Utterson, re: Hyde: "But indeed, it isn't what you fancy; it is not as bad as that" (20) and "I only ask you to help him for my sake, when I am no longer here" (21).

NonAcademic Life:

Groove performed at tea on Friday. The woman who did "Walkin' in Memphis" was nowhere near as good as Emi. *tear* (I still lack an mp3 of that, btw -- the Emi performance, that is.) The woman doing "Wide Open Spaces" had a surprisingly strong voice, though. And they did "Bitch," which i love and which always makes me think of (Wes and) Lilah now, because i could have sworn i saw a fanvid once, though now i can't find it.

Katherine channel-surfed some before dinner, and one thing that was on was "Shells" (Angel 5.16). Emma said to change channels, 'cause she doesn't watch dark stuff, and then we hit Red Dragon (i recognized Azura Skye in her bit part, as i have a habit of doing) and she gushed about Hannibal Lecter. Oh the cognitive dissonance. (Not that it surprises me anymore. Titus, anyone?)

Min Ji: "Get your hands off my roommate."
Felicia: "But I like my hands on your roommate."
Me: "And you're the straight one?"

Emma: [something about the leather-clad Catherine Zeta-Jones in Ocean's Twelve]
Cat: "I really need to see that now."
Me: "Hey, that was my line. You're supposed to be straight."

After dinner we watched some more Blackadder the Third -- "Ink and Incapability," which pains me but i heart the bit with the Romantics, and "Nob and Nobility," which is not particularly memorable.

I didn't go to Rugby Prom on Saturday, but i did go with a friend to buy booze (and then to 7-11 'cause i'd been craving chocolate earlier) and got sucked into playing Taboo when we got back. I'd actually been kinda in the homework groove, so i thought i really should go back to it, but i'm a pushover, plus i figured they'd never lay off if i didn't. And yes, i did have a very good time.

Fandom:

I was two episodes behind on ats_nolimits. (6.11: Waking The Dead by soundingsea, 6.12: Legacy by stakebait) Really glad i watched read them in immediate succession. Not sure they got a certain character's voice quite spot-on, but quality writing nonetheless.

tartanshell started a feedback meme, basically saying, "If you read a story of mine and didn't send me feedback, just drop me a line and tell me you read it."

I've been trying really hard to feedback everything i read. (Well, everything i like anyway. Saying "This fic didn't really do it for me" seems rather mean.) When i rec, i try not to link to LJ entries, but it occurs to me that with LJ entries it's easy to leave a comment saying "This was great" whereas e-mailing an author takes additional effort and there's also often a feeling of obligation to say something substantial.

There's another meme:

Off the top of your head, right now, what ten 'ships would you likely drop what you're doing to read fic for. Or, alternately, what are the top ten ships that you'll give a fic a chance for, or that you've been dying to write, or that you've been dying to read.... These can be new loves, old flames, or something in between. Explain if you like, but you don't have to. Then tell us 3 things these ships say about you. Leave a comment about what you think these ships say about me, then repeat in your own LJ.

Thing is, most of the 'ships i'm particularly interested in seeing at the moment are cracktastic ones inspired by stuff we've read in Telling and Retelling. And to speak more generally, i'm easily influenced by stuff i've read recently in terms of ships and characters and even fandoms (hello X-Men and TNG) that i wanna see more of. As for stuff i wanna write, well that's a whole lot of stuff-in-progress and which one(s) i'm inclined to work on fluctuates.

paranoidkitten's doing a femslash ficathon over at bsclove. (Signups end April 9.)

mpoetess posts bad euphemisms for female masturbation.

Everyone, go fill out the survey for Paige's fanfic&sexuality paper.