burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

[LJ kept refusing to let the update go through last night, so, posting this morning.]

Sun. Dec. 30, 2012

As it turned out, the blacktop of College Ave. was well-cleared, so I actually could have biked to church -- avoiding the whole "walking in the street" issue as the sidewalks were only intermittently cleared until about midway into Tufts campus (though there weren't many vehicles on the road, so I didn't feel unsafe) -- but I opted not to turn around and get my bike (in part because I had just chatted with Joan across the street about the fact that I wasn't biking today -- apparently she sees me biking a lot ... and is glad I wear a helmet).

It was after sunset that I came home, but the sidewalks didn't feel too dangerous to me, so I probably could have biked home fine, too (and there was even, to my surprise, enough clearing for me to have parked my bike where I normally park it across the street from morning church).

***

Unison Prayer of Confession

God,

You are big open love that knows no boundaries
And that can be hard on us.
Honestly, it would be easier to keep track of You if You were a little smaller,
A little less mobile.

You are everywhere,
But that includes so many places that we'd rather not be and we'd prefer that
You kept away from them too.
When you go there, it's hard for us to follow.

You are a wide-open welcome,
But we'd be more comfortable if you could be a little more selective -- just to keep things simple.
It's just a tough job, working a room as big as Yours, and it can make us feel small and lost.

You sent Jesus to us to help sort things out.
If we get confused, he said, just love one another.
Really, we'd like to know, what's so simple about that?

God, we can get lost in your big open love.
And not know how to find You.
Help us to stop trying to make You smaller so that our faith might feel bigger.
Be with us as we follow you into a world without walls.

***

"Joy Sadhana is a daily practice in the observation of joy."
-mylittleredgirl [more info]

After three days, Mary and Joseph found Jesus in the Temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard Jesus were amazed at Jesus' answers and understanding.
-Luke 2:46-47 (NRSV, alt.)

( joy sadhana )

After service this morning, Peter said he hoped we would get to the Crucifixion for Friday.  (Today's Gospel reading was Mark 12:1-11.)

I said that actually this lectionary jumps out of Mark for Good Friday and Maundy Thursday -- that Good Friday we jump into John with Peter's denial of Jesus.  But I said that we could rewrite the lectionary if he wanted to do the Crucifixion for Good Friday.  He said he did.  So I flipped through the NRSV I was holding to find it in Mark.  Then we talked about reading the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday -- the lectionary we've been using gives us a passage from Corinthians about the Last Supper, so again, I found it Mark.

Peter commented that it was strange that we didn't get the Last Supper and the Crucifixion.  I said they probably assume that you're going to evening service, where you'll get the full story.

Early in the conversation, I had commented that when I told FCS-Ian about the lectionary going off from what I would have expected, he had said, "I'm happy blindly following the lectionary," so clearly he didn't have strong feelings, so if Peter had strong preferences I'd be happy to do that.  (And I was actually really glad to get to do the story in Mark for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.)

FCS-Ian said that one reason he was happy to just follow the lectionary was that he just assumed it would give us appropriate readings and didn't want to have to look up the Crucifixion/Last Supper in Mark himself.

I said, "That's why when I emailed you I copy-and-pasted the Maundy Thursday and Good Friday readings, because I knew you wouldn't look them up."

I said, "The answer to 'I don't want to look something up' can pretty much always be: Elizabeth will."
FCS-Ian: "You don't feel put-upon by that expectation?"
me: "No.  If I do it, then I know it gets done and it gets done properly."

As we were heading out, FCS-Ian said to me, "I'm surprised you don't bring your own Bible.  It must be work to de-genderize all the language.  Do you have a Bible that you like?"
I said I have The Inclusive Bible, which doesn't de-genderize as much as I would like (it still uses male pronouns for Jesus sometimes, for example), plus I walk so I don't really want to be carrying that much additional weight in my bag, and I've sometimes thought about printing out the lectionary reading (since I know in advance what it will be) and hand-editing it and bringing that, but that's killing so many trees...

At morning prayer this morning, our hymn was "With Joy Draw Water" (which at least is quasi-Advent) and the lectionary readings were Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Hebrews 10:10-18.

Nobody had much of anything to say during the Reflection time and then Billy (who has not impressed me with his intelligence, etc. thus far this Advent) asked what "Jesse's tree" is.

I said Jesse was either David's father or son, said, "I can't believe I don't know this -- I was just reading the genealogies recently." I skimmed the Matthean and Lukan genealogies and Jesse's name didn't jump out at me, and Joan(?) said something about Solomon, and I flipped back to the books of Samuel (at this point I had processed my memories of the few episodes of Kings I had seen and was certain that Jesse was David's parent) and started skimming those and said, "I am so ashamed that none of us know this." (Present were: Tim D., Ellie and Billy, Joan, me, and FCS-Ian.) I did find:

Samuel Anoints David

God said to Samuel, ‘How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.’

I was still ashamed that I didn't know where to look for Solomon (whom Wikipedia informs me is David's son -- which someone this morning had suggested).

***

In other news, FCS-Ian doesn't have work next week and neither does Joan, so there is talk of post-prayer breakfast. Which I could do if I went to the gym on my lunch hour.

Friday

I downloaded Firefox 2.0.0.4 on my work computer.
I'm not sure how I feel about the glossy gray rounded edge style.
It gives me the red-underline spellcheck in all windows where there's a composing box, which is neat.
I'm really not sure how I feel about the fact that the close tab is on the active tab itself, not off at the end -- so you can't just quickly click closed a lot of them (unless you start at the far right end).
Also interesting (and kind of annoying), only a limited number of tabs are shown, so you have to use the drop-down menu at the end of the bar to select other ones -- though this does mean you can actually read the titles of your open tabs (the ones that are showing) which ultimately makes navigation easier.

In other news: I am tempted to switch to S2 so for the ease of seeing what other tags an entry has when viewing by tag [I also really like the sidebar of tiered tags -- as seen on emotionalperil, marginalia, nikitangel, etc.,], but I hate S2 on principle, and it's so unwieldy.  Okay, my S1 mainpage ("lastn") style is tweaked from one that someone had already customized, but still, not that hard -- whereas S2 so often feels non-intuitive to me.  *growls*

[I also continue to be annoyed by people who force their styles on the comment page.  I have my flist set to give me ?style=mine, but when I'm browsing other journals, or visiting from Message Center or Memories, I have it inflicted on me.  Yes, I know there are GreaseMonkey scripts for that.  But still.]

And so often I'm browsing journals of people who do have S2 and it makes me sad that their entries aren't (consistently) tagged.  Hi, "cataloguer at heart" = no lie.

/complaint (for the moment, on that topic, anyway)

***

The book my mom's boss is co-writing, turns out they don't need the References, which is good news for her in that she doesn't have to format them, but this makes the baby jesus me cry 'cause it's a nonfiction book, how can you not include References?  And it's easy to list them all in the back, so it's not like they're gonna infringe on your reading experience.  Are people really gonna be intimidated by the presence of superscript numerals?  Oh the irony that the title is: "Come on, People! On the Path from Victims to Victors."

I felt tired after dinner (had kinda napped on the train ride home) but obviously 7:30pm is a bit early to go to bed -- especially when you're sleeping on the living room couch.

Excluding West Wing at work, this is the most tv I've watched in I don't know how long.

We watched Jeopardy (trivia learned: W. H. Harrison was the first POTUS to die in office).

My brother channel-surfed during the commercial breaks, so we watched a large chunk of The Simpsons -- "Eight Misbehavin' " [11.07] -- and some snippets Malcolm in the Middle -- "Secret Boyfriend" [7.06].

I was frequently like dead from laughter at The Simpsons.  For shame.  Hi, that show is not allowed to be that funny.

Malcolm in the Middle had a character who struck me as a Topanga knock-off, and my brother said I should know the actress, and indeed, it was Hayden Panettiere.

A couple minutes before 8:00 it was pointed out that Smackdown would be on soon.  Aww, father-daughter bonding.  ( Read more... )

I also saw more commercials than I have in ages. ( Read more... )

Saturday

My great-aunt Grace died early in June, and we went down to Falmouth for the Memorial Mass.  ( Read more... )

I finally went to Keegan's to get my watchband fixed/replaced. I also stopped by the library -- in part because I was purposely postponing going home to where OriginalRoomie's high-energy chatty family would be waiting.

I was wearing my light blue shirt, Beth said it was a great color on me, was in fact my color.  I tend to prefer darker colors, but I can see that.  (And she didn't ask me if I'd lost weight!  Which, okay, is Marcia's schtick, but still.  I don't actually have weight issues, but I get so tired of the idea that looking good clearly equals looking thinner.)  She said, "You look great -- better than you ever have before.  Whatever you're doing must agree with you."

I told her I was learning ASL, and she said she'd learned some way back in the day but forgotten most of it now.  But she signed that sentence, which I was impressed by.

I really should check out Simmons' night school program.  She said she thought if I went into librarianship I should become an academic librarian -- academic or some specialty like business, law, medical library.  People tell me this, and I'm honestly not sure it's true, but I haven't hashed out exactly what "being a librarian" would look like for me ideally, so I just nod at people.
She said she can see me running my own library (♥!) and if I ever need reference letters, let them know :)

I forget how it came up, but my dad and I finally looked up "que sera sera."  Was nice to know that we're right that in Spanish it would be "Lo que será, será.

There has been some minor controversy about the reputed language of the song title. The phrase "Que sera, sera" was an alteration by the songwriters of a quasi-Italian phrase, "Che sara, sara," a fictional family motto in the 1954 film The Barefoot Contessa. It is not Spanish, Italian, or French (but is acceptable in spoken Portuguese). The correct Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese renderings of the phrase are: 
* Portuguese: O que será, será
* Spanish: Lo que será, será
* Italian: Quello che sarà, sarà
* French: Ce qui sera, sera.
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Que_sera_sera#Trivia

I saw Mrs. Leary on my way back to the train, and she mentioned Glasgow.  I'd heard about London, but Glasgow was news to me.  Sigh.  Last time I flew overseas people worried (it was summer of 2003, so people were still recovering from 9/11; I memoried this entry as "i'm not afraid of flying overseas even with a war") and I'm not enjoying starting to have these conversations again.

OriginalRoomie's family was actually not overwhelming (and they did dishes and bought lots of food including booze and ice cream).

My "For the Next X: A Benefit CD for RAINN" arrived, and I am underwhelmed.  Anyone want it?

Sunday

I thought my string of dreams of destruction was over, but this morning I had an extended dream which was not only full of destruction but also actually hit me on an emotional level, as the previous string of dreams hadn't.

As I walked to the laundromat, a car drove by and a guy in it yelled, "Happy Canada Day."

OriginalRoomie's mom's chattiness is starting to grate on me.

However, she asked about where to go to get a new parking pass.  I hadn't realized mine expired Jan. 1 rather than 12 months after I got it, so that was good.  I have definitely been loaning them to visitors, though, and no one has told me they've gotten a ticket.

And they keep washing our dishes, so I can't complain too much.

Do I want to even have a birthday party this year?  I'm already planning to party two weekends in a row, and the Saturday that looks like it'll work better for more people is the date of the CWM benefit concert.

Monday

I slept for ~9 hours.  Rock.

OriginalRoomie's mom gave me a heart-shaped throw pillow with an American flag design.  Um, okay.  Last time she gave me a couple of nice gold-and-black ones.

I did a couple errands and went to the gym.
I was kinda tired, so I started in the weight room, did a few of the machines.
I decided to try the the StairMaster.  Intensity ranges from 1 (lowest) to 20 (highest).  I started at 1, which felt obscenely slow, and ended up spending most of my time at 7 (my average was 6.3).
I am not a fan of the machine.  I kept stepping too far forward and thus smushing my shoe, and I felt like I had to keep watching the stairs because if I wasn't I would get off rhythm and that would be bad.  I also felt like I was being bad to my back, like I was leaning down funny or something, but I couldn't figure out how to do it right.
I had plugged in 20minutes (Fat Burner program, 'cause why not), but I stopped at 10min 'cause I didn't feel like dying.
workout summary: 41 flights of stairs, 0.84miles

I stopped by the office to see if Katie had killed herself from boredom yet :) and chatted with her and Greg for an hour or two.
Katie said her mom has been stressing for the past 8 weeks trying to find a dress to wear to her cousin's wedding.  This led to conversations about how when it's your own kid's wedding, and I insisted that my parents were not of that sort, was like, "They will wear clothes..." though this then prompted ideas (which I did not voice) about having a nude wedding.  Which then reminded me of a recent conversation with Katie about a wedding one of her roommates is going to which will have a pig roast.  I'm a vegetarian so of course I'm opposed to this in principle, but I also thought it would be such a great visual to have a giant pig roasting on a spit.  Katie was joking about going dressed in tattered clothes with a nametag saying "Simon" and going off to die in the bushes.

I felt like I should go clothes shopping but was really not excited about that.  Meh.  Tomorrow will be more productive.

I saw Katherine from CHPC on my way out of the T station.  She's reading Jasper Fforde, on her son's recommendation.  Yay.
I hadn't realized they lived right on Curtis St. so close to Davis Square (for some reason I thought they lived up toward Medford).

What is up with our disappearing trash barrels?  I know we started out with 3 (I recall boggling that we filled them up since there were only 5 of us living in bathe house, and my family of 4 growing up would fill up one trash bag maybe 3/4 of the way each week) but we've had 2 for a while now, but tonight we were down to 1. [Edit: Turns out DownstairsNeighbors are moving to a place closer to the Square, but I think all the trash barrels pre-dated them anyway, so that doesn't help.]

I do not react well to people fussing over me -- which I think is a control freak thing.
OriginalRoomie's grandma was moving stuff in the fridge so I could fit my stuff in when I came back with groceries, and I was like, "No, it's fine, I'll make it fit, don't worry about it {flaps hands}."

Hi, it's my birthday in a week.  Craziness.

So, one of the profs in our unit (Andy) used to help run the Patriots. He, another prof (Jim), and Prof.B. were standing in front of my desk, and Prof.B. was asking if Andy had read the Globe today and how he had to read this article on Vinatieri and Andy was asking who wrote it and of course Prof.B. doesn't pay attention to that 'cause he doesn't know the writers like Andy does.

Now, I can't even spell Vinatieri, but being me of course I had to find the article. boston.com wasn't giving it to me, I GoogleNewsed, and today's Boston Globe was the top link. So I said, "The Jackie MacMullan article?" as the printer was sending out two Printer Friendly copies.

Jim said, "This has to be a setup. No one is that efficient."
I protested that I never read the Sports Page and that I just got curious listening to them. (Which I know sounds ridiculous, but those who know me know it is SO TRUE for me.)
Prof.B. said something about how I could anticipate what was needed -- which prompted Andy to ask for the notes from the meeting they were about to have in advance :)

Yeah, I'm over my earlier rage at Prof.B. (Especially since the rage-inducing situation got resolved fairly easily.)

[P.S. Boston.com totally has a Del.icio.us embed. Wow.]

So, it wasn't until i'd taken a nap that it dawned on me that i had handed in my last undergraduate paper ever.  Weirdness.

Of course, now i feel like i'm all done, but i do in fact have one exam left.  I cannot dissolve into fanfic and reading all the non-LRRH stories in the collections i have out from the library just yet.  (I am also definitely behind on reading all the interesting links in recent su_herald and metafandom posts.)

Friday i handed in a bunch of things, had ice cream at Chapin lawn, and then more foodage at the Alumnae House.  Wow the percentage of seniors i didn't recognize at all.  Apparently my graduating class is 734.  *boggles*  Emma and i talked about how while i enjoy the lovely weather, i tend to not be seasonal affective and the weather that really gets me excited is the snow and the bitter cold.  Insert parallel to my enjoyment of rip-your-heart-out-and-step-on-it fic here.  That night, i went to the MFA dance concert, which i left early to attend the one-acts, the last of which was Rocky Horror does Russian lit (based on short story "A Feast at Countess Kotlubay's" by Witold Gombrowicz, adapted by Michael Hackett and Anna Krajewska-Wieczorek) which was so worth going for (though the other two plays were certainly good as well).  Then i came home and went to Emma's room where we watched some Monty Python including the "I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay" sketch, followed by Vampire Hunter D: Blood Lust.

After that, the seminar paper pretty much owned me all weekend.  And i did fun things like sleep through brunch both days, so i really didn't see people (so not intentional).

I did go to the end-of-year department party on Monday, though.

I bumped into one of the SCMA guards on my way there, and she was advice-ful re: massage therapy programs.  Apparently there are some good local programs.  Much though i would love to return to the Valley, that would require income to pay rent, so i think i'm gonna focus on Boston area (read: commutable to from my parents' house) programs.

(A friend's away message: "I am doing work for finals. Come rescue me. I am willing to trade sexual favors for a really killer back rub. If there is a lack of shirts and lotion involved, I'll consider indentured servitude.")

So many spawnlets.  And they all seem to be friends with each other, which is sweet.  Floyd's daughter Clare is so maternal big sisterly with her little brother.  And mt's eldest looks so grown up, though the twins still bond to his hip.

A trio of spawnlets were on one of the couches behind the band.  mt said they were "the Pips and the Supremes," and Aex said, "they've figured out that all they have to do is sit there and they just radiate."

c.christ was there for at least some of the performance, but this totally didn't mean the performace was any less crazy than usual.  "Wild thing, I think I love you... wild thing, I think you move me, but I want to know for sure; come on and squeeze me... wild thing, I think you move me, but I want to know for sure; come on and, do things I can't say in front of the kids."

And by request they did  "Don't Stop Believing."  I watched the audience more this time than i usually do at their performances -- in part because of my position on the side of the room.  Luc's babe is so in training to be a rockstar.

The musical stylings of their performances can basically be described as "really loud," but i so enjoy watching them.

I wore my new dept. t-shirt over my NaNoWriMo 2002 baseball tee, and at least 2 people wanted a t-shirt (though Auden Thesis told Gorra she wasn't a fan) and when i went to Bobbie's office around 2pm she said she'd already had 4 non-seniors come by wanting one.  (For you non-seniors: stop by her office on Thursday or Friday to get one.)
I don't know what a better slogan would be -- and honestly i don't care.  (Though i was thinking about how an old one was a Wordsworth pun and was reminded of "Get her words out," which of course sounds so dirty to me now thanks to Amy Foxlet.)

Props to Gorra for ordering 2 sets of food so everyone was well-fed.  No props to the clump of 3 girls who had to be told individually that no, we were not opening the food until the band was done playing.

Alex has a pink snakeskin flask.  She said it had vodka, for her and Steve 'cause they don't drink beer.  Gorra brought them 4 times as much beer as they usually get, so they were sharing with assorted adults.  I stayed to help clean up, and there was beer left over, so i snagged a Sam Adams (Seasonal Brew) White Ale.  Craig didn't ask me if i was 21 until he was actually opening it for me.  I felt so frat boy walking around with my beer bottle.

I have officially made it through 4 years (8 semesters) at Smith without ever participating in Primal Scream.  I just never feel that stressed at the time of Primal Scream, plus screaming doesn't feel cathartic to me the way other things do.

---

Notes from seminar paper writing:

Jeff VanderMeer is stupid sometimes.  Of The Bloody Chamber, he writes: "The title story is probably among the most textually complex takes on Bluebeard, but to what effect? Nothing comes of it because, unlike the other stories, it adds nothing new to the original except ( spoiler for ending )" and doesn't say anything about "The Courtship of Mr. Lyon," which i think of all the tales in the collection adds the least to the original.

And Chase and Teasley are on shaky ground with their arguments in "Little Red Riding Hood: Werewolf and Prostitute" (Historian, Summer95).

But you can't beat Barbara G. Walker's Feminist Fairy Tales.  It had Emma defending aspects of Christianity.  The Publishers Weekly review made me want to cry (in that i now have difficulty mustering any respect for Publishers Weekly).

Latest IMDb timewaster: You know how the first line under a movie is Genre? (Vampire Hunter D has 9)  Well if you click on "(more)" you get plot keywords, which are not only at times amusing but are all links, so you can learn weep-inducing things like that "based-on-book" gets 2609 matches, and amusing things like that "vampire-slayer" gets 62 and "vampire-human-love" gets 9 (none of which are Whedon, though he tops the -- alphabetical list -- for "vampire-slayer") and that only 54 titles have "poetic-justice" as a keyword...  How do they pick these keywords anyway?  My favorites from Whedon's shows are: BtVS: bleach blond, Firefly: nose bleeding, Angel: homosexual demon.

Clint Mansell's "Requiem for a Dream" ("Power Play" vid)?  Not sure how i feel about that as music-to-write-papers by.  (At least it was a better choice Inara vid to Patty Griffin's "May" which i did last semester and which made me cry.)

The research for my LRRH seminar paper was rather more fun than the writing of it but if you wanna read it, lemme know.  (Obvious warning:  it spoils major plot points for, well, every work cited.)  I'm e-mailing copies to 4 people at last count.

Why doesn't Little Red Riding Hood run away from the wolf right away?  Not only does she stop and talk with him, even giving him information about her destination, but she seems not to recognize him in her grandmother's bed.  Many modern retellings offer sexual motivations as an answer to this question, picking up themes that are latent in the traditional versions-although they are more explicit in some less well-known early versions.  This paper will examine LRRH as a willing participant in an assortment of tellings and retellings of this tale.

---

Going through the stuff i have in my room and am not keen to take with me.  I forgot i had chalk.  Anyone want that?  I should also probably give someone my white-board, huh?  I also still have my Pooh poster and my Buffy poster and about a billion novels.

I love the responses people gave to my "So, your date wants to make porn" poll.

There was a big bright beautiful rainbow stretching over the Winslow Building around 7:15 this evening. And a double one above it.

Yeah, i had to share. Begin normal recap now.

Beth IMed me tonight:
I am by no means a trend setter. I am a sheep. "Ba," I say. "Ba."
(Alluding to Aly having randomly IMed me last night.) I am so popular. And i neglected to mention in the last post, but i really want to visit Sharon/NYC this summer.

Speaking of whom, though she was away i IMed with 3 different people tonight re: tonight's Buffy episode before she came back. Rawk. Not a whole lot to say besides "I twitched at the end." More to say, yes, but that was really the overriding important sentiment. My mom held my hand at the end.

In happier news, work today. I knew i was home when i walked in to MML. That place is definitely my home away from home.

Margot asked about the situation at school and i said the furor had kinda fallen away in the stress of finals. I'm continually tempted to refer people to my LJ entries on the situation. But that would mean they could start reading my LJ. I think i'm gonna give everyone the link in next semester's mass update, anyway, but for the summer i think i'll just talk to library people. And i always have to keep in mind how public this is when posting about dysfunctional relationships. So because i don't really need to post everything about my life on here, i am simply going to say, it is really good for one's self-esteem to be wanted, even if it's something that needs to never be acted on and causes me to spend too much time in moral grey areas.

Beth got to ramble about the aw-ness that is her girlfriend. Yay. Happy lovelife rambling is so much better than depressing lovelife rambling.

I looked up a couple Buffy quotes for Beth during our convo and said, "this is why i am destined to be a research librarian, dammit" and she said, "You really, really are." The more i think about it, the more i seriously think librarian is what i wanna do. Just haven't decided whether i wanna do circulation or reference.

Why You Should Fall to Your Knees And Worship a [Reference] Librarian

And because i like linking to interesting journal entries. (The writer is a Smithie, so i definitely identified with bits, especially the second paragraph.)

Despite much procrastination, i insisted on finishing my damn Othello paper tonight. It’s only 3 pages, but the assignment says “about 4 pages,” and how much can you write about one scene, really? And i know i’m going to revise after i’ve gotten some sleep.

I bought a new pair of blue jeans today and realized that the khaki pants which i have grown so fond of are from Land’s End, so i can easily have my mom order another pair. I also did laundry today. I really should vacuum.

I got an invitation to the S.O.S. (Service Organization of Smith) Volunteer Recognition dinner. It’s the day Jonah’s gonna be here, so i have to decline, but i get to feel cool anyway.

When i was at Forbes on Friday the nice lady who works there whom i talk to mentioned Smith students working there through work-study. The Jolt pointed me to Work-Study Job Listings for the 2002-03 academic year. Hooray for jobs i actually want to do. Work-study was part of my financial aid for this year, but the only jobs i knew of available for first-years were working on the house kitchens/dining areas. Work i didn’t want to do for less money than i was used to making. Working at the library (and the bookstore) has so spoiled me. I am an 18-year-old college students who wants to love her job. I had plenty of money since i barely spent any of the money i made in my 3 years of working, so it wasn’t a problem, but after this year i have much less money and would like to have something of an income again, especially since some of my scholarships were non-renewable so i will be paying even more for my portion of tuition next year than i did this year.

Joe finally posted in his livejournal. Woo hoo. (Though i shouldn’t talk, ‘cause i didn’t post in mine until 3 days after i’d gotten it and it only took him two.) He said he’s looking forward to seeing me again and meeting some of the people i talk about. My first thought, of course, was if i show him around before the show we’ll get bad seats, but they have to go home that night so that cuts down on post-concert time. I think i’m actually more looking forward to seeing him and talking to him and stuff than i am about the concert. This is probably a combination of the fact that i adore him and the fact that i’m not a huge live concert person. I like seeing people live, and i’m definitely excited about my first Ani concert, but i can always listen to CDs and stuff. Real people are way more important than performances. (This is begging for an essay on how all interaction is performance. I am not going there.)

from conversation with Joe tonight:
JoeyD33011: yeah - so you have to meet Julie sometime this summer
VelmasLizard: definitely!
JoeyD33011: cause I'm talking to her and you
JoeyD33011: and you guys are the best
VelmasLizard: :-) I get on par with the mythical best friend Julie. I rock.
JoeyD33011: yeah you do
VelmasLizard: :-)

My roommate said i’m “like, an Internet Queen.” (She thinks she’s Internet incompetent, and i have masslive.com Yellow Pages Find a Business bookmarked, so i look up the phone number for Tea Pot for her. She was on the phone with a friend and said, “She’s looking it up in the Yellow Pages. See, I wouldn’t have thought of that.” And she wasn’t being sarcastic.)

(In which Sharon’s friend Kate proves that i am not the only person who totally lucked out with the parental assignage.)

This is why i worry that perhaps a job as a copy editor would drive me insane.

In my procrastination tonight i succumbed to slash-fic searching. I finally got the gay joke about Willow and Tara’s candle being “extra-flamey.” (the end scene of “New Moon Rising”) Color me slow. And the only reason i got it was because i had read something earlier today in which someone talked about being a flaming gay. Without that floating around in the back of my mind i don’t think i would have made the connection despite seeing the quote on a slash page. The term just really isn’t part of my vocabulary. I mean, i know what it means, but i don’t think i’ve ever heard it used except for gay men, and obviously at Smith there aren’t a whole lot of them. Oh, and i would like to just say that i had (A) forgotten how hard it can be to find BtVS/A:tS slash-fic and (B) not realized just how bad slash-fic can be. The story i read was an alternate universe in which everyone is alive and happy and polyamorous and speaking in totally unreal dialogue. It was just a lot of sex being had by people who happened to have the same names as BtVS and A:tS characters. It was bad. If it weren't so late i would have rewarded myself with a really good slash-fic, but i think sleep is a better reward right now.

( Erin wrote: Why is love never enough for people in real life? )