get busy living or get busy dying

a. So I discovered this morning that Write or Die just doesn't work for me, mainly because if I write 100 words in an hour I think that's great progress. I wrote 81 in the last half an hour and I am deeply impressed with myself. It just doesn't really work on my kind of scale.

The point of which is to say that I still haven't finished the thing I was trying to write for harlequincepted, and writing is endlessly frustrating for me these days.

b. I'm not even going to bother spoiler-cutting for this anymore, because is there anyone who hasn't seen this movie who actually gives a shit? Probably not. So: do you think Arthur actually knows the circumstances surrounding Mal's death? Because I totally bet he was the first asshole who, when Cobb said, "they think I killed her," was like, "WELL DID YOU?" and Cobb was like WATCH IT OR YOU'RE NEXT and then they never spoke of it again.

That is what I think.

c. Tomorrow I get to go to the Biblioteca Nazionale, which is one of the weirdest places in Rome so far, because there is no ambient noise inside it. I'm so used to the constant noise of central Rome that when I walked into the library on Friday, I couldn't figure out what was wrong with the acoustics. It was only when I left that I realised how quiet it had been inside.

d. Which reminds me! I'm sure that nobody remembers this, because it happened like ten years ago in a fandom that's been dead almost as long, but back in popslash there was this challenge where writers picked a city or a state as a setting for a story, to give a sense of how much traveling the group actually did. So my question is, do you guys think there would be any interest in doing something similar in Inception? Because there's all kinds of stories set all over the world, but a lot of the time the setting is just incidental and could be pretty much anywhere, which is, I think, not quite as fun. idk!

Mostly I keep thinking about this because every time I walk past Santa Maria sopra Minerva (which is a lot, okay) I think about ifeelbetter's story where Eames breaks in there with Arthur one night and it's the most romantic thing ever. And also because I used to have stress dreams about this stretch of corridor in Termini station, and it was a massive shock to be back in it the other day. So you can see the connection.

e. I'm meeting with this historian who works in my field to talk about my research on Friday, and you know what's terrifying and intimidating? That. Because she's established and respected and I'm going to make an ass of myself. (See also: my relationship with my supervisor.) FANTASTIC.

f. Please settle an argument for me (I'm too lazy to make a poll): DOES THIS CONSTITUTE A NECKBEARD?

You are allowed to say yes and still want to fuck him.

First day of holiday:

Slept in until noon, sat around and did nothing, brought my wine-stained dress to the dry-cleaners, picked up groceries, read fic, made dinner, ate dinner, EPIC BEER FAIL in which I forgot to put the pack I bought over the weekend in the fridge and had to whack some in the freezer in desperation, now kicking back and reading an epically dull demographic history of early modern Europe.

Also, someone sent me this link earlier: Four or Five Guys Pretty Much Carry Whole Renaissance. Having read about half of my list on that kind of thing, the only real problem I have with the article is that they didn't give Jacob Burckhardt his due props. /historian joke.

On a totally unrelated topic: holiday comment fic? As in, anyone want one (not necessarily holiday themed)? :D?

I was in Indigo earlier, killing time, and this dude totally tried to pick me up in the history section. He was like, "are you looking for anything in particular?" and I told him no, and he kind of stood there looking at me awkwardly, so I asked, "are you?" and he said, "no, just looking. I haven't really read much history, but I'm really into Napoleon." I said, "that's cool." So he asked, "what about you? you read much?" and I was like, "um. yeah. I'm a historian." Then he asked me to recommend him a book, so I told him to read The Great Cat Massacre, and then I kind of ran away.

THEN, I ended up buying Keith Thomas' Religion and the Decline of Magic, which is one of those seminal works of anthropological history on the rationalization of religion in the premodern era (trust me on this one), and the cashier looked at it, and asked me, "have you read this?" and gestured at the massive display of the new Dan Brown book. I told him no, and he told me that I should because IT'S ABOUT BASICALLY THE SAME THING AS THE BOOK I WAS BUYING, like, how the Catholic church controls the world's magical symbols of power. I was like WHAT. I mean, WHAT.

Then I went to see Jennifer's Body with thissugarcane and her +1, thereby destroying my smart cred, and discovered that it was actually kind of awesome. I LEGIT LIKED IT, YOU GUYS.

1. I forgot to set my alarm last night. Not that I have to be anywhere in particular today, but I kind of needed those hours, kthx. I already had approximately zero motivation, and now I have even less. So instead of doing my own work, I'm going to torment myself with some transcriptions for my supervisor.

( Which is exciting! )

2. In related news, I totally just had to email my supervisor asking him to re-send an email that I actually received and read, because in the process of moving it from one folder to another in my inbox, I managed to corrupt it into unreadability. I am so fucking dumb sometimes.

3. My birthday was on Friday, and guys: I do not think I have ever been that drunk. I thought I was going to die. I was STILL DRUNK when I woke up the next morning, and had the most epic hangover later, from which I did not recover until about 8:30pm. It was worse than the time I drank two bottles of wine and threw up all over the bathroom, and then had to drive two hours to visit my grandparents after only three hours of sleep, having woken up drunk. (Note: I was not driving.) On the other hand, best birthday EVER, so I think it evens out.

4. startrekbigbang, y/y? Probably an exercise in futility for me (because I can never finish anything over 2000 words unless it's a paper), but I still kind of want to.

The phantom time hypothesis:

This ... gives reason to assume that a phantom period of approximately 300 years has been inserted between 600 AD to 900 AD, either by accident, by misinterpretation of documents or by deliberate falsification. This period and all events that are supposed to have happened therein never existed.

-- Franz-Ulrich Niemitz, "Did the Early Middle Ages Really Exist?", 1.

I laughed until I cried, and then I really cried when someone pointed out that eliminating 300 years of history makes me a medievalist. omgno.

I am pondering a very serious question, and that question is: do I want coffee badly enough to put on pants in order to get it?

In favour: said coffee would be free.

Against: I hate pants.

Further in favour: it would give me another 20 minutes in which I don't have to work on my dissertation.

:D


eta: Okay, that took way longer than anticipated. I went to Second Cup, and who should be there but Wayne The Artist, this local dude who used to come into the coffee shop I worked in last summer, who is an ARTIST, OKAY (and yet, a huge hoser), and who wasted a good twenty minutes of my time blathering about how much he looooooooooves the Renaissance and how amaaaaaazing Renaissance history is, and isn't it FABULOUS that I get to study Renaissance history, and it's just SO AMAZING, wow. And of course because I've reverted to Polite Canadian mode, I kept saying, "great, but I gotta go," but then KEPT STANDING THERE instead of just leaving. GOD. What is even wrong with me?

WEIRD.

I just got an email from Schmap (which I had never heard of before) telling me that they had shortlisted one of my photos on flickr for inclusion in their upcoming guide to Dublin. The weird part? The photo in question is this one, a shot of a Roman Inquisition sentence* blown up on a microfilm reader in Berkeley Library at TCD. Moreover, it's not a great photo, and has nothing to do with Dublin, and is also entirely unreadable unless one is versed in both Italian and 16th-century Italian notarial hand. And most importantly, I don't think I can even give them permission to include it (provided they'd even want to) because I had to sign a copyright release before I was allowed to look at the material myself. (and so I probably shouldn't have posted it on the internet to begin with, but whatever.)

* _{in which a priest is degraded, had his goods confiscated, sent to the galleys, and given a penance of five Pater Nosters and five Ave Marias daily. ♥ my heretic priests.}

Things I have wasted my night doing:

- recording and posting a ridiculous video of my hamster trying to escape from his cage on facebook;
- dithering on finding accommodation in Rome;
- booking a flight to Munich (June 16-19!);
- booking a flight HOME (AUGUST 20!!!).

Also, because I am a special kind of OCD, each time I check the word count on my paper, I turn it into a date and tell myself something that occurred in that year. So, 1588: the destruction of the Spanish armada. 1727: George II becomes king of Great Britain. And now, 1866: the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian war.

In other words: I would do anything not to have to write this paper.

History wank! Now with 100% less peer review process.

And because today is made of WIN, my flat is now "under investigation" for watching TV without a TV license.

...Despite the fact that the only TV we have in the flat is BROKEN. Good one, guys!