cool one. this side.

Ugh. Posting is hard. A lot has happened in two months, and not much of it has been of the good.

Two months ago tomorrow, on May 10, the Dart's mum died. It was the day after Mother's Day. I find that I still don't have the capacity to think too hard about those final weeks of her life and the broken days after her death. It just triggers this huge swell of anxiety and sadness in my chest, the about-to-vomit feeling I woke up with every morning for months and months.

We moved back to our own house in North Vancouver in late May and slowly adjusted to being in the real world again. The entire time I was living on the Island, I was disconnected from other people; I could see them moving and hear them talking, but I glided among them unseen. They didn't seem to be operating on the same plane of existence, like I could reach out and my arm would go straight through their bodies. Once after a long day in the palliative ward, I went grocery shopping. On the way through the shopping centre, a group of teenage boys came sauntering toward me, a mess of noise and bad hair. As we got closer to each other, they said hello, loudly and in that harassing tone used on women. I was almost past them before I realized they were directing it at me. It shocked me to the core, that they were treating me like I was there, in the world with them. I didn't feel anywhere near the world. I stopped in my tracks and actually responded, staggered by this sudden interaction. When I moved on, I heard them laughing behind me, "Did you see the look on her face?" Apparently I'd looked as astonished as I felt. On my way out of the mall, I crossed paths again with one of the boys from the group, and he felt the need to apologize to me and explain catcalling, like I'd maybe managed to go thirty years without having experienced it before: "When you see a woman who is... attractive you want to, uh, tell her that. Um, are you ok?" I guess I looked, on closer examination, kind of like hell.

I am now completely reintegrated with the world, but my dad has spent the last week on that other plane. His mother, my grandma, died last week. It was so sudden it seems impossible. She was one of those elderly people who had so many things wrong with her and still soldiered on that you came to believe that nothing could ever take her out: breast cancer in her seventies; two confirmed strokes and possibly more smaller ones; diabetes; debilitating arthritis that made walking an agony and stairs an impossibility. Two weeks ago she was at my house, drinking non-alcoholic beer and regaling us all with stories. Last Tuesday she decided to take a nap while my grandpa went down to the dining hall for lunch. When he came back, he found her dead.

I am very tired of this. The Dart is a mess. We grieve for our own losses and in the gaps we worry about those hit even harder: my grandpa, alone in a retirement home he despises, isolated further by deafness and vision loss; the Dart's dad, facing the years ahead without the love of his life, sleeping in the room where she died, rattling around in the dream home they built together just four years ago. I look at my parents and am afraid. I have one more interment to face this month and no faith in August's beneficence.

Is there some kind of recipe meme going around? Since I started writing this post a few days ago, I've seen several foody posts. I am all in favour of this, so let's dish about delicious things that are delicious! Mostly I explore the smitten kitchen archives -- unoriginal, I know -- but there are a couple things on my regular meal rotation that I stole from my flist and rlist and other internet spots.

( Links to recipes! And also a lot of commentary by me which I advise skipping. Oh, and a photo of a (not impressive) cake I made. )

Okay, your turn! Give me some new things to try. Each week I face menu planning with dread. Particularly wanted: an excellent naan recipe; a foolproof hamburger bun recipe; variations on risotto; all your favourite weekday standbys; any desserts ever, except those involving apples.

1. Holy balls, but I love that I can automatically track all the comments made to all the posts in the Dw comms I mod.

2. So, a while ago (months and months) gmail shortened their sidebar links. Inbox got to stay, Trash didn't, etc. You had to manually add back all the links you like having over there. Apparently I never added back Starred, which is ostensibly how I prioritize email I don't want to reply to right away but do want to get to eventually. What of it, you say? Well, because that link disappeared, I have been starring email for a loooooong time now and then never checking on it ever again!

I now have 78 Starred messages.

But I have declared today Productivity Monday, and I am going to get that Starred count down to something approaching Zero. If you get an email from me that is all "HEY GIRLFRIEND, REMEMBER THAT OCTOBER EPISODE OF MODERN FAMILY THAT MADE ME WANT TO SMOTHER MANNY TO MY CHEST INAPPROPRIATELY????? LET'S HOP IN OUR TIME TRAVEL BOX AND REMINISCE ABOUT THAT S'MORE, KAY?" it is because I am chasing this gmail dream.

It's more likely, though, that I'll reread most of my Starred messages and decide they weren't important enough to reply to after all. Nothing dulls the urgency of a Starred message like 5 months of purgatory.

3. I utterly abhor LJ's puny post and comment limits. RARR. RARRRRRRRRR.

4. Why is Bambi so needlessly, inaccurately, enragingly patriarchal?

10pm, in the kitchen

me and my family: Let's go see Avatar!
me: Pocahontas in space. White guilt and blue cat people. Onward!
nick: It's going to suck. But in 3D! Goggles, you guys. GOGGLES.
mum: Better yet, we have Cineplex gift certificates, so it will be free.
dad: It's at 10:40pm, though. You mother will never make it to the end.
mum: I will so!
dad: I bet you a two hour massage that you'll be snoring before the credits roll.
mum: Done! Except only a 10 minute massage, because you never follow through on a two hour anything.
me: Why aren't we in the car yet? We had to leave three minutes ago to get there on time.
mum: We have to figure out who's had the least to drink.
dad: I need to be drunk for this movie. So, not me. *pounds white wine*
mum: Haha! You're the one who'll be passed out! *pounds red wine*
me: Oh god, give me the keys.

( Read more... )

I am answering forgotten comments from September and gearing up to take care of some way overdue dotcoms_refresh business. While searching through my terrifying email inbox for relevant messages from wistfuljane, I came across a Nick & Norah drabble I sent to catechism just after having watched the movie.

Untitled
(Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist | Norah/Caroline | 100 words)

Caroline's head felt heavy, the heaviness that was just the worst when people wanted her to go places or unlock car doors, but made everything in the world turn wonderful when she could lie down on something soft.

"I love you, Norah." She nuzzled into Norah's pants. Norah's pants weren't soft at all; they were probably made of velcro, the scratchy side. She pressed in harder, smelled deli meat.

"Yeah," said Norah, and there was her hand, brushing at Caroline's hair.

"Home yet?"

"Soon, Caroline, soon."

That was too bad. She wished this part of the night could last forever.

* * * *

WHATTTTTTT. I barely even remember writing this, but now that I read it over, I'm pretty sure this was just a poor substitute for the long, drunken, pining Norah/Caroline college fic I really wanted to read. I find my attempts at fiction so hilarious. In my original email, I misspelt Norah's name the whole way through. That's 4% of all the words in it! Poor Pam, so often the recipient of such gems. Her only reply to me was "Why do Norah's pants smell like deli meat? Is pastrami vital to the plot?" YES, PAM, YESSSSSSSS.

Because I have a bit of a theme going here ("Things I wrote that make me die inside. Die of LAUGHTER.") perhaps now is the time to mention that many days ago I wrote a few thousand words of unfinished -- seriously, really unfinished -- commentfic for tearupthesky's Band of Jonas Brothers Commentfic Challenge: AWKWARD BONERS, Easy Academy AU, Nick/Selena/Nix with Dick there but not participating because I didn't get quite that far.

1. What is Band of Jonas Brothers? AHAHAHAHA, I'M NOT SURE IF I PITY OR ENVY THE PEOPLE ASKING THIS QUESTION.
2. When you put AWKWARD BONERS in the subject line of an LJ comment, and people reply to it, your email inbox immediately becomes 10000% more hilarious. Seeing Re: AWKWARD BONERS, Part 3 in there never ever gets old. I am seriously considering putting it as the subject of every comment I write from now until forever.

Thanks for all your kind words on my last post. The Dart's mum is in a lot less pain now that she's had radiation therapy, but she has pretty much lost the use of her legs. This is not at all uncommon for people who have secondary cancer in their bones, but it is pretty devastating to see nonetheless. There is such a marked decrease in independence and quality of life.* Her spirits are still high, though! I am generally the one left sobbing on the couch after waving them off at the ferry terminal.

To make up for being a hermit for several months, I'm going to do that listy meme thing that was so popular a while back. I'm doing it all in one post, though. This totally breaks the daily post rule of the meme, but like Ashlee Simpson-Wentz says, I'm a rule breaker. Who can't even post once a month let alone once a day.

day 01 | a song

I am currently listening to the album Honeysuckle Weeks by The Submarines. My friend A played You, Me, & the Bourgeoisie at one of her many housewarming parties last year (she moved a lot), and I though it was ace. So I asked her the name of the band and then kept it tucked up in my brain until this month, like a long-delayed gift to myself.

day 02 | a picture

I have made a gallery of pictures! It's like a What I Did on my Summer Vacation photo essay. Yeah, pretty much exactly as boring as that title implies. Maybe more so, because what I did was drywall. Sorry.

day 03 | a book

I haven't read it yet, but my mum is currently reading Catching Fire, the sequel to Hunger Games, and she has promised to lend it to me before giving it back to her school's librarian. CANNOT WAIT. READ FASTER, MUM.

day 04 | a site

http://www.babynamewizard.com

Baby name trends fascinate me. The Dart's parents gave me a baby name book last Christmas; they enjoy being the mostly-just-kidding-but-sort-of-serious grandchild-hungry set of parents. (Like a lot of things, this has taken on a dark edge recently, since it seems likely that the Dart's mother won't live to see any kids we may have.) The gift totally backfired on them because I LOVE those kinds of books, independently of my desire or lack thereof to procreate, and I spent the next week interrupting everyone's conversations to read passages aloud and chortle madly.

Recent posts on the site discussed the racial underpinnings of name-related urban legends, which dovetails nicely with my anti-racist reading. I haven't seen much that addresses queer/trans issues, but then I haven't read even half the posts there (I just pop by every so often and backread a few weeks). Baby naming is heavily gendered, though, so caveat lector.

day 05 | a youtube clip

I spent a few evenings in August laughing over The Guild.

day 06 | a quote

"Hey, hey, do you know what I need? I need a BeDazzler." -- The Dart

It is many months later, and this is still such a true statement. Please, sparkle us up, life. Don't be afraid to DAZZLE ME.

day 07 | whatever tickles your fancy

Things that tickle my fancy are, unsurprisingly, (a) stories and (b) Delicious.

Men With Brooms, Amy gen
(Why Can't I) Stop Where I Want To Stay by atrata [~10,000 words] - Author's Summary: Set [mostly] pre-movie. Amy spends four summers looking for the curling rocks, and finds something else entirely.

I put this beta off for a long, long time. We were both worried about where this story was headed (as in, we had no idea). In the end, I sent all my beta notes via text message while I was at a wedding reception. If that's not a ringing endorsement, I don't know what is!

Bandom, Brendon/Spencer
Brendon in Real Life by scoradh [6,554 words] - Author's Summary: Brendon deals with his feelings for Spencer in a very adult manner. | "I'm in jail," said Brendon. "You have to come bail me out, Spence, please?"

scoradh gave me a beta credit on this, but in reality I was a shitty friend this summer who scrawled down some first-pass thoughts and then disappeared into a pit of despair for a month or two. I refuse to feel guilty for my hermit-like existence, but I am still sorry for it. Sorry, Rachel!

Delicious
While hiding from my email inbox, I updated all my scripts to work after Delicious did a code push in August, and then a couple days ago, prompted by an enquiry by shaggirl on deliciouslymad, I added a brand new script that untruncates long tag & bundle names in the sidebar. Get them all here: http://userscripts.org/users/70246/scripts

*[ETA: Ugh, I have just realized how ableist I sound. God, sorry. Um. In this particular case, because the loss of mobility is directly linked to incurable cancer, it is very frightening to witness and forces us all to confront what we try very hard to avoid thinking about -- that is, of course, her mortality. I would not ordinarily assume a complete loss of independence was implied by anyone's inability to walk or that they had a lowered quality of life. Our house is an accessibility nightmare that hindered her every move, and her lower quality of life is more related to the pain she still feels, overall weakness and fatigue, and her loss of confidence in her ability to do the things she loves, like gardening. Am I just digging myself deeper? If so, I am sorry. Shutting up now.]

ARGH ARGH ARGH, something in my Firefox is playing video game propaganda on an endless loop and I cannot for the life of me figure out which of my 120 open tabs is the culprit. All I want to do is sit in my cool basement and listen to friggin New Perspective in a judgemental way, but Megan Fox will not shut up about how Bumblebee is her favourite transformer OH MY GOD SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP. Why the fuck do I have all these tabs? I hate my system.

OK fine I will just mute for a few minutes, post this post, and then tackle a restart maybe. (Restarting FF is like this epic tragedy for me, I am always terrified that I'll lose all my tabs or they will fail to open properly and lock up my system somehow because there are so many of them trying to load all at once. At 120 that's unlikely, but sometimes it's more like 350 in one window and another 50 scattered over a couple secondary windows and I get a twinge of panic just thinking about having to quit in that kind of situation.)

So! What's new, everyone? I live in Vancouver now.

It's werod.

Things of note:

1. There is a radio station here that I feel affection toward. They overplay songs all the time just like every other radio station, but generally they overplay songs that are actually on my ipod. Which is not to say they are necessarily good songs, just songs that intersect with my wretch taste. Like that Spoon song that plays in 17 Again while Zac gets out of his car (deliciously) and wears a leather jacket (really well)? Yeah, I have had that on repeat since May and now I get in my car and hear it on mainstream radio and I am all HOW IS THAT PLAYING, MY IPOD IS IN THE HOUSE! AND YET IT'S COMING FROM INSIDE THE CAR!?!?

Speaking of my car, it smells so good. I knew I missed Lex and the Dart. I also missed being able to get to places really fast and not having to carry bottles of wine 15 blocks in my backpack. I didn't know how much I missed just sitting in my car smelling its weird plastic-vinyl smell. Sometimes after I drop the Dart off at the Seabus in the morning I just sit there, stroking the steering wheel while I wait for 1901 to finish (I swear they play this every morning) and soaking in that familiar smell that I didn't even know my car had until I didn't experience it for three months.

2. One of the hardest things about moving is figuring out new rules about recycling. What numbers of plastic do they take? What do I do with drink containers? What the fuck does Mixed Paper mean? Metro Vancouver has this Zero Waste Goal or something, and if you go to the grocery store without your green Whole Foods cloth bags you may as well be wearing a t-shirt that reads "I Start Forest Fires, Kill Endangered Species and Also Smoke While Holding Babies." Worse, you look like you can't afford to shop at Whole Foods and might actually NEED to be in Walmart instead of just slumming it because it's on your way home.

Also, there is this thing called Garbage Day, which I've never had to deal with before. In Saskatoon, we just chucked our garbage in these enourmous community garbage cans that were clustered in the alley -- I have no idea what day they emptied those things, but it didn't matter because they were huge and you just threw stuff in there when you felt like it. Here they come once a week on a specific day and you have to have everything out by 7:30am SHARP because jesus, they are punctual. And then once you master that, your neighbourhood's day CHANGES as soon as there's a stat holiday and you have to retrain yourself. I dread August -- I think we get moved from Tuesday to Wednesday.

3. Vancouver's North Shore is basically carved into the side of a mountain range and it never, ever lets you forget that. Every dog walk I go on feels like I'm scaling a vertical wall. Actually, there is no such thing as a dog walk, there are only dog hikes. (I sound like I just learned this amazing fact, but I grew up here. Like, almost EXACTLY here. I now live 17 minutes from my parents' house.) Because of all this hiking, I see a lot of athletically inclined Vancouverites. They all seem to go for insane midday jogs up and down the cliff face, looking tanned and sweaty. I worry that I will get kicked out of the park for being slow, unattractive and way overdressed. Can they do that? It's Vancouver! I feel there are certain expectations to be met and I have all these Prairie shortcomings. Like not wearing my string bikini and belly button ring while I toil up Mount Seymour.

4. I need to find a job.

5. IT IS FUCKING HOT.

PS I didn't have any internet access for nearly 3 weeks this month and I am never going to scrape together enough time/will to backread that far. I know about The Young Veins and that Paul Gross finally got fugged for his terrible clothes. I also know that I am behind on email. If you believe there are other things I need to know, please tell them to me.

It's like the last week of school around here, kids. The countdown is getting critically down, way way down. Trying to cram in as much work, packing and partying as possible. My co-workers threw a little shindig for me this weekend and it was mighty fine. Also, they gave me an 8GB ipod nano, OH MY GODDDDD. I was not that great an employee! But I took it and ran and immediately began abusing the Genius playlist feature. Where has that shit been all my life? I am, like, playlist impaired, so this thing where it makes them FOR me is superduper, if occasionally fucked up. I have just heard some sweet tunes from my 2007 playlist of depression, yay! I've been treated so wrong, I've been treated so long, As if I'm becoming untouchable. That was almost my wedding waltz, ahahahaha, oh I was an awkward bride.

In an effort to get rid of furniture, I've started leaving it outside the garage under a big FREE sign. Best thing to happen today was coming home at midnight to discover that the hideous, hideously uncomfortable blue chair was nowhere in sight. Yessssss. I was worried that zero dollars might be too steep a price for that charming home accessory. Have a nice life, awful chair.

Anyone hitting their local Canadian jazz fest this year? I saw Alice Russell tonight, out of the UK, and I give that show loads of thumbs up. Some dancy uptempo original stuff, a couple soulful interpretations of familiar songs (7 Nation Army!) and great band interactions. Her vocal talent is seriously impressive, just a fab range. Plus: KEYTAR SOLO. And a song about lasers.

The weather has finally begun to turn toward summer, the trees have unfurled their pretty greenery and the citizens have begun to doff their clothing for a dip in the river. I was but a 30 second stroll away from the hip shopping district when I saw a woman in hot pink underwear and nothing else emerge from the water like a dripping, topless naiad.

catechism was here last weekend for a visit. As predicted, we spent most of it holed up in my living room, mainlining Canadian television. While there exist quite a number of good Canadian shows, even a few featuring Paul Gross, we managed to avoid those by watching all fourteen episodes of the CBC's first ever miniseries, Chasing Rainbows. I think it nearly killed me. For four days I skated a thin line between suicidal despair, murderous hatred and severe alcohol poisoning. Because Pam has no sense of self-preservation, she is currently devoting all of her energies to rewatching the episodes in 30 second intervals and posting painfully accurate recaps. Go read and laugh and pity the poor souls who have actually watched each and every one of these intolerably bad scenes (counting everyone in the entire world, it's probably still just the two of us).

[As I commented to Pam the other day, my own recap of the first ep would have looked like so: "MUD! RUNNING! PIGEONS! CHICKENS? NO CHICKENS?! FUCK YOUR BIRDS! FUCK HEADQUARTERS! BOXING! GUNFIRE! GIRL! RAT! WAR! ASS! EMO! LE SANDWICH? NAKED SEXY TIMES! EMO! COWARD! HERO! HAIRRRRRRR! THE RUNS! THE PRINCE! HALLUCINATIONS! BLINDFOLD! A REMINDER?!?! A REMINDER?!?!111!!!??! MUD WRESTLING! PRISON! TRUMPET! RACISM! POETRY OF DESPAIR! SONG OF DESPAIR! WEEPING! HOMECOMING! SHOE SHINING! SOMETHING ABOUT BANKS! PAULA THE PLAYA! SAMMY! $500!"

Hers is a lot better.]

I have only a month left before I move to Vancouver to join my puppy and my lovah in our new diggs, so until then I am trying to savour the Saskilano lifestyle. Last night I took off a bit early from work to hang on a rooftop deck and drink Coronas that were served in a bucket. Classic. Then when the wind picked up and the sun sank down, we crossed the road to go see TV On the Radio. KICK. ASS.

The show was sold out, so one member of our party who was ticketless went over early to see if they'd held back any tickets to sell at the door. No dice. Instead, he walked up to the guy who was passing out wristbands, got patted down, and ended up handing over his bag of weed in exchange for getting in. I had no idea you could do that! Of course, I also have never been at a show that cared less about who was supposed to be there. There were six people working the door, and not a single one of them even glanced at the people coming in. I had to talk to three of them before I found someone willing to take my ticket.

The venue was hot as hades and there was an unusually high number of drunk jock types passing out and getting hauled away by their friends, but the vibe was nevertheless amazing. Dirty Projectors opened and I was pretty taken with them, even though I could never figure out where the hell any of their songs were going. At one point I tried to dance along and my friend T tried to stop me: "Jesus Christ, what the fuck are you doing?" I guess my spastic motions to their crazy syncopated 7/8 timing or whatever were not so beautiful to look upon. What was kind of cool to look upon was the female vocalist/guitar player whom I named Rory Gilmore: Indie Rocker. The resemblance was uncanny from my distant balcony spot. I kept expecting her to spout witty banter about Proust and pop starlets. She did not. Because her name is actually Amber Coffman.

Here is one of their songs to try out: Knotty Pines - Dirty Projectors & David Byrne (MP3) (off the compilation album Dark Was the Night). If you like it, look for their new album being released in June, and in the meantime groove to 2007's Rise Above (ZIP). There is a lot of... vocalizing. And also... instrumenting.

For the main act, I left the stifling heat of the balcony for the slightly cooler temps of the floor, where I wisely decided to go no further than the stairs. Great view and no crowd surfers crushing me unexpectedly. (Crowd surfers at this hipster show. Were they feverish? Or just higher than usual? The air was thick with pot smoke.) I don't have much to say about the set other than wow, excellent. For a band that is so critically acclaimed and often musically dense, they played an unflaggingly energetic show. The entire floor danced and clapped and sang along. At one point their touring sax player tossed himself into the crowd and got passed around for a while, clambering back on the stage just in time for his next part. And sometime during their three song encore, one member poured a full bottle of water onto an auxiliary drumhead and proceeded to thrash the hell out of it, sending splashy plumes into the air where they caught the light spectacularly.

If you missed the TV On the Radio bandwagon, try out a song: Golden Age (MP3). Seriously, give it a listen. Oh, now you want more than a taste? Dear Science (ZIP).

( Back in the land of fandom... )

OH MY GOSH. Where do I ask people how Core 2 functions are supposed to be coded? I do not want to write code that goes against the beautiful new grain and I can't keep emailing poor afuna every time I have a dumb question.

Take, for example, custom friends colours. I have vague recollections of hating the way LJ layouts dealt with getting your friends colours on the Friends page. I don't quite remember *what* I disliked, I just know that it was clumsy and unintuitive. Possibly that aspect was limited to Flexible Squares? It was what I was most familiar with, so obviously I hated it the most, in a loving way.

I wrote a bit of S2 code today for a Core 2 theme layer that detects when custom colours are enabled and then shows them on the reading page. I would not say that it was a particularly graceful bit of code, though.

    var string friendbg;
    var string friendfg;
    var Page p = get_page();
    if ($p isa FriendsPage and $*use_custom_friend_colors) {
        var FriendsPage fp = $p as FriendsPage;
        var Friend f;  
        $f = $fp.friends{$this.journal.username};
        $friendbg = $f.bgcolor.as_string;
        $friendfg = $f.fgcolor.as_string;
    }

This can go in any of the Core 2 Entry printing methods, but if you want to show friends colours around the userpics and maybe change the border colour of the entry itself, you are looking at having to stick that whole chunk into two different Core 2 Entry methods.

It is the age-old question of whether to make the FriendsPage class override the entire Page::print_entry method, or to test the Page class type in the various Entry::print_x methods and cast it as necessary to extract the friends colours. I went with this second method, but SHOULD I HAVE?

As I type this, I am also remembering that some LJ layouts didn't do it this way at all. I think they got the FriendsPage class to include special css that had, like, class names matching your friends' names and then the specific colors were used in those classes' css. I am not sure how it worked in the S2 methods though -- did print_entry just check to see if the use_friends_colors property was set and if so include the appropriate friend-name class? Argh, the amount of information I have forgotten about S2 is sort of frustrating.

Tell me how all this should work, Dreamwidth!