the mermaid cafe

I'm off work today because I had to go get a tooth crowned. They've streamlined the process since early last year, when I had to go one week for the preparation and then back again a week later for the installation - they did it all in one day today, with about a 30 minute break between parts 1 and 2, where I just sat in the exam chair and read my book on my phone. This time I had to stop them a couple of times during the first part because they just spray water everywhere without sufficient suction so I felt like I was drowning a couple of times. The dentist warned me about it ahead of time and was apologetic about it, so I didn't feel like I was too much of a problem patient for stopping so I could, you know, breathe. One of the things I like about this particular dentist (there's a bunch of them at the practice and I've seen most of them over the last 5 years) is that he tells you what he's going to go ahead of time and answers questions, and then he tells you each thing he's going to do during the process right before he does it, and he gives you a heads up as to how far along in the process you are/how much more time it's going to take. Because it's unpleasant, at best. I mean, I was all numbed up for it (so numbed that my right EYE was feeling numb - the tooth being crowned is on the top right way in the back - which is a real fucking weird feeling), but ugh. I'm sure there are probably other crowns in the future - they want to get out all those old, old silver fillings, and he said this tooth did crack while he was removing it, so we caught it before it happened on its own.

I'm glad I didn't get new glasses this year - that left $950 in my FSA, which I had to supplement to pick up the rest of the cost, because I do not know what my insurance will cover as the dentist is out of network. I know I should find someone in network (and preferably near my apartment instead of in Manhattan), but as mentioned above, I like this guy and I think that is an important factor with any medical practitioner if you can get it.

So I came home and took a 3 hour nap because I didn't sleep much last night due to anxiety over all of this. Oh, and I mailed my ballot for Mamdani. I'm very curious to see if his lead in the polls translates to winning the election or if all the people who are scared because he's Muslim will turn out for Cuomo (or Sliwa, I guess, but I cannot take him seriously as a candidate). We have tended to pick terrible mayors recently, so it'll be interesting to see how this all turns out.

And I guess I mentioned reading up there, so yes, I am in the middle of a reread of Blue Lily, Lily Blue, which I am enjoying! ♥BLUE♥ remains my favorite.

*

runpunkrun mentioned that there is now a graphic novel of The Raven Boys, which ignited in me a fierce urge to reread the series, so I've started that, and I still love it (♥BLUE♥! ♥RONAN♥! #the same impossible stuff), but I also kind of wish now that I didn't read the Dreamer trilogy (or that Stiefvater had written it differently), since it kind of recontextualizes (and potentially retcons) some stuff that I don't think really needed it.

*

The weather is beautiful but it's like nature flipped a switch and now my nose won't stop running. When it's not running, I am sneezing. Last night, I slept with a box of tissues clutched in my fist because it just didn't stop. Oy.

I unfortunately didn't get enough sleep, not because of the sneezing, though that didn't help, but because I stayed up until almost 2 am to finish reading Mister Impossible, the second in Stiefvater's Dreamer Trilogy.

I don't know how I feel about this book. Obviously it's kind of a page-turner because I stayed up long past my bedtime wanting to know what happened next, but I also feel like it doesn't quite fit into continuity with TRC? Not that Stiefvater has a strong continuity game even within a single book, but this Ronan didn't feel much like the Ronan who had come through those experiences, you know? I get that this is a separate trilogy that should stand on its own so she didn't want too many references back, but like, given the parallels, especially with Dream Thieves and Blue Lily, Lily Blue, I thought there might be more? Even the title - Gansey refers to Ronan and Blue as being made of the same impossible stuff, and yet...

( spoilers )

So yeah, I don't know how I feel about it.

*

ZOMG THIS DAY. Let us not even speak of people who don't tell you what they will need for a meeting until the day before and then keep revising their estimates of how many copies up and up and up until they are like, oh yeah, 55 copies of stuff I told you I only needed fifteen copies of in total. Boss4 needs to get her act together because she has no clue about how much time this stuff takes to pull together, especially since some of it needs to be printed on special glossy paper.

ANYWAY.

I was up later than usual last night reading (more on that below!) so I used a reward and got an extra shot in my iced latte, making it a quad and I was done with it much earlier than usual because as per above, work is being ridiculously busy, so at about 12:40 I went out to get a second iced latte, bringing my consumption of espresso shots up to 7 while not even having had breakfast yet, let alone lunch. I did pick up a banana though (remember Aunt Victoria's #1 life lesson: if you see a banana, take a banana) and then I felt like John McClane: Now I have a banana, ho ho ho!

Perhaps the caffeine is having more of an effect than I thought.

ANYWAY.

What I'm reading Wednesday!

What I've just finished
As mentioned above, I stayed up late last night to finish Call Down the Hawk because RONAN. ♥♥♥♥♥ He's such a jerk sometimes but I love him.

Without spoilers I will say that I enjoyed the book, though I didn't find it as immediately close to my heart as I did The Raven Boys - I think starting with Blue and Gansey was a great move, narratively (Blue and the 300 Fox Way ladies especially - I seriously would read a whole series about Maura and Calla and Persephone's adventures both pre and post TRC) - but after having read A Very Declan Christmas recently, I was much more kindly disposed to him than previously (I KNOW Ronan is not a reliable narrator, especially re: Declan, but I also think Declan mishandled some things as well) and of course who doesn't love Matthew?

However, as soon as ( spoilers from here on out )

So I probably shouldn't have raced through it because of how long I'm going to have to wait for the sequel, but I did and I regret nothing.

What I'm reading now
While I was waiting I finished a second recent reread of Six of Crows and so now I'm rereading Crooked Kingdom again. <333

What I'm reading next
When do I ever know once the new books I'm waiting for are out and read? Why do we even have this lever question???

***

Yesterday at work was all fire drill all day. For once it actually was urgent stuff treated urgently, except boss3 can't help herself from interrupting even when she's given me an actual high-priority thing to do. Like, I can't write three documents at the same time. Please stop interrupting. Meanwhile, another VP keeps asking me to schedule things for a different VP I do not support, so I'm constantly like, "I've cc'd Other Admin, who handles Other VP's calendar. Thanks!" I already have 4 bosses. I don't need any more. Thankfully, today is Friday and will hopefully be calmer.

All that aside, I know you have been anxiously awaiting an update on my toilet situation! Yes, it is fixed! Yes, the super agrees that maybe I should start thinking about a new toilet, because it's weird that the handle assembly stopped working so quickly - usually they last 2-3 years, not 4-5 months. He told me he'd be up in the afternoon when I called, and then didn't show. At 6:30 pm, he called to say he hadn't forgotten me, and he'd be up soon, so apparently I didn't actually need to take the day off (in truth, he could have just gone in and done it without me there, but I like to know what is happening, and also I'll take any excuse not to commute). He finally arrived and it took him a good 25-30 minutes to figure out just what had gone wrong - some piece of plastic had cracked. It's a tankless toilet, so I don't even know how to describe what the piece is, but it has to do with the part that is compressed when you press the handle to flush - not in the handle itself but in the middle piece. Anyway! It is fixed and the bucket is stowed away back in the closet for now, but come tax refund time, I might be looking at a new toilet.

This morning on the train, I was wondering what ever happened to that supposed tv adaptation of TRC, and how I only really have mental images of a couple of characters, and mostly they are too old to play them - Grant Gustin for Gansey and Zach Gilford (Matt Saracen) for Adam. Though I realized this time around I was picturing Matt Lanter as the Gray Man, and Regina King as Calla, so there's that. (I also imagine 1970s era Carol Kane as Persephone, but that seems even less useful as a fancast than most.)

***

The Good Place Employee of the Bearimy
( spoilers )

***

Yesterday, laurificus linked me to this post by Maggie Stiefvater and it's so horrifying and heartbreaking and enraging. I'm so glad that she got a diagnosis and treatment before anything totally irrevocable happened, but I know so many women - and I know you do too - who have had similar infuriating experiences with the American medical establishment.

Anyway, laurificus mentioned doing a TRC reread before Call Down the Hawk comes out on 11/5, and since I finished the book I was reading earlier, I think I might do that. I think I've only actually read TRK twice (I've read the rest of the series numerous times) so I could definitely stand to reread.

This morning, I was in a conference call that should have been a no-brainer but this is the only organization I've ever been in where people get into shouting matches over actuarial assumptions. It's ludicrous and yet it keeps happening! Those of us in the room just boggled at each other (the phone was on mute) while this went on. Seriously, it's ridiculous.

Also ridiculous, as in ridiculously good: last night's The Good Place: Tinker, Tailor, Demon, Spy! ( spoilers )

In other news, I woke up at about 4:25 this morning and didn't get back to sleep until almost 6, so I'm ready to be done for the day. Why do I still have 3 more hours to go? *sobs*

***

As I left work yesterday evening, firefighters had shut down the elevators so we had to walk down the stairs. Luckily, we're on the fifth floor, so it wasn't a long walk, but there's something really dizzying/disorienting about those stairwells.

And of course, my earbuds quit working, so I was tune-free for the commute. I can't complain though. Those $9 earbuds lasted 11 months (I bought them last Memorial Day weekend), which is the longest any set of earbuds has ever lasted for me (even the super expensive ones that professional musicians use that my dad bought me one year for Christmas - those lasted about 9 months before the right bud started getting intermittent). So I've got the crappy Apple ones that don't stay in my ears for now, until a new pair of the $9 ones arrive (they're these).

I did get a seat on the subway though, so I was able to start reading City of Miracles, which I guess can lead right into What I'm Reading Wednesday:

What I've just finished
I started a reread of The Raven Cycle last week on St. Mark's Eve, so I finished rereading The Raven Boys. It's the first time I've gone back since reading The Raven King, and I have to say there are still some loose ends (or things that seemed like they'd be important but weren't, e.g., Declan's girlfriend being smarter than they thought), but other things do appear early on (just one I noticed: the observation that Cabeswater is as literal as Ronan).

What I'm reading now
City of Miracles by Robert Bennett Jackson, book three of the Divine Cities trilogy, and while City of Stairs was about Shara, and City of Blades was about Mulaghesh, it seems City of Miracles is about Sigrud. SIGRUD! I have my suspicions about him, I tell you what.

I'm enjoying it so far, and I honestly can't recommend the first two books enough. If you like smart, thoughtful, well-written fantasy starring middle-aged ladies of color (and one dour yet dryly humorous ersatz Viking dude, the aforementioned Sigrud), you should read them! Some of the best books I've read over the past couple of years.

What I'm reading next
Well, I've still got Siege (Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit #2) and DC Bombshells vol 3 paused, plus there's the new MG Baze/Chirrut backstory book by Rucka, a new Trials of Apollo book, and in two weeks, a new Queen's Thief book, so it's all good going forward. Unusually, I will have answers to this question for a while!

***

Because of how my DVR works, I couldn't watch the half hour of the game from 8 pm to 8:30 pm, since it was recording both Brooklyn Nine Nine and the Flash, so I watched B99 live.

Brooklyn Nine Nine: Moo Moo
So this was Terry Crews and Andre Braugher's Emmy reel episode, yeah? I thought they both knocked it out of the park on their two major scenes together (the study and the roof), and I thought the writing did a great job of articulating why they'd have different viewpoints on how to respond to the situation without either of them being wrong, and then I LOVED LOVED LOVED the resolution they came to. I hope the repercussions continue to reverberate occasionally, too.

Meanwhile, Jake and Amy were adorable with Cagney and Lacey, and I kind of need to see all the missing scenes of Gina and Rosa's babysitting shenanigans.

And then I turned the game back on and Oscar Lindberg scored, so it was all good. *g*

***

Tried out the new bar in the neighborhood last night. The waitress was aggressively* friendly but the mozzarella in carrozza was really good, even if they put cilantro in the tomato sauce (and on everything else for some reason; I know, it's terrible, but I'm one of those anti-cilantro people), they have Allagash White on tap, and I got a free shot of tequila (my hand to god, I haven't had a shot of tequila since 1994, when it made me violently ill [I had not been drinking otherwise, so I can't blame it on alcohol in general]; luckily there were no such side effects last night), plus they turned the music down over our table so I could hear, and that was a big plus in my book, because with too much background noise, conversation is impossible.

*When she seated us, L. went into a whole spiel about how the bar before the bar before had been our fave and the waitress was like, "Well, I hope you have a good time and come back!" so it was, you know, customer-service friendly, not real-friendly, but it was still a little much for me personally. I'm always suspicious of people who are super friendly on first meeting, even when it's waitstaff who want good tips, because I have trust issues. I'm aware that this is something I need to work on.

Then I came home (I got soaked in the three block walk because it started to pour) and watched the Mets win (I turned the tv on and DeGrom was pinch hitting!) and then I watched the Sharks win in OT, which was good. At least they won't get swept? that would be sad. Hopefully they've woken up a little and the series will be a little less lopsided going forward.

Today I did some culling of my wardrobe and also the grocery shopping, because I am an adult, even though the latter required putting on pants and going outside. Now I'm going to watch The Force Awakens, I think, and then maybe some more TCW.

Speaking of Star Wars, selenak linked to this vid about the women of Star Wars: Formerly Known As No One, which builds really powerfully and covers three (possibly four, depending on what you believe about Rey's parentage) generations of Skywalker ladies, plus a few others from the movies at the end. (Sadly, none of the animated ladies made it in, that I noticed, though Ahsoka got name-checked at the end. I guess it's hard to mix animated and live-action sources.)

There's also this interesting piece of meta about how Padme and Palpatine were foils and how the prequels could have done way more with that than they actually did, given how they were from the same planet and their careers were intertwined, yet they were working towards opposite goals via some of the same means. She deserved so much better than what she got in those movies. I am just saying.

And jumping fandoms, via umadoshi, Safe as Life: A Four-Part Essay on Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle, a really interesting look at the series.

***

Last night, innie_darling and I went to see Helen Mirren be interviewed at the New York Public Library. The line to get in was tremendously long - I think the only other time I've seen it that long was for Neil Gaiman on Halloween (and maybe not even then).

She was fantastic - funny, smart, gracious (but willing to shut down the interviewer when she thought he was wrong), and just a little bawdy. A true queen. #there is nothing like a dame

I don't think all that highly of the NYPL interviewer - he tries too hard to be witty and profound and often misses his mark, though I can understand why he'd want to be when he interviews so many amazing people, but he needs to be quiet more and just get out of their way. Nobody cares what you the interviewer think is the answer to your question! Just let Helen Mirren speak!

At the very end, they showed a clip of her as Prospero, and she recited the speech along with it:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

And then she read Caliban's speech to us:

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.

(That should count as today's poetry, I think.)

So that was a great experience. I highly recommend the live programs at the NYPL and if you're a 'friend' of the library you get discounts (though there was no discount on these tickets for some reason, but it was totally worth the $40).

Then I got home and my fear of not being able to unlock the new door on my apartment building was, alas, realized. I panicked a little and called Mean Super's Nice Wife, and she was like, "They installed it wrong! Everything is wrong! But if you turn the key to the left instead of to the right, and pull while you turn, it should work!" and it did, so I didn't have to show up at L.'s door like a vagrant with no place else to go.

Whoops, hit post too soon!

umadoshi pointed out that you can buy a Murder Squash T-shirt from Stiefvater's Society6 page, and the thing is so ugly it's charming, so I have ordered one. I am weak. Squash one, squash two. Sigh.

***

So the hallway renovation in my building has been ongoing and everything is coated in a very fine layer of plaster dust, which so far has not migrated to the inside of my apartment but it's all over everything in the hall and ugh. Also, yesterday, they installed a new outer door and a new inner door, but I am not at all confident that either of them actually locks at this point (and I'm a little afraid that my keys aren't going to work when I get home tonight, but that can't actually happen right?), which is a little anxiety-inducing.

***

I forgot to mention this, but I've been wearing my Darth Vader faux leather jacket a lot and I have received numerous compliments on it! Even my sister was like, "Wow, you look very stylish!" and that was before I showed her the hilarious quote on the lining ("You underestimate the POWER of the Dark Side!"). I also like wearing it because much like when I'm pretending I'm the Winter Soldier on his way to murdering Captain America, I pretend I'm Darth Vader stalking through the smoke on the Tantive IV and people get out of my way on the sidewalk. *g*

Speaking of that Winter Soldier murder swagger, I see that people are getting anxious about Civil War, but my past couple of weeks has been full of anxiety about The Raven Cycle so I can't be worrying about CACW until I'm done reading. I downloaded my copy when I got out of bed this morning and then I didn't get a seat on the bus until Lexington arrgh! I should have taken the day off to read! Because I'm sure tumblr is rife with spoilers (apparently there were already spoilers out there but I didn't see any; thank you, tumblr dash for not spoiling me!) and my planned CACW-induced tumblr hiatus (well, more like a reduction in time spent, rather than a full-on hiatus) isn't scheduled to start until Thursday!

Of course, I'm also like, I should have taken next Friday off in case I want to see CACW over and over again, but I've mostly been occupying myself with other fandoms to stave off that anxiety. This is why being multifannish is the best! I've spent so much time worrying about Gansey et al. (and also, the Stanley Cup playoffs) and trying to write SW stories over the past few weeks that I haven't really had time to get wound up with worry about Steve and Bucky, and instead have just been enjoying the Mackie/Stan/Evans roadshow. *hands*

Anyway! I'm sure I'll be anxious soon, but the rumor of good reviews pleases me (I haven't read any of them), and right now I am too busy ( spoiler for The Raven King )

***

In television news: Jane the Virgin
( spoilers )

***

Anyway, here's today's poem:

The Archipelago of Kisses

We live in a modern society. Husbands and wives don't
grow on trees, like in the old days. So where
does one find love? When you're sixteen it's easy,
like being unleashed with a credit card
in a department store of kisses. There's the first kiss.
The sloppy kiss. The peck.
The sympathy kiss. The backseat smooch. The we
shouldn't be doing this kiss. The but your lips
taste so good kiss. The bury me in an avalanche of tingles kiss.
The I wish you'd quit smoking kiss.
The I accept your apology, but you make me really mad
sometimes kiss. The I know
your tongue like the back of my hand kiss. As you get
older, kisses become scarce. You'll be driving
home and see a damaged kiss on the side of the road,
with its purple thumb out. If you
were younger, you'd pull over, slide open the mouth's
red door just to see how it fits. Oh where
does one find love? If you rub two glances, you get a smile.
Rub two smiles, you get a warm feeling.
Rub two warm feelings and presto-you have a kiss.
Now what? Don't invite the kiss over
and answer the door in your underwear. It'll get suspicious
and stare at your toes. Don't water the kiss with whiskey.
It'll turn bright pink and explode into a thousand luscious splinters,
but in the morning it'll be ashamed and sneak out of
your body without saying good-bye,
and you'll remember that kiss forever by all the little cuts it left
on the inside of your mouth. You must
nurture the kiss. Turn out the lights. Notice how it
illuminates the room. Hold it to your chest
and wonder if the sand inside hourglasses comes from a
special beach. Place it on the tongue's pillow,
then look up the first recorded kiss in an encyclopedia: beneath
a Babylonian olive tree in 1200 B.C.
But one kiss levitates above all the others. The
intersection of function and desire. The I do kiss.
The I'll love you through a brick wall kiss.
Even when I'm dead, I'll swim through the Earth,
like a mermaid of the soil, just to be next to your bones.

~Jeffrey McDaniel

***

Two things I did yesterday:

1. Wrote a story:

Promise Not to Tell (at AO3)
The Raven Cycle; Ronan, Adam, Blue, Noah; g; 1280 words
Ronan hadn't expected Adam and Blue to have any secrets together.

It's a small scene that will hopefully happen so that Ronan is not left out of that particular loop. ( spoilers for TRC )

Of course, that was not the story I was supposed to be writing. So I am still at "have a title, have some notes" for my remix. *hands*

2. Read Check Please. Since I was already behind the curve on this, I waited until people had stopped talking about it, thinking that meant it was finished. Oh no. It's not finished. It's on hiatus. Sigh. It's very charming, though. If you're not aware of it, it's a(n ongoing) webcomic about a tiny gay hockey player who bakes! Why yes, I did maybe imagine the skinny!Steve/Bucky AU while I was reading. Also, I would like a companion book of Bitty's recipes. As I said to devildoll, my birthday is in a month*! If she wanted to write me fic, it needn't be shippy. it could just be about baking. (I mean, shippy would be fine too! But I always love stories about baking.)

*literally one month from today! Mark your calendars. I know some people think it's shameless attention-mongering to announce it like this, and I guess it is, but when I was a kid, having a summer birthday meant you missed out on a lot of stuff (though in high school we celebrated half-birthdays for summer birthdays), and also my brother's birthday is the day before, and I have always been very adamant about differentiating the two. Also, I'm turning 45 this year. How did that even happen?

***

Ugh, I am drinking the gross coffee from downstairs because there was no ice this morning in the ice machine to make my iced tea. And I could feel the caffeine headache starting. The guy behind the counter was like, "I haven't seen you in a really long time! Like almost a year!" and I was like, "Well, I am not supposed to have the caffeine." Which is 100% true, despite me ignoring it completely. So I didn't feel like a total liar for no longer subjecting myself to his terrible, terrible coffee, except in direst emergencies.

***

I've seen some really lovely Raven Cycle photosets on tumblr that racebend Ronan, but has anyone actually written a story like that? Because wow, that is a whole extra set of baggage for that kid to haul around.

( mainly spoilers for Ronan's storyline )

Someone with a better grasp of the subtleties should write that.

***

= It was a lot chillier out this morning than I expected when I did my errands. I stopped off to have a pedicure and I was the only customer in the place. My toes are a bright coral now - actually a little brighter than I expected, tbh. I think next time I'll go for my more usual blue or teal or burgundy, but I've enjoyed the pinks and purples lately.

= So what a game last night, eh? I was honestly resigned to them losing, because my god, Holtby's been amazing, but then they scored! And then they scored in OT! I am not the most optimistic of fans to begin with (I think it comes from years and years of watching my teams lose even when victory seems assured), but the difference between last year and this year was that last year was an unexpected delight. I didn't think they'd come back against the Flyers, let alone the Penguins, whom they'd never beat in the playoffs before. And there was the whole emotional thing with MSL's mother, which believe me, resonated strongly with me.

Whereas this year, the Rangers were really good in the regular season! They didn't struggle to get into the playoffs! They kept winning even without Lundqvist! So of course I expect them to go to the finals, to win, even, and finally get Lundqvist's name on the Cup. I don't want him to be Patrick Ewing or Charles Barkley. I want him to get his ring, because he's a fantastic goalie and deserves a team that can get him there. Whether this team is it, I don't know. I think if they can win tomorrow and bring it back to MSG for game 7, then there's definitely hope. But tomorrow's game is going to be intense. Because the Caps have what the Rangers had last year - contributions from people who aren't their superstars. Ovechkin has kind of been a non-factor the past couple of games, but they're getting scoring from other people (I mean, Glencross? Really?) and Holtby's playing out of his mind. But the Rangers aren't getting that the way they have in the past, and MSL isn't what he used to be, I don't know what Yandle's deal is, Kreider's made some dumbass plays, etc. (I don't blame Nash - I think Nash is playing tremendously but he's just been super unlucky with the puck, which is a thing that happens. Hockey is a weird, weird game.) Anyway. Let's go Rangers! #because it's the Cup

= Don't forget that Remix signups are open for another week! You still have time to write more stories in your chosen fandoms!

= I'm so happy to see more people on my flist reading The Raven Cycle. I keep trying to convince angelgazing to read it and she's like, "not until it's finished!" but I'm like, "But then I can't rage at you when people mis-sort Ronan!" And she laughs.

but real talk, Ronan Lynch is not a Hufflepuff! Matthew Lynch, yes. Noah? Totally a Hufflepuff. Adam is Slytherin, Gansey is Ravenclaw, and Blue is Gryffindor. AS IS RONAN. RONAN IS TOTALLY A GRYFFINDOR. I WILL FIGHT YOU.

Whew, I feel better getting that out.

Now back to trying to make him and Adam kiss. *g*

(eta: there are spoilers for the books in the comments!)

***

April! Which means it's National Poetry Month! Which means I'll be posting a poem every day. To begin:

What's In My Journal

Odd things, like a button drawer. Mean
Things, fishhooks, barbs in your hand.
But marbles too. A genius for being agreeable.
Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous
discards. Space for knickknacks, and for
Alaska. Evidence to hang me, or to beatify.
Clues that lead nowhere, that never connected
anyway. Deliberate obfuscation, the kind
that takes genius. Chasms in character.
Loud omissions. Mornings that yawn above
a new grave. Pages you know exist
but you can't find them. Someone's terribly
inevitable life story, maybe mine.

~William Stafford

***

Books!

What I've just finished
I did a reread of The Raven Cycle books and ugh, I just want the last one RIGHT NOW. ( spoilers and speculation ) I JUST WANT TO KNOW.

What I'm reading now
The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith, aka, JK Rowling. I'm enjoying it, though I feel like Strike is spending way too much time thinking about his ex. Didn't we wrap that up in the first book? On the plus side, it's all about the murder of an author, so there's a lot of gossip about publishing, something I feel like she'd know a little about, and also dick jokes. OMG SO MANY DICK JOKES. I APPROVE.

What I'm reading next
It is, as always, a mystery.

***

The Flash: Tricksters
( spoilers! omg! )

Ahem. Yes. So that was 95% AWESOME and 5% ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME. Not a bad percentage, but that last five percent better see some improvement soon, or so help me, I'm going to write a sternly worded letter.

***

Teevee:

The Flash: Out of Time
( spoilers )

iZombie: Pilot
Aside from the dumbass title and terrible ads, this was a really fun show. Veronica Mars + Pushing Daisies. The basic premise is that medical resident Liv Moore (get it?) goes to a party that is attacked by zombies and gets turned into one herself. Her whole perfect life falls apart, and instead of being a surgeon she's now working in the morgue, where she can eat brains without anyone getting suspicious. And eating brains gives her visions of how the corpses die, so she can help the police investigate! She's a fake-psychic zombie detective! Plus, her boss is South Asian and the detective she's helping out is African-American (and his boss is Japanese-American) and so far there is not a Logan Echolls in sight ( spoiler ), though her ex-boyfriend definitely already has a Duncan Kane thing going for him (or not, as the case may be).

Anyway, despite employing the terrible Eastern European immigrants as prostitutes trope and the fact that I kept imagining Kristen Bell as Liv, I enjoyed it a lot. If you liked Veronica Mars, Pushing Daisies, or Reaper, you'll probably enjoy this.

I also watched this week's Jane the Virgin (my god, all my tv watching is on the CW now), but I don't really have anything to say about it.

Books:

What I'm reading Wednesday:

What I've just finished
I returned A Brief History of Seven Killings to the library unfinished - it was just making me sad with all the violence. I did finish Migration and Regeneration, the second and third books of the Species Imperative series by Julie Czerneda. I enjoyed it, though I never really did bond with Mac, the main character. And sometimes I was confused by the conclusions she and other characters came to, which could be a result of my not reading closely enough (it happens) but also could have been that the conclusions weren't quite warranted given the evidence at hand at the time. *hands*

What I did like a lot was how people who started out being antagonistic towards Mac or just obstacles in her way ended up being fleshed out and given a role in the story other than just being the designated antagonist. That's something more stories could stand to do.

What I'm reading now
I just started The Raven Boys on the train this morning, since my dash and flist have been aflutter about it for a while. I'm not very far in, and it's possible nostalgia is making me think this, but so far all I've got is Adam=Remus and Ronan=Sirius. Which I guess makes Gansey, James. We'll see if my off-the-cuff comparisons at 15% into the book hold up in the long run.

What I'm reading next
If I like The Raven Boys, I imagine I'll read the next two books in the series, though apparently the last book doesn't come out until later this year. Sigh. Stupid works in progress.

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