beach bum

Hmm, well. I didn't mean to go a whole week without updating, but I both had the puppy and was trying to do my usual between-terms housecleaning before the new term started this week, and also there is the 520 collection, of which I was trying to partake as much as possible. I still have over 2/3rds left, though, because chronic illness and the associated meds have made me a slow reader/art audience, plus I am trying to become a conscientious commenter again. I used to be pretty good at it, and I feel like I'm getting the knack back a bit.

I plugged in my 520 fic to my trope_bingo card, and now there are two rows (or a row and a column, if you want to get technical) on which I only need to complete two stories to get a bingo. The current round ends on June 30th, and I don't know if the next one will be an amnesty. I hope so, I still think I could get a blackout with this card. I mean, I had a little wibble with Eliza the other night about body swap, trying to figure out why on earth I included it, but then I reminded myself I only need to do a drabble, and a drabble's worth of utterly ridonkulous body swap is totally in my wheelhouse. Plus, I haven't actually unleashed my silly side on Guardian yet, I kind of feel like it's overdue. It could possibly be my way into teamfic, even if the multiple personalities case was a little bit like body swap (and for what it's worth, in the ongoing debate of what personality, exactly, Chu was supposed to be expressing, my vote is preteen girl). Also, I am still not watching anything but Guardian. I feel perhaps it could be a cause for concern, but I live alone, so it's not like I'm interfering with anyone else's TV schedule. La!

Of course, what my brain is actually doing is building something out of the AU:Fairy Tale/Myth square, which naturally is not any of the four squares I need to be focusing on, because this term is my Gender and Text course, and one of the books we're reading is Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. I...don't think it's possible to overstate this book's influence on my work. It's probably most evident in published stories like "Incarnadine" or my Yuletide fairy tales, especially "The Bruise Around the Wound," but it's also evident in so much of my poetry, and in fanworks like "The Earl's Folly," the Falling in the Garden series, or most of my YnM stories. I think you can see it really clearly in "Two Dishes, But to One Table (Hungry Ghost Overdub)." Or maybe that's all wishful thinking on my part, that my work might in any way resemble Carter's. I had an atypical experience, in that "The Tiger's Bride" was the first of her stories I encountered, and the way it resolved its central conflict so resonated for me, and the writing is so vibrant and sensual, I immediately began looking for more. It took me several years to actually find the book, but "The Bloody Chamber" itself was next, and. Well. If you've read it, you know. There's no coming back from that.

Anyway, we've got that, The Handmaid's Tale, Carrie, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, The Woman in Black, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, and our textbook is Sexual/Textual Politics. So, it's going to be a full term, is what I'm saying.

Meanwhile, I appear to have caught something; my left ear is distinctly unhappy. The temperature has also soared into the 90s, with the humidity taking the heat index into the 100s. I don't think my A/C has turned off the past two days. Here's hoping it doesn't die in the middle of this. It's new as of last summer, but I asked the landlord about replacing the filter back in March and she hasn't got back to me yet, so. *hands*

In conclusion, Shen Wei.