shell's tired of waking up tired

Today was relaxing. Other than doing laundry, I didn't do anything especially constructive--watched some television (I liked the pilot of The Blacklist), listened to some music, talked to my mom. She's going to watch the SHIELD pilot on On Demand, pretty much strictly because I love it so much (and because it's family friendly--she had bad dreams on Tuesday night because NCIS, NCIS:LA, and Person of Interest had too much violence in them). I don't hold out a ton of hope that she'll like it--I think it's too science fictiony, too quippy, and people talk too fast (she's not going to like how Fitz and Simmons talk over each other), but I'm tickled pink that she's willing to give it a shot.

She accidentally switched channels on Tuesday morning at just the right time to see Clark Gregg pull up to GMA in Lola and watch the interview. She liked him. :-)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again--my mom gets the fan thing, and I love how we can watch shows together and talk about them on the weekends. We talked about Parenthood today, for example--neither of us can stand Kristina. And she told me they finally formally cancelled Army Wives. &Mom;

A discussion over in a friend's journal made me think about how I have lucked out with my therapist. Apparently a lot of therapists are all over blaming the internet for why people are unhappy, and telling them they need to change things, and not accepting of their kinks, and, well, my therapist is great about all of that. Right from the beginning I was open about what I wrote and read, and how I worked through issues sometimes in my writing, and how I met a lot of my most favorite people through online fandom, and she is totally 100% supportive of that. The other week I spent half the session telling her the plot of a Clint/Phil WIP that was giving me all the feels (and defined "epic feels"), and she knows all about my hardcore hurt-comfort kink, and it's all good. I didn't realize I was so lucky! Of course, if she hadn't been so accepting, I would have found someone else ASAP, but still.

Huh--it just occurred to me: PS has a psych background, and she's definitely the type who does not understand stuff like that. I would hate to have her for a therapist for sure. I never feel 100% comfortable talking about any of it when she's around, because she is dismissive and a little aghast. Again, I am lucky. The therapist I had in NH (who was in training) was also very supportive, although I only saw her for maybe 6-8 months before she got ready to graduate. Hmmm.

Anyway. Enough of that. Tomorrow I must grade homework. And maybe get some writing done.

Is it boring to hear more about how much better I'm feeling lately? Because, yeah. I mean, on Weds. night I was feeling just a tiny bit glum and insecure after a few things didn't go perfectly in the skills lab, and I thought to myself, okay, I'm getting a little PMSy after all. But then I was able to just ascribe it to hormones and not dwell, and then I got my period the very next night. Like, I didn't have days and days (or weeks) of feeling really crappy! I had one night where I felt a little crappy for like an hour, and then I got my period and felt better! Well, except for the cramps, but you can't have everything.

I just--y'all, I don't actually remember the last time I had this many days in a row where I honest-to-god felt good. And I'm feeling this way in September. It's pretty fucking awesome.

Changing subjects completely here, I've been reading some het lately (because Bourne Legacy, hello), and I don't understand why so many of the people writing het (or at least the het I've been reading) always only have the woman have a single orgasm. I mean, isn't that kind of the glory of women having sex, that they can have multiple orgasms? Especially if they're having sex that's supposed to be really amazing--this is fantasy/erotica/romance-type stuff we're talking about, after all. Is it maybe a holdover from people who are used to writing slash, where the men only have one apiece (unless, like, you've got Steve Rogers having a serum-enhanced refractory period or something)? I just don't get it.

Anyway. My trainer hasn't been able to meet with me for a couple weeks because her schedule changed, and we were supposed to meet at 11:30 tomorrow morning, which is so not a time I prefer, but I was going to go anyway, because I miss working out with her. But she just emailed me that she has to cancel. Sigh. I could have worked out today, but I didn't, unless you count the wicked workout that my thumb got playing along with this one song by Ennis at my drum lesson today. Triplets galore! And very fast! I kept having to stop and massage the base of my thumb, because yowza. A song called "Still" shouldn't be that fast.

Speaking of my bodhran lessons, apparently my teacher has a new bodhran student who also has a mom, or was it a sister, who plays Irish fiddle type stuff, so he's hoping that sometime in the spring the bunch of us can play together. Also, I get to go to the Celtic Festival this year and really enjoy it, because I won't have weekend clinical, HOORAY.

Still mulling through various plot-type things for Returning to Base. Hopefully I'll get it worked through this weekend. Along with working out and vacuuming and grading homework. Even though I'd rather go see Bourne Legacy again.

I'm wondering whether or not I should finish up the IBARW post I started the other day. I don't know whether I'll post it tomorrow or not. I may want to sit on it and think and work on it some more. And it's not as if any of us should limit discussions of racism to one week a year, after all.

As far as the other big topic of the week goes, well, let's see. I'm sticking with LJ for a few reasons--I have a permanent account, I'm far from impressed with any of the alternatives, and I think any of the alternatives might have the same issues with TOS (along with other problems) down the line. I agree that 6A/LJ hasn't handled this the best way they could have, and I hope that they'll do a better job of coordinating and communicating in the future. The idea that linking to something offsite could violate the TOS, or that people could get reported, is concerning, especially since what exactly is going on with that doesn't seem to be very clear.

However, people going after pro-anorexia communities? That is beyond stupid, for reasons others have articulated better than I could.

Today has been a pretty decent day--wrote some, went to the gym for the first time in a couple weeks, and watched Beyond the Sea, which I'd saved on my DVR a week or two ago. I wasn't sure about it at first, but by the end I really liked it, and I was pretty impressed with Kevin Spacey's singing in it.

And last, I was tagged by dine for this meme. I'm supposed to name six fandoms, then answer questions.

Fandoms:
1. Homicide: Life on the Street
2. The Wire
3. Friday Night Lights
4. due South
5. Stargate Atlantis
6. Angel

( Questions and answers after the cut. )


I believe I'm supposed to tag six more people for this meme. I'd tag panisdead, but I can hear her telling me, "I don't think you understand what the word 'monofannish' means, Shell," in my head, so she gets a buy (although if she wanted to do the meme, I would love it). So I'll tag misspamela, kylielee1000, vsee, arallara, katallison, and graycastle. Have at it, y'all!

Just, before you do anything else, just read this first, okay? And remember that switching to another journaling site is not the solution. The solution is giving money to the ACLU and the EFF and working to change the laws.

As I mentioned yesterday, there's been a lot of fascinating discussion in the comments to hesychasm's post from the day before, and it's helped me solidify what the issues are for me personally, and how I respond to those issues. I'm trying to work through this a little bit more and be a little more clear both about where I'm personally coming from.

The thread I'm most interested in at the moment is this one, in which cofax7 has listed four unstated assumptions that she thinks we might need to look at, including the idea that public posting of women's fantasies is a (possibly unmitigated) good (public being a key word here, I think, and there's also been some argument about what that word means), the idea that something that's clearly labeled "fiction" won't have any effect on a reasonable person, and the idea that someone who's "uncomfortable with any sexual fantasies on the net is a prude who can't tell the difference between fiction and reality" and wants to censor everybody. One more assumption got added later in the thread, and that's "That everyone has the same purposes or desires in mind when reading and/or writing" (cofax7 again).

I think there's a lot to think about there. I am especially concerned by the assumption that fiction doesn't have effects (except when it's exhibiting unconscious racism, sexism, or homophobia, which everyone seems happy to agree does have negative effects) and the assumption that people who might be uncomfortable with certain fanfiction tropes or kinks are pro-censorship prudes.

I have deeply held and deeply considered beliefs, and those beliefs include the idea that some kinds of fiction, among other things, have definite, negative effects on people and on the world, whether or not those effects are measurable or conscious. Those effects concern me deeply.

What beliefs am I talking about, and what consequences or effects do I think might happen? That's where I have to talk about my Buddhist practice (which, while I'm not as active with things like meditating and attending sangha as I used to be and wish to be again, is still as deep a part of my core values as it ever was) and the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings, which are the guidelines for engaged Buddhism developed by Thich Nhat Hanh and the Order of Interbeing. I am well aware that not everyone shares these beliefs, and I would never tell anyone that they should. I am also well aware that I am far from perfect at any of it. That said, if you really want to know where I'm coming from with all of this, this is it.

A key concept of Thay's teaching is that we all have positive and negative seeds planted in our unconsciousness. These seeds are watered or nurtured, either in the distant past (for example, long-standing family dynamics) or more recently (the guy that cut us off on the freeway the other day). Things can nourish the positive (a loving partnership, for example, can water a lot of positive seeds) as well as negative*. Things we do, say, and encounter (and how we react to things we encounter) will water either positive or negative seeds, or both. The mindfulness trainings help us nourish the right seeds, basically.

( Cut for lots of stuff about mindfulness trainings you may not care about. )

Again, this is where I am coming from. It's not what I expect anyone else to do, and I'm not saying any of this in some sort of weird attempt to make y'all become card-carrying Buddhists.

There is a sense that those of us who are uncomfortable with certain stories should be satisfied with the back button and warnings, that if we don't like certain things, we just shouldn't read them. But that's not the point we're trying to make, and that's obviously frustrating for both sides of the issue, because we're talking at cross-purposes.

I do believe that maybe thinking about some of these issues and what effects might be there might make someone make a different choice about writing or posting or whathaveyou--or it might make them think even more strongly that I am wrong and they have the right idea about whatever it is. I am not trying to dictate to anyone--I'm talking about having a dialog that might lead someone to make their own choice. If people can try to talk openly and respectfully, that's all I really want. I'm really, truly, sincerely not trying to tell anyone what to do, either in their own brain, their home, their locked or unlocked or warned or unwarned posts. And I'm not trying to condescend, either, although I can see where it might come across that way.

I think, again, if we can agree to keep the dialog open and to accept each other, even when we think the other person's opinion is wrong or possibly even harmful, that's the ideal. It's not an either-or, it's a both-and--I support people's right to write whatever they want to, but I also am going to continue to speak up for looking at whatever consequences there might be from that, and I expect people to respect my right to speak up as much as I respect their right to write things I find objectionable.

*It's possible, I suppose, that reading a specific story, for me, might be watering the wrong seeds, but writing it might be watering the right ones for the writer. This is where the issue of public (for different values of public) posting comes in. See the subthread started by morgandawn, although I don't actually agree completely with her division of public versus private. ETA: And, yeah, this is a complex issue, and I don't pretend to have all the answers on how different seeds in different people might be watered by different things, but I do think that posting stories publicly, because of the unpredictable responses of different readers, is a different thing than writing a story to work through something.

Found on friendsfriends this morning, when I didn't have time to read it all, but I just read heatherly's responsible fanfic post, and I highly, highly recommend it. She looks at societal and fannish/fanfic views of child abuse and incest, and, just, go read it, okay?

Home from work, and I think I might just be about to take a nap, because I am that tired.

Hey, a bunch of folks have friended me recently, so allow me to say hi. Please feel free to introduce yourselves in the comments if you wish (or not if you don't), and please be aware that I don't friend people back automatically. I don't friend journals that have no content, generally (unless you're, for example, my sister), and I don't friend anyone back immediately anymore--I like to read your LJ for a while and get to know you before I make that decision. I also expect that people I friend will actually be reading my posts, or at least not filtering me out (I don't actually expect people to read every post, because I do make a lot of them, and they do tend to be long).

I do not read on a filter, so I only friend journals that I want to see on my friends list and read regularly. There's a whole other group of LJs that I read semi-regularly but don't have friended, and generally speaking people who friend me get put on that list so I can get to know them (and also see if they post anything other than memes ;-)). As far as what I post, fic is always unlocked, and fandom or meta posts that make little or no reference to my personal life are also unlocked. I do post a lot that is locked (and sometimes filtered), mainly about what's going on in my life, from teaching to writing to whether or not I was able to get my ass off the couch and go to the gym that week. So, you know, you're not really missing much.

In not so fun news, check out team_tos, which looks like it's either a troll or someone from WfI. Not good. ETA: Deleted, but back as kingdoms_eye (thanks to mickeym for the link).

There's also a rumor about Russian censorship, because you can't use the letters of a certain Russian political party without dashes or spaces or periods between them, but that's apparently related to the DDOS attacks rather than any sort of evil KGB attempt to censor LJ. I, personally, am sick of conspiracy theories, how about you?

I'm also sick of severe thunderstorms, but apparently the area I live in isn't, because there are once again severe thunderstorm, flooding, and tornado watches and warnings all over the place (note: the tornado warning is not super close to me, so please not to be worrying), so I should probably post this before, like, my power goes out or something.

LJ, dudes, I was actually supporting your decision, but you had to go and act like complete fucking assholes. Well, I mean, I suppose it was 6A more than LJ itself, but, still, color me shocked.

I--seriously, I was this close to posting in public about how I thought people were over-reacting and that I could understand where LJ was coming from and all, but now, I'm, just, I'm in shock.

"Our decision here was not based on pure legal issues," countered Six Apart's Berkowitz. "It was based on what community we want to build and what we think is appropriate within that community and what's not. We have an awful broad range of discussions and topics and other things going on in LiveJournal, and we encourage other broad-ranging conversations on all sorts of topics. This was a specific case where we felt there was not a reason (for these journals to stay online)."

Berkowitz said the company would "obviously apologize" to anyone whose journal was deleted in error but added: "That's going to be a very small minority of the sites. I would be shocked if it's more than a dozen."

I can't believe I actually read that. Listen, Six Apart, if you're making me think about leaving for another site, you have really fucked up, because I tend to be the person who's always defending you.

There have been a lot of interesting meta posts this past week or so, and some of them have really been stirring people up. This is my response to both the Wincest stuff and the SGA racism stuff--I've seen a couple people on friendsfriends and the like kind of casually point out something I'd like to see more discussion about. I've tried to achieve a non-inflammatory tone here, and I certainly don't intend to offend anyone.

sisabet who said,

So I'm reading the SPN Wank that says that if you want to debate the merits of Wincest, to do so subjectively, you can't relate it to examples of real-life incest.
[...]
But then I read the SGA wank and I find that I am all "YES! We are unconciously influenced by all sorts of things and should examine ourselves! WOOT!"

I am so confused.

I read that, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. It's a pretty huge disconnect, and it brings some issues up for me in particular.

Because, okay, folks are defending Wincest, in particular, by focusing on the argument that it's fiction/fantasy and thus doesn't have any real world implications. Over in SGA fandom, on the other hand, folks are pointing out trends that individual authors are usually unconscious of, trends that reflect a deep, unconscious racism, and saying what we write does have real world implications, and we should be aware of that when we're writing, and maybe change things a bit as a result.

Now, I haven't read much of the Wincest wank posts, but I've read meta posts in both that and other fandoms defending the writing of fanfic incest. The focus seems to be that it's fantasy, it's fiction, and it has no bearing on the very real abuse of familial incest. I believe similar things have been said about fanfic focusing on power dynamics which would be problematic in RL, like, for example, chan and Teacher/Student stuff, or rapefic.

I can see the reasoning behind that argument. Personally, I have always had some questions about its validity, at least for me personally, even if I didn't feel like I had to right to tell anyone what they could or couldn't write about. I don't want to dictate to anyone, but I do still feel a deep discomfort at the idea of incest (whether parent-child or siblings or whatever) fanfic, or for pairings like Snape/Potter, especially if they're happening while Harry's still Snape's student. There was a crossover with Homicide and Supernatural that I heard about that I couldn't finish reading because it had Tim Bayliss, who'd been a victim of incest as a child, getting involved with Sam, who was young enough to be his son, and I just, I couldn't understand how anyone who'd actually watched Homicide could even conceive of that as being a) a good idea and b) something Tim would ever consider.

I've never been able to be particularly rational when attempting to discuss this kind of thing, though, even with someone who feels similarly. So usually I just try to ignore anything that would push my squick buttons, because if I can't make a good, rational argument that's not wanky, what's the point of stirring things up and sounding like an idiot besides? Live and fucking let live. I may personally feel that certain pairings or tropes don't meet my own personal standard of right speech or right consumption or what have you, that they possibly, in my deeply held and yet not often expressed opinion, contribute something negative to the world as a whole, but I am fully aware that people have argued otherwise, and some of their arguments have made some logical sense to me.

I certainly don't want to legislate anyone's fantasies, even if such a thing were possible. I support legalization of drugs, but I don't think using them (or alcohol or tobacco, for that matter) is a good idea. I support people choosing however many partners they wish to have, even as I personally feel that "love and a long-term commitment" (quoting the 14th mindfulness training) are the best idea when embarking on a sexual relationship. I try very hard to let go of my own very judgmental nature and respect other people's choices in their real lives and in fandom. Still, there's a part of me that's bothered by the assertion that just because it's fiction, it doesn't matter, it doesn't have any real impact on people's thoughts or actions. So, yeah, I'm a bit bothered when I read people's passionate defenses of incest fic, but I try to let it go.

I also try very hard to let go of racism, racism I grew up into just by virtue of being a white woman in the United States in the twentieth century and beyond. I know it's a battle I'll be fighting for the rest of my life, trying to be conscious of bias that's so ingrained societally that it is unconscious, trying to be aware of my privileged status, all that kind of thing. And, well, here's where people are arguing that it does matter what we write about. And sometimes when I read those arguments, I get uncomfortable, because I feel defensive--I want to shout, I just don't like Frank Pembleton, because he abandons my Timmy, and I love Teyla, I just don't want to read about her having sex, and I liked Ford better than Ronon because I think Jason Momoa's acting sucks, and besides, no one likes Carson (that would be me being defensive, btw)!

And, well. I may have my own difficulties with being lectured to about racial stereotyping in fanfic, but when I take a deep breath and let go of the things about various posts that pushed various (not related to the actual point of said posts) buttons, I can see the validity of what people are saying. I think there is a not-so-conscious racial bias in a lot of white women's fanfic, my own included. So I try to let go of the defensiveness and take in what's being said and hopefully apply it in whatever way I can.


But sometimes I read posts where I'm being encouraged not only to avoid racial stereotyping, but also to actively work to not only write more about characters of color, but to become more attracted to them, and that upsets me. Because that's someone else trying to legislate my fantasies, isn't it? Isn't that coming from a similar place as I'm coming from when I want to (but don't) tell someone it worries me that they're writing, for example, father/son incest?

Which makes me understand a little better where someone who's into incest fic is coming from, but I'm not sure that's the only thing we should be thinking about, because if it's a good thing to make a privileged person uncomfortable if it makes her more aware of the deeper implications of her unconscious racism, isn't it also a good thing to make someone who writes rapefic uncomfortable if it makes her more aware of the deeper implications of sexual abuse (and the sexist, patriarchal, violent, power-based underpinnings of such abuse) in society? I know I can't ask people not to write whatever they're going to write, but no one's saying that people can't write SGA AUs where Teyla's a maid, either--just that you might want to think about it first.

In any case, I am trying, as I know a lot of people are, to learn from my discomfort, from my knee-jerk defensiveness. I try to take in what people are saying and recognize myself in it, so that next time I can do better. I try to examine my own attitudes, writing, reactions, to acknowledge that my writing does reflect things about me I might want to change. To acknowledge that my writing and all fannish writing does have a societal impact that I might want to examine. Is it so terrible to ask that the folks who are writing incest and other possibly problematic genres might want to do the same thing?

ETA: Yay discussion! Unfortunately, I'm at school all day and won't be able to respond until this evening, but I'm happy to let y'all talk amongst yourselves!

Another ETA as of 4/3/07 at 9 pm CST--I'm not going to be able to answer any comments until tomorrow evening at the earliest. Welcome to those coming from metafandom; discuss among yourselves and I'll catch up later.

Because I don't feel like doing more work at the moment, I shall post a post of miscellany!

Saw someone (I think it was estrella30 on friendsfriends who posted asking people their ages, and it got me curious. I decided to do it with radio buttons rather than text boxes, but if you'd prefer to give me your exact age you can always comment. And I thought I'd ask some stuff about the vid feedback and watching stuff I posted yesterday.

[Poll #801000]

In other news, the SGA fandom has been rather wanky of late, hasn't it? I feel like rustler's old icon that had Wyms saying "Settle down, son" would come in handy in some of the discussions, because people sure do get upset quickly and over-react at times, on both sides of various issues. Which, yeah, it's not like I don't do that on occasion--I was a bit wanky myself in a comment to skelkins last night, I think--but there do seem to be some folks out there who live to stir things up. Not that that's news. Anyway. I suppose I should get back to grading now, alas....

Which do include some minor spoilers, so I'll do the ( lj cut to be safe. )

It's going to be weird to watch Gone for Goode next week after gorging on the last two seasons, but I'm still pretty excited, because, lo, my Homicide love is so very strong.

Also, I haven't yet watched tonight's episode of Thief, but I did watch last week, and I just have ( this one little spoilery thought, which is spoilery for both Thief and Homicide. )

And now I will say that I did manage to finally get things fixed with the navigation bar with cmshaw's help and a lot of trial and error, that I have a lot of work to do tomorrow to prep for tomorrow and Thursday's classes, and now I will stop spamming you as I really should be getting to bed, but I probably will work on the remix a little more first, and I sure have been posting a lot of actual fannish content lately (much more than normal), which is fun.

You know, there's that community, I forget the name, that's watching due South, with a new episode every week, right? I think they've got both new viewers and old, maybe? Anyway, I know sdwolfpup has been enjoying it, and she's new to dS. And I know that every time someone new starts watching Farscape, people get excited, and episode reactions get posted to Farscape Weekly, and it's cool.

And, well, I was thinking, as I stuck in some season 6 dvds, as I need to rewatch some stuff to get back in the groove (I am currently working, as most of you know, on a sort of remix or AU of Going Under, which may or may not ever see the light of day but which I am enjoying), that maybe there might be interest in doing something like that with Homicide. I mean, after all, we've got 7 wonderful seasons (shut up, those of you who hate season 7! It's got its moments! It has Zen and the Art of Murder, and that alone makes it worth watching, Falsone and Sheppard be damned!) plus the movie, and it would be wicked cool to get people watching from the very beginning all the way through.

So, ( A Poll! )

I figured I'd get an idea how many people might be interested before I did anything crazy like pimped it to communities or started a community or anything. So let me know what you think!

I wrote over 1000 words on the crossover today! It's now at almost 3500 words, and I finally got John from point A to point B. I know basically what I want to happen in the rest of the story, but I have no expectations it'll go any easier than it's gone so far. Word tells me I started it on May 17th, but I think that's when I actually started it as a separate file rather than a set of ideas in my general Atlantis notes file. Even so, it surprises me to realize I've been working on it about a month, since it feels like it's been longer than that.

I also vacuumed some more today! It was only (hah) 80 degrees in my apartment at the time, and I didn't cover as much area, but, lo, I still dripped sweat. But good for me for vacuuming.

I did not go slogging, as it was too muggy and I figured the vacuuming yesterday and today had to count for *something*. And then I went for a walk at 8:30, after ice cream, so that was nice. Hopefully I won't wake up with a million new mosquito bites tomorrow.

Today was also a day of phone calls, what with talking to byob_kenobi, panisdead, and my mom. I am going to be bringing certain selected dvds to Florida with me, as I'm thinking perhaps my father might enjoy watching them during his convalescence. Of course, my mom mentioned to me today that there is apparently a 15-20% chance that they could discover additional, more major damage from his childhood surgery during this operation, which would entail a more extensive surgery this time and possibly up to 4-5 days in the hospital instead of the overnight stay he'll have if all goes well. Since I have no idea if I'll be able to get online the night before his actual surgery, I'll just say right now that any good vibes for my dad on June 30th would be much appreciated.

My relatively good mood these past couple weeks is really nice to be feeling. But it's also got me posting a lot, and, when I'm not posting, thinking about posting things. Like tonight, when I finished my ice cream, I almost posted "Ice cream!" That would have been the entirety of the post. But I didn't want to open up the laptop, because it gets really hot, and I do truly use it on my lap, so it can get uncomfortable, even with a magazine underneath it. So instead, I close tonight's post with:

Ice cream!

I might have just spent the last, um, four hours watching vids that I downloaded. Well, and making and eating dinner, that was in there too.

I appreciate everyone's recs and will no doubt be downloading more, but I just have to say, for the record, that I now love sdwolfpup even more than I did before. And she has to make, like, a bazillion brilliant Farscape vids. Or at least as many as the brilliant Buffy and Angel vids she's made. Just sayin'. Spike and Harmony to "You Don't Bring Me Flowers," people. Brilliance.

Will respond to comments soon--as long as I don't download any more vids first.

Austin tickets are on sale *now*, people. Go here.

ETA: the actual ticket-buying link.

Edited again to add that the Browncoats forums are currently down, so I can't update you on what other venues might already be sold out, although I've heard on LJ that both Portland and Philadelphia are (along with Houston and Riverside, of course). Tickets pretty much went on sale at 12 noon Austin time, much as people were predicting.

Update: Just about all cities are sold out now--according to Can't Stop the Signal there are possibly still tickets available in Miami and Vancouver, but that's it.

I'm working on chapter 2 of A & P. It's the chemistry chapter. As in, an entire basic chemistry course in one chapter, plus some additional biochemistry, or so it feels. It's all review for me, so it's not a problem, but how am I going to go from kinetic energy to covalent bonds to the structure of lipids to ATP in what will probably be no more than two lectures? And make it so that massage therapy students who probably never took chemistry in high school can actually understand it? I wish I still had a copy of the old and really cool textbook a former colleague of my dad wrote, Chemistry Decoded. I remember that as being so clear and easy to read, much better than what's going on in this A & P book. Ah well. I shall soldier on.

I had a bit of a letdown this morning. I was sitting here in my flannel pants and t-shirt, and there was knocking at the door, and it was the UPS guy (in this case a guy who bore a certain resemblance to William H. Macy), and I thought someone had sent me a package maybe, but it turned out to be for my landlord. Because the house is on the corner, my address (the bottom apartment) is on one street and their address (the top apartment) is on the other street, and sometimes people (like especially my one landlord's mother, who's apparently incapable of remembering) send them things with my address on it, which was the case with this package. They're not home right now, so I'll have to get it to them later.

However, I popped the dvds byob_kenobi gave me over the weekend in last night and watched me some 38 Minutes, which I hadn't seen since it first aired, so, yay! Then I watched the beginning of The Storm, and I knocked The Storm and Home off my dvr as I now have them on dvd, dvds that I believe were made by lynnmonster, so I thank her as well! I will finally be able to watch The Eye again so that I can maybe work on my Sora story.

I did pull out my other story (the Firefly crossover) last night and do some editing on it, but I didn't really get any more written on it. I'm a little stuck at the moment, because charming as Sheppard is, I am not sure how easily he's going to be able to convince who I want him to convince to do what I want them to do.

Speaking of Firefly, the latest from the Browncoats boards indicates that Serenity tickets for the June 23rd show should go on sale tomorrow. I believe two shows have already been sold out, probably--one in Riverside, CA and the one in Houston, although neither of these are confirmed; both those places apparently didn't get the word they were supposed to wait until the 9th to put tickets on sale, or something. Several people have talked to other people at various theaters and have gotten unofficial word that, yes, Serenity will be screening on the 23rd and that tickets will go on sale on the 9th, which is tomorrow (not today as I was spacily thinking yesterday). I checked the Austin Gateway Fandango site this morning and there's nothing up there yet. There's no way I could consider going to Boston for another screening on that date, much as I'd love to see it again, because I've got new faculty orientation the next day, alas.

It's fixing to be another gorgeous day here, yay! One of these days I'm going to have to get myself to the beach. Maybe when panisdead is here. She's arriving in one week, woohoo! I have a lot of cleaning to do between now and then, especially for when she's actually going to be staying with me (she'll be staying with relatives at first)....

Okay. Time for another cup of tea and another crack at covalent bonds. Except I think I need a summer icon, something beachy....

ETA: I'm having yousendit annoyances. Can anyone explain to me why most of the time someone posts a yousendit file, it's impossible for me to save it to my desktop? I try using option-click, but oftentimes that downloads the *link* for me rather than the actual file. I can watch or listen to the file on the yousendit site, but it's very few files that are set up so that I can just download them instead. Option-click should be the equivalent of "right-click" in the Windows world, because it is most of the time, but it's not working here, except occasionally. I don't know how much it has to do with Safari and Mac OSX and how much it has to do with yousendit and/or the way people are uploading files, because sometimes it does work just fine. And, yeah, I'd really like to be able to afford Tiger, which would give me an improved version of Safari, but that just isn't going to happen any time soon.

All of a sudden I am very tired.

Got a little more of the anatomy & physiology outline done while watching the Tonys. Also went for a brief slog and got pizza. I got a little misty when Jesse whatshisname came out and sang Razzle Dazzle to honor Jerry Orbach and others. And every time they had the camera on Hank Azaria or were talking about Spamalot I was thinking about how Alan Tudyk's taking over that role, and how cool that is.

Can I just say that I absolutely adore the scene in this episode when Sheppard pulls the bandage out of his vest and bandages his arm? Because I do, I really do.

I had a great conversation with panisdead this afternoon, but she fears she may have lost her love for B television, and that is a sad, sad thing. She needs an infusion of slashite or something. I will try to do my best to improve things when she gets here--we do have plans to watch as much as we can of season 5 of Angel, hooray, and I will force attempt to show her more SGA goodness as well. Alas that, while she has a hard time with B television, she also has a hard time with certain shows that are decidedly A television but also a mite, shall we say, depressing.

Speaking of which, season 7 of Homicide dvds are coming out soon. You should all get them, all of you, even if it isn't the best season (shut up!), because there is no woobie more woobied than Bayliss in Zen and the Art of Murder. Just look at this icon, and see season 7 Bayliss in all his fucked-up depressed glory!

Oh, and guess what? Even before she knew who he was, Byob, on her first sighting of Falsone, was telling him to shut up! Once informed of his name, she happily said "Shut up, Falsone!" every time he appeared, just like a long-time fan! She hasn't seen an episode with Sheppard yet, but I trust her instincts will ring true for her as well. Yes, it is weird that a character I *loathe* shares a surname with a character I adore, but what can you do.

I do not have the energy to outline homeostasis for massage therapy students. Not tonight. I should go to sleep.

This was a more pointless post than usual. I really should go to bed.

Don't know if folks have been paying attention to the fact that David Marciano has been guest-starring on The Shield this season. Up until last night's episode, he didn't have a lot to do on the show, but I'm watching that ep (A Thousand Deaths) right now, and DM's character is getting a bit more play this time around. F/X likes to replay episodes, I think on Saturdays and Mondays, so you'll definitely have a a chance to see the ep again if you missed it. Marciano plays a detective, but there's not a whole lot of Vecchio there, except maybe Vecchio if he'd never met Fraser. It's worth a look, and I'm not just saying that as a fan of The Shield. Hey, you get to hear Marciano saying "shit"!

So I was talking to byob_kenobi earlier today, and she was bugging me to write more. She specifically wanted me to write more Teyla. And so I started writing this, and then despaired that I didn't ask cathexys to include The Gift in the dvds she sent (which arrived today, btw--thanks so much!), because, yeah, it's true I really kinda like writing Teyla, but I really should have that episode. But at least I have Storm and Eye now, so I'll maybe finally be able to finish my Sora story, but, anyway, I was going to send this to Byob to look over before I posted it (and in fact did send it), but I'm too impatient to wait to get her comments, so I'm posting it unbeta'd. It's short (250 words), just a little character study, and it's for Byob.

( Hindsight )

They're going to be showing Serenity again, in 20 cities this time, on May 26th. There's no official announcement of cities yet, but intrepid Browncoats have already found tickets for sale in DC, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Kansas City, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia (new), and Providence. The DC and Atlanta shows are already sold out, plus possibly the Seattle show (there's some confusion about whether or not that's true). If you think you live in a city that might get a screening, my advice to you is to keep checking sites for your local movie theaters for special advanced screenings on May 26th. I've checked in Austin a few times for friends, and so far nothing, but it could be they've decided to go to Dallas instead this time.

ETA The link for tickets in Dallas: https://www.movietickets.com/purchase.asp?perf_id=86408323, plus news that Atlanta's sold out as well.

Dallas is sold out.

Another edit: Link for Boston, courtesy of kageygirl, although this one is still showing May 5th as the date for some reason.

One more edit: This is the best link I could find to a possible Austin screening. Nothing's showing up *yet*, but I suspect that if/when they confirm a second Austin screening, that's where you'll find it.

AUSTIN TICKETS NOW ON SALE! FOLLOW MY LINK!

Austin is now sold out.

There are more links in the comments below. I already have word that tinyfroglet scored a couple Austin tickets, woohoo! Oh, how I wish I had the money to fly to Austin to see it with my buds there!

Info on all screenings is now up at Can't Stop the Signal. There are problems with Fandango in some cities--several have a note to contact the theater directly, although some of these are sold out. Minneapolis has been added as a location, but it's sold out as well.

One more edit: Everything's sold out now. Congrats to those who managed to get tickets! Props to sdwolfpup for keeping us up to date.