Carnet de voyage

All right. I promise to try not to complain about the cold or the weather today.

. . . it's very quiet in here.

---

Our chambers were always full of chemicals and of criminal relics which had a way of wandering into unlikely positions, and of turning up in the butter-dish or in even less desirable places.

-- Watson, The Musgrave Ritual

Amy's not very happy because she tried putting on her favorite gored denim GAP skirt and was able to pull it off without unzipping it -- and then she made her twin try it on and it fit perfectly.

It's a size ten.

Uh. Whups?

So now we really DO need to go through all our clothes and figure out which fits who, since her weight has finally stabilized (ie, she eats every six hours whether she feels like it or not, or the wrath of God comes down upon her) and I'm still dropping fat, if not actual pounds. The 32" waist jeans fit me! o/ that's down four inches!

And the ones that DON'T fit need to go find a new home, because even considering our hatred of laundry we have an awful lot of clothes ... which is fine, but most of them don't actually fit us any more.

Actually, I could bring the skirts to work, we have like four Muslim chicks right now and we dress pretty similarly to what they need to wear, at least below the waist. (We usually wear ankle-length skirts, but we don't bother covering our elbows and don't cover our hair, although Amy's is super short and mine is usually pulled up in some sort of irritated knot, but if it gets any longer I'm going to make snoods for it, I swear.) (Must look up patterns.)

(Huh wonder if I'll have enough of the Fat Cat Knits batt spun up for one. Will see, although ... nah, should be okay if I do it as a singles and don't ply it, I think. Must finish that today since I have like, two strips to go and I ended up loeving it ridiculously. It's like. A blackberry bush.)

(wait, I could make a snood of the Rose Garden yarn and then use the rest for footie socks??)

or you know I could work on the damn holmes fic but he's still refusing to do anything but pluck moodily at his stupid violin and hate everything silently.

( Rose )

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

tarigwaemir, motorbike, your cards arrived - and that is today. XD; Nat, I'm going to figure out a way to pin your flower cookies on my bag. T_T

Avatar: this I have to hand to James Cameron: he made a three-hour movie of which every single second is predictable - not to mention eyeroll-inducing** - but that doesn't feel three hours long. Not easy, folks. I went to IMAX 3D for the eyecandy, even though eyecandy rarely saves a movie for me, and was not disappointed. What it reminded me of was Final Fantasy XII, actually. XD; Monster design, area design, everything. Three hours in the Golmore Jungle with occasional excursions onto the Ozmone Plain and wherever the frick Brujerba floated off from, in IMAX 3D and more granular by two orders of magnitude. Zoe Saldana plays Fran in shades of blue.

Now that Weta has all this fantasy dragon soulbond CG experience, a Temeraire movie ought to be a stroll in the park... right? Ahaha.

** I can't get offended, I find, because the offensive aspects (and the rest) are so last century. Heck, even the wafer-thin digital gloss is entirely 1990s (upload yr consciousness to the collective ether homg!!1!). No doubt the Internet would disabuse me of this notion if I allowed it, but I feel like even ppl who turn their brains off like their cellphones would register the script as "clichéd" if not "problematic". Only when the cringe shifts from the moral realm into the taste realm can we all move on, remember, cos those who don't give a shit what's right do give a shit what's cool.

• 17:32 We're not evil....just poor. #
• 17:36 oh Thundercats. You make me so ridiculously happy. #
• 17:39 @octette bow chika bow wow~ #
• 22:46 ThunderCats had a Psychological Consultant? why would a cartoon need that? other than because it is awesome, i mean... #
• 22:47 @octette I think maybe because Daddy's hasn't played in a while? Maybe? #

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Ugh. I feel all... shrivelled up. I always get so dehydrated in winter :/

For McSweeney's.

*

On road trips, I am a self-designated dietitian. "Get some pretzels at the Circle K," I suggest when our stomachs start rumbling. "We can eat dinner once we get to the hotel." I munch my own pretzels half-heartedly, checking that their sodium content is within our daily values.

Yet the democratic consensus is Jack in the Box. As we cruise past the drive-thru menu, I aim to exercise the fifth even as my pretzels grow a little more flavorless. My eyes idly scan the pictoral pantheon of microwave Americana, each burger combo lustily coated with grease. In the bottom-right, a single line catches me off guard. I find myself abruptly frozen in a moment of zen. Can it be? Two foods, perfect in themselves, lexically conjoined to create a superfood. Though I gasp in reverent disbelief, my chord is struck. I am affected on a personal level, as if this enlightened formula were derived for me alone, even while it makes perfect sense as the product of some desire of the collective unconscious. Could this be the new peanut-butter and jelly, the new Romeo and Juliet? I blink. My bourgeois boycott goes right out the rolled-down window. The shape it takes is, "Taco Nachos, please!"

The menu displays no photo. The alchemical result of tacos and nachos sublimely combined is left to the individual imagination, as if daring each of us, as humans, as people, to envision something so tremendous. Two dollars seems like a trifle, almost suspicious in its frugality. My car-mates watch with interest as I unwrap the answer like a gift.

Jack In the Box Taco Nachos resemble a tray of vomit, the prodigious kind produced after a solid night out. Their bed of lettuce is rumpled, their grease stains the gray of a smoggy morning, their spill of easy-cheese congealed and chill to the touch. I use my plastic fork to have a bite, but my spirit is broken. I can not bear the sight any longer. In my mind's eye I construct an escapist recipe, a dream of crispy shells fat with refried beans and carne asada, sleeping under a warm blanket of cheddar-jack. I take the experience as a sign; it is like Newton's apple, like the proverbial butterfly beating its wings. At home, I can take this into my own hands. I can set this right. For me. For us all.

If Jack In the Box offered a Burrito Cake, I would totally try that too.

It snowed for much of the day. I myself got into work (and without falling over, at that) but a number of others worked from home, or took a day of annual leave, thus avoiding the mess on the roads and the confusion of the trains.

It's snowing again now outside.

I spent part of the evening knitting an emergency hat in chunky yarn: a couple of inches of ribbing for the rim, smooth stocking stitch otherwise. Unfortunately it came out a bit large. Not unwearably large, but on the large side. Oh well. Possibly it will shrink a little after washing. In the meantime it is certainly wearable and comes down over my ears. (I should have remembered that the last time I tried that pattern it came out a bit large then, too.)

I shouldn't complain. I am warm and comfortable and within easy walking distance of work and shops. And the snow still has a certain fascination: I do not get it that often, and can still enjoy looking out of the window and watching it. I probably won't feel the same come February, but . . .

---

"You? Who are you? How could you know anything of the matter?"

"My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don't know."

-- The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, Conan Doyle

"Sprezzatura is discussed by Baldassare Castiglione in 'The Book of the Courtier' — a guide to courtly conduct. The courtier must 'conceal all art and make whatever is done and said appear to be without effort and almost without any thought.'" - NYT.

Term remind you of anyone?

(...and, hey, now I also guess I know what word to use when talking about my own ambitions in life!)

WORK: hey, there's a possibility that you might be able to have some hours tomorrow you want?
MEG: Yeah, sure, lemme know.
WORK: *does not call*
MEG: Huh, guess they didn't need me. I know! I will drink Dr Pepper and read terrible fanfiction all night! Until five am!
MEG: *does so*
MEG: Wow, it's five am, I'm sure glad work didn't call me!
WORK: Hi, it's six am and we uhhh just realized that Memory Care has 3 caregivers instead of 4 HELP PLEASE
MEG: 
MEG:
MEG:
MEG: Okay, but I can't be there for at least an hour, I have to catch buses and shit
WORK: WE DON'T EVEN CARE, OKAY


And that my friends is how Meg ended up caregiving for eight hours after an hour's nap, and somehow made it home alive. On the way home, as  i was walking down the pedestrian path to Sunset, it was drizzling a bit like and an older dude with an umbrella offered to share. I declined, of course as

1. It wasn't raining that hard and by the time it did I was almost to the train shelter
2. I was wearing wool
3. I had an umbrella in my purse anyway

but I thought it was very gentlemanly of him!

Then I got home and stared at my own face in the mirror for a long moment before announcing to Amy that holy shit, I was actually as white as a sheet, and had a sarcastic response involving my own stupidity and working seven hours of physical labor.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Thien, Val - thanks for your cards!! They'd arrived before New Year's, actually, I've just been very remiss. ♥

I've been uploading fics to my AO3 account, starting with those that for one reason or another were never archived elsewhere and have otherwise disappeared down the tubes of my LJ. So check out the link, who knows. XD; It's taking me a lot longer than it should because I keep stopping to read stuff I'd totally forgotten about. Remember "Trapped In The Closet" with Rukia as R. Kelly? Neither did I!

(There's one more biggie to go - 20 Facts About Yumichika, out of Bleach, which I never posted properly at all. Not that it's complete... maybe I should change it to one of those Five Times He Did And One Time He Didn't structures.)

The tagging/organizational system works excellently, but the real killer app here is the uploader, which does a beautiful job of cleaning up copy-paste from Word and HTML. (It doesn't like to centre my apostrophe dividers, but nothing a bit of coding can't fix.)

Doing this makes me think that a real Decade's Top Music list from me would have to take into account the tracks I write from. Just going down the list of the fourteen pieces I've uploaded, for instance: ( asterisks indicate songs actually from the past decade )

Just a different view, I guess.

✄ Catie's post about top albums of the 00s! Contributions?
✄ Anon Meme still open!

I realize only now what a jerk face I have been, neglecting to thank greystrata and renshai for their delicious cookies and napkins for her card! So so sweet, you guys. Mairin I am using your pretty tin to store Moomin crackers and Italian Wedding cookies because I ate the yummy cookies you sent! /fat



dotiscute finished my Tae dress! As soon as I stop looking like death I will accessorize with shoes and belt! Still needs a hat.

Uuu traffic school tomorrow morning. I have the flu and I plan to share it.

First day back at work not too bad. (Actually it was quite decent, but I'm trying not to tempt fate.)

The weather is merely cold at the moment, but a lot of pavements are still icy. (The roads are fairly clear -- in central Leeds, at least.) Took a tumble on the way home: banged my knee, but nothing serious. Had rather heartwarming demonstration of the niceness of other human beings, as a man who'd been walking a bit behind me stopped to make sure that I was all right.

The weather forecast promises snow overnight and tomorrow. Several coworkers will be working from home if that happens. I have no real excuse for not going in. Ah well.

---

"Holmes is a little too scientific for my tastes -- it approaches to cold-bloodedness. I could imagine his giving a friend a little pinch of the latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of malevolence, you understand, but simply out of a spirit of inquiry in order to have an accurate idea of the effects. To do him justice, I think that he would take it himself with the same readiness. He appears to have a passion for definite and exact knowledge."

-- Stamford on Holmes, in A Study in Scarlet

Hey, everybody does one of these things, my turn too now.

OK, so, 2009:

Interviewed with a stereotypical BigLaw firm (third-largest in NYC) for a professional librarian position. Went through three rounds, and then nowhere.

after what was it, the second interview there, got a call from the place I interned at the previous summer. Started working on a special project, with a few hours a day of doing professional librarian things. Two months later, was offered the position full-time.

...thus, became an actual title-d, business card-ed professional law librarian.

Things I've since done:

Negotiated a salary and successfully asked for more than I was being offered initially.

Had two articles published in newsletters, and one in a professional magazine. Another article is due out next month in an academic (but not peer-reviewed) journal, one more was tentatively accepted, pending a final round of revisions, by an all-out *real* (double-blind peer review, all that) journal in a completely different field, and a third is still under consideration.

...Well, and had two rejections; one with extensive comments (...including the rather stinging - but hey, entirely true 'this reads like it was written by a grad student'), and the other as just plain-out not in the scope of the journal I submitted the thing to.

Spoke on a panel at a professional conference.

Received a professional award (at a level where I can entirely confidently put the thing on my resume/CV).

Visited two cities I have never been to before (Savannah and Vegas). And (at the very least) New Orleans and Denver are on the schedule for next year!

Well, and, oh, yeah, that - moved out of my parents' place - and into an apartment for myself. Again.

...And, well, things I've stopped doing:

- Being an anime journalist. Or just writing for that website. I mean, if I want to or feel like it, I can always still put up a news item, con report, or review, but the thing is, there's flat-out not that much going on the U.S. side now to warrant more coverage than the site already has. And as far as con reports go, I never could get the hang of what people generally expect from convention news coverage - liveblogging and Twitter and all that. Give me two hours, let me get my write-up to *make sense* and be more than either stenography or disjointed first reflections, and I'm all about that - but that's also not how journalism of *any* kind circa 2010 works...

- Well, and, somewhat connected to this, being involved with anime cons in general. I volunteered at Otakon '99, staffed or was a press member (or guest) at every single convention I have gone to since then...and, as of several months after this past year's Katsucon, resigned my position with that show. My reasons make sense to me...and, well, the thing is, if I'm not a staffer any more, nor a press member, nor, well, the guy people know as that dude who was at every convention and was the press member/staffer/whatever, honestly, there's not that many reasons for me *to* hit up that particular scene any more.

(I mean, that also sounds a little *too* dramatic, and I'm sure I'll still be around a couple of events - and it's going to be a while indeed before I grow that bored of the whole 'anime in academia'/anime studies thinger...but, yeah, it was fun when it lasted, but all things do indeed end.)

---

...and on that note:

"Intellect Books (2010). From the revered classics of Akira Kurosawa to the modern marvels of Takeshi Kitano, the films that have emerged from Japan represent a national cinema that has gained worldwide admiration and appreciation. The Directory of World Cinema: Japan provides an insight into the cinema of Japan through reviews of significant titles and case studies of leading directors, alongside explorations of the cultural and industrial origins of key genres. The cinematic lineage of samurai warriors, yakuza enforcers and atomic monsters take their place alongside the politically charged works of the Japanese new wave, making this a truly unique volume.

Free for a limited time.

DOWNLOAD THE DIRECTORY OF WORLD CINEMA: JAPAN"

Title: These are Not the Fic You're Looking For
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Gen or K/S

... see, the last time I did this I ended up writing 20,000 of RPS hooker fic, but I'm sure this will end well!

( SCENES FROM STAR TREK FIC I WILL NEVER WRITE )

Title: Deadly Handsome
Fandom: KHR
Character: Lambo
Word Count: ~200
Notes: for annotated_em in the drabble game here.


( Life was unfair. Lambo had known this since Reborn was beating him up when they were both in nappies )

Title: Diplomatic Relations
Fandom: KHR, PoT
Character: Gokudera, Yukimura
Word Count: ~350
Notes: for branchandroot in the drabble game here.


( Read more... )

Title: Unwinnable Game
Fandom: KHR
Character: Yamamoto Takeshi
Word Count: ~250
Notes: for annotated_em in the drabble game here.


( When the trouble with the Millefiore starts up, Tsuna doesn't recall Yamamoto from his baseball team. )

Title: A Ghost in Love with the Wrong World
Fandom: KHR
Character: Mukuro
Word Count: ~250
Notes: for annotated_em in the drabble game here.

( In his prison, Mukuro cannot see, cannot hear, cannot feel. )

for two_point, if she wants it.

--

( 'It seems to him an age since he’s been anything but frustrated; bored and dull.' )

→ You know, I used to think that I was getting away from anime fandoms. Well. APPARENTLY NOT. Not the way Sailor Moon, Naruto (seriously, Naruto of all things??), and Umineko fanart still hold me in their thrall.
→ Oh and One Piece, too. GOD I NEED TO SEE THE TENTH MOVIE SOON IT IS MAKING ME HUNGRY FOR OP AGAIN. *pines*
→ Usual warnings: You need an account for pixiv, you don't need one for devART/tegaki. Don't take the art without permission. Save me, plz. Crapload of links here, so it make take a moment to load.

( Pixiv links )

After Christmas I spent a few days at Disneyland! I've never been at any time other than mid-summer; the winter weather was sublime in comparison and there were lights all over every possible surface they could put lights on. Best attraction by far was Tiana's Showboat Jubilee, because The Princess and the Frog has awesome music that is not Christmas music, which is what was playing everywhere else in Disneyland, all day, on repeat (and sometimes live). Other than that, typical themepark experience, waiting 30 minutes for a 30 second ride etc etc, but plenty of cute things to look at meanwhile, and also, the timeless awesome that is Star Tours. All in all, a pleasant way to end the year. Contrary to the low expectations conferred by cynical adulthood I find I appreciate the park far more now than I did as a kiddie, although it is more difficult to squeeze two grown people into a tiny rocket ship or a bobsled or. Nostalgia factor was strong! (the cab ride at Toon Town is still bestesttt). What I do not appreciate is paying $6 for a handful of salad. I almost paid $38.99 to have a modest meal served to me by Ariel and Four of her Princess Friends, but then I remembered that's completely stupid. DISNEYLAND.

now time for another exciting edition of THINGS I HAVE SEEN LATELY:

( Sherlock Holmes )

( The Princess and the Frog )

( Boondock Saints II )

( Ninja Assassin )


Happy New Year! ps. the puppy is growing with alarming rapidity.

MEG:
okay so I think I have a problem
I have a shitty week
probably partly d/t hormones and def partly due to brain chemicals
so what do I think of ot do to cheer me up?
WRITE VAMPIRE AUS

refracting
M-meg.
This is the happiest day of my life.

MEG:
=w=

refracting:
Well. Not the part about the shitty week, etc.

MEG:
it's kirk/spock!

refracting
But you have embraced the VAMPIRE AU!

MEG:
so like
vulcans are vampires
and like they have this venom shit so their prey doesn't run screaming
and the normal vulcans, what were the normal vulcans, took off and became Romulans
AANYWAY the point is Spock is a vampire

refracting:
Clearly, this is the most important point. <3

MEG:
well yes
I'm sorry, did you expect me to waste valuable time thinking about plot?

refracting:
No. :D
Because this is a vampire au. <3

MEG:
ANYWAY it's all very interesting and like, human Starfleet personnel wear high collars as a safety precaution and Spock is all RARRGH JIM I AM KIND OF IN PON FARR I DESIRE YOUR TASTY BLOOD PLEASE RUN NOW and Jim is like, *unzips collar*


also amy found me microwave brownie bowls. o/