{ split subject }

I seriously just jotted down this recent roadtrip conversation on a sticky note in 2 minutes, so I figured I might as well post it here (the ongoing official LJ hiatus notwithstanding), along with a few other fannish tidbits I should share.

It came in the aftermath of watching the trailer for the new BSG spinoff Caprica[!], which is SO LOLARIOUSLY BAD that it boggles the mind. THE CYLONS WERE CREATED BY MAN: TO CURE THEIR MANPAIN! This is potentially good for me, time management wise, because if the trailer is any indication the show may actually be too unappealing for me to even sit through, much less get excited about -- despite the enticing presence of my faves Atia and Trixie portraying Wife #1 and Wife #2.

Anyway, my roadtrip buddy asked me to define "manpain":
Angst about how hard it is to be a straight white man. Straight white men have lots of big important responsibilities, like saving the world and protecting ladies and children. The great weight of these responsibilities hurts them in their deep and delicate souls.

This definition is moreover, I think, a good rationalization of why manpain annoys me on on male but not on female characters. When women (Kara Thrace or Sarah Cameron, for example) can be characterized as exhibiting manpain, it's because THEY have lots of big important responsibilities, like saving the world and protecting ladies and children, and that's actually kinda cool.

What's NOT cool is, in pirateygoodness's words, "a show entirely about boys and the wives and/or daughters that occasionally show up to make them furrow their brows":


Also:

1. I've had almost no time to work on my LATE hot_toaster ficathon story, which I originally intended to start in late June. This in itself is a perfect testament to all the ways that the current rhythm of my life supports making vids and multimedia crack but not real fic writing. I'm determined clear part of this week to finish a draft, though.

2. Despite being so undeserving, I received the stunning Hybrid POV Cyloncest fic lab'ring to discharge an active heat from tellitslant!

3. I have an actual plane ticket to vividcon (Thursday-Monday) -- though I still may not get into the con proper.

4. I have two vid reviews posts planned for cyborganize in anticipation -- one all BSG -- but in the meantime let me point you to heyiya's articulate and flattering notes about some projects she, I, and beccatoria have finished recently.

5. In case you haven't heard, there's an epic wankstorm in progress -- suffice it to say that FanHistorydotcom is bad, and you should support the OTW's upcoming wiki instead.

since I already fell off the hiatus wagon...

i. oh my laptop oh my laptop!!! MY PRECIOUSSSSSSSSS. I picked it up yesterday (they were all, "oh, we called you on friday but your voicemail didn't work"), better and faster and cleaner than ever, and have since only put it down to sleep. I have whined much less than I COULD have, I think, these past (almost) two weeks; I really don't know how I functioned without it. 24 hours later, I'm mostly done recopying and reintegrating and reinstalling and redownloading everything, with Leopard and shiny new icons (largely BSG and candy hearts)! *bouncebouncebounce*

ii. we could still really use some help pimping majoritython in related communities, folks. I'll suck it up and hit choc_fic; meanwhile I'd love to get SGA circles involved.

iii. thearchive2! that is the only BSG content of this post. I'm quietly imploding.

iv. last night was "I'm Not There" with Todd Haynes, but I hated the film (and also "Far From Heaven" -- though I passionately love his early short "Dottie Gets Spanked") so I had little to say to him. since each of the interwoven stories featured a different actor, character, and genre, there was nothing to give the whole ANY coherence except one's extratextual knowledge of Bob Dylan canon. of which I have not an iota. what I was left with was an ENTIRE MOVIE ABOUT MANPAIN (how hooooooorible it is to be a famous rockstar), my very least favorite media theme. its one redeeming feature was that a good dose of the manpain came in the guise of Cate Blanchett, who was insanely hot. and David Cross as Alan Ginsburg is never not funny!

v. adding to the hilarity: the fact that I woke up yesterday at the ungodly hour of 8:30am in order to be on campus for a 10am workshop with Todd, only to discover that the workshop was actually TODAY. I maintain that nothing good ever came of mornings! all's well that ends well, though, since I told ljconscript my sob story and she relented and didn't make me go! so today I never had to change out of my pajamas.

vi. in other *facepalms* of late march: does anybody need an HP #94 black ink cartridge? I accidentally bought the wrong one.

vii. I had the First Big Meeting with whkc, and she was disconcertingly nice to me (last time she mostly yelled at me to write faster). she says I'm on track (which is very fuzzy math -- I should have TWO chapters written by now) and have an intervention in new media studies! I was worried that as soon as I actually got critiques on my work I would become demoralized about the entire dissertation, but thankfully the experience was quite the opposite.

viii. _plasticity_, poojapooja and I just finished off the last of the spaghetti sauce that _plasticity_ made me even though I called him a "promiscuous bibliophile." the problem with cooking is that, after doing a heaping sinkfull of dishes, we're left with... a heaping sinkfull of dishes.

ix. I'm going to roller derby in Boston a week from saturday. any takers??

x. to celebrate Pythia's resurrection, I will now post my Top Five Recent YouTube Finds. I've noticed that my steady stream of video genius has slowed to a trickle now that I'm not teaching undergrads, but you people do occasionally come through in your job as my internet filter, so let me return the favor:

( under the cut )

i. this primary season has been painful (even though so far I've avoided voting, since I'm registered in Michigan). I've been at a loss for how to engage or respond or even articulate the crippling double-binds. so because fandom is my orientation and my native language:

deborah_judge and I (egged on by iamsab) are thrilled to present: majoritython, the women and people of color in politics challenge! we hope that this 'thon, for fanworks featuring fictional characters and real people who rule or govern or hold civil office, will redress in some small way the negativity and divisiveness, sexism and racism currently stirred up around people of color and women in power.

you can read all about Majority Rules here. this is right up the alley of plenty of folks on my flist (you know who you are), and I WANT YOU to participate. even if you aren't able to sign-up, you can contribute by trying your hand at some creative googling and inventing prompts. and by PIMPING, pretty please?! this has the potential to reach a vast number of fandoms, but only if we have help spreading the word (I've got chamalla_dreams, cj_fangrrl, and rpfs covered -- choc_fic or vidding, anyone?).

my condition for myself when committing to running this, time-management wise, was that I wasn't allowed to submit. but then I accidentally listened to a song. yeah, I may very well have signed up to make my 1st vid (though whether I'll actually finish it is another matter altogether). SHUT UP. it's a movie vid (of complete crack). I may very well have it story-boarded and meta-noted in my head. like my 0th vid, it may be something that nobody else is ever able to love a fraction as much as I do.

ii. in other news that's fit to print: I am creeping toward mental, emotional, and spiritual preparedness for the BSG premiere. inspiration has struck about my S4 project: for each episode, I plan to create some document or artifact (in keeping with the archival theme) that inserts the GIRLSLASH GOGGLES into the narrative. please send any ideas or requests by way of thearchive2.

iii. if you're feeling only a small fraction of the love I'm feeling for fandom right now (or, you know, the frustration with livejournal), consider making a small donation to become a member of the Organization for Transformative Works. OTW is building the next great home for fanworks, a not-for-profit archive with an infrastructure that supports and protects our values.

iv. the computer store gave Pythia back, all "your drive passed the hardware test." I figured my troubleshooting skills had gotten rusty. then I got her home and, yup, the hard drive is indeed still broken. so today it's back to the shop (I explained to them about writing zeros, and my poor baby made the crunching/clicking sound on cue). although rather lobotomized without it, I'm in good spirits, all things considered -- poojapooja saved what little sanity I have left by loaning me her old Vaio. and I get a new keyboard/top case out of the whole affair, and possibly Leopard, and the new memory I bought is installed, so in a few more days it will be practically like having a whole new lappy!

while I'm on the subject of technology: what platform would you recommend for an academic who needs to create a multimedia portfolio in a user-friendly fashion? blog architecture is not really flexible enough to create an archive that includes text, films, etc. there must be some social media site that offers CMS-style functionality in a web 2.0 front-end, while being more professionally-oriented than the likes of Vox or Nexo and shinier than ourmedia?

v. the photo meme (again): Ask me to take pictures of any aspect of my life that you're interested in/curious about -- it can be anything from my favourite shirt, to my cell phone [ED: it can't actually be my cell phone, because I use that to take the pictures].

1. I cannot fathom why humans thought it was a good idea to settle in this climate. the sleet has made a number of everyday necessities too complicated even to lament over twitter.
• unrelated to the weather, we blow a fuse this morning = no electricity, no internet
• we walk to The Edge, through the slush, in the freezing rain
• I'm supposed to take the train to Boston, but the trolley isn't running (as far as I can tell), my friends refuse to drive, and I don't want to entrust myself to a cab
• thus, I miss my friend's birthday party, necessitating a rain check in Boston (most likely involving bailing on a different friend's party)
• The Edge decides to close at 5pm
• we retreat to pooja's house; the wet will probably freeze over soon, making it too treacherous to walk (or be driven) home
• luckily I brought my antibiotics with me, figuring that was the one thing I really couldn't go without if stranded somewhere overnight
• at least now I can make it to the journal meeting!

2. it's the end of the year. memes or wishlists or resolutions never seem adequate.
• I have a months-overdue phone date with FL next week, and I'm writing the chronicle for her in my head
• majoritython is hard work; I think a lot about bounce_n_jiggle + nerd_dog's dharma principles -- how (or when) to let go of paralyzing fear
• I want reading to be legible as a practice of friendship
• I archive and aggregate my life so ferociously, and it haunts me that people still say, "I can't keep track of you"
* I want to make a zine about this -- how to read my web empire -- and send it out with holiday cards, but I'm not because the chapter is still underway

3. I'm stalled at various non-dissertation projects, among them the masterlist conversion. do any of my minions find themselves with more time on their hands at this time of year, and willing to take on a chunk of it? if I can farm out S-Z, I think I can manage the rest (eventually).

4. my cocktail party outfit was well-appreciated last night.



what you can't quite see is the orange fishnets, which span my exposed midriff. and the pushup bra. plus I added new photos of project hair, since I'm going to have to reevaluate at another appointment soon.

5. should be about the WGA or the OTW -- instead, it's a GIP.

1) I hate confrontation, and I hate upsetting people that I love, and that means, given my druthers, I tend to stew in my own juices until I come up with a clear articulation of how I feel and what I want (which can conceivably take eons). sometimes this strategy creates more drama than it circumvents. I did a stupid thing, and I apologized. and yeah, perhaps unconsciously I *wanted* to precipitate a crisis that would force us to talk openly about the situation, because ultimately that's the more productive course.

2) we talked. clyde_man doesn't want to break up. I don't want to break up. so we're not breaking up. exactly as I suspected all along. that was really more histrionic than it needed to be, and I apologize to you (who weren't filtered out) as well.

3) I already knew, back when we were trying to settle on the architecture for our partnership going forward, that our relationship functions better intertwined with the fabric of daily life. it's not well suited to the necessary intensity of long distance and concentrated visits. I don't regret this path, and I don't believe that we were meant to become domestic partners, in the end, but these difficulties are not a surprise. to me, one conflicted weekend (or month or year) isn't reason to end a nine-year commitment.

4) I have a home and a community in Providence. I have a home and a community in LA. I don't have a home or a community in Baltimore. the reality of a dissertator is unavoidably selfish, and I need to spend my time in (physical, emotional, intellectual) spaces that are mine. I've said that I'll make an effort to be there, insofar as I'm able, but I've also said that we may need to see each other less frequently for the duration of this phase. clyde_man wants to be around to support me, but in some ways she can support me best right now by not being around.

5) my life and iamsab's life are elegantly synchronous right now. that may not always be the case with this potency. but the fact is, we've always been more the same, and clyde_man and I have always been more different. I don't know exactly what conclusions follow from that fact, but certainly these articulations require divergent sets of compromises, like two hyperbolae that curve off in opposite directions.

i. calling all girlslashers: you know you have to watch Damages, right? I mean, you can trust afterellen if you don't want to take my word for it (click the "Damages" tag for more), but seriously? this is the most mind-meltingly gay series to come to summer cable in recent memory. picture The Devil Wears Prada as a serious serial drama, then substitute high-powered law firm for high-powered fashion mag, turn Meryl Streep into Glenn Close and make her character about five times as scary, and you will begin to comprehend the power of this OTP.

if that image isn't enough for you, here are ( a couple ubergay things that happened in the pilot ) it's getting good critical buzz, but honestly I wasn't overly impressed by the clunky, derivative anti-corporate thriller plot. Ted Danson is so endearing as Evil CEO that you almost want HIM to win! but OH PATTY. go ahead, DL it and see for yourself. and then join damages_fx.

ii. someone is clearly falling down on the job, because it was only by accident that I found tallulah71's new BSG vid Sunday Bloody Sunday. and yeah, I also went, "really? isn't that a bit heavy-handed?" but it turned out to be everything one could possibly want from a vid to that song. I said, in my comment, that she managed to make it simultaneously a biting political commentary and a heart-wrenching emotional juggernaut. and there are these beautiful sequences of parallel clips in it about humans and cylons, in hate and in love. (oh, and iamsab said, "it had really good 'people pointing guns at each other while trembling.' not just Lee. he's usually the trembler.") it gives me chills, man, every time.

seriously, this deserves to be part of the pantheon of Big Name BSG Vids. I'm pretty sure I've seen most of the ones that get recced right and left, but if there are any other new ones like THIS out there that I don't know about, please rectify the oversight. (no Adama/Roslin or Kara/Lee, kthnx.)

also, you should watch jarrow's Snape vid, along with everything Brad Neely ever does. TRUST ME. Professor Snake is totally my girlfriend!

iii. I got a haircut and lost half my sprout. TRAUMA. to be fair, Miguel did ask me three times if I was sure I wanted him to cut it. thing is, I DID want him to do something with it. really, I wanted for him to have some overarching artistic concept. or at least, to cut only the three inches he showed me with his fingers, and not the six inches he actually lobbed off. I won't even have enough for tiny pigtails for a week or two; luckily I have the flower clip and there's one and only one hairstyle I can do in the meantime, with the remaining spit of curls flipped up so it somewhat covers the unfortunate spikes. of the good: the back is perfectly fauxhawked, just how I want to keep it for the foreseeable future. I just don't know HOW I'll keep it this way while the top grows back out enough to work with, because I don't really feel like paying $30 a pop to maintain it (I can mohawk by myself, but not fauxhawk). this is why I started Operation Grownup Haircut 18 months in advance of interviews, I suppose. pictures not forthcoming.

iv. also, after exercising heretofore untapped reserves of willpower in the various eyewear boutiques where I shopped for sunglasses, I accidentally bought new glasses frames at Lenscrafters. I pick them up tomorrow, and I'm rather trepidatious, because can they really be the ubertrendy Frames of Ultimate Destiny that I was trying to hold out for?? but they were subtly cateyed metallic pink with (woefully logoed and undecorated) orangey plastic sides, and maybe it's enough for them to be the Frames of Opportunity, because did I really want to put new $500 lenses in year-old frames (however magenta)? pictures forthcoming (I hope).

v. (as seen on twitter) we saw Jorja Fox (again) at Brite Spot! she's such Silverlake hipster dyke and it makes me very very happy. we're not maintaining a very high volume of celebrity sightings, around here, but Jorja's always a good one.

vi. I have NOT read Book 7, nor am I planning to do so anytime soon, but I HAVE read all your Book 7 reaction posts. which means I am spoiled for *everything* that happens, hurrah! it traumatizes me (despite said fandom's current wankopalypse) that I'm apparently so utterly out of HP fandom. I mean, I still have a tag! I did see the movie! *clings*

vii. I accidentally did this:



it's accurate, I think, except I might technically be slightly stronger on the J, and I/E is pretty much a tossup.

viii. I retired a whole mess of icons, leaving me slightly shellshocked, but now I have so much space for shinies! (c.f. temporary Damages icon that I threw together; nyuszi has promised more and better). but I cannot, for the life of me, find the girlslashy Grey's icons. WTF, people?? my kingdom for a good Addison/Cally square. also, some combination of Ugly Betty's Alexis/Wilhemina/Christina (I found Betty/Amanda). and I wouldn't mind some Teen Girl Squad. SEND HELP.

ix. the Which LOLcat Are You? results page is genius. it's like a zillion times better than the quiz itself (which gave me icanhazcheezburger cat, when *clearly* I am but-I-eated-it cat).

x. lest you think I'm spending ALL my time writing long, pointless lj entries, look how I've started posting tiny bits of my dissertation @ cyborganize. go team me!

i. I forgot to commemorate my eljayversary! it's june 11. apparently I didn't celebrate last year either, so, no memes here. but still, I love you lj!

ii. over the past three days I undertook a semi-massive redesign of my fanfic empire. baby pink is now chartreuse, purple is now darker purple, brighter and less cloying, everything matches projectjulie.net, and I'm SO much happier. even *I* get sick of pink sometimes. this was perhaps not my finest hour in time management, but the project was on the list so I was bound to do it imminently in the course of my procrastination, anyway.

in addition to converting my color scheme, I indexed all my fanstuff in del.icio.us (which took FOREVER -- but it was worth it). I would HIGHLY recommend this system to anyone who has to maintain a fic index! you get a front end for easily adding things, and then this doohicky enables you to dump the lists automatically into your own pages (my example). (NB: this won't work within LJ, because it doesn't allow javascript.) so I now know some interesting statistics:

- I've written more stories than I thought -- 16 (with 3 more to come this year)
- my remixthedrabble entry was my 50th drabble! *confetti*
- between writing it and making other people write it, I have personally generated a LOT of doppelcest
- I really am more obsessed with BSG than with anything ever

- most importantly: I think I've missed some presents, oh noes! normally I'm pretty OCD about filing them, but I feel like I've been leaving a fair number of meme prompts lately, and I can't imagine nobody has gifted me anything since Five Things went around last fall (oh wait, michellek's commentfic!). if you remember writing me something in the recent past, however tiny (or EVER writing me anything that isn't on this list), PLEASE PLEASE give a shout! since I make every attempt to delegate ideas before I break down and write them myself, presents are an especially important part of my fanfic life.

I also customized cyborganize to look like the drupal site. next up: converting ALL my old fanfic and personal links to del.icio.us. I'll leave that till a future bout of procrastination.

iii. while I was happy not to be overscheduled during my whirlwind visit to new york, in retrospect I could have been a more aggressive planner. I missed about three close friends in ways that were probably avoidable, and I'm so sad about that. not to mention all the folks I didn't even have time to contact! nonetheless, I was overjoyed to catch up with T, girlboymusic + furies (during her brief wakefulness -- wish it had worked out for longer!), D + LC, katia, thenewhope + quasiradiant, and bounce_n_jiggle + nerd_dog.

I'm coming to the realization that I have an abnormally large number of friends. I'm not sure how to talk about that without sounding self-aggrandizing -- just, it's a constant struggle to maintain my relationships with all these people who I dearly love. at some point in life my strategies in this department may have to radically change. for the moment, I'm thinking about my holiday cards.

relatedly, I'm zipping through my flist right now (catching up once more) and I feel like I'm not commenting much. but believe me when I say that I'm the most obsessive-compulsive lj-er ever, and if you're on it that means I'm reading your posts avidly. if I'm forced to filter or defriend again I'll let you know.

iv. july 1, folks!! now's a good time to start watching majoritython for news about my shenanigans in and around la casa shoemoney (especially concerning one very special inhabitant) and its virtual environs. does anyone in LA want to take me or let me take them to a yoga class once a week?

v. I'm posting Big Love prompts at sisterwives. if you've ever had any inclination to slash that show, please do so now! and if you're not watching it, get on that asap!

plus, I just added a bunch of stuff to my femslash fanvids playlist. help me find more on imeem!

( imeem playlist )

i. MOAR PR0MTZ PLS! I petered out a bit while moving, but I'm trying to get back in the habit of one per day (have to complete the first ten asap so I can then post my Buffybot drabble there).

ii. two of my stupendous students last semester, themattcatt and kenthaines, make TV (they're like Derek and Will! or Clark and Michael! or Aaron and Tommy!). they're in LA as we speak pitching their latest web series, Upstaged. check out the first episode below -- more on youtube or blip.tv.


iii. seriously, nobody's on Plazes? it just went out of beta and on relaunch it has new twitter-like features in the "Plazer" application (actually that's sort of annoying -- I wish I could just integrate the two somehow).

iv. I have officially changed my plane ticket to fly out of nyc on june 17, so there will be a visit! I'm probably coming to town on wednesday the 13th but that's negotiable. saturday I'm spending with clyde_man.

v. normally I wait to post until I have 5 things to say, but these were too time-sensitive. so I will just conclude with: loltheorists!

i. I'm DONE with school (as of last friday). no more pencils, no more books (most importantly, no more GR4D1NG) for the next year (probably two) of fellowship funding. bring it on.

ii. clyde_man landed hir dream job. it's in D.C., with a far hipper company than these financial drones she's been stuck with for 20 years. this is, seriously, beyond our wildest expectations of what could come of leaving the previous clusterfuck. like kismet. but much as I said I was ready, much as this scenario makes everything far less complicated, it never seemed like leaving NY(J)C was a realistic possibility. and now, all of a sudden, it's happening. we're driving to Jersey tomorrow to pack up my stuff there and say goodbye. tuesday we're continuing on to Providence. I know it's short notice, but if anyone wants to take a ride on the PATH train to hang out with us tomorrow night, you're welcome. dinner at Sushi Tango! tea and ice cream!

iii. as soon as this iron went into the fire, I realized that NYC had been a major oversight in my summer planning. I mean, I subliminally expected that I'd be returning to the city when I leave LA at an undetermined date in august. eep! so now I'm going to try to squeeze in a visit from june 10-14, approximately. I have a plane ticket from Providence to Michigan for june 15, which in retrospect is a terrible arrangement (I could have flown from Newark, and stayed longer!). but now I'm stuck with it. so this will be a whirlwind trip devoted entirely to catching up with friends -- pencil me in, stay tuned, give a shout, etc.

iv. the rest of the schedule: clyde will be in Providence helping me pack until friday. memorial day weekend I'm visiting my grandparents. then lucky (clyde's partner!) is coming to town to finish up the packing and help with the move itself on june 2, because clyde will have started the new job (and can't carry things with hir bad back anyway). this intra-familial delegation was her idea -- so adorable! we are completely Bill and Barb and Margie.

v. apparently lucky and clyde are going to Burning Man at the end of august: anybody interested in taking me? and the boston dyke march is on june 8 (6pm) -- be there or be square!

vi. I have no number vi. mostly just my perpetual battle with time, how unlimited projects lie in wait for me inside my computer and out there in the world. I don't seem to be able to prevent myself (especially while grading, writing) from joining ficathons and redesigning layouts and playing with new gadgets (that's a "lifestream": one-stop shopping for everything I post everywhere [excluding fanfic]). speaking of which, if you've joined twitter and I haven't added you yet, give me a holler.

vii. there was a moment, as I schlepped through the Denver airport, when the architecture of taking a break from lj was actually comprehensible. I know, intellectually, that my current involvement in fandom and internet life isn't sustainable long term, but most of the time the prospect of not participating at this level seems unimaginable. lj has been a source of so much stress and anxiety for me in recent months, though, and in that brief flash in transit I could SEE the relief (of a drastic unfriending and a break from fanfic) stretching before me. writing my diss about fandom creates a sort of hilarious catch 22, however, because I can't very well de-engage with my object of study! a year from now, when I'll have hopefully finished my case studies, I'm going to re-evaluate my status.

viii. speaking of fandom stress, I followed thassalia into the fray at Denis McGrath's blog. why did I do that?? he's a friend of FL, so I suppose I felt some responsibility to raise the level of debate. anyway, my comments (down at the bottom) are clearly informed by recent MiT5-y conversations with theorynut, cathexys, et al. go team acafangirl! I had this realization, by the way, that the reason I'm not blogging publicly and making myself visible like the fanboys is that I'd rather devote that energy to WRITING FIC.

ix. the girls of Shoemoney Haus are living three of my alternate lives, and it just fills me with flaily pride. I hate that I've been away since january.

x. that meme: I asked for icons and interests from the first five folks to cross my flist. shout if you want me to pick for you!

for, in order, ana_grrl, pocketwitch, annakovsky, tellitslant, and wearemany:

( words & squares )

i. I've fallen of the bottom of my flist a distressing number of times recently (never by more than a matter of hours). I think (hope) it's back under control for good now. but I missed some March posts, with no way of knowing which ones. *flails*

plus my web sites are down -- hopefully back up soon, hopefully with all files intact, long story. but this means my comments are bouncing at present, so if you've replied to me somewhere other than projectjulie in the past two days or so, give a holler.


ii. but there's a silver lining: mazily introduced me to the wonders of Firefox 2.0 -- particularly its ability to restore any number of tabs after quitting or crashing -- so my trademark Lost Tabs Crises, at least, are a thing of the past! I was a die-hard Safari holdout for years, but I tell you, Firefox 2.0 changed my life (_plasticity_ pointed out that lately I've been saying, "omg I just discovered something that changed my life!" on a regular basis; most of these somethings exist inside my computer). I'll never look back.

in this random screencap of a occasion when all the letters in my menus inexplicably turned upside-down, you can also see how pretty and PINK my Firefox is:


favorite extensions include del.icio.us complete (of the many del.icio.us tools, this seems to be the only one with support for multiple accounts), livejournal addons, the googlebar, and Zotero (thanks jennyo). holler if you have any tips to share, including Greasemonkey or Stylish scripts, which I haven't had much time to pick through (short of prettifying del.icio.us, which is a relief).

meanwhile, in another life-changing technological event, I've converted my public calendar to google. you can subscribe via google, iCal, or RSS. this is yet another way to keep track of me as I'm living bicoastally for the next two years.


iii. the Mary McDonnell obsession waxes and wanes in intensity, and perhaps it's better for all parties concerned if I just leave it be (in such public, publlished fora). she reported that she talked about *us* a lot in the EW interview, but nothing explicit made it through the edit; anyway, beerbad already pulled the most spectacular quote that only makes me crave Mary/Katee all the more.

meanwhile there are more pictures from our finale. and a friend asked me what my callsign is, and while I style myself more as Tory a civilian member of the presidential administration, I think the hypothetical answer is obvious [highlight: Cupcake]. want to suggest/guess?? I have decreed that _plasticity_'s callsign is Bookworm.


iv. pene and unwinding and I asked a question: Who are your single favorite TV characters of all time, male and female? female would be very difficult for me, with my excessive loves, except that there's Laura Roslin so it's obvious. and I thought male would be equally difficult for opposite reasons (I can barely even SEE boys on TV), except that there's Captain Jack (runners up = House, Richard Smith-Jones, and everyone on Arrested Development). I can totally see Captain Jack! (as I realized when I started gushing to jarrow [since it's flocked: you forgot (Captain) Jack Harkness, from Torchwood. I totally pick him! someone should start a Jackathon, seriously. and I mean that as a ficathon, but it's appropriate that it sounds so dirty... I can't imagine that you haven't *heard* about Torchwood, given the way fandom is. but in case you haven't: it's a Doctor Who spinoff run by the genius behind UK QAF, and every character is canonically bisexual. it's like the anti-BSG. I love it shamelessly. Captain Jack is totally omnisexual (he's from the future or something, my Whoverse knowledge is kinda spotty) and played by this totally gay actor who recently got gay married. you would LOVE this Jack... also he wears suspenders for no apparent reason! and is extremely talented at standing! and he's in love with Doctor Who, and keeps his severed hand in a jar (of course there is porn about this)! ...wow, I am sounding really not gay right now. the chicks rock too! they make out with aliens!]).


v. contrarily, can anyone explain SVU 8x16: On a Very Special SVU to me?!? it was as if they inserted a single episode of a serial drama from some crack-addled parallel universe into our regularly scheduled procedural! and I'm not even talking about the soapy sludge of emo that comprised the storyline -- my aversion to Olivia/Elliot aside, it just didn't make sense! the ep seemed to be referencing nonexistent events that happened before and afterward! there was no narrative closure! happyhop and I literally started the next one because we wanted to find out what happened, and lo and behold Olivia and Elliot are still inexplicably partners despite Cragen et al having just conclusively determined that this is a terrible idea! *flaily flail*


vi. oh, television. I really could talk endlessly about television (I watch it almost exclusively in bed on my iPod, these days -- I have a growing archive of seasons of stuff ripped if you want some). my catalogue (it got too long for links in the sidebar) will have to suffice for commentary. plus, randomly:

• R.I.P. Rome. not that I didn't love Atia, gratuitous toplessness, and many other things about this show, but apparently Servillia (or Servillia vs. Atia, at least) was the heart of my investment, because I couldn't bring myself to care much after she was gone.
• I watched Farscape season 1 again (mostly with my eyes closed, for which it turns out to be especially inappropriate, so I'm not sure what will become of my plan to continue until the bitter end). I'm finding Chiana much hotter this time around (no idea why). I'll NEVER get tired of the way Aeryn's leather creaks when she moves. but Zhaan is still my girl.
• the ensemble cast of child actors on Freaks & Geeks is stunningly talented. predictably, I want Lindsey/Kim slash.
• my mom (who, keep in mind, was the one who took me to Stratford every year as a child) and all her friends are watching Slings & Arrows, now! it's adorable. she forwards me emails like:

TWO YEARS in two days! ------------That's right: 2 years in 2 days: [person] and I sat down and watched the entire two year run of SLINGS AND ARROWS IN TWO DAYS! --and in the process we laughed until our sides ached (and sometimes teared up too). What a wonderful gift you gave us in the form of that recommendation. STOP RIGHT NOW AND PUSH THE FORWARD BUTTON, so that Julie will not only be witness to this note of thanks and praise, but will think to put us on our 'NOT TO BE MISSED LIST" of similar rare but wonderful entertainments.


vii. giantessmess is interviewing me for an article:

( gold star girlslasher )


viii. Photo Booth is dangerous for narcissists (like me).

( four pictures of me )

ix. I talk about Camp MCM all the time (our basement office, pictured above). but the the deliriously wacky collegiality that's spatialized there is just hard to describe. a video is worth a thousand words. late one night, poojapooja had an OCD moment and spontaneously decided to clean up my haircut using _plasticity_'s swiss army knife, and this activity was so patently absurd that we had to fire up the webcam:



this is, srsly, the worst YouTube video ever posted. except for how it's AWESOME. all evidence to the contrary, my own YT account is still quasi-professional, so I tricked poojapooja into posting it chez elle because it's just too incriminating in its utter banality (otherwise it would have ended up private, and that's no fun). also there were about four more minutes where we invented a new hairstyle and cackled a lot, but I accidentally erased the second file, so the world will never know the full extent of our genius.


x. exhibited here in some small measure is our favorite pastime: thinking up utterly frivolous theoretical rubrics. _plasticity_ came up with the concept of a "personal economy" -- basically the single currency through which all the input/output of one's life can be translated. we entertain ourselves by trying to figure them out for everyone we know. his is books. poojapooja's is treats. mine is girls(lash).

a) my phone's camera isn't working and I haven't had time to try to fix it (I suspect I need to replace the memory card?). that's why I haven't been posting pictures. in case you were wondering.

b) I just megauploaded the aforementioned Global Frequency pilot for frogfrizz and I know you want it too.

c) the past three hours were spent catching up on some comments, which was satisfying but perhaps unwise since it leaves the flist still in a state of crisis (or maybe I just won't sleep much tonight?). I'm not sure what to tell you (or myself) except that hopefully my lj-life will improve in april.

d) tomorrow after class I'm leaving for Chicago. on the way/there I have to throw together a version of the paper to present on saturday and prepare for class next week. I have yet to pack (and grade this one paper).

e) everything was sort of under control except that now I have to give this 5-minute talk for a teaching certificate on wednesday morning. I suppose I can just wing it or reprise part of my tuesday lecture? on wednesday I write my exam questions and then over next weekend I revise the paper and then the following wednesday I do my studying. or something like that. and then friday the 23rd it's OVER. (my one fear is that they'll go "omg you're obviously not prepared!" and make me postpone the orals -- that would suck.)

I'm woefully behind on lj again, for no good reason. and I've been keeping this list of things I'd like to post about, if I were ever to have time to post, which I don't for the foreseeable future (blah blah insanity-until-mid-march-cakes, see cyborganize and tvhere for updates). so I might as well do one of those entries where I make a list of the things I'll tell you more about at some later date (or not):

i. speaking of behindness, of necessity I've been bookmarking a whole bunch of your fic for a rainy day, including everything yuletide (nor have I gotten to much of anything on the previous list *facepalm*). my apologies!

ii. I feel a bit like the apocryphal lesbian with the U-Haul, that is, all this talk with iamsab of weddings and babies (the things that clyde_man, for the record, has never wanted with anyone, least of all me) is perhaps ridiculously premature. but the thing is, it works in surprising ways (surprisingly rich and quotidian ways). and I don't believe that comes along very often in a lifetime.

iii. you should join this thing that wearemany discovered. it's totally addictive! you can update it from the site or by IM or txt (though I'm having trouble setting that up) or software with a little blurb about what you're doing. and there are multiple ways to track people, too, that I'm still figuring out (there's some sort of RSS feed of me, for example eta: twitter_pjulie -- and there'll be another one that includes me plus all my friends, I think, WHEN I HAVE THEM) -- don't you want to keep track of me?? and it's far less big brother-ish than plazes, though I'm also still addicted to that. also, I went ahead and joined OurChart. *eyeroll*

iv. shananaomi made girls gay for us as requested! your votes were taken into account.

v. I spontaneously switched from Eudora to Mail without quite realizing what was happening. I mean, I like Mail, but Eudora and I have been together for over 10 years! but there was the import mailboxes button, and *bloop* I'm joining the 21st century.

vi. my best and only LA celebrity sighting this trip was Ethan Phillips -- aka Neelix on Voyager! actually em did the spotting with her special kung fu, since it's a challenge to recognize him without the elaborate makeup. he sat down next to us at Cafe 101 on my first and samdonne's last morning. BUT MEANWHILE EM SAW GRACE PARK! she stood in line behind her at Starbucks; tragically, I was not with her at the time.

vii. I have "crazy BSG dreams" on my list, but the dreams were ages ago and now I've totally forgotten them! eta: and then LAST night I dreamed and dreamed about hanging out with Mary McDonnell. it was sort of wonderful and sort of torturous.

viii. I've been contemplating writing up an eloquent position statement on the flailing over how Kara's recent "tomcatting around" is out of character and/or bad and wrong, neither of which I believe is true. but that's fatally low on the list of priorities. so all you get is this snip from an email to mandysbitch: a) I DON'T think Kara is a bad person. I think she's being true to the parameters of her relationship -- Anders makes clear that he knows about this arrangement and accepts it. I have a VERY hard time blaming folks for being in love with two people [see further: my strange lack of h8 for McDreamy]. the way she's handling it may seem like a rationalization, but it's one that works for her and her partner, and I don't think Lee's proposal that they both leave their spouses is any more objectively moral (in fact, Lee is perhaps a BIGGER dick, as he seems to have NO concern for Dee's feelings). b) well, many would say this IS out of character for Kara, and offer various evidence from her earlier dalliances (basically that Gaius is the only random hookup she had, and even then she was thinking of Lee, and she has been anything but callous with others' affections and her own). OK fine, but I STILL think there's some underlying sexist disapproval of the promiscuous woman going on here. although Kara hasn't had many onscreen hookups, her promiscuity was always implied, and that's always been one of my FAVORITE things about her character. (plus somebody made Brokeback Galactica [Lee/Anders], which is totally FTW!)

ix. we were watching Big Love as a family in Ptown, joking about clyde_man and hir three wives (only s/he swapped pixieslap for me in boston, so we were never all there simultaneously). I'm the 2nd, but I don't think I'm much like nikki. lucky is totally barb, except for how clyde has to be bill+barb, what with being the breadwinner plus the one who does all the cooking and scheduling. it was really quite adorable. then we mapped it out for Shoemoney Haus too! in that version, I'm very much margene, which makes perfect sense.

x. have I mentioned that I love television? everything (see the list in my sidebar) is starting up again, yay. plus I have this ambitious list of things to learn, which goes something like:

The Book Group (UK)
Elizabeth I (miniseries, Helen Mirren)
Bleak House (miniseries, Gillian Anderson)
Yin Yang Yo (Disney cartoon that steph's in)
Freaks and Geeks
30 Rock
Veronica Mars seasons 2+3
At the Hotel (miniseries, Canada)
Kink (documentary, Canda)
The Office (US), with clyde_man

I'm still not sure where to find the canadian ones, so holler if you can help. also, I need Passion Fish and everything else with Mary McDonnell, pretty please. youtube has a whole bunch of clips of her on ER!

I'm back in Providence as of JUST NOW, if that wasn't apparent...

it's a good meme, I think: 10 things I assume you know about me. I memoried all of yours (cathexys, isilya, wearemany, norah, pene, leavethesky -- did I miss anyone so far?). I didn't think I could come with 10, but then I did some navel-gazing and realized that I could. so, I assume you know (as of, mostly, last january):

( project julie )

ix. that livejournal changed my life.

x. that I see beauty in the world, and in all of you -- and strive always to give it in return. that I mean the things I say, and never take them back. that there's infinite love in me, but regrettably not infinite time -- and that if I could have any superpower, it would be one that would rectify this.

it's a bit embarrassing how poetic I can wax when talking about myself (narcissism would fall under vii. above).

I was also tagged (ages ago) by girlboymusic to do 5 Quirks (these I assume you DON'T know). of course there are many more than 5, so chosen at random:

1) I have an over-inflated and largely self-imposed sense of responsibility toward others. hence why I absolutely cannot NOT reply to comments on my posts (there's a good dose of OCD in there too). I'm still planning on catching up on all those outstanding comments from 2005, someday -- despite that fact that at this point it's so belated as to be ridiculous. at least now I have a better system (webmail) for staying caught up.

( colorful )

and tierraperfecta tagged me to write an entry about 6 weird habits/things you do/odd information...

a) I bite my lips, sometimes until they bleed (both the insides and the outsides). the thing is, I'm always going to have some fidgety bad habit -- I've gone through phases of biting my nails and picking my scalp -- and this one seems only mildly digusting, disruptive, and damaging. so I stopped trying to quit.

b) I am often told by strangers and new acquaintances that I resemble or remind them of someone. does this happen to everyone, or is it just me? perhaps it is my generic Euro-mutt ethnic heritage.

c) I hate bell peppers (capsicum!), and find this inexplicable. I have very wide-ranging tastes in food, and there is really no other common item that I'd claim to categorically dislike. when I eat them, I can understand that objectively they taste good. but subjectively, ugh. I attribute it to the way they hijack the tastes of all other food they touch, especially when cooked.

d) I refuse to use my stove (except occasionally to boil water for tea). while I like to claim that this is a matter of principle, I couldn't tell you what that principle might be, beyond my personal temporal priorities (when I first moved off campus, I thought I'd grow up to be one of those granola girls who cooks -- and I did dabble in this lifestyle, for a time, until I lost all patience for it). I refuse to spend more than 5 minutes preparing a meal (how I laugh in disdain at those "quick and easy" cookbooks that say "meals in 30 minutes!") which means that at home I eat either salads (I make a killer salad, with pumpkins seeds and dried cranberries and gorgonzola and canned salmon) or things heated up in the microwave (things from clyde_man or Whole Foods).

e) I don't listen to music. since I started grad school, I literally don't listen to it at all, not even classical music without words that I used to enjoy as background -- there simply isn't enough room for more noise in my brain. while I was working my day job I think I needed the distraction, and during that brief listening phase I managed to get my CD collection (mostly albums I chose by their blurbs out of the BMG Classical Music Club catalogue in high school), along with various tracks gakked from various friends, archived in iTunes so I'm prepared to embark upon the 21st century (I tried to capture some of the extreme randomness of my music tastes HERE -- as for rock, I take to some things and not others [usually earnestness is a big turnoff, is the one rule I could tender you], without understanding any of the context; I am (was?) a violist, and classical music was always the genre I actually knew something about). but really to explain this idiosyncrasy, I have to tell you that I used to ride the schoolbus in elementary school, and top 40 radio was always on, and through some mysterious cult of divination the other kids always knew the songs and who sang them while I didn't. I liked Weird Al, and felt like (was) a dork. but then one day I said to myself, "you know what, julie? you DON'T have to care about pop music, just because the other kids do," and I've lived by those words ever since. my flist really makes me feel like a freak again, though, what with all the squee about bands.

f) and what is, perhaps, the theme of most of these: I'm a knee-jerk nonconformist. my whole life I've wanted desperately to be special, and this has expressed itself in the whole epic arc of my being but also in the most trivial foibles (my lucky number is 6 instead of 7, and I always pick tails when I'm flipping a coin).

I'm not tagging people, no way.

and via pene and unwinding (also last january), "Five Things that Never Happened to projectjulie." there was some interesting debate about this meme, whether it's possible to write AUs about oneself, considering that one wouldn't be the same self given a different life. that doesn't bother me. I was tempted to say something about how my "essential self" predates any of the divergences below, how I can trace it to fourth grade or thereabouts, but of course I don't believe in an "essential self" so I'm a bit baffled. I supposed I could say, contrarily, that my sense of self is loose enough to encompass such parallel possibilities.

( I'm a character )

and that's how I tell myself stories (when I'm supposed to be writing a paper -- it's just, THIS was so much closer to being FINISHED; and you know, it's the end of the year, which is the time for such things).

because this post clearly needs a fifth meme to go with the fives, I'll point you back to the quiz about me.

there are things afoot. thoroughly mundane things which nonetheless have major ramifications for my life:

i. clyde_man left hir miserable job. s/he took a fat severance package which means s/he gets paid for months and months, and isn't even *allowed* to work until 2007. so this is for the win. but it changes plans, perhaps makes the future even more nebulous. clyde's in Provincetown with partner lucky for most of december (NB: the idea of hir staying with me for part of this interim period never even came up), which means I'll be holidaying there and probably not passing through NYC at all over break. clyde has employment irons in the fire in Jersey, and none elsewhere at this point, so we're still stuck with this ongoing conundrum where s/he needs to figure out what s/he wants and needs in life and I need to be here in Providence for the foreseeable future, writing. so, continuing limbo.

ii. meanwhile I had a long talk with iamsab on IM last night, which is a rare treat, and was still all giddy today. still all awed at this love. I mean wtf? this requitedness shit NEVER happens to me. and right now everything is one-step-at-a-time, but I know there are some difficult conversations with clyde on the horizon. or rather, I have a disconcerting premonition that down the road, profound personal decisions will end up being determined for me by the geographic vagaries of the academic job market. presuming I don't manage to consolidate everyone in the vicinity of Boston, which is probably a pipe dream. I'd move to LA in a second if I got an offer, but that's equally true of NYC or Baltimore or wherever clyde may be. and unfortunately, it may very well be equally true of Missouri or New Mexico or Montana or whoever wants to put me on a tenure track (presuming anybody even does).

iii. complicating foresight further is the fact that Brown recently announced that they'd prefer to yank 6th year funding for grad students across the board, thank you very much (until now I was assured that a 6th year was to be expected, although it's not guaranteed IN WRITING). I'm fortunate enough that money will never be a dealbreaker for me personally -- but still, the bastards! I'm scrambling to figure out whether I can get special dispensation to be nominated for a diss fellowship for next year (my fifth) instead of the year after (the planned timeline), so that I don't miss the opportunity for a fellowship entirely. this would be simpler if I'd taken my exams already, like I was vaguely supposed to -- but honestly I don't think there's anything I could have done differently. I'm a cylon person, not a theorywanking automaton, and I won't apologize for that. if/when I'm on fellowship I don't have to work and can theoretically BE wherever I want, though the smart choice would be wherever I can actually write, and now that question mark might be looming much sooner than expected. and I might also have to write a dissertation abstract, like, yesterday. but I'm tripping gaily forward with the exams, in any case -- I desperately need to write this giant field essay. starting tomorrow.

iv. I may very well get a cat. not a kitten, as that would be insane with the constant demand for attention and the destroying of things and the ensuing need to realistically get two kittens, but a calm and cuddly adult cat. I've been holding out for a dog (a little fluffy handbag dog), but it's increasingly clear that a lifestyle that can accommodate one is still a long way off. cats are simpler, and I have come to like them, and they can climb up into my loft bed, and I have many friends here who would take a cat for weeks or months if I'm traveling. what brought this on is that my cousin's girlfriend is fostering a mama cat and two kittens that she found stray. the mama (they call her Sophie) is apparently very sweet (clearly socialized with humans, not a feral cat) and black with white belly and paws (not my favorite cat coloring -- I'm partial to spots and/or stripes, as in all things -- but really the former is more important), and they're looking for a home for her. I'm meeting said cat on saturday, and if we like each other and I'm not allergic I may really take the plunge.

bonus miscellaneous and less mundane thing:

v. I did my presentation for the Female Sexuality Workshop last week (twice). they only gave me 50 min. to cover alternative sexuality/relationships, which is a little ridiculous, but all my investment in outlining last spring did pay off because I have this puppy honed to a science (to mix metaphors?). Harvard coming up on thursday, where I get 2 hours -- and I talked to the organizer on the phone last week re: my previous round of workshops, and she said, "you changed me and my friends' lives. you don't know, it's just a couple hours of your time, but it totally opened up our worlds" -- which was unimaginably gratifying. it's such a little thing I do, and something I enjoy so much -- sharing my perspective and experiences. so needless to say, if YOU have any sexuality-related and/or personal questions, feel free to fire at will.

and now, mundane eljayish things which have only the most minor ramifications for my life:

vi. I've returned to the present! I believe that I am once again more or less caught up on lj (*with the exception of sitcomathon fics, and a handful of tabs still currently open). that took ALL fucking weekend. I didn't comment much during the blitz, but rest assured that I read faithfully as always. I know I say this EVERY time, but srsly I can NEVER let this happen again. if you are joining me for any of my travels, please make sure/understand when I take the time to keep up with my flist. you'd think it would be a boon to my schoolwork to let lj slide for a bit so I can focus, but it just disrupts my rhythm in the long run. I'm tempted to try to actually log this (stopwatch! spreadsheet!), but probably 75% of the time commitment is BSG fandom (split relatively evenly between articles/discussion posts and fic FB, give or take on any particular week) -- so you're not the problem, dearest flist. possibly I'm getting a wee bit burned out on BSG, in fact, but hopefully that's just the erstwhile behindness talking, because otherwise I'd be at a loss for what to do about it (NB: I am taking a week off vlogging for thanksgiving).

vii. meanwhile, I wrote three drabbles [scroll to the bottom], with one a week in the works for the near future. yes yes, I KNOW. except I'm kind of in love with my tiny distopian AU based on "Torn" (which has parentheses). plus, leavethesky wrote the best BSG spec EVER! and sheepfairy reminded me that we should be upset that Caprica apparently dumped Boomer for Three (the mesmerizing blondness of Three/Six distracted me from cylon!OTP, I admit). where is Boomer when she's not doing naked tai chi?!? *riots* *riots about all other continuity issues too, just for good measure*

viii. ashfjrhglkljskh *DED* notpiecebypiece is totally right that part 5 of Mary McDonnell's Q&A is OFF THE HOOK! MIDDLE-AGED SEX! CRAAAAAAAAAZED FANGIRLS! sadly, Mary also confirms that she does not want to make out with me (she really is astonishingly gracious about it) -- so there goes my last 1% shred of hope. and may I just say: if we're going to talk about age bias in TV sexuality, can we please talk about middle-aged (her words) characters having sex with younger characters, and not just them respectively doing it with each other?! kthnxbye. (and awwwwwwwwww Mary/Katee story in part 3!!! and also she is NOT shipping R/A, ha! it's "unfathomable" for Roslin to "get involved with a MAN at this point in her life." IJS) (I haven't been able to figure out how to capture the files since they went flash -- does anybody know how I can get my hot little hands on bootleg videos?)

ix. ummmmmmm I friended back I think one or two more galacticans, but if you're not one of them and you friended me and you care if I friend you back, give a holler and I'll see what I can do. I might also have defriended a couple of people -- not because I don't think you're lovely!

x. I never meme myself because I don't have the time, but this one is easy because YOU have to do all the work! I'm sure I could think up better questions but then it wouldn't be a meme. I am marking the freebies (those which are either [O] for obvious or [A] for given away above).

( stalker meme! )

eta: nobody did the quiz! that's OK, I didn't really answer anyone else's quiz.

when I started writing this two hours ago, I did not expect it to be nearly so long and elaborate. xxx

i. I precipitated a grading crisis, yet again. you'd think I'd know better by now. anyway, I survived. but in the process of desperately trying to avoid the papers, I inadvertently started writing a 7-part BSG drabble series based on "Torn" (and whatever is to come). apparently the quest for Earth is inextricably linked to girlsex in my twisted mind. believe me, this is the LAST thing I have time for right now, and I'm extremely disappointed in myself. but there's nothing for it now but to press on (The Word probably always needed a part 13, anyway).

ii. not only did I start new fic, which is NOT ALLOWED, I actually sat down and wrote frakking META about it. *headdesk*

iii. but is it any wonder I'm obsessed, when my girl is dressing up as Boomer?!? it's a tragedy that I wasn't there, in that same outfit. there are many copies!

iv. I had a dream that Tory left Laura for Maya, because Laura wasn't treating her right. wtf is that about? obviously *I* would never leave Laura, no matter how much she took me for granted. also I had a dream that MM cut her hair, and when I woke up I was very happy that it wasn't true.

v. GO BLUE. I can't quite believe we actually did it.

i. upon watching the first ep, _plasticity_ and I concurred that Heroes is atrocious. why the hell do you all like it? nothing happened the entire time (which is impressive in a pilot), the few things that did happen were either completely predictable or nonsensical, the rhetoric around the mystery was comically moronic (natural selection, SRSLY?!?), it was offensively orientalist, and overall had no coherence. the only redeeming feature was Hiro (ha! pun!), who we totally hearted. (and our opinion didn't improve much upon watching the second ep -- they did start to link the storylines slightly, but it so feels like a copycat Lost, but with less finesse. and they *really* need to decide whether the superpowers evolved naturally or were the result of some experiment. we're willing to stick it out a little longer because -- superheros! -- but dear lord.)

ii. also we watched Global Frequency (this was "research" for my syllabus. mostly what I have to say about this is that MICHELLE FORBES WAS RIDICULOUSLY HOT. she pretty much broke my brain -- I'm telling you, it was like Admiral Cain + Trinity-style outfits and ass-kicking. plus, she has a girl friday! -- I now feel that it is my duty to humanity to write (or, more realistically, force someone else to write) Miranda Zero/Aleph slash (also I want an icon). however, we diagnosed the other problems with the pilot, which was far from perfect. a) if you're setting this up as an apocalyptic-crisis-of-the-week show, and the best you can come up with is exploding cold war brain, you're in trouble. it might work better as a serial, following a single potential apocalypse over a season (not that the writers could pull that off, if they couldn't pull off one ep). b) this show wants to be noirish. they have that in spades with Miranda Zero, and with the cinematography/mise-en-scene which were lovely, but they totally dropped the ball on the main secret agents. clearly they'd need to be tortured by the dark secret and enormous responsibility that rests on their shoulders. instead we get physicist barbie -- her problem was miscasting (we all know the character type -- driven, romantically/socially repressed female brainiac/career woman [Scully, Bones] -- and that girl totally wasn't pulling it off). bitter ex-cop's problem was more the writing -- they needed to at least hint at his secret man-pain (like Batman, whose superpower, we decided, is white heterosexual male privilege, ha!), heck, he could have been boozing or whoring or otherwise misbehaving when we first met him -- instead they gave us nothing to make the character interesting. those two just didn't gel with the dark mood of the rest of the show. I don't know if these flaws are what killed it -- possibly I'm overthinking, and it was just too sci-fi for the WB (also true). but anyway, I'm seeding it for a while, so holler if you want the seed file. meanwhile, I'm moving the meta post about another unaired pilot, Nobody's Watching, over to cyborganize (shortly). but to summarize: WATCH IT. and then google it.

iii. Jericho is silly. I'm quitting.

iv. I know none of you care anymore, but new!Olivia is absurdly hot. hot like Olivia used to be hot (though with longer hair). of course, without Olivia (or Alex) around that's not much fun. but I'm actually looking forward to watching SVU for the first time in years

v. only having one ep of Grey's to watch at a time is pretty much torture.

vi. Spencer and Ashley are so adorable that I want to die. plus, I watched the 2-part premiere streaming on the-n.com, without ads! who does that?? I keep forgetting to remind people about TV on the internet, but seriously, you can get a lot of shows for free as of this fall, legally.

vii. dear Studio 60 -- if you are going to insist on showing so much alleged comedy, you should really consider integrating it better with the character storylines. Jordan comes over to tell them to lampoon her, Gina complains that her skit isn't funny, and then there is no last minute skit where Gina plays Jordan (with the added bonus of girlslashiness in a doppelcesty fashion)?!?!? maybe you're saving that for next week when the embarrassing kiss-and-tell memoir comes out -- but if not, I will have lost all respect for you (no matter how much you openly poke fun at your own homoeroticism).

viii. no, I have not watched the Lost premiere yet.

ix. I have a new plan for my ipod, which is to use it to watch TV in bed (since it's not like I ever take it anywhere)! this will preclude me taking my laptop to bed, which is a filthy, filthy habit. plus I will actually get to watch my designated ipod shows (currently Deadwood and House S.2 [again], soon to be NCIS S.2).

x. the only time I ever used to read (in my adult life) was during commutes on the subway (now that I live in providence, I don't read at all unless I'm forced to). when I do take the video ipod somewhere, I can watch TV on public transit -- I'll NEVER read again!!! and there are all these books waiting on the shelf, too -- the rest of Snow Crash, more William Gibson, the one giantessmess gave me, the one mandysbitch gave me, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Julie, Princess Diaries: Elizabeth I, Star Trek: Dark Passions, Djuna Barnes, etc. but mmmmmmmmm, TV.

still a little whacked out, around these parts, which means I'm procrastinating. all the talk of music music music on my flist has got me thinking about my own utterly oblique relationship to it all. perhaps this post will help to explain. I assigned MYSELF a letter because I'm picky like that. 5x5 or 25 songs that begin with P (for projectjulie! and Procrastination!) of the 2087 tracks that are in my itunes. all of these are the sort of thing that I've listened to over and over and over again, and they're grouped thematically rather than mixed up as in, you know, a mix. it'll help if you know that I play (or played, it remains to be seen) the viola.

I'm too lazy to link them individually, so I put a zip of the whole collection HERE (right-click save-as). [160mb]

( step into my parlor )

I should be allowed a post, right, on the rare occasions when I manage to more or less clear out my browser tabs?

this one is about Swarthmore Guilt -- a positive aftereffect of my alma mater which refers to a powerful sense of social responsibility. in MCM we talk about time and space. the latter has always been more malleable for me. I am thinking a lot, these days, about how I choose to use my time. I dedicate these monumental chunks of it to cultivating my relationships (in RL, on LJ, in travel and correspondence), a choice which I stand by but which I'm recognizing for the first time, perhaps, as one that precludes other things -- namely the channelling of all this energy into activist projects of whatever sort. then again, the fact remains that I apparently care far more about making TV characters gay than about giving serious attention to social change, and I can make no excuse for that (I'm not buying the Slash is Subversive argument). I've said in the past that I'm waiting till I suss out what political strategies are most effective, but that alibi isn't going to hold up forever. eta: OK, to be fair, I've also always said that queer politics (and not electoral politics or other brands of radical politics) is my cause celebre, and I do spend a significant amount of my time and energy on being a sex educator, both formally and informally -- and slash perhaps counts for something, in this department. basically I just want it all to make sense by the time I get around to writing my diss.

five things that happened yesterday:

1) I ran into lonewolf_w_cub in Central Park! I was with the brain trust Quorum of Five and on my way uptown.
2) I told furies (and anyone else who likes crazy books -- I think I made happyhop buy it already) to read Memoirs of my Nervous Illness
3) I borrowed the Dark Passions books from quasiradiant -- but next up for summer reading is the book giantessmess sent me!
4) there was a drunken dramatic reading of a fanfic story -- the author of which shall remain nameless, since most of us are only a little bit bisexual mean.
5) we read e. e. cummings

five things that DIDN'T happen yesterday:

1) we were caught in a torrential downpour and got soaked. here comes the global warming apocalypse!
2) aeonian and I spotted Mary McDonnell in Columbus Circle Whole Foods, and I made Nia run and get her autograph because she is brave and I was hyperventilating too much to speak.
3) we sat on the floor in the Sci Fic section of Borders, and geeked out reading Star Trek and BSG fanboy books.
4) we didn't miss thenewhope at all.
5) there was an orgy.

I'd like to revive the book meme. it went something like: pick up the book closest to you and open it to page 123. post the 5th complete sentence on that page in your journal. no cheating!

I can't do it anymore, she realized, startled.
~ Tamora Pierce, Trickster's Queen

i. in the end I resolved (brilliantly!) to embrace my virtual existence (as well as my slacker identity) and abandon the notion that I have to be in my apartment with my books in order to prepare my field lists. I gathered up a copy of every syllabus for every course I've taken in grad school (and then some), made a list of the 10 or so additional worthwhile things on my bookshelf, and will be writing (at least the first draft) blind -- in nyc, AFTER I get back from CA. so, I'm off! not returning to provi until mid-July, is the plan. in CELEBRATION of the wireless DSL modem/router that I just set up at my grandparents' beachfront apartment, I am going to tell you a few things. the first is that I stayed up past 5am "packing" last night, as is my wont, and then set the alarm for 8. so I was pretty worthless today (and yet notice how it's after midnight, and I'm still awake). I otherwise could have been writing (or at least scheming -- Six is up), but instead I'll be poking at lj and other things that don't require too much brainpower -- WHILE SITTING ON THE BACK PORCH! at least until I get tired of squinting at the screen, and have to retire back into the air conditioning -- someone should really invent a good solution for outdoor computing.

ii. to rerun a picture from last summer (the light was bad today -- note that this round mom's not showing up until tomorrow), basically this is my view:



( photo chronicle )

iii. in unrelated news, my little bro got a real grown-up job! he's moving to Denver and it's all happening very suddenly. I'm a bit wibbly about him going off on his own, to this part of the world that I've never even been to. if you have any Denver connections that would be useful to a skinny, scruffy 24-year-old straight man, give me a holler -- he knows pretty much nobody there.

iv. I just have to brag (inarticulately) about how cool my friends are and how fantastic this wedding I'm going to next weekend is going to be. it's summer camp! you're so jealous! also note that there's an entry on the politics and meanings of marriage, and a discussion of same as one of the summer camp activities ;)

v. archiving my fortune cookie fortunes (yes, I actually "packed" them in order to do this), because who should be saving little scraps of paper in this day and age?!?

If your desires are not extravagant, they will be granted.
Life to you is a dashing and bold adventure.
Idleness is the holiday of fools. [that was my first one after livewireless spring break *hangs head*]
Your ability to juggle many tasks will take you far.
Success will bless a new venture if you are courageous.
Don't change horses midstream unless horse lies to you and stream is on fire. [that was a promo cookie from http://assesofevil.org]
along those lines, my favorite fortune of all time was: Depart not from the path which gate has assigned you.

did you remember to add "in bed" to the end??

I just wrote this entire post and then xjournal crashed somehow without saving it. technology = angst and woe!!! reconstructing...

i. OK, so I utterly FAILED to finish my (going on three weeks late) getyourtoaster fic today (I succeeded in starting it, at least). hopefully thenewhope won't put me out the airlock! this failure may result, through a procrastinatory chain reaction of apocalyptic proportions, in me never finishing my PhD. because now the writing on the wall states that I'll work on the fic next week instead of starting my field lists for my exams, which means I won't start the field lists until, uh, late june? alternately, I could return to providence AGAIN after memorial day weekend on long island, quietly start the field lists without informing any of my oh-so-distracting friends (except the ones who read this journal or check plazes, apparently) that I'm in town, and then go straight from here to Laguardia to catch my plane to California. which is ridiculous, but perhaps not as ridiculous as not starting my field lists until late june. but would also mean that I won't get to meet with the brain trust Quorum of Five for GYT round Six, oh noes! this weekend, however, is dedicated to the birthday of clyde_man! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

ii. having the desire to write this story hanging over my head has been filling me with anxiety, I tell you (WHY, I ask, do I have to complete meaningless tasks like final projects and grading when I could be working on life-enriching fanfic?!?) -- and my unconscious has offered up the dreams to prove it:

( what would Freud say? )

iii. speaking of fanfic, those of you who watch Bad Girls MUST read mandysbitch's story Just Another Word. you don't need to know West Wing. it's an AU about Nikki, and it's spare and angst-ridden and lovely.

and while I'm here, a little SSP: I don't think enough people read my last ever Janeway fic. it's a pretty good story, imnsho. my take, finally, on J/7 post-DQ, with a guest appearance by Seska and a warning for non-con (I'm always so MEAN to Janeway!).

iv. and speaking of Bad Girls, do any of you still have interest in torrents of any portion of S.1-3 and/or my proposed Gay Girls S.2 Helen/Nikki compilation? the former is down because I some of the files were lost, and the latter is perpetually half done. I'd probably have to start over by re-ripping everything to move the project forward, and I'm not going to do that if your lives are all complete without it.

v. do you (uh, cathexys?) know any smart and fabulous person with a PhD who wants to come teach two TV studies classes at Brown next year? could be one each semester or both one semester; pay probably typical adjunct, not stellar. ideally said person could teach something other than what ljconscript and I primarily do (that is, not gender/sexuality and TV+digital/fandom; perhaps global TV, TV and race, TV history, reception studies) -- topics negotiable. I don't think they're posting the job officially, but I'm supposed to ask around.