{ split subject }

you know how sometimes, when you have too much to do, you can get into this state where you're hyper-energized and happy instead of hyper-anxious and paralyzed? I have been ridiculously, stupidly productive this week. I imposed today as the deadline for finishing up the zillion little things that have been hanging over my head since the beginning of the semester, and boy did I (unexpectedly) take that to heart. since essentially monday I have:

• finished my syllabus (and spiffed up tvhere)
• done an almost-final cut of my field lists
• written my first CV
• prepared my conference paper for tomorrow
• written a BSG workshop proposal and panel+paper abstracts (well OK, I still have to cobble together one of the abstracts in the morning)
• prepared the final version of the Hairgate! piece for Camera O
• partially caught up on email

I'm still working on The List -- as you can see, the field essay is now pretty much all that's left in terms of school projects (and, you know, publishing stuff, but I can put that off indefinitely). of course, the field essay is huge and I was supposed to start it a month ago (hence the mad rush of motivation), and I'm very stressed about it and worried that I may have screwed myself with too little too late (I NEED to finish it before the holidays -- otherwise I'll be writing it in LA and taking my exams god knows when). but still, ONE thing!

as a side-effect, I've been ignoring eljay, and getting even MORE behind. sorry, folks. I'm currently hovering around october 19 on the flist; I'll be catching up but it may take a while. mom comes tomorrow afternoon for my panel, so before that I have to record some VLOG (which I was very careful to preserve time for!) and straighten up my house. then next week, eljay and more grading -- and with the way november looks, heaven knows when I'll get to the essay.

p.s. girlboymusic, are you watching Ugly Betty? just based on the first scene, you really need to be.
p.p.s. Quorum of Five? if you want to help, you could reply to a couple comments on our story. I still haven't done them.

I'm working my bootylicious ass off again. determined to draft the syllabus by tuesday. I felt I could take some sort of break after I did the second pass through the field lists, but frankly it wasn't very satisfying. I didn't manage to write a drabble, finish the massive me meme post (in the works since January), or clean up my house. I'm not sure *what* I did last week, frankly, except poke at lj and deal with computer problems (I think I'm going to wipe the drive someday soon and start over). while spending all my free time at the (metaphorical and/or literal) library may not be exactly fun-filled, it does bring with it the underlying happiness of steady productivity. so I'm giving myself over to it, as I need to this semester. plus, my BFF _plasticity_ is the best study buddy ever. we've resolved to go as the Dialectic for Halloween -- and we don't even have to dress up special!

and meanwhile, there's always TV. I should say something about Studio 60. whatever its flaws or merits, the bottom line is that it doesn't have a girlfriend for me. Harriet and Gina have subtext, but I don't find either of them particularly attractive. Jordan is a real waste -- they could have had Miranda (the younger version), and instead they picked Andrea. just completely bland and sweet and not at all the ball-busting network exec. and they can't even redeem her by making her gay, because then they'd get all the flack about how it's such a stereotype that a powerful woman must be a lesbian. I like the minor characters best, but who knows when they'll get more than two lines. it's an entertaining show -- though I agree with the tangleofthorns/mazily hive mind that Sorkin's earnest idealism is less appealing when applied to comedy rather than politics (we're suppose to buy Jordan's PR BS that they're going to be making "quality" TV now?). but I love that it's about TV -- I'm a complete sucker for self-reflexivity. the set is delightfully wacky, and it was all worth it just for Felicity's cameo as herself. but without a CJ, it's not a candidate for obsession.

tragically, Desperate Housewives still sucks. and the suckitude is more egregious considering that they're just recycling all the scenarios that sucked in season 2. ( spoilers under here, and also a TV LIST OF DOOM )

four score and seven years ago, I went to Australia to visit gorgeous girls. before I left, I loaded up four score and seven stories in tabs to peruse during the trip (mostly yuletide stuff). and lo, Safari didst crash, and more than ten days had passed so I couldn't even turn to the browser history for redemption.

I've been working on reconstructing that reading list for 6 months. (possibly I should be better medicated.) FINALLY, I've just about seen the top of my flist again. I'm within spitting distance of having read everyone's January, and I've gone back over everyone's yuletide recs. I am never, NEVER leaving the internet again *clings*! in the epoch I spent locked in heroic combat with the flist's 2-week cutoff, I was vanquished only once: I missed part of April 22 and slightly into April 23, so if you posted anything of importance in that window give me a holler.

I've been doing only the bare minimum of commenting, for which I apologize. that trend may have to continue. just know that I do read everything (like, obsessively).

this filtering thing. well, it clearly DID serve the purpose of enabling me to (barely) keep my head above water for the past 6 months. but it clearly DIDN'T serve its intended purpose of allowing me to sporadically read my entire flist. I haven't looked at the "sometimes" section since I made it, honestly. thus, I'm going to try to reintegrate it all. I'm going to try to figure out which ljs are really contributing to the crippling backlog, and let them go. this may, it pains me to say, result in some defriendings. it's purely out of dire necessity, and with my deepest apologies.

for example: much to my chagrin, I've had to give up ritaskeeter_. I mean, I'd already quit the rest of HP girlslash cold turkey because it's just too high volume. but oh, ritaskeeter_, you are TEH SEXXX0RZ! given the amount of fic listed below, though, it's just not plausible that I'll EVER have the time to catch up there (and those stories are too good to read without feedbacking). as for the rest, though, I remain committed. mostly the rest is BSG girlslash (and of course my baby femslash100, and now sisterwives) and stories by my friends -- I read a smattering of Grey's Anatomy, House, RPFS, Wicked, South of Nowhere, Veronica Mars, and occasional rare treats via femslash_today (SVU and Housewives I've gone off almost entirely), but those I rarely comment on. it's not a sustainable commitment, even so (it's the amount of fic that gets me so behind on lj, inevitably, not the number of friends), and I'm still not sure how to address that -- but I'm not at all ready to let go of my presence in and contribution to these communities and relationships, and I feel very strongly that feedback is the way one shows up.

( so, to do: )

everything else, I think, is NEARLY covered (let me know if I missed anything, OK?). and that's an accomplishment!

master todo list for summer 2006
no longer updated as of February 2007

( o_0 )

apparently I have decided that, since I'm not getting any schoolwork done anyway, the appropriate course of action is to commit to writing a lot of girlslash. it remains to be seen whether this is a wise choice.

but goddamn it if I'm going to miss my chance to do the wingswing for once in my life! the best ficathon ever made. listen, west wing ladies, do it or I'll never forgive you.

so to review, on the agenda I've got:
• wingswing (due late april -- it's likely my story will be a wee bit late)
• 7 rounds of ficlets for getyourtoaster (monthly until October)
• drabbles for femslash100:
- classical Hollywood (only until the end of the semester, plus maybe The Birds which I still regret never having written)
- last two deadly sins (this weekend)
- maybe one for Trickster's Queen (Tamora Pierce), a fandom in which I also regret never having written
- and after that I really need to QUIT for a while!
• Helen/Nikki 5 somethings-or-other (hopefully I will be inspired when I finally watch S.3)

remind me that I'm not allowed to write anything ELSE, OK? perusing my todo list, I think I can semi-permanently abandon the SVU opus and delegate the X-Cops story to giantessmess. aeonian, perhaps we can port our epic to a getyourtoaster series/shared narrative universe? let's discuss. leaving only the first item (plus the distopian doppelcest erotica) -- and let me reiterate that I'd REALLY like to extricate myself from fanfic to some degree so I can write something to publish, already!!! these stories have been a goal for HOW long?? *shakes fist at fanfic*

the hard drive update: after I spent all day rather frantically determining what my options are (the final decision: accept the loss and reconstruct as much as I can this weekend [the list was already in progress]; then [presuming I can get it removed, which turned out to be complicated] give the drive to clyde's genius data forensics friend to see if he can resurrect the remaining disappeared files), tonight [yesterday] the little bugger decided it would mount! so I pulled all the data off it using the $99 program Data Rescue II and voila, crisis averted. oy, what a day!! I did some reintegration and then immediately burned a DVD of the crucial files so I won't be running off the external drive without a backup while I'm waiting on the new HD. [someone asked what my backup protocol is: in theory, if not always in practice, I keep a complete clone of my system on an external drive, which I synchronize regularly using ChronoSync. then I also keep a second copy of the life-or-death stuff in some alternate location (sometimes on my iPod). but be very careful when making backups! -- my last big loss of data, in 2002, was because I accidentally cloned my drive in the wrong direction *headdesk*]

meanwhile I was supposed to finish grading papers by today, and totally didn't. so I'm doing them now.

my obsessiveness certainly surfaced in this situation, and I couldn't concentrate on anything else until I had made this epic list of things I need to do in the immediate future. I'll be at my grandparents' house in florida from friday-monday, and now they DO have wireless internet for the convenience of the family, and I've decided this weekend will serve as my much-needed, long-awaited, reclaim-control-of-my-digial-life retreat. plus the list alone assuages much of the meltdown that was *already* in progress when the drive went down on tuesday, and which is perhaps understandable given its length. mostly for my reference:

( todo )

obviously I can't do all of that in two days, especially with my family around (as an aside: my grandfather is having this totally narcissistic freakout about my haircut, so I'm enjoined to wear a hat or bandana all weekend -- perhaps even my grandmother's wig). but I can dream.

DEAR LORD I FINISHED MY PAPER! *boggles*
it's 30 pages on the dot -- just a few lines short
the first line is: "On February 26, 2005 I made my second ever mobile post from my cameraphone to my public LiveJournal blog, the first which featured a picture of me" :). and it has this icon as an illustration on the first page (it's by iamsab, by request -- I did not credit you in the paper, sorry). "I am a cyber-exhibitionist."

I'm leaving on friday for CT - NYC - the Poconos - Australia... eeeeee!
tomorrow is a strap-on party at my house >;P

TODO: winter break
• pack (for both winter and summer!)
• holiday cards (last call for addresses -- you might want to check because at least one person's info didn't go through)
• LJ comments (and also I believe I'd be more expedient at replying to comments if I could do so instantly from within the email -- so I'm going to try to work out how to send my comments to a special webmail where this works, since it doesn't in Eudora)
• index of student projects (see below)
• Gay Girls S.2 (I temporarily dumped my 13GB of music off my internal HD to make room for the files, so I can work on it while I'm on the road)
• academic site software updates
• write course description
• edit 2 conference papers (for march and april, so I don't HAVE to do them, but it would save me the work while I'm in the midst of the semester -- they just have to be hacked down to size)
• omg drabbles! (and maybe some collaborative writing?)
• some journalling, part LJ and part perhaps not
• read trashy books -- some kid stuff and lesbian romance I have on hand
• plan sydney convergence
• defriending

a brief word about that last one. I have known for some time now that the amount of time I spend on lj is unsustainable. I've been pondering various ways to cut back, and there's really no way around it -- I'm going to have to do my first defriending-of-sorts. next semester I begin the process of preparing for my exams and my original course, and I have to focus in a new way on being self-motivated and working independently. plus, I'm going to have internet access only sporadically over break -- so this seems like the right time.

I have thus far defriended only a couple of people who I don't think will notice because they haven't been around in forever. but if you do notice, and you object, just give me a holler and I'll put you back into the more elaborate process. those who the elaborate process concerns will be hearing more about it soon.

*

I forgot to mention that my students did 9 amazingly creative and educational digital media projects on friday! I feel like it was a crash-course for ME in the latest and greatest internet trends. I learned about:

• skype -- an internet phone service modeled, rather remarkably, on IM. I wanna do it! who'll talk to me? I'd have to buy a headset, though.

• YTMNDs -- there were a couple going around LJ last week, but I had no idea what a fascinating repository of emergent and self-organizing cultural and political commentary this site is! my mind is boggled -- and I laughed till I almost cried. why are there not more fannish YTMNDs?? or are there? the technological threshold is ridiculously low compared to vidding -- all you need is an image (often photoshopped and/or animated) and a sound file to upload. yet (as with the 100x100 square, only exponentially) you can compress so much meaning into such a simple form! it seems like this is a medium that should have creative 'shippers creaming their pants. I think I shall pop over to ob_fangrrl soon and challenge people to come up with Oliska-themed ones -- they lend themselves beautifully to snark.

• mappr and geotags/geoblogging! another thing I'd love to try to do in my copious free time -- apparently there are various places where you can look up latitude and longitude coordinates for a location, including maps.google. anyway, that group did this project.

• perverted-justice.com -- which I already knew about, but had not delved fully into just how completely INSANE the whole process/organization is. yes, YOU TOO can impersonate an underage girl (or boy?) in order to entrap ONLINE PREDATORS in chatrooms, and then ruin their lives by publishing their personal information on TEH INTERNETS. dear lord, it is terrifying but BRILLIANT -- welcome to the network society. also, is the name not wonderfully ambiguous? I must DL the Dateline specials. see also the wiki entry.

• QR codes (a Japanese thing, of course) -- 2D bar codes that are scanned and read by software in cameraphones.

• the XBox game Fable, which looks awesome! I don't play video games, though -- but I like to watch other people play them.

and so on. I'm going to make an index of all the projects for my site -- and a couple of the best hypertext essays too. lord, TAing this class was fun!

Or, How to Eat Heathfully without EVER Using Your Stove

I'm turning into my mother, and the scariest thing is I actually like it. she's been all health-food crazed since I was a kid, and -- partially in reaction, I think -- I was never interested. I can't put my finger on exactly what's changed -- it feels rather alchemical -- but I abruptly decided that I was going to make putting healthy food into my body a higher priority in my life, or realized I *could* eat better without it being much more time-consuming, or something. I have no patience for cooking, and that's a constant. I HATE going grocery shopping -- but eureka! it occurred to me that I could have groceries delivered. so today was the big preliminary run to establish what my list of staples would be, so that I can call them in next time. and today's your lucky day, because I've decided to share it with you.

my mom's current Theory of Food -- the limited, bastardized parts which I haven't been able to avoid absorbing -- has to do with eating unsaturated fats, natural sugars that have a low glycemic index (which means they take longer to break down -- e.g. grapefruit juice instead of orange juice), complex carbs/whole grains, and plenty of protein. the idea is that if you don't eat "empty" calories, you don't get hungry all the time and crave junk. she swears taking fish oil (which you can get in caplets) took away her cravings -- and as I have half her genes and her body type and stuff, I'm giving it a shot. it's not a diet and I'm not counting calories, though I hope losing a little weight may be one of the results.

with no further ado, I give you... the grocery list:

( Read more... )

and another picture of the grocery cart at my house, because I find this highly amusing:

( Read more... )

also more for my edification than yours, a random list of things I must do asap:

( Read more... )

and livejournal comments, which I never did get to. I weeded through the box deleting the ones that weren't crucial (I'm still considering all replies to my posts crucial -- I might have to change that) and now I'm only back 150 or so (march-august). someday...

today's cool katrina fundraising, thanks to the flist: TwoP and curvychick

SVU fangirls: run, don't walk to this story. I know it's RPF, but I *promise* you'll like it. have I ever steered you wrong?

1. I'm leaving for my three-week trip to europe on wednesday! so no cameraphone posts for the duration. email, don't call, if you need to get in touch. unless it's an emergency, in which case you can call my cellie for my mom's special number, or reach me at this hotel from July 5-15. I'll try to update ye olde eljay when I can (with pictures, even).

2. I haven't even thought about starting my conference paper, heh. I'm now planning to write it in the two weeks after I get back (which would still leave august "free"). the program for the trip itself, then, is to complete both my major fanfic projects: the BSG story (which is due july 1, eep) and the Janeway story. if I actually accomplish that, I should be in reasonable shape for the rest of the summer (which, in addition to the paper, involves perhaps three shorter things in RPFS and DH [not, I imagine, my anticipated magnum opus metafic], possibly indexing whkc's book, small revisions to another paper, and work on my tattoo -- plus seeing a whole gaggle of friends and a trip to michigan/canada/grandparents). so iamsab is beta-ing BSG, but I wouldn't mind a second reader, especially since I may need a quick turnaround to meet the deadline. any takers? it's Boomer - five things, girlslash. mandysbitch, can you look at Janeway when the time comes?

3. regarding SVU 6x19, my tekserve buddy reports that "Yeah, Law and Order did that shoot—in the MIDDLE OF THE DAY WHEN WE HAD CUSTOMERS AND WERE ALL TRYING TO WORK. It was a total circus, as you can imagine." hee! if only I were still working there -- I would have been mere feet from Olivia Mariska!!! I'll have to watch the scene again and look for people I know :) eta: they're everywhere! (including at least two hot dykes who work there -- see if you can spot them) CAPS

4. oooh, I'm on google scholar! my mind is boggled -- how does it know what's an academic paper??

5. ( some things I want )

1. it's mind-boggling how much time I can spend sitting in front of the internet. I imagine I could spend, say, a two-week retreat in a proverbial (wired) cabin in the woods just doing all the puttering I'll never actually get to outside of fantasy-land. just for the record (and because I fetishize lists), here are the projects I would someday accomplish online, in a perfect world:

( etc. )

2. the above list does not include fic writing -- which is of course my #3 priority this summer (after papers and traveling). Die J/C Die is happening again, hurrah! so I should try to work a J/C breakup into my Janeway opus so that I can submit it. even more exciting is the BSG slash frackufest! since I was already planning to write BSG, I signed up -- you should have no trouble guessing which challenge I grabbed. come play!

3. also today I ordered gay!books for summer reading so I can finally quit the club: Djuna Barnes, cheeeeezy romance, porn star portraits, exercise! [eta: this package never showed up -- drat]. and I posted my fandom lecture notes.

4. aaaand various friends and acquaintances are always sending me nyc apartment queries, but I can never keep track of them. so I made a board. obviously this is no craigslist, but it will help me make myself useful, at least. if you are currently looking for or getting rid of an apartment, remind me so I can list it. or better yet -- post yourself. you can now login to projectjulie.net with your LJ username (as yourljname@livejournal.com) and password. eta: if you're interested but don't want to subscribe to projectjulie.net automatic email updates, here's an LJ feed of available apartments that come my way: pj_nycapts

5. I suspect that some of you will appreciate dirtygirl_icons (see sample above). in return, could you YSI-me the infamous felicity/marcia makeout clip if you have it?? as I'm late on the flist I missed out on the first round of sharing. in conclusion, http://www.gender-news.com (via warlordkittens) is, ahem, "A Ministry of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood." not quite as impressive as http://lesbianstudies.com and http://www.savethemales.ca, though. and don't forget, http://godhatesshrimp.com.

1. I brought seven books with me on "vacation" -- anybody want to make a bet about whether I'll actually read everything I'm supposed to in them over the course of this week? granted, two are solely for reference on the project that I was supposed to have finished already. for your reference and mine:

( the list )

2. meet Starbuck. she how she needs to have teh hott girlsex? maybe Boomer seduces her in one of her cylon-blackout moments. (have I mentioned that I like cyborgs?) or there's always the ever-neglected Cally, who is really pretty cute. or, you know, the fine art of the crossover. (I know Starbuck/Apollo was inevitable, OK, but it is rather vexing that it seems to comprise 80% of all bsg fic (the other 20% is Adama/Roslin, Boomer/Helo, hettymchet, etc.). could you be any more predictible, people?) of course, as far as I'm concerned, President Roslin is the holy grail of bsg!sex. omgsohott (girlswithglassesmmmm). (have I mentioned that I like older women?) is it wrong, on the grounds of either heterosexuality or the other operative perversions, that I want her to have sex with her fresh-faced boytoy assistant? [/Monica Lewinsky]

3. tribe.net is pretty nifty, eh? kind of like lj communities, with a somewhat different interface. I'm going to add feeds for a couple of (porn) tribes to my flist. (see dykepoly_tribe, girlporn_tribe, qparties_tribe, sexed_tribe)

4. speaking of nifty, certain people seem unduly impressed by my run-of-the-mill abilities to post to lj from my cellphone. ergo, a wee tutorial for you -- note, first of all, that you must have a paid account to use these features.

( instructions )

5. I could not even describe to you the cracktastic brilliance of the BIRTHDAYFIC michellek wrote for me. love!

( on RPF )