{ split subject }

projectjulie has suffered for quite some time from a lack of attention and a profound incoherence in its purpose and audience. I never much wanted a blog, or even an online journal, and if dipped my toe into such waters it was mostly incidental. what I want is a hub and an archive, a nexus for all the people and things to which I'm connected. so I'm making it official: this LJ is now merely a clearinghouse and a placeholder (akin to a "digital lifestyle aggregator," in web2.0-speak). I'll continue moblogging pix and tweets here (twitter, it turns out, is exactly the microscopic and immediate degree of blogging that engages me). in other words: nothing much has changed vis å vis the dearth of meaningful content, except that comments are turned back ON for mobile posts, since I plan for those to be the only ones (or perhaps I'll still make flocked entries once in a while, we shall see).

what I've loved most about lj, as an interface, is its capacity to foster and nurture intimacy across time and space. but, as in all things, we reap what we sow, and these days I'm not expending the effort to make it fulfilling for this purpose. this is an inevitable side-effect of being a dissertator: in order to finish my PhD, which is monastic and all-consuming, I have to learn to be a worse friend. all I can say is that it's painful, but necessary.

CONTENT
- my diss and other updates about my academic progress and accomplishments remain at cyborganize
- after adamantly resisting for years, I'm suddenly quite taken with Facebook, and am exploring how to make it as comprehensive a nerve center as possible for my personal and professional presence
- and to reiterate the sidebar links (and then some), you can also find me on www, ourchart, friendster, imeem, youtube, bliptv, flickr, delicious (fannish/personal/professional), gcal, plazes, librarything -- or all of these aggregated at profilactic (or jaiku)

FRIENDS
- I've done some defriending -- let me reiterate that I have affection for all of you, and this move is wholly motivated by my regrettable need to pare down my online life
- by the same token, I'm extending unfriending amnesty: if you'd like to remove me now, especially given the devolution this journal, please feel free to do so, with no hard feelings
- I remain committed to reading my flist and everyone on it faithfully, though you'll have to continue to forgive my minimal commenting
- I still have a lot of long-term catch-up reading to do, mostly fic, which may or may not ever happen

( FANDOM )

[this post will be future-dated]

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.

there's a whole story, but the most interesting part is: somehow we ended up with the very best kitten in the entire world.

me + my new do at the Coffee Exchange! fourletternerd's guy did it, John at Salon W, and it's magical to walk out with a look I love. though to be honest the cut itself isn't even that different from the previous one that traumatized me. but the collaboration was far better.



this is the professionally pomaded version -- I'll probably be back to pigtails tomorrow. for a while I've been considering cataloging my multifarious coifs for reference, so perhaps I'll start posting some dailyhair pics as I experiment.

a confession: I've been feeling extremely foxy in recent months. I think a lot of it, perhaps paradoxically, is spending time in LA. LA facilitates and rewards stylishness, the hipster kind as well as the model kind.

[previous hair experiment]

my mom accidentally created an LJ @ levinc. she got confused and thought she had to in order to see my pictures, or something. IT'S SO CUTE. so who wants to be her friend?? I don't think she'll ever post anything, but I'm trying to make her a flist (that's not just me). some of you have moms here, right -- like devils_interval, 1mom_carol, and bulleteyes? do they need a moms club?

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'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).

I just hard-reset my phone and restored it to factory defaults, and the camera seems to work again! but in the meantime I got desperate and started playing with Photo Booth.

happy moving day to Shoemoney Haus! may you always lift with your knees and not your back.

in farewell to my own apartment (logistically as well as symbolically, since I'm in search of someone to take it come June 1), I finally photographed it and posted the pictures HERE (for comparison you can also see the before and during pics, from lo these four years ago).

there are various things I could tell you (such as: my oral exams are scheduled -- MARCH 23 -- and the short diss description is coming thursday to a cyborganize near you. _plasticity_ and I love Torchwood and everything about it! [such as: scifi cliches! rampant bisexuality! bad dialogue! shameless earnestness! people looking pretty while standing! Captain Jack's total inability to act!]. my hometown appeared in The Onion and twitter_pjulie, srsly [alternatively: a feed which also includes local celebrities iamsab, wearmany and sloganeer, plus that new actress on The L Word). but most importantly: today _plasticity_ and I came one step closer to perfect symbiosis by putting down a deposit on an apartment for June 1. various things I could go round and round about (such as: cost-benefit analysis of committing now vs. spending more time that we don't have looking, microgeography of Fox Point [4 blocks from where I live now @ Pitman + Gano, about an equidistant 10 minutes from The Edge {Wayland + Angell}, the gay coffeeshop {Wickenden + Governor}, and campus], strategies and tactics for the coming year of nomadism [have I mentioned that I've been offered a FELLOWSHIP for next year, almost-officially?!]), but the long and the short of it is: it's a done deal. 3rd floor/3 bedroom/$1000 rent to split, plus utilities (which I won't be paying when I'm not there).



( it's well-maintained by a conscientious landlord, and quite quaint. )

lj, you're the first to know. we haven't even had time to come up with a clever, pretentious name for our household yet!

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.

I'm a word.



anniversaries: they come around.

eta: mortalworkofart

I found my original application emails:

I'd
like
to
be
a

word

please.

*

As an infant, I could say "book," but was known to use the words "bop" for butterfly, "bucka bucka" for chicken, "dreck" for dress, and "caca" for both cracker and avocado. When I was five years old, just before I started kindergarten, I decided to teach myself to read (beginning with "The Cat in the Hat"), and seemed to acquire the skill almost instantaneously. My major accomplishment of first grade was learning to spell "Revolutionary War." In second grade I read "The Yearling," which was excruciatingly boring, but I was determined to finish it because it had over 500 pages. In fourth grade, my teacher told me I would write the next great American novel. In middle school, when they had us take the SAT, I circled all the words I didn't know in the books I read, wrote them on index cards with the definitions and kept them in a plastic recipe box -- "perspicacious" particularly stuck with me. In high school, I saw a production of "Cyrano de Bergerac" just before going off to French immersion camp, and christened myself Roxane after the character who fell in love with words. My first real paper was about Lady Macbeth, and I wanted the academic prose to be as beautiful as poetry. I wrote sonnets as birthday presents for my best friends. My first tattoo (18 years old) was inspired by this line from "Much Ado About Nothing": "there was a star danced, and under that was I born." The first book I was published in was "Best Lesbian Erotica 2003." But in the end, I am, profoundly, an academic writer. My favorite new word this month is "aporetic."

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

working with Pythia and _plasticity_ at the edge, a THRILLING addition to the neighborhood, replacing The Daily Bread which tragically closed. free wireless! food! a couch! this is my trial run (heh, I typed "fun") of Photo Booth, which includes cool effects like this.

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 was at a party from 4-10:30 p.m. yesterday :)

it started out as the department BBQ, and then became visiting the kitties, and then turned into drinks at the Grad Center Bar, and ended up with dogs and fries at Spike's.

it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that it's taken me two years to adjust to and accept not living in new york city. that was my first (and possibly only) experience creating an adult community for myself outside the ready-made structure of an academic institution, and it was challenging and at times painful and ultimately hugely rewarding. so there was a LOT of attachment and inertia there. but my strategy thus far, DENIAL, is feeling increasing untenable. pretending that I still live in nyc means that when I'm there I work (which is my life, after all). meanwhile, in reality I'm not there enough to be on everyone's regular-hanging-out circuit -- instead it's this long list of people who I try to squeeze in once a year, checking them off like a series of tasks (with a few exceptions among my closest friends). I don't like that. this summer, I started thinking that I might actually enjoy the city more as a visitor, one who can send "hey I'm coming to town for a week" emails and do a whirlwind tour sometime when I can take a break from homework.

I gave a lot of thought this summer to where I want to be in a year, when I'm done with my coursework. some people, usually those with partners in other places, pack up and move once they're ABD. but I don't know if I'm prepared to give up my community at school. new york is nearly 4 hours away and thus not practically commutable.

boston is commutable, though -- at least in theory -- and with happyhop (BFF!!1!oneelventy!!) and other close friends there now it's suddenly much more appealing. happyhop is the only person other than clyde_man who I'm eager to make a life with, and (my joking about her being the mother of my children aside) I could totally see us as partners in 10 years if she doesn't manage to trick a man into marrying her. I thought about forcing her to move to providence, but I know she has virginia PTSD and needs to be in the big city for a while.

now, clyde_man is the stumbling block in all this -- because what I want MOST is to make a life with hir. I know s/he feels connected to nyc, at this point, something I can certainly sympathize with, and I don't want to ask hir to give that up. on the other hand, I would LOVE if s/he found a job in Boston (which is perhaps a longshot). I'm not sure where we'd live -- Boston is really too expensive to buy and Providence is not the easiest commute and I don't know if I'd want to do the burbs (but maybe I could get used to that idea). and I'd have to convince hir to live with my future doggie, only one of many hurdles. but, yeah. if she doesn't move that probably means we'll be long distance till I finish in (hopefully) 3 more years (though ideally I can split my time more evenly), at which point I'll likely move back to nyc.

have I mentioned my two three criteria for a livable city?
• good public transportation (by which I don't mean busses, which confuse me)
• some modicum of a queer/lesbian scene and leather scene, including email newsletter(s) that will tell me when the cool events are
• a major body of water -- I love the water

providence has none of these things (technically it's on the bay, I think, but I've never actually seen it). but -- and here's my point -- all these thoughts of moving away went right out the window as soon as I got back here.

I made up this whole metaphor about our departmental family: phil and mary ann are the symbolic dad and mom, marc and I are the twins, the second-years are the triplets and this year's new crop are the quintuplets (yuri is adopted). everyone has been interrogating me about it, and maybe there's some deep Freudian explanation, but really I came up with it because this is just how I feel. there's something rare and precious about a true academic community, about a group of intellectual peers who are sharing an intense experience and supporting each others' projects, and it's different from how it happened in college but just as valuable. I don't know if I want to give up being surrounded by that just so I can have more sex live in a city. the quintuplets (3 girls and 2 boys) are adorable, you can't even imagine, and I want to be here to watch them grow up.

these are the people I was partying with for 6 hours yesterday :)
for the record, though, we won't be partying much after this week.

one of our wonderful office ladies told me that I look "more mature." I didn't know such things could show on the outside, but I'm gratified that they do. I've certainly remarked on the difference, myself, as has mom and others. it was a good summer.

now, while I'm here, I bring you the biannual schedule post:

( Read more... )

also, from sebsan8:

California Gov[ernator] Schwarzenegger's office is accepting calls from anywhere regarding their marriage equality bill. it's passed in their senate and with state representatives, but needs the Gov[ernator]'s approval.

It's all automated, you don't have to talk to anyone.

Call the Govern[at]or: 916-445-2841
push: 2
push: 1
and push: 1 to support marriage equality.

I called. but I've entirely stopped signing political online petitions. is this bad of me? it's just that I get multiple emails about them every day, and given how many there are I'm just not convinced they accomplish anything. and in my busy life I can save the time of reading them and loading them and filling them out if I just ignore them. *feels horribly guilty*

and while I'm on the subject of politics, here's a site that lists LOCAL charities that you can give $$ to, to avoid questionable ntl. orgs like the Red Cross and Salvation Army: http://katrina.mayfirst.org

thanks to aqua_blurr, I think, I'm now getting my Daily Show here / from onegoodmove_syn

I'm watching a girl-on-girl ep of Date My Mom. I love when they do that. I wanna be on a reality dating show!

today's my last day of beginning-of-semester puttering, seriously. I've pretty much whipped the list into submission. over the weekend I'm working on my paper.

the requisite check-in to say that Katrina is breaking my heart. all the more so because, from the perspective of a tourist, at least, New Orleans is my favorite city in the U.S. the NYT op-ed has been a godsend, especially Paul Krugman today.

on a totally inappropriately happy note, following that, the two most important things I found while cleaning out my room, things I feared may have been lost forever, were the comprehensive packet of song lyrics from french camp (I need to sing these with my children someday), and the negatives and doubles of photos from my semester in Morocco! if you recall, my irreplaceable, carefully organized and labeled album disappeared somewhere between college and grad school -- but at least now I have something, which eases my soul.

there are many things I'd like to tell you about growing up. about reminiscences (the 12 page letter loaned to me by Tanya, who I sent it to when I was 17 and trying to sort out my sexuality was the utter train wreck it can only be for an adolescent), about resolutions (elaborate plans for a new healthy diet and other conciliatory gestures toward my neglected body), about anticipation (the impending end of coursework = getting a doggie, or moving to boston, or or), about recuperation (somehow, writing doesn't seem so hard right now?!), about reflection (it's livejournal, in particular, that's helped me see myself through the eyes of others, to appreciate at least the external appearance of "coolness") -- but I don't have time to write that post. so more pictures of me in stratford, from tanya's cameraphone, will have to suffice:

( pure vanity )

[secret] [...]

[BSG] so, if you subscribe to the intentional fallacy, Starbuck/Roslin [aka OTP] is now canon. Ron Moore: If you want to write a story about Starbuck being Adama's illegitimate daughter and how she's carrying on an illicit affair with Laura following an accident which flings them across time and space to the Ponderosa Ranch, be my guest. heeeeeee!!! that's via norah

but I was poking around Remember Us?, and it occurred to me that BSG has really a rather pale color palette. I mean, we've got Grace Park and Edward James Olmos (I'm right about him being latino?), and Dualla's sort of caffe latte-ish, with those amazing green eyes (probably biracial?), and there's the kind of sketch tribal priestess lady -- well, I guess that's not so bad, all things considered. but there are still about 8 human-cylon models that we haven't met, right? even given all the problematic aspects of tokenism, I'm rooting for a black cylon.

god, season 2 is already SO good. I'm SO in love with Roslin and SO in love with Starbuck (which took longer, actually -- really the full-on true love only set in with 2x02, guh) and totally fascinated by Sharon, and Six is EV0L and Cally is cute as a button and Dualla is growing on me and Billy is pretty like a girl. (and, uh, there are probably some other male characters that I think are OK too but I can't be bothered to list them.) in short, squee to the power of squee!

[me] I uploaded heaps of ancient pictures @ http://projectjulie.net/image -- this was an effort to get the gallery working and established so I can post trip pictures (eventually). updated a few things at the fanfic site. and what the heck happened to http://quasiradiance.com?! *whines*

um, what else was I going to tell you? I don't even remember. I wanted to list my idiosyncrasies (it's a meme) -- let me see if I can come up with five:

( I succeeded )

other than these I am perfectly NORMAL.

[you] via wearemany: Copy your friends list. Bold the ones you have met in real life [I will update this as such meetings occur] and italicize the ones you have talked with on the phone met in RL before/independently of LJ. With anybody you have only spoken to online, do nothing. [also, I have deleted journals that don't correspond to people or duplicate people.]

3dogcircus, _plasticity_, _swallow, aleatory_6, angharad_gov, aqua_blurr, babeeaimee, bicyclette, bluepoet, bounce_n_jiggle, boxmint, brooklyngoil, cabenson, cathexys, ceciliaregent, clyde_man, coffeejunkii, digitalexcess, eemilyvr1, eighthblackbird, epicanthus, fifthgear, franzeska, gill_is_bored, girlynyc2000, glowcuffs, happyhop, heathers, honormac, iamsab, ibrakoor, isilya, keladryb, kellychambliss, kore, laliu, leftfield18, lekiosque, leunatich, ljconscript, lonejaguar, lonewolf_w_cub, magicmice, makesmewannadie, mandysbitch, mazily, michellek, mikee_pm, museumfreak, n0r1_h, nerd_dog, niamite, pene, quasiradiant, rachelkb, ralst, residentgeek, rrreverb, sebsan8, sinful_caesar, slowmend, smallbeer, sorlklewis, spiderine, sscheckter, surblimity, thatfangirl, thedabara, theholyinnocent, tsenft, warlordkittens, wearemany, wolf_cub, zazuomgwtf

[meat, dead] indexing is INSANE.

I'm through (now, more than) three chapters/125 pages (half the book, not quite half in pages) and I just revised the subentries *again* (I'm supposed to do subentries if there are more than 6 citations for a term). oh, I was going to post it, but I guess I shouldn't if it's not flocked. 22+ pages (single spaced, 1 column) (I'll hack it down at the end -- some terms can get cut out if they don't end up appearing again). owie, brain hurts.

on the plus side, this book is invaluable for the paper I have to write, so it's actually good that I'm indexing before writing (it would just be better if I could finish indexing and start writing, you know, sometime soon). and I'm getting paid quite a bit. and I've been using the flist for mini study breaks, with the happy result that I'm caught up [filtered] for the first time since before my trip in June. am now tentatively giving unfiltered a go.

yes.