{ split subject }

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 )

1. my web empire sites are back up, halleluia! I'm having the urge to create some sort of hyperlinked visual map of my cyberbody (see below re: unproductive procrastination).

2. since I took my orals, I've forgotten how to do work. compounding the calamitousness of this situation is the fact that I've also apparently forgotten how to procrastinate via livejournal. traditionally it's been my morning activity, and with the way I've been sleeping I've lost mornings altogether. clearly the wise course would include some sort of filter or compromise, but I just WANT to read all of it, deeply. one less draconian strategy I've been testing is to split the flist into journals, communities and feeds and read them separately. this has the added bonus of allowing me to do some helpful empirical analysis of my unwieldy lj commitments:

hypothesis: fanfic reading/feedbacking comprises the majority of my lj-time (thus, a round of unfriending would do little to reduce the total).

relative percentages, in number of posts (approximate)
P=50% (200-300 per week)
Y=40%
C=10% (at MOST)

relative percentages, in time (approximate)
P=70% (200-300 per week)
Y=18%
C=12% (and about 90% of this is the combination of bsg_femslash, metafandom, and femslash_today, with a little bit of femslash100 thrown in [and galacticanews if I WERE reading it, which I was forced to stop doing] -- the other 50 or so comms I'm watching have virtually no impact)

conclusions: I spend a greater proportion of my lj-time reading personal journals than I expected! now, the data is somewhat misleading because I've discovered, also unexpectedly, that I actually read more fic off people's personal journals than off communities (particularly, fic which requires thoughtful consideration and comments, and which is thus most time-consuming). so this is perhaps more a refinement of the initial hypothesis than a refutation. feeds is, incidentally, the most heterogeneous category, as it includes both personal blogs by friends that I read faithfully, elaborate professional things that I need to pay attention to but mostly skim, and junk that I almost totally ignore -- hence why Y takes much less time than P, despite having almost as many posts (also, Y almost never involves leaving comments).

tonight, I was feeling a crisis coming on, so I pulled out feeds and comms and blew through 10 days of them in a couple of hours. this leaves me with the thinned-out journals-only flist to read for a while (until I catch up to today), which is a relief.

3. to file under: things I did to procrastinate when I SHOULD be catching up on livejournal, I checked out imeem while putting together a screening and it completely ATE MY BRAIN. I'm now planning to rerun my BSG vlog there, serially (two segments per week, starting may 1). for first time or repeat viewers who'd like to watch it in manageable doses: morebsg_vlog

p.s. why does the fanvid about Hera and all her lesbian mommies (particularly the cylon ones -- interpret that how you will) not exist?? (I do LOVE Babies but it's disconcertingly heterosexual -- like, I'd sort of forgotten that there were actually straight parents on that show.) (this query is related to my conference paper).

4. also (same file), I just signed up for remixthedrabble. plus I wrote this. *facepalm*

5. see what I mean about bad sleep habits?! it's 4am and I'm just now finishing up tonight's todo list. which, incidentally, did NOT include completing the conference presentation -- I'm not entirely sure when that's going to happen. (in my defense, I'm usually somewhat more responsible than this -- it's just that it's crunch time because tomorrow alistern and blacksquirrel arrive!!!)

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.)

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 )

monday	tuesday	wednesday	thursday
	1-1:50 : lecture		1-1:50 : lecture
	study	study	meeting
	study	study	3-3:50 : section
	study	study	4 : office hour
5:30 : pedagogy workshop	study	study	5-6:30 : yoga
7 : screening

excepting next weekend and one or two weekends in nyc, I'm planning to stay in town.

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

sunday night furies and quasiradiant lured me away from my computer with promises of soul food and kissing. we missed aeonian! I wasn't planning to leave the house, but you know, they called. let this be a lesson to all of you. there were mobs of happy happy gay people filling the streets (almost none of whom were white, wow!), and we discussed the msscribe affair and why I'm afraid of lesbian bars.

and also last week I went to see Allison Bechdel with the formidable kellychambliss, hurrah!

I love fandom people. (eta: it has just occurred to me that the intensity of my fascination may be due to the dynamics of microcelebrification in fandom -- I mean, these are girls whose work I idolize.) wearemany theorizes that fannishness is not so much a sexual orientation as a sexual subculture -- which explains a lot about its robust overlap with the leather scene.

my life is a tangle, right now. I'm not sure how to be all the places I want to be and see all the people I want to see and still get my PhD. it's a bit dire, actually -- or, not to catastrophize, I could call it a thorny transition. I'm going to TES Fest (or some part of it? I haven't figured out the details yet) with FG this weekend, if anyone cares to join me.

I spent last weekend on a massive redesign of my academic site and my personal site -- probably 20, 30 hours of work (debugging). this in preparation to make my field lists and mirror them online, not just as more procrastination. still some technical difficulties that I can't figure out how to fix, and infinite tinkering that I *could* do, but I've got them to a mostly-functional state where I can stop for the time being, praise be. if you're the sort who knows about servers and php, you can read my comments about the remaining issues in the top posts here -- I can't get the "page not found" front page to go away and I can't get projectjulie.net to run correctly, both of which I believe to be due to problems with the multisite hack that I'm using (trying to run several drupal sites off a single installation). I can't get the supposedly more elegant symlink method to work at all. in fact, I don't really understand any of this stuff, but somehow I manage to more or less muddle through. and shit, I just realized that my projectjulie.net email address is bouncing because of my domain-forwarding workaround, and I'm not sure what to do about that (huh, maybe I can change it so the forwarding is on the side of my host rather than godaddy) (did it clumsily using an html redirect, but it will serve). email me @ brown, for now.

I'm "almost" caught up on eljay, which I suppose is about as caught up as I'll ever be. it feels SO GOOD to be able to top off my flist in an hour after I wake up. and meanwhile, TV keeps me sane. current is the end of Lost S.2 and Conviction up until the appearance of teh boobs -- and I've finished the seasons of Desperate Housewives (a crushing disappointment, which makes me want to watch S.1 again so I can remember why I loved this show, because right now I honestly couldn't tell you), SVU (don't ask), House (House/Cameron robot sex!), Big Love (which was very hard to watch without iamsab! they were SO GAY, and they got GRASS!), The L Word (obviously), BSG (really obviously), and clyde and I have two eps left of West Wing (RIP) -- what am I forgetting? and then there are the things that are starting (Sugar Rush!) or that might start soon (Rome? Weeds? South of Nowhere? Nip/Tuck?). and on the list is NCIS (inherited from iamsab), House S.1, Bad Girls S.3, earlier Nip/Tuck, maybe even Grey's. so these are the things we can talk about.

This is the FIRST time this semester that I've been in Providence for the SECOND consecutive weekend.

except tomorrow I'm going to this for the morning. (J threw his back out and couldn't drive, poor dear -- so I figured that was fate telling me to SLEEP.) and then I'm coming home to write. and be a judge at the annual Brown/RISD drag show!

eta: I just checked my computer's uptime and it's 37 DAYS. only a few more tabs to take care of, punkin, and then I'll FINALLY be able to restart you...

eta2: rebooted! Katee Sackhoff radio interview

and a print one. there's good news and bad news:

( very vague spoilers )

honestly, I didn't forget about you. a light semester, as my coursework winds down, was an irresistible temptation to fill up my life with an imbalance of frivolity. traveling every weekend (except this past one, when I'm grading papers), and it's all very lovely, but the lack of time in my house, in front of my computer is making me cR4z3D. my lj is in a semi-permanent state of emergency, wherein I'm fighting to keep my head above two-weeks-back on the flist, and still haven't read everyone's january. and I'm far too obsessive to just let it go, so don't even ask. meanwhile I'm scheduled straight through april, at which point I may finally be able to start the course proposal and field lists -- which is what I'm really supposed to have been working on all along. time, she is a cruel mistress.

i. new york peeps, mark your calendars: I'm in town from sunday march 26-sunday april 2 for a little thing we call SPRING BREAK. aeonian and I plan to conduct a Starbuck-writing chain-gang workshop, and quasiradiant, you should come.

ii. I've said it before: Battlestar Galactica is the greatest TV show ever made. which is not to say that there's not a several-ep slump here and there, but in between it frakking blows my mind over and over again. seriously, my brain is short-circuiting from the continuity and the politics and the ev0l r0b0t mindfrak and the HOT LESBIAN SEXXX. ( 2x18 ) the girlslash pairings are proliferating liek whoa, and if you don't believe me you should read jennyo's post on the subject (and my extensive comment down at the bottom). and then I wrote up this absurd table o' girlslash pairings.

and this isn't BSG-specific, per se, but I do get excited about stunt-doubles.

eta: oh! other TV, how sorely neglected you are -- I hate to break it to you, but really you're in a whole different league from BSG. after a shockingly atrocious beginning, The L Word has magically resurrected S.3. did leisha haley stage an intervention?? it's actually *boggles* kinda good -- but maybe it's just that I give mad props to any show where a trannyfag fucks a gayboy. in other gay news, Bree/Lynette has finally returned to Desperate Housewives eeeeeeeee, just when I was about to despair of it ever being sexy again. it almost makes me forgive Dr. Evil Marc Cherry. and OMG THEY KILLED STACEY! YOU BASTARDS!! I think I need to find Sisters, or something, and go on a Sela Ward bender.

iii. you know I've been musing about the slash possibilities of Mary Poppins, my original girlcrush. my mom claims to know nothing about it, so it must have been one of the tapes at my dad's house -- which makes perfect sense. the miraculous caretaker who leaves almost as soon as she appears. but I happened to catch a bit of "I love the 80's strikes back: 1982" on TV the other day, and what were they talking about but Annie! and I remembered that Mary Poppins actually isn't my first girlcrush, that actually when I was maybe four (apparently, since I was born in 1978) my favorite game with my best playmate (who I called Annie, even though it wasn't her real name) was to run up to a mom and yell "be Miss Hannigan!" and then flee screaming. this game was intensely thrilling, erotically charged with danger. which also makes perfect sense in a tape from my mom's collection -- the tyrannical and monstrous bondswoman whose clutches one always wishes to escape. I mean, how creepy and fucked up is this movie?! in addition to the fact that Annie has to essentially seduce "Daddy" Warbucks ("do you like my bathing suit?"), there's this child abusing harlot who sings about "Little Girls"! and how much do I crave Miss Hannigan chan fic now?? >>>>;)

iv. a few sites I joined:

_blingo.com is an interface for google searching that randomly awards prizes sometimes. if you're going to be using google anyway, why not get a shot at a prize, right? there's a plugin for the firefox searchbox and an IE toolbar. use this link to sign up, because that way if you win I win too.

_yelp.com is a friendster-like social networking site, but it focuses on providing actually useful information, namely reviews of places/things in your area. use it! and then add me as a friend.

_Where Are You Now is again like friendster, but this time for tracking your trips in order to coordinate with others (both this site and the previous are via my cousin). I feel that I would use it more if I knew anyone else who were. add me as a friend too!

v. after months, even years of successfully avoiding timewasting computer games, I started in on sudoku. curses on your head, you evil addictive puzzle! it's insanely satisfying, like better than crosswords (my previous computer game diversion) in every way, because crosswords involve a lot of slippery language and guessing and knowing stuff, whereas sudoku is clean, pure logic. I had to read up on strategy to be able to do the "medium" ones (shut up! -- they're hard), whose recalcitrance was the initial source of my obsession on friday, so now I'm actually beginning to understand how the thing works. just what I needed, right?

and now I'm off to vancouver for SCMS!

monday	tuesday	wednesday	thursday	friday
	1-2:20 : stardom		1-2:20 : stardom
	2:30-4 : office hours	3 : open source		2-4:20 : marxism
		-7 : open source	4:14-5:45 : yoga
7 : screening	8-10 : lab/screening

(will be updated as necessary)

this weekend is the Fetish Flea on saturday and family on sunday. next weekend is, we hope, iamsab's party in Boston and further stalking of mazily and captain_sam. the next weekend is nyc and following that Boston again. the last weekend in February I'm going to Florida with my family and the first weekend in March is SCMS in Vancouver.

my friends in Providence are going to HATE me.

1) yes my friends, I've gone AWOL. I left for nyc on thursday immediately after my last class. it took a few hours for this last-ness to sink in, but about the time I got on the subway I found myself wondering "why am I planning to head home on monday?" luckily, I'd packed most things I needed (though an electronic copy of Lacan's essay on the Mirror Stage would help, if anybody's got one), and I'm now camped out deepwoods-style: no friends to see, no external hard drive, two pairs of pants and three sweaters (and one pair of legwarmers). and no phone, because I forgot it! so really no distractions, except spotty bootleg wireless and the lovely clyde_man who makes finals fun. so why have I only written 7 pages of my 30-page term paper?? I'm managing the 2 or 3 pages a day that I forced out back when I was depressed and panicking -- this seems to be about what my brain can manage regardless of mood. which would be fine, except it would be nice (not indicative of my entire worth as a person, but certainly NICE) if I could finish this puppy by monday at the latest and thus scrape by without incompletes (for the first time ever in grad school). but it's not looking promising for this scenario, unless I can start writing faster (I wish I were the type to take speed, or something). on the upside, I don't anticipate any crises (funny how those disasters were always precipitated by me being all "if I don't finish by X date I FAIL AT LIFE," and if I don't tell myself that there is no need for crises), which means it's near-certain that I'll finish before christmas (also for the first time ever in grad school). back in provi on friday, as my class has final presentations and clyde is leaving town.

2) meanwhile I'm woefully behind on commentz, *again* (backlog at over 100, and rising) -- compounded by a whole bunch of old ones that LJ *just* decided to send along -- but I finally got smart and decided I'd save such projects for AFTER I finish my term paper (yet another reason I'd prefer that to happen in the next week). I'm prioritizing non-flist-ies -- as for the rest of you, I beg your patience. reading at least is under control, as is FB-ing (though I accidentally closed another bunch of tabs today, so shout if I seem to have missed something).

3) I should be thinking about presents, eh? I want a bedazzler!! me wielding a bedazzler is a truly frightening scenario -- sequins are the sort of thing that would set me off on an obsessive decorating rampage to the point of blinding all passerby with my sparklyness. maybe I'll ask mom to buy me yarn for the sweater I've been planning to knit for years, to motivate me to remediate my lapsed craftiness (but hmmm, I also want the MoMA menorah). beyond that, I can't think of anything! I have all the material possessions I could possibly desire. of course, I'd always welcome FIC! you know what I like. but I suppose everyone wants fic for the holidays, plus everyone is writing yuletide and this and that ficathon/challenge. my one heartfelt and modest request would be for somebody to take up the the last straggling letters on my ancient drabble-a-thon (heathers, I reserved J for you, but just this once I'll give you a pass if you need to bail). barring that, I want voice posts as my present! especially if you're not American (but have a way to cheaply call a US #, which unfortunately is all that exists) -- isilya talked and I just about died. go here to set it up, and here to look up a number in your area. and then quasiradiant has coffee of justice for you to buy and there's of course my list of worthy non-profit orgs (WIP).

4) speaking of isilya, she made this emergency group LJbackup where we can gather in any future contingencies like the Great LJ Blackout. you should join.

5) HAPPY HAPPY HOLIDAYS!! (<<< yes, I am one of the EVIL secular Jews who is waging a WAR on CHRISTMAS!)

I have been in awe of all you holiday-card-senders. the idea of me corresponding by mail just made me laugh. but you know, I got a couple cards, and I had this EPIPHANY that all you have to do is write "happy holidays, I'm thinking of you" and sign it. and OMG, I can totally do that! I am now INSPIRED, mostly because I have been very sad of late about how badly I've done at keeping in touch with my non-LJ-ified friends (I worked on my list and I'm looking at in the vicinity of 100 cards, between high school and college and grad school and new york and summer and LJ friends -- IF I can get current addresses for all these people) -- but I'm happy to send cards to all y'all too! here, give me your address (poll data is locked down) [even if I already have it from your card to me it can't hurt to enter it again]:

Poll #632682 holiday addresses
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: None, participants: 13

where should I send your card?

they might be late, but I'm determined to do them. (now I can go back and buy those cards I coveted when I was shopping with wearemany but thought I'd never use -- but I should use up some of my stash of non-holiday-specific cards from back when I used to write letters too.)

*

i) TV stuff? a few of my backlogged comments are about South of Nowhere's 3rd ep (actually 1x04 since the first was double) -- since then there have been two more. I have all of them, but you can probably get them from southof_eps faster if you still need them. also, check out what bozos the folks at Lost are! you can totally see the horse trainer's hand at the right edge of the frame. (I had a dream that I met Michelle Rodriguez in a dorm and she was a lesbo, mmmmm.) thedabara: do you still want the last 3 episodes of Rome? I'm finally watching them.

ii) I'm still working on the Gay Girls S.2 compilation, hopefully to be finished before the holidays, but meanwhile here is the torrent for 1x01 through 2x02 as individual eps (better than the last version). I'm seeding sporadically and not until friday.

iii) for reasons which shall remain nameless (not to do with the paper -- though I still need an amateur webcam to write about, probably), I had the sudden, unprecedented urge to get a webcam! I'm cluless -- I suppose I'd be most interested in video chat and in recording video, rather than in broadcasting to the net ala homecams. can webcams capture video? can one video chat unilaterally, that is, can I send my image to someone who doesn't themselves have a camera? all these questions pertain to OS X. does anybody know about the iSight? another item for the wishlist? I can't tell if it does anything beyond iChat AV. according to comments one can use to to talk to Windows slaves users, which could be cool because clyde_man's new laptop has a built-in camera!

iv) and on the theme of Ask LJ: I strongly believe that I should NOT be using MS Word because it is the epitome of both badly designed software and evil monopoly capitalism. but I DLed Open Office, and frankly I can't deal with how UGLY the interface is. does anybody have a suggestion of a *prettier* free or cheap full-featured word processor that can talk in .doc format?

v) I got the tentative schedule for sci-fi panels at PCA -- the focus is Battlestar Galactica, which is what I'm presenting on. and OMGOMG there's a special session on s2e09 that Aaron Douglas (Galen Tyrol) is going to be at! I know there are those of you who engage in regular (more or less accidental) celebrity encounters, but I am not accustomed to this and am having fangirl paroxysms! thank goodness it's not one of the women or I'd probably hurt myself. I assume it's going to be fairly small -- not like a con with 1000s of people -- so I'm all trying to plan out what questions I want to ask, and how to strategically introduce my critique of the Lack of Gay on the show (if I have to pick one problem that I want to bring to the attention of anyone and everyone official, it's that one). the discussion is supposed to be about how BSG "reflects" (those would be theory-snob air-quotes) contemporary (the description says "modern" which is so my theory-snob pet peeve!) American military campaigns, so steering it to gender and sexuality may be challenging (maybe I can use aeonian's point about how gay it is for Starbuck to be flying the ship named Laura, heh -- actually, the question of gender and/in the military on BSG would be a perfect segue [of course the custom of referring to ships in the female dates from the days when only men sailed them]). anyway, eeeeee!!! this isn't till April. it's so not my field, and I'm going mostly for fannish and friend-visiting purposes, so I'm not sure how much of the conference itself I even want to go to. museumfreak has to come be my buddy! (it's only $65 to register, fyi)

I took half a flexoril and I'm not yet feeling the effects, but probably I should join clyde in sleep regardless. wish me good writing...

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.

just to say that the hiatus is over, along with the trip -- I'm reading the full flist again. *clings to wireless high speed internet of my very own*

I'll be catching up some on what I missed -- but sporadically. so link me/tell me if you like.

I'm a wee bit shell shocked with all I have to do (will spare you the list, for now). life is much more complicated here. the paper is drafted, but not finished, which is mildly worrisome. but I'm excited for this semester, yes. I just bought $300 worth of books for two seminars.

and also to say that my 96-year-old great uncle walks 1.5 miles from his house to the family motel every day (he looks 20 years younger than he is). he and my 90-year-old grandpa still play golf together once a week (they pay each other $5 every time they make par). 1/4 of these genes are mine, baby!

first of all: OMG 100 ICONZ EEEEEEE!!! (I'm up to 82 -- had them all in reserve, ready to go...)

I also made a few icons

I got this nasty cold/sinus infection at my grandparents' house. managed to stay in pretty good spirits nevertheless. while sick, and in the interest of paper procrastination, I organized not only all my pictures from the Rome/Greece/Istanbul trip, but the entire backlog of photos on my computer. I rather thought this was an impossible project, so I'm quite proud of myself (in the end, the rest of pictures combined took less time than the 300 from the trip). millions of pictures!

and I finished Half Blood Prince. I think I might have skimmed some parts of it in my haste -- I don't know if I'll go back. I correctly guessed who was going to die before I started -- that was widely speculated in fandom and really not that hard to figure out. I guessed who the half blood prince is on about page 40, and I'm inordinately proud of my powers of deduction. aeonian warned me that my beloved Tonks (our fanon lesbian) would be character-assassinated through an ill-begotten romance, so having prepared myself for the worst, I was pleasantly surprised. after absorbing 2nd Song, I take a sort of triangulated bond between ( spoiler ) to be only natural, so the pairing made perfect sense and was rather adorable. didn't really follow the kerfuffle between the Harry het ships, but I LOVE Ginny more and more. but where the heck was Hermione? I imagine the Harry/Draco faction is happy. ( spoilers and a theory ) anyway, I *heart* Snape! if anybody got character-assassinated I thought it was Madam Pince, who I've had a soft spot for ever since I read a great Hermione/Pince story. and our other fanon lesbian, Madam Hooch, didn't appear at all hmmmph. the Bellatrix/Narcissa bit better make it into the movie, because I adore those two. overall, I thought characterization was brutally sacrificed to a faster-moving plot, and it was an entertaining read but not nearly as affecting as OotP.

if you posted a HBP reaction, please link me here. I can read them now!

I really could not overstate how much I'm in love with battlestar galactica. every episode just keeps getting better and better. (I haven't DLed 2x06 yet; don't spoil me please.) I adore Starbuck's ( spoilers ) guh.

meanwhile, I don't have time to read my flist during this trip. and in the last-minute beginning-of-semester crunch I doubt I'll have time to catch up. what I'm saying is: this is my first official LJ hiatus. so please link me, too, to fic you write and anything else I should know. :*

may start logging onto IM more frequently, as I figured out how to make my antisocial self invisible, so tell me your AIM, Yahoo, or MSN screen name if you want me to add you to my buddy list.

I am working on my paper. I am. slowly.

1. I FINISHED THE INDEX

2. double-spaced, single-column, it's 63+ pages long

3. I'm leaving town

4. finishing Wicked, starting Half Blood Prince!

5. also I still have to write a paper

[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.

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. 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 )