jssangel

Just One Thing

2009-08-06T12:08:15Z

Here is what I have learned about being a new mother: you can do one thing per day. (I mean in addition to the feeding and diapering and burping and cuddling etc.) Really - in 24 hours there is only time for one non-baby related activity - so you have to chose wisely. Sometimes that One Thing is a shower (please note: applying body lotion is a second thing, and if Tequila Jane catches me at it, she'll scream her fool head off until I bolt half-lotioned back to her in shame) but not every day. If I showered every day, I would never get anything else done!

This is particularly troubling because TJ was nearly a month early. We had, oh, I don't know eight years to paint and plaster and transform the apartment from Jssangel's House of Knives and Matches into a Nuclear Family Idyll (and second bedroom from Den of Iniquity into Nursery.) It turns out that we needed eight years and one month.

The day before yesterday we hung curtains, thwarting the voyeurs across the way who have enjoyed three weeks worth of the Topless Mommy Show (it's like free cable!) Yesterday I took the vodka out of the freezer and replaced it with breast milk storage. Today I may drink the vodka.

The major obstacle to accomplishing anything is breast feeding. I thought I was prepared! The internet was really clear about how it's not instinctive, total rocket science, yet utterly (udderly?) essential to the health and well being of Tequila Jane, and deserving of all my not inconsiderable focus and problem solving skills. And - fair enough - this latching nonsense took a minute to figure out, as did the CIA Sanctioned maximization-of-sleep-deprivation method of timing feedings, and the poo-to-feeding tracking charts are right on the line between completely ridiculous and deadly fucking serious, but...the real challenge is being pinned in one place, unable to use my hands, for upwards of 12 hours a day.

So instead of writing thank you notes or repairing the baseboards, I just sit around cuddling TJ, watching her little baby face while she eats (and messing with her little baby feet when she falls asleep halfway through a meal.) It's both awesome and frustrating all at once. The Nursery of Iniquity cries out to have its closet organized, but alas, organizing a closet has to be the equivalent of like 10 things, which is way over my limit of one.

A surprising plot twist

2009-07-22T16:54:30Z

Guess what? I had a baby! Last week!

No, really! I realize that generally people mention that they are pregnant some time before giving birth, but I like to keep you guessing - and also, after the troubles of last year, I spent the whole pregnancy terrified that something was wrong and that I was going to loose her - (an emotional state that I don't recommend maintaining for nigh on 10 months) so actually I didn't tell even RL friends that I was knocked up until people started eying me in surprise and kindly offering advice about how to diet away my nascent beer belly.

But Tequila Jane rode into town safe and sound, even though she's a bit early because my liver revolted (aren't livers revolting?) and they had to induce (making me really glad that my "birth plan" was "Go to Hospital, Come Home with Baby" - and not a list of hearts and flowers and transcendental earth mother experiences, which frankly, the pitocin drip would have immediately blown right out of the water.)

Sometime I might write an essay entitled, "How I avoided a C-Section at the 11th (or rather, 23rd) hour, and you can too!" - but right now I am just going to sit here being blissfully happy with the most beautiful baby in the whole world sleeping the sleep of a person who cried for 4 hours straight in the other room with my exhausted husband.

Also, maybe I want to make a list of things to know about birthing babies...Does everyone get this urge? I read the entire Library of Congress Catalog on the subject of pregnancy and child birth, and I STILL felt like essential truths were left out.

For instance - in the theory vs. practice category, I was all, "blah blah blah - the epidural slows labor down - maybe I should try to do this drug free" - and lots of books, and the Lamaze class we took, and my darling hippie Mother In Law, were all like, "That's right! Say no to the man! And his drugs! He's interfering with your natural Goddess Power!

In practice...I love the man! And I love his drugs! In fact, I recommend drinking straight from the epidural line, and tipping your bartender early and often. I think it did slow down my labor a little - but even if it turned 2 hours into 4 hours, that was 4 pain-free hours, vs. 2 hours of biting my own toenails in an attempt to distract myself from the contractions (since I put off getting it until I REALLY HAD TO) - and although I didn't fall asleep (more on that later) many people do end up getting a nap once the pain gets turned down, and that helps conserve energy for pushing.

Also, I wish people would stop comparing anything that happens in the general neighborhood of your uterus to "the pain of menstrual cramps." Those are different things, yo. (Although, I don't know - it has been 9 months since my last round of menstrual cramps, maybe I forgot that in order to deal with them you have to sit in a hospital bed, staring at a glowing light switch on the far wall because you lost the pretty little framed picture of a sunrise that you were going to use as a focus, breathing/moaning/singing/and/or/counting and rocking back and forth like an early victim in a psychological horror film who has seen something so horrible that they have gone from witty supporting character to drooling moron in the time that it took the hero to break down the door?)

Now that I think of it, when I miscarried last year, they gave me a pill to make my body let go of the baby, and the relevant bit of info that I found about it on the internet said that it caused "cramping similar to menstrual pain." I am still thinking of finding the tool who wrote that paper and punching him in the nose, and saying "that, my friend is a menstrual cramp" and then kicking him in the dick (for 8 hours straight) in order to illustrate the actual experience of taking his pills.

Hmm. Turns out I only like some men, and some drugs.

Perhaps I shall now look into how to add a picture of my beautiful baby to my next post, so everyone can know Tequila Jane and despair.

Also, next time I have some things to say about eating while in labor!

Oh Hai Internets

2009-05-02T21:51:42Z

Ah, look - it's only been like 4 months since my last post. Sweet. That's no time at all in internet land, is it?

I've been lurking once in a while, reading a bit of Merlin fic (to which I mostly say "eh", although any show starring Giles will always be close to my heart, and the behind the scenes videos which reveal the actor playing Arthur as a total dork desperate to be friends with the guy playing Merlin warmed me up a bit.) I'm just not ready to let go of Space Gays on Crack, I guess.

Not ready to let go of Live Journal either, although it seems that the actual diaspora is now upon us in the form of Dreamwidth. (Not that I have anything against Dreamwidth - it's really just that change is bad and different is wrong.) I guess I'll just sit here in my rocking chair on the porch as the town dries up an all the young 'uns move to the big city. I don't really see moving until/unless I find something new to be fannish about, and there aren't really any hot prospects at the moment. Merlin really is a little too teenaged for me, and although Stargate 90210 has the potential of familiarity at least, it seems unlikely that those clowns who are writing it will strike a JohnShepperdesque goldmine twice.

I watched Kings for a bit, but got bored pretty quick with how dumb the princess is, and how wildly pretentious the whole universe looked. I still love Bones, but they don't need fic...

I do recommend a show on USA called "In Plain Sight" Winning on many counts, with its strong female lead, snarky and bizarre dialog, and partnership without the 'ship between the lead gal and the dude US Marshal (who is hilariously actually named "Marshall")

I guess that once I catch up on LJ, I'll have to start in on some more focused TV watching, and find someone new to love.

oh - and - to pick up where I least left off - I did leave the black dude with the criminal parts he wanted, and solved the problem by giving him a couple more small shots - so as to hopefully dilute the bad-black-man vibe. I'm not sure it worked, but when it comes down to it, I am a people-before-principles kind of gal - and I just couldn't break his heart.

Race

2009-01-19T03:18:30Z

So - one of the projects I am working on now has 10 people in it - all people who were involved before I was hired. Almost everyone is playing multiple roles. It's a story being told by people in the "future", about the past (early 30's Eastern Europe.)

There is one black guy in the cast. He has 3 roles. One of them is a political protester, who becomes a suicide bomber and kills (accidentally) the heroine's one true love. The second is a child molester, struggling to deal with his "unnatural urges" (that one is small - just a page or so.) The last is an "Adam" character, who eventually, from a place of total innocence, becomes the father of the next human race ("Eve" is white.)

The cast is set, but I do have both the power and authority to shift around some of the smaller roles. I talked to him about shifting him from the child molester monologue to a monologue (a little shorter, and less complex) by a guy who owns a mine. He was heartbroken.

I told him I thought it was shady the way the only black guy in the cast was playing the two overt criminals (suicide bomber and child molester.) He pointed out that there is certainly a lot of morally questionable and even possibly genocidal behavior on the part of a bunch of the white characters, which is true - although all of those characters are presented in some way as tragic heroes.

I said I thought it was important that when people watch this thing (or anything,ever, actually), they don't get one more piece of the black-men-are-criminals narrative put in their face. He argued passionately and articulately about the work he had done building those two characters, and about his performance of them as a work of art that he had created.

I told about how I've spent the last decade of my life actively working to usurp the presumptive narrative's positioning of p.o.c.s in every single story-telling event and work of art that I have created.

I made a decision about what to do, but I wonder what you guys think.

AT LAST MY LOVE HAS COME ALONG!

2008-11-30T19:20:19Z

Last night I dreamed I had sex with Joe Flanigan! Or possibly John Sheppard for part of the time, but mostly Joe Flanigan.

DEAR SUBCONSCIOUS: Y u take so long to give me love?

It was awesome - and only made more so by the way at the end of the dream there was a bit of red-hot making out with the scorchingly sexy German lawyer who has been subletting my old apartment for the past year and a half. (Not - please note - monanotlisa, who is a scorchingly hot German lawyer, but continues to refuse steadfastly to live near by.)

Oh the details are slipping away, but there was definitely a bit where I was showing him (Joe? John? Who cares!) where he could get a sandwich (a strangely classy white-linen-tablecloth type place, which may have been supposed to be craft services - although really only on its finest day) and I was standing in front of the table looking out the window, and he came up behind me, and sort of stood with his body a millimeter away from mine, and I kept trying to talk about sandwiches, but it got sort of hard to breathe, and then he very very delicately started gathering my hair up in one hand, slowly slowly, one curl at a time, until my neck was all bare and shivery, and then he bent forward and just sort of whispered his stubble against my skin, and the second my knees went (UNDERSTANDABLY!) weak, he caught me around the waist with his other arm, and pulled me back against him, and we were both naked, and there was a table right there to bend over, so, well, WOOO WHOO!

Good job subconscious!

In other news, I have a lot of work to do today, so I am procrastinating by moving computer files around instead, and I discovered all the Big Bangs that I downloaded to read while I was traveling and never got around to. There like 5 or 6 files all between 600 and 800 KB, and then there is auburnnothenna's, which is TWO THOUSAND AND THIRTEEN kb. Way to go Auburn!

(I admit I am still a little afraid to start reading it, because I am worried that I will get hurt - even though I sort of like that kind of hurt. But it's coming baby, it's coming.)

tomorrow and tomorrow

2008-11-05T23:05:48Z

So - I got myself re-enfranchised.

I left the polling place incensed, after tearing up the "affidavit ballot" (which I assume a vote-counter would have torn up anyway later.) Then I hauled ass to a computer to check my registration - printed it out, and stuck it in my pocket, so I could seethe all day until I could go back to the polls.

I went back, and it turned out they had told me the wrong district in the morning (Not the wrong polling place - around here, you go to your polling place, and then you tell them your address, and they send you to a table that's specific for your district, and they look you up in the district book and off you go to the little cubby.)

I told myself that the problem was they were just overwhelmed in the morning with how ludicrously many more people were there than there usually are - but when I was back in the afternoon, arguing my case, it was basically deserted, and I saw the same thing happen to someone else! (I ended up chasing her down, and showing her the website to check and whatnot.)

Anyway - I voted! And we won! And of course we won my district (I assume unanimously) but man oh man, am I glad I am one of the numbers next to his name.

I cried some, when they called it, and I am still more moved than I can say. I can't believe this happened in my lifetime. I can't believe how it feels to be hopeful again.

I almost cried again when I saw what happened in California. So heartbreaking. I can't imagine my friends and neighbors turning around and telling me that my marriage doesn't get to exist.

But...we saw last night what some might consider the culmination of the last great civil rights battle. In spite of yesterday's defeat, I have hope that the next one won't take as long.

Holy Fucking Shit!

2008-11-04T13:32:27Z

DISENFRANCHISED!

My name wasn't on the list at my polling place! Where I voted! 8 months ago! In the primary for THIS RACE! And during every piddly little dog catcher election in the last 6 years!

And they were like, "Use the affadavidt ballot." and I was like "WTF!"

And the little old lady running the thing said "Oh, don't worry about it, sometimes the computer just drops people. It will be ok"

And I was like "OMG! WTF! NOT OK!"

I am so angry I almost started crying. If my neighborhood goes for McCain, I will cut someone! Possibly the little old lady! Because when democracy fails, so does civilization! God Dammit!

no day but today

2008-11-04T12:38:11Z

I'm up early and in line. This place is a madhouse. I've been voting here for 6 years and its never looked like this.

Non-Sga Media Related Issues

2008-11-01T17:56:27Z

1) Why isn't there more Bones fic?

I just mainlined all of Bones while I was traveling, and it's totally fucking fantastic! There's smart people interacting with wit and science talk! There's acknowledged sexual tension!

Also, it turns out I really like David Borreanez (however it's spelled. I'm pretty sure it ends with a Z.) My friends and I used to like to play a game where we would watch the credits for late season Buffy and Angel eps, and shout out "Thin Angel!" or "Fat Angel!" when shots of Broody McBroodster appeared. I got the feeling that by the end of the run, David B. was pretty resentful of being stuck playing Angel, and was depressed and eating a lot of pop-tarts. Or else Angel was secretly gorging on the blood of innocents with high cholesterol. I mean, for an undead immortal dude, his weight was fluctuating like a 13 year-old girl with a cheerleading habit. He seems much happier now! He's Well Muscled Angel and it's fun to watch him act!

2) You guys, this Zac Effron character, who all the actual 13 year-old girls like, is pretty cute. I accompanied some gentlemen of the Musical Theater Persuasion (his other target demographic) to a showing of High School Musical 3 last week, and was struck by his pretty pretty mouth, flat, doll-like eyes, and perfectly muscled back. Plus, he can waltz. "Come here little boy!" I thought, "Do you want some candy?" The actress playing his mom clearly thought the same thing. There's a scene where she pats his cheek, leans in a leetle too close, and licks her lips at the same time...it's all at once disturbing and totally understandable.

I may even watch High School Musicals 1 and 2 someday! I hear we see his nipples in one of those movies!

2a) I loved the scene when he was playing basketball in the dark, and his Dad confronted him about the kinky porno mag he had found under Zach's mattress. "Why can't you steal my Playboys like a normal kid!" Dad cried, brandishing the Juilliard* course catalog. "My god! There are pictures of men wearing tights in here!"

2b) If you are going to a popular movie in Manhattan, and are not interested in the hand-to-hand combat involved in getting several seats together at a midtown theater, you should know that there is a theater in Battery Park City (which I like to refer to as NEW JERSEY) that is quite a hike from the subway, but usually deserted. For your convenience, there's a crappy mexican restaurant which serves pretty strong margaritas right next door, and a DSW shoe warehouse in the building. SO you can get ripped, buy yourself some trashy purple boots, and then go ogle the ripe teenage flesh in relative comfort and privacy. If that's your thing, I mean (as it so so very much is mine.)

3) I need some boots. Elegant, waterproof, flat, comfortable, and not likely to pop my messed up knee. Not purple. Any suggestions?

* I told Orville, and I told Wilbur, and now I'm telling you - there are 2 "i"s in the word Juilliard. LJ's spellcheck disagrees. But then, it also says that fanfic is not a word, so there you have it.

Stargate: SG-GAY

2008-09-21T04:01:15Z

I am traveling for work with very little internet and no cable - and all I have seen of the latest SGA was a 30 second preview of John and Rodney having a chat. It was very very very gay. And jealous. And also gay.

So very gay that I thought - "what? really?"

As Peter Gabriel says, my heart went "boom, boom, boom!", and I also thought, "wow. well, maybe they got canceled and figured 'fuck it' and now every episode is going to have 1000% of the recommended daily allowance of gay, leading up to the final, glorious, musical episode, in which the gateroom stairs finally come into their own, and John's history as a gay robot is revealed, and Elizabeth comes back to life (as, possibly a heterosexual robot, interested in a three-way with Lorne and Zelenka)and Ronon hooks it up with Keller, and Teyla is put in charge, and Todd brings universal peace and vegetarian wraithism to the universe, and is possibly gay with Michael, and all is well with the world."

*sigh* a girl can dream, right?

Also - while absent from cyberland, I missed saying happy birthday to my dear Glenda, and to the lovely Mona.

It's not lack of affection ladies - it was merely substandard connectivity that prevented me from offering up good wishes and porn.

Say it ain't so!

2008-08-22T23:57:50Z

I'm in an AIRPORT on my way to a job, and I get one second of connectivity, and I think, "I wonder if I would go blind if I tried to read Auburn's Big Bang on my phone (answer: yes) - so I take a look at my flist - and its the END OF THE WORLD!!

Awww, man!

All I can say is: I started watching this show AFTER reading a ton of fic- most memorably a bit of enzyme porn in Helenish's journal that made me wonder why none of those Wraith dudes got to nail this John Sheppard character (answer: he was saving himself for Todd) - so....

Although I will be sad to run out of new screen caps of Rodney's ass, or Teyla's wig, or Ronon's Velvet Elvis - I think we'll do ok on our own.

Gold Standard

2008-08-07T16:54:32Z

I was just reading an article about Michael Phelps (champion olympic swimmer/questionable mustache owner) and stumbled across this brilliant tidbit of information:

The United States Olympic Training Center occupies a former military installation not far from the center of Colorado Springs

"!!!", is all I have to say.

No, wait, that's not true.

I've had an obsessive love of the winter olympics forever - one of my earliest memories is of watching the bobsled competition in the 1976 winter olympics; the visceral visuals of twists and turns eventually propelled me towards a passion for waterslides (similar action but WARMER. And less falling down involved.)

And the skaters! Figure skating has got lots of sparkly costumes and sometimes fantastic drama (if you can't guess that I own a copy of this book, well, then, you will never ever ever know me.)

Neither of those fascinations ever competed with my gigantic crush on Dan Jansen though. I grew up not far from him, so he was a home-town hero, as well as a figure of Tragedy! and Drama! - and then, brilliantly, with better story structure than real life usually has the simple decency to provide - Olympic Victory!

The summer olympics have never been as exciting for me, but I suspect that is all about to change, now that I know that the swimmers actually train in the pool at Stargate Command.

Who will be the athlete? McKay (with his instinctive genius grasp of fluid dynamics and skimpy speedo the same color as his eyes) or John (with the full-body swim-glove he insists he needs to keep his chest hair from slowing him down, but which is clearly all about his deep-seated fear of being naked around other men.)

I could really go either way.

back in the saddle

2008-08-04T13:08:03Z

1) Transition back to posting after sad hiatus = difficult.

2) SGA = awesome - I am loving the new season so far.

3) The Dark Knight = entertaining, but, really...Heath Ledger was very good, and A+ to him for working hard and whatnot, but...this is what he tragically destroyed himself over?

It's a comic book, dude! Dial it back a notch. If you can't achieve a performance of the Joker without locking yourself in your hotel room and driving yourself actually crazy until you're too strung out to come down afterwords, UR DOIN' IT WRONG.

Or, in the words of Sir Laurence Olivier, "Dear boy, it's called acting"

In other news, can we talk about prime / not prime for a second?

I am not a math person, so I didn't really think about it much before I started writing it into a story, but...

Is it actually a dorky memory game? I used to think, "eh, I guess I'll suspend my disbelief" about Mckay and Zelenka doing the math in their heads - it takes computers years to calculate new primes - but whatevs, I hear that McKay at least is a genius...and then I started thinking that it was a pattern recognition thing, like on an IQ test where they give you a series of numbers and you're supposed to figure out the next one in the sequence...I think real math people can just "feel" what's right, the way a great jazz musician can feel the right notes to play.

But now I am starting to think that it's really just that they know a lot of prime numbers - that it's the equivalent of Mckay discussing the trivia of Batman episodes (see - ha - this entire post does have an underlying theme) with Sheppard.

Yes? No? Prime? Not-Prime? It's important, because it changes the game from a conscious display of mad math genius, to an unconscious display of an intensely dorkitudenous hobby (defeating people by memorizing special numbers.)

Oh Rodney. I love you anyway.

Fade Away

2008-06-12T20:12:05Z

I lost the baby.

I just tried to go back and respond to the comments from the other day, because you guys were so wonderful - my world of imaginary friends singing songs of encouragement just when I needed it the most. But I can't, now. My heart is too sad, and my face keeps making too many tears to see straight.

just - thank you. And know that you helped.

Tequila Joe Wants Mommy to Calm the Fuck Down

2008-05-27T01:52:49Z

So, Internets (and when I say "Internets" I mean I believe that I have filtered out anyone who reasonably classifies as a member of my real life posse - if I am wrong, play along and don't gossip, ok?)...

So, Internets.

I am pregnant.

This is totally surprising, because who thought that unprotected sex with my husband timed to coincide with ovulation would result in a baby? (It turns out, not me, not really.)

Three weeks! I took the test on Friday because I was tired and cranky waiting for my period, and I was trying to prove that I was not pregnant (as I usually am not!) because I had retroactively begun to regret the three El Papa margaritas I drank last Tuesday. (Which should have been fine! Fine! We did it at all the wrong times this month! Also, I have never gotten pregnant before!)

My little sister and my best friend listened to me complain about how I had cramps but no period, and how I sure hoped I wasn't pregnant, because the baby would turn out a tequila soaked retard and it would be ALL MY FAULT for my loose ways and tawdry booze-swilling lifestyle, and made me buy a pregnancy test.

SO I woke up on Friday, and peed on the stick, and turned on the water to let it warm up, and considered my teeth in the mirror and looked at the stick and shrieked "Sanboy!" because it said, right there in plain English (no wishy-washy plus or minus for me) "pregnant".

We told my little sister, and my best friend and his, and no one else, because you know what they say - and we all had a lovely time on Saturday, planning out the future for Tequila Joe (speculating on his motorcycle, where to keep his extensive medical files, etc.) He rapidly became the most popular person in the group, and quite bossy (ex: Me: Can I have the last slice of pizza? Sanboy: The one in my hand on the way to my mouth? Me: Well, Tequila Joe likes pizza. Sanboy: ...here.)

Tequila Joe also made some decisions for the home team, like - Mommy may have had her last shot for a year, but a cup of coffee in the morning is necessary if the two of us don't want to walk into walls. And actually, I've been reading up - late to the party am I, but always happy to do research - and I have to say that a lot of the stuff I sort of believed you couldn't do/eat during pregnancy seems to be bizarre fear-mongering bullshit rumor. (Like, what do Japanese Mommies eat while they're knocked up? No sushi? Really? And my morning coffee really is ok.)

So we had a good day on Saturday and a lazy day on Sunday, filled with cuddling and breast-inspection (slightly bigger? Perhaps... The one on the left, especially) and then I woke up this morning with blood all over my panties.

I freaked out - and bizarrely peed on the last stick in the pack (which blinked "pregnant" reassuringly a few minutes later)- and then called the on-call OBGYN, who turned out to have a very thick accent and seemed to ask me my bra type.

Cotton?

36A?

Oh, BLOOD TYPE.

So I told her, and she said good, and there isn't anything to do, but it's probably ok, and to go to the hospital if I soaked through a pad.

I didn't, but I've had twingey cramps all day, and it's twelve hours later and I am still bleeding, and it occurs to me that if I hadn't drunk that tequila, I never would have taken the test, and I would just assume that I was getting my period now, but I did! And I did! And we know! And I'm scared! And there's nothing to do!

And Oh! Tequila Joe, don't leave me! Mommy is freaking the hell out. I only just met you, but I love you so much. Please hang on.

I Am The (S)hero of The Story

2008-03-21T00:33:21Z

Dissenter said this:

Slash: Workin' for The Man Every Night And Day

I said:

I don't buy your equation of homosocial and homosexual behavior, nor the conclusions that you draw from it. The Patriarchy regularly gags on homosexual identity - the repeated (institutionalized!) criminalization of gay behavior all over the world makes that clear. Even if you base your argument on a subconscious or subsocial link between the two, you'd have to grant the that by willfully ignoring vast swaths of negative cultural presentation on the subject, slash writers have seized (and colonized) ground that the Patriarchy labeled taboo.

In what way is that not feminist, and, indeed, radical?

Is it because slash is - as you say - so phallocentric? But why is the appropriation of male sexual identity in the service of female pleasure not - at least - an upending of the Patriarchy's dominance over the erotic sphere?

The source material itself is often witlessly misogynist - granted. And maybe there is a thread to be pursued here re: why and how slash/fanfic writers identify the source texts that interest them...

But I believe that by co-opting the male leads in a pop-culture narrative, and portraying them as sexually attracted to and pleasured by the same attributes and behaviors that attract and pleasure the (as you say) heterosexual female author - slash as a genre is tremendously (and subversively) feminist.

Also - as I may have mentioned here before: I'm pretty confident about my feminist street cred, I am consciously and enthusiastically engaging in a network of cyber-sexual relationships with other women, and yes, I also like dick.

ETA: AWESOME. She just deleted my comment.

double take

2008-03-05T03:55:29Z

dude - my life is sort of chaos right now for various reasons - so I've only been luring around LJ recently.

but I had to tell you guys -

I saw Lucius Lavin (Lovin?) on the street at like 8:00 this morning right outside my building! I was totally tired (and poss. hungover) and I did like a three act double-take. Really practically a spit-take. He looked kind of tired too - he was carrying a paper and just sort of shumbling along. Fortunately, I think it just looked to him like I was having some sort of seizure as the morning sun blazed unmercifully across my dull red eyes, as opposed to choking uncontrollably as I swallowed down the SGA flashback I was suffering.

He seemed to feel my pain.

Hmmm.

Maybe he did know it was a flashback after all.

Hell to the No.

2008-02-15T07:00:05Z

Finally caught up with SGA - Trio

I hated Trio so much my eyes almost started bleeding.

I mean, yeah, sure Rodney picks John Stewart so that he can say John's name out loud, yeah sure, fic potential with the hott secksin 3some with Carter and Keller and Rodney, and even yeah, sure, John, suck on that lollipop like the bitch you are...fair enough. But! I just could not stand the shack-ass writing and slightly retarded characterization!

I mean, I know they all have boners for Carter, and she has to be perfect etc etc - and hell, after the job they did with Weir, and the way that every time they look at Teyla their heads explode, I suppose I should be grateful in some vague "feminist" way about their plan to "empower" some female characters, but - guys -

When Rodney himself actually has to say OUT LOUD - "I know, I know, it seems like I'd be better at this stuff by now" it's a clue that you are not being consistent.

ALSO - actually - I will laugh at any sexist, offensive, marginalizing, bigoted, selfish, slanted, vulgar joke around...as long as it is funny.

You know what wasn't funny? Rodney trying to throw the grappling hook up and missing. Twice.

I call bullshit. Either Rodney would have really developed those skills by now, or he would have developed a fine appreciation for letting the people with those skills get on with saving him -

Do they think they are funny? Really?

On the other hand, I was totally fine with Keller blatantly coming on to Rodney, because you know what really happened there? A couple of weeks ago, she and Ronon busted out of the infirmary, she took him home, he happily let her tie him to the bed, and now it's over - no harm no foul.

Ah. This is what skewed personal cannon does best - straighten out the flaws in show cannon.

Good times.

ps - also, did anyone else notice that when Keller fell, Rodney was wrapped around a support poll, but that apparently what he chose to do when the camera cut away was disentangle himself completely, instead of using it as a pulley? I guess that first PhD in mechanical engineering really is all fannon. And so, apparently, is the genius IQ.

In case you're curious about my politics

2008-01-27T04:45:42Z

Why yes, that was my boyfriend taking names in the SC.

Sanboy says he'll never win (not the nomination, the actual election).

I say, if we get a race between McCain and Obama, I'll go to bed happy in November - and if my boyfriend wins - well, it will be a brave new world when I wake up, won't it?

Not so much for me with the live music

2008-01-22T06:49:37Z

on the other hand

if you ever get a chance to see this guy - http://www.jonathanbatiste.com/index.htm

any kind of chance at all - do it. he's god-touched.

You know what show is really quite good? Stargate Atlantis.

2008-01-19T05:16:20Z

I watched this episode as it was happening, which is very rare for me - and I suddenly understood all the real-time journaling people do. That was amazing!

I was sitting here smugly amused by the golf video game - which was stylin' like a 1988 Nintendo Duck Hunt - cracking up at the thought of John tricking Rodney into playing "golf" by getting him to write a new game for them when they couldn't keep playing Ancient Battleship. Then Rodney pulled out that ring, and I literally gasped.

And then The Flan! Busting out with 17 different facial expressions in one sitting! I love how he was TOTALLY surprised - even when he saw that the box held a ring, he didn't realize what Rodney was going to do. A ring? Why would any guy buy his girlfriend a ring? You know that when JShep got engaged it was a total accident - he was like wrapping a bandaid around the finger of Shirl - this experimental fighter pilot he knew from the Academy - and they had had a couple of drinks, sure, and that one time she gave him a blowjob and didn't mind when it took him like 20 minutes to come - and she said "you know what finger that is, right John?, and he'd said yes (because it was the finger with a cut!) and she had looked at him and said "Yes." and he said "Yes?" wondering what she was talking about, and she'd said yes again in a horribly confident and happy voice, and then started crying and kissed him and it all spiraled outward from there.

Anyway, in the face of all that internal chaos, he flipped through his whole emotional deck and managed to come out with something supportive in the end. Because he does love Rodney. The way a friend loves another friend. If that friend has a hot ass. Oh John. What will you do? Teyla has an invisible boyfriend and a baby she might love more than you, Ronon turned you down for Jaws II 'cause he's going to take Keller, and now Rodney is proposing to Katie! You're loosing your family!! And you just learned how to hug like a week ago!

And after all that he was adorable with Teyla too! (I don't understand. Is there ongoing emotional continuity happening as John and Teyla try to figure out what her pregnancy means to all the different aspects of their friendship? This is so weird!) And then he was just a total fucking stud climbing the tower. Way to go with the upper body strength there, Johnny. Even Lorne thought so. "Where did you come from, sir?" indeed!

And speaking of Lorne, I also loved the way he asked Sheppard why he had set the self-destruct sequence in a perfectly normal voice right after they rolled their eyes at each other when the alarm went off. You know how all the various incarnations of Star Trek, particularly the movies, were chock full of people setting off the self-destruct on the Enterprise in Very Dramatic Situations? (that is, when they weren't doing a saucer-separation). Atlantis is like the anti-Trek! They like to keep the lid on the suicidal drama unless its Sheppard alone in the Study with the Wrench.

(BTW - I've always thought the Enterprise self-destruct was totally sketch-o-rama. Like - a Starship costs some boku bucks - if you must weaponize it, you can run it into a planet or a star or an evil Romulan vessel or whatnot - don't go around setting up a program that gets hijacked every other week by alien computer viruses or just invading baddies who will destroy it for their own nefarious purposes. Do you think that nuclear subs have self-destructs? And if not, is it just cause we haven't met the Borg yet?)

But we haven't seen it used a lot on Atlantis, right?...maybe once? And it was in John's replicator dream, right? But Lorne's casual attitude about it, and then all the pauses when people were discussing what to do (Sam, "So it could go off at any time." pause pause pause "Great" pause pause - pained looked from Sheppard.) made me think that all the Events between Episodes on Atlantis are chock full of self-destruct shenanigans that never result in explosions - so people are ultimately pretty relaxed about it. And actually, it's so retarded that only Rodney's secret password would shut it off (what if he's dead? or controlled by an alien? or off-world on a routine Tava gathering mission?) that I secretly believe, like, Wednesday of this week there was some elaborate practical joke that involved the self-destruct, and Rodney lost ten years of his life to the adrenaline, and locked them all out until they've learned their lesson! (ie: tonight)

(Err - back to Lorne - also HILARIOUS his shrug at the inadequacy of his C-4 stash. Hey, you didn't bring your own bottle to the party, did you, Batman? So quit whining and go blow something up with Lorne's stuff.)

The whole rest of the episode was just as gratifying. I loved that when Sam and Zelenka were trapped in the elevator they just assumed that Rodney would fix the problem. Sam has really become a good leader for Atlantis and her relationship with Rodney has played out SO MUCH BETTER than I expected. I loved her public praise of Radek at the end, just as much as I loved her super-quick coding in the elevator.

Then I was totally entertained by the way John and Lorne yanked the transporter doors open, because I had a total meta-flash of the writers being like: "But how are we actually going to get them out? Oh, better go back to that earlier scene and tell everyone that the doors are like sort of light - not light enough for Sam and Radek - but definitely light enough for John and Lorne - and definitely lighter than all the other doors too, or Ronon would be able to get out of the infirmary by himself, no problem."

Speaking of Ronon and the infirmary - why yes, ladies and gents, that IS my cold black heart broken open and bleeding all over Ronon's story about Melena, and the way his voice cracked, and the way he tried to smile in a little boy that-didn't-hurt way while he talked about her. I am only a medium fan of Keller (I was pissed off when she didn't haul ass after Teyla on that rope bridge back in the day) but by the time they got to the end of the scene I was yelling "Kiss! Kiss!!" at the screen.

And speaking of kissing...

Oh Rodney. Why couldn't you take advantage of being locked up with your girl to try a little kissing? (actually - have we ever seen them kiss? I don't think so - and now I guess we never will.)

I would like to say, in Rodney's defense, that until John took his death-defying wall climb, and Lorne pulled out the C-4 he had stuffed his bra with, and Zelenka crawled through the air shaft, they really were facing certain death. He wasn't wrong about that.

And I would like to say in the writers' defense - as awkward as I find their work whenever they are trying to be "funny" with Rodney's cowardice or hypochondria, those things have been totally consistent (and indeed unattractive) character traits throughout the entire series. And they worked almost note-perfectly in the scene with Katie - incredibly, it was clear that there were different things that he could have done in that scene, things well within his demonstrated scope of bravery and communication, that would have made her say yes. Kudos to the actress, for making her heartbreak and the slow realization of her disappointment so real. Because we know that Katie doesn't mind the hypochondria - their first trip to the infirmary during the real plague episode made that clear. What ultimately drives her away is that Rodney just doesn't see her - doesn't hear her, and doesn't respond to her when he has himself to think about. He's convinced he's sick, convinced he's dying - but his fear isn't the problem - the problem is the way he becomes so absorbed in himself that she almost doesn't register with him at all, even when she finds the ring and asks him to propose. She's right not to marry him, and she's right to break up with him - which is clearly what happened in that achingly well written, well acted and well shot final scene.

Awww. Rodney. He's lucky that John knows the answer to life the universe and everything. Maybe he can help mend Rodney's broken heart.

LiveJournal Censorship and Invasion of Privacy For the Win!

2008-01-18T20:14:19Z

I find the "This content is for adults!" cut-tag thing deeply creepy.

Or rather - I found it slightly bizarre and off-putting, until I went looking for an awesome SGA story in which the central conflict was built around government control and invasion of the private lives of our boys...and discovered that it was behind one of those self-censoring tags.

The fine taste of irony that flavored my subsequent reading of the story didn't ruin it (it was too good for that), but it sure did shake up my sense of the author's relationship to her text. And the more I thought about it...well - that's when I started being creeped out by a system in which we self-identify as pornographers.

I do recognize that MAYBE the intent is to give LJ a way to say - we warned you! to anyone who complains about content, AND at best it would give the owner of an individual journal the same line of defense...but I don't see how that defense is going to be any stronger then the current MPAA ratings system which is already commonly used, and which utilizes an existing cultural vocabulary.

And on the other hand...it's sure going to make targets for future purges a little easier to identify, isn't it?

Continuing along those lines, I looked around the community which searches LJ for journals, content, keywords and what have you, and THAT was WAY creepy, because of course I searched for myself immediately, and found a bunch of people I've never met quoting a snotty question I asked in an admin journal, back during Strike Through.

I am pretty careful about not writing things in LJ which connect too solidly to my real identity - but I realized that I have also been counting quite heavily on the anonymity of volume.

Back when the internets first burst into my life, the false sense of safety came from the organic cultural limitations on its use. (Circular logic at best, but - I was an un-threatening smart, geeky girl - just like the other people who were attracted to and had access to the places I frequented - so the people reading the things I wrote self-limited themselves into a sympathetic jury of my peers).

Now the net is so big that it seems that no one could ever possibly find me except by accident - so the chances of trouble coming from this journal are no greater than the daily risk I run of getting mugged on the street. Sure, it could happen - but probably not - and if it did, it would have very little to do with me as Me.

I was talking to glendaglamazon the other day, and I told her that I very much feel that LiveJournal is a big dark empty cave, and when I post things, I am scrawling on the walls, writing ideas and stories that only an imaginary audience will see. She gently suggested that if I wasn't such a freakshow, her introducing me to a number of LJ friends live and in person would have shaken that up - and she's not wrong - but my id just hasn't made the leap.

See, although as time has gone on, I have done a tiny bit of social networking here, I still mostly show up for the fic. And by fic I mean porn. Or sometimes, just discussion about porn/fic/SGA. So my sex drive is what powers my relationship to LJ, to fic, and to all you ladies (and let me tell you just how pleased Sanboy was when I meta-ed myself to the statement that I am involved in a vast, spiraling - international! - network of cyber-sexual relationships with a bunch of smart chicks. It's like all his lesbian dreams have almost come true!) And my sex drive feels private - a feeling which colors what I think about the content of this journal - even though I am not locking or guarding the content in any way. Presumably, if you find your way here, you are interested in the same kind of things that I dig - if you're not, you'll never show (or if you do pop your head in for a minute, you won't stick around long enough to matter).

Posting and public discussions of sex-stories aside...(and when I say "aside" I mean I think I will return later to wonder aloud if part of our interest in slash comes from the way it is sexy and intimate yet distanced in some way from what most of us have personally experienced - and so allows us to maintain a shield of privacy over our actual sex-lives) - I also discovered something else!

I have been working hard to remain unspoiled for this season of SGA. I'm not really sure why - I was a GIGANTIC spoiler whore when I watched the X-Files... Maybe there is something about the delighted surprise that Space Gays on Crack often inspires in me...it's like I want it to remain pure. I want to be surprised right along with John when Caldwell and Ellis tell him that all he has to do to be promoted to full-bird is shave his head.

Anyway - I didn't read some of helenish's posts earlier in the season, because her cut-tags were all "Get Your Red Hot Spoilers Here" - but one of the links on the creepy search site showed me this!

The answer to the implicit question in her post, and, indeed, the actual point of this one is:

The pre-blowjob growl came at 24:20, and the other thing came at 26:46.

So - censorship, stalking and invasion of privacy FTW! The tools of oppression have just served to enable my big gay love for John and Rodney, and my ability to share that love with others! Hooray! Now lets get back to the porn.

rite moar

2008-01-01T22:46:58Z

In 2008 I am going to:

finish the gold shoes.

get more sleep

get at least 30 min of exercise a day (easy in NYC - just walk instead of taking the subway - so no more slacking off)

drink less (hmmm. maybe)

drink more! Water, that is, and also milk - because calcium supplements make me dizzy, but my bones are still getting older.

get my damn self pregnant. possibly with help from sanboy. then drink less.

throw/give away the clothes I don't wear.
throw/give away the clothes I shouldn't wear.
pay more attention to how I look.

try not to boss sanboy around so much.

go to church every week.

call my mom every week.

quit getting mad at sanboy when he doesn't let me boss him around.

throw things away.
unclutter.
finish fixing up the house.

email/call people back more quickly.

do our 2007 taxes before April 15th!

write more. finish some fic (and post it!). finish the gold shoes.

quit being afraid of what the gold shoes might mean.

finish the gold shoes.

kickin' it old skool

2007-11-27T05:26:22Z

I watched me some SG-1 over the holiday weekend, which was mostly dopey, and BTW you guys, NOT ONE LITTLE BIT GAY. I mean it. I am not trying to hate on anyone's OTP, but the Carter/O'Neill thing is SO VERY MUCH CANNON that I can't believe that any slasher slogged through ten years of that crap to be all, "oh that ONE time O'Neill grabbed Daniel's arm just before he jumped off a balcony in his alien induced suicidal depression!" Come on. O'Neill didn't even scratch behind his ear and look shifty after he did it!

Compared to SG-1, SGA is totally (not that this is news to us) SPACEGAYS ON CRACK.

Also there were a number of heartfelt episodes/scenes in the early seasons which included O'Neill's ex-wife. She was very classy and heartbroken and a tiny little bit dykey and clearly invested in O'Neill as a person even though their marriage fell apart in the maelstrom of the OMG TRAGEDY TRAGEDY MAKE IT STOP I ACKNOWLEDGE THE TRAGEDY OF YOUR DEAD KID ALREADY.

I cannot help but contemplate what would happen if Sheppard's CANNONICAL (and not in the sense or being a nun with super-powers, although that might be the best AU ever)ex-wife showed up on SGA. Totally not the mutual agonized respect-love-angst-fest that SG-1 had, I'll tell you that for free.

I like to believe that the divine ex Mrs. Shep is either an experimental fighter pilot from Iowa named Shirley (she called him Shep and he called her Shirl), who ends up in Atlantis attached to the Daedalus as a pilot of the next generation of 302's, or a French scientist named Monique, who routinely tosses her jet-black curls over her shoulder and snottily informs the (idiots) who underestimate her that she has more important things to do than stand around waiting while they figure out how to get their jobs done.

I think Lorne develops a little crush on Shirl while detached to the Daedalus to learn the 302's and assess their potential as a military blah blah blah and then when they finally get to Atlantis there is a total HELLO AWKWARD scene in the gate room, while Lorne tries to figure out how bro's before ho's applies when the bro is question is totally gay and (at a minimum) all three of them know it.

In other news, Rodney develops an obsessive (not to say creepy) fixation on Monique, because for all his wild accusations about Sheppard and any number of Gals from Pegasus, he realizes that Monique is the only person who Rodney has met who he is absolutely sure that John Sheppard has definitely absolutely fucked. He finds himself eying her in the labs and trying to engineer situations where she is in the same room as John, and then he spends and awful lot of time having confusing fantasies about having sex with her, or possibly about watching John have sex with her, or maybe there is a threesome in there somewhere.

I'm clearly incapable of getting a completed story past my internal sensor, but, oh, I think maybe I could tell more tales about Shep and his ex if SG-1 and its rampant hetero-normativeness would quit bringing me down.

In other news, I am now 35 and still not knocked up.

I Love My Dead Gay Wizard!

2007-10-20T19:10:35Z

Well done, JK Rowling, well done indeed

...and you know, although I was/am very much a Sirius/Remus girl (no matter how much I loved Tonks) I am pretty glad that when she picked who to publicize as gay, she picked a person who was a powerful intelligent loving force in the world she had created. Sirius was (at the very least) a bad parenting figure, and Remus was explicitly diseased - both of them easy marks for hate-mongers to retcon as immoral and shady. She spent more than a decade building Dumbledore up and enshrining him the hearts of millions of people - especially kids. I can't think of a better way to open the door to better understanding and acceptance of homosexuality - or a better way to imitate the experience of having a loved one come out.

She played a long game and she played it well. Bravo!