rivers_bend

i had a very long, detailed, and strange dream about my ex last night. Then I mostly forgot about it until I lay down again, when it came rushing back to me. we did a lot of walking on hilly streets and in snow in the dream, and my legs started aching the second before my brain remembered the details. bodies and minds are SO BIZARRE.

( house stuff )
and while I have you here, one last thing. If you've ever thought you might want to try out a fancon, and north america is within your travelling reach, now is the time to check out Wincon. If you've been with me any time at all, you know Wincon is one of my favorite weekends of the whole year. and this year we need more attendees to keep it going. Please check out Wincon's Indiegogo page and get a weekend pass. or pick yourself up some awesome fannish loot. It really is an amazing time, with amazing people. And it's an amazing fandom tradition, and I can't bear to think of losing it.

Went out to dinner with a friend last night, and it was great and we decompressed about our shitty day at work and the food was good and what I was craving, but it made me think about a thing that's been bugging me that I couldn't quite put my finger on when I go out to eat.

Our server was perfectly friendly, and brought our food as ordered, and offered us refills of our soda at appropriate times, but he also did the thing. The thing that makes me really uncomfortable. He offered us alcohol when he took our drinks orders. Fine. I said, "I'm driving, so no thank you. I'll have a soda." Why did I give him an excuse? What business is it of his why I don't want a margarita or a beer? Because I have become familiar with what will happen next, and I am trying to find ways to make it not happen.

When he came back with our drinks, he said, "Sure you don't want a shot?" Same thing when he came back with our food. When he offered me a refill, he said something about how he could still bring me a margarita. And it is SO FUCKING CREEPY I WANT TO SCREAM.

Now I appreciate that alcohol has a good markup, and that part of a server's job is to upsell. I don't mind being asked if I am sure I don't want an appetizer, or some guacamole with my chips, or that dessert, but when a man is trying to push booze on a woman who has said she does not want to drink, the whole rape culture that we live in comes in to play. At least for me. And I REALLY SUPER A LOT do not like it. I cannot think of the last time a female server has tried to get me to drink alcohol when I've declined. But I have had male servers BRING ME A DRINK I EXPLICITLY STATED I DID NOT WANT because I "looked like I could use it."

ARE. YOU. FUCKING. KIDDING. ME.

And it's always bugged me, but I never really put into words in my own head why until last night. I am not the sort of person who feels comfortable explaining rape culture and grossness and creepy behaviour to someone I don't know at all who is trying to do their job. But it would be super great if shit like this could become a more widely spread cultural conversation. And if it could stop.

I am re-watching 10 Things I Hate About You for the millionth time and just got to the scene where Patrick sings from the bleachers. I've had conversations with people who cannot stand that scene because it's so upsetting that he's embarrassing her in front of the whole school. And I was surprised because that kind of thing usually bugs me, but the scene has never bothered me in the slightest.

But watching it again, I realized that it's because no one is looking at her at all. No one seems to even know that he's singing to her except her. So he's only making a spectacle of himself.

Which is not in the least to say that people shouldn't be uncomfortable about it. Just that I had been curious, once people brought it up, why I never had been given my massive vicarious-embarrassment squick.

last week we had a really quiet afternoon at work, and my colleague whom I was on the phones with was asking me about life on the California coast. This led to us both looking at property websites, as she and her brother and mom are thinking of buying a house down there. We found a place in Santa Cruz (home of my heart) that was amazing. 150 acres of meadowland and woods, with a huge, gorgeous main house, a guest cottage, and a caretakers cottage, three barns, an alpaca paddock, a swimming pool, sea views... incredible. A snip at fifteen million dollars. But whatever. That was also the week when people were posting the links to the plans for tiny houses websites and talking about that, and I went into full-on fantasy mode, thinking of all the little houses that could be built on the place, and how there could be a huge vegetable garden, and chickens, and it could be a real proper fangirl commune.

I imagined everyone having their own space, and then using the big house as communal area, with signups for the TV, and if someone was watching something you wanted, you could just join them, and I thought about cooking in the big kitchen, with people sitting around chatting to me, and maybe some other people helping to make big meals to put in the fridge, and people could come and heat up lasagne or meatloaf or stew or soup whenever they wanted. And we'd take turns working in the garden if that suited, or taking care of the animals, and spinners could spin to their hearts' content, and knitters could knit, and one of the barns could have a south-facing wall replaced with glass and it could be a huge artist's studio, and people could use it to paint or make jewelry or sculpt or whatever they liked, and we could have a little recording studio, and a fire ring, and bat boxes in the eaves, and hummingbird feeders everywhere.

And it made me really really happy to think about. I would love that so much. I never felt cut out for the communal living situations in like, Berkeley, because the people (from the looks of the ads) were not people with whom I had much in common. But yeah. This sounds great to me.

On the way home that night, I was talking to my mom, and she asked how my day was, and I told her about the gorgeous property, and how great it would be to buy it and build a fangirl commune. She immediately had a thousand practical reasons why it would never work (primarily that even with thirty people, you'd all need $500k mortgages to be able to afford it, and that's before you started making any changes to the property), and I was so taken aback. I realized, talking to her a little bit more, that she doesn't have places she goes to in her head that are nice to think about. If she wants fantasy, she reads a book or watches a movie. She only dreams of things if she can also logic a way for them to happen. I'll admit, at first, it made me feel like a freak.

But then I got off the phone with her, and remembered that being able to think like I do is what makes me be able to tell stories, and I am FAR from the only person who can do that.

Tonight I was lying in bed, trying to go to sleep so DST doesn't catch me, and I drifted off again, imagining the solar panels on all the roofs, and the windmill on the property's edge, and that wonderful kitchen, with all the counter space a girl could want, and bar stools for my friends to sit on, and, I'll admit, we were listening to the Radio 1 Breakfast Show and I was maybe shaking my ass a little in time with the music, and I thought I need to write this down. So, here I am.

and now I am going to get back to dreaming, and hopefully sleeping.

a conversation about re-reading books on twitter this morning made me think about books I have re-read. One that contends for top spot (with Tabitha King's One on One and Anne McCaffrey's The White Dragon) is A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute. It is not unproblematic, but my biggest narrative kink is society creation (see also the Pern books), and for that it is brilliant.

It was written in the 1950s. This is the source of much that makes me cringe, including the line about Jean (the main character) avoiding a fate worse than death. A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH. Already in the story, she has been a prisoner of war and as such has been marched hundreds of miles over the course of months watching her friends die around her, has been hit, starved, threatened... She's lived through hell, basically. But this fate she avoids, this terrible fate to which dying is preferable, is having sex with a man she's in love with, who loves her back, whom she's travelled across the world to find, and whom she plans on marrying. Yes, better that she should DIE than make love before saying "I do". (not even fuck. these characters are total MFEO OTP characters.)

and then I look at my tumblr dash, and all the girls and women delightedly objectifying men, and wanting to get all up on their junk, and playing fold-of-cloth or peen, and making grabby hands at boobs, and shouting NOW KISS at Kristen Stewart and Jennifer Lawrence, and having no kind of shame about sexuality at all. I can't think that a single one of them would think death preferable to sex, no matter how they cry about drinking bleach and lying down in traffic because someone is too sexy for their shirt. #datingmyselfwithlyrics

And I think, YAY, HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED.

and then I look at the politicians and the laws they are making/trying to make about women's bodies. And some of them were alive in the 50s, and that fate-worse-than-death thing is a real life cultural reference for them, and the rest of them were raised by people who grew up then, and clearly didn't move with the times. But can we move with the times now? Can we do that? Because this whole thing were women can and do watch porn and get off to it, and talk about their desires, and take control of their own sexual experiences is REALLY AWESOME.

For lunch today I made dairy-free calzones, two different kinds. And I took lots of pictures, because I was so pleased with having enough space to actually COOK. ( and here they are )

I was going to make something else nice for dinner, but I still have most of the peperoni calzone left, so I might have that with some carrots and humous. It will be good to see if these are good cold anyway, because if they are, I could make them as a thing to take for lunch once I start working. I don't like microwaved bread things, so heating such items up doesn't generally work unless there's a toaster oven.

I was going to do some more writing today. I am currently working on an MCR fic, a Teen Wolf fic, and a 1D fic. Like you do /o\ But instead I unpacked lots of boxes. Also went to the gym and cooked. I did not find my stamps though, so I really need to go find someplace to buy some so I can mail in my voter registration. Even in thirteen years of living in another country, I never missed an election. I am FOR. SURE. not missing this one just because of bad timing on my part.

I planned to sleep in this morning, but woke up at six o'clock anyway, and then got all restless instead of all sleepy when I was doing that lying in bed surfing the internet on my iPod thing. I blame the hormones. idk if it's my recent crappier-than-usual diet, or the fact that I have mostly forgotten to take my vitamins this whole month, or what, but ugh, cycle from hell this month. On the plus side, one of the delightful things on my twitter feed this morning was this video, which made me laugh, even though Heidi scares the bejeezus out of me.



and part two~


another thing on my feed this morning was an improved version of the MCR studio session Kids from Yesterday that I posted last week, so I updated that post with the new vid if you liked it and want better sound and video.

Now I am going to have some tea and food so I can take pain killers and vitamins, and then I have fandom work to do before work work. after today I have actual DAYS OFF which is amazing. Maybe I can get all the things I've been meaning to get done, done. Including a hair cut. ugh.

I woke up this morning to this staring right at me:



That wasn't disconcerting at all, no! o.o


In other news, Hawaii 5-O continues their trouncing of NCIS: Los Angeles in the most-married-cop-partners competition. NCIS had an early lead, but then H5O took the field, and, well, TOOK THE FIELD OMG. Sam and Gee live in each other's pockets, but I'm pretty sure Steve and Danny live in each other's PANTS. I was pretty much in it for Grace Park at the beginning, but there's no reason I can't lust, hearteye AND slash all at once. (which is pretty much Danny and Steve's philosophy as far as I can tell. Not that they limit their hearting to their eyes.)

In other other news, LJ still won't let me reply to comments. Even when it's up and running in all other ways. I can do one or two, and then, kaput. I'm working on it though! (as I know they are)

thank you to topaz_eyes who brought this to my attention.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Fl4L4M8m4d0

I think this will resonate if you've ever had a job, but especially if you've ever been in grad school in any capacity which involved doing someone else's research. It's tragic and hilarious all at once.

I am trying to be productive on my one day off this week. So far I have done a load of laundry (which I started at 6:45 in the hopes of getting the machine, and I still had to take someone's clothes out of the washer to put mine in. 1 washer and 1 dryer for 19 apartments is not enough), washed dishes, scrubbed the kitchen sink, and written another 500 words of fic. I think it might be nap time since I woke up at 4:38 when the cat decided to start charging around the apartment and his route went right across my chest. Then more writing.

I think last night's White Collar was one of my favourites ever. Here's to a show that seems to be endless good times. I haven't watched Southland yet, because while it is also amazing, it is not so much good times, and last night I was in the mood for good times.

First: Adam fans on my flist... If you haven't joined more_is_more yet, head on over there and see a picspam of Adam's show at Heaven last night in London. Speaking of more_is_more we need some more Johnny fans over there to up the Johnny input. Bring us your vids and picspams!

I was going to have a very accomplished day today. Instead I managed to beta a fic, answer some comments, and screw around on the internet a lot. Oh, and uninstall and re-install flash player after photobucket crashed my firefox.

But. There's still time to clean my desk off before dinner, and maybe even get started with the printing of my thesis. I can use the "preliminary" pages as a test run for the fancy-schmancy paper.

Damn you Castle for not airing a new episode last night, which means the finale will be airing while I'm on my road trip. *crosses fingers for viewing*