YULETIDE RECS, PART DEUX.

( in which the alphabetical system falls apart )

Every time I go "wow, where has the fall gone," I really appreciate people not smacking me upside the head. Because I have been stupidly busy! And I'm still feeling like I'm just barely settled in and getting the hang of things, finally - and then in two weeks I'll be home again for Christmas. (With a glorious week-long break, I love you academia.) I'm going to be in the Valley for New Year's as well, which in years past I would probably have moaned about but honestly I am super stoked for a few more days of not having to cook for myself. And I tend to be somewhat superstitious that the way you spend New Year's is how the year is going to go, but I think "on vacation and staying with my family" is all right. Unless my friends from home want to do something. One never knows.

Catching up: I saw a Tori Amos concert that changed my life, I continue to spam Tumblr way too often, Thanksgiving was mildly brutal but I got to see my sister and shala, and I am alternating holiday movies with My So-Called Life, which is another entry on the long, long list of things that I have never seen but really need to. Yes, seventeen years later, whatever. And writing my fic for inception_bang has taken over my life - the unfinished rough draft is currently at 27,500 words, and that's maybe 80% done. Art claims are happening this weekend and I'm going to be working with someone super talented, which is really incredibly exciting.

Also I signed up for the holiday love meme, if you have one let me know and I will say nice things about you. I don't feel particularly festive, which I chalk up mainly to it being about fifty degrees on average this month so far. How do people in warmer climates do this? I am used to actually having a red nose! To there being snow when I sing about sleigh bells! To not feeling like drinking cocoa will make me overheat! WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD?

Finally: a White Russian made with eggnog. slytherati suggested it be called the Fabergé. Try it, but drink very slowly.

oof.

( let's have a life update )

Yesterday was my last day of work at my old job. I feel weird about it? I mean, this was my first post-school job. Still excited to be leaving. Just... CHANGE IS SCARY. I knew that job! I was good at it! And I've been so freaked out by moving that I haven't even started to worry about New Job and what I'm going to have to do. But I'll have two coworkers guiding me. So that will be okay. And we're past the very start of term? idk. WHAT IF I SUCK AND THEY HATE ME. Actually I have barely worried about that! It's a job, I can do this.

More worrying: MOVING. I still don't have a place. Saw five places last weekend, one was super-sketch, three were fine, one was lovely but the other people would have killed me. None of the three places went with me (including nerdfighters! I AM LEGITIMATELY KIND OF MAD ABOUT THIS.) So instead I'm moving in with family friends out in Needham and continuing to look for apartments. I'm actually going back tomorrow to see three more places. But since I severely doubt I will be moving IN anywhere this week, it's Needham. Which a) makes the commute kind of a pain in the ass and b) means I have no fucking idea what I'm doing with packing. Do I bring everything and stash it in their garage? Do I only bring clothes and my laptop and then come HOME and move everything from there when I do have a place? Will I actually be able to move before November 1?

And then there's the wedding on October 1 I'm attending in Long Island, and I still haven't bought my bus tickets and don't know where I'm going to stay the night before, and my job starts on the 3rd, and I need more work clothes, and I need a new bank account, and the doctor's office screwed up with getting me a prescription to bring with me, and I still don't have my state ID and can't carry my passport everywhere, and I need to get a CharlieCard, and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA oh my god.

I can get through this. I'm just taking a few minutes to freak the fuck out.

A lot of things in life are stressing me out right now - one of my coworkers is leaving, which takes us from "understaffed" to "skeleton crew; internet pretendy funtimes are not as fun as they're supposed to be; the weather; my body's insistence on finding new and exciting ways to be utterly gross.

But I wrote fifteen thousand words of silly self-indulgent crossover fic, and it's the longest thing I've written since grad school and the longest fic I've ever written in my entire history of writing fic, and I am pretty damn proud of myself.

WELL THAT WAS ENTERTAINING.

Fourish hours to Newark in rain and horrible humidity, whatevs. Massively long security line with a dude wearing the "si hoc legere scis nimium eruditiones habes" shirt that I complimented (it's like a nerdy batsignal!). Sat around in the gate and read The Grey Horse. And then the flight was delayed by two hours because of weather/maintentance/needing a new part and I started reciting the Hail Mary over and over. Also a dude was in my seat and I had to glower at him.

But I managed to catch a little sleep, and then THERE WAS A TRACY ATTACK-HUGGING ME and we took a bus and got coffee and took a train and walked home and I got to meet Matthew! He is little and adorable and so high-energy and told me all about Daleks. Kids, man. SO NOT USED TO THIS. Also there was soup and tea! And I need a shower but that requires standing! And I'm on vacation! And I'm using Tracy's laptop because I need the network key for mine but we'll get to that later. For now we are watching Phantom Menace because Matthew requested Darth Maul. Yeah. RAISING YOUR NERDLING RIGHT.

Hanna: highly recommended. There are a few parts that feel a little overtly music-video-y, and a few parts that are a bit on-the-nose (can't discuss without spoiling), but overall a really gripping movie. Beautifully shot, Wright knows how to compose the hell out of a shot and I thought the action was really well done and easy to follow. The score was by and large AMAZING, although again a bit overtly BWEEEEP BWOOOOOMP BWEEEEEP BWOOOOMP at times, but that's what you sign up for when you get the Chemical Brothers. Saoirse Ronan fucking owns it and is amazing and flawless. Eric Bana is surprisingly compelling. Cate Blanchett veers a little over-the-top but is generally quite good. And Jessica Barden is adorable and hilarious, when the film really needs a break in the tension.

VAGUELY SPOILERY PART: Unimpressed with what I read as a bit of transfail (bit as in it's about two seconds long) and a bit of homophobia; relieved that for all that some characters are incredibly fucking creepy there's no overt sexual menace directed towards Hanna. This isn't Sucker Punch, is what I'm saying.

The Thief, Megan Whalen Turner: OMG AMAZEBALLS.
The Queen of Attolia, same: What I found to be a complete tonal shift, BUT ALSO AMAZEBALLS. I have no shame about heading into the Grade 5+ room at my library if it nets me books like these. I stayed up way too late two nights in a row to finish these books. EEEEEEEEEE.

Parks and Recreation: Why wasn't I watching this before?

I had plans to make all kinds of posts about what's been going on with my life and my epic roadtrip to Vermont and what I've been reading and watching.

But we just got a call saying that my great-aunt Helen passed away today. So those are going on the back burner.

Helen was my grandmother's half-sister. She and her sister Sue, or Sophie, were extraordinarily close and extraordinarily driven. They put themselves through college, worked for the war effort in World War II, and while they were both courted by men they never married. Instead they lived in apartments a couple of blocks apart, or on different floors in the same building. Since my grandmother lived in Florida and didn't bother to make the trip to see us more than once every few years, Helen and Sue became my stand-ins for grandmothers. They lived in New York and we'd see them often. They gave weird presents that they picked up at flea markets - cat sweatshirts, electric toothbrushes, paperweights for an eight-year-old - but because Helen was an editor, she also gave us books, many of which I still have. Helen was brilliant and uncompromising and sarcastic and funny and always, always treated me with respect, whether I was five or fifteen or twenty-five. She was always supportive of my ambitions and was - and is - one of my role models for living a happy and successful life regardless of what other people might think or what expectations society might try to impose.

Her health had failed in recent years, and she was spirited off to live with my mom's horrible cousin and her gay husband in Virginia (long story). In some ways I mourned her when she left New York, when she wasn't able to live independently and senility started to steal the personality I loved so much. But now she's really gone, and I mourn again.