rm | sundries

Sure enough, having sent the paper in, last night I could sleep.

Meanwhile vacation approval. Or rather, I'm now in the clear to buy my plane ticket to the UK for the conference, and to Dragon*Con. I'll probably hold off on getting the Dragon*Con ticket until Patty and I are 100% sure if she's coming or not (duh), but I may buy the UK ticket tonight.

Also we found out today that Patty (and I) have been invited to the wedding of two of her archaeology friends. It's near Chicago in August. I AM SO EXCITED, BECAUSE I LOVE CHICAGO SO FUCKING MUCH. Millennium Park will always have a little piece of my heart.

But back to the UK: I need your help.

I'm not going for very long. I'll leave the US the night of July 7, arrive in London the morning of July 8. Then I have to decide if I'm going to spend the day in London or just head directly to Bristol or Cardiff.

Cardiff is the real wrench in the entire situation at this point, as originally I had little intent on going to Cardiff this trip unless Kali, who is also presenting at the conference and will be in London with her partner long before I get there, wanted to go too; I'll be seeing enough of Cardiff in the fall with Patty there, after all.

However, then someone pointed out to space cadet me that July 9 marks the one year external (since the internal show date was sometime in September) anniversary of Jones's (can you tell I've been writing the paper? -- I've lost the reflex to call him Ianto) death, and if I'm really intending to expand this research and I'm going to be in the UK anyway, I should fucking go to Cardiff, although a part of me would really like to give that particular experience a miss (also, if I stay in London into the 9th, I can go to St. Katharine's Dock!).

So now I have to decide if I want to be in Cardiff on the 9th, and if that means staying in Cardiff the night of the 8th, or going up that morning and then going to Bristol that night, or getting into Bristol the morning of the 10th, which is the day of my paper and seems like a terrible plan. Anyway, then I have the 11th somewhere, and then I leave back to the US the afternoon of the 12th. And I can't figure out any of it other than I will be in Bristol delivering a paper on the 10th.

Can someone tell me what the fuck makes sense here? Also, remember: public transit only. I don't drive. I do want to figure this out soon, as it will save me a lot of money to buy all the rail fares involved in this clusterfuck early.

Also: I am already dreaming of Tesco. Hello, gluten-free bakewell tarts, how are you?

Also also: I can fly Delta/KLM again for the frequent flier miles (I fly them a lot, and am really racking up the miles), but for the same ridiculous fare (this flight is going to cost over $900) I can fly Virgin Atlantic. Is Virgin Atlantic so worth it I should? I do love Virgin America and it makes me feel like a rock star.

When I post about a type of homophobia that occurs in fandom, it can seem a bit derail-y when your response is less along the lines of "what's a good way to label my stories to offend less people?" and more along the lines of "I want to be warned when something deviates from canon" or "slash can mean other things." Both the canon deviation issue and the slash can mean other things thing are true, and those are worthy discussion topics, but when you jump in with that in response to the issue I was discussing it kinda reads a bit "my fanfiction enjoyment is more important than your discomfort with homophobia" and I know you don't mean that (really, I really, really do), so caution please?

Apparently the Key West tar balls aren't from BP. No one knows where they are from.

Sea turtles at risk.

Judging women. The New York Times talks about gender issues and the select few; it's bound to be a lot of things, not all of them relevant, useful or pleasant (I've not read it yet).

The impact pot has on your dining out experiences. Anthony Bourdain asserts, "There has been an entire strata of restaurants created by chefs to feed other chefs. These are restaurants created specially for the tastes of the slightly stoned, slightly drunk chef after work" and the article just goes from there.

Lots of animals need our help every day. In one particular instance, there are 100 cats that could really use your help today.

I've just been invited to join a World Cup betting pool. I know next to nothing about the relevant sport (wherein, I feel like an asshole if I call it soccer and ridiculous if I call it football), but I tend to win money when I bet on things, so now I'm like "hrrrr, why not?"

OM NOM NOM: Dried apples with cinnamon and gluten-free shortbread.