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Jul. 18th, 2006
actual update
Jul. 18th, 2006 12:43 pmHi. This is an attempt at actual content, although I don't particularly feel as if there is much to report. Although I'm probably wrong; there usually is.
Tomorrow and Friday it seems I am working on Enchanted. My other jobs are equally busy although money and the Germans remains a very bad, and at this point, nervwracking thing. I try not to think about it, because all that is in my control on that front, I've more than done.
I am well, although I feel like I've been in this weird, fic-related silence, that probably makes me seem as if I am not. Everyone knows I, and I suppose most people, write more, whatever it is they wite, then they are less than well. These have been strange months for me. Getting sick, and getting better, not just better, but better than I've been in at least years, and really, in a way decades, has been peculiar. It is interesting to note that despite feeling and looking better, having a greater ability to stand the company of others, having essentially lost nearly all traces of depression and mood disorder -- I'm still pretty much exactly the same in my desires, tolerances and annoyances. It's not what I would have expected, but essential character, does, I suppose, remain the same, even if I've shifted a bit on the wryness/bitterness scale.
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nisaa wrote a bit at one point about the idea of a "healing crisis" -- how when these things happen and you get better, these floodgates of all this other shit opens up and you feel totally insane for a while. That happened too, and the timing was poor, coninciding with actual difficult things in my life as opposed to just the past echoes of hammering grief.
My biological clock is the devil, but I suppose it's just ornery too, and we seem to be making peace. It is srange to note that my greatest issue in having children at the moment seems to be my suspicion (perhaps incorrect) that doing so would require from me a fixed nature. The issue is not, "Do I want to have a child?" but "Do I want to be a woman every day for at least two years?" My qualms are far more about self-identity as opposed to affection for children or the desire to raise one. I suppose that merely means I'm just like everyone else, facing the same questions everyone else faces, just in more solitary a fashion. It probably also means I have some more growing up to do, but I suppose that it also ordinary and true of absolutely everyone.
frederich and I have been emailing. Frederich, who is reading this, will forgive me, I hope, if I say here publically I was slightly worried about emailing him to discuss the matter I did, because I find him to be pompous (all my friends are) and not prone to seeing the linkages in things the way I do, and I wasn't sure he could give advice that was relevant to me and my situation -- for as well as we do know each other, in a way we are completely strangers and always have been. But he said something very wise to me, which wasn't, but amounts to the simple fact that for all I am about rigor, which means (among other things) starting at the beginning in most matters, and for all I am about making the world as I will it, I've neglected to put those two concepts together in my approach to one very particular aspect of my life. Oh. Duh. I get it now. The problem of course, wasn't that I wasn't clever enough to figure this out, but rather that I overestimated my cleverness, and thought I could circumvent the way people just simply are. This is cryptic to you all, but that's fine. Eventually I'll get around to responding to the email in question, and life will go on.
The documentary lady called early yesterday and woke me up. I think while I was half asleep I agreed to let them videotape me on a shopping expedition for my gentleman's clothes. On a marginally similar note, tomorrow in holding I simply must catch up on paper correspondence -- which means missives to folks likegraene and some off-line folks, as opposed to wizardly endeavors for Descensus (on which, btw, progress abounds).
I am not precisely sure what the current revisit to the land of Hermione/Snape fics are about. Certainly that thing I wrote the other day is strange on the surface and stranger underneath the more I look at it. What an odd way to address something like heteronormativity, but whether I was condemning the suburban life or insisting to myself that it is always more than meets the eye, I simply don't know. Regardless, it was a pleasure to write in that tone.
About a week ago, I was flipping past IFC, and some Holocaust movie was on. I don't know what it was, and I only watched a scene. In it, Jews at a concentration camp are being told to undress for the showers. The man ordering them about is also a Jew, an inmate of the camp, and his cheery voice booms to remember on what hook you put your clothes, to tie your shoes together, to be sure not to lose anything so that you will see your families the sooner. It's a masterful performance from the actor, who must of course show a man in pain giving a masterful performance. There is a cut, of course, it's nearly obligatory, of the naked people going into the room, and then it cuts back to the man, standing amongst the clothes neatly on hooks, sitting down on the ground and hugging himself like a child, still, and not crying I don't think, while you hear the sounds from the other room.
I have read and watched my share of Holocaust stuff. It's not something I avoid or have a particular interest in, but if you like war movies (and I do) you can't help but go there. As a Jewish woman whose family was, I think, here entirely before all that happened, it is not something that's loomed large in a personal way for most of my life. And when I see the tropes of such things (absurd as it is to use the word) in fiction -- not about the events of WWII but similiarly drawn -- in science fiction, in fanfiction, etc., I've oft shied away from it. It seems an easy place to reach for the extreme and then an easy extreme to make about nothing other than your ability to show tragedy and horror greater than one could imagine. That's the problem, of course, how do you tell the story of people in such a context and elicit a reaction other than "I can't imagine; I can't imagine" all the while you are imaginging -- but for yourself, not the character, which is where teh art problem comes in. That's been lingering with me for a while now, and I suppose some of it oozed out in yesterday's writing. I've still not decided how I feel about my versions of the characters there -- if they are weak or not, honourable or not. Maybe that was the point, no big flashy "we do what we must," but bright people in horrible circumstance with somewhat limited imaginations. At which point, I suppose I've come back to the matter of suburbia as a concept as opposed to the place where a lot of people, including a lot of you all, live.
I'm not sure this report tells you much of anything, other than I'm here, and alive and thinking and feeling and living, and sometimes I need to say it, because I think it must often seem as if I don't, either because it must seem I don't have the time, or conversely, it's hard to imagine how all my reading, or even staring blankly a wall sometimes for hours can be life. But around here, it's often a rich one.
Marrilynn will be visiting at the end of the week and into next, and it will be nice to se her after over a decame. Nearly two decades ago, we used to lay on her bed in New Haven, reading tarot cards and talking about the haunted house down the road, and we believed we could make the rain come, and the wind come and crawl inside people's minds by doing a thing that felt like an icecream headache. It makes me sad to think about, the little girls that we were, although I'm not sure why, since all those things turned out to be true in a way, we just hadn't understood metaphor, magic or even ourselves very well then is all. But I remember looking out the window and feeling a fierce stilness in the center of myself, and a desire and certainty to be a better thing. It's funny to look back on childhood and discover the ways in which all the stories you made up turn out to be true.
For the record, Marrilynn's name only has one R, but I could never spell it right when we were chidlren, and she told me once that she loved that I used two Rs for it, because R was an important letter and granted extraprotection. And so I've always spelled it that way since, and probably will until such time as she asks me to stop.
Tomorrow and Friday it seems I am working on Enchanted. My other jobs are equally busy although money and the Germans remains a very bad, and at this point, nervwracking thing. I try not to think about it, because all that is in my control on that front, I've more than done.
I am well, although I feel like I've been in this weird, fic-related silence, that probably makes me seem as if I am not. Everyone knows I, and I suppose most people, write more, whatever it is they wite, then they are less than well. These have been strange months for me. Getting sick, and getting better, not just better, but better than I've been in at least years, and really, in a way decades, has been peculiar. It is interesting to note that despite feeling and looking better, having a greater ability to stand the company of others, having essentially lost nearly all traces of depression and mood disorder -- I'm still pretty much exactly the same in my desires, tolerances and annoyances. It's not what I would have expected, but essential character, does, I suppose, remain the same, even if I've shifted a bit on the wryness/bitterness scale.
nisaa wrote a bit at one point about the idea of a "healing crisis" -- how when these things happen and you get better, these floodgates of all this other shit opens up and you feel totally insane for a while. That happened too, and the timing was poor, coninciding with actual difficult things in my life as opposed to just the past echoes of hammering grief.My biological clock is the devil, but I suppose it's just ornery too, and we seem to be making peace. It is srange to note that my greatest issue in having children at the moment seems to be my suspicion (perhaps incorrect) that doing so would require from me a fixed nature. The issue is not, "Do I want to have a child?" but "Do I want to be a woman every day for at least two years?" My qualms are far more about self-identity as opposed to affection for children or the desire to raise one. I suppose that merely means I'm just like everyone else, facing the same questions everyone else faces, just in more solitary a fashion. It probably also means I have some more growing up to do, but I suppose that it also ordinary and true of absolutely everyone.
frederich and I have been emailing. Frederich, who is reading this, will forgive me, I hope, if I say here publically I was slightly worried about emailing him to discuss the matter I did, because I find him to be pompous (all my friends are) and not prone to seeing the linkages in things the way I do, and I wasn't sure he could give advice that was relevant to me and my situation -- for as well as we do know each other, in a way we are completely strangers and always have been. But he said something very wise to me, which wasn't, but amounts to the simple fact that for all I am about rigor, which means (among other things) starting at the beginning in most matters, and for all I am about making the world as I will it, I've neglected to put those two concepts together in my approach to one very particular aspect of my life. Oh. Duh. I get it now. The problem of course, wasn't that I wasn't clever enough to figure this out, but rather that I overestimated my cleverness, and thought I could circumvent the way people just simply are. This is cryptic to you all, but that's fine. Eventually I'll get around to responding to the email in question, and life will go on.The documentary lady called early yesterday and woke me up. I think while I was half asleep I agreed to let them videotape me on a shopping expedition for my gentleman's clothes. On a marginally similar note, tomorrow in holding I simply must catch up on paper correspondence -- which means missives to folks like
graene and some off-line folks, as opposed to wizardly endeavors for Descensus (on which, btw, progress abounds).I am not precisely sure what the current revisit to the land of Hermione/Snape fics are about. Certainly that thing I wrote the other day is strange on the surface and stranger underneath the more I look at it. What an odd way to address something like heteronormativity, but whether I was condemning the suburban life or insisting to myself that it is always more than meets the eye, I simply don't know. Regardless, it was a pleasure to write in that tone.
About a week ago, I was flipping past IFC, and some Holocaust movie was on. I don't know what it was, and I only watched a scene. In it, Jews at a concentration camp are being told to undress for the showers. The man ordering them about is also a Jew, an inmate of the camp, and his cheery voice booms to remember on what hook you put your clothes, to tie your shoes together, to be sure not to lose anything so that you will see your families the sooner. It's a masterful performance from the actor, who must of course show a man in pain giving a masterful performance. There is a cut, of course, it's nearly obligatory, of the naked people going into the room, and then it cuts back to the man, standing amongst the clothes neatly on hooks, sitting down on the ground and hugging himself like a child, still, and not crying I don't think, while you hear the sounds from the other room.
I have read and watched my share of Holocaust stuff. It's not something I avoid or have a particular interest in, but if you like war movies (and I do) you can't help but go there. As a Jewish woman whose family was, I think, here entirely before all that happened, it is not something that's loomed large in a personal way for most of my life. And when I see the tropes of such things (absurd as it is to use the word) in fiction -- not about the events of WWII but similiarly drawn -- in science fiction, in fanfiction, etc., I've oft shied away from it. It seems an easy place to reach for the extreme and then an easy extreme to make about nothing other than your ability to show tragedy and horror greater than one could imagine. That's the problem, of course, how do you tell the story of people in such a context and elicit a reaction other than "I can't imagine; I can't imagine" all the while you are imaginging -- but for yourself, not the character, which is where teh art problem comes in. That's been lingering with me for a while now, and I suppose some of it oozed out in yesterday's writing. I've still not decided how I feel about my versions of the characters there -- if they are weak or not, honourable or not. Maybe that was the point, no big flashy "we do what we must," but bright people in horrible circumstance with somewhat limited imaginations. At which point, I suppose I've come back to the matter of suburbia as a concept as opposed to the place where a lot of people, including a lot of you all, live.
I'm not sure this report tells you much of anything, other than I'm here, and alive and thinking and feeling and living, and sometimes I need to say it, because I think it must often seem as if I don't, either because it must seem I don't have the time, or conversely, it's hard to imagine how all my reading, or even staring blankly a wall sometimes for hours can be life. But around here, it's often a rich one.
Marrilynn will be visiting at the end of the week and into next, and it will be nice to se her after over a decame. Nearly two decades ago, we used to lay on her bed in New Haven, reading tarot cards and talking about the haunted house down the road, and we believed we could make the rain come, and the wind come and crawl inside people's minds by doing a thing that felt like an icecream headache. It makes me sad to think about, the little girls that we were, although I'm not sure why, since all those things turned out to be true in a way, we just hadn't understood metaphor, magic or even ourselves very well then is all. But I remember looking out the window and feeling a fierce stilness in the center of myself, and a desire and certainty to be a better thing. It's funny to look back on childhood and discover the ways in which all the stories you made up turn out to be true.
For the record, Marrilynn's name only has one R, but I could never spell it right when we were chidlren, and she told me once that she loved that I used two Rs for it, because R was an important letter and granted extraprotection. And so I've always spelled it that way since, and probably will until such time as she asks me to stop.
you know what you must do
Jul. 18th, 2006 02:19 pmOkay, the pug has fallen off the AC top-10 list. If you haven't yet pimped (or rated) Pugs Not Dogs, but Goblins, now is the time. Remember, this is an important public service announcement.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/43305/pugs_arent_dogs_but_goblins.html
No, I don't know why this amuses me so much.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/43305/pugs_arent_dogs_but_goblins.html
No, I don't know why this amuses me so much.
Okay, Snapecast has this fanfic/art contest going on, and I want to enter. I submitted the HG/SS/OMC story from the other day but forgot to word count it and it's waaaaay too long (the limit is 1500 words). They were, however, quite complimentary about my style, so what I need is a bunny, and maybe I can churn out something else interesting in the next few days, since that was written in a few hours. Because of Descensus it's near impossible for me to write Lucius or Narcissa related stuff involving Snape that doesn't fit into that arc, but any and all bunny ideas are welcome. I'm hoping something random will send me off in some odd direction.
(no subject)
Jul. 18th, 2006 09:32 pmhttp://community.livejournal.com/reversathon/61998.html
A pleasant and (bitter)sweet NC-17 Snape/Lupin story, parts of which I really liked and parts of which i thought were weak.
But really there's only one reason I'm rec'ing it.
A pleasant and (bitter)sweet NC-17 Snape/Lupin story, parts of which I really liked and parts of which i thought were weak.
But really there's only one reason I'm rec'ing it.
"The miniature, mechanical phoenix is eating them"is definitely my favourite in or out of context moment of the day.