sundries

I've neglected to mention that our tomato plants are suddenly three feet tall. The Green zebra is flowering again, the red zebras are too, and the tomato of unknown variety has tiny tomatoes and flowers again as well. Buds have reemerged on the peppers we've had so many problems with and I have high hopes. I put stakes in with the tomatoes yesterday, since they are getting so tall -- this morning, squirrels tried to climb them, tipped the pots over and ran off after getting chucked halfway down the fire escape by their own cleverness.

Patty continues on her road trip, but is at least now in the right state.

We're thinking of doing a beach weekend in a couple of weeks (basically, a nice, unplugged, romantic weekend, before DragonCon, which is pretty high-impact on my sanity). I originally thought we should go stay at the really nice hotel in Asbury Park -- I spent summers in Asbury Park as a kid because family has a house there (that we kinda can't borrow, because they're bigots and I don't wanna deal) and Patty wants to see different area beaches (we've only been to Long Beach so far). But it's a hard town without a car, so it's occurred to me that we might be better off in a B&B in Ocean Grove, where getting around on foot is more fruitful. I hear both towns are big gay meccas now, but especially with a B&B I confess it feels a little weird to me... so I'm looking for pages that shows who owns the B&Bs and it's easy to see which ones are likely to be gay owned. Also I'll do the "my partner and I" thing on the interrogative calls and find something perfect. But hey, if you're in the area and have a thought, do let us know.

I might be about to write some RPS. As you know, I have no problems with RPS and have lengthy scholarly thinky thoughts on why it's a valid literary pursuit. That said, even though I've written lots of RPS under my real name, there are reasons that this one might go under my Secret RPS Identity. Don't worry, you'll be able to find it. It's a plausible deniability action more than anything else.

I am struggling with my impulses, my need even, to write about everything. There's the women that were killed because a dude couldn't get a date. There's the continuing fallout of the *fail at WriterCon. There are a million things I feel like I always have to be on about and fighting about and being loud about, because I can, and it's useful and I have a big enough, mouthy enough audience here to get the word out. But I'm tired and I triage poorly and I make myself (and by extension the people in my life) crazy with it sometimes. I'm not sure what the answer is.

I think it's very cute that you all keep sending me info about the "win a walk-on role in Madmen" thing. I suppose I could put an outfit together and enter it, but it feels both silly and required that I do it as a woman, and I like to think I'm enough of a pro not to need to do these things, but then being a struggling professional actor means getting the face out there by any means available, and you guys would vote for me, I'd like to think. So maybe. But mostly (and people in my fandom know why) it's just hilarious, especially people in my fandom who saw me walking around with a Red Bull on Sunday and clutching it as if it were going to keep me from drifting out to sea. Man, the thing I hate about cons is the aftermath. I feel like crap.

More flowers at the tourist office. Thank you lefaym for the tip. (Do I need to put a footnote here that I'm not part of the "bring Ianto back" campaign? The story is the story, but heavens, I love this gesture).

I cannot stop being moved by the above and also fascinated. One of the subtitles of my journal is a devotion to vanishing things. How do things survive? How do stories? Does our digital age mean that memories will persist for longer or be even more ephemeral? What does it really take for anything to be remembered for 1,000 years? I go to the museum sometimes and look at the great porcelain from the 1760s, and I think about each step, each action, that had to occur, and not occur for such fragile wares to continue to exist. Everything is vanishing, why do we even try to arrest the process? What stories are more reasonable to preserve -- the fictional or the non-fictional, when int he lens of history everything looks like a lie? Can you believe Torchwood makes me think such thinky thoughts? It's rather absurd. But I love it, it feels right in my blood.

amand_r wrote When Taken Apart. It's about Ianto being autopsied. Some people will like it or hate it because it's dark and brutal and seems like one of those inevitable exercises that someone in fandom takes on. amand_r comes to the topic with an unfortunate legitimacy (see the comment discussion) and, for several paragraphs in the middle, manages to write what feels like a holy thing. If you are in our fandom and can make yourself read it, I suggest you do.

EtGB, chapter 3 has been started. I'm crazy excited about it.

meme

Ask me my fannish Top Five [Whatevers]. Any top fives. Doesn't matter what, really! And I will answer them all in a new post. Possibly with pictures.