sundries

Yesterday, while cooking, a tiny droplet of hot vinegar wound up in my eye. It didn't hurt nearly as much as you'd think, but I was achy and annoyed all night. And it still feels a bit weird today. Of all things! I was wearing glasses!

I'm really struggling with finishing any of my writing projects lately, but I'm just accepting it, which means I'm less depressed and crazy than I was post-con. It's amazing what that advance thing did for my ego.

Who saw South Park last night? For all I know it was a repeat, but it was weirdly salient to something I'm working on (two somethings, actually) and was sort of hilarious to me.

Periodically, like the rest of America, I become obsessed with the Duggars. But it's not about the 19 kids or whatever it is. It's about the structure of the sentences on their website (and that of their oldest son who is now married). And it's not that god is in every sentence. It's the cadence, which is sharp, chirpy and monotonous. Where does it come from? What circuits of the brain does it excite to read things structured in that way? I've seen this same cadence of myriad other Quiverfull sites, and I can't get over it. Largely because it reminds me of how viscerally we respond to cadence. Something about that cadence makes us get sucked in or believe or be horrified (depending on who we are) -- above and beyond the content. My own work, my own LJ, is so focused on cadence, I now wonder if that's what sets off some people's shit about me as much, if not more, than what I am actually saying.

An arrest has been made in the murder of Annie Le. Things of interest in the reporting:

- "we don't know what other relationship they may have had" -- do we get this language when men murder men? No we do not!
- the suspect was a member of an Asian appreciation club in his high school. Thu suspect is also white. Will fetishization and some sort of racist expectation of submission of Asian women play a role in this? I'm betting on it.
- Early on in yesterday's reporting about the suspect (who was not named as such at the time) the New York Times reported that the non suspect's companion was seen. The companion was noted repeatedly, without gender. This fascinated me. Later, we discovered that she was female. Why should it matter? It doesn't, but I was unaccountably anxious (archaic meaning: desirous, anticipatory; not nervous) to know until that information was revealed in a later edit to the story. What does that say about journalism? What does that say about me?
- Actually the companion angle is interesting because the woman and, I believe, her brother-in-law also worked in the lab. Which may make other narratives I have suggested for this thing less likely.
- No, I have no idea why I'm this interested in this case, although I suppose it has to do with the intersection of gender, intelligence and entitlement that I expect to see emerge out of it.

And now we're on to fictional murder. Girl Number 9. I'm not a fan of web-only programming by an large (it's too coy) or stuff that is super short (because I'm a details man), but I'm weirdly thinking I'm actually going to dig the crap outta this, even if I already have a strong suspicion about where it's going naratively (a fact which may make me slightly insane). Also, I never knew James Moran wrote for Spooks (I know, bad!); I have to fangirl him for that next time I run into him. I FUCKING LOVE THAT SHOW.

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