sundries

Hello world. The paper is currenly at 3,164 words, which means I can stop for tonight, but Patty's doing some writing too, so I'll probably go for as long as either of us can stand. Right now my feelings about the paper are:

- it's pretty good
- it hasn't been as hard to write as I'd thought
- Ianto Jones, you do have to go and make everything fucking difficult, don't you?
- I'm never, ever going to get those hours rereading TWU, who_anon and torch_wood for July and August 2009 back, am I?
- Why can I still not find the right fucking citation about fucking tattooing?
- I coined a term!
- jeez, this thing is a bucket of fucking footnotes.

Patty and I spent the day writing in a cafe together and then went to Risotteria for dinner. Upon leaving Risotteria and walking by a woman in an extremely short dress that I didn't even notice, we have the following conversation:

Patty: "That was the shortest dress I have ever seen."
Me: "Didn't notice it."
Patty: "It was just... I don't even know how someone walks in that, much less sits or anything!"
Me: "You always notice these things."
Patty: "It was so short."
Me: "I believe you, I'm just saying, I think you like checking out chick's asses."
Patty: "Hey!"
Me: "It's a reasonable thing. I mean, some people are going to walk down the street and look at faces or tits or whatever. I think what I'm trying to say is that you're just a leg man."
Patty: *laughs*
Me: "Don't worry. In this conversation, you look sane. I look like the crazy one who described you as a leg man."

Thanks to a friend of Patty's we inherited a fabulous new dresser (it's this blue-washed wood -- very Jack) and a leaning bookcase thingy this morning.

Then we went to the farmer's market and bought some more tomato plants and a pepper plant, all of which we're going to keep inside for a bit until they are larger, as our three tomato starters were ENTIRELY EATEN, although their barren stalks are now starting to sprout new leaves so maybe there is hope? We even put out the big rubber snake we were sent to protect them. *sigh*

Yes, there will be a report on the Hewitt reunion soon. But that deserves real writing and all my real writing is reserved for this paper right now.

Flag football as varsity sport and whether it's a dead-end for girls.

After writing about the over-diagnosis of allergies, The New York Times counters by also talking about the high financial, time and emotional toll of severe allergies on families.

Why you can't win: Women who ask for raises are viewed as less attractive and a whole bucket of other stuff.

A week in the life of 311, New York's non-emergency information line. Didn't you always want to know whose job it was to deal with a dead seal floating off Brighton Beach?

Fuck yeah, sharks!

Or, er, academia!

The paper is done. More or less. I've just completed the second and near final draft. It clocks in at 7,791 words including over 50 footnotes which are about 50% citations and 50% asides featuring valuable information. I still need to standardize the format of said footnotes, look up a couple of episode numbers, do the bibliography and give it a final read, but otherwise I'm good. I will send it in tomorrow night or Tuesday morning.

I think I've done some significant work that advances ways of thinking about the issues the paper examines and also laid out a blueprint for future research on the subject (my own and others).

I think I've also done right by those -- some fictional, some not -- that it was important for me to do right by in writing this. I couldn't ask for a lot more.

And now, I'm going to bed.

Thanks to everyone who put up with the blow-by-blow updates on Twitter.