trinityofone

I just said goodbye to Siria at the bus stop. There was lots of hugging and shouting and waving as the bus pulled away. I am sad now.

This morning, after our breakfast, Siria helped me carry over 25 kilos of books to the post office. And guess what? They no longer do slow boat shipping, so it cost me *almost cannot bear to type this* 219 euro to send everything home. *weeps* Hi, world. I need a job?

But then Siria and I went and bought underwear, which made us both feel better, I think. AND! As I was walking her to the bus stop, we actually heard a Trinity College groundskeeper call out, "Top o' the morning to ya!" to a passing woman--with complete sincerity! Siria, I think, had a tiny, tiny brain aneurysm. Today she had her 21st birthday--she entered her 22nd year in Ireland, on this Earth, and that's the first time she's ever heard a real Irish person say that. It was very special. I feel honored.

But she has gone back to Laois now, and I go back to the States in two days, and I am sad.

Today I:

1. Went to my 9 a.m. tutorial on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and almost strangled a guy who first went off on a LENGTHY tangent about some nonsensical "post-colonial" reading of the text ("See, the narrative doesn't exist until Alice arrives--she imposes it on the citizens of Wonderland!" Right. That imperialist, seven-year-old bitch) and then told me it was "utterly pointless" for me to suggest that possibly, this was not what Carroll had intended. Sometimes I really hate English majors.

2. Wrote a draft of my history paper. It makes no sense and it's four words short (after dinner: add adjectives!) but do I care? No. My inner Hermione is rather peeved at me, but honestly, I could not give a shit. *loves the delightful doneness of being done*

I'm utterly exhausted now--I feel like a deflated balloon--but in the interest of being mildly celebratory, here is some music for y'all:

I promised smittywing more Mirah.

Sweepstakes Prize (That's the one I already gave you, right?)
Cold, Cold Water (lcsbanana, this song totally reminds me of that Stephen Crane poem you gave me for a prompt. Must write that fic!)
Special Death (This one's totally my Teyla song.)
Advisory Committee
Dreamboat
Don't Die in Me
100 Knives
Engine Heart (And these last three are all major McKay/Sheppard songs to me.)

custardpringle said, "Milla Jovovich does music?" Yes, she does! Here are three of my favorites.

It's Your Life | 2nd link
Don't Fade Away
Satellite of Love

(She wrote the first two herself; the third is, obviously, a Velvet Underground cover.)

Finally, here is something cool I got off audiography today. I think it's an interesting Atlantis or John-and-Atlantis song.

Big Science - Laurie Anderson

Enjoy! And, um, write more porn! I'm going to go pass out now...

Wait, except first: GIP! Extremely enthusiastic GIP! siriaeve is the best friend ever, and you should all shower her with porn and chocolate. *nods*

ETA: My favorite RL story of the day.

So. I have a draft of the Why We Slash paper. (Yes, I know I haven't fully finished responding to the responses, but I'm really running out of time here, and y'all already know that I suck.) I don't hate it as much as I initially did, but I'm still not sure that it actually, you know, makes sense or says anything. I have to turn it in the day after tomorrow; is there anyone who'd be willing to look it over? Normally, I'd ask my mother, but despite her professed interest in the topic, um, no. It's about 10 pages long, and uses the phrase "blow job" more than any other academic paper I have ever written. (Which is to say, once.)

I also have to bang my Victorianism paper into shape. This is the one that's sekritly about how Holmes and Watson are so very, very gay for each other, and...I'm sensing a pattern here. And the scary truth is, I have written a lot of papers about--sexuality? homoeroticism?--in literature. I mean, there was the Portrait of a Lady paper about how Isabel Archer is incredibly, incredibly repressed, and how the only person in the world who possibly knows more about repression is Henry James himself. Not to mention the one about how in East of Eden, Lee is the Eve to Adam Trask's Adam. (And I still want Lee/Adam, people! You litslash folks are falling down on the job!) I guess you could say I've identified my area of interest. Now what do I do with all this? I mean, like, in life. *deep thoughts*

Confidential (by which I of course mean completely, gloriously public) to:

plainsong_x: I have acquired the book! THE BOOK HAS BEEN ACQUIRED BY ME! And the edition with the cool cover that you liked, too. (We're talking Exquisite Corpse here, for all you people who are BRAZENLY LISTENING IN on our PRIVATE CONVERSATION.)

isiscolo: So I went to the bookstore today specifically to get a computer book. I got there, I poked around in fiction and history for a while, I picked up the above piece of serial killer wacky fun, and then I walked out, having completely forgotten what had been my sole purpose in going there in the first place. *headdesk* So, goal for tomorrow, really! Seriously, though: all I need is a tweed jacket with patches on the elbows and I'd be the quintessential absent-minded professor. (Oh, and a degree. One of those might be helpful.)

And sdraevn: Damn you! You've got me listening to Bon Jovi and liking it! *is ashamed*

No, seriously: her John/Rodney mix is fantastic. Check it out: Weird About Each Other.

I should probably do some actual work now. But yeah, please let me know if I can put your mad beta skillz to work. Thanks!

ETA: Okay, I think I'm cool on betas! Thank you all so much!

First of all, I would just like to say thank you for the incredible response there's been to Revelations. Not just all the comments (although five Edit: OMG six pages of comments?! That's incredible, and I'm incredibly flattered), but the fact that people took it the right way and got that I was trying for something...I don't want to say deeper, but more emotionally complex than just kinky smut. Not that there's anything wrong with kinky smut--bring on the kinky smut, I say!--but that's not what this turned out to be, and it's just really cool that that resonated with people.

Also, in case you missed it, since I first posted the fic, slodwick has made haunting cover art, and not_sally wrote a terrific, full-fledged piece of backstory: Prior Enlightenment. Go look/read and tell them how awesome they are! (Them personally or the story/art--or better yet, both!)

Also in the category of things that blow me away: the quality of the responses to my Why We Slash questions. I was already aware of the quantity of the responses (which is also: wow) but damn, you guys have a lot of fascinating, insightful, and downright clever things to say. I'm only about 1/3 of the way through going through everything in super fine-tooth-comb detail and pulling my favorite quotes--a highlights reel of sorts. And so far, every single person who's responded has said something that's made it onto my supposed short list. Every. Single. One. Unfortunately, my essay's only supposed to be 2,000 words, and the word count I just did on my pulled quotes document? 4,943. Um, oops? There's no way I'm going to be able to do this topic justice.

I was going to say, "Speaking of justice..." but this next item of news doesn't seem particularly just to me, except in the context of "just weird." While I was making dinner (mmm, fan oven lasagne!) I got a call from my parents, and apparently, the Berkeley Department of English has awarded me a $1,000 scholarship for the 2005-2006 year. For academic excellence among English majors or something. Which is very flattering, yes--but did I mention, also, weird? Because not only did I not apply for any scholarships, meaning that someone else would have to have nominated me, the English Department doesn't seem to be aware that I'm, um, not at Berkeley. I mean, I'm still technically enrolled at Berkeley, and I will be graduating from Berkeley, but I'm never going to attend another class there again. It's the rest of the year at Trinity and then that's it. So, since the money's been deposited directly into my CARS account (weird Berkeley bureaucratic whatsit), I'm not sure if I'm ever going to be able to get at it. I hope so, though, because if I do, my Mom says I can have it for myself, can use it to tour Europe a little. (Trip to visit monanotlisa--yes!) At least the 'rents are proud.

Speaking of parental pride, part of the conversation tonight almost made me swallow my tongue:

Mom: ...and when you're done with your essays, I really hope you'll spend more time writing to your family, and less time writing slash.
Me: *chokes on the air in her mouth*
Mom: Oh, don't think I don't know you do that.
Me: *various inarticulate noises of the 'what? how? what?' variety* Have you been reading my journal?
Mom: What? No. But I'm your mother, I listen to you, and I know things.
Me: Oh my God, please don't tell Dad, he'd freak.
Mom: I don't see why there's any reason he should know.
Me: *silent prayer of thanks* *deep breath* You know the funny thing is, before you called, I was doing research for a paper on slash. That's one of my two essays.
Mom: Ooh, can I read it?

So yeah, my Mom's pretty cool. But sheesh, how many more people am I going to be outed to this week? ...Well, suitemate!Aidan, apparently, because when I went to make tea, he was in the kitchen, and he complained that he has nothing to do tomorrow ("I was going to go to Kerry and get a trumpet, but then this guy I know in Kerry, he calls me and says, 'I'm coming up to Dublin, I'll bring you the bloody trumpet! So now I don't have to take the train to Kerry tomorrow"), and I responded with the standard, "You wanna write my paper for me?" And he said, "Sure, what's it about?" And okay, I could have lied. But instead I sort of smiled and said, "Boyporn," and then explained it to him. He was very cute about it. Cute and flustered. Mostly cute. ;-)

So yeah, apparently academia actually is liberating. *eg*

Finally, two things that amused/distracted me today:

1) darling_effect linked to A Christmas Story, as Enacted in 30 Seconds, by Bunnies. A Christmas Story is my favorite holiday movie ever (yes, above even It's a Wonderful Life and (the original! not colorized!) A Miracle on 34th Street), and dude--bunnies. It's even better than the 30 Second Shining.

2) Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest Trailer--which, shockingly, I haven't seen every single person on my flist link to yet. Hmm. Maybe I am just looking in the wrong places?

Thank your lucky stars, my friends. 'Cause I was going to write a long, bitchy post about how all the people in my Victorianism class are idiots, but you have been saved--saved!--by the amazing and talented slodwick, who made my afternoon and possibly my life by creating a gorgeous cover for my story Something Wicked.

( Look at this, I don't care if you don't like SGA, it's beautiful and wonderful and just *Guh* )

Really, it's just exactly how I pictured it, like slodwick somehow got inside my head. (Yeeeaaaah, it's kind of messy in there--sorry about that.) Go tell her how fabulous it is!

Ahh. *happy sigh* I'm having wonderful delusions of being a published author now.

As for the rest of my day, basically I endured the aforementioned tutorial from hell and--okay, I can't help myself, I have to give you a sample, because my blood is still boiling. We read Dracula, which is a tough read in a post-Buffy world; all the suspense is based on not knowing what's going on, but anyone who hasn't been living under a rock knows that the Count vants to suck your blood, so reading it is basically 400 pages of going, "Hello, guys? He's a vampire," before yawning your way through the unspeakably dull climax in which the big scary Count is killed in his sleep. All right, fine. Just 'cause the book is boring doesn't mean the discussion has to be--we could have talked about lots of interesting things, broken down precisely why the narrative structure fails, and mocked Jonathan Harker for being a wuss who was once portrayed by Keanu Reeves. BUT NO. Instead there had to be 45 million variations on this conversation:

Student: Um, when Dracula bites people, I think it might be, you know, kind of sexual?
Tutor: Huh, I hadn't thought of that!
trinityofone: *cries*

So instead I made a music video in my head. And damn, I wish I were a vidder, because this is, like, the most cracktastically awesome idea ever. Ahem. Get this:

Genius of Love to clips from 'Aurora.'

I mean, just listen to it! And check out these lyrics:

( What you gonna do when you get out of jail? I'm gonna have some fun! )

Yes, the crack I am on IS very good, thank you for asking.

*Seneca. Because I am pretentious as well as crazy. Whee!

Last night I dreamt that John Sheppard was being attacked by an evil penguin. He fought it off with a fireplace poker, but its flesh was too rubbery and the tip kept bouncing off. Also, it talked. Its voice and mannerisms were similar to those of Joe Pesci or maybe Danny DeVito--all it needed was a cigar to chomp between its beak.

Thus, fandom has offically driven me insane.

*thinks* I'm just going to go with it. Is that cool with everybody?

Further evidence of insanity: monanotlisa made me this truly awesome icon. *points* See? It's John and Rodney and the Trinity College Campanile! Coolness, no? Except I had to comment and say:

Now I want to write AU John-and-Rodney-at-Trinity fic. Which is just so, so wrong.

At which point tzeentch (who's never even watched the show!) had to step in and utter the fateful words: I would read that.

So no, I am absolutely not trying to think of plausible reasons for them to be in Dublin, thank you for asking.

Speaking of wackiness in general, here's my favorite snippet of overheard conversation today:

A group of very emo Irish boys is standing outside the Arts Building, talking and smoking and huddling against the rain.

Very Emo Irish Boy: Right, but at least I have a lesbian backup band.

I have no idea what this means, but it is AWESOME. This is totally going to become one of the phrases I try to slip into casual conversation, hoping that they'll catch on, which of course they never, ever do. My previous neglected favorite is:

"Jim Morrison, that's another Thanksgiving you've ruined!"

...which was one of Meg Ryan's lines from The Doors, and no, I have never seen The Doors (although I have seen Morrison's disappointingly un-vandalized grave), but I read that line in a magazine and yes, it was LOVE. Love, I tell you!

Now it's only a few more hours until I can eat...

ilgattopardo's M&S Meal of the Day

"Thai Laksa Noodle Soup with Chicken."

Hm. M&S's noodle soups are usually quite good, but I've never had this kind before. I am positively quivering with excitement. I bet you can feel the seismic disruption in distant places across the globe. If Los Angeles experiences an earthquake today, yep, that was me.