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The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging, and this hole is like that mythical pirate treasure pit where waves of fortune hunters keep excavating.

There's work to do, but this is a start. We can take it, and make it bigger. There is more suffering ahead, but I feel like there's opportunity for hope. I have a lot to be grateful for. I am also very angry, and tired, and determined.

This whole week has been about re-learning hope by inches. There's been crying, as I've let go of successive worst case scenarios. Today is the first time I feel any confidence that the murder clown and his oligarchic mlm bandwagon have an expiration date.

I have not achieved catharsis, but stress relief is a fairly strong migraine trigger for me. One time I had such a lovely time in Cleveland with

fbf I ended up barfing on the side of the highway as six months of stress rebooted my brain. With that in mind I've really been trying the last year not to bottle things up or shove through, but I suspect I'm just *less* bad at taking time and taking care of myself. Eventually the sense of safety (or at least lessened danger) will soak in.

My fancy new vaporizer is arriving today, so either way I'm taking the brain off the hook tonight and hoping to shake some of this out.

In the last 6 weeks I've hired and trained a new assistant, gotten a new work laptop while work did a huge software migration, and moved into a house. It's a pace of change that's pushing the limit even without it being depression season (43 days until the solstice!). Maybe this sense of limbo will hang on until Inauguration and then my brain will turn inside out like a puking frog.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Kitchen Nightmares (America)

I really appreciate everyone's replies, they've helped me clean my lens of dread to focus better on the excitement, and that's a lovely gift.

This morning we dropped off the baby-woman for her first day as a high school freshman ('college model', half online, half in person with serious distancing practices including awareness of time as a factor in exposure). I only bawled a little more than I do every year, and only after we drove away. I can't imagine being 14 in this milieu (1986 was certainly no picnic, arguably there's a lot of rhyming in the history of then and now, or more accurately, themes that have have been festering since and now come to a vicious head), but she's rising to the challenge.

We closed yesterday, and may be moving sooner than expected, as the sellers seem motivated to vacate asap. We've reached the point at our place where we could pack the rest in half a day. I can't wait to get in there, get the paint colors figured out, and start taping and spraying. Fuck, guys, I own a house again. I'm the happiest sucker who will ever rue the day I made such a good decision.

In other news, I created a monster playlist for this moment in time, to capture my rage and my determination. Wide variety of eras and genres, but some themes, and some bops.

Capt. Tripps
At least this dystopia has some banging tunes

Warnings for language (in particular warning for slurs in the tracks “This Land”, “American Bullshit”, and “Reagan”).

Current Mood: optimistic

On our 13th wedding anniversary, the spouse woke up hours before dawn, and took a car full of stuff and our ancient cat, and moved to Connecticut for a job. That day, I moved into my parents' attic with the kiddo for 2 months, to complete a semester of post-bachelor work before joining him a couple days before x-mas. Connecticut sucked, and for various reasons we moved back the next summer. That couple of years we lost a house, couldn't find steady employment, had to abandon several career aspirations between us, restart resumes from the bottom, incur absurd amounts of medical debt, pull my dad from the brink of death a couple times, and, also, encounter enough luck and resources to fill in those holes, rebuild our infrastructure, and be a soft place for my parents to land with us when their luck turned to shit.

Tues, we close on a house. We take occupancy in a month, the day before our 23rd anniversary, one day short of ten years from the day we gave the last one to the bank. The kiddo starts freshman year of high school on Wed, half-time, socially distanced, in an evidence-based district, but still terrifying. I'm having some feels about it all. Old trauma-based panic, satisfaction, guilt, excitement, fresh panic, pleasure, dread.

There is so much uncertainty, it feels like everything is in flux except a handful of people in my life. Needless suffering, autocratic insanity, libertarian dog-cannibalism, having to hire and train a new assistant, menstrual cycle weirdness that's frankly kind of overdue age-wise but I'm still not excited about. Packing my stuff for the seventh time in a decade, hopefully for a more stable destination. At some point, training to be a poll-worker, which itself was a tough decision about what risks I could live with myself taking versus actions I could live with myself not taking.

I've taken this week off, basically to clean the mental fan before the next load of crap comes flying at the blades. Last time off was a long weekend in January. And with the pandemic, training a new assistant, worsening food insecurity, and the normal holiday rush at a nonprofit, this is really my only chance until at least next January.

So that's the update. This week will be about taking bike rides, finishing a story I've been writing for years, settling the kiddo into school again, making some bad art, packing, talking about my stupid fucking feelings like a reasonably well-adjusted adult, yoga, trying a few different weed strains, wrapping in a weighted blanket burrito-style, and organizing myself for the long haul of seasonal and/or situational depression.

Current Mood: quixotic

Sometimes I make a list of the stupid little shit that's bugging me, as a way of flushing it out of working memory. Saying to myself, "okay, noted, let's move on!" I usually don't post that kind of thing, because I have complex emotional baggage about malingering and whining, but fuck it. I actually find it interesting to read slice of life stuff from other people (and listing it to myself isn't working today), so here goes.

I'm antsy for my back-ordered kitchen aid ice cream maker attachment to arrive, but my longing for spouse-made weird ice cream has been eclipsed by my anticipation of unsubscribing from Crate & Barrel's constant emails. I prune, not wanting to miss a shipping update, but they grow back. Only fire (and ice cream) can save me now.

Having a few chronic non-debilitating conditions that you can treat is like wandering around on a carousel. It's not as dangerous and shredding as a being trampled by a stampede, and there's variety, of a sort, but it's just going around in circles and it's not riding a horse.

It's fascinating and frustrating to be looking at houses again. Also terrifying, but that's economic trauma for you. But really, how I see houses at 48 is very different from when I was 30, and not just being able to better see potential and structure and situation. Houses shape the activities within them, accommodating or thwarting, making assumptions about use of space and connection, role rigidity and hierarchy of needs. I want to live in a quiet hobbit warren with my spouse, teenager, 2 cats, 2 septuagenarians, and their cat, and the housing stock in my area just doesn't support that.

I've begun exercising again, which means sorting through the bits that have gone rusty since March; knees, inner ears, core, aerobic capacity. It's not as bad as feared, just rough and sore like any time you try to climb back onto a moving wagon.

I feel like I need every tool in the arsenal against depression, oiled and sharp, for this winter. I've got a bit of anxiety about the prospect, frankly, a scosh of nihilism around the edges. It literally just occurred to me that the winter mood thing totally counts as a chronic non-debilitating condition, and that even when it's not active, feeling some kind of way about it is completely legit.

Feelings are dumb. Hinky brain chemistry sucks.

I was going to get My First Tattoo this year. It was a Planned Activity for Deep Winter in order to feel something and connect with my body and the act of creating meaning. The design I was leaning toward was simply, in black along my forearm like I'd scribbled it, gang aft agley. So, like, that's not happening for a couple years yet, probably, but I can't even be mad.

Current Mood: anxious

Dear Wells Fargo,

I have received your check for "incorrect late charges" you'd assessed at an "incorrect amount" with an undisclosed "additional amount to compensate" for the time the funds were not available for my use. I see that you still aren't sharing your arcane 'accountancy' as to how you arrived at this figure, but it's safe to assume you pulled this latest one out of your ass like the rest.

I feel petty, and vindicated, and angry, and sad.

It makes me wish I could go to Past Me, on the phone with you bastards for hours trying to get accommodation on a fucking car note I owed a measly two grand on, during what was for Michigan an actual economic Depression and not just Great Recession, pacing in my parent's kitchen because I was living in their attic with my child and spouse, who was racking up medical bills with a hospital just as mercenary, as I patiently and then angrily explained that I had no money to give you, because my two income household was now surviving on gig work and charity, as your staff verbally abused me as a deadbeat and thief, as I dared them to come fucking repossess, here's the address, I've already lost a house you think a Kia Rio is gonna break my heart?

I want to tell Past Me that she wasn't just defensive and rationalizing, you really were a sociopathic enterprise, and demonstrably financially culpably wrong, even in the general lack of reckoning we've had since that economic meltdown, and that these systems were grinding her to paste for no other reason than that they could, and to not feel so fucking guilty.

I still have the car.

She was a very good car for ten more years, and when she died it was on a Friday after bringing me home from work, coasting into a parking space where she still sits, because the pandemic forestalled the junkyard tow.

I will cash your fucking check, because this pittance of a nonpology is the only recompense I'll get.

Current Mood: irate

This morning I wrote, so posting seemed within reach, but it's been almost an hour and a couple bad attempts. I can't think of anything to post about, but if anyone has a question or a meme, I could do that.

Yeah.

Or if not, at least know I'm reading and cheering you on, and will have more words at some point.

Thanks : )

Current Mood: groggy

First up, we're doing okay so far in the household. I'm the only one leaving the house on the regular, because I work in a food bank.

Lemme tell you, the place is hopping. If you need help, find your local food bank at feedingamerica.org for resources and responses in your area. If you want to pitch in, right now we're revising a whole lot of logistics to get more food out there without our usual army of volunteers (we want to distribute food, not virus), so most places should have website info on ways to help (virtual food drives are a thing! so is pestering your various levels of government if they're being shitty).

Part of me wishes I had the chance for time at home that isn't spent recovering, trying to sleep, and prepping for the next day/week. Most of me is grateful to have the distraction and purpose. Be safe.

( cut for household logistics bc that's how I process )

Current Mood: indescribable

Hunting for Sugar - JD McPherson ~*~ Rare as The Yeti - Kid Congo & the Pink Monkey Birds ~*~ Let Me Teach You How to Eat - The Reverend Horton Heat ~*~ Rock Candy - Big Jay McNeely ~*~ Je Cherche Un Homme - Eartha Kitt ~*~ Little Drop of Poison - Tom Waits ~*~ Cold Ethyl - Alice Cooper ~*~ Homemade Mummy - Aesop Rock ~*~ Come On-A My House - Julie London ~*~ Buena - Morphine ~*~ Queen of Pain - The Cramps ~*~ Rose of My Heart - Johnny Cash ~*~ If You Love Someone Set Them On Fire - The Dead Milkmen ~*~ Fresh Blood - Eels ~*~ Spooky - Lydia Lunch ~*~ First Kiss - Tom Waits

open in spotify

Current Mood: accomplished

Brain log, stardate whateverthefuck:

This year I didn't take my usual summer break from the system of checklists and figurative gold stars that brace my faltering executive function during the winter depression, instead I applied my summer ability to organize and plan into testing out upgrades.

I was spared the dithering this fall about how much to start doing when, or starting too late to keep on top of things. Instead most of it's already ingrained habit, and I just added in the therapy light and the extra vitamin D3 in September and those didn't feel like failure or surrender.

~*~

I have serious issues with the snake oil aspect of the industry, which is a hot mess right now, but I have to say that dialing in the cannabinoids for migraine has been a game-changer for me. High cannabidiol, but using full-spectrum stuff so it's technically micro-dosing THC and all the rest.

The headache log was very disheartening at first, because for a long time I'd been ignoring a lot of brain grumbling and powering through, so it sucked to look it square in the face. Over a couple months of actually listening to it, and actively babying it with all the things that help (ice, reduced light and sound, massage, etc.), and then figuring out an effective dose and route, the frequency and intensity of brain grumbles have both reduced, and I'm no longer shredding my stomach with so much ibuprofen. I'm now infusing my own oil from flower, because at heart I'm a fucking hippy with a crockpot. Or in this case, a sous vide and mason jars.

I'm also wondering if it's had an effect on mood, frankly, though it's impossible to tease out how much of the lessening anxiety is/isn't due to less chronic pain and hence less concern about being stuck fighting my brain in overstimulating situations. Or due to continuing to use my winter organization systems even in summer, and getting a better handle on shit in general.

Things are in a good place right now, which is it's own worry, because there's always down to go. So maybe it's not lowered anxiety, maybe it's just having more resources left over to deal with it.

~*~

In other news, I'm knitting a sweater, sorting through old boxes of jenk, exercising kind of regularly, still freaking out about finishing Electronic Thumb, still salty about Endgame, and work is entering the busiest quarter.

Current Mood: creative

The panicky avoidance of wrapping up a large story has set in, which explains why I had to write a small one-shot in an unrelated fandom before I could even open the last chapters of Electronic Thumb this weekend. This is becoming a pattern, where I need some kind of escape palate-cleanser before I can put a complex novel to bed. In this case, I wrote fix-it fic for a sixty-four year old movie.

Jessie Royce Landis and Cary Grant were both comfortably in their fifties when they made To Catch A Thief, and I've always found their chemistry way more interesting and fizzy than what he had with Grace Kelly, which never really clicks at all even if you set aside that Francine is at best a mid-twenties thrill-seeking Texan wrapped in posh manners and haute couture.

An infuriating side note, Landis was about 7 years older than Grant, but was then cast as his mother in North by Northwest (1959). Yeah, fuck that.

A Price Above Rubies (1079 words) by feldman
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: To Catch a Thief (1955)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jessie Stevens/John Robie
Characters: Jessie Stevens, John Robie, Germaine
Additional Tags: hot blooded texans, aged and mellow
Summary: “Francie is like lemonade,” Jessie had told him after dinner that first night, on the terrace where he’d originally seduced her name from Hughson. “She’s cold, and she can be tart, but she’s sweet in equal measure.”
John sipped his port until she stopped looking at the view, until she turned her head and tucked a loose curl behind her ear so she could study him with both eyes. He’d smirked down at her and drawled, “Lemonade gives me heartburn.”

Current Mood: pleased

I've been using a headache tracking app for about a week, to gather data on the effectiveness of the cannabidiol and the various strains and methods of dosing I'm trying. Aside from that, it's made me face some painful truths like:

when did this headache start really?
did I actually do anything about it when I felt it beginning, or did I embark on a campaign of ignoring it?
am I actually using all the tools at my disposal, or am I half-assing because I think calling it by name will give it power?
oh look, a methodical approach to treatment yields more consistent results to diminish pain and symptoms, but it means admitting to myself I get more headaches than I like to think I do, which feels shameful for deep childhood reasons.
yes it's abating, but I still have pain and symptoms, and clicking the "headache complete" button on the app won't magically banish the problem, I'm just trying to give myself permission to ignore it.

Which, yeah, are totally valid survival techniques when you don't have many options but to power through without resources. A lot of self-destructive habits take root because they save your life in the short-term. It's good to have those skills in your back pocket when the shit hits the fan and you do need them, but you need to be aware those are extreme situations, and it costs you to do that. And it's ridiculous to treat every episode of a chronic condition you've had since age 12 as a referendum on your willful stoicism and worth as a person. Knock it the fuck off.

This is me, trying to learn how to knock it the fuck off.

Current Mood: weird

As a part-time dilettante migraineur, I fall in the cracks of most treatment plans. I get them just enough to need an abortive, but not nearly enough to justify the side-effects of a preventive.

They can be terrifyingly bad and vomitous, but most attacks fall into the bad headache category these days, for a variety of reasons that all stem from 1. no longer living paycheck to paycheck and 2. being able to afford, time and money-wise, the habits that help keep them at bay (regular sleep, medical care, anabolic exercise instead of catabolic work-exhaustion, cutting back on grinding my teeth, new eyeglasses, etc.).

[aside: seriously, the amount of life infrastructure rebuilding we've done in the last two years, that we hadn't had the scratch to do since years before the Great Recession, is itself an indictment of the Neo-Gilded Age; ameliorating chronic treatable conditions shouldn't be a luxury].

I also aggressively treat impending symptoms before the pain gains momentum, which I started doing in the years when my only option for a full-on headache was the carefully hoarded stash of random leftover opiates from unrelated injuries and surgeries. Go to bed early with an ice pack pillow now, skip the codeine for a truly rainy day down the line. I treat my brain like a formula one machine, giving it numerous indulgent pit stops so it doesn't overheat, blow a tire, etc. There's only so much ibuprofen my gut can take, after all. So I ice liberally, I monitor caffeine levels to keep it as a tool I can use and not another withdrawal trigger, I meditate, I exercise, I massage my head and neck with tingly things to relax the muscles and keep tension from piling on. It's a whole toolkit, because my Rx options are kinda sucky since I stopped tolerating triptans.

I've been trying out cannabidiol lately, with mixed success. The sublingual oil has been showing promise, so I gritted my teeth and ordered a vape to see what sharpening the delivery curve would do.

Spouse: your package arrived, more oil?
Me: no *sigh* this time I got the vape sampler
Spouse: dooooouuuuuuche
Me: yeah, I need to find a YouTube tutorial to figure out how to use it
Spouse: dooooooorrrrrrrrrk

The upside is that it seems to turn a moderate attack into a mild one, and seriously reduces the amount of ibuprofen needed for relief. Is this placebo? Only time and record-keeping will tell. The downsides are threefold. First, I haven't had a severe attack yet to see how it fares against a raging puker, so I hate to get my hopes up. Second, sifting through the sketchy fad-pseudo-science to find decent studies is very difficult, as is finding reputable suppliers with lab-tested product, dialing in dosages wrt route of delivery, etc. Third, while my state is technically recreation legal now, the market won't be up and running this year, so any further exploration of whether the addition of full spectrum stuff with appreciable THC will assist in aborting a rager will have to wait until 2020.

And neither upside nor downside: this totally slots into my overlapping fixation circles of biology and scent/flavor, which means I've spent the last couple days looking at oils where the CBD is blended with additional cannabinoids and terpenes to try to replicate the effects of different strains. I'm rather certain that medically it's bullshit, but I'm intrigued by the idea nonetheless. It's science as long as you write shit down and do the analysis, I guess.

Current Mood: nerdy

Bynightafangirl on tumbles asked me for HulkWidow/Gammassassin post-Endgame recs, and since there's this new Thursday recs thing, I thought I'd jump on that (late) and post them ere as well.

I use my bookmarks in AO3 for anything I might want to re-read, and the quality varies by how generous/parsimonious I’m feeling in general, but it’s still pretty thin on the ground for gammassassin Endgame fic; here’s what I have so far.

First, a timeless palate cleanser where no one is dead or weird, with bonus Liho: Boundaries by Celeste9

Next, a post-IW study of keeping a light on for someone, through a specific lens: Can You Read the Second Line Down? by Thassalia

Thassalia brings it yet again post-IW with this exploration of grief, work, not feeling at home in your own skin, and finding a familiar place in someone else’s: Does this Skin Fit Funny? by Thassalia

The thought of Nat holding down the fort alone kills me, so I loved this moment of support and connection with the outside world: Parley by Peanut Butter by Anorakofavalon

Special mention to this well-crafted piece, written for me by the talented thecarlysutra for the Marvel Trumps Hate fundraiser. It’s also post-IW, but it distills the yearning potential of reunion: oh, i need this by thecarlysutra

In short, Natasha deserves better, and fandom will be here for her once we stop sobbing into our fucking peanut butter sandwich (could there be a worse snack for that scene? crying and dry peanut butter on bread? fuck you, mcu).

Current Mood: cranky

1. "Yeah, I'm almost ready to post this chapter," I said on Monday. Since then I've done almost no scene writing, just scrawled cryptic plot notes trying to patch holes and weave ends together. Today I've written a few sentences, and spent an hour working through the timeline, including time zone changes, flight and vehicle times, dawn and dusk hours, and hours of operation for various real places even though I'm writing complete fiction. Do I just crave the limits?

2. Also researched this week: xeriscaping, scorpion pest control, amenities at The Bellagio, college building dedications, motorcycling, sucking chest wounds, and inverted yoga poses.

3. The writing mix is currently at 69 songs. Heh.

4. Taking the whole fam to the dentist this week. It's been a shameful amount of years. Trying to focus on the fact we're back on track, instead of beating myself up for letting it go so long. Ugh, mouth bones.

5. I've started going through my trove of BPAL samples, with the aim to only keep what I really like. Once I have a bunch, and some mailing supplies, I'll throw up a list if anyone wants them.

Current Mood: artistic

I have a strange relationship with visual media. I can absolutely obsess over a movie or a show, write a ton of stories, play with the visuals, make playlists, and just toy with a story to a great and deep degree--and not have watched it very much. I rewatch a lot of things, but the more I love something, the more catalytic each viewing becomes. Instead, I rely on eidetic memory and the pleasure of remixing and creating from the source material.

For example, I've wanted to rewatch Brothers Bloom for months now, but I haven't, because I feel like that will be the viewing that will push me into writing Bang-Bang/Stephen. I even downloaded the script, to scratch around that self-indulgent itch, but that only made it worse. It also makes me want to do pen & ink. Neither is a bad thing, really, I've just wanted to focus on completing other shit first.

Farscape wasn't my first fandom, but it cut deeper than any before it for a lot of reasons, and it's a precious thing for me even now. I also haven't seen it for many years. The spouse has started a rewatch, and ohhh...I'd forgotten how visually satisfying this show is. No wonder I didn't just write like a fiend, but also messed around with making icons and mood themes and finger puppets.

It's twenty years old, on a screen three times the size of what I saw it on at first, but it's still so fucking pretty, so textured, so committed to the characters and the alien aesthetics.

Current Mood: productive

~*~ Nothing like new glasses to show you the clutter and crap that had faded into the background of your environment.
"Cute frames!"
Pauses in shoveling, "Thanks!" Sets desk on fire to start fresh.

~*~ I have been meaning to get serious about practicing drawing for literally years, but I haven't figured out how to go about it. When I was taught cursive, we spent a couple weeks just making circles and curves and loops before we worked on letters and words, to build the muscle memory in our fingers to make the shapes without thinking. There's got to be a way to practice some kind of fundamentals even when I'm too intimidated to tackle an actual picture? Gah.

~*~ Each time I take out a library book and then bring it back on time, I prove that I am no longer the person who didn't take back five books for eight years due to the spiral of shame. I'm the person who figured out how to break that spiral. Next task: figure out how not to get into those spirals in the first place.

~*~ I started writing this post because I was at loose ends staring at the thing I want to write, so I thought I'd warm up, and continue posting more often. I'm realizing now that one reason I'm scattered and uneasy is the headache I've been ignoring. Because body awareness is the check engine light I've stuck a post-it note over.

~*~ Maybe I should try story boarding the thing I want to work on instead, practice my stick figures as I hammer out the scenes that are giving me fits and dread.

Current Mood: indescribable

I watched the whole season of Marie Kondo yesterday. Today I culled, folded, and put away clothes for the first time this year. That's partly shaking off the winter depression, and partly testing out the ideas.

I've done major culling of the whole household a few times over the years, paring down from a three-bedroom-house+basement+garage to a townhouse we share with my folks. I cleared out my grandma's pack rat home after she passed. I cleared out my mom's hoarding home when they sold the house to come live with us, which is a streamlining that's ongoing. It's never about the jenk, it's always about what the jenk represents.

I've read more analysis of the Kondo backlash than I've encountered actual backlash (it helps that I deleted FB last year), and others have addressed the threads of racism and xenophobia better than I could. I think it bears mentioning, though, that some of the cultural discomfort is surely caused by the families themselves. They are Everyday Americans in every sense, including their diversity of religion, race, age, orientation, life stage, and probably a lot of other intersections I didn't notice because it was so deftly presented. They have family histories woven into the fabric of American history, if not as traumatic or terrible or surprising as those uncovered in, say, Finding Your Roots. They're re-organizing because they have ambitions and plans for the future, starting families and lives and new chapters, and none of them were the typical HG Channel Straight White Bores.

These were the kind of people I know and work with and live next door to. It was so fucking refreshing. I also really loved how the whole point was to get your shit together to facilitate enjoying your life.

There was a dignity in how even the weird collections and mountains of whatnot were presented; the complete rejection of shame as a motivator was startling. Kondo's methods were less about the organization itself than the recognition that objects in our personal space also take up space in our head, and dealing with the meaning of an object is a precursor for making a decision about it. The emotional nuance given to each person's relationship to their things really set it apart from the reality show rubbernecking of Hoarders (which I can't watch anymore after dealing with these issues with my own relatives), or the home and garden photo shoot porn of HGTV (I hate when this is on in the break room at work).

The fact that conflict is not elided, but is kept off-camera, and presented only after the resolution? Again with the dignity and the emotional caring.

I'm sure Kondo's house greeting is rooted in Japanese cultural notions of home and ritual, stuff that Americans like to think we're too objective for (watch a week's worth of The People's Court and get back to me on Americans not being territorial and emotional as fuck). But it does set a tone of respect for the psychological weight of one's home. She's not here to impose with a roll of trash bags, a system, and shame. She's demonstrating at the start that she will listen and meet you at your irrational place, and keep reminding you that the emotional import of your stuff actually is important, and that there's value in being deliberate and selective and intentional about it.

Current Mood: thoughtful

In this dream I was sorting iron test tube racks, from housewares like serving tongs, and then I was led into another large room by a real estate agent, stone walls and everything covered in pools and drips of ivory candle wax, filled with the huge pieces of sparking equipment from the old Frankenstein movies.

The real estate agent throws a lever switch and the equipment warms up, and I think, Yeah, I can work with this, oh yes, and I say, "We'll take it," and the agent is like, "Sure, we do rentals, a lot of people shoot music videos here."

I look at the glowing balls of plasma energy rolling through the machinery, heating up from golden to pure glassy silver and I say, "No, I'm buying it."

Dreams are weird, but I'm taking it as a sign to get back to the gym and also try some more intimidating physical activity this summer.

Current Mood: energetic
Current Music: Love theme from Young Frankenstein

GOOD
*Captain Marvel
*my buzzed skater boy haircut

BAD
*having a cold
*razor rash on the back of my head

UGLY
*this head and body ache
*the price of eyeglasses even with insurance

I wish I had the kind of brain that could produce meta, or even a coherent commentary, but I'm wired more for rumination and narrative. I will say that I look forward to watching Captain Marvel many more times when it comes out to own.

Nick in the beginning slog of a third career, the way he keeps his footing through all these jolts and twists, keeps his eye on the big picture.
Maria, a test pilot in her military career because she was denied the chance to fly combat, not only flies the cobbled together Terran-Skrull quadjet, she does so 1) in space 2) in combat 3) flying civilians to safety.
4) as a mom.
Does *your* space combat dogfight pass the Bechdel Test?
Annette Bening x2, you complete me. I have a tendency to fill in older women OCs into my MCU stories, so I'm thrilled to see them actually add that demographic into the canon universe in several movies now. Especially older women as complicated characters in their own rights, and in relation to younger characters that aren't coded as maternal relationships.
Bening plays with this difference, because the AI manifests a condescending maternal pride in Vers, tough love but smarmy, her "prove yourself to me, little one" sours in their final confrontation into the dismissive "you're only human". The conditional love of a parent you can't ever please. Dr. Lawson is very different with Carol, her professional-scientist coldness warming into respect, and their final scene is about Mar-Vell trusting Carol with the truth, and Carol trusting her so much she embraces death to complete the mission.
*flails*
The mid credit scene where Steve makes an interesting suggestion about the pager, but it's when Natasha says 'jump' that Bruce hops to.
Carol and Natasha...*daydreams about their shared interests in ballsy leadership and deadpan messing with people*

Current Mood: geeky

I have yet to finish watching Russian Doll, in favor of listening to Mythbusters and fiddling with story notes, but I keep thinking about the interview with Natasha Lyonne I read earlier in the week (I'm sure a link from my reading list here, so thank you whoever you are). I love that Lyonne pays homage to The Cramps musician Poison Ivy instead of doing a traditional couture shoot, taking control of her image as a creative, and shining a light on a formative influence. I discovered The Cramps last year, so, it's never too late to find the good shit.

There weren't a lot of older women in media when I was coming up, though the few that I can recall were definitely using and playing with their own image in a subversive way (Bea Arthur, Phyllis Diller...urm...yeah even if you gave me a week I could probably still count on one hand the number of women performers above forty I saw as a wee feldman). So it's a relief to get to this age and finally see that changing, to see women my own age and older creating, performing, producing, writing, being recognized and their work being discussed. Some fucking exciting shit happens to art when an artist has more life experience to fold into the mix, instead of being hustled off stage for the next young hot thing who's talent can be molded and exploited into pre-approved shapes because she's hungry.

Lyonne also talks about how she's been writing versions of this story for a decade, describing an iterative process of filling notebooks, making playlists, compiling image refs, and the work of digging down into the emotional truth of hard experiences and then telling a story about it.

That's a process that takes time, and courage. It's very heartening to me to peek behind a stunning piece of art and see, no, here, it's okay for a story to take time, for it to force you open like steaming a mussel, to haunt you like a fucking creaky house, to seep out of you in a bunch of different ways like fuel soaking out of a buried rusting tank.

You're not alone, stories sometimes just do that to a human.

Current Mood: creative

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handypolymath

March 2025

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March 2025

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