The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

I've kept meaning to post properly here, so I'm going to do it now before I become demotivated.

First, I have been tagged for a couple memes, so I will dutifully post them:

( actually fun meme )

( less stellar meme )

Okay, now to the stuff that I actually wanted to post about, if I can remember what that was.

We've started our summer D&D campaign that Graham is DMing. It's really fantastic so far! We are an absolutely batshit party. I'm playing a cheerful half-elven paladin with a constitution score of three; she has many food allergies, catches colds easily, and spent our opening sea voyage horribly seasick. Her fellow adventurers are Seanie's honest yet kleptomaniac halfling rogue, Trevor's ultra-chaotic not-really-interested-in-healing cleric, Erika's dancing elf bard-that-thinks-she's-a-druid, and Ehren's female wizard with a Dark Backstory and a Russian accent.

Our party dynamic is already totally crazy. We spent the first session being ridiculous and bouncing off one another, particularly when it came to an epic struggle between my character and Erika and Trevor's over whether a wild squirrel was an appropriate pet. The second session was really fun and action-y in contrast; I would have died had not Trevor's character saved the day through a clear-thinking application of chaos. He is probably my favorite character of the bunch, because he's just SO CHAOTIC, but of course this means he's my character's least favorite fellow party member.

Other than that, life has been shiny; I'm probably going to see Coyote Run for free with Erika tomorrow night (yay for being friends with a groupie), and other than that have just been working and spending time with Graham. Also, I should be buying my plane ticket to England soon! Nic, Graham, and I are leaving in late September. Very exciting!

ETA: Oh, and my application to volunteer at the Williamsburg Library for the rest of the summer was rejected because they say they don't need any volunteers in the areas I applied for. How weird is that.... Well, maybe Swem will want my help?

So Doctor Horrible is pretty much awesome and you should go watch the first act. The humor is classic Joss Whedon. Also, Nathan Fillion's performance cracks me up. Also, Nathan Fillion SINGS.

And all the traffic for the video pretty much exploded the Internet last night. The main Doctor Horrible site was down, Whedonesque was down, and it was #1 on iTunes.

Finally, Joss's explanation of the purpose of the project is a hilarious and interesting read.

So when I'm at work I think about silly things. But Becky, I hear you say, you think about silly things all the time. Fair enough. I think about silly things even more than usual, then.

For instance, I sometimes imagine that the person with interesting hair will turn around and be some famous person that I have wanted desperately to meet. After falling over with shock, I will regain my poise, chat with them, get their autograph in a polite yet worshipful fashion, and possibly even sell them something. We will be on Equal Ground. It will be Very Exciting.

Today when I was very bored at work, I came up a list of my current top five (living) (non-fictional) famous people whom I would like to unexpectedly meet at my job:

1. Neil Gaiman
2. J.K. Rowling
3. Tori Amos
4. Anthony Stewart Head
5. Mary McDonnell

I decided that they could actually potentially come in as a sort of posse, since one of the cardinal rules of existence is that Neil Gaiman Knows Everyone.

So, gentle readers, who would you like to meet randomly? Or am I the only person who thinks about these kinds of things?

Also, funny thing - tonight Graham and I were talking about the newbie D&D one-shot he's running for Trevor, Erika, and Kris, and I correctly guessed the classes they would play based on their personalities. I'm just that good (or they're just that obvious!) :D

I love research magic. It's when you randomly research a topic for a short story or novel and accidentally stumble upon the perfect fact or detail. It happens to me quite a lot.

For instance, I am writing a short novel about angels, and I randomly chose a subway station near Prospect Park in Brooklyn for my character to get on while she is stalking a pair of angels.

Naturally I look it up and it has this wall mural as you go down the stairs:



Magic!

Did I mention I'm obsessed with this show right now? I am obsessed with this show. I love series that combine good storytelling and characters with twisty, twisty plots. The guessing games and the emotional rollercoaster of each new episode or chapter are such fun, and the stakes are so, so high.

( SPOILERS FOR SEASON FOUR, UP TO EPISODE TEN! )

Recipe for a Transcendent Experience:

1. Watch the mid-season finale of Battlestar Season Four.
2. Go outside into a deep blue sky shot with inexplicable pink. Start walking.
3. Listen to Flugufrelsarinn by Sigur Ros.

Try Joan Baez and Nirvana as an optional chaser. Then, for slightly less transcendence but more humor points, post about it ten minutes later in your Livejournal.

Will probably post some episode analysis later, despite the fact that almost no one on my friendslist is actually caught up to the present season. Fie on you all!

The most recent episode of Battlestar just turned me into tear-y goo. :D

Also, I was surfing IMBD, and along with Eliza Dushku, Fred (from Angel) and Helo (from BSG) are going to be in Dollhouse! Neat, yes?

Okay, stepping away from the Internet now....

Yay, my USB wireless adapter just arrived! Now I have Internet at home again. I made sure to get one that seemed to be Linux-compatible; I plugged it in and it worked right away!

Also, today I had my first shift at B&N Cafe. I made a lot of fraps; they are easy and fun. Although I didn't check the recipe for a mocha caramel chip frap and afterward realized I'd put in like three times the amount of mocha called for; I had been wondering why the smell was so overpowering. Hopefully the person who got it *really* likes chocolate. :P Also, I fail at whipped cream. But I knew that already. And this way I am getting practice!

Also, now I will finally know how to order properly at Starbucks. Although at this rate I don't know if I'll be able to drink their sugary drinks anymore.... At least nothing with mint. *cringe*

In the episode "Father's Day" of Doctor Who, the Doctor and Rose get rick-rolled by their car radio while in the 80s! The episode was from 2005, so this was unintentional, but it totally cracked Graham and me up.

Okay, so it's only 800 words, but this is awesome enough that I am posting the entire news article:

Author J.K. Rowling is doing some updating this morning on her website, with a news entry on the upcoming charity auction featuring that special 800 word prequel to the Harry Potter series. Of note is the fact Jo says the story on the prequel card takes place 3 years before Harry was born. Full quotage is as follows:

“A few months ago a number of authors were invited to handwrite cards for auction by Waterstones, on June 10, all proceeds to go to English PEN, the writers’ association, and the Dyslexia Society.

After playing around with a number of different ideas I decided to write a short (for me!) excerpt from a prequel to the Potter series. It is about 800 words long and the action takes place around 3 years before Harry is born.

Although I did feel a bit like a relapsing addict as I sat down to write – the words poured from my pen with frightening ease – I am NOT working on a prequel. Indeed, I’ve written that clearly at the bottom of the card itself. I just thought that this was the best way to make money for two extremely worthwhile charities.

The good news for Potter fans who will not be able to bid at the auction is that you will be able to read the short story (along with amazing contributions from Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, Tom Stoppard, Irvine Welsh, Sebastian Faulks, Axel Scheffler, Lauren Child, Nick Hornby, Neil Gaiman, Lisa Appignanesi, Richard Ford, and Michael Rosen) by purchasing a book of facsimiles, which will be available in August. The proceeds from this book, too, will go to the charities.”

As reported below, this new 800 word Harry Potter prequel will involves James Potter and Sirius Black.

Cool, yes? I hope we get lots of little glimpses into Marauder canon like this. Also, some other cool writers are on the list too (like NEIL yay. Haha, I just wrote out his last name, then decided that probably isn't necessary anymore.)

Just got back from Prince Caspian.

WOW!

It's deft, heroic, gripping, gritty, moving, spiritual, nuanced, inspiring. Transportative and true to the spirit (and in many cases the word) of the book. It made me laugh and it made sit on the edge of my seat. It addressed metatextual questions! It was enjoyably told, but I never felt like I was being strung along by mere devices. Generally it rocked.

I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a movie this much in theaters. Probably Stardust.

Eddie Izzard is the voice of Reepicheep! Caspian is hot! There's a song at the end by Regina Spektor!

What else can I say to recommend this movie? I could jump and scream, but unfortunately not over the Internet. (Was, in fact, essentially jumping and screaming as I left the theater. Well, talking loudly and gesticulating and squeeing, at least.)

They totally have their fingers on the pulse of this series, and this movie was even better than the last, which can only mean good things for further sequels. (OMG DAWN TREADER! PLS BE MAKING?) If only other Hollywood adaptions were this good.... Oh well, here's hoping for The Hobbit.

(P.S.: If you have found the door into Narnia, please let me know. Have been keeping my eyes peeled for about sixteen years, still expecting to find it any day now!)

HOLY CRAP SHOEBOX PROJECT UPDATE!!!!!!

Anything else I could possibly say to any of you is rendered meaningless.

(If you don't know what I'm talking about, shoebox_project is here to help.)

Because I am tired from today's ten-hour drive, I am going to save my big long graduation post for later. Needless to say I am graduated (like a cylinder!) and this is a good thing. So are many of my friends (yay us!) Apparently we are supposed to be grownups now or something, but I beg to differ.

So I'm home for a week before I wander off for a Caribbean vacation with my mother, hoo-rah, and then eventually back to Virginia. We just ate steak and watched Enchanted, which was a good way to begin my stay in Connecticut. I generally really enjoyed the movie, although I did wonder, like George Eliot, why even in quasi-feminist retellings of Disney stories, the dark woman never triumphs. Not that I particularly wanted the ones in this movie to triumph, but that very fact is problematic in itself. Well, I guess I can forgive them since they gave me Belle, who is the ultimate triumpant dark woman. And if they didn't make feminist faux-pas I wouldn't have anything to do with my English degree!

Also, because the plot is kind of a happy version of my novel, it made me want to write. Which is exciting, because I've been too busy to work on anything recently! I guess tomorrow will find me rewriting the beginning of my novella for the fifth time....

I've been at work for the past five hours doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. It's been very nice.

Last night and this morning I've felt very philosophical. As I was falling asleep, it dawned on me, as it has dawned on me many time before, that the entire world is strange and artificial and we go about it with blinkers. That we take reality for granted for no apparent reason, and that while I am going about in my little life, all of the limitations I perceive around me are largely illusions or societal constructs. These moments of perspective really make everything better; it becomes difficult to feel partisan about anything because the world becomes so big. And then I float down into the thick of things again, and take it as seriously or unseriously as I want to, because big things are the same size as small things, really.

Um, if that makes any sense at all, I will be surprised.

Good news on the housing front; one of the places I e-mailed like a month ago ended up having a room open after all, so I'm living there this summer. It has a good location, reasonable rent, and is furnished, so yay! Still waiting to hear back from Barnes and Noble, so fingers-crossed there, because at this point merely having definite gainful employment will make me very happy.

Tonight we're having a graduation party at Erika and Seanie's place, yay! And this weekend I will GRADUATE. I'm feeling extremely apathetic about this at the moment; mostly I'm just worried about graduation being really really boring. But nearly everyone I spend my time with here will be here over the summer - except of course for Nic, but she will simply have to visit lots lest I go out of my mind without having someone to apprehend my every word.

Just woke up from a nap and am still too out of it to plunge into my work, so here's an update on the life of me!

Am currently embroiled in exams; this morning I had to get up early for my Victorian Novel exam block, during which we actually just ate doughnuts and talked about our papers. Hence nap. Tonight I have my Language and Society exam, which will hopefully be speedy. Then I have to finish my creative writing story by Friday afternoon, my Victorian paper by Monday afternoon, and take a poetry final on Wednesday, at which point the travails of my undergraduate life will be at their end!

Friday was the last day of classes. I rang the Wren Bell as is traditional; it was not at all exciting. Then I went to Ravencon, which was considerably more exciting! The panels weren't as good as previous years, but it was still fun and I bought a lot of books and generally spent money that I ought not spend, whee. Issue six of Buffy Season 8 is awesome, I need to catch up in the series!

Last night we went to Miyako (yay more money spendage) and watched House, which Erika had taped. The A-plot of the episode was kind of random and silly, but the House/Wilson/Cutthroat Bitch subplot is only getting better and better, with quotes like, "I didn't know the drinks had subtext!" Ah, but we did, Wilson, we did. Honestly, the simultaneous squeal that Erika, Nic, and I emitted must have been audible counties away. Also, next week's episode looks hilarious.

Anyway! So things are hectic but good in general. I have an interview at the college bookstore (i.e., Barnes and Noble) on Friday, which is promising. I'm a little confused, because at the end of our phone conversation the person I was speaking to told me to come to the cafe for the interview, which is not one of the departments I applied to work. But maybe the cafe person's just the person who's available to interview me? I should have asked, but the conversation was wrapping up and it didn't occur to me. I guess I'll find out on Friday!

So I've had this journal for four years, give or take a few days. Oh LiveJournal, waster of my time, facilitator of long distance conversations and rants. What would I do without you? Get stuff done, probably.

Tomorrow is my last day of classes. This means nothing to me. I have a short paper due tomorrow, this means a little more, but still not much.

Procrastination is in order! Specifically, I am going to see what some famous writers looked like based on their Wikipedia pages.

( So I was bored last night.... )

I saw Mother Courage and her Children with Graham on Thursday. It was wonderful! I've decided that Brecht doesn't have to be very "Brechtian" - as long as you have real characters and a thoughtful audience, you can accomplish what he was after. I haven't seen any Brecht productions before, but really it was the characters who alienated you and made you think, not the music/winks at the audiences/etc. But then again theater is a pretty obviously artificial medium; I have a hard time "believing" it in the same way that I believe a book or a movie.

Secondly, this article angered me to no end this morning, but then I ranted to Nic and got all my anger out. It was not, as Mother Courage would say, a long anger. So I will merely link to it, and you can see how stupid it is for yourselves. Everyone is allowed a little credulity, but if you have just been swayed by a ridiculous propaganda piece, please do not be writing articles about it saying how shocking it is that you, with all your supposed intellectual rigor, have been converted. As for the stupid propaganda piece itself, most offensive use of Godwin's Law ever. Not even Ben Stein gets to go there.

Okay, maybe I'm still a little bit angry.

This made me think, Oh no, ice cream Ragnarok! And things that make me think ice cream Ragnarok should probably be posted on Livejournal. Somehow I see it as being strange setup for Candy Land: The Epic Live Action Movie.

I may or may not be a little tired.

Borrowed from kementari2

1. My username is _____ because ____.

My username is toastedcheese because of Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark." It features a man with no name whose enemies call him Toasted-cheese. Part of this poem was included in a collection of children's stories and poems that I had when I was little; I would absolutely kill to get a copy of it again. It had good illustrations.
Essentially, I thought toastedcheese sounded quirky. "Cheese" is of course a wonderful word. I have never technically had the food item that the British call toasted-cheese, but I do like grilled cheese.

2. My LJ name is _____ because ______.

My name is "Also, I can kill you with my brain" because it's a quote from Firefly, one of my very favorite television shows. I thought it was an amusing representation of my purported mental prowess.

3. My journal is titled ____ because ____.

My journal is titled The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul because it's a quote from the Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy, as well as the title of one of Adams's later novels (which I had not read yet when I named the journal, although it is presently sitting beside me on my desk.) Silly yet slighly angsty, which is after all what LJ is about.

4. My friends page is called ____ because ____.

My friends page is called I get by with a little help from my friends because of the Beatles song, obviously. Everyone likes the Beatles.

5. My default userpic is ____ because ____.

My default userpic is a picture of Helena, from Mirrormask, drawing, because I identify with her as a young, whimsical artist. She's exactly the sort of person I wanted to be when I was fourteen, and my inner fourteen-year-old still feels a kinship.

In conclusion, everything with which I choose to represent myself is from someone else's movie/TV show/book/song. And most of these people are British.