the lonesome lows don't quite go away overnight

TV Seasons (3/10)
Our Flag Means Death, season 1. I loved like 95.555% of this show. 

Movies (8/15)
Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. The emotional core of this film is my everything. The rest made it such a great "first movie in theaters in two years" night. I laughed, I sobbed, I shouted "OH NO." 

Books (4/10)
*ahem* The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive by Andrew Lencioni. I guess this like, needed to be a fable for people to understand? I could have done with just a list of the four things. It's not that hard. 

Sales (8/5)
Still way under where total $ needs to be, but if there's an award for FUCKING GOING FOR IT, I need to be given it.

New Recipes (7/12)
Grape Tomato Spaghetti. Super simple but SO GOOD. I had about four servings. All the kids ate it?!

Recent Reading/Watching

Finished [spoiler] for a pinch and despite some disconnect over how the story wrapped up, feeling pretty good about the assignment and ruminating on a couple of ideas. 

Enjoying Abbott Elementary with Liz. We also watched River Butcher's new half hour tonight - it is delightful, and free on YouTube (possibly only in the US?)

Blew through What the Heck is EOS?, which is essentially a longform brochure for the new business operating system we're switching to. I definitely bristled at some things, but I think it is applying a lot of common "business best practice" into actionable, repeatable processes. All of the lists and check boxes make my OCD very, very happy. There's a loud undercurrent of CAPITALISM, but I suppose I'm buying in for now. I've got a few other books to read for my new leadership role - one of which suggests that this is a path to being an Executive. Someone is going to have to buy me better clothes. 

seasonsofdrabbles is due tomorrow, and I'm not totally unprepared. I've been working on it. Like. Internally. I have a title now!

Thanks for the thoughts on the work situation. TL was 100% better today, still snappy and kind of rude, but complimenting and rewarding B and I for jobs well done. 

I'm feeling a bit better (writing again!) and giving myself some time and space to experience that fully.

I'm skipping January's review for The Lesbrary, but will hopefully write two reviews in February. Under the cut I'm listing several "lesbian" books I have access to. If you'd like to see my opinion on any of them, just let me know. Right now I have no preference.

- Ash by Malinda Lo
- Astray by Emma Donoghue
- Women. Period. (Anthology about menstruation)
- The Queen of Swords by Grahn
- Alcestis by Katharine Beutner
- Hood by Emma Donoghue
- Autumn Leaves by Barbara Winkes
- Something in the Wine by Jae
- Pedalling Backwards by Julia Russell
- The Collection ( Trans anthology)

Today:
-- watch something & review for weekly Netflix feature
-- eat, at some point
-- go see Celeste & Jesse Forever, collect self, write review (next week, yo. Gosh, Sheeds. Get your dates straight!)

Saturday:
-- FINISH RARESWAP STORY, FOR GOD'S SAKE
-- announce winners of postcard giveaway (see Tumblr for details)
-- again, consider eating
-- reward self with a movie to review! If feeling gay and romantical, Farewell, My Queen. If feeling homicidal, Killer Joe.

Sunday:
-- prep MYSTERIOUS PROJECT for launch announcement
-- make L. look like Don Draper
-- eat. everything.

Spring is, traditionally, when change happens, when love begins.

And, in the spirit of that (and yet completely unrelated, it just seemed like a good lead-in)... I'm moving to Southern California in two months to live withmajesdane .

I'll be busy until then: getting rid of furniture, cleaning out things I won't need, finding a home for my beasts, WisCon withprozacpark  andmeganbmoore ,not_primetime , finishing travel plans, CONvergence withshadowen  and mage_girl (who I had the pleasure to meet last weekend!) and my lady and possible-no-definite Homestuck cosplay, finishing what projects I can, finding a job, so much packing, gettingbeverytender  back home, planning, planning, planning, visiting St Louis to say sayonara to my family and friends there, possibly having some sort of gathering here to see me off, and oh yeah, PACKING.

And then, my friend Ben and I hit the road with the UHaul and my car. We're making a bit of an adventure of it and, as we've both been slacking in the original writing department, an inspiration trip.

Of course, once I get there, I'm not sure how radio silent I'll be. Settling in, getting acclimated to a new job, sexy times... and eventually re-enrolling long distance to perform the English department's very first thesis defense via Skype. Oh, and considering re-joining roller derby just as a player.

I'm excited about what the future holds, and about breaking the near future down into manageable weekly and daily goals. Mmm. This girl loves a good plan.

Almost a year ago I read the first few chapters of a Temperance Brennan book about a plane crash -- the descriptions were delicious and vivid. The characterization was weak but... forgivable in something that was basically a beach read. I had to return it to the library before I got into anything real. But, I never really gave up on wanting to like the books that inspired the show "Bones" -- after all, I like what I've seen of the show, and I liked--mostly--what I'd read of the books.

Well, safe to say I won't be reading any more of them. I just finished "Grave Secrets" -- a Tempe Brennan mystery that falls relatively early in the series (2003) and covers the topics of an old Guatemalan political massacre (the desaparacedos), unruly teen girls, Brennan's wayward heart -- she's drawn to her usual partner Ryan AND a dashing Guatemalan detective named Galiano, stem cell research, and a lot of disgust for bad men who do bad things.

The overall plot isn't bad, even if the case connections (between the massacre and the current missing girls) do seem far-fetched and illogical and aren't even fully explained at the end. What bothers me, still, is the way Reichs, and her editors cater to a socially and educationally illiterate audience.

The book spans between Guatemala and French-speaking Canada, so naturally Brennan encounters people--including herself--who speak both Spanish and French. One might expect to use context clues to decipher some of these words and phrases, or have them translated once, and referred to later without translation. No. Reichs babies her audience, spelling out these phrases each and every time they are uttered. This also happens when Brennan is dealing with any sort of scientific process. This is at least explained away in the text by surrounding her with inepts like policemen and family members of victims, but not a single conversation about stem cells, body decay, history, and on and on goes by without feeling like Reichs--who is an expert herself--has opened a text book and sat her poor, uneducated audience down in front of a video to catch us up while she goes on ahead with the story.

Sure, a little information once in awhile is always helpful. Yeah, I'd like to know that they are in fact performing an autopsy. But to be honest, I don't need to know all of the details. The fact is, I'm not reading a text book. I'm not going to go out and try to duplicate the work, do my own slicing and dicing after reading this joke of a novel. The Brennan books are beach reads, not Science courses.

Brennan works as a character on "Bones" because they have used this trait of "textbooking" and worked it into the character, but as an author, Reichs is completely at odds with Brennan. Brennan seems carefree and flirty most of the time, and at other halves of the book she is quoting long histories of Guatemalan wars.

Another thing that drove me batty, especially towards the end was Brennan's (who was narrating) habit of redundantly asking questions of the reader to remind them of every single plot point in every single chapter. "Would I be the next victim? Of whom? What was xx doing with the body? Where would we find it?" Paragraph after paragraph. Some of the prose in the middle was fine, sometimes even enjoyable. But that pattern? Infuriating.

If I want to know more about stem cells after reading the book, I'm going to do my own research. I don't need a fictional character to do it for me. So thanks, Ms. Reichs, I'm sure you'll make some paperbackswap users very happy when I put your books up for trade.

Stealing this from loads of people, because I need to stay awake for a bit longer.

Fic written in 2009
http://community.livejournal.com/obscureddark/tag/2009 [way too many to c/p]

Fandoms written in 2009
Whip It (2), Degrassi High, The Inside (2), The Runaways, Indie Music RPF, Sugar Rush, X-Men (4), The Office (7), Twin Peaks (2), Skins/Trans (2), Alias (2), Glee, Skins RPF (2), Degrassi (3), Skins (8), Juno, The Runaways RPF (3), The Killing Gene, Harry Potter RPF, Chuck, Acting RPF (4), Being Erica, House, True Blood, Repo (4), Push, United States of Tara, Crossovers (5)

Ficathons participated in during 2009
Yuletide/NYR (3), xmmficathon, ipod_ovenmitt (3), femgenficathon, apocalyptothon, femslash09, remixredux

Stats
62 stories, ranging from around 2,000 words to 100.

( more questions under the cut )

- I refuse to commit my thoughts on The Office finale to this journal.
- Turned in my application to Kohl's today. Hopefully, it will be beneficial.
- Also got a bunch of grad school papers in the mail. Yay mommy. Filling them out and will turn them in soon. Wooo.
- And now for some potentially offensive discussion:

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