changeling | Recent Entries

I've been attempting to learn German and Spanish in an incredibly laid-back when-I-have-time fashion, using busuu.com. I haven't done any study for months, but this morning I woke up with the word "conocerte" echoing in my head.

This probably would have heralded more of a learning breakthrough if I hadn't had to look it up (even though it was a vocab word).

Last year I got myself some reading glasses after a few years of being glasses-free. I don't *need* them per se, but they do ease the occasional headache I get from working at a computer, and I'll apparently need them properly a few years down the track.

I took my reading glasses home when I left the office for the Christmas break, and put them down somewhere safe so that, needless to say, I have subsequently misplaced them.

So I've spent the last two days at work reaching for glasses that aren't there when I sit down to focus, and finding that being unable to settle them on my nose has meant that I also haven't been able to settle down to work.

Interesting.

On career progression:
Me: And then after the business card, the business card WITH EMBOSSING.
I have small but precise career goals. :D
Jess: Embossing…my you are ambitious.
Me: You’ve gotta have a 10-year plan. All the best careers advice says so.

Current Mood: amused

I keep forgetting I have this blog thing and not checking in for weeks at a time. I'd say sorry, but I don't think anyone's surprised enough to miss me anymore. Sigh.

I'm about to move house again (!!) in three weeks' time. I'm excited and slightly stressed. Partly because I also have a novel I said I'd finish writing my novel two days before I move. Jess and I have a gentlewoman's agreement, and all our writing friends know about it. I will be NAMED AND SHAMED if I do not complete it. Although I hopefully won't appear on A Current Affair. [/Aussie cultural in-joke]

Current Mood: sick

"Man, fuck the iPad 4. I'm saving up for those eye-reader implants. People are going to think I'm so proactive and shit in meetings when I raise my eyebrows interestedly, but I'm just turning the page."

Current Mood: tired

Okay, flist, I have a challenge for you.

I need Benedick/Claudio slash. Seriously.

I just saw Bell Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, which I have (shame) never seen before, or read more than a precis of. I completely fell in love with Beatrice (who was beautiful and snarky, be still my beating heart), and I may be a little queer for Benedick too. Who was completely in love with Claudio, who was oblivious.

I need me some Benedick/Claudio slash, and if it includes Benedick/Beatrice, that's all to the better. Especially if it convinces me how Beatrice falls in love with Benedick, because I was JUST NOT CONVINCED BY THAT, SHAKESPEARE. Your/the actor's Benedick falling in love was gorgeously done, but Beatrice? Please. I believed it by the second half, but not at all in the first.

Also also? Benedick coming up to Beatrice as she's crying over her poor cousin and going "BTW, I love you". I totally wanted Beatrice to turn around and go, "NOW IS NOT THE TIME. Come back tomorrow. Srsly dude, have a heart."

Please, someone tell me there is a fandom for these two. Please. This is my new favourite Shakespeare play.

(Also, Austen stole heavily from this play for Pride & Prejudice, Y/Y? Discuss.)

Current Mood: you naughty villain!

( Nothing much to see here. )

Cassie Claire is coming to Melbourne.

I ... kinda want to go to her event. I refuse to read her books since the first Mortal Instruments lifted material from her Draco Trilogy. (It was just ... weird.)

But! On the other hand, Cassie was part of my fandom experience during my first uni course. I made one friend in uni when he used The Very Secret Diaries as a passphrase (he turned to me and said, "You're not a pervy hobbit fancier, are you?")

So although I don't really read her books, I'm tempted to go see her speak now that she's Cassandra Claire.

I'll probably just dither until it's too late to book tickets, and then kick myself for missing an opportunity.

Sitting here waiting for a podmate to GO HOME so I can put on some music to jive to while I knock over some more work on the Project of Doom (I forgot my headphones to my music player today).
For all I know, she's sitting there thinking the same thing.

Current Mood: amused

This is the message I've been getting recently. First was PvP's recent comic "Bed Bath and Beyond Thunderdome" with this remark:

It's harder for women to make friends, okay? Women are competitive and catty and just generally unkind to each other.

...which is frankly untrue. I made at least two new friends on the weekend who were women, without trying very hard at all.

Then there was the hoo-ha that happens yearly at comedy festival time where it was said that women aren't funny. Ben McKenzie responded in an article on Crikey, "Angry Angry – Female Comedians can be Funny Funny", and you just need to read the comments to get an idea of the vitriol that gets hurled against women. I've lost count of the number of times when I've seen it explicitly or implicitly stated that a woman's job in her social group is to shut up, and put up with and laugh at the jokes of men. Some of those times have come from women's and girl's magazines on how to be popular or survive a first date. Some of those have been on sitcoms, where the female protagonists have been advised to do the same (and then usually mocked for complying poorly).

A quote from Ben in the comments of his article:

[T]o generalise that to “women aren’t funny” – even in an off-hand comment – is a symptom of a larger problem. This isn’t about women being funny; it’s about that opinion being part of the larger problem of sexism in our society. I think the only real reason people think “chicks aren’t funny” is the last one, that it’s a deeply ingrained understanding of how women are allowed to present to the world that leads to that opinion, so deep it takes some work to expose it.

The final point was made in the article "The Female Body", which makes very good points about the use of dead women in art and fiction for a whole bunch of purposes, and how this reflects our societal attitudes to women (and isn't as dry as it sounds from my summary). What struck me was this quote that was given:

Men and women don’t like each other very much. —Dame Rebecca West

So if you're a woman, we're told, no-one will like you. Other women don't like you (they view you as competition for their men and/or women), men sure as hell don't like you (this one still seems to be more true than the previous, unfortunately; the best you can hope for with some men is a sort of genial contempt, as if you were an amusing dog that had managed to walk on its hind legs), the media certainly don't like you, and advertising executives see you as some sort of magical money funnel without critical thinking skills (My three favourite words! It's on Sale! "thanks" for that, Diet Coke) or, alternately, sexual and passive set dressing to sell things to men.

It sure sucks to be a girl.

Current Mood: angry

I'm suffering rather at the moment from what my folkie friends and I have been calling Typhoid Kevan. Kevan came to the National Folk Festival (over the Easter weekend) with some sort of nasty respiratory infection and spread it around with every affectionate bear hug he gave, and he gave a lot. So I missed the last night of the festival because I was in bed by eight (but Cherie and I watched the first episode of the new season of Doctor Who together, so that was something).

The next day I had to help pack up camp and drive home with Jus – he kindly did most of the eightish hours' drive, though. I did about an hour and a half. Let me tell you: when you're feeling sick and wobbly, the last thing you want to do is stand in the cold and pull up tent pegs.

So then I stayed at home for two days. It was nice apart from a serious attack of Guilt from my Guilt Gnome, who doesn't really believe that I'm allowed to take sick leave, and is afraid that I'm going to be fired for it. There are Reasons for this, unfortunately, but I wasn't really feeling up to having a monster conversation with him/her/it about it yesterday.

Today I'm back at work. I have lots of things on my plate at the moment, the most immediate of which is processing our Annual Reprints. I came in to a desk entirely covered in the sodding things. Piles of textbooks, all with print-outs of corrections in place.

The interesting thing about reprints is that all the pages I have to check pretty much look the same. Some of them are printed and some of them are emailed PDFs, but the corrections should just look like the printed book except fixed. So if someone leaves a pile of books on my desk with no note and pages inside, I'm going to check them against the marked up book and notate my spreadsheet.

Guess what! The piles were just the reprints guy leaving a bunch of books I'd already done two weeks ago on my desk! AWESOME. Just wasted my morning.

I would like to go back to bed now, please.

Current Mood: sick

It is a slightly odd feeling to realise that you're happy. Deeply, unshakably, quietly happy. Just content with life.

Current Mood: happy

Reading Skybird, an Inception/White Collar crossover (shut up, three-piece suits are my crack).

One of the things I love best about the White Collar fandom is that so many of the fics finish with links to images of art. This is my new favourite piece from the first part of Skybird. It is apparently "L'Yerres, pluie" by Gustave Caillebotte. It just makes me want to wade into the river.

Bedtime now.

Dear nervous system,

Please stop having my pain signals set off for no good reason. Why do my ribs hurt again? It's not a strain this time. And I doubt I have costo again. Stop it. Also, there is no reason for my right ankle to twinge. Especially when I am not using it.

Please stop with your attention-seeking behaviour and I will get you more sleep next week.

Love,
Me.

Current Mood: tired

I love being a girl.
I can feel what you're feeling
as you're feeling it inside
the feeling
before.
I am an emotional creature.
Things do not come to me
as intellectual theories or hard-shaped ideas.
They pulse through my organs and legs
and burn up my ears.
I know when your girlfriend's really pissed off
even though she appears to give you what
you want.
I know when a storm is coming.
I can feel the invisible stirrings in the air.
I can tell you he won't call back.
It's a vibe I share.

I am an emotional creature.
I love that I do not take things lightly.
Everything is intense to me.
The way I walk in the street.
The way my mother wakes me up.
The way I hear bad news.
The way it's unbearable when I lose.

I am an emotional creature.
I am connected to everything and everyone.
I was born like that.
Don't you dare say all negative that it's a
teenage thing
or it's only only because I'm a girl.
These feelings make me better.
They make me ready.
They make me present.
They make me strong.

I am an emotional creature.
There is a particular way of knowing.
It's like the older women somehow forgot.
I rejoice that it's still in my body.

I know when the coconut's about to fall.
I know that we've pushed the earth too far.
I know my father isn't coming back.
That no one's prepared for the fire.
I know that lipstick means
more than show.
I know that boys feel super-insecure
and so-called terrorists are made, not born.
I know that one kiss can take
away all my decision-making ability
and sometimes, you know, it should.

This is not extreme.
It's a girl thing.
What we would all be
if the big door inside us flew open.
Don't tell me not to cry.
To calm it down
Not to be so extreme
To be reasonable.
I am an emotional creature.
It's how the earth got made.
How the wind continues to pollinate.
You don't tell the Atlantic ocean
to behave.

I am an emotional creature.
Why would you want to shut me down
or turn me off?
I am your remaining memory.
I am connecting you to your source.
Nothing's been diluted.
Nothing's leaked out.
I can take you back.

I love that I can feel the inside
of the feelings in you,
even if it stops my life
even if it hurts too much
or takes me off track
even if it breaks my heart.
It makes me responsible.
I am an emotional
I am an emotional, devotional,
incandotional, creature.
And I love, hear me,
love love love
being a girl.

Eve Ensler

Eve Ensler at TED India

I think I need a whole new set of icons.

I am also exhausted & have no interest in playing around on a graphics program right now because — TA RA! — I have tendonitis in my dominant wrist. Because my body loves me like that. Eugh.

Hmm.

Guess I'll just be dissatisfied with my present crop for awhile longer.

Can I add Lucy's comic The Maze to things from today which are awesome? This is partly how I felt post-breakup, when the grief wasn't too debilitating. So many options of things I could do! I was my own person again!

I met Lucy at Lawrence & Fyodor's wedding reception, but I was slightly drunk and too shy to introduce myself. I mean, "Hey, I'm

delirieuse! We used to talk sometimes online but I haven't really been around for a few years. Also I think you're awesome and I love your art"? No.

But I still regret, a tiny bit, that I never even tried to have that conversation.

Current Mood: happy

I finally got paid today, which was very relieving due to the fact that I was stony broke, due to unfortunate circumstances, slight mismanagement of money, a folk festival and CHRISTMAS. I also forgot, between the delicious organic BBQ chips & nachos for dinner that if I have too many chips with their salty goodness, I get a headache. But it was almost worth it.

Besides work, where I am working on a book I do not love, with software programs I really do not love (Dear Microsoft. I haaaaate you. And everyone who worked on PowerPoint. Ever), today was pure awesome.

Jess and I went down the street for lunch, where we sat outside in the shade and ate burgers, and got amazing gelati to eat on our walk back. I got lemon and blood orange, and the blood orange, MMm. Doing that again.

And then, on my way home, I read this fic recced by Copperbadge. I've never watched Merlin (or been a BNF in any fandom), but this isn't about Merlin. It's about fandom, and my gods. I've been part of LJ fandom since first year (of uni), which, for those of you that are counting, was ten years ago. I may not be active anymore, but these? These are my people. <3.

I got home, and did a half-arsed job of unpacking the groceries, and I watched the latest White Collar while making "dinner" and soup for later. AND LO, IT WAS AWESOME. Peter on a horse, people. This episode was everything I love about White Collar rolled up in a tight package and then dusted with, I don't know, crushed vegan tim-tams or something. (I've been eating them all week with my tea. Don't judge me.) SO GOOD.

And then, and then? The December edition of Omikuji by Cat Valente was in my inbox. And it was so amazing. My heart grew three sizes. Just, wow.

Also, I got a message from my girl today. And that was lovely.

See, I knew there was a reason I put on my pretty purple silk dress, and my favourite seamed stockings and my straw cloche hat today, despite being under the weather. Some days just need you to dress up.

Current Mood: full of squee

Am I the only writer who feels like she writes plays, but with stage directions and acting directions hastily hidden as description?

Current Mood: pensive

Went to dinner with my immediate family last night for my mum's birthday, and I got given some DKNY perfumes. This is not (just?) because I'm awesome, but rather because it's always been a tradition in our family that anyone going overseas is required to bring back tribute in return for not being thrown out of the cave for abandonment. Since I rarely see my parents these days, despite living in the same city, this gift was unexpected and largely without context.

So. Four DKNY perfumes. I'm not really a brand-name perfume wearer unless that brand is L'Occitane or BPAL. This gift came packaged in a clear plastic box, as I assume is standard. Each small vial of perfume was in a clear plastic display stand within that box. The stand was balanced on four small cardboard boxes large enough to hold the small glass bottles.

The hell? I thought. Well, I hope I like these perfumes, because it seems there's two of each.

No. There wasn't. There was four small empty decorated boxes for each perfume, and four bottles sitting ON TOP of those boxes. This seems both pointless and wasteful to me, but since I shop at small indie shops online and in vintage (=expensive, slightly less shitty op shops for the middle classes) shops, I think I'm sufficiently far removed from being their ideal customer that their ideal customer may as well have had an AVO out against me demanding I stay one continent away at all times.

On a related point, Jess told me that the defence "I don't have a TV" doesn't wash anymore, since my housemate does. Well, yes. She does. But 1) it's roughly the size of two shoeboxes glued together, 2) I keep forgetting the thing exists and 3) even if I remember, I'd rather watch TV shows via DVD where there aren't commercials that alternately enrage and befuddle me.

I'd rather play inappropriate music on my cello, anyway.

ETA: Oh, I was going to add that I assume the tiny boxes are for gifting friends and relations the individual perfumes, but this is either an extremely crap and scroogy present (they're only 7ml for Christ's sake) or I have completely underestimated how much this stuff costs.

Current Mood: odd

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30	31

Becoming Isis, putting Osiris back together

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HERE STANDS BENEDICK THE MARRIED MAN

Number crunching

I'm not sure how I feel about this.

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If you're a girl, no-one will like you.

My critical thinking faculties are also largely offline right now.

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I AM AN EMOTIONAL CREATURE

Undeep thoughts

Addendum:

Happiness is made of this.

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An oddity, or why modern society confuses me.

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January 2012

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