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See you in December! [Dec. 1st, 2009|12:01 am]

(Banner credit: [info]fairytaleaddict)
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(no subject) [Nov. 26th, 2009|11:03 am]
[Current Mood | Love.]
[Current Music |Oddly enough, "Shine On, You Crazy Diamond" - Pink Floyd.]

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! May your day be full of joy and love and delight!

I know it can be hard, but chin up, right?

So much love to you all. <3
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Plan for the day: [Nov. 23rd, 2009|08:27 am]
[Current Mood | aggravated]
[Current Music |"Try the priest," Sweeney Todd, stuck in my head.]

Morning:

√ *Spend (waste) NO MORE than 10 minutes doing this

√ *Spend (waste) NO MORE than 10 minutes crafting a reply to the vapid, slandering, chock-full-of-utter-bullshit replies left on the story about Stanislaus faculty OVERWHELMINGLY voting no-confidence in Pres. Shirvani, so my brain can rest and let the thing alone. (EDIT: DONE! 1k characters is not much. o.O My mini-essay is now 2 comments and so much leftover. Here's what it would have looked like: ( Case in point... ) But I think it still came out well.)

__*Do my work inbox (EDIT: Well, did, but...)

√ *Sort and start ONE load of laundry.

__*Write an absurd amount on my NaNo, in preparation for Thanksgiving hiatus - lets arbitrarily set a goal at 6k, so I don't go, "Oh, 2500, good enough" if I get there. Write as much as possible by the time Chris gets home! EDIT: Ahahahaha. Work thinks I'm funny. Oh, well.


Afternoon:

__*Eat, snuggle, do maybe one more load o' wash

Evening:

__*Choir (two weeks until concert, aaieeee!)

Back home:

__*Collapse
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Meme redux. [Nov. 16th, 2009|12:13 pm]
[Current Mood | Banana bread.]
[Current Music |"Well, excited AND scared..."]

This is why I should never do memes; I always want resolution.

So, here are the leftovers from the guess-the-song meme; some of them are seriously obscure, but some of them *I* was seriously obscure so I thought I'd go ahead and add more lines, just for fairness' sake (and for kicks). ;)

At this point, the list contains John Lennon, Simon & Garfunkel, Mike Nesmith/Monkees; Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, and crooner/torch songs generally; country both old and relatively new; one 90's alternative, one current Brit-pop, one rabble-rouser (or two, I suppose!), and one dear old blues-come-folk-come-rock classic. Have at! :)

( Also, I just don't believe that no one knows why giraffes are insincere. )



Also, I totally hit my halfway point for my fairytale NaNo (WOOHOO!!!), and... there has already been copious rotting, blood, bone, corpses, and something resembling cannibalism, which.. is a good sign, isn't it...? ...Chris made me change the category from 'fantasy' to 'horror,' but I'm still not convinced. I mean, seriously, Little Red Riding Hood--need I say more? Snow White? And have you read the Grimm "Little Mermaid," or the original Sleeping Beauty: "The Sun, the Moon, and Talia?" Fairytales is powerful messed up.
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Guess-my-line music meme. [Nov. 12th, 2009|05:26 pm]
[Current Mood | guilty]
[Current Music |Howdy Doody Time, apparently.]

I should not be doing this. I should be writing. Why am I doing this?

When I stole this from [info]kseda, it had a writing caveat, which I have to skip, on account of I should be writing something else. But I give you the first steps of it:

Step 1: Put your MP3 player or whatever music player you have on random.

Step 2: Post a line/stanza from the first 20 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.

Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from.

Step 4: Strike through the songs when someone guesses correctly.

( Come see about these! )


I feel that this misrepresents the balance of my musical interests. Also, it is not entirely fair, because several of these I would not recognize myself. Alternately, some of them I feel are impossibly obvious, in part because every possibly line of those songs is memorable.

....But oh, please, do this, I love these things. I want to know where y'all are at, with these swaths of music. There is at least a wide variety, and I think everyone would know at least one or two!

...And, oops, I misread as 25. So there are 25.

...And now I should be writing. Have fun! LOVE!

Edit: I got back to writing and wrote a bucket, so I don't feel so bad about coming back and playing, now. <3
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A break in NaNo hiatus, because I haven't had the heart to write anything else but this, today. [Nov. 4th, 2009|08:20 pm]
[Current Mood |Street-preacher.]

How dare they?
A reflection on the likelihood we will have to leave our home after this year, if we want to eat.

How dare they?

This administration does not care about California. They do not care about the CSU, and they do not care about this school. This is a stepping stone, from the lower positions they held before to the higher positions or more prestigious universities they hope to join soon. Administrations come and go in three or four or five years; the faculty, the staff, the community, we are the ones who stay for ten, twenty, thirty years, as long as we are able, as long as we are allowed.

I am a third generation Californian, on both sides. My great grand-parents came from Ontario, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Beruit, many places far and wide, and set down roots deep in this promise land, and two of my grandparents were born here, and all of their children, and all of their children, and even most of theirs, after them. I'm the first on my mother's side to even leave spitting distance of the counties my grandmothers were born in before me, since they got here. I was born in this state, raised here, and wish to die here, when it comes to it. This is an amazing and precious place, a resource and a garden, fierce and beautiful.

The CSU is a treasure, too, that belongs to us, here, in California--a proud and lovely creation of our proud and lovely state, to be defended at all costs. Myself and my cousins, my mother and my aunts who were first generation college students, come down from farmers and sailors and soldiers who valued the educations they didn't get, and strove to learn, and impressed upon us all the value of learning, of schooling, we are all products of the CSU when we couldn't have afforded anything else and couldn't have hoped for anything as wonderful.

How dare they push me out of my home? How dare they push my family out of the CSU? We, who had California and the CSU in our blood and our bones before we could read, and who know in our blood and our bones what a treasure we have?

And more important than blood ties are the ties of choosing. My partner adopted California and the CSU, and now has come to love them, now that he has been here 11 years--twice as long as the President of the university, and well over ten times as long as the interim Provost, and three times as long as the Provost before him. Those who have settled here--have meant to make their lives, here--have learned the best of it, have learned the pride and wonder, have taken it up as surely as those of us who knew it all along. And those of us with California in our veins and in the sweet earth of our flesh who have chosen to stay, have learned such awe-filled love, cannot be uprooted. If my body goes, the best of me is still here, longing for the paradise that is this place.

We want to stay. We want to be let to cherish this state, this system, to feed it and better it and make it stronger, ever stronger, ever safer from assaults from the short-sighted and far-reaching. We want to guard it and let it bloom ever brighter.

How dare they push us out, these come-latelies and leave-soons? How dare they take that wicked sword and cleave us from our homes, maim and dismember our universities as if they were nothing more than paper accounts and spools of ugly numbers? How dare they attempt to destroy what has taken us so many generations and so many hearts and so many commitments to build, as if it was theirs to crush? How dare they not lay down their bodies and their swords and their money to defend this?

How dare they?

When they take the CSU--when they cut away the teachers, the programs, the connections we cling to--and force us out, cast us to the wind, tetherless, they destroy more than a tradition, more than some quaint way of doing things, outdated or perverse. They destroy wonders. They destroy monuments and lives and blood oaths and sacred connections to a precious thing far grander than they. When we find a new place to live and work, I will still be homeless, because I will have been cut from my home, the home of my blood and the home of my choosing, the home where my heart and my head and my body have found perfect place, my home of ages. And when they are gone, tired of their broken toy, eager to find new systems to "restructure" and "improve," their damage will lay bloody and mangled and glaring behind them in the sun, for California and her lost, scattered children, blood and adopted alike, to mourn.

How dare they?
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I am still procrastinating. [Nov. 1st, 2009|12:06 pm]
[Current Mood | On tenterhooks.]
[Current Music |A cooljazz Mack the Knife is on. Fun but wholly inappropriate--headphones time!]

Okay, no pictures yet. But I have to share: last minute, my costume plans changed, and I, instead, went for something I'd wanted to figure out for many years now - I went in black and white. Which is to say, in grayscale, like a B&W photo. (...And, in fact, like a silent-movie vamp.) It actually worked out really well. <3

We didn't get many kids through (despite my seeing vanloads of kids coming back in costumes from, I can only assume, trunk-or-treating), but the ones I was pretty sure we would get, we did, so that was encouraging. I'm not TOO swamped in leftover candy, but I in fact have a nice amount. (I'm still tempted to go hit the store 'cross the street for some clearance-y goodness. But I should be NaNoing.)

...Which reminds me: I'm already procrastinating on NaNo. I'm pretty bad about procrastinating in general, but usually not about writing for pleasure. I'm not sure what's up! Maybe it's the DST ending; I'm reveling in my extra hour. And I think I'm not done with Halloween, yet, maybe; didn't get to watch Rocky Horror, didn't listen to Dead Man's Party or Monster Mash or any of that. Maybe just an hour or two more of Halloween and then I'll start. . .

(...Maybe I should start and *then* get some more Halloween on, what?)

Anyway, I hope everyone had a nice night - Happy November, Happy All Hallows, Happy Dia de los Muertos, Happy End-of-Daylight-Saving-Time, happy whatever-makes-you-happy-today! Big hugs and kisses and sugar and love to all y'all.


UPDATE: Er.. forgot to post before running off to get some half-off candy and pumpkin spice scented candles. No willpower. But NOW I have restocked my tambourine (impromptu candy bowl), and made myself a playlist of hopefully appropriate music, and started a load of laundry, and.. and.. I guess I'm going to start.
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So freaking domestic. Also: a fount of trivia. [Oct. 31st, 2009|12:12 am]
[Current Mood | exhausted]

In the last couple days: knit a hat for a friend, a cowl for myself. Worked on a shawl I'm making. Started an adorable knitted wig, in a sort of violet/lilac color. Baked snickerdoodles, and improvised a delish' spiced chocolate almond bark.

Carved a pumpkin into an owl as per a VERY cute picture [info]lionille shared (he came out SO CUTE!!) and cut my thumb open pretty well, during the process. Alas. I will try to post a picture of him tomorrow! (But not of my thumb.) Maybe I can get one of him alongside the adorable ratty face pumpkin best friend did (and which included dried spaghetti noodles for whiskers).

Random observation: I think the name my mother called me more than any other throughout my growing up (including my given name) was Pumpkin. (Followed closely or equalled by Sweetpea.)

We did campus things, including big big politics, talks on faculty shared governance, and senate meetings. I did work things (although there are a few I have to do tomorrow morning, because I completely missed them, today).

I picked the NaNo I'm going to write, this year (from amidst WAY too many choices). Mostly (but not entirely) unrelated to that, I did way more random internet research than is strictly reasonable, and often by whim or by popping link to link (and then wondering what path, exactly, I took to go from Rastafarian English to false etymology surrounding Caesarean sections to harime laws among the Romani to laws regulating name changes in Germany).

Before I start wondering too hard, I'm going to go to bed. But it's been a fairly bustling week!

Hope you all have a lovely Halloween! (And any and everything else you may celebrate this time of year!) LOVE!!
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At least we know. [Oct. 15th, 2009|04:58 pm]
[Current Mood |Determined.]

So there are still plans in the works. But as things stand, Chris has no work for Fall. He's out of a job.

Which means, if he finds a new one, we have to go to it. Which would mean I would be out of my beautiful, wonderful, beloved (but definitely-won't-sustain-us) job.

I'd finally put some roots down in this backward fucking little town, and it was growing on me, backward and fucked up though it is. I have a knitting group. I'm in a choir. I love my job. My best friend is staggering distance from my front door. The area's finally nurturing the arts, a little. My garden is growing me flowers.

And the alternative: him NOT finding a job? is a hell of a lot worse than losing/leaving all of those things.

I've been feeling pretty fucking low, I gotta' admit.

It's been a few days, now, since we found out, and the worst of the depression (aided by a bout of gloom, rain, wind, and general storminess and lack of sun and my subsequent plummeting energy and instinct for hibernation) is easing up. I let myself have my beaten, dejected few days, let myself binge on comfort food and neglect work and mope and cry, and the worst of it, at least, seems to be out of my system.

The sun came out, and I went out to sit in it. I did my work, I got shit done, I didn't kidnap leftover chicken and dumplings from Best Friend's fridge (seriously something I was considering). I'm not feeling quite so resentful when people remind me this could work out for the better, in the end - because, of course, it could.


...I had a lot more written below, about prospects and rationalizing about the worst case scenarios. But suffice it to say, I know that whatever happens, we'll roll with it. We'll hit the ground running, because it's what we do. Shitty times have always brought out the optimist in me.

We've got a lot to be grateful for.

Love to you all, and as much joy as you can hold.
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Things Is Tough All Over [Oct. 12th, 2009|11:30 am]
[Current Mood | Dejected.]

"But Chris is secure, right?"

I don't know how many times I've heard this, now. All summer, all through the start of the choir season, people have asked this or something similar; they've asked how we're doing, and I've told them a little about the budget crisis and the terror this inspires and the carnage already wreaked across our campus and how it doesn't make for peace of mind, or else they've heard some about it already and want to know where we fall in it. And then they want to be reassured that Chris is safe. "But he's all right, isn't he? He's pretty protected? Chris is still secure, right?"

"....No," I say, like I'm apologizing. "He's not."

Chris is a lecturer--contingent. Some systems call this "adjunct." Non-tenure-line. Not even probationary. We call it "visiting" on our campus--he's been "visiting" for 11 years, now, full time (some people call lecturers "part timers," too--often tenure-line people teaching significantly fewer courses per year than a full-time lecturer does, but I digress).

In short: no tenure. No expectation of tenure. No way to get tenure.

He does have three year contracts (the grail in the CFA collective bargaining agreements): if they've kept you for six years, when they could have simply failed to rehire you without penalty beforehand, and there are no "serious conduct issues" or records of bad performance, you're automatically rolled over into three year contracts, which have, themselves, a similar expectation of being rolled over. If you're between three year contracts, you've got a lot less protection--if there's just not work, they can essentially give you a contract for no work and no pay, without actually laying you off--but there is still some protection. There's also a layoff order, and an order of preference for work, and a lot of good structure in place to make sure the contract means something, when people start getting bumped off the ranks.

But when you've already gone through the order by department--say, this department--and have dumped absolutely everyone in the first couple of groups? When the only person left with less "preference for work" than Chris has already been reduced to part time (and he was only protected by two tenure-track profs being off on sabbatical, anyway, who are going to be back next year), and there are more cuts to come...?

(As in, apparently, SEVERE cuts to come, despite the absence of a concrete budget for the next year, in what is probably a punitive, tyrannical, never-let-a-good-crisis-go-to-waste move by people with more power than the rest of us?)

Then, no. Chris is not secure.

The BEST we can hope for, at this point, is that he only get reduced to part time, next year. But for all we know, there could be nothing, as soon as Spring. 30% (...for instance) out of 10 tenure-line and 2 and a half lecturers (or 6 tenure-line and 1 and a half lecturers, depending on what we're counting as this department for these purposes) is pretty bad odds, either way, isn't it?
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Been Uppity, Lately. [Sep. 28th, 2009|01:30 pm]
[Current Mood | Snark.]
[Current Music |"Wig in a Box"]

I've been engaged in an odd habit, lately, of replying to the form letters my representatives in congress and CA Assembly send me. I got sucked onto a mailing list for my CA reps that has turned up a lot of anathema, and it got the ball rolling.

Today's was my fault, and from the US House of Reps instead. A week or so ago I'd sent a form letter to my local congressman asking him to support the repeal of DOMA (the "Defense of Marriage Act," which inexplicably made it legal to ignore the full faith and credit clause in the Constitution, despite the fact that nothing else, not even arresting serial murderers, gets this benefit). As I do.

I expected either no response (since I'm in a hotbed of Marriage=One Man + One Woman activism and Rep. Radanovich is all over that mess), or a form letter thanking me for my input but-we-disagree. I've gotten plenty of those before. Some of the fancier ones have come on paper with lip-service to some key issue, even if the sender and I are diametrically opposed on how to deal with it.

It means that at least some overworked staffer either skimmed the note for my position, or an email reader program did. It got stacked in an unofficial litmus test pile, somewhere. Some sites even let you scroll down a menu with "issue" and "Support/Oppose?" so it knows which form letter to send in response, and presumably to keep a tally.

Rep. Radanovich (or rather, his office) sent Chris and I identical form letters back to our form letters that, I shit you not, told us to "Rest assured, I will continue to work with my colleagues in the 111th Congress to strengthen the family unit and protect marriage in its traditional form." It was a letter comforting us that he, too, wants to protect hetero-only marriage, and telling us how instrumental he's going to be in supporting a re-up of a Protection of Marriage bid, and telling us how dangerous he knows same-sex marriage can be, and what a good idea it was to buck full faith and credit to protect states from having to respect the laws of other states.

...They don't even have the decency to install a good form-reader, or else to come up with the blank "Thank you for your input"? Seriously?

...So I replied:
( (Snarky and brief.) )

...I think the (clear) indication that no one will actually read this email released me of my sense of required politeness and sincerity. I don't suppose anyone will be bothered by this letter, then, either.
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Collection of things [Sep. 23rd, 2009|11:12 am]
[Current Mood | bouncy]
[Current Music |"Nice Work If You Can Get It"]

CSN were wonderful! Can't seem to make myself write about it. Don't feel like I need to - but here is what they played:

( Awesome tracklist. )

LOVED IT. Had a lovely birthday. Spending too much time online, right now, instead of working. I should at least be writing, if I'm going to shirk my duties.
But instead, I'm stealing things from [info]kseda. Since it was just the day, after all, I followed a link to an astrology-y birthday profiler and found my birthday. Which is fairly spookily accurate. Attached below the cut w/highlights.

( The Day of Restless Drive )

...If you take me as already following the must-do's/must-be-aware-of's they give, to a fault? i.e. paranoid about my affect on and reception by others? And trying to exercise absolute patience towards others when they don't behave the way I think would be Better For Them? Seriously, baby.

(It's all about being an equinox/cusp baby, I bet. I am the pendulum.)

Which reminds me: Happy Equinox! (A day late, anyway.) Enjoy autumn! Though I know some of you are already probably under heaps of snow and rain. We're, alternately, still lingering around 100˚F, after only a brief reprieve.

I should really be working. Writing. Something.

But, but, it's Celebrate Bisexuality day, too, apparently! (To echo: We have a day?!) Via BiNet:

"The day is an opportunity for bisexual, fluid, pansexual and generally queer-identified people and their families, friends and supporters to recognize and celebrate their history, community and culture and the contributions bisexual/pansexual people have made to both the greater LGBT Community as well as to mainstream culture."

Well! Wow! Pan-pride, baby!

Okay, okay, NOW to work. LOVE!
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CSN CSN CSN!! [Sep. 19th, 2009|02:31 pm]
[Current Mood | excited]

Crosby, Stills & Nash, tonight, at Ironstone Vineyards!

If you do not already know and love CSN/CSN&Y, well... well, you should.

Maybe you know them from their other projects. David Crosby was a member of the Byrds, Stephen Stills was a member of Manassas, Graham Nash was a member of the Hollies, and Neil Young worked with Crazy Horse, in addition to being Neil Young (he, however, will not be there tonight).

Or you may know them, without knowing you know them. If you ever listen to Oldies/Classic rock stations on the radio, you have probably heard plenty of "Teach Your Children," and "Our House," those sweet and earnest numbers. But maybe you've heard "Carry On/Questions," "Long Time Gone," or Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock" (And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden...). Different stations pick a different one or two and only rotate those, alas.

"Suite Judy Blue Eyes"? (It's getting to the point where I'm no fun anymore...)
Almost Cut My Hair"? (from whence Lettin' my freak-flag fly)
Stephen Stills' "Love the One You're With"? Graham Nash's (I get the) "Urge for Going"? "Chicago"? (We can change the world...) Maybe "Just a Song Before I Go"? "Southern Cross," "Wasted on the Way"...?

Or maybe you know them. Maybe, like me, you love on "Military Madness," "Prison Song," "Deja Vu," "Guinnevere," "Horses Through a Rainstorm," their cover of "Blackbird," Manassas' "Johnny's Garden," "Marrakesh Express," "Helplessly Hoping," "Lady of the Island," "Laughing"...


...CSN(Y) is one of my favorite groups ever. Of all time. I was reared on them, and several years ago a lot of my family and I went to see them, and they played many of the above, and many not of the above. Graham Nash was barefoot. Stephen Stills went from rough voice and hard-to-make-out words in his new songs to perfect, crisp "Southern Cross" like it hadn't been thirty years. David Crosby joked about how it hurt to sing "Almost Cut My Hair," now that they're balding. I'm guessing he'll make the same joke, again. I wonder if they'll still play "Military Madness," and work up a chant in the crowd, like they did in LA. I wonder if we'll get another contact high (outdoor arena, after all). I wonder how they'll have changed, and how they'll have not.

I feel so, so warm and fuzzy.

Oh! I have to go! Enjoy the links if you follow 'em! Well worth the listen!
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Kinda' busy. Maybe more soon. [Sep. 9th, 2009|11:52 am]
[Current Mood |Whiplashy.]
[Current Music |"Tea for Two," Blossom Dearie]

I do so many memes and so rarely post them. I try them three times, and still don't. :( It's... kinda' sad, really. Maybe get it up to post them later.

News: working. Trying to apply organization to my work, because I was devolving pretty badly, I fear. Much more to do yet. Finished the show, which went really well. They're doing Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, next summer, so I should seriously dredge up the courage and audition when the time comes, even if I don't get in. I've been handy in public, last few days: caught and gently evicted a wild mouse with My Bare Hands, at the theater before final performance, and fixed a non-functioning toilet in a busy bathroom on campus, after the general faculty meeting. Feeling very butch and useful. Also very hormonal, emotional, fussy, no-good and low-down, etc, so it's kind of a wash. Going to see Crosby, Stills, and Nash for my birthday out in an outdoor amphitheatre (when I saw them before, it was at the Greek in LA, another open-air arena, so WOO). Feeling very, VERY lucky and very happy about this! And went ahead and bought tickets for January to see Jesus Christ Superstar in Modesto, too, because FUCKING TED NEELEY IS TOURING!

Chris still has a job; I still have a job. I still love it. <3 Things is tough on campus--very tough--and we'll see how today goes. More cuts likely mid-year, to compound the thing, and Chris is pretty much next on the block, in his department. Let's.. hope it doesn't come to that, is all I can say, really. Or that it's only a cut to part-time, if it happens.

LOVE to all of you. I'm writing on the various things I've been writing on, but it's going by pieces; thousand words of YDF here, a chunk of some KITH there, original stuff th'other. Knitting and drawing. Choir starts up again in a week and a half. Going to try a little table-top gaming for the first time ever (no, really), and also going to try to keep it casual and in-check (no, really). Cats are lovely and happy and adorable, heat is breaking (though returning), there are carnations on my table. I think I'm going to knit Lee some mittens.

It's going to be an interesting year.
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Finally! [Aug. 31st, 2009|03:32 pm]
[Current Mood | Just ducky.]
[Current Music |"Stiff Upper Lip," from Crazy For You, is stuck in my head. On loop.]

All right, I'm roasting a duck. Finally. Or rather, attempting to roast a duck, a la Barbara Kafka.

I have never roasted anything, before. I have baked things, and I did braise a brisket in the oven, once. But that's it. That's the extent. I have today performed feats of Preparation I never dreamt I'd manage.

Let's just see if I managed it, oh, say, well. It was an Experience, to say the list.

But but but: this method is magic. It's two-fold, to deal with the Heaping Helpings of Fat, so it involves a poaching with all the sundry extras before the high-heat roasting.

Which means: free duck stock. Before even roasting the duck. I can add back the carcass etc. and double-stock it. (I cannot waste anything, so this is one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard. I wish I knew what to do with rendered duck fat, then I wouldn't even have to chuck *that.*)

It smells really good, poaching away. Really ducky, but really good. I am very much looking forward to the roasting part!



Various other life tidbits:
Show is delightful and I love it. Chris is coming Saturday, and Sunday's the last performance ( :(! ). It turns out our two main leads, Bobby and Polly, are pro's, Bobby (Jody Madaras) having done the role some 200+ times, including Euro tours and a lot of choreography. Polly (Natalie Wisdom) is fantastic, too, gorgeous voice and fabulous dancer. I'm really impressed with them both, and with everyone local in our cast.

I've even broken through my formerly often crippling shyness and anxiety and gone to a couple of cast things, formal and informal. This is good for me. It's really strange, too - seeing a little bit of the underbelly of the thing, interpersonal strife. But, I haven't seen any real viciousness, which is comforting. And anyway, I love it; so long as I don't get too wrapped up, it's fascinating. I love people.

More seriously: I am not in the parts of CA that are currently burning. I am well. I *think* my relatives who are in those parts are okay, and so far the friends I have who are in the very thick of it are still in voluntary evac instead of mandatory, and are doing okay. If you are in one of those areas, PLEASE be safe, and I'm thinking of you.

I'm gonna' go back to checking on my duck, and maybe see if my mom's heard anything about my people in Pasadena. LOVE.
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Emotional coaster a bit. [Aug. 24th, 2009|07:22 pm]
[Current Mood |Strangely determined.]
[Current Music |Oh, Chevalier just ended. What next...?]

Loved Julie&Julia. Apart from the frustrations that come from true stories (when people sometimes don't behave quite how you want them to), it was delightful. I love the idea. The food was gorgeous. Meryl Streep was unsurprisingly brilliant. It makes me want to cook--it's making me want to have a project. And I want the roast duck recipe. (Though I may actually take Barbara Kafka, queen of roasting all things, over Julia in this matter, if we've got hers. If you ever want to know how to roast anything, and have it come out better than anyone's you've ever had? Go to Kafka.)

I spent the movie in and out of tears, basically unrelatedly. I started crying on the way out of the get-together this morning (had to beat a hasty retreat), and just... it's been drop of a hat, since then. I'd guess at least a dozen times, during the flick? And mostly inappropriately. However, I definitely needed the joy and delight and giggling, and I got a lot of that, too, so that's good.

Now we're listening to some Maurice Chevalier (spent some time with Charles Trenet, earlier), and the utter sweetness promises to help. So does Chris's cooking (if you aren't well aware of this by now, Chris is the Philosopher Chef, Saucier Than Thou - a whiz at French cooking - all cooking, reared on Julia Child's show as a kid, and born on her birthday). I've successfully campaigned for some Pommes de Terre à la Maitre'd'hotel to go along with the lamp loin chops sautéed in butter and dressed in pan sauce, and a Child recipe for green beans. Cap it off with a little cognitive dissonance in the form of a Chilean Cabernet, and I think we'll be able to stave off the demons a little longer.
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Show; Campus [Aug. 24th, 2009|02:53 pm]
[Current Music |"It started off so well, this 'let's pretend'..." - 'But Not For Me,' in my head]

It's weird to think of it this way, but I was having a similar reaction to opening night of Crazy For You to the one I had at the end of doing Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Giddy tears and trembling excitement, and a whole lot of greedy, basking love for the audience and its standing ovation. Even if I was down in the pit. I could still crane 'round and see them.

(Btw, they moved us from backstage to down in the pit with the orchestra, mic'd. Which is a great thing. Besides, I like calling myself a "pit singer" more than a "backstage singer." I'm also defaulting to Backup Girl.)

The show was fantastic. It was a blast. A whirling, frantic putting-together, and a beautiful opening night. The theater has more than its fair share of technical difficulties, and some things blew up at the last minute--missing actors, breaking props--but they still got it off in great order. Everybody stepped up and were brilliant. I've said this before, but I've never really been much for dance shows (I can take a lot of Fosse, but chorus lines and follies have never thrilled), but I sat in awe of this group. These girls are professional quality dancers (there's a 15 y.o. teaching dance classes already, and a girl who just got accepted into the Rockettes, for instance), and they're stunning. The choreography and acrobatics were gorgeous, huge, clever, funny, delightful. There's a bit where the girls are bells, if that makes any sense, and a pinwheel, and and and...

I love it. I'm in love. I'm giddy. I even got over enough of my crisis-level shyness to go with my carpool mates to the cast party, and chat and be silly and play games in the pool. The acting was great, the comedy was spot on (even the cheesy parts - and the physical comedy was PERFECT), the music was grand, and, if I do say so myself, the singing went well. Giddy giddy giddy!

...

Well, be fair; I was giddy. The budget crisis has taken its toll. Chris is a union rep for our campus, for contingent lecturers (think: the college faculty equivalent of highly vulnerable wage slaves, with next to no protections, who make up the majority and do most of the work; the adage is that every lecturer is fifteen seconds from utter humiliation). There's been a slash-and-burn going on, and a lot of people are up in the air, and we spent the morning with a handful of lecturers who've been on tenterhooks and probably let go from the university-but-not-necessarily-completely, trying to hash out their rights and contracts and potential outcomes--the culmination of which was a last minute email (received by one of them by iPhone) with the nail in the coffin for all of them. Their small hope was a false one; they have no work, and no rehiring rights, and no continued affiliation with the university or the committees they man, this Fall. Which is to say, in a week and a half. They have no health insurance, they will not be getting a check this month. They're not even at the top of the rehire-if-we-get-some-money list. They have to give back their keys, and clear out their offices. This week.

These are people we know. Our campus, with its 400 faculty, has lost 187--no, wait.. now it's 192, after this morning, isn't it?--of its faculty. Cut in half. Everyone the university could cut without declaring an official layoff, they cut. Fellow lecturer reps from other campuses are working with the union through the summer, even though their teaching jobs are no longer waiting for them in Fall. These are dedicated, passionate teachers, and most of the people we were with today graduated from this campus, went through the very programs they're teaching in, worked most intensively with the most vulnerable students, in the most fundamental classes.

And they're just... gone, now.

(This doesn't even get into the issue of the hundreds of classes cut on our campus alone--classes that were full, and whose students have not even been informed of the cuts and schedule changes and who will most likely get to campus on day one with no idea their classes and teachers are gone and that several of their class days will be furloughed &c, but who have been pulled for an extra $500 for this semester, or $1000 for the year, already. Or all the students who just aren't going to be accepted at all, come Spring and next year, despite state law dictating that this system accept all eligible students. And all the basic remedial classes the bulk of new students will need to complete in their first year to be kept on at the university, but which will be unavailable to them, since they've been cut. And--)

...Sorry for the whiplash. That kinda' where we're at, right now.

I think we're going to spend some of my blood on Julie&Julia (...I can get comp movie tickets, with all the blood donations I've racked up), try to get something a little joyful going.

Love, all.
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...Okay, no, really. [Aug. 8th, 2009|12:11 pm]
[Current Mood | frustrated]

We were just out in Modesto, and saw several posters printed out and stuck on trees, with President Obama's face on them done up to look like the Joker, and "Socialism" written under them.

I just... need to point something out, here.

Among developed nations, we have the highest or nearly highest infant mortality rates, death rates from preventable and treatable illness, and costs per capita to provide health care to our people.

Comparable nations with single-payer health care have much lower infant death rates than we do, far fewer deaths per capita from preventable and treatable illness, and longer life spans, and they spend a hell of a lot less per capita to do it.

This all seems very simple, to me.

The system we have now still covers people who aren't insured privately--but we do it by picking up the pieces when someone who couldn't afford to get preventative care or get a small problem like an infection or a minor wound or a bad flu looked at winds up on death's door (which is to say, in the ER) with a far more expensive problem. What could have cost a few dollars to treat or prevent costs thousands to the revered taxpayers. The prevalence of untreated disease means that it's a lot easier for diseases to spread like wildfire, too--so this isn't just the problem of the person who's sick. This is your problem, too. Yes, there are clinics, but they're overworked, understaffed, underfunded. Yes, there are some safety net programs in place, like Medicare and Medicaid and Medical, but they're increasingly underfunded, and are sloughing otherwise eligible people off of their rolls, ever day. And the ERs and Medicare and clinics are all a lot more expensive per capita to run than a central program with a strong emphasis on prevention would be.

The public option doesn't eliminate private health care, if you've got it and you like it. HMOs and the like already limit your choice of doctors and services, and while they don't run your requested services past a bureaucrat (who incidentally has no profit motive), they DO run your requested services past a mid-level businessman who wants to (1) make the largest profit possible from serving you, and (2) spend the least amount possible on you to do it. This is the nature of having shareholders; their job is not to keep you healthy or happy, their job is to produce profit. Any service they can avoid giving you, they will. The more they can charge to give you the services they do, the better. And the fewest at risk (read: in need) people they can insure...

This is really not limiting our options. It just means that people with nothing but desperation can be healthier, and fewer people die for no reason. Some people running private health care companies may lose a little off of their multi-billion-dollar profit margins. I can live with that.
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OH NO OH NO OH YES YES YES YES!!!!!! [Aug. 7th, 2009|10:48 pm]
[Current Mood | Stunned.]
[Current Music |"...And if you get it, won't you tell me how?"]

Story of my life:

I am too afraid to try to do something. Usually something involving an interview, an audition, or otherwise throwing myself out bodily in front of uninterested parties.

Said thing throws itself at me, and allows me (just that once) to bypass some portion of the terror--the decision to consider or try at all, of course, and maybe part of an audition, or an application, or whatever it is, too. Volunteer work, the choir, a gig, the knitting group, an open mic night, my job. Anything I want to do and am afraid to go ask to be a part of.

Well, as of tonight, I'm in a musical. That opens in two weeks.

A friend from the choir emailed about a dozen of us to see if she could snag some backstage singers to fill out the sound of the chorus and dance line, and I appear to be one of three (there are eight Girls/Chorus/Follies we'll be behind - I am not insignificant, here). I'm (most likely) singing the higher soprano part. I may be the only person singing the high Bflats in large groups, when the girls who have to actually dance and act and be out on stage are too SRSLYBUSY to knock out those notes, or I'll be one of two. (Or I may not get to do all of them--sadness!--but that's okay, too. But Bflats are yummy.)

I'm kinda' in shock. Went to part of a rehearsal, tonight, going to most of one tomorrow. It rehearses 6 days a week, 6-11pm, though I'm missing a lot of next week. The week after that is dress/tech week. And then there are shows.



OH HOLY SHIT WHAT AM I DOING?!



...There really isn't too much material to learn. I get to keep the score onhand (because who'll care, when I'm backstage?), and it's not too tough. It's a Gershwin thing I've never actually seen or heard of, called Crazy for You, and it seems to be a redux of other stuff of theirs, with a new plot combining them. But it's got a lot of their songs that I do know (which is not many). But I'm not singing in most of those ("Someone to Watch Over Me," "They Can't Take That Away From Me," etc, don't have chorus). But I am singing in "I Got Rhythm." And I think also "Nice Work If You Can Get It." And a handful of things I hadn't heard before today, but that I'm picking up quickly. Hopefully quickly enough.


OH CHRIST OH FUCK OH FUCK WISH ME LUCK. I know you're not supposed to, but I think I don't mind. This is SO COOL.
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County fair! County fair! [Aug. 4th, 2009|11:44 pm]
[Current Mood | Delighted.]

Briefy update: went to the county fair, didn't ride any rides or play any games (v. v. expensive!), but pet copious animals, listened to much music. More on the last two:

I have, before, pet the noses of police horses and must have once a goat (because I remember him trying to eat my clothes). There are probably petting zoo memories of my early youth I've just lost, by now. But in my memory, this is the first time I've ever touched a cow. I pet a cow, tonight, and I pet so many wonderful young goats and sheep (and was nibbled on to my heart's content by both), and even a llama and an emu and a piglet.

Still on the lookout for chicken-, goose-, and duck-handling opportunities (we didn't find the petting zoo until it was about to close, and they were all already in bed).

....I haven't had much farm-type experience.

Mind you, I have held/pet cockatoos, cockatiels, conures, macaws, green parrots, African Grays, sparrows, a crow, boas, pythons, corn snakes, bearded dragons, alligator lizards, iguanas, salamanders, toads, frogs, wild field rats, pet rats, mice, hamsters of all descriptions, guinea pigs, chinchillas, rabbits, turtles, tortoises, all kinds of spiders and insects and crawlies generally, butterflies and giant moths and iridescent beetles, sea slugs, skates and rays, muscles, abalone, fish and bottom dwellers, cats, dogs, wolf mutts and half-coyotes. So I'm really not low on animal interactions, just... particularly domestic ones. I have stroked more sea slugs than I can count, but never a chick or a duckling. Maybe we'll have to go back, break down and pay for some rides and pet as many birds as will sit still. <3

Areas with titles like "Meat Goats! No petting" were comparatively quite, quite depressing. The Petting Zoo was a seriously healing experience after that. We couldn't find it until so so late!!

Music: one of Chris's students was playing as part of a band there, One-oh-One Percent, and they were fantastic. Great listening to them, very talented, great and varied repertoire. V. impressed.

Rick Springfield blew my socks off (or would have, if I had been wearing any). For one thing, ain't no way he's 60 on the 23rd, even if he is. He stripped down shirtless, and it was a lovely thing. He was a lovely thing. He played for an hour and a half, and never stopped moving, barely stopped singing, one song right into the next. EVERYTHING was a prop. He flung guitars wildly--literally flinging them in arcs through the air, across the stage--switching out almost every song, for a while. He played "What's Victoria's Secret?" and a lot of things that were familiar to me, but that I didn't really know, or didn't know were his, and he covered Paul McCartney and Wing's "Jet," from Band on the Run. During "Don't Talk to Strangers," he caused many people to talk to strangers, and appealed to anyone he landed on to sing along (micing them embarrassingly, but only teasing them moderately). Was teasing and jovial generally. Fixed on "lady in the pink shirt" early on in the show ("do you even know who the hell I am?"), and returned to tease her frequently (hugged her, cheered her, had her sing, and sang "Marylou" to her, that being her name). Chatted with little kids and got them on stage to dance and sing along ("Don't Talk to Strangers" lasted about 20 minutes, what with falderal). During "Human Touch" he waded probably 30 rows into the audience, and shook every hand and touched and was touched by everyone available. Went from blazing energy of that right into "Jessie's Girl," and was fabulous. After that, introducing the band, they were playing the Beatles' "She's so Heavy," from Abbey Road, and I was highly, highly impressed.

Voice got a little weak in the low, quieter register (he never stopped leaping around; I am 34 years younger and half his activity would have winded me immediately), but he wailed on everything else. Amazing music + voice. It was loud; my ears hurt, and the bass beat very literally felt like a heart beat--I kept getting a reflexive panic that I was getting seriously arrhythmic--but that's all I could say against it. We had a great time.

I want more of all of this music. And I want more critter cuddling, have I mentioned that?

Can I have a pygmy goat, please? Or a sheep? I promise I will pretend I have an agricultural excuse, I will.. Iunno, I'll make yarn, it'll be great. Please? And two chickens?
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Let's do the meme-warp... [Aug. 2nd, 2009|10:14 pm]
[Current Mood | curious]
[Current Music |Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli, album /Djangology/]

A twist on the meme going around, because I'd initially misread it and thought it could be interesting this way:

How about posting the last line of your last 20 fics? Play Spot The Trend with your stirring conclusions!

I'm just as noncommittal as before; done first by last line of most recent chapters, second by last line of parts/arcs.

WARNING! A couple (of the second set only) are smutty. There is also excessive comma use. Also, it should go without saying that they're potentially spoilery, if you h'ain't read 'em and intend to.

( By chapter... )

( By part... )
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Meme-ing! [Aug. 1st, 2009|10:24 pm]
[Current Mood | curious]
[Current Music |A New Pornographers album.]

Post the first line of your last 20 fics and play spot the trend! Yanked from [info]kseda!

...Okay, so I always start this kind of meme, and then stop because I overthink it. Does this mean chapter or whole fic? Or part? Or...? I'm torn; I feel like doing it by chapter is more representative, but it could be a little boring; two fics have dominated over the last twenty. But I don't think I have 20 fics posted (if I don't include the scraps-for-posterity).

Hm. Okay, I'll do it two ways.

( By the 20 most recently posted chapters of things: )


( Aaaand by the 20 most recent... say, arcs/parts (some repetition, 'course) : )
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Update! [Jul. 28th, 2009|06:39 pm]
[Current Music |Chris is working on writing a song in Locrian mode, and stirring consommé.]

Mischief managed! Chapter 12 of YDF--yes, the SECOND chapter, this week--is done and posted!

S'crazy.

At glitch_wyatt

At tinman_fic


::does a little dance::

LOVE!
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Things. [Jul. 28th, 2009|02:35 pm]
[Current Mood | Agitated like laundry.]
[Current Music |"Domine Deus, Agnus Dei" - Poulenc's /Gloria/]

I forgot that the other reason I hadn't been around much was a charming two week long chest cold. It's.. well, mostly better, finally, but I'm really, really ready to be done with the chest tickling breathing and shortness, and the (warning: TMI) copious quantities of gunk still coming out of my lungs (and generally spending time in all the head parts).

A cold, when it's 102˚F? Is really stupid. Just gotta' say.

Anyway, I don't think I mentioned. Two weeks ago, just before the onset of this cough, Chris and I actually played at an Open Mic night, out by our friends in Hayward! They nudged and nudged, and we finally overcame crippling shyness and actually played a set! (We also partied pretty hard, which I think opened me up for teh sick. Chris had had very similar more than a month ago, so I may have just been holding onto it, waiting for an opening.)

So, that's been my exciting life and times. That and the KITH obsessing and the writing.

Which I've done more of, by the way! YDF is back up into production mode, apparently. I fought out this next round of Crucial Decisions, and just tried to not freak-the-fuck-out too much, about it. All is resolvable, in the big bad fanfic world. Chapter 12 is at something like 4764 words, now. I think I may have been forced to introduce an OC, which scares the daylights out of me (went and painted myself into a corner - thought I could get away with it, for a while, but No). Which is to say, actually, that as it stands, I have totally introduced an OC. In fact, depending on how thing x goes, I may have to introduce another. Which, y'know. Totally crazy. Considering this thing has had approximately 2-3 characters at a time since its inception, expanding the field to include non-canon ones is difficult, mentally speaking. It was hard enough opening up to let the other canon people in, after getting so comfortable in twosomes. I feel like I'm cheating on them. (Which is probably silly. And if I tried to do what I needed to do with the people already provided, I'd really be cheating, because it just... wouldn't work, here. This is the way it has to be.)

Anyway, actually, I think Ch. 12 is done. I'm still afraid of my OC, and I'm worried there're scenes missing in between that need to be there, and there's the fact that it dumps off on one of those evil cliff-hangers, and while I know how the cliff-hanger goes proximately, I have a big fat choice to make right after for the Why of that, for which I'm not yet entirely prepared. I'm torn between two plots. (And it occurs to me I can still wrangle both, it's just which happens *first,* which happens *now.* Which is my catalyst for immediate events? And why did it take me four minutes to remember the word catalyst?)

I think I will commit, soon, I just need to prod it a little longer, to make sure it really is cooked. (Hand-wringing ensues.)
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WRITING! [Jul. 25th, 2009|10:18 pm]
[Current Mood | accomplished]
[Current Music |Ha, Chris playing "Blame it On Cain," on guitar. :D]

Hey, y'all, sorry for radio silence. My brain has been completely absorbed with KITH slash, to the exclusion of... well, everything, pretty much. (But it became hot, smutty slash! <3 And I know I ought to work by intrinsic motivation, but being told I have brought the hotness is apparently my crpytonite, at least if crpytonite can have the connotation of powerless-to-not-do, instead of just powerless-TO-do. Tell me I have made the hot, and I am yours. ...I am such a whore.)

That said, instant gratification writing can be very useful on the broader field, because while it can absorb completely, to the exclusion of all else except food, fandom-food (observe the self-slashing mechanism of the Kids in the Hall), and sleep, it can also overcome fear and inertia, and spur up the Can-Do attitude necessary for the Long Hard Plotty Writing of Woe, too. Especially when combined with some timely praise and guilt (see above, re: me=whore).

Vis, CHAPTER 11 of "...You Don't Forget"!

@[info]glitch_wyatt: Chapter 11
@[info]tinman_fic: Chapter 11


Now, with 50% less crushing angst and insurmountable woe, and 8% more foreshadowing. I have the paranoia that it doesn't get us far enough to make up for the wait (it is a mere 3k, and is fairly transitional), but at least sufficient confidence to kick it out there, rather than wait another month hming and hahing over whether I need to do the next round of plot before the chapter break or after, and really just delaying the whole thing in the process.

Love me?



PS. I have DVR'd Torchwood, but I have not seen it yet, and I thank you all for your care with the spoiler-free cut-tags. <3 I love you.

PPS Peach Melba would be a great stage name.


Edit: It has occurred to me that I have finished some 13,100 words this week. Posted 22,400ish over the last 2 weeks, across four fandoms. There has been angst, drama, sweetness, raunchiness, unbridled smut, fluffy endings, bittersweet endings, beginnings... and somehow, this week, I've felt like an underproductive lump of a one-trick pony. ...I think I need to be nicer to myself. I Have Conquered Much Fic. I am Small-Fandom, but I am Epic, baby.

Edit edit: One more self-congratulating discovery - ELT/YDT has now crested over 45,000 words, total.

Edit edit edit: I think my brain is stuck in edit mode. @.@ I think it is time to put it to bed.

ALSO: DVR, srsly, cutting off the last three seconds of every episode of Torchwood? Really?
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