in my life

I've been back from North America for a week that's been chock full of events, which is partly why I'd set my return date for August - a bachelorette party and birthdays and goodbye parties and my dad's 60th bday (which, thank you for all of you who helped me either record messages or cajole strangers across the US and Canada to record birthday messages for him!).

And I am posting to mark for posterity and with great happiness that tomorrow evening my cousin is getting married, and it's a combination of strange and exciting and emotional. This is my cousin from my mom's side of the family, which is the side we grew up close with, in neighboring towns. My cousins from my dad's side are all older than me and have been married for a while now, and my sisters and I have always had a more distant relationship to them due to age differences and geography. (This is the part where you guys are allowed to laugh, since the ones who live farthest away are still less than a two-hour drive away from my hometown; just over an hour with the new roads, really. But my mom's side live ten minutes away! So. An hour drive is far okay everyone [here] knows this.)

Anyway - O, the bride, is a few years younger than me, the fifth youngest of us six cousins, and the first on this side to get married, which means my 86-year-old grandmother gets to be in at least one of her grandchildren's weddings, which just by default makes me happy, that she'll get to experience that. I don't think she's ever put pressure on any of us to get married - certainly not on me, and I'm the oldest - but I'm really glad she'll get to have that experience anyway.

Weirdly, I guess I'm kind of used to the fact that my cousin's not a baby anymore - I guess at some point you just get used to all these milestones in people's lives happening. The last time I mentioned her was in this post from almost ten years ago where I was clearly shocked she was, like, almost a grown up or something, but it has since sunk in.

It's going to be a Friday night wedding, which already tells you it's not very religious here (and not, technically, legally binding; they'll fly to Cyprus to get married over the weekend for the legal part), and it's going to be at a music club and involve some kind of concert. Which means two concerts for me this weekend, since sisters and I are also taking my dad to Regina Spektor for his birthday, a day later.

And that, I believe, will cap my August of, uh, Things Happening.

MEANWHILE, I've been spending the past few weeks on and off (mostly on) listening to The West Wing Weekly podcast and I am 1) in love with it, 2) specifically in love with Hrishi Hirway's voice and entire being, and 3) highly recommend any West Wing fans (and esp if you were in the fandom) to listen because it will give you feelings, man. Starting at the beginning is pretty great, but you can also listen to episode 1.6 (Mr Willis of Ohio) for Josh/Donna feels, episode 1.10 (In Excelsis Deo) for Richard Schiff crying feels, and episode 2.22 part II (Two Cathedrals) for a little bit of Sorkin talking about the Passover Sports Night episode which I know is of interest to some of you :-) Anyway, it is a lovely podcast with great banter and both love and criticism of the show and I just want Hrishi to narrate my entire life basically.

Also I filled some prompts yesterday for a meme! It was basically 'send me a ship and a line and I'll write the next five' meme, but more importantly it was the first writing prompts I've actually filled since, I want to say, 2015 or something, so yay for that. Writing something at least! Fills are here (MCU, DCU, GK). Now if only I could translate that to actual decently sized fic hmmmmmmmmm.

1. Well, it looks like the planned US trip has been postponed by a month so really what I should be doing is just - not planning anything EVEN IN MY HEAD until I have a plane ticket. Current dates look to be October 20th-November 20th, with the end date being more flexible than not. The project manager is rather unsubtle in hinting that she wants me to relocate to the US, which is - immensely flattering but also scary and involves a few more factors that I'd rather not think about /o\ For now I am definitely here though, still checking fall foliage schedules (I MIGHT STILL MAKE IT) and NHL schedules because... they are a rather big appeal.

The thing I'm most bummed about is that I won't be spending November with my sister; she is not in the best place right now and we had planned to watch the Ender's Game movie in November, which sounds like a dumb reason to be bummed but it means a lot to us. (I have some excellent compartmentalization going on when it comes to OSC and the Ender books.) I don't know what I'm hoping in that regard; kind of secretly hoping she can come visit in the States, I guess, while I'm there.

2. Meanwhile I am 55 whole words into a fic I am trying to write. I am very much aware that it is better than nothing but wow is it frustrating.

3. Following lomedet's rec a while back, I have finished yahtzee's Anarchy In The U.K. - 162328 words, X-Men First Class, Charles/Erik, modern royalty AU where Charles is the very closeted Prince of Wales and Erik is a journalist and it's one of those super long, old-school, satisfying epic sagas about a public figure coming out and everything that goes with it. Super old-school, super satisfying, very romance novelish, can totally be read as original fic whether or not you're in the fandom. Definitely a good read for rainy day <3

4. You can't really expect me to ignore hockey completely in a post these days, so I will just point to this gif compilation aptly titled "Kaner and Tazer, alcohol edition" of them ~quenching each other's thirsts~ via alcohol in their 2010 victory parade.

I only yesterday found another photo from this year of Kaner holding the Cup out for Tazer to drink, which, ugh, that cup seriously looks so gross, like who would willingly touch it with their tongue, and Tazer's neck looks like it belongs to a dinosaur, and I love it anyway.
( photo cut because who really wants to look at these guys when it comes down to it )
Basically this fandom is still, to this day, Stockholming me into finding terrible things attractive. (come join usssssss)

It's sunny and windy and lovelylovelylovely outside, and my dog is happy, and I've just tasted my first peach. Season changes! I have a list of things nagging at the back of my mind, and it's almost impossible to let myself be troubled when the weather is like this, spring alive and present and rolling off my skin.

I went to The Caucasian Chalk Circle again yesterday, and liked it much better than the last time I saw it. ( theater )

I feel like, similar to many other events and holidays this year that I've experienced as regular work days, the day kind of sailed by me without leaving too much of a mark, which is unfortunate seeing as when it comes to Holocaust remembrance -- and next week, Independence Day and hearing first hand experiences of what happened here in 1948 -- time is slipping through our fingers. But anyway, I will share one poster that made the rounds here on Facebook, that I loved: this image, designed by an art student in Bezalel Academy, of an old man shadowed by a family. She dedicates the poster to her grandparents, and explains: The shadows in the road are of the family, who perished and are always with them, but it is also the shadow of their new family survivors. A normal family, just like the one they had, which is there to remember, to contain and preserve the heroism. You can scroll down for the English text. Wow, I feel like I haven't talked about actual issues for a while, and now I feel incredibly rusty and cheesy.


Though I have not yet found my memory card of the ceremony, I can at least talk for a few non-complaining minutes about my baby sister being an officer now. \o/! ( pride! )

Ho shit I just noticed the cut scissors are gone! PRAISE the lord, thank you to everyone who raised their voices and were heard amen.

OKAY. In an effort to somehow get myself into writing again -- HOW do you do it, HOW -- I will do the hit counts meme.

( My top 10 AO3 fics by hit count )

I will leave you with the face of Patrick Kane. There's a tipping point in every fandom I've been in when characters transform from weird/ugly looking dudes to people I find extremely attractive. It happened with Xander, it happened with Josh Lyman, it happened with House, it happened with Kara Thrace, Adam Lambert, it happened with all of My Chemical Romance and all of Panic! at the Disco (Dallon included), and now it has happened with Patrick Kane, whom I could barely look at a few days ago because he was so weird and douchy and horrifying and now all I can see is this:

<--LOOK AT THAT FACE.

So yes, Dear Hawks, please don't lose tonight, I don't want to have to wait until next year to see you play again.

(sean_anam, I am absolutely counting on your presence in the audience to help like it did last week. BE GOOD, ALL.)

Dinner at the port with mom and sisters last night and I have YET MORE photos of the sunset. I know the sunset should have become boring in theory by now, but they're different every time, and I don't know. I can't actually stop myself from taking pics.



( 14 more photos )

*

In fannish news, once upon a time bexless made this Adam and Gerard picspam, which is wonderful in many ways, and and which, had it been compiled today, would probably also have included this:

vs.

:D

(Yesterday's Adam concert also included this, which omg. I didn't use to be a shipper, but Tommy, ILU.)

*

Reading about the 10-hour (FOR NOW holy shit) Wimbledon game, the Ynet comments are cracking me up:

מסכנות החברות שלהם

הם פשוט לא מצליחים לגמור

SORRY I'M A SUCKER FOR PUNS. (Translates crudely as: Their poor girlfriends. They just can't finish. I may be deluding myself that it's funnier in Hebrew.)

I have caved into peer pressure and flist excitement and signed up for kink_bingo /o\. This is my card: ( under cut )

It's actually a great card because nothing's too hardcore and I'm pretty sure I can get away writing a lot of things in it comfortably! But two things are alarming about this entire ordeal, and they are: (A) I appear to have 4-5 fics already completely plotted out (!!!?), and (B) I DON'T ACTUALLY WRITE PORN. Except judging by my plots it looks like I'm going to? I believe the emoticon that sums it up perfectly is /o\o/o\. We'll see where it goes. (Current potential fandoms are Bandom, Idol RPF, Kings, and... Disney Princesses.)

On the subject of writing, I read an interview with Jonathan Safran Foer that came out in honor of National Book Week, and two quotes really resonated with me.

1) "On the other hand, I feel like a Jewish author, and that's important to me. And for some reason that identity is expressed far more when I'm writing than at any other time of my life."

This. I feel a lot more Jewish on the internet, on LJ, in writing fic, than I do IRL. Maybe it's the fact that on the internet I'm surrounded by non-Jews so I feel like it stands out more? But I don't think it's that even. I do know though that proportionally, I have written far more fic that addresses Judaism or Jewish characters than the time I spend thinking and talking about being Jewish IRL. It's kind of... disproportionately expressed when writing. I feel you, Jonathan.

2) How did it feel to move from fiction writing to non-fiction? "I didn't like it. There's an expression, that writing is like pulling out teeth. Writing non-fiction is like pulling teeth from your dick."

LOL, and also THIS IS WHY I HATE WRITING PAPERS, THIS.

In Bandom news, I have listened to the entirety of The Young Veins new album Take A Vacation! streaming here and don't want to post my reaction because all it can possibly do is harsh squee /o\ I love a lot of music from the '60s, but more of this album feels so painfully outdated that it hurts, especially considering how much I loved their previous stuff and knowing how good Ryan and Jon's music can be, totally my style. However, I've already warmed up to one of the songs I initially didn't like ("Change") and I'm sure that upon repeated listening I'll grow to like others as well. Maybe I'll just pretend these guys ARE from the '60s, it might be easier to handle. I just wish my first reaction wasn't thinking that these songs are boring. (LOL, and that was the NON-squee-harshing version. On the plus side, I don't think too many Bandom people are reading this so most of you guys don't know what I'm talking about anyway?)

ETA: NOW WITH MORE ADAM LAMBERT (click "view full size" just because you really need to.)

purimgifts authors will be revealed tomorrow! If you think you know what I wrote, please guess away, comments are screened :-) You will probably be right. You don't even need to read the fics themselves, really; I feel like the fics I wrote fics are so obvious (like, so so obvious). Like if I had a trademark, these fics would be it. And two people have already guessed correctly \o/ Predictable me is predictable.

Other than that, I invite you to browse the collection by fandom -- there are 51 fandoms and some beautiful stories and gorgeous artwork, and sometime after the author reveal I'll make a rec list because I know there are stories that some of you guys would really enjoy.

And the gift basket I received made me extremely happy -- I got a Chuck/Discworld crossover, a Chuck ficlet, three drabbles (House MD, NCIS, and Hercules (1997) ♥), and six icons, one of which is the one I'm posting with right now (on DW) \o/

Meanwhile, I won't tell you how many hours I've slept in the past 4 days, but I'm hoping (god, I'm hoping) to catch up on them all tonight. (And possibly equal them.)

PS. Yesterday's Srugim was disappointing. Again. I still plan on picspamming the hell out of last week's episode though.

Napped this afternoon, had a dream and typed it all when I woke up. And you were there, and you were there, and you were there – you know how it goes. I was living with dafna as my roommate, and she had just posted about liking marina's LJ, and there was a party with one of the characters from my yuletide fic and they did something to me (PG, sigh) that made me squee inside and then I realized it was probably a dream though and I slowly woke up from it, still cozy in bed, thinking crap, I napped too long and late – you can't go to sleep from 6pm-9pm when you have an early class the next day because then how will I be able to go to sleep early enough tonight? But more importantly I was thinking remember what character X did in my dream because I really need to write it into my yuletide fic, remember remember remember… and then I finally got out of bed, and dafna wasn't really my roommate, and we were living in this dingy apartment building not unlike my own and two boys, friends of mine, had just gotten back from taking out the trash, except they'd forgotten to take out the trash, and it was a little weird and amusing and then I woke up again. But for real this time. Still thinking please let me remember what character x did for the fic and still really cozy in bed and not knowing what time it was.

Whew, okay, got all that out before I forgot it. (And yes, I remember what character x did.)

It was 20:20. Still late for napping, but at least earlier than 9. And my real roommates were having dinner downstairs.

(Me: So I just had a dream where I had two different roommates, no offense.
Roommates: LOL, no offence? We're both psychology students, don't get us started on your dreams.)

It is 3AM now, and my fears were realized because I am still not tired at all, and class is at 8AM so sucks for me.

Also the WW/Idol drabble WIP that I've stayed up "working" on is at 1600 words and still not doooone. Why does it take me forever to write? Why can tiny 400-word ficlets never just stay tiny 400-words ficlets? Why am I writing this instead of more urgent fandom commitments? ( Snippet of the fic under cut, and by snippet I mean like a third of what I have. )

To fin: MTV's Jim Cantiello cracked me up on Twitter: Gahh an Israeli woman just put Dead Sea salt all over my hands and asked me how many girlfriends I have. Weirdest. Sales. Pitch. EVER. (about 9 hours ago)). LOL, I really have to ask my sister if they've updated their sales tactics this year.

I have Unseen Academicals! Hardcover, American cover (always, always uglier than the British), and only 399 pages long :(:(:( It has now automatically been bumped to the top of my books to read, once I start reading books again, and I don't know whether to be happy or cry.

It was delivered to me by a friend whose dad just arrived from the States, where it cost $15 through Amazon instead of the $40 it's currently available for here. It was delivered along with a candy-filled gift mug that says: "I DON'T PROCRASTINATE... I RESCHEDULE", which came from my friend's mom. Because lol, apparently my friends' parents now know me as Procrastinator Girl, being of course entirely accurate.

Tonight I made one of my favorite dishes in the ENTIRE WORLD: Mom's Corn Soup. I am not kidding guys, this soup* is one of my top desert island foods. This soup was my comfort food for so many years. It was what I asked my mom to make me on my 5th birthday, it was what I'd ask her to make me for my (midwinter) birthday almost every year and it was what I'd ask her to make me during rough weeks in the army, when I was miserable and it was rainy and the thought of the steaming corn soup that would await me at home over the weekend did a lot to lift my spirits.

Last night I asked my mother for the recipe, tonight I made it at the apartment, AND LO, IT WAS DELICIOUS. I'm planning to eat it spoon by spoon, make it last all week, omg my mouth is almost watering just thinking about it.

The truth is, though, that once I tasted it and realized that it was just as good as when my mom makes it, it... lost some of its magic. It's like rainbows: they're rare and unexpected and such a treat to stumble upon, but you wouldn't want to have a remote control that turns them on and off with a click. Mom's corn soup has now lost its mystery and its rareness.

But it's still damn fucking good, so here is the recipe:

( I believe they call this NOMNOMNOM )

*along with Grandma's Tongue with Mushroom Gravy and the timeless Toast With Avocado, Salt and Lemon.

...meanwhile, I have still not signed up for yuletide. I will, of course, within the next three days. And until that, That Meme:

Pick a paragraph (or any passage less than 500 words) from any story I've written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you'd expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

(And I'll just add, since it probably won't be brought up but I've wanted to mention it for the longest time now: in Whole New World, there's a line that goes: They might even toss him out of the House for considering to vote for a Democrat next time.

The only reason the word "house" is capitalized is that I wrote this in a rush a few hours before the deadline, on the tail of three years of writing House fic. I get so embarrassed every time I read that line now. That is all.)

1. OMG new Merlin tonight!

2. We currently have the following fruits in the house:
apples
pears
nectarines
peaches
plums
grapes
guavas
persimmons
pomegranate

...and with all this, the promise of upcoming rain (omg please yes please) has me craving rain.

3. “I'm stuck in a desert six thousand miles away from home, I haven't had a decent shower in a week, eaten anything but fake powdered chicken and power bars in a month, or had a decent fuck in six months, and the compensation that the United States Military feels will make up for it is to treat me to a concert by the runner up of American fucking Idol?” Ray squinted at the newly erected stage at the center of the base camp. Its metal frame glittered in the sunlight. “Fuck my life.”

I am not writing this fic.

4. Off to see Inglorious Basterds, despite my general dislike of Tarantino. Expectations are low enough that he'll probably exceed them.

Yesterday was the Kochav Nolad final. I watched. And flailed. (Temporarily unlocking the post, will re-lock tomorrow.) And was disappointed.

Just now I watched the season premier of the Israeli Wife Swap, where the two families participating were a secular family from a kibbutz up north, and a male gay Reform couple from New Jersey. Israel!Mom Dina flew to Jersey; Ian came to the kibbutz. And while Dina's husband was an absolute sweetheart and it seemed like things were mostly going fine in the kibbutz, Dina was one of the most bigoted, close-minded, fucking outright rude, and completely oblivious to the fact that her ass was showing all the way across the Atlantic characters I've ever had the dishonor of seeing on TV.

Really, the kind of fail (LGBT, feminism, racism, religion) she exhibited was just so infuriating and extreme that I can't really be articulate about it, the kind that's just so out there that it's not even worth being angry over, just sad. I feel so much second-hand mortification for her daughter, who is forced to witness her mom's ass showing on national TV.

Okay, I wanted to paste excerpts from my chat with miarr watching this, but I just browsed through it and all we say is variations on: "oh. my. god." "stfu" "omfg" "jfc stfu" "omjfcg" "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT BITCH" and... so forth. That was an emotionally taxing hour of television.

To end this on a happier note, apparently my Remix fic (Trek/SGA) was translated into Korean (and TY forever, thedeadparrot, for linking me). I used Google Translator so I could read the comments left there. I still have no idea what the comments said, but Google also reverse translated my fic back into English, and oh my god, I have not laughed out loud so hard for a looong time. Here's the translation. Highlights include Bones apparently being names 'Bonds', Kirk being referred to as 'the king', and then I remembered that there was a little bit of porn.

Plan have been met with challenges.

( YES IT HAVE, JIM KIRK, YES IT HAVE. )