To the seat with the clearest view

... I'm so glad I pulled that book out again (well, technically an audio book which I have been listening to while walking to and from my bf's home in the cold - it's lovely being home and in walking distance of him). I like to do a seasonal reread but obviously don't have time to do one every year. It's been a couple years since I've been able to reread it, but we had a rather horrifying ton of snow around my December birthday earlier this month (quite a bit earlier - the eleventh) and it put me in mind of this.

I'm super glad I got to write a Yuletide treat for it, too. That was the first time I've posted any fic for this series, and I will be linking all my Yuletide stuff in a couple days after reveals. I want to write more for it too, and have remembered how much I especially love Miss Greythorne. She's... such a badass. I need more of her and Merriman, including how that dynamic would work when he's posing as her butler despite being the oldest Old One and, presumably, more senior than she is. Gah. (Also, seriously, how does Will not realize she is an Old One until the last couple pages? Seriously?)

Also, while I’m on the subject of griping about this book (which I really do love!), I do find it weird how much Will (and the other Old Ones) don’t seem to be making choices. It’s like everything is predestined and it’s very poetic, the way she makes magic like a sort of chess game or other complex with very ornate rules and steps (e.g., clearly Herne the Hunter is an ally even though he’s part of the Wild Magic and not specifically the Light - why? How are they making an ally of him?) I do feel that that very strong “pattern” oriented feel of it - e.g., people do these things because that’s what has to happen - may be in keeping with some types of mythology and folk tales, but I do feel like it suffers a teensy bit because of it. Does that make any sense? I do love these and Susan Cooper though! They even explain why I have the Livejournal handle that I do.

...OK, in personal news, my brother and his fiancee are coming in from Boston tomorrow. I'm super excited to see them and get to tag along to some wedding planning stuff too. Happy New Year everyone in case I'm not around before then! <3

Just got back from the Oxford Ghost Tour. I really hesitated before booking this, as I’m such a wimp about horror media (see: my experience trying to follow Penny Dreadful this summer), but apparently I’m more and more of a skeptic about any supernatural and unlikely, no-real-evidence-to-show-for-themselves experiences each time I do a tour like this. Like… the ghost tour of Boston in 2004 creeped me out, the Ottawa one in 2012 was interesting but not scary, and tonight I’m just thinking “Eh, if you’re the ghost of Charles the 1st still wandering around Oxford after the English Civil War 450 years ago, maybe you should just get over yourself by now.” (Seriously - I expected the history and sheer age of the place to make ghost stories a little more believable, but they actually had the opposite effect.) I guess I’m more an end user of folklore and ghost stories and things than an actual believer, especially given the boyfriend’s and the brother’s good scientific and skeptical influence. I had my literal candle in the dark (to borrow a phrase from Carl Sagan) with me, too, in the form of my smartphone flashlight app.

I was struck by the one or two stories of ghosts haunting the various Colleges, however, especially because McGill does have a bit of a similar story about an alleged ghostly old man in old fashioned garb appearing and then disappearing on the sixth floor of the McLennan Library. Also, while on the subject of spooky libraries, I got into Doctor Who the spring I was working at the Library of Parliament, and had to do some research in the very quiet, empty stacks of the main library right the day after I saw Silence in the Library, the episode introducing the Vashta Narada. That was really creepy. (It's weird. Apparently, if you try to sell me any supernatural phenomena as a "true ghost story" that people have really sighted, my desire for demonstrable, predictable, rigorously testable evidence-based theories kicks into overdrive and I'm like, "Nope; claims require evidence, and the greater the claim, the greater the evidentiary burden it should meet and this ghost sighting just isn't cutting it". If you try to sell me something as a TV show/short story/whatever and it's well-written, my imagination kicks into overdrive and I'm like "Well, what if what if what if...")

Also - saw this cute little black cat with lovely blue eyes on my walk back from the ghost tour, daww. That was very appropriate - I just wished I’d been carrying some cat food on me to assist her if she was a stray or bribe and befriend her if she wasn’t. (I had the same thing when I saw Macbeth last night on one of the College’s grounds and what looked like a stray tortoiseshell ran by me running away from the crowd and the production.) Seriously, it’s not even out of line for me to be walking around with cat food in my pocket for any stray kitties I may run into; I just didn’t bring any overseas…

Also also - I was probably walking around for like 8-9 hours today. Yesterday morning I felt like I was going to collapse before I even left my dormitory in the morning, before yesterday’s 7-8 hours of being on my feet, but today I feel like I’ve crossed the line twice and got used to pushing myself so hard I barely feel the foot cramps and exhaustion. Ah, well - bus tour to London tomorrow so I can sit on the bus, and then flying back to Canada Sunday ( :’( ) so I’ll sit on the plane…

So, I am a sucker for products with cool names, especially when those names reference things I love… And it just occurred to me that there needs to be a line of something, like Etsy nail polishes or perfumes or Adagio teas, with Velvet Goldmine inspired names. You could even make them really lawyer-friendly, like:

- Make a Wish
- Rooftop Scene
- To Change the World
- Tracy and Hepburn for the ’70s
- Camp Isn’t Just a Row of Tents (though that one, admittedly, might be a bit long)
- [You Could] Be My Main Man
- Honestly, Darling
- Mr. BBC

Seriously, that needs to be a thing right now - and I could do this all night with the quotes. That movie is one of the few that I could practically recite to myself if I ever *really* needed to see it but wasn’t equipped to do so.

It just makes me sad that practically no one but me remembers it or thinks/talks about it anymore…

(This post was partly inspired by the fact that I have been obsessing over nail polish, and loving the ones with fun names. You see a lot of fannish ones on Etsy, but I bought some Essence ones at Pharmaprix with good names, too - like Space Queen, in fact, or Modern Love Romance...)

Other, sadder news: I have literally the worst exam of my life tomorrow, for a field that I do not and have never wanted to be in, and have to get up at 5:00 am for this crap. Ugh...

Ugh, my laptop seems to be developing a problem connecting to the Internet properly when I've closed it and moved it between locations and Internet connections. I could not get connected on campus at all Thursday, and then it was just as problematic when I got home, though turning it on and off seemed to fix that. Now, on the train, I initially had the same problem and couldn't tell if that was the train connection being crappy or a problem with the laptop's wifi. I'm starting to hit the panic button and think I need to run out and replace the stupid thing, yet there's not a lot on the market that appeals to me now...

The one semi appealing laptop is $500. I could probably get help from my parents with it as I really can't function in school or socially without one, but, ugh. There are also a few concerts coming up that I want to go to (Belle and Sebastian, whom I've been wanting to check out, are playing the home town and the college town in July and I may have a friend going - although the tickets to both events are a bit pricey for the "wanting to check them out" stage) and some clothes/jewelry that I either need for events or just really want. Blah. I'm lucky I'm not particularly broke but still feel concerned about all these possible costs coming up...

And, sweet! The train is almost in the home town....

PS: Also, first ever presentation at an academic conference was yesterday and went really well. My supervisor was nice enough to miss half her morning class to come see me; she said I was poised, succinct and confident and just generally good, and I felt that my presentation (a five minute synopsis of my research) was among the best prepared of the many presenters discussing their grad work. Also, I had a killer outfit. Good times - except that I presented in the morning and had to get up at 6:30 to get dressed and ready and there on time, yeech.

1) Had some real winner dreams this week. In addition to the back to high school one I mentioned a few days ago, I also had one in which I was on another cruise (took one with the boyfriend and his family over the holidays), this time with a water skiing tabby cat mascot on board; in another dream, I was time traveling and got to meet Kurt Cobain a la the Marc Bolan "drive carefully, 'specially in Minis" scene in 1.04 of Life on Mars.

2) Have been staying in the home town since Wednesday afternoon, when it was the boyfriend's birthday - which gave me an opportunity to meet up with an old friend today. Now I am usually a terrible hermit; however, I've been feeling kinda lonely lately which finally caused me to realize just how important keeping in touch is. We met up and went tea bar hopping and window shopping, caught up on school/life/nerdly interests, etc. I must do this more often.

We also touched on both of our respective recent trips to Boston, and I got to use my quip about the T's experimental rock-style distortion that always reminds me of the Velvet Underground - especially the Green Line, and especially Boylston. I swear, someday I will use that line and someone I am with will actually get the reference(s).

Also also - we ducked into Urban Outfitters just to kill time, and the background music in the store immediately started playing 'my' song, i.e., Bowie's Life on Mars. Such an awesome moment. So perfect.

3) Ugh, I spent much of October through December trying to avoid writing a fan fic story that I feared would be pure pointless depressing-ness and angst. Naturally, around my holiday in December I caved and wrote up a draft of that story. Now my imagination wants me to go even further and to develop an original story drawing elements from this fan fiction but changing names, setting, etc (basically Fifty Shades of Gray-style) - but go further and somehow make it even more depressing. Why, brain? Why?