i'll tickle your catastrophe

historically, my feelings on new year's have been meh. i've had one really great one, a 2-3 pretty good ones, and the rest were useless. then i got this job, and this time of year became full-on cursed. my first year i had the flu, for the only time in my estimation, and i was finally starting to recover when my supervisor texted to tell me the client i'd been working closest with passed away on nye. second year i found a client i cared about very deeply dying in their apartment and i spent the holiday drunk and crying on my cat. year three i was twitching the entire time and a news alert made me think another client died. they didn't, and i realized once i saw the photos (including a group shot which my client was IN, and they shared the same first name), but i was triggered as fuck.

so it's year four. i'm going to DC. i'll visit the smithsonians i haven't gone to yet and eat at least twice at my favorite breakfast place. fuck new year's.

OKAY DOES ANYONE REMEMBER WARRIOR THAT MOVIE WHERE TOM HARDY WAS SWOLE. there was family angst and men crying. it was a lot to deal with. i struggled to cope.

Summary: Paddy Conlon died mostly unmourned, but not quite.
Notes: This started as a fluffyish piece about Tommy babysitting Emily, but then I just kept wondering how he'd even get to that point, what it would take for him to be a full member of the family, and it basically turned into Tommy's quasi-epistolary episode of "Behind The Music".


Brendan hadn't had the slightest clue what to expect in terms of mourners, but there were a decent number. A few cronies from the VFW. Paddy's old foreman from the mill and a couple of co-workers. Several relatives from scattered corners of the US, like second cousin Claire, who sent matching outfits and a book for the girls every Christmas. Some were complete strangers to him. Presumably a portion of them came from Paddy's AA group, but of course no one volunteered the information, and he didn't ask.

Almost everyone inquired after Tommy. Understandable, really. Brendan had decided his script earlier in the day. Tommy was busy, end of story. Only a few people asked him to elaborate and he threw them off fairly easily.

As a veteran, Paddy had been entitled to the whole nine. The report from the twenty-one gun salute stayed in Brendan's ears for a very long time. Upon returning to Philadelphia, the folded flag turned into this ten thousand pound weight in his closet. He didn't want it there. At the same time, the idea of throwing it in the trash felt wrong on a visceral level.

Tommy would have found something to do with it, something respectful and fitting, but Tommy wasn't there. Tommy was never there.

( Read more... )

the doc is called birthday, so i probably started this as a gift for someone.

-

Sometimes, like when she's letting her brother Cass go on about his cello and how much happier he is now that he's made the permanent switch from violin, she thinks, 'I booted a man off of a skyscraper.'

Or when Françoise gets into a nationalist rage about all the English being spoken around her and lays out the argument that French should be the official language of their suite.

"I lived in Quebec all through high school," Ariadne says, in French, of course. "This is not a big deal for me. Whatever you want, Françoise."

To herself, she says, idly, 'I created breathing worlds out of brainwaves and sedation.'

( Read more... )

a list of positive changes i've been able to make over the last few years

clean the litterbox more regularly
a wardrobe i'm relatively happy with
learned how to cook with vegetables!
read more books
seen more new things (places, exhibits, cons)
therapy, tho i'm still not 100% sold on it
a job i love

I AM CAPABLE OF DOING THINGS TO BETTER MYSELF AND MY LIFE!

you know, there are some Rated E fics, even pwps, that i can still thoroughly enjoy despite being really comprehensively sex-averse. sometimes i like reading the set-up then the last few paragraphs where they cuddle and think about how much they luuuurve each other, or for longer fics the interactions and feelings in-between my furious scrolling past are more than enough story for me. but then there's fics that, i don't even know how to describe it. it's like their libido never turns off? i'm not sure how to differentiate that from fics where they're boffing like bunnies in every other scene or constantly thinking of each other's assets lol, but it's like sex is not just in the back of their minds but fully in the room every moment even when they're not having sex? like i said i'm describing it poorly but it makes me deeply uncomfortable.

i have a weird relationship with this is us. i started watching because they had an out bisexual character played by ron cephas jones. as an older black man with warmth and empathy, william defied basically all the stereotypes about bisexuals in media, and even though he did die, he remained an important part of this very flashback-friendly format, often played by jermel nakia (also wonderful) as a younger man. his sexuality had very little to do with his story and was only explicitly relevant in like three episodes where his boyfriend was featured in some way. yet no matter what they did with him as time went on, he was explicitly, incontrovertibly bi and i never forgot that.

so through a deep and abiding love for william hill, i developed a habit of bingeing this infuriating fucking show roughly every second or third time i visited my sister (she's the one with the DVR). if you haven't watched it yet, don't. you'll get sucked in and. it's. i'm not even sure how to put it into words. contrived is not strong enough. cloying doesn't do it. emotionally manipulative is close, but doesn't quite get there.

one thing i cannot abide, that sets my teeth on edge, is how performative everyone's everything has to be almost all the time. kevin (possibly my least favorite character in all of existence) can't just sit with his ex-wife at the diner they used to love; he has to ask this entirely too accommodating couple to move because they're sitting in the booth where he and his ex used to sit. kate can't just snap at someone about her miscarriage in private; she has to be at a party in front of a table of presumed friends. the triplets and their mom can't just be quietly grieving for their dad, jack, who died the winter of their senior year; the loved ones who aren't from the immediate clan have to declare them survivors of a uniquely tragic experience. never mind that beth, the sister-in-law, lost her dad at the exact same point in her life and she has literally never said a word about it. ever!

it's just really annoying and i hate how this saccharine garbage is strewn amongst gems of genuine emotion and real insight into the human condition. griffin dunne's performance as a mentally ill addict was incredible. the show is like jello that's so sweet it's off-putting, but mixed in there are these black cherries or whatnot that taste perfect.

anyway i started this draft months ago. say hi to hammerhead. doesn't she look amazing? maybe i'll post about what i love and don't love about doom patrol next.

worst part about my writing taking an average of an entire calendar year to produce anything postable is how often i see fics with similar insights or observations that i know i may eventually be assumed to have copied. i'm already on the lookout for unconscious homages since i've seen a bunch of people make complaints about fandom in general. but in these specific cases, i couldn't have copied because my version was already in the iphone note.

Working in Times Square and knowing several ways to get cheap theater tickets paid off numerous times in 2018!

~february~


Cardinal
watched with A, during one of her lucky (for me) stops to NYC, which made it amusing that the cast included actors who played two minor characters from Elementary, Pam the snowplow savior and Oren Watson. Had some good points, but the tone was inconsistent, like they couldn't decide if they wanted to be a dramedy with social commentary or a straightup drama and their portrayal of race and disability was kind of baffling.


The Laramie Project Cycle
I've seen the HBO Laramie Project multiple times. This included the group returning to Laramie a number of years later. It was a sad testament to how much society actively resists meaningful, positive change.

~march~


Lady Windemere's Fan
Pretty much the best thing I did in London. Not only was the cast spectacular, but the story felt so unexpectedly empowering. I should read more Oscar Wilde.

~april~


The Stone Witch
Very good cast, but the story was uglier than I prefer my fiction to be.


Unexpected Joy
A multi-generational story about love and acceptance with some lesbian and bi themes. Fantastic music, wonderfully talented cast. Shame because the plot was contrived and they tried too hard for a kumbaya ending.

~june~


Desperate Measures
This was a musical, AU (wild west) version of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, which I never saw. I am a fuckin sucker for a Shakespearean comedy. The songs were extremely catchy, the cast really knew what they were doing, and honestly I'd absolutely watch again. Such a fun experience.


The Marvelous Wonderettes
I left during intermission, but that was more the fault of being sore and stressed from having gotten my first tattoo right before getting to the theater. The cast was incredibly entertaining for what was essentially a 50s-60s musical revue with a slight hint of plot. I plan to go back and finish if I can find more cheap seats available.

~october~


Bernhardt/Hamlet
Janet McTeer's portrayal of Sarah Bernhardt playing Hamlet is So charismatic and she gives Zero fucks and I cannot get over the AUDACITY of the man using her as a sidepiece. He claimed he was so inspired by her everything that he wrote Cyrano de Bergerac about men being laid low by the perfect woman, yet the woman was an object. What a chode.


The Waverly Gallery
Again, really really great cast. Extremely relatable subject matter, as I also have a family member with progressive cognitive issues. But holy shit the writer had no distance from this whatsoever and the message ultimately translated to "Sick old people should die before they destroy all their loved ones merely by existing." What the fuck.

~november~


Torch Song
Michael Urie was a revelation, especially with Mercedes Ruehl as his mom.

today is the 7 year anniversary of my first post on this site, in which i said "test!" and nothing else. i posted one more time, two years later and i'm curious as to why i did that

test!