this is where i, miss emily, ramble on about anything and everything in real life or out of it. i do post pretty often about real life stuff, but i also write a lot about books, movies and other fannish delights. a fair amount of my posts are filtered, though, so if you don't want to see the geeking, let me know and i'll keep you off the filters. i'm politically liberal (a commie homo-loving son of a gun, if you will) and otherwise extremely open minded, so if that's not for you, then seek elsewhere for entertainment, and no hard feelings. if you're looking for my graphics, they're over at sinistrata. feel free to friend, just drop me a comment in a recent entry so i know who you are when i friend you back!
<3

as of yesterday i have been single and free for one year. free; it sounds melodramatic, i guess, but i've never stopped feeling that's the best word to use. a year of being actually myself, of breathing easy, of not second-guessing or doubting everything i thought, said and did. feels like freedom to me.

i owe you big, flist. i haven't been around a whole lot, i know, but i've been getting my shit together and a lot of you are part of the reason why i had the courage to get away in the first place. so thanks for that; i really needed it. :"}

i've finally figured out what it is about jack nicholson that freaks me out so badly-- one of the main things aside from the crazy-eyed intensity, that is. it's his diction-- he has such precise diction and he speaks so clearly and correctly, it can come across as really, really eerie. and then when he uses certain casual words ("don'tcha" comes to mind cus he just said it on the tv) it's so super creepy, it's like he's *trying* to be casual in a way that's unnatural to him.

this came up b/c i'm watching kubrick's version of 'the shining' for the first time; i've always avoided it because of how creepy i find nicholson, but i guess now i was ready for it cus i'm really enjoying it. it's shot really brilliantly and while nicholson's really not who i think stephen king was picturing when he wrote jack torrence, i think he's playing the character well. i do still prefer the miniseries, because it's more faithful to the book, but this is enjoyable. :) though oh my god, all that nails-on-the-chalkboard screeching music is giving me a headache, lol.

i had pondered writing a post about coming out day, but then i read a bunch of posts that said everything better than i could have. for your consideration :

+ "fear, loathing and 'coming out'" by azurelunatic
+ elorie discusses the sexuality quiz show.
+ a lot of you have probably seen the heterosexuality questionnaire, but it's worth reading again, i think.
+ pondering the 'unified theory of gay' by thingswithwings at dreamwidth.

another friend had a really interesting post, but it's flocked, sadly. but she made what is, i think, the best point so far which is that we often don't think of ourselves as being on the front lines of any kind of equality struggle, but we are. we have to do the hard work of coming out now because unless we do, there likely won't ever *be* a world in which no one assumes anything about anyone's sexuality, a world in which there's no need to qualify "i like girls" any more than there is need to qualify "i like brunettes" now. my friend also linked this youtube vid in which a guy who makes greeting cards shows off some coming out cards, and at the end thanks the gay friends he had in school for showing him that gay people were real people too. that's why we have to do it (to paraphrase my friend) to build a world where people know we exist.

i've also been having really, really, really messed up dreams lately. not nightmares, just like, dreams containing people i haven't seen or thought of in years, really random and sometimes disturbing (in a where-the-fuck-did-that-come-from way) situations, and just a lot of stuff that leaves me waking up going "what the everloving fuck, yo?" i woke up this morning from one such and it kind of put a weird spin on the whole morning. sigh.

but i just cleaned and organized my room and vacuumed, which always makes me happy. i'd love to know what the gene is that codes people to take comfort from cleaning, b/c it definitely runs in my family, and it's very strange. rearranging furniture, too, i get such a kick out of that.

it's time for lunch. ♥

i am now officially an employee of LUSH, motherfuckers. hello, real job. hello, fifty percent discount. and yes, i do take bribes. :"D :"D :"D

the other best thing that's happened to me in the past few weeks was mainlining season two thru the current episode of supernatural. i watched season 3 in a DAY last week, lol, i'm caught up in time for tonight's ep and i cannot even talk about how fucking pumped i am about it. i love this show more than i did back when i was marathoning season one, and that's saying quite a bit given that sekala and i sat down and pretty much did the entire season in a week. i can't wait til i have money to buy the other seasons-- this is definitely a show i want to own all of. idk, i'd been spoiled for a bunch of what happens later on and i was still completely into it. castiel is one of the best additions to the show i could've imagined, i love the way he plays off both the winchesters and cannot wait to see more.

( musings on flash forward, cut for spoilers )

the next show i introduce myself to is probably going to be big bang theory. i have the first bunch of episodes DL'd and have been told repeatedly that i need to watch it, so, yeah watch out for that. :"D

that's it for now really, just still riding the high from the job thing and freaking out about spn in half an hour. for more fannish-type updates you can always check betweenthebliss, though there's not much there at the moemnt besides tweaking about the giant-ass fic i'm turning in two weeks from today (oh holy god) lol.

<3

this is definitely the black death. or something. i'm miserable. except i'm thrilled because not only did i get a second interview with lush but this is my last day at the terrible horrible no good very bad placement full of conservative homophobes. HOO FUCKING RAAAAAAAAAAY. so, okay, money might suck a little for a few weeks, but i did get all my bills for september scheduled and paid, and i don't have any plans to travel for a few weeks which is insanely lucky. so i can just kind of lay low for a while. which, NGL, will be really nice. i've been killing myself at this place for months and could use some time to refocus myself and figure out like, the loan business, and how i'm going to go forward with a job search. tonight i'll check postings at colleges and stuff, and maybe the providence journal job postings too. an application to best buy and borders are also in my future-- something that can transfer when i move.

in any case, i'm optimistic. i feel awesome right now (emotionally, lol). now to finish out this day and go home and celebrate. \o/ and WRITE, oh my god. :"D

First fight. Then fiddle. Ply the slipping string
With feathery sorcery; muzzle the note
With hurting love; the music that they wrote
Bewitch, bewilder. Qualify to sing
Threadwise. Devise no salt, no hempen thing
For the dear instrument to bear. Devote
The bow to silks and honey. Be remote
A while from malice and from murdering.
But first to arms, to armor. Carry hate
In front of you and harmony behind.
Be deaf to music and to beauty blind.
Win war. Rise bloody, maybe not too late
For having first to civilize a space
Wherein to play your violin with grace.

–Gwendolyn Brooks, 1949

this poem showed up on my AP english exam in the spring of 2001. i loved it so much i sat there after i'd written my essay and committed it to memory so i could write it down later. (yeah, i'm kind of like rain man sometimes, not the point, lol). i wrote it out that night in my journal and would go back to it fairly often. it moved me; i was continuously struck by the quiet fierceness in it.

september 11 happened during my first week of classes at mount holyoke. i said this on twitter this morning, i'll say it more expansively here. my mom has often said she will never forget exactly where she was when she'd heard JFK had been killed-- i know for the rest of my life i will have a vivid memory of standing in the kitchen of my dorm, dressed for dish duty, listening to an old mix tape on the little radio when the cook ran in frantic. "turn on the radio," she said, "a plane just flew into the world trade center." i don't think of this every day, or even every week. but writing it right now i'm choked up, actually close to tears.

i didn't cry that day, or at least i don't remember doing so. i was too scared. i have family that lives and works in the city. my uncle got out of the second tower fifteen minutes before he collapsed. i found out later he'd called my aunt from inside, while he was stuck in a stairwell with hundreds of other people trying to get out. he said he might not be coming home. i can't imagine what it must have been like to get that phone call-- i heard him tell the story months later, i hadn't even known it was that close until then. i don't think he wanted us to know. my roommate also was from long island, her best friend was at MHC as well. the three of us spent the entire day switching off on my roommate's computer (neither of the other 2 of us had our comps yet) signing into aim, IMing family, asking if there was news. there wasn't any, not until later at night. we crowded into the dorm common room to watch the tv; i'll never forget the clips they showed on repeat, the plane flying into the first tower, the first tower collapsing, then the second. when we left the tv and went back to our rooms we had the radio on from time to time, but after a while it was too hard to listen and not see, too hard to see and not know.

it was that, i think, that hit me hardest. the not knowing-- beyond the simple desperation to know if our families were alive, we-- all of us, everyone i spoke to, from my mother to my roommate to the cook-- were full of anger, burning to know who had done this to us, and more importantly, why.

we have answers to those questions now. i don't know if i'll ever shake the feelings of doubt, guilt and frustration they left me with. it's been eight years and i still get angry-- not only at the people who enacted this horrible vengeance and forced us all to pay the price for america's perceived wrongs-- but at the knowledge that those wrongs are not entirely imagined, that we are, in many ways, the self-entitled greedy careless nation that extremists believe us to be. that we could be doing better. and we're trying-- i'll give us that. we're definitely working at it. but i get even angrier at the knowledge that this attack only strengthened the resolve of so many people to see america put its foot down and say this is what we are and we're never going to change. i'm against war on principle. but even if i weren't, i don't think the past seven years of bloodshed were the right response to what happened on 9/11. i actually can't think of any situation where the past seven years would be an appropriate response. brooks's sonnet is about fighting for peace, sure, but it's about finding your *own* civilized space, kicking ass so you can do what you love and live without fear. it's not about starting a war because you're furious that someone kicked sand in your face, and it's definitely not about staying in a war you can't win and shouldn't even be waging in the first place.

in december of 2002 i sat in the movie theater across the street from mount holyoke at midnight to see the opening of 'the two towers'. i don't think i was the only one in the theater who had a different set of towers on her mind. i remember being struck right through the heart near the end of the movie when theoden turns to aragorn and helplessly asks, "what can men do against such reckless hate?" i still don't know. i don't know what to do, and it scares me to admit that. i don't know what anyone can *do* that they shouldn't already be doing in the name of becoming more consicous and responsible citizens of the world.

i haven't yet read art spiegelman's book "in the shadow of no towers", but from the first time i heard the title it stuck with me. i didn't lose anyone on 9/11. i don't even know anyone except in passing who did. but i still feel that way sometimes, like i'm living in that empty space of doubt and dread and terror. it's not every day. but it's often enough that when the anniversary comes around i still find myself rocked with grief and asking some hard questions i still don't have answers to, and i don't know if i ever will.

if you lost someone on september 11th, or if you've lost someone in the war, or if you're just someone like me who experienced that day as a reminder of everything you stand to lose-- my heart goes out to you.

an actual update in the form of a list because that's about all my brain can handle right now. XD

+ been writing a lot, mostly fannish stuff but i'm getting in the habit of writing something just about every day, which is really a good habit to get into. even if it's just silly little drabbles, they're fun and it flexes my creativity muscles, which is never a bad thing.

+ have some really good plot going on TR that's making me insanely happy. especially the stuff with jon; it's been so, so, so long since i was genuinely jumping-out-of-my-seat excited about him, and i am SO fucking thrilled that i got my groove back (or his, lol). dropping edgar is going to suck, but it's the right decision. and fred, phedre and sandor are blissfully easy as always. phedre's going to get a weird EP next month, idk what it's going to be but i want to do something that's not just having her hang out in the compound or at the house. i am loving every single thread on fred's EP this month, and gilead homeplot has officially slain me with awesome.

+ making my friend's wedding dress is a stress bucket. i really love how it's coming out but i'm afraid she won't, idk, i know it's crazy since i'm following the design we agreed on, but fmeh. also time crunch; need to do a fitting this weekend and i'm not done tweaking some things yet... idk. i need to stop thinking about it, but that's difficult. >.>;;;

+ third appt w/my counselor this week. i really like her; it's a different kind of focus than i'm used to, everything relating back to thought processes and stuff, but i can tell it's really going to help me. plus it's nice to have someone to talk to. :3

+ i do not know what to get rinlage for her wedding. :E the registry is a dangerous place because not only do i want to get *her* one of everything, i want to get *me* one of everything. someone propose to me please, so i can have a party where people buy me stuff for my kitchen. XD

+ it's getting to be autumn, the season of birthdays (3 of my friends, me and my grandmother all w/in 6 weeks!) and leaves changing and halloween and everything i love best about living in new england. i'm so excited; i want to take a drive up to western MA in october sometime just to look at everything, because i know i'm really going to miss that. :3

that's it for now. i'm feeling really good about things, which is an awesome feeling to have, feeling like i'm mostly on top of my life and the things i'm not on top of, at least i'm getting there.

xoxo.

flist, lend me your memories, and/or your google-fu.

we got to talking about movies we'd loved in childhood and becky mentioned one where a kid got sucked into a vortex to another world through a greenhouse, wherein the flowers were actually people. she can't remember anything else about this movie, including the title, and it's driving her (and consequently the rest of us) totally insane. help, oh children of the eighties, if any of you can remember what this movie is. :"D

also vacation is fucking amazing. see sekala's lj for an update on what we've been doing. XD
<3

hallo flist,

i come to you bearing music requests. :D i'm looking for a bunch of songs that i don't have and would like not to have to buy from itunes if i don't have to. these would be the following : "seven nation army" by the white stripes, "that girl's a genius" by jet, "1901" by phoenix, "i know what i am" by band of skulls, "audience of one" by rise against, and "ghost town" by shiny toy guns.

i'll be happy to upload something, anything, for you in exchange; i don't have a list of all my music but if you give me a few track names or an idea of what you like i'll toss up a few things. :"D :"D

in other news, VACATION IS IN TWO DAYS. oh my god, i'm so excited it's like passed the point where it's real to me. in case you need a refresher, i'm going here, the appropriately named DRAGONWOOD CASTLE, with ardavana, halfdreams, linaeloisetook, sekala and usually9_15, for an entire fucking WEEK. while i'm there i'd like to read; you should all rec me a book now, one i can pick up at border's tomorrow and read while i'm sunning myself at my castle by the sea. (do you all want to stab me yet? ;D)

<3333333333
em

x-posted to both journals, sry if you see this twice!

goddammit this cold can fuck right off already. i have no energy for anything when i'm like this, and the fact that our router is making the internet only work in five-minute blocks with fifteen-minute blocks of no signal in between, is not aiding my motivation to stick around and tag.

saw half blood prince tonight. thoughts and squee later. i adored it, not that that should be a shock to anyone.

better post this before the internet cuts out again. sonofabitch.

wow, what a fucking weekend.

( epic post is epic... )

and then this morning i got up after roughly 4 hours of sleep, drove nelle and squot back to nelle's place, and got myself from boston to cumberland in an hour to be on time to work, LIKE A FUCKING BOSS. i left my leftovers so i have no lunch (bk ftw/ftl, you decide) and i'm pretty much going to be dead by the time 5pm hits, but whatever. this weekend was so necessary.

....actually you could really sum up this entire post in six words. i fucking love my second family.
goddam!

<3

.....oh yeah. today/tonight are for f'ing TAGGING, since i did, uh, NONE OF THAT while i was away. and reqs gotta get made, son.

THIS IS HOW I FEEL RIGHT NOW.



THAT IS ALL.


despite the fact i just found out that i don't work the week of june 29th b/c the plant is shutting down.... that's not so awesome, but i'll make it work. might be broke for the entirety of july, but nothing i haven't handled before. :3 :3 :3

it figures, i haven't posted in ages and the first thing i put up is a meme. but it's a good one!

Give me a character from any fandom, TV show, movie, book you know that I know I've written and I will tell you:

a. My favorite thing about that character.
b. My least favorite thing about that character.
c. One person I would ship them with in their own verse.
d. One crossover ship for them I think would be neat.
e. One crossover universe for them I think would be even neater.
f. Their ship from hell.
g. Their song.
h. The title of their biography or autobiography.
i. The last bad dream they had.
j. How they're gonna shuffle off the mortal coil, if they haven't already.

usual fandoms apply; check my icons/interests if you're unsure, or just give me choices. i'm going to be packing tonight for my Weekend of Awesome^(TM) so i'll need distractions-- also from the fact that my mother is currently sort of not speaking to me, or at least is very annoyed b/c apparently despite the fact that this trip has been planned since OH I DON'T KNOW, FEBRUARY, she missed the memo that i was going to be away from thursday night to monday night-- and now is doing that "you can afford to take time off work?" thing at me. yes mom, yes i can, because my job fucking loves me and i can handle it. ugh. i mean sure i don't have as much money as i'd like to for the weekend, but i have ENOUGH-- like, i might be broke at the end of it, but wtf-ever, i have scheduled all my bills for the next three weeks and i'm totally fine, so, whatever.

i'm currently reading the court of the air by stephen hunt and it is fucking OWNING me. gyah. oh steampunk, how do you manage to be so consistently awesome.

i got my hair cut short again for the first time in a year (holy crap, seriously, last time i had it cut short was june 27th last year) and i am SO FUCKING HAPPY ABOUT IT. it's funny that it was becky who convinced me i should cut it-- she said "i feel about your hair the way i feel about starbuck's-- when it's long, it looks great and really pretty and feminine, but then she cuts it off and you're just like BAM, YEAH." -- and that's a direct quote, lol. it makes me laugh a) because she clearly knows the easy way to flatter me, and b) the irony, given how obsessed she is with being "pretty" -- but i guess she also knows me well enough to know that that's not an adjective i've ever given a shit about having applied to me, so, there you go. XD i feel pretty fucking badass with the new 'do though (see icon, lmao).

sigh. okay. time to eat something, and then to pack. my list is *prodigious*. :"D

crossposted to dreamwidth.

this post is NOT solely for the purpose of using this icon. promise. >.>

it's actually just a random "whassup" post, and since i feel like half my brain has been drowning in star trek lately, the icon is actually pretty appropriate.

THINGS.

• the babiest kitty ever, aka pippin, had to go to the vet yesterday. he has this weird growth on his tail that started bleeding over the weekend (not good) also for the past several months every now and then he'll go a day w/o eating and then throw up everywhere and forget how to use the litter box. >.> distressing, but he never *acts* like he feels sick, so we've put off a vet visit, but he had to go b/c of the tail thing. long story short, it's a fatty tumor, benign, but if the meds they gave him don't shrink it they'll have to operate, which will involve amputating about half his tail. :/ :/ :/ meh. i hate pet worries. haven't had to deal w/this since my cat had fleas in fall of 07... hope the meds work.


• california, you fucking suck. can't really say more than that without this entire post becoming a rant about prop 8. i expected this to be the decision, but that doesn't lessen the disappointment any. thanks to halfdreams for the quotes she posted; they help, but like she said, though the destination of our long road is inevitable, it's hard to sit with now.


• this weekend was really nice. i slept and did fuck-all nothing for most of it; monday did an obscene amount of yard work and totally fucked up my body, as usual... i really am so excited i finally got off my ass and did my gym membership transfer, so now i can start working out again and not feel like i've been run over by a bus every time i physically exert myself.


• rice cakes with peanut butter make a good snack. om nom nom.


• as bsafemydeers said on twitter this morning-- how is it that i can sleep four hours and wake up perky as fuck, then the next night sleep seven hours and wake up feeling like death barely warmed over? what the shit, body, for serious. this is what i get for forgetting my "help you sleep" supplements before bed three nights running, i guess.....


• brain status : 30% trek, 30% tabula rasa, 30% worrying about jobs, 10% worrying about school. those last two things are firmly in the "do not talk about" category today; idk why but i can just tell panic is imminent. sooooo yeah-- brainless stuff FTW, probably just hanging around ontd_startrek and doing tr shit all day. and all night. yeah.

and that's your lot. leave a contribution in the little box.

ugh, i just got really anxious and depressed about this placement ending in 2 weeks. --well two and a half, but bleh, close enough. i've got to talk to the office boss today or tomorrow about this.... it's not like this is my dream job, but i really like it here, and they like me, and i can do the work-- i know what they want from me, you know? that was a big problem with honda, it was like, i know i'm doing a good job, but they had all these stupid rules and measures by which they determined if i was living up to their standards, and naturally the people who were actually good at the job weren't always the people who measured up to the standard. and god, after the bullshit that happened at northwestern, i'm so over jobs where the bosses won't be straightforward about what they need. >.>;;;;; and i'm just really tired of this, of always being the new kid in town, and the uncertainty is such a killer.

so keep your fingers crossed for me guys. i'm really hoping this will pull through.

on the plus side though, yesterday was an awesome day. like, i was really in a good mood all day long. i wrote, i made tonight's dinner ahead of time, i did some tr plotting -- minimal tagging, but that's what tonight's going to be for. so, hooray. hopefully i can shake this anxiety BS and get that mood back again, it was a really nice feeling. :}

just did an ickle friends cut, mostly if i couldn't remember the last time they'd commented on my entries or i had in theirs, and/or their journals had been inactive for ages. but as usual, if i defriended you and you wanna be refriended, just say the word. :)

i so cannot wait to get the fuck out of work. i hate that this job is just mindless enough for me to tweet and sometimes post random inane things, but definitely way too stressful for me to write or tag during work. bleh. but it's a job and i'm doing pretty well at it, if i do say so myself. gonna talk to the boss-man next week about possibility of permanent hiring.... despite horrible ignorant woman (who i haven't seen since last week, FTW) everyone else here is really nice, and like i said, i'm good at the job. i could do a hell of a lot worse.

but christ, has it been busy this week. and today i got my period AND had like, a double load of crap to take care of. the next half hour cannot pass fast enough. >.<;;;;;;;;;;;;


eta : i love my star trek mood theme!! :"} it's by wickedground and stormfronticons.... it is AWESOME. XD

okay in my glee apparently i and like 10 other people failed to notice that that story was a year old. what the fuck. i'm really sorry, should've read closer.....

damn, now my day sucks again. >.<;;;;;;;;;

just put up a post for drabble requests at betweenthebliss-- go over here to request things. and friend me while you're at it, if you like-- the journal's for fic and some ramblings about books. but mostly fic. cus i has ideas. >.>;;;;

it's chilly out, but i'm sitting on the porch w/the netbook and some blankets, writing. it's really good-- a good feeling. the past few weeks, really, are the first time in my whole life i've ever felt like anything approximating a real writer. which sounds conceited, i know, but whatever-- it's true. i've never actually felt like hey, it's not ludicrous for me to think i might actually finish something and try to get it published. ^^;;;

it's also taken me like the past three days to recover from the weekend. i spent probably a sum total of 4 hours of a three-day weekend with my father, and he managed to stress me out to the point i've had to have a glass of wine every night this week in order to fall asleep. -.-;;;;; so glad that stress is over-- and even more glad i don't have to do ANYTHING this weekend besides like, clean the house and maybe garden. \o/

okay-- time for dinner.

eta : also put up a handful of trek icons at sinistrata, for those who might be interested (olivia_circe, lookin' at you. ;))

so let me preface this by saying, i'm too young to have watched the original series of star trek when it was first airing. in fact, i'm young enough that i grew up in the heyday of the next generation-- for years it was the only TV we were ever allowed to watch during dinner, and one of the only shows i ever watched as a kid that aired later than 6pm. i've seen most TNG episodes several times, and while i haven't watched in a few years, i can still talk about the characters and some plot points with decent familiarity. i have seen a lot of TOS, but not enough to really be solid on the continuity of the story, or any of the characters. i know DS9 and voyager much better; far less well than TNG, but i was still (to my recollection, anyway) in middle school when they aired, so i remember watching new episodes as they came out.

the whole point of this is that while i absolutely 100% consider myself a trekkie, i am not at all able to say i *know* TOS well. i loved it, sure, and still do, whenever i happen to catch a rerun. but i'm not someone who is/was likely to be sitting in the theater this past weekend trembling with trepidation in case the movie didn't get canon /just right/. i wouldn't have known if they had or hadn't.

but what i do know is how trek-- all the shows, all the episodes-- makes me feel. why i like them-- no, love them so much, even with the camp and stereotypes and often issues with race and gender that make me cringe. because-- and this probably isn't a shock to anyone who knows me-- i'm weak like a weak, weak thing for strong characterization-- for characters who are real people, flawed and sometimes prejudiced and sometimes ignorant but real for all that. and so for me, trek has always been about the people i've come to love through the years. i feel about it the way i feel about LotR in some respects-- in a way that knows i could never possibly fathom the ways it's shaped my taste in books, movies, tv shows -- though i can tell you right now, i'd never have lost my shit over kara thrace if i hadn't also loved tasha yar to the depths of my ten-year-old soul.

okay, okay, coming to the point of this post. The Movie. i saw it on sunday and was completely fucking floored. there wasn't a moment of it that i didn't passionately adore. i'm not saying it was perfect-- far from it! but that's what made it star trek. for all the plot holes and miniskirts and cosmic coincidences, it was so utterly harmonious with every experience of the show i've ever had, that i couldn't not love it. it did exactly what JJ wanted it to do-- remind everyone that TOS is where it all began, and that it spawned such a huge franchise for a good fucking reason. IMO the movie didn't reboot TOS canon-- it gave it a paint job and put some high-grade oil in the engine, and set it loose on a flat stretch of highway. what's under the hood hasn't changed-- round, flawed, deep characters who are strong in personality and fierce in feeling, whose relationships with each other define them and make them better people.

i read somewhere the actors are in contract for a sequel. i cannot wait. there are few movies i can think of that i'll be more excited about in the coming years-- 'cause this is more than just fulfilling the pitter-patter of my geeky little heart. this is taking something that in a lot of ways helped define my childhood, and giving me a whole new score of reasons to love it as an adult. and i can't think of anything that makes me happier.

ps, i'm seeing it again tomorrow. XD

holy god. just came from the franz ferdinand show, and holy gooooooooooooooood. talk about blowing every other show i've ever seen out of the water-- and that includes tori amos and the indigo girls, both of which completely rocked my world. this show... there are just no words. they were *incredible*. the next time they tour i will be seeing them at least once (this was the last night of their US tour). robert is so fucking hot, and i mean that in the physically attractive way as well as the way where you're just like jesus christ, how can there be that much talent and awesome in one person's body? his energy alone was ridiculous, but coupled with his rock moves (playing the guitar *behind his back* ftw) and his smile and his VOICE, guh. and the rest of them are no slouch either, omg. i could watch them perform forever.

they played every song i wanted to hear, too. michael and you girls and jacqueline and darts of pleasure and (of course) matinee and do you want to and 40 feet-- the only one i would've liked to hear was eleanor, but i can imagine it's hard to fit that into a set list.

i couldn't stop smiling right now if i wanted to. :} best $25 i've ever, ever, ever spent.

[rinlage you should've been there... next time it's happening. <3333333333]

a long time ago i made an LJ purely for keeping track of my fiction. i have this habit when i'm bored of picking up the nearest available piece of paper and writing on it-- when i worked at faces or blockbuster or barnes & noble, those were pieces of receipt tape. in office jobs it'd be a piece of looseleaf or the back of a sheet from the recycling bin. and i can't tell you how many times i would come home and realize it wasn't in my pocket anymore, or worse, a few days later realize i'd put it through the wash. fucking infuriating.

anyway, the point is i've been writing parts of my book on that journal for a while now, and i'm surprised at how well it's working for me. it's a lot less daunting than a word document; when i'm ready to write, i just make a new post, and i don't have to worry about where it fits in with the rest of the story just yet, or the transitions, or any of that other stuff. i just write what is in my head to write, and edit it in comments later so i can see the evolution of what i wrote. it's really baffling me how easy it's making it for me to just get shit out on the "page"... like, i'd say my worst flaw in the technical aspects of writing is how much i hate to write badly.... which i know you have to, that's what editing is about, but if i get stuck on something it's really hard for me to put down a crappy description or some shitty dialogue just to get me through to the next part. but with this it's not as hard, both b/c i know i can just hit post and go to something else, and b/c i know i can edit it later-- and editing a three-page entry is a lot less daunting than editing a section of a 50 page manuscript.

idk, i guess this is just to say that i'm writing, like actually regularly writing something that comes from my own head, and that i like what it is that's coming out. it's been a long time since i could say that... any of it.

today is also six months since i moved out of the house on russell street. coincidence... fuck no.

♥ emily

i feel like i was just physically assaulted.

i'm a temp, and i'm working at a neat little textile company in northern rhode island, doing orders and customer service. most of the people i've met are really sweet, and while i'm fairly sure none of them are gay, i don't feel weird or awkward around them. i'm not about to come out, but i don't feel like i *have* to hide it (say, the way i did when i was working at a catholic college, yanno?). so where i'm sitting is this small office with just me and one other dude (ironically the only person in the office i think could possibly be gay) and it's not at all on the way to or from anything-- we don't get a lot of visitors, we just sit and chat and make phone calls and freak out about customers all day. it's brilliant.

so yesterday while i was the only one in here, this random woman came in and just, out of nowhere, started flapping her jaw about her daughter's first communion-- like talked my ear off for fifteen minutes when i gave absolutely NO indication that i was interested (because i was really busy, also b/c i think the idea of taking your seven-year-old to a hairdresser and a nail salon for her first communion is fucking ludicrous). now, people who can't take social cues make me nervous to begin with-- i have my own brand of social anxiety, and people who won't just leave me the fuck alone when i'm sending blatant DO NOT WANT vibes kind of scare me. i was hoping that would be a one-time encounter and that perhaps by the next time i saw her i'd be able to make a convenient getaway.

today she came into the office again and started chatting about her evening-- again, *totally out of the blue* as if we were picking up a conversation that had left off five minutes ago. and in the process of today's fifteen-minute monologue, this woman managed to casually insult gay people, black people, hispanic people, single parents, jewish people and muslims without even realizing she was doing it. like, "so-and-so her husband left her for a gay guy, tchahahaha," trying to share this conspiratorial chuckle with me, not at the expense of the poor woman whose husband is *GASP* a fag now, but at the sheer lunacy of gay men in general. and "so-and-so has kids from three different guys and isn't married to any of them! *pointed look of disapproval*" it just went on. by the time she left my heart was racing and i honestly felt like i was on the point of hyperventilating if she'd stuck around any longer.

the worst part was the assumption that i shared her views. she mentioned several times about how the foster child her sister is housing at the moment isn't baptized-- "that might be okay if you're, like, jewish, but YOU KNOW, dot dot dot"-- and seemed amazed when i didn't commisserate. i'm really glad i have more self-control than i did three or four years ago; twenty-one year old emily would've stood up and said "well you're talking to an agnostic pansexual who may be white but sure as hell isn't scared of getting swine flu from hispanic people, so maybe you should rant to someone else." and then she'd have gossiped, and i probly would've lost the placement.

it's been almost an hour, and i still feel jumpy, jittery, the way i do when i don't eat for hours. i'm finding it so hard not to hate her; i know she has absolutely no fucking clue what she just did to me, and that if i tried to explain it to her she would not understand. it's really not her fault, or at least i can understand why she's ignorant. she was raised a conservative catholic in rural rhode island, and she's lived here her whole life. she doesn't know how to be anything else. it's not her fault. but god damn, i am really having a hard time not judging the society that continues to churn out these ignorant-minded people with their heels stuck so hard in cement that they don't even want to realize there's another way to think of the world, let alone actually change their own views and biases. my best friend says she wants not to have to tell people she's gay the way straight people don't have to tell others they're straight; that there shouldn't be an assumption one way or another. i couldn't agree more. i just don't know what to do with myself when confronted with stuff like this-- i guess it's a byproduct of having lived for so many years in a place where you were the odd one out if you /were/ straight.... but i don't have the skills yet to find a kind way of telling people like that that their assumptions are leading them to speak in a way that is extremely hurtful to me... and i'm not secure enough not to be afraid of being judged, even if i did have the words to say it. at least not at work, i'm not... when something besides my job hangs in the balance, i could care less. but i've already lost one job i liked because of a bigoted uber-christian supervisor, and i really don't care to have it happen again.

as a corrollary, i really wish there were a way to explain to livejournal that this, this level of shock and assault, is how gay people feel every single time one of those fucked-up anti-gay NOM ads appears on a journal they're reading. it's not happened to me yet, but just knowing it's there makes me scared. that's not okay. lj used to be my safe space; with that shit out there, it feels like less of one. (for those who might not know what i'm talking about, read here and here. even if i weren't good friends with a trans guy, this would set me frothing at the mouth.)

ok.... time to look at lolcats or something to make myself feel better again.

♥
emily

once again, someecards has sent me into fits of giggling.

for anyone who knows rinlage, this doesn't need an explanation.




*still snickering*

one last little entry for today.

last weekend (not these past two days, but the weekend before that) i went back to mount holyoke for a reunion of my a cappella group. since youtube took down all the vids of the group, i know there's little i can say to convince y'all not to start calling me andy bernard... but trust me when i say this was not lame a cappella. this was balls-out rock-till-you-drop a cappella, just two dozen chicks, a tranny boy and music that rang to the fucking rafters. (....and sometimes there were also dance routines. what, don't judge me.) if you're on facebook, go to my profile and surf through to the M&C's group, or go to http://www.mtholyoke.edu/org/milkandcookies and check it out.

it's something almost impossible to explain unless you were part of it (or, like nickhornby, douxquemiel, rhealitycheck and many others, saw us perform) but it just kept occurring to me over and over and over again throughout the weekend how completely and utterly altered my life would be if i hadn't joined the group. aside from the fact that i literally don't know who or what i would be if i hadn't become friends with usually9_15 when i did... i don't know if i'd have realized i was gay when i did, or come out when i did, or been a part of a relationship that did and still does shape who i am as a person... all the traveling, the people i connected with, who knows how that would be? who knows who *i* would be? i have no idea. if not for this group i might be married to my highschool boyfriend and wondering why i was so miserable. who the fuck knows?

it was the 20th anniversary of the group's founding; that's why we were all there. after we saw the current group perform on saturday night (during which i was reduced to a blubbering mess no less than three times, natch) i was outside smoking with caitlin and ryan and liz, and i had this epiphany, and i blurted out, "this is the most important thing i've done with my life so far." which may sound lame, but honestly, it's so fucking true. now as an alum i look back and still proudly say i was part of something that spans 20 years and now will go on for god knows how many more, and it will always be something i'll be proud to talk about. and the thing this weekend showed me is that i am still part of it, and i always will be.

this is so sappy, but i just had to write about it. especially with the advent of warm weather and everything i'm looking forward to about the summer... when i was on campus i spent part of the time really nostalgic and sad; my life was much simpler when i was at mhc, not only for the obvious reasons but because i was still such an optimist about my life. these past four years (especially the last two, oy) have really drained a lot of my drive and faith in myself, and i didn't even realize it until i was back there. but instead of making me more depressed it made me want to get it back, to get ME back. it was a decision i didn't even realize i was waiting to make until i made it.

so that's where i'm at... finally starting to feel like myself again, like the version of myself that i wanted and still want to be. so thanks, mount holyoke, you did it again. ;)

it's really nice that it's warm enough to need the fan on right now. i know it's silly and kind of wanky to be like OOH SYMBOLOGY, but seriously, this autumn and winter felt so long and were such an emotional desert for me, i almost forgot what it's like for it to be summer. i was actually pretty happy for most of last summer, and the way i'm feeling right now, warm and exhausted after a day of gardening, it's just really a good feeling.

also, i haven't been doing a lot of LJ updating, been on twitter more often-- not that there's much of anything of content on my twitter page, but if you feel like friending, go ahead. :)

♥