a fool's musings

Boreas by Waterhouse
Fool, said my muse to me,
look in thy heart and write...

Warning: Adult Content

achromatic

unfinished fic graveyard

recs journal

new stuff

recent stuff

my back pages
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
May 2003
April 2003
March 2003
February 2003
January 2003
December 2002
November 2002
October 2002
September 2002
August 2002
July 2002
June 2002
May 2002
April 2002
March 2002
February 2002
January 2002
December 2001
November 2001


the five Ws, or, all about me

profile

e-mail victoria

my livejournal

the original P&R

comments

current mood: current mood

"pathological and unbalanced"

Items of Interest

    Music
  • Walk On - U2
  • Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen
  • If I Can't Change Your Mind - Sugar
  • Sick of Myself - Matthew Sweet
  • Town Called Malice - The Jam
  • One - U2
  • The Space Between - DMB
    Books
  • Lord of the Rings
  • Catch-22
  • The Neely Trilogy
  • Absalom! Absalom!
  • Possession: A Romance
  • Foucault's Pendulum
  • Dreamhouse
  • LA Confidential
  • I Capture the Castle
  • Sandman
  • Waking the Moon

    Shows
  • Angel

    •
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer (in reruns)

    •
  • Alias

    •
  • West Wing

    •
  • The Simpsons

    •

webrings
< ? fanfiction ! >
< ? writers ! >

diaryreviews.diaryland.com

NYC Bloggers

Comments by Haloscan.com

all links, if I haven't screwed up somehow, should open in a new browser window

08.17.03 - 2:28 p.m.

EJ's and ES

Just got back from a very satisfying brunch with Leslie at EJ's. I don't know why we didn't just go to the diner 'round the corner, which has fabulous pancakes, but we go to EJ's. I think we'll try Annie's next time, though. It seemed less crowded when we walked by.

I regaled her with tales of my uncool high school days, and my cool-by-association college days. And of course, tales of ES, the most evil professor ever to teach comparative lit.

Have I told this story? We used to sit in the back of the classroom during film class and rate her zingers at the expense of other people in the class. She had no qualms about saying, "No. You're wrong." when you gave the wrong answer, with no mitigating, "Nice try," or "Almost there." Just, "No." and she moved onto the next person. If you got out without her insulting you at least once, you were lucky.

That's not why we think she's the devil incarnate, though (and we mean it in the most affectionate way).

We joke about the trail of exsanguinated cows left in her wake as she traveled across Europe on her vacation.

Ah, sometimes I miss college...

~victoria



link

[current mood: full]
[current music: alive - pearl jam]
[random quote: is something wrong? she said of course there is. you're still alive she said. do I deserve to be? is that the quest]

~*~

08.15.03 - 9:56 p.m.

I've got the power

I have power. This makes me happy. After 26 hours without, I was ready to come back into the 21st century.

I really have nothing else to say. I just... meh. I'm all talked out about it. I posted about it over in the LJ for those who are interested.

~victoria



link

[current mood: headachy]
[current music: the hum of electricity]
[random quote: “She holds the hand that holds her down / She will rise above…” – “Daughter” – Pearl Jam]

~*~

08.14.03 - 3:41 p.m.

I'm just a bundle of 'want to get out of here'

So the owls have begun flying fast and furious:

Remus to Lily, Remus to Sirius, then Sirius to Remus and Sirius to James. And then Lily to Remus and Lily to James.

I think Pru is going to make a page for all of them, though I have no doubt I will end up with the whole thing on my site when it's done.

::eyes Unspoken RR and SV-GTKY balefully::

Meanwhile, I continue to scribble notes about the Sirius-in-Sunnydale fic and try to work out just how he remembers his name so I don't have to be clever about it. I also want to work on the damned HP-Forever fic, which I started, but have gotten sidetracked by the most difficult blowjob I've ever written. I don't know why I'm have trouble with it, but I am. Stupid boys.

Also, I've killed Ron off again. I am eventually going to have to write a big Ron-centric epic where he gets to be cooler than god to make up for the way I kill him off so Hermione can shag other men.

I'm taking tomorrow off to go to the beach with the fam - well, Marg and Dom and Mary Ellen and all the kidlets - and I'm just impatient for this day to be over so I can go.

I keep getting distracted - from writing fic, from writing this entry... forget any work I'm supposed to be doing. I'm just a bundle of 'want to get out of here.'

Sigh.

~victoria



link

[current mood: distracted]
[current music: stuck in the middle with you - stealer's wheels]
[random quote: \"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia.\" Charles Schultz]

~*~

08.13.03 - 11:59 p.m.

making my ego work for me

I had big plans for this evening, yes indeedy. I was going to answer a bunch of email, send some long-overdue feedback, code, write and generally be a productive little fangirl.

Instead, I fell asleep, woke at 7:51pm, thinking it was 7:51am and freaking out that I'd slept for 12 hours and with my lenses in. The light was that odd, cloudy grey half-light where you can't tell if it's morning or evening.

I was a little freaked.

I did manage to code and upload both Philanthropy, my hp100 drabble, and Reasonable Men, an Order of the Phoenix missing scene featuring Snape and Lupin.

I keep thinking I'm going to have the razor fic finished shortly, but there are a couple things wrong with that, like me not actually sitting and writing it.

Meanwhile, I have somehow been convinced (Pru is very convincing) to write the role of Sirius Black in a sort of Round Robin epistolary fic.

Pru was quite flattering about why I should be Sirius, but I think it comes down to my natural Cordelia-esque qualities of self-absorption, snark and meanness. We'll see what I can contribute. *g*

~victoria



link

[current mood: amused]
[current music: free agent - the no-nos]
[random quote: your love is a black, black hole, sucking out all my energy]

~*~

08.12.03 - 10:02 p.m.

one's attachment to a man depends largely on the elegance of his leave-taking.

I'm downloading like 98,000 Windows patches and updates since that stupid virus thingy happened, and even though they say WindowsME isn't affected, who knows? They say that because Microsoft no longer supports ME (bastards!), so there *could* be a problem and I wouldn't be safe. Except for my trusty firewall and Norton Antivirus software.

*hugs Dad for insisting on safety measures, even online*

Woo! 4 minutes remaining for the download.

I finished My Year of Meats tonight. Good book, if disturbing to my meat-loving stomach.

And I really liked this passage, which is a translation taken from The Pillow Book of Shonagon:

Hateful Things

A good lover will behave as elegantly at dawn as at any other time. He drags himself out of bed with a look of dismay on his face. His lady urges him on: "Come, my friend, it's getting light. You don't want anyone to find you here." He gives a deep sigh, as if to say that the night has not been nearly long enough and that it is agony to leave. Once up, he does not instantly pull on his trousers. Instead he comes to the lady and whispers whatever was left unsaid during the night. Even when he is dressed, he still lingers, vaguely pretending to be fastening his sash.

Presently he raises the lattice, and the two loves stand together by the side door while he tells her how he dreads the coming day, which will keep them apart; then he slips away. The lady watches him go, and this moment of parting will remain among her most charming memories.

Indeed, one's attachment to a man depends largely on the elegance of his leave-taking. When he jumps out of bed, scurries about the room, tightly fastens his trouser-sash, rolls up the sleeves of his Court cloak, over-robe, or hunting costume, stuffs his belongings into the breast of his robe and then briskly secures the outer sash--one really begins to hate him.

I love that - especially the last sentence of the second paragraph and the first sentence of the third.

Woo! 85% installed. I better go, in case it wants to reboot when it's done. *g*

~victoria



link

[current mood: downloady]
[current music: silence]
[random quote: she loves him she don't want to leave this way she needs him that's why she'll be back again]

~*~

08.12.03 - 12:31 p.m.

blurgh

I feel fat and disgusting, and this humid weather isn't helping. My skin is like really greasy pizza, the kind where you have to use two or three napkins to soak up the olive oil to make it edible, and I *like* oil on my pizza.

I'm talking Jon Seda greazy (sic), so you know it's not a good thing.

I'm also feeling disturbed and queasy as I read My Year of Meats.

I like meat. I am an unapologetic carnivore.

But god, the crap they put into the meat... it nauseates me to read about it. This is why I never read Fast Food Nation, though my intake of fastfood has been severely curtailed by the whole "No McDonald's/BK/White Castle/Wendy's" thing I've been doing for almost two years. Pizza is the fastfood I eat most, and it's much healthier, simply because it's got all four foodgroups in one spot - well, no, I don't eat meat on my pizza, so it's only got three - grains, fruits and dairy. And grease, but I think that's only a personal food group necessity.

Anyhow.

Short Sirius/Remus snippet up in the LJ - I hope to have it finished soon.

Also, the clock on my PC here at work is running about 4 minutes slow. What's up with *that*?

~victoria



link

[current mood: blurgh]
[current music: the logical song - supertramp]
[random quote: \"I hate the living.\" -- Dr. Weaver, Men in Black]

~*~

08.11.03 - 4:04 p.m.

we interrupt these musings on vic's biological clock to bring you linkage!

You know I was griping yesterday about Marg not letting me have Alyssa for the day, and that, coupled with having Tricia attached to my hip like glue for the whole week of vacation has made think.

And I think part of why I want so badly for Alyssa to come spend a day is because I'm starting to realize that I probably will never pop out a kid. And I want one. Or, rather, I want the fun of one without the massive responsibilities. So nieces and nephews are *perfect*.

Like, I can get away with telling Alyssa that high school sucks and everyone hates it, so not to feel bad if she does too (she's just going into 8th grade, so she's still got a year to go), and that college is much more fun.

I can get away with telling her to act as if the rules don't apply to her, because then they won't (and I know this from personal experience. If you are smart enough in school, byt which I mean you get good grades and the teachers like you, you can get away with almost anything. Trust me.). It is better to beg forgiveness than ask permission and other such cliches that would horrify her mother and father (though given his proclivities for troublemaking, not surprise him at all).

Aaannnddd... just got interrupted by irate customer and then a search for a missing UPS invoice.

So my train of thought is shot.

Links to stuff in the LJ instead:

First, there was much West Wing gushing, then there was a missing scene OotP ficlet: Reasonable Men, featuring Snape and Lupin (though not, thank the lord, any Snupin. Hee! Snupin. That amuses me.) and then this morning, it was OTP again.

~victoria



link

[current mood: distracted]
[current music: Eleanor Rigby - the Beatles]
[random quote: all the lonely people, where do they all come from. all the lonely people, where do they all belong?]

~*~

08.10.03 - 5:59 p.m.

LJ v. Diary

I feel terribly neglectful of this diary, I really do. I mean, pound for pound, this diary is more than my favorite - I really really love diaryland, I love the ease with which I can update, the way the servers are hardly ever down, the way I can make the diary look *exactly* the way I want it to, without wading through pages and pages of unreadable, nonsensical special code.

But I use my LJ more and more and this diary less and less.

And I think it can be broken down into three things: comments, friends list, icons.

Having the comments right *there* and having them threaded, and getting *notified* of responses - even from other people's journals - *that's* key. That makes LJ more like Usenet, and I will freely admit that I miss Usenet. I cut my teeth in fandom on Usenet, even though it was allegedly "in decline" and in its latter days, and I have a fondness for it that I've never had for mailing lists. I think it's the untrammelled, unmoderated part of Usenet that I liked, which is similar to LJ - I make my own LJ experience, I have control, much like I had control of my Usenet experience - I could filter people out, I could highlight people I wanted to read, I could mark whole long threads 'read' or 'ignore,' whereas with a mailing list, when you're getting the mail, it's pretty much not threaded (don't even talk to me about the hassle of the Yahoo Groups archive site) and god only knows how much email comes to your inbox that's completely inane OT chatter or stuff you're (meaning I'm) not interested in at all. And yes, that's fine if you're on two lists, but when, like me at the height of my mailing list membership, are subbed to 30-40 lists, and you're getting mail for most of 'em, well, you can see why having control is such a big deal for me. I am *such* a control freak about everything (not a neat freak - I don't care if stuff is not put away, as long as I can *find* it - if I know where it is, I'll look for it in that place even after I've cleaned up and put it away, which can be terribly annoying).

Then there's the friends list, which means no more blog-hopping, or, in my case, a lot less blog-hopping, since there are still numerous people I read whom I have not friended, or who aren't on LJ, but for the most part, it's easier to have them all there in one place, filterable if necessary, scrollable, etc.

And lastly, and seemingly least importantly but oh so aesthetically pleasing *and* addictive... icons.

I have a permanent LJ account, which means I get 15 icons (20 if they up the number, which I hear they may).

Look at them! Xander! Remus! my poor Padfoot! the angsty Remus/Sirius one! Frank! Mikey! CJ! Eowyn! Jeannie!

How can you not love these icons?

So yeah, the icon thing is very very addictive. I mean, look at what I made this afternoon, as a companion to my Jeannie icon:

bewitching.

Now I just have to figure out what to give up to load it in there.

Sigh.

Anyhow, that's why I spend more time posting to LJ, even though I love this diary. I guess this is more for personal rambles now, or fic snips I don't really want anyone to see unless I send them here. Or something. Because that's what it's about, right? I post to LJ to be read, and here to not be read. or something.

Huh.

Anyhow, I'm home now, contemplating going to get pizza for dinner. Mommy and Daddy drove me home this morning; Alyssa accompanied us so she could see my apartment, since it really is highly doubtful that Marguerite is ever going to let her spend a day with me. My mother swears it's not because she doesn't trust me, but because of her own anxieties about the city. Which I guess I understand, intellectually, but it still cheeses me off, you know?

Anyhow, they came in because I had a ton of laundry and stuff out there from the vacation that I wasn't going to schlep on the railroad (yes, I really am that much of a princess), and then we went to brunch around the corner at the diner. I wanted to go someplace nicer, but I knew they wouldn't walk the twelve blocks to EJ's (or even the three blocks to Annie's) and Daddy got a great parking space, so I wasn't going to make him move it, you know?

So that was really nice - the food was really good, of course, and the service was okay, considering the place was packed. Who knew?

I had "Granny's pancakes" - buttermilk pancakes with fresh Granny Smith apples, walnuts and white raisins. Yummy.

Then they left and I watched West Wing all afternoon on Bravo. I ::heart:: Josh and Sam so much. CJ and Toby too. And Leo. And Donna. And Charlie. And even Jed Bartlet. I miss Mrs. L.

Anyhow now I'm hungry again, so I'll just go.

~victoria



link

[current mood: thoughtful. also, hungry.]
[current music: walking boy - kick me kate]
[random quote: \"I don't think whatever sexuality I may have diminishes my power. I think it enhances it.\"]

~*~

08.08.03 - 9:36 a.m.

Arthur Weasley needs fannish love. Stat.

Saw Seabiscuit last night with Leslie and Doris.

It's too early in the month for PMS, but oh *man*, I choked up at this movie. A lot.

Of course, night before last, I was almost sobbing over one of my favorite SBRL fics (one which has a happy ending after the requisite [and canonical] angst), so who the hell knows. I'm just a sucker for pining. And Remus pines beautifully, as he does everything else.

Anyway. The movie. Very sweet, though slow to get started. I understand they needed to get all the players in place and set it up for their plots to converge, but... slow. And the narration was unnecessary (though it was one of the things that made me weepy - that Depression-era stuff just *does*, and then the idea that it wasn't the New Deal itself wasn't what turned it around for people, but what the New Deal represented, a government that *cared* about its people...

And now I'm tearing up again, so you know, I wonder if it wasn't the horse-and-jockey triumph over adversity thing that got me as much as the cornball way the whole thing was played - straight-up, earnest, no irony, no bullshit.

There's nothing wrong with sentimental when it's done well (I give you Frank Capra's best films), though this is the Irony Age. And Seabiscuit is done well. (though from what Leslie said, I wish they hadn't changed a few things from the way the story actually happened. This is always the problem with docudramas. And I hate that. Because it the true story is inspirational enough that you want to film it and show it over and over again at Christmas, you really shouldn't have screenwriters punching up the events to make them *even more* dramatic. It's bad enough they're making up dialogue etc. and conflating characters. But that could just be me.)

Tobey is as frog-faced as ever, and his dye job makes me cackle gleefully at how bad it is, but Chris Cooper rocks *out* as Tom Smith. He is simply superb in a really strong and quiet way. But then, that's kind of his thing, isn't it?

Then we went out for dinner and drinks at the pub across from the theatre, which was great fun.

One of the things I like about going out to bars in the summer is the availability of weisse (wheat) beer.

(Interrupted by crazy G at work. A comma. A FUCKING COMMA in an address, ferchrissakes, not in the text of the letter. He's insane! And he's making me crazy! Thank god he's leaving early today and will be out for two weeks. That is, of course, what's making him crazy.)

In other news, thanks to the lovely and talented Dee, I now have some completely workable information on necromancy for my HP-Forever story. This pleases me. I still need a Londoner for some help, I think, and possibly someone who doesn't mind a gross distortion of witchcraft so it would fit in with a Muggle version of witchery to help me out on nitpicky detail thingies (like where would be a good place to find an trendy occult shop that actually had real stuff going on behind the fakery?).

I'm also having interesting thoughts on Muggle versions of magic vs. wizarding magic in the Pverse (brought up in some ways by the way Rusalka is integrating Buffyverse magic into the Potterverse without it being my old standby of Giles actually coming from wizaring stock, in The End of the Beginning, which is fabulous, btw, and you should all read it, though it's not all posted yet and it's breaking my heart. My poor Remus.), and the idea that maybe Muggle magic is on the right track incantation-wise or whatever, but it needs wizarding power behind it, which most Muggles just don't have.

I have to work out whether it's a "Xander, don't speak Latin in front of the books" kind of thing, where any fool could do it if s/he speaks the words, or if it's Harry's wizarding power that makes the thing work. As well as necromancy ever works, anyway.

I just like saying necromancy. Necromancy. Necromancy.

I need good Neville fic, btw. And also I'd like some good Arthur Weasley fic. Not slashing him with anyone (god forbid!) but just exploring how he came to be the wonderful man he is, and how he feels about Harry and his own place in wizard society etc.

Arthur Weasley needs fannish love. Stat.

So let it be written, so let it be done.

~victoria



link

[current mood: thoughtful]
[current music: And She Was - Talking Heads]
[random quote: Out of the blue and into the black they give you this but you pay for that and once you're gone you can never come back]

~*~

previous - next

DiaryLand

Disclaimer: Reading this diary is not required by law. If you do not like or agree with the contents herein, or find them to be offensive on more than one occasion, please go elsewhere and don't come back. Management is not responsible for any adverse reactions to content within.

The painting is "Boreas" by John William Waterhouse. Again, not a muse, but I like her. She suits the color scheme.

The quote is from Sir Philip Sidney.

This site is best viewed with IE4+ | 1024x768 | true color | verdana | tables