brightly_lit

Not a banner day at the CSA, as it included TWO kinds of kale, and, well, weeds--the kind of weed I always hated seeing in the garden the most, in fact: purslane. It doesn't taste too bad, actually. But still ... almost everything was a leaf, only one root (not one kind of root but one root, a kohlrabi bulb--which is great, I just wish there was more of it). I'm missing the beets and turnips. Today included even my least favorite kind of lettuce (romaine), which was uncommonly dirty.

Ah, well; this is the first disappointing week yet, and I expect things are about to really start picking up, with soon tomatoes and corn and peppers, oh my! And the fruit share is finally starting up. This week it was apricots! Yeee! Plus peas!!

While working on my pinch hit for Summergen, I was reminded of a fic I wrote about a year ago that I guess I forgot to put on AO3. So I uploaded it, and got two comments on it (!! Uncommon for me to get comments on AO3), both of which really seemed to connect to my fic. Feeling like anyone connects to me at all in this world, or to anything I say or do, is incredibly rare for me. I starve for it pretty much all day every day. So thanks to these comments, I'm actually feeling good about life at the moment.

And Summergen is here! And gishwhes on its way! YASS.

We got a mushroom share with our CSA, and received a very cool e-mail from them with some information on their small company and some of their plans for the rest of the summer ... which included letting us know they'll be going to the Burning Man "arts festival" and thus we won't be getting mushrooms that particular week.

Now, I've known a lot of people who've gone to Burning Man, and "arts festival" is not the descriptor that first comes to mind. I guess they figure anyone who's hip to what it really is is cool with it, and everyone else can enjoy some mental images of paintings and fine pottery professionally displayed in a lush and natural setting, with well-to-do art aficionadoes looking them over and nodding appreciatively.

THAT'S OKAY DUDES, YOU CAN GO GET NAKED AND HIGH IN THE DESERT FOR A WEEK. THE MUSHROOMS WILL WAIT.

Does kinda give you an inkling, perhaps, into what may have first inspired their interest in growing their own mushrooms ....

I had a rough night a couple of nights ago; it was really hard to get to sleep. For hours after we were done going through the box, I took comfort in the things I usually take comfort in, when I need it: fandom, pictures and articles about my favorite artists, etc., which led me to this excellent essay written by the lead singer of Fall Out Boy, and serves as a fantastic reminder of why success as an artist/writer/musician would SUUUUUUCK, so it's just fine that nobody reads my books. Well, I wish a few people, who would really enjoy and/or benefit from reading them would and would talk about it (that essay points that out, too, how easy it is to get hate when you share your work, and how hard it is to get any damn appreciation, even if you supposedly have lots of 'fans'--what is that?!), but fame? Fuuuuuck that.

As I read the essay and looked at other, related articles and interviews and pictures, I was reminded anew that we are all human. The people I most admire in the world get fat, have health problems, get hate, have low self-esteem, suffer from depression. It's okay. We're all the same. So thanks, all you famous people who shared your failures and downfalls and hardships as well as your successes. Thanks for not hiding your humanity, however hard that may have been. It makes it easier for the rest of us to be human, too.

Last night, I dreamt I was watching a so-latter-day-SPN-it-hasn't-aired-yet ep while caranfindel was in the room doing her own thing. The ep was this meditation on addiction that seemed clearly a straight-up exploration of what the writer was thinking about that had nothing to do with SPN itself. I muttered some comment about how the writer couldn't be arsed to come up with anything that actually had anything to do with the show, and caranfindel piped up with a wholehearted agreement, which led to a rousing discussion between us on all things show-related, and which had other folks coming into the room to join into the chat. So basically, a physical representation of online SPN fandom!

I think I was actually thinking about Carver. Lately I've been realizing I think what I had the hardest time with about Carver's Supernatural is that he seemed to be trying to make it "more realistic," to bring reality into this ... story about two brothers who hunt monsters, which is ludicrous. For me, from the very beginning, at its best, the show rode this gloriously delicate line, which was a grittily realistic portrayal of an entirely metaphorical series of events designed to explore the deeper realities of human relationships and the human experience, like nesting dolls, multiple levels and dimensions utilized to get at something that is inherently complex and multi-dimensional. That's why I loved Show so much, because it was so layered. To treat it as reality all the way on down took away all the dimensions and made it flat ... and silly. Sooo silly, Carver. I'm lookin' at you. Yeah, that's right, I said it. ;-)

I'm liking Dabb's SPN far better than Carver's already, though Show is far from being what it was pre-Carver. I found the general stories of S12 fairly cohesive, I liked the characters they kept returning to, like Max and Alicia, Mary, and Claire (BOY was I tired of Crowley and Rowena drama, although Crowley in that last ep made me realize I'll miss him, at least a bit), I thought the themes were good. I'd love to see Max come back as one of S13's big bads (as some people have suggested might happen); I LOVE that actor, and his story is great, with much potential. Before this last season, it seemed like every storyline was a reprise of something SPN had already done, but the nephilim is also a good new idea ... well, at least, of ideas SPN has fully explored, since the antichrist was a similar idea with much potential that was introduced and abandoned. There's so much potential! Especially if he's a good guy at heart, or at least conflicted.

Otherwise, I'm incredibly excited about Summergen, as ever, although I haven't actually started on the fic yet because ... well, the whole theme I'm going to delve into with it kind of scares me; I've got to prepare and gird my loins before I dive in. What's going on with you all? How are your Summergen fics coming?

I am super crazy good at a video game no one's ever heard of, that isn't even available anymore (at least, the version I play). In the credits, the game's makers thank their beta testers, including one "who won the game in an amazing 75 (game-play) days!" I've gotten to the point where it's an off day if I do it in over 74 days (fewer days is better), and I've done it in as few as 72.

It's called Magic Farm. You grow and harvest flowers and make bouquets to make money and travel in an effort to find your lost parents. You get shipwrecked and have dealings with a pirate, in addition to many other more benevolent characters. It was free when I got it. It was never popular; now my version has disappeared from the internet (along with a disappointing number of other awesome games, including Tip Top and Cosmic Switch).

I have games I paid a pretty penny for, but damn if Magic Farm isn't the one I'll always come back to. MAGIC FARM. But as with everything else I bothered to get really good at, MY SKILL MEANS NOTHING, NOTHING! There's no glory in this world for magic farmers! Alas. But LET IT BE KNOWN I WON THE GAME IN 72 DAYS!!!! (Hears voice echoing back, then crickets.)

If you're a gamer, what's your favorite unpopular game?

Okay, LATE, but here is my first Future Tuesday post.



I want to finally find the place where I belong and am welcomed, instead of being the odd person out, or not understood, or straight-up unwanted, which has been the case alll too many times. I'm pretty damn sure that would make me happy!

If you haven't yet, come on over to amilliondays, where we post about things that make us happy, present, past, and future.

I'ma leave all y'all's lovely comments on my post announcing my friend's death just as they are. I feel like responding to those particular comments would cheapen them, but I very much want you to know how much I appreciate your beautiful words.

There is a notification in my e-mail from that friend from not long before her death, which makes it feel like she's still around. I doubt I'll be filing that e-mail any time soon.

I'm so into the show Alone, on the History channel (wilderness survival was one of my favorite obsessions in my youth), even though I get constant errors as it creaks through the commercials, making watching the thing take about half again as long as it should. It's worth it! But now they're to the part where it gets really grim and everybody's having an awful time and it's no fun for them and no fun for you but by then you have to see who manages to stick it out the longest. One of the final four in this, its second season, who has been one of the most successful participants generally, is a woman! (The first season was only men.) She is pure awesome, but Mike had my heart from day one. They never let us get to know Mike well enough, or showed us enough of him. And he's from my very own state. Mike, you rock!!

I would like to take this space to wish the happiest of happy birthdays to quickreaver, who does such incredibly great work making so many of our favorite challenges and exchanges 'round here run smoothly, and is generally an awesome, smart, fun, kind lady. Glad you're here, and that we met! <3 <3 <3

Hello, all. I'm glad to have you here!
( Cut for sad. )
I'm grateful for you all and for this goodness. May you all have a beautiful day, and write all the words you ever wanted to.

I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it, either.

( Spoilers, obvs. )

SUMMERGEN IS BACK. YAAAY!!!

My favorite book for a time as a kid was The House of Thirty Cats. Well, septembers_coda found it for us at the library and we're reading it aloud right now. It's really quite good, and almost distressingly me. Like, was I already like that and that's why I was so attracted to that book? Or did it significantly form me? It's a bit disturbing.

Anyway, typical of me, it's extremely obscure. I somehow managed to convince my teacher to read it aloud to the class, and everyone was so bored and not into it that she stopped after only a few pages, no matter how much I lobbied the whole class to keep it going and insisted it got much better after the first chapter (which it does, adult-me can confirm!). Those plebeians in my elementary-school class didn't know great literature when they heard it! But s_c is lovin' it. :-) I'm always delighted when I find something I loved in my youth holds up later on, because Bill and Ted ... not so much.

Today I thought, maybe I will be the person who writes the first House of Thirty Cats fanfic and puts it on the internet. And then maybe someone who likes my other fic will see it and give it a try and it'll bring a little more attention to this strange, brutal, vivid, wonderful novel.

... And then I see that my favorite musician is tweeting about the notorious "milk fic" and encouraging his fans to write the most horrifying fic about him they want, that he dgaf.

I got my second (hopefully last) root canal this morning, and learned that these abcesses have been weighing on my immune system a very long time. When you walk out of the endodontist's office feeling better--like, all over--and then you run an errand you meant to run eight months ago and you get to drive around in a different car from usual hearing new music and it's all rainy and your favorite musician is tweeting about obscene fanfic featuring himself ... it's a good day.