caitri: (Printer)
CURRENT TALLY OF COMPLETED FIC WORDAGE: 431,692
All Star Trek stories are Kirk/McCoy unless otherwise stated.
All Avengers stories are Steve/Tony unless otherwise stated.


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caitri: (Screw Subtext)
We observed the Fourth by watching Sinners and making Mexican food.

Sinners is also the best movie I have seen since Barbie. 12/10, no notes. Please Ryan Coogler, make more movies where Michael B Jordan kills white supremacists. I think that would do wonders for everyone.
caitri: (Default)
So it's spring now. I am still snowed under. I took a long weekend just because and spent more of it napping than I meant to.

Me: I don't know why I'm so tired.
Friend: You have a lot going on, and also the Fascism.
Me: ... Yeah that would do it.

Mom was briefly in the hospital with a UTI, her vitals were stable, but she still had to ham it up, "WHY are you asking about my HEALTH INSURANCE? Can't you SEE I am on my DEATH BED?!"

I have a doctor's appointment on Tuesday morning and I am going to ask him about anti-anxiety meds. (I'm on some mild anti-depressants but the anti-anxiety could be nice.) I am trying to deal with the capitalism in my brain scolding me about all the things I am behind on when in fact I do a lot and have more than earned a break.

I hope all of you are as safe as can be. Don't let the bastards grind you down.

Rabbitholes

Feb. 7th, 2025 10:21 pm
caitri: (Books)
Because reasons I've ended up in a rabbithole for Sappho and am reading chunks of a book on the history of sex in America and there is a WILD chapter about the Oneida Perfectionists that were this free love community in the 1840s and their thing was "complex marriage" where monogamy was discouraged

and like ejaculating was considered not good unless explicitly for procreation so basically it was a thing to just practice edging all the time??? And it was discouraged for women to have kids with only one guy and the community would react if people got too exclusive. And APPARENTLY they had rules that men with men was okay but they didn't mention women with women.

BUT GET THIS

THE KICKER

IS ONEIDA IS THE SAME FAMILY THAT GOES ON TO FOUND THE SILVERWARE COMPANY

But what absolutely fries my brain is like meanwhile Emily Dickinson is in Amherst and arguably wildly in love with her best friend/ future SIL or just SUCH GREAT PALS and blahblah New England Evangelism and literally if she had just gone up the eastern seaboard a bit more there would have been wild fucking orgies to say nothing of the Mormons

Anyhow where's the AU where Emily Dickinson goes to join a free love cult pls??

caitri: (Books)
Just really busy with Real Life and trying to stay on top of things (usually with mixed success). I've also joined Bluesky this week because I feel like I'm watching my social media starting to stutter in the wake of politics and still want to keep track of people, so, here's hoping.
caitri: (Default)
 It's just Real Life has been Exhausting!!
caitri: (Default)

NB. Composed as an addendum to the story of Gimli and Legolas in the Appendices.

The Elf Maid and the Dwarvish Prince


It is said that in earlier times that there was another such pair of friends, although they were not borne of battle. In the last days of Eregion when the children of Eru and the children of Aulë had not yet come to their strife, a minor daughter of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain was chance acquainted with a Dwarvish prince from Mount Gundabad in those days before it fell to the orcs.

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caitri: (Chris Vocabulary)
In the latest episode of Cait's Covid Fever Dream Theater, it was SDCC highlights of things that do not exist. The two the imaginary fandom of brain were the most excited about were the announcements of the Firefly reboot and the sneak peek of Disney's Hamilton. 
 
Sadly, despite the excitement and the participation of the Jim Henson Company, the Firefly reboot just looked weird. The cast were all newbies and it was hella controversial that there were still no Asian characters, although at this point everyone could speak passable Mandarin. There was a lot of speculation about the political implications of all this.
 
Meanwhile, Disney's Hamilton looked amazeballs although the trailer was the entirety of the wedding sequence. There was lots of speculation about how LMM was gonna handle putting the whole musical into an 80 minute children's film, and the answer was that the time frame would be almost entirely during his tenure of Treasury Secretary. On the plus side none of the sad bits, on the negative side, wow this was gonna be a film about legislation and marriage. But Disney was going old school and doing real animation for it and LMM had written a whole new Disney musical so we were all stoked af. 

... I hate the cough syrup so much but it makes life interesting.

caitri: (bullshit)
Scott and I finally caught Covid. Most likely from a friend who went to a con.

Tonight we were feeling sorry for ourselves and decided to go full RotK: DO YOU REMEMBER THE TASTE OF STRAWBERRIES, FRODO? NO, SAM, I DON'T REMEMBER THE TASTE OF FOOD, OR WATER, OR THE TOUCH OF GRASS!

It's a good thing we're stuck together, we'd drive everyone else in the world batshit.
caitri: (Books)
Because reasons I decided I needed to rewatch RoP and I have an all-new question:

Where did Galadriel get paper in Valinor?

Consider what paper is made of: Modern papers are primarily wood pulp which means killing trees which was a big no-no for Tolkien. It looked thick and white which means it could have a cloth fiber source which, at the beginning of the universe, implies a particular trade and reuse of textiles. (If they had had Eastern style papers made of kozo leaves that would have been interesting and easy to do!)
 
ALSO this distinguishes from the parchment vellum eg. animal skins used in Numenor! AND by the Harfoots!

While Elrond in Lindon is writing on paper that looks super papyrusey.
caitri: (Books)
 I took a whole week of staycation and did very little beyond sleep, play records, read, and play video games. So I feel calmer than previously.

Let's see: Todd's Mom died; she didn't wake up from her surgery and she'd made her wishes known, so after a week she was taken off the ventilator. He said that despite her wishes it made no one feel less shitty. The last week and change he has been involved in memorial and funeral planning and stuff.

My Mom's not well and I was thinking about how I should try to be more thoughtful about "present" about our interactions, and yet she is still her same awful self, so that's... something.

My friend with breast cancer has been to multiple appointments and is opting for a double mastectomy with reconstructive surgery. On the plus side once that's done she need never wear bras again. Although she also noted before this she had JUST bought new ones which are expensive, so fucking real life man.

My boss came back from leave and then went on leave again for surgery and she is ... herself. I am part of a cohort to receive "executive coaching" which starts next week and I'm kinda like "so are there plans to give me any kind of real authority or am I just here to be counted?" I don't know.

Did I tell you guys I got a record player? Scott bought it for me because watching me dither endlessly is apparently exhausting. I've spent the last two months getting records and enjoying listening to them: a mix of recommendations, happenstance, and things I already love. I entertain the local record store clerks with my choices. Example: This week I bought Taylor Swift's Folklore, Mdou Moctar's Nigerien EP No. 1, and The Goo Goo Dolls' rerelease of their first album when they were still punk. The clerk, a grizzled old dude who is actually pretty entertaining if you get him going, surveyed them, paused, and said, "Okay, you take the award for most diverse collection. I have never seen this combo before. Good for you!" 

Todd calls record collecting Emotional Support Vinyl and he started during the pandemic. He is fucking brilliant. It's been soothing as hell these last weeks.
caitri: (bullshit)
My best friend's mom is in the hospital having surgery for a brain aneurism, and we have been texting as he has waited hours after hours for updates.

My other best friend was diagnosed with breast cancer on Wednesday and has an appointment with a surgeon on Monday.

I continue to be overwhelmed and just try to help. 
caitri: (Vampire Jim)
 When you tell your therapist why you have anxieties because of specific family traumas and she gets so outraged on your behalf she doesn't know what to do, so you tell her to turn Linkin Park up on high, and then 15 minutes after your session she messages to say that yeah, that helped, and also "In the End" is a great song.

Yeah it is, now put on NUMB!
caitri: (World Is a Mess)
In the past five days:

1) My Mom went into the hospital with some serious confusion relating to what turned out to be sepsis from a kidney infection. She's doing much better with antibiotics and was released yesterday.

2) I had a follow-up with my doctor, who confessed to mystification with my bodily malfunctions -- he opened his clinic in 1984 and I was born in 1981, he has literally been doing this my entire life -- and he came up with three pages of possible tests and such. In particular he wants to do a laparascopy where they'd go in with a camera and look at all my innards and video it and see what's what. I am so not thrilled with this notion. But I need to think on all things.

3) My boss's daughter passed away last night -- long time expected, and now I am the head of the unit for the foreseeable, and so all of today was endless emails where I think about all the things no one else can think of, like making sure I can approve timesheets so all my coworkers can get paid.

I am so, so tired.

Blink

Mar. 2nd, 2024 12:50 pm
caitri: (Books)
I know where the past two months went, but they were minor eternities all the same. There was the day of frightening ice, and there was the day of doctor's phone calls, and there were days dark and bright spent with my bestie doing our little poetry workshops.

I am so overwhelmed with real life but I am doing my best, and as ever there's no way out but through.

caitri: (Default)
 May you all be safe, healthy, and happy in the new year!!!!!!!! <3
caitri: (Mouse Herat)
 I've been meaning to write a post, it's just that I don't have anything real to say right now. I continue to tread water and keep swimming. Yesterday I had a bad mental health day and texted Todd (Scott was away traveling), who frets about the psychological load I am carrying with regards to health/work/family stuff. I dutifully go to my therapist each week, but the reality is that I am Not Good about emotional vulnerability and it is what it is.

At least we can stay home for the holidays this year. I have a doctor's appointment on the 27th for an ultrasound to make sure I don't have any blockages or anything before my next round of stuff, since I haven't had one of those in a while (I was clear last time, so knock wood).

Currently reading the Dutli biography of Osip Mandelstam, because while super depressed reading stuff about Soviet dissident writers who get sent off to die in the Gulag ... provides perspective? Or something?
caitri: (Default)
 Quoted in a BBC article about Shakespeare's lost play Love's Labor's Won:

The 420-year-search for Shakespeare's lost play
caitri: by blue_hobbit (Don't Go Where I Can't Follow)
About to go to my first in-person conference since before the pandemic--flying out Wednesday and back Sunday. I will get to see beloved friends and colleagues. I will give the most disorganized paper of my career, and it will be fine. One way or another.

Friday night I got the new covid vax and spent all of yesterday in bed with fevers and chills. I am glad my immune system is working, but man. So today I am tiredly doing all my chores while feeling incredibly sore.

I am so overwhelmed, but no way out but through.
caitri: (Chris Vocabulary)
 
How often do men think about ancient Rome? Quite frequently, it seems.


I asked the boys:
Scott: Um, probably once a day when I think of quotes by Marcus Aurelius.
Todd: Okay. Probably every few weeks, or once a month, when I teach about the Vindolanda tablets.

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