Writercon, Farscape, True Blood, and Real Life $!%#@

[rusty_halo]

* I came home from Writercon to find my computer dead. The motherboard is fried. I just spent $350 on replacement parts. (There goes my half-fantasized Labor Day beach vacation.) My brother is going to help me put it back together via phone, which… well, cross your fingers for me. I’m a software person, not a hardware person. He thinks there’s an 80% chance I’ll be able to get my old system working with the new hardware–otherwise I’ll have to buy a new hard drive, install a new operating system, reinstall all my programs, and copy over all my old files. Here’s hoping for that 80% chance.

* And then the next day I made the crazy mistake of turning on the air conditioner (on low, power-saver mode) right before work as I did dishes on a 90+ degree day. The fuse blew. The single fuse that powers my entire apartment. My landlord wasn't answering his phone and the super's number was disconnected, so I went down to the cellar to try to replace the fuse myself. This didn't work as I didn't know which fuse box was mine, didn't have a replacement fuse, and didn't know how to install a fuse without electrocuting myself. I then had something approaching a panic attack because the cellar is huge, barely lit, the floor is layered with 80 years of rat droppings, and the fuse boxes are covered in spider webs full of GIANT FUCKING SPIDERS.

So I called work and told them I'd be late, then called an electrician. He charged me $160 to replace a fuse. He also told me that the wiring is 60-80 years old, that it's a terrible fire hazard, that I shouldn't have an air conditioner at all, and that I should move. Repeatedly. He also shined his flashlight around the cellar and actually screamed--this big burly tough NYC guy screamed. Why? "It's a rat!" "A rat? Where?" "IT'S A DECAYING CORPSE OF A RAT HANGING FROM THE WALL." Why yes, it was. Caught in the pipes, skeletal, and hanging from the freaking cellar wall. Look, I try really hard to be a tough and unflappable New Yorker, because you have to be to live alone here, but GIANT SPIDERS and DECAYING RAT CORPSES are too much even for me. I cried a lot after this. I'm sure the fact that I had barely slept for days didn't help.

* And actual Writercon. Gah, I don't even know what to say. It was wonderful and stressful and my feelings are so mixed and complicated. I will say that it was good to reconnect with people (especially the other concom members who I adore but haven't seen in years) and to meet so many awesome new people.

I want to write more but I'm really still working out my feelings (mostly about how/whether I fit into the Writercon community and how/whether Writercon fits into my life). So I'll save that post for some future moment when I'm capable of being coherent about it.

* I finished the first season of True Blood. I'm sorry, but I thought it was absolutely terrible. It's often beautifully filmed and atmospheric, but it doesn't engage me intellectually and it's impossible for me to invest in emotionally. It's sensationalism without a single idea behind it, and nothing, no matter how shocking, ever seems to have any consequence beyond a single episode. Honestly, you'd think these people would stop pretending to be shocked when they stumble across the corpse of a loved one--it's not like they didn't already do so last week and already get over it. The plot wasn't even compelling--the identity of the killer is obvious as soon as you realize that he's the only character the narrative isn't going out of its way to cast suspicion on.

Plus, on a personal level, the gender issues squick me completely. The two big manly men fighting over the tiny blond girl, and their possessiveness and control issues not being treated as deal-breakers? EW. I'd get a restraining order against both of them. I'm also creeped out by the rigid hierarchy of the vampire society--seriously, they're vampires, isn't the whole point of the fantasy an escape from social constraints? They have more social constraints than we do! And the thinly veiled metaphor of vampirism = homosexuality seems well intentioned (the show is on the side of vampire rights) but, hello, offensive! Gay people don't have a long history of killing straight people and drinking their blood!

* I made a deal with cindergal--I'll watch Farscape if she'll read the Lymond Chronicles. I'm still at the start of the first season, but I'm starting to get into it. (I just watched "PK Tech Girl," which was the best yet.) The thing that hooked me was the realization that the dark interesting fucked-up OTC character isn't John (blech), it's Aeryn. Which is FANTASTIC. So far I have no complaints about gender issues at all, and lots of compliments about how well they're handling it. Otherwise... the self-contained episode format bothers me, but I assume it'll get more arc-oriented over time. I still don't like muppets, but it's true that it gets less annoying as you start to see the muppets as characters. So, yeah, I'll definitely keep going with it. (Plus, I want to know what cindergal thinks about Lymond!)

* I feel kind of bad about dissing John Hughes in a post the other day. Despite my reservations about a lot of his work, Ferris Bueller's Day Off is one of my all-time favorite movies. I give Hughes major props for that if nothing else. (And, okay, The Breakfast Club is a total guilty pleasure, even though I want to scream and break things every time Ally Sheedy gets that horrible "makeover").

Current Mood: stressed & stressed

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. You can comment here or there.