rusty_halo

Saw Common Rotation last night at psubrat's house. They were excellent, and it was very kind of psubrat to have everyone over. (Thank you, psubrat, for having us! And thank you chenanceou and jerrymcl89 for bringing me and soulmate815 along with you.)

It feels very strange (in a good way) to be sitting on someone's living room floor with a bunch of your friends, watching a band play immediately in front of you. Especially when one of those band members played a sociopathic sexbot builder on a show you used to be obsessed with. It's just ... a surreal experience.

Tons of people were there; it was wonderful to see everyone. I miss them all already. I'm very glad to know that, between WriterCon, Vulkon Oakland, DragonCon, and London, I'll be seeing nearly everyone again before the year is over.

(The car ride totally killed me, unfortunately, so I'm sorry if I wasn't great company. I'm especially sorry for ignoring everyone on the car ride back, but I really just had to zone out and pretend I was somewhere else.)

I feel so utterly dead today, but I'm going to try to see Common Ro again tonight anyway. I'm going to guzzle a couple of those energy drinks and then rush from work to catch the LIRR out to this park in Long Island where they're playing free. (Nice thing about the LIRR? Trains usually don't make me motion sick.) I just need an excuse to have road-trip adventure type things, y'know? And Common Ro is as good an excuse as any....

And, off topic, have I mentioned how annoyed I am that my brain insists on Sirius Black as a new obsession? It's really not good. I mean, yes, fascinating character, and wonderful fic, and a large fan community ... but ... I spend the whole time on the verge of tears! And the littlest things are liable to push me over the edge -- like the icon on this post [ETA: the icon on this page, top left, labelled "harry>>death>>unknown"] as I was scanning my friends list. Everyone at work must think I have really bad allergies, as I sit at work with tears periodically streaming down my face throughout the day.

(It's weird, how emotional I get over fictional things. It's not that I can't separate fantasy from reality. It's more like, when I get upset about some sad thing that happened in fiction, I always think about how, given all of human history, similar horrible things have happened to real people. And it's so sad and unfair!!! And so on.)

Common Rotation announced their summer tour dates. They're coming back to New York at the end of July ... when I'm going to be at Writercon. Dammit.

So I'm thinking of maybe going to this show, because it looks like I could get a LIRR train from Penn Station:

Thursday, July 22nd
39th Annual Huntington Summer Arts Festival
Chapin Rainbow Stage
In Heckscher Park
Huntington, NY
8:00 PM
Free & All Ages

And then there's this:

Saturday, July 24th
Woodstock, NY
Colony Cafe
10:00pm
All Ages

If I could figure out how to get to Woodstock, I would go, since it's a Saturday.

Anyone else going to any of these?

I'm totally out of touch with fandom, which I feel guilty about. I was going to try to catch up on email and maybe read some fic last night, but I fell asleep instead. Life is just so much more pleasant when you're sleeping eight hours instead of four.

Roommate hunting continues. God, I hate this. I've only met one person so far who I'd be willing to live with, and he ended up not wanting it. (I've been interviewing men as well as women. I don't want to live with a male--I'd just feel uncomfortable--but I also don't want to have to pay next month's rent by myself.) And I can't do anything after work because I'm always running home right away to meet with these strange strangers who only bother to show up about half the time.

Random: here are some photos of my cats after moving into my apartment. My favorite is this one. These came right before the Moonlight Rising photos, so as you can see, I'm working toward scanning those all in.

And, um, also random: I bought a ticket to this. I can't believe I bought this, but I think I'm going to go. I've never been to London before. I'm going to be in debt for the rest of my life, but at least I'm going to have a fun Halloween. Anyone else going?

Well, this was an eventful weekend.

( Friday: Graduation Party )

( Saturday: Eliza Dushku in Philadelphia )

( Sunday: Eric Kufs from Common Rotation at the Bitter End )

I'm back online! Well, from work now. But internet at home came back yesterday, too.

The weekend was fun. Friday night I went to see Eric Kufs (the singer in Common Rotation who isn't Adam Busch) play at the Bitter End. I like him--he seems sweet and shy. Adam came onstage and played one song with him too, but it was Eric's show and he did well.

I met up there with soulmate815, thefangirl, 10zlaine, and various friends of theirs. Afterwards we went to dinner at a nearby Spanish restaurant, where we stayed until something like 12:30am. Then we left the restaurant and stood outside talking in the cold for another half hour.

Some people went home, and the rest of us headed over to this club in the East Village where we met up with nautibitz, lovebytez, and people they knew. We spent a short time in the club, then went to a coffee shop and hung out for a while longer. At this point most of us were pretty exhausted, so we headed out after a short while.

Anyway, it was an interesting night. And I discovered that quite a few of us are going to be attending the upcoming Creation con in NJ, so I'm very much looking forward to that.

Anyone else going to be at that con?

The rest of the weekend was more calm. I saw Johnny's new movie, Secret Window, on Saturday, and liked it more than I expected. He's wonderful--spends most of the film alone talking to himself, and yet is riveting. Frustratingly, I figured out the "twist" within the first 15 minutes, so it wasn't as thrilling as I'd have liked. Still fun, though--watching Johnny Depp act is always a pleasure. Oh, and I *loved* the ending. :)

Sunday I was going to write up that post about Jaime Lannister, but then queenofthorns suggested that part of Jaime's story is a quest for truth, which I hadn't thought about before. So I'm re-reading and trying to incorporate that into my understanding of his journey. Also, I didn't have any coffee on Sunday, so I had no motivation to get anything done.

Oh, and I watched Nick Brendon's TV movie. *shudders* That's two hours of my life that I'll never get back.

Actually, though, from a gender studies perspective, it was sort of interesting to watch it and think about how issues of gender and sexuality are processed in mainstream popular culture. This film had so many conflicting and poorly thought out ideas all thrown together--for example, its lesson about not judging people by stereotypes was pretty hilarious in the context of it's own egregious stereotyping.

But still, Nicholas Brendon must be getting *really* desperate for work.

The institution of marriage is pretty stupid. But intolerance sucks.

Still feeling like complete shit over the Angel cancellation.

I am completely disgusted with some of the haughty, condescending, lectury responses that I've seen. You're glad the show is over? You don't like fan campaigns? Fine, don't participate. But that doesn't make you a better person than I am. Get off your high horse and stop acting like you're superior to those of us who care.

[rant directed only to those who are acting snooty, not to those who just don't care for whatever reasons]

I wasn't particularly enjoying Angel this season. I'm still completely disgusted that it was cancelled. A bad episode of AtS is still better than damn near anything else on television. At least they're trying to do something original, to make people think, to break boundaries, instead of just appealing to the lowest common denominator.

It's fucked up that this culture venerates mediocrity. It's fucked up that passionate, intelligent, creative people either have to dumb down their work or face constant struggles and very little chance of success. It's fucked up that Charmed got renewed instead of Angel, or that The Cruxshadows and Common Rotation are struggling in near-obscurity while Britney Spears sells millions of records. It's fucked up that my high school cancelled the challenging, quality-and-art-focused Media Arts class in favor of the lame, propogandistic, poorly-produced Television Production class. That's just the way our culture is.

Anyway. I have barely slept all week, so I'm very incoherent right now.

I went to see Common Rotation in Connecticut today. A "living room show" -- they come to people's houses and play in their living rooms. It was pretty neat--I took the train up with soulmate815, we went to this woman's house, ate party food and drank beer, watched the band play in the living room. There were maybe ... 20? 30? people there. I suck with numbers. The band members were around and talking, which was neat, though I didn't talk to any of them--I'm content to enjoy their music, but I wouldn't really call myself a fan. Well, fan in the casual "I enjoy your art" sense, not in the "I care enough to wonder about you as a person" sense. Anyway, it was fun. Then thefangirl and her friend drove us back to Manhattan, which was nice, and it was good to hang out with thefangirl. (And it was her birthday. Happy birthday, again!)

Anyway. Then I came home, read Joss's message, and started crying. Stupid WB.

I hate watching fandom fade away. I know a lot of people will stick around, and there will still be a core group years and years from now. But a lot of people will leave, and it's going to suck. Watching my favorite writers disappear, watching my favorite websites shut down, watching my website become irrelevant ... it's all going to suck.

Also (inspired by a discussion with some people tonight about the politics of friending): If you want to defriend me, for god's sake, please do. I'm not going to have a crying fit or hate you forever because of it. Interests diverge, personalities conflict, it happens.

I have a lot of people on my flist because I want to keep up with their fic, btw, and I know that we have little in common and that they're probably annoyed or bored by my posts. Don't feel obligated to keep me on your flist; just post your fic publicly to make sure I don't miss it. ;)

Oh, and *hugs* to everyone who IM'd me the other day. It really helped to have people to talk to. I apologize for being slow to answer--I got a little overwhelmed a couple of times. But, anyway, thanks.

I just read this over, and damn, this is a schizophrenic post. Political, bitchy, sad, happy, sad, depressed, bitchy, grateful. Huh. Must go catch up on sleep....

I had a busy weekend.

Friday my mom came to visit, which was nice since I haven't seen her in a while. We have a pretty cool relationship; we're basically friends and we tell each other everything. I'm still amazed that we get along so well now, since we were (sometimes literally) at each other's throats a few years ago.

We stayed up late, ate lots of snacks and chocolate, made various hot teas, and watched the most recent episodes of BtVS and AtS. I think she liked them all, although I was annoyed that she was so sympathetic with Giles in LMPTM. Saturday morning we went to brunch, then came back and watched "Lovers Walk." Fun. :) The only annoying thing is that she somehow managed to rearrange my entire kitchen; now I can't find my pot holders, my tablespoon, or my mug. She *always* does this; it's a large part of the reason why I couldn't wait to move out.

Saturday I went to the Common Rotation show at the Bitter End. The weather was nice so it was pleasant to walk down there. I met up with a woman named Marlaine who I had only spoken to before through the All About Spike forum. She ended up being really cool and we had some very interesting conversations about Buffy stuff (she actually likes my gender essay!) and about fanfic. I had my very first real life conversation about Modus Vivendi (perhaps my all-time favorite story) which Marlaine also loved. After the show we went to dinner (me, Marlaine, and her friend Kathy) and continued our converstaion. We ended up at a Mexican place where they made fresh guacamole in front of us; it was pretty cool.

Common Rotation was good; they are not my kind of music *at all*, but they put on an entertaining show and did a a nice job with their style of music. The vocal harmonies were enjoyable. They were very lively and enthusiastic so I didn't get bored.

Sunday I finally had a chance to sleep in; then I woke up and tried to make myself read fanfic. I have soooo many stories to read and so many authors to reply to. I got through a few (rejections, unfortunately; for heaven's sake, learn to spell before you send me a story! And Xander's name starts with an X not a Z!) but my heart wasn't in it. I guess I needed a bit of a break from fic for a little while; hopefully I can get some done during the week. Instead I ended up at a spoiler chat; I am now thoroughly spoiled for the finale.

( finale spoilers )