Back in Business

Last week while trying to upgrade WordPress, my site totally brooooke. This was bad news. The good news is, obviously, it has been fixed, and I can post yet again.

Of course, now that I can, I have nothing to say.

Oh, I did hang out at the Playboy Mansion last night. I wore a fancy dress and looked at spider monkeys. And, no, that’s not a euphemism.

For comparing/contrasting purposes, I’d like you to know that tonight I’m hanging out with my cat on the couch, writing, reading a trashy novel, drinking beer, talking to web site hosting support, watching Doctor Who, and baking cookies from pre-made dough.

Random Thoughts & Vom

Sometimes I have a bunch of small ideas for blog posts that just aren’t in and of themselves enough. So here are a bunch of random thoughts.

1. I think it’s really weird that one of my favorite albums, Tallahassee by the Mountain Goats, has a line about armies of ghosts in track 6, “Idylls of the King”, and then the lyric “I hope you blink before I do” in the next track, “No Children”. What I’m saying is: John Darnielle obviously foresaw both series two and three of Doctor Who, yes? Also I think – and I’m hardly the first to say it – this album is such a good example of storytelling through a form other than narrative prose. The Mountain Goats are one of those bands that inspire me as a writer as much as anything I read or watch. I marvel at the specificity in description, the sparsity that nonetheless conveys emotion extraordinarily.
2. I keep gearing up for this big post about long-form improv and writing and how having both in my life the past several months keeps informing the other one, but I’m kind of holding off while I’m still going through the program, and also while I’m at work on the book that required me to start taking improv classes in the first place. However, I will say that on Friday I went to an improvised talk show because one of my most longstanding celebrity crushes appeared “on” it. Holy smokes, Jack Davenport is handsome and tall and dashing and sexy, and hearing his voice not through the filter of a movie or television show was unspeakably fantastic. Oh, and afterwards? We might have ended up at the same restaurant. Which is ALMOST like a date, you guys! I mean, except for the part where we’ve never even met and didn’t speak and obvs his wife was there, but, um, still. I highly recommend delicious food in the immediate vicinity of your celebrity boyfriends.
3. I think for me, graduate school is an excuse to talk seriously about very geeky things. This is no different from what would normally be on my mind, but now I get to apply academic-speak and get taken seriously for railing against annoying Facebook groups I belong to and Stephen Moffat’s occasional forays into misogyny.
4. The way I used to feel about Converse, I’ve been feeling about Vans. I’m not sure what that means.
5. So I bought some blueberry pomegranate juice because, summer! refreshment! antioxidants! sounds possibly A++ mixed with vodka! But, you guys. Every time I start to pour my first glass I think about the Ocean Spray commercial where the blue-purple juice spews up and strikes our Young Grower in the face, and I want to vom a little. I don’t think this is the best way to promote your product, marketeers.
   

I want to write an actual post about the awesomeness that was the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, and, oh, I shall. But now I have library books to finish before their due dates, writing goals to adhere to, and juice I need to psych myself into drinking.

CAD Weekend Aftermath

I’m sure you are all on the edge of your seats wondering how I did in the Chapter A Day Weekend Challenge. I am happy to report that while I did not actually succeed, I wrote about 6k words this weekend, so regardless it was quite a productive weekend. I’m definitely now solid into the middle (plot-wise, not page-count-wise) of the book, which is a relief. Also the fact that it even feels like the middle must mean I’m slowly getting better at structure.

Something else I learned this weekend is that I am still very, very bad at Dance Dance Revolution.

#29852 Sign I’m Old (with Bonus Sign I’m a Nerd)

I am totally exhausted post-Rock Band and -Raving Rabbids. It’s exhausting swinging that nunchuck!

By the way, I said I should sing on Rock Band today because “I’m in really good voice”. (To be fair, this might have been true. My friend’s neighbor stopped by to see who was singing so he could compliment whoever it was. That this was the highlight of my week says a lot either about my week or my general level of nerditude. Take your pick.)

Here is my Rock Band avatar, who looks amazingly like me if: a) I had the teeth of a pug, and b) my abs were toned to Pluto and back.

I think I would accept pug teeth for those abs.

Sad Fact of the Day

I can’t believe I work in an office where no one knows what my TARDIS* is.

*By “my TARDIS” I mean the USB hub TARDIS that sits on my cube wall and flashes/makes sounds whenever I plug something in or hit a button on it. I do not actually own any sort of time/space travel device.

Sadly.