Love In The Asylum

The Gay Hamlet Ficathon I've seen mentioned a few places this weekend is making me lol, since just a few days ago colourofsaying and I were having this conversation:


masterofmidgets: we may have just reached critical nerd mass btw
colourofsaying: I thought we were doing that earlier when we were talking about the psychological reasons why Horatio would hook up in a self-flagellating relationship with Fortinbras
masterofmidgets: I would also love to see the fic where Fortinbras is super awkward and miserable taking over Denmark because a) EVERYONE BEFORE HIM DIED HORRIBLY and b) everyone still left and especially Horatio is constantly sighing over what a better king Hamlet would have made if he hadn't been bugfuck crazy
colourofsaying: And he's like "I thought this would be fun!"
masterofmidgets: it's a very challenging political state for a young king at the best of times
masterofmidgets: let alone when most of your support people are traumatized from Claudius or used to dealing with Hamlet and his crazy
masterofmidgets: and Horatio should be helping him
colourofsaying: and he sort of is!
colourofsaying: but he's also spending a lot of time crying on battlements.
masterofmidgets: but he has a tendency to sigh pointedly and start talking about how /Hamlet/ would have done it that way
colourofsaying: ...Fortinbras has a completely unrequited crush, doesn't he?
colourofsaying: he writes these long letters to his uncle about how smart and mature and solid and dependable Horatio is, and how he's also an amaaaazing fighter, he moves so gracefully, and his hair flutters...
colourofsaying: and his uncle is all '...riiiiight.'
masterofmidgets: it is a tragic and doomed love
colourofsaying: since Horatio will... never really get over Hamlet.
masterofmidgets: and you know what that means
masterofmidgets: time for tragic porn!
colourofsaying: I would also like Horatio to more or less offer to have hatesex, and Fortinbras to be all '...no. I am sort of in love with you, and that would not be healthy for your brain, and I love you too much to allow you to fuck with yourself.'
masterofmidgets: although I would settle for Horatio going in for masochistic hatesex and Fortinbas being all 'wait, what? *sadface*' but going along with it because it's the only way to get close to Horatio. So both of them would get what they want, in a way that makes them both miserable. I AM A TERRIBLE PERSON.

Completely unrelated to our terminal nerdery, but my mom has a new bunny. Which is awesome! The apartment has been sadly rabbit-less since the Toby bunny died in the spring (of old age, bless his tough little fuzzy butt), and the last month or so, she's put out the word that she was interested in getting another. Well, she turned up to a job this week and her client answered the door with a rabbit in her arms, so problem solved. New bunny is named Lily (or possibly Izzy) and is absolutely precious - and only about 20% the size of the previous bunny. I have pictures!

I'm pretty sure I have better things to do than this right now. Actually, I know it for a fact. Ugh, finals.

You know what I haven't done in a while? A picspam post! Time to fix that.

Now that I'm finally (and for an all too brief time, because I have drafts due this week and then finals start, alas) caught up with my work, I thought I'd take the day off to do stuff around the apartment. And by do stuff, I mostly mean cook. And bake. I made this sourdough recipe from KAF a few weeks ago and really liked how it turned it out, but there were a few things that needed tweaking, so I thought I'd try it again. I'm glad I did, because it was even better this time.

( Let's bake some bread )

Normally I can take parades or leave them - they're fun, but not anything I'd go out of my way to catch, especially when the temperature starts hitting the mid-90s. I do, however, make an exception for the Corrales 4th of July parade. My mom and I and her sister and my cousins have been going to that one since I was a wee thing, and it is my FAVORITE, because it is very informal and very, very silly and just WONDERFUL.

( We didn't even get any pictures of the bikers )

After the parade we had lunch with the boyfriend's family, and then I came back to my dad's for dinner and an evening of watching the fireworks. We had rain on friday night, so I guess people decided the fire danger could be damned, because there are still a ton going off. We did our best to contribute to the din with our own stash of explosives. All in all, a good 4th of July.

The last couple of weeks, I've been on a big spring cleaning kick. I've got to-do lists and everything - written down on actual paper, even, and not just in ballpoint on the back of my hand! The level of forethought and organizational skill this requires for me honestly cannot be overemphasized.

Last week Freshman Roommate and I vacuumed for the first time since winter break, after months and months of having the same conversation EVERY SINGLE FRIDAY about how awful the floor looked and how this weekend, absolutely for sure, we were going to suck it up and get the vacuuming over with. This weekend I decided to try to get my bookcase tidied up - I didn't bother putting away the books I used for my classes last quarter, and between that and the constant taking down and replacing of books I was reading for myself, it had gotten pretty awful. But now it looks all neat and pretty!

( I have proof! )

My afternoon, in two easy pictures:

( yay kitty snuggles )

Bailey is the pounciest kitten I have ever met, and the best at climbing onto high places and then falling off of them (when she forgets she is on the windowsill and tries to attack the cord pull, for example). Oliver is playing the grumpy old man who wants her off his lawn, but when he thinks no one is looking he stops chewing on her head and starts licking her instead, so I think he is more fond than he lets on. Meanwhile, the rabbit is off in the back playing with the horses. No, really.

*hearts*

I am home, hanjuuluver is safely on the plane back to NM, and the con is over. D:

Since it was Halloween last night, the two of us decided that the thing to do would be to screen a few select episodes of Supernatural in our room, for our own entertainment and the entertainment of anyone on the third floor who noticed the sign on our door and stopped in. We watched Bloody Mary, Movie Monster, Ghostfacers, and the episode with the creepy soul-sucking changeling children, and spent the rest of the night terrified to look into any of the numerous large mirrors in our hotel room.

This morning/afternoon was the Small Fandoms panel (which lived up to its name by having five people show up), the Bishie Brunch, the Supernatural panel, and the Yaoi in Comics panel (which hanjuuluver talked me into going to because I was going to leave with her at 2.00). We sat with a nice group at the brunch and the eye candy was lovely - getting served by FFVII!Cid and a guy in black leather spanky pants more than made up for the light spread and the fact that I never got anything to drink. Also, I found out from one of the women at the table that yesterday's mystery anime with the guy in the red coat was Samurai 7, so now I'm watching that.

The Supernatural panel was the biggest panel I went to, and probably the most fun. Evenly split between the Sam/Dean and the Dean/Castiel groups - and me right in the middle liking both - and everyone agreeing that Bobby is the best ever. And a big chunk of it was devoted to fic recs and discussions of crackiest pairings ever. I think we won for Yellow-Eyed-Demon-possessed!Mary's dad/John Winchester. Fun times!

The Yaoi in Comics panel, like last year, was twenty minutes of Why Billy and Teddy Are The Cutest Canon Couple In the Universe, which I can hardly object to, twenty minutes of Why Everyone In The World Knew Northstar Was Gay Before He Was Outed, again much to my tastes, and then a free-for-all shouting match about whether Batman would bottom for Superman, why it sucks to be a Titan, and Daken sleeping his way through the MU. Also Robins! There was a Robin, a Deadpool, and three Wolverines in the room. So yeah, really glad I made the time to go to that.

And to cap it all off, I have pictures of the prints I bought yesterday! I'm still trying to figure out what to do with them - they are 8.5x11", which seems a bit small to hang on my walls, but I want to show them off. Whatever. Anyway, I got two prints by Jo Chen (hardest choice ever, her Runaways, Thor, and Buffy covers are gorgeous), and two pieces of fanart.

( Nightwing, smooching, and toppy!Sam under the cut )

I did my first French braid! \o/

I've been trying to teach myself how to French braid for a few months now with very little progress, but I was bored tonight watching NCIS and needed something to do with my hands, so I thought I'd give it another shot. And I have met with great success!

...well, great is probably an overstatement. Moderate success. Success in some small measure. Evidence of potential success lying ahead. But while it may be messy and uneven looking, it is still a French braid, and way better than anything I've managed before. The principles are sound, it's just the technique needs some refining. I think I need to do it in fewer sections, for one thing, so it looks smoother down the back of my head. (also my hair looks kind of gross, but that's just because I already heavy-oiled it for the night before I decided to try this.)

( man, I really need a better camera )

You know, I'm willing to deal with a certain amount of the inconvenience that comes with long hair. I don't get all that bothered when it takes five hours to dry, or when it's windy out and I'm eating mouthfuls of it, or when I shut it in a car door and almost scalp myself. These things happen, whatever. But even I have to draw the line somewhere.

WHEN MY HAIR STARTS EATING LARGE INSECTS, THAT IS NOT FUCKING COOL.

Being out in the desert in the middle of the summer, we have a bit of a problem with flies in the house. Not just regular flies, either, these things are huge. And obnoxious - the ones in my room spend most of their time either hovering around my lamp being obscenely loud or dive-bombing my computer screen. And, quite frequently, my face. I HATE them and I think they are disgusting.

So one of them got into my room this afternoon and has been driving me crazy all evening, but mostly I'm trying to ignore it, since I'm too much of a wimp even to kill flies. This turned out to be a mistake. About the tenth time it flew into my face, I swatted it away, and when I didn't see it, I thought it had flown off. This was also a mistake, as I figured out when I went to finish braiding my hair.

When I realized that there was a giant fly caught in my hair, you could have heard me shrieking from a block away.

BE RIGHT BACK WASHING MY HAIR OUT WITH BLEACH.

If anything was ever going to make me cut my hair off, this would be pretty much at the top of the list. *shudders*

To remind myself of why it's still worth it, even with giant insects, here, have some pictures. (I've been taking a bunch this week because a) the light in my room is actually sort of decent and b) I needed to make a sig pic for LHC)

( pics under the cut! )

So this quarter I'm going to be wearing my hair up a lot more. Partly because it's better for my hair, but mostly because I have an 11.00am class M-Th, and I straight out refuse to get up an hour early so that I will have time to wash my hair before class. Just not happening. But since I don't want to wash my hair every day either (I want to stick to the M-W-Sat wash schedule I have, it seems to work well), and by the third day my hair is itchy and flat and frizzy and ick, updos it is!

Given that, I've spent a lot of break practicing my updos, so that I don't have to fall back on the same-old same-old stand-bys of braided pigtails and messy Chinese buns. I mean, what's the point of having long hair if I'm not going to have fun with it? So here's a few pics (with links to tutorials, because I'm nice that way) of new updos I've figured out to do lately.

( Hair pics under the cut! )

Also! Check out my super-awesome new hairsticks in the pictures up there! I really love the metal fleur-de-lis one, it's quite pretty, but the plastic ones (which have a neat flower pattern that isn't really visible) aren't half bad either.