Hiatus no more!
Happy Fourth of July, Livejournal!
Courant says making this post will take me forever, but i only have an hour before it's no longer Independence Day here, so let's see if I can give it a shot.
So, hi! I am back! :D You might have noticed that I've been gone for a while! Specifically since January. This is the longest single amount of time I've gone without regularly being on and updating livejournal since I joined LJ, which is actually ten years ago this month. (wow!) I initially said I'd be gone until the beginning of June, but then June hit and with it came total and utter upheaval, which meant that I pushed it back til the end of June, and then til--well, til now.
Breaking down my year so far, it basically looks like this:
- January - went on hiatus from LJ, promptly broke hiatus by posting for Blog for Japan
- February - learned to play three and a half chords on my guitar, Rex Stout; sang a lot, played very badly.
- March - got ridiculously sick with the world's worst sinus infection + cold + strep throat + probably some other stuff, went to like 10 doctors, and spent two months thinking i was actually going blind (omfg so scary, i couldn't see!!!!!!!) before Lurrel and some people on twitter went, 'duh, use a Neti pot' and bam, problem solved.
- April - i don't even remember what happened in April. I told off my coworker in front of the whole office and stormed out of work early at one point. Sadly, that was a big highlight for me. dfkl;jasd.
- May - Hikago day! :D Posted a few guest posts for Manga Bookshelf in honor of Hikaru no Go. I also started blogging for The Mary Sue, which is awesome, except that I haven't had much of a chance to post anything since June hit with all its mayhem.
- June: okay so in June,
* The company I worked for was SOLD to an independent entrepreneur, who announced major changes and put us all to work doing research on our company stats and matrices and all kinds of things, and it was crazy and exciting
* I went to Bonnaroo (with my mom, don't get too excited--the jury is out on whether going to Bonnaroo with your parent actually makes you the MOST hipster of all hipsters, or just a total nerd. At one point my mom turned to me and gasped, "are you here ironically?!" I told her only partially.)
BUT THE POINT IS: BONNAROO. The list of all the bands and artists we saw while we were there, plus an overly long description, is below!
Asterisks by my favorites because i'm a dork
Thursday:
The Futurebirds
The Freelance Whales *
Bela Fleck
Phosphorescent
Band of Skulls *
The Walkmen
Friday;
Hayes Carll
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals * <-- oh my god she is INCREDIBLE live.
The Decemberists - i love you, Colin, but you were a little bland for me this time
My Morning Jacket
Arcade Fucking Fire, oh my god*
Lil' Wayne
Saturday: - okay i just have to say that Saturday we camped out at the Which Stage all day and we had great seats and the sound was amazing and every band we heard was phenomenal, and i just want to live there kldsjf;asdf
Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens *
Old Crow Medicine Show *
Allison Krauss and Union Station *
Mumford & Sons *
Buffalo Springfield * - Neil fucking Young, oh my god df;sadj. Neil Young!
The Scissor Sisters!!!!!!!! *
(During Buffalo Springfield my mom said, "I keep seeing young people around with blank looks on their faces." Later I dragged her to Scissor Sisters (which was amazing <3) and sdklfj;sadfd a short while into it I told her, "Mom, you have a blank look on your face." I don't think she got it, but I'm still laughing.)
Sunday:
Amos Lee *
Iron and Wine
The Strokes - i think i would have enjoyed them a lot better if i'd been closer to the stage. but still, come on, it's THE STROKES, i was happy just to be there :D
Explosions in the Sky *
Widespread Panic
Dopapod *
The thing about Bonnaroo is that I originally intended to go just so my mom would have some company. She went last year but commuted back and forth and i kind of insisted that she needed to do it right, aka stay there at the festival and sleep in a tent. Which meant that I obviously roped myself into coming along as backup. And I was happy to do it, but originally it was all for her, and it was kind of a giant unpleasant hot sweaty favor. I've never been a huge fan of live music, at least not rock concerts, and I didn't really think I would have a great time. Plus the whole time we were there we were actively trying not to DIE, because it was hot and there was never enough water and people were being treated for heat exhaustion all over the place, and it was honest-to-god grueling. But over the weekend my feelings went from, on Day One, "this is the worst vacation ever please get me out of here," to Day Two, "okay, this is kind of really cool but I'm never doing it again," to Day Three, "oh my god this is amazing, I want to stay forever," to finally, on Day Four, "what, it's over, how can it be over, NO I NEVER WANT IT TO END."
Like, I didn't necessarily think it was going to change my life or anything but......... it really blew me away, and I think on a fundamental level it made me feel like I could do anything. I don't know, just the act of being there, surviving the heat, hearing so many amazing bands, having the people next to me be like, "hey, quick, you want some pot while your mom's gone?" lololol, and having all of it just be okay, having it all be FINE, and fantastic, just made me feel like I could fucking handle anything and everything. Like I belonged there. Like I could have nice things.
I think my favorite part about Bonnaroo apart from the music is how my mom started out being totally straightlaced. Like, she'd carefully fold her blankets and try to dust them off and avoid getting sand on them. She'd tell me not to share our amazing portable fan with the people sitting around us because she was afraid someone would, lol, steal it and run off with it, I guess? And she just lightened up so fast, it was great. On Saturday someone spilled beer all over one of our blankets and I panicked and used like 80 napkins trying to sop it up, and then my mom returned and was just like, DON'T EVEN WORRY ABOUT IT. And she finally went from being like, :| at everything, to OFFERING HER FAN TO PEOPLE (which was just in time too because one of the guys next to us nearly passed out at Buffalo Springfield and she wound up giving him medical attention until he could get to a medical station), and it was just really nice to witness. She's a good person, my mom. I love her a lot. <3
Mom: idk, i haven't seen any topless women this year.
Me: Oh. I've seen three.
Her: ...oh.
*AWKWARD SILENCE*
My other other favorite part about Bonnaroo was all the wonderful things in the sky. On Friday in between MMJ and Arcade Fire (ARCADE. FUCKING. FIRE!!!!!), a troop of hang gliders flew over us and, like, idek, poured these beautiful glittery electronic flashing purple things over the audience that, like, floated forever in the sky and slowly drifted down. I have no idea what they were, I've never seen anything like it before! But it was so beautiful. It was like being sprinkled with fairy dust. It was wonderful. :D
And then at the Widespread Panic concert, which was the last concert of the festival, all around the giant park people were lighting and setting aloft huge beautiful paper lanterns. It looked exactly, exactly like that scene from Tangled, and it was so beautiful that i'm getting teary just thinking about it now.
The whole experience was just really so amazing, and so unexpectedly so. I'm still reeling from it--it was only 3 weeks ago and yet it feels like a lifetime, because I feel like I just didn't come back from it the same person.
Okay, so THAT WAS BONNAROO.
- so I came back from Bonnaroo still buzzing with everything, and it was back to more work work work, and then:
* my position within the company was eliminated (along with everyone in our department) so that the new owner could change the job title and description and cut our salaries by a HUGE amount. Like, huge. And the owner had legitimate and valid and important reasons for doing this, and he really wanted me to stay on in the new role.
But I felt like I'd given this company the last three and a half years of my best work, and only in the last month had it really been seen as the important and intelligent work it was, which was very nice validation on the one hand, but just too little too late on the other.
So I:
* said goodbye to Virginia, and specifically to my gorgeous apartment, turned in my severance form, found an apartment, rented a van, packed up all my stuff (with the gracious assistance of chez myrafur), and did what I've been wanting to do ever since I left Bloomington--namely, move back.
By "move back" i mean, I spent 2 crazy days driving a 20-foot diesel rig crammed with too much stuff, hauling my car over MOUNTAINS, STEEP AND CRAGGY MOUNTAINS, and RICKETY NARROW BRIDGES, and it was terrifying. terrifying! but i did it.
The crazy thing about June is that I'd arbitrarily picked "end of june" as my end-of hiatus. But then i got laid off and my apartment lease ended at the same time, in the same week even, and I had literally less than a week to decide what to do and whether to stay or go, and it was so whirlwind that I haven't really had a chance to digest what I've done.
But I'm back in Bloomington, and this feels like exactly where I belong, at least for now. I have too much unfinished here. More importantly, I have plans. :D
___________
In fandom business, in the last 6 months I have: a) remained in love with Inception; b) read all eight hundred acts of Homestuck, which is just brain-breakingly fabulous; c) mainlined all seasons of Mad Men, which I need to rant at you all about at some point, and d) fallen in love with Project Runway, and Tim Gunn, and Tim Gunn's poor celibate broken heart.
I say "fallen in love with Project Runway" but really i just mean Seasons 1 and 2 of Project Runway. and THERE IS NO FIC FOR MY FAVORITE PAIRING. life. eta: oh hey, wait, that is actually not true--there is fic, sweet, hot Daniel/Nick fic!!!!!!, and it is by none other than our lovely recrudescence! :D :D :D
Anyway, while driving over all the mountains and fearing for my life and clutching my steering wheel and muttering "DON'T LOOK DOWN, OH MY GOD" to myself, I re-cast Harry Potter with the stars of Project Runway. Don't even front, you know this is brilliant.
Harry - Daniel Vosovic <3 <3 <3
Ron - Nick Verreos (this is a Harry/Ron fic, just to be clear)
Hermione - Kara Sang <33333333333!
The Weasley Twins - Santino and Jay
Draco - Christian, of course
Luna - Oolie!
Fleur - Austin! :D
Dumbledore - Tim Gunn!!!!
McGonagall - Laura the Architect
Umbridge - Wendy
Hagrid - Chris March! :D
And then I got stuck trying to figure out who Heidi Klum would be. WHO WOULD HEIDI KLUM BE, YOU GUYS? eta: omg bennet_7 is totally right, Heidi is totally the Sorting Hat! :DDDDDD
Also to come in the future of this journal (which I'm writing here before I forget): YA rants, rants about Mad Men, and Southland, and probably Project Runway, and maybe even actual fanfic now that I can tear my head away from my job for the first time in three years. OH GOD I'M SO HAPPY TO BE BACK. <3
(and i made it with four minutes to spare! happy July 4th to me!)
Courant says making this post will take me forever, but i only have an hour before it's no longer Independence Day here, so let's see if I can give it a shot.
So, hi! I am back! :D You might have noticed that I've been gone for a while! Specifically since January. This is the longest single amount of time I've gone without regularly being on and updating livejournal since I joined LJ, which is actually ten years ago this month. (wow!) I initially said I'd be gone until the beginning of June, but then June hit and with it came total and utter upheaval, which meant that I pushed it back til the end of June, and then til--well, til now.
Breaking down my year so far, it basically looks like this:
- January - went on hiatus from LJ, promptly broke hiatus by posting for Blog for Japan
- February - learned to play three and a half chords on my guitar, Rex Stout; sang a lot, played very badly.
- March - got ridiculously sick with the world's worst sinus infection + cold + strep throat + probably some other stuff, went to like 10 doctors, and spent two months thinking i was actually going blind (omfg so scary, i couldn't see!!!!!!!) before Lurrel and some people on twitter went, 'duh, use a Neti pot' and bam, problem solved.
- April - i don't even remember what happened in April. I told off my coworker in front of the whole office and stormed out of work early at one point. Sadly, that was a big highlight for me. dfkl;jasd.
- May - Hikago day! :D Posted a few guest posts for Manga Bookshelf in honor of Hikaru no Go. I also started blogging for The Mary Sue, which is awesome, except that I haven't had much of a chance to post anything since June hit with all its mayhem.
- June: okay so in June,
* The company I worked for was SOLD to an independent entrepreneur, who announced major changes and put us all to work doing research on our company stats and matrices and all kinds of things, and it was crazy and exciting
* I went to Bonnaroo (with my mom, don't get too excited--the jury is out on whether going to Bonnaroo with your parent actually makes you the MOST hipster of all hipsters, or just a total nerd. At one point my mom turned to me and gasped, "are you here ironically?!" I told her only partially.)
BUT THE POINT IS: BONNAROO. The list of all the bands and artists we saw while we were there, plus an overly long description, is below!
Asterisks by my favorites because i'm a dork
Thursday:
Friday;
Saturday: - okay i just have to say that Saturday we camped out at the Which Stage all day and we had great seats and the sound was amazing and every band we heard was phenomenal, and i just want to live there kldsjf;asdf
(During Buffalo Springfield my mom said, "I keep seeing young people around with blank looks on their faces." Later I dragged her to Scissor Sisters (which was amazing <3) and sdklfj;sadfd a short while into it I told her, "Mom, you have a blank look on your face." I don't think she got it, but I'm still laughing.)
Sunday:
The thing about Bonnaroo is that I originally intended to go just so my mom would have some company. She went last year but commuted back and forth and i kind of insisted that she needed to do it right, aka stay there at the festival and sleep in a tent. Which meant that I obviously roped myself into coming along as backup. And I was happy to do it, but originally it was all for her, and it was kind of a giant unpleasant hot sweaty favor. I've never been a huge fan of live music, at least not rock concerts, and I didn't really think I would have a great time. Plus the whole time we were there we were actively trying not to DIE, because it was hot and there was never enough water and people were being treated for heat exhaustion all over the place, and it was honest-to-god grueling. But over the weekend my feelings went from, on Day One, "this is the worst vacation ever please get me out of here," to Day Two, "okay, this is kind of really cool but I'm never doing it again," to Day Three, "oh my god this is amazing, I want to stay forever," to finally, on Day Four, "what, it's over, how can it be over, NO I NEVER WANT IT TO END."
Like, I didn't necessarily think it was going to change my life or anything but......... it really blew me away, and I think on a fundamental level it made me feel like I could do anything. I don't know, just the act of being there, surviving the heat, hearing so many amazing bands, having the people next to me be like, "hey, quick, you want some pot while your mom's gone?" lololol, and having all of it just be okay, having it all be FINE, and fantastic, just made me feel like I could fucking handle anything and everything. Like I belonged there. Like I could have nice things.
I think my favorite part about Bonnaroo apart from the music is how my mom started out being totally straightlaced. Like, she'd carefully fold her blankets and try to dust them off and avoid getting sand on them. She'd tell me not to share our amazing portable fan with the people sitting around us because she was afraid someone would, lol, steal it and run off with it, I guess? And she just lightened up so fast, it was great. On Saturday someone spilled beer all over one of our blankets and I panicked and used like 80 napkins trying to sop it up, and then my mom returned and was just like, DON'T EVEN WORRY ABOUT IT. And she finally went from being like, :| at everything, to OFFERING HER FAN TO PEOPLE (which was just in time too because one of the guys next to us nearly passed out at Buffalo Springfield and she wound up giving him medical attention until he could get to a medical station), and it was just really nice to witness. She's a good person, my mom. I love her a lot. <3
Mom: idk, i haven't seen any topless women this year.
Me: Oh. I've seen three.
Her: ...oh.
*AWKWARD SILENCE*
My other other favorite part about Bonnaroo was all the wonderful things in the sky. On Friday in between MMJ and Arcade Fire (ARCADE. FUCKING. FIRE!!!!!), a troop of hang gliders flew over us and, like, idek, poured these beautiful glittery electronic flashing purple things over the audience that, like, floated forever in the sky and slowly drifted down. I have no idea what they were, I've never seen anything like it before! But it was so beautiful. It was like being sprinkled with fairy dust. It was wonderful. :D
And then at the Widespread Panic concert, which was the last concert of the festival, all around the giant park people were lighting and setting aloft huge beautiful paper lanterns. It looked exactly, exactly like that scene from Tangled, and it was so beautiful that i'm getting teary just thinking about it now.
The whole experience was just really so amazing, and so unexpectedly so. I'm still reeling from it--it was only 3 weeks ago and yet it feels like a lifetime, because I feel like I just didn't come back from it the same person.
Okay, so THAT WAS BONNAROO.
- so I came back from Bonnaroo still buzzing with everything, and it was back to more work work work, and then:
* my position within the company was eliminated (along with everyone in our department) so that the new owner could change the job title and description and cut our salaries by a HUGE amount. Like, huge. And the owner had legitimate and valid and important reasons for doing this, and he really wanted me to stay on in the new role.
But I felt like I'd given this company the last three and a half years of my best work, and only in the last month had it really been seen as the important and intelligent work it was, which was very nice validation on the one hand, but just too little too late on the other.
So I:
* said goodbye to Virginia, and specifically to my gorgeous apartment, turned in my severance form, found an apartment, rented a van, packed up all my stuff (with the gracious assistance of chez myrafur), and did what I've been wanting to do ever since I left Bloomington--namely, move back.
By "move back" i mean, I spent 2 crazy days driving a 20-foot diesel rig crammed with too much stuff, hauling my car over MOUNTAINS, STEEP AND CRAGGY MOUNTAINS, and RICKETY NARROW BRIDGES, and it was terrifying. terrifying! but i did it.
The crazy thing about June is that I'd arbitrarily picked "end of june" as my end-of hiatus. But then i got laid off and my apartment lease ended at the same time, in the same week even, and I had literally less than a week to decide what to do and whether to stay or go, and it was so whirlwind that I haven't really had a chance to digest what I've done.
But I'm back in Bloomington, and this feels like exactly where I belong, at least for now. I have too much unfinished here. More importantly, I have plans. :D
___________
In fandom business, in the last 6 months I have: a) remained in love with Inception; b) read all eight hundred acts of Homestuck, which is just brain-breakingly fabulous; c) mainlined all seasons of Mad Men, which I need to rant at you all about at some point, and d) fallen in love with Project Runway, and Tim Gunn, and Tim Gunn's poor celibate broken heart.
I say "fallen in love with Project Runway" but really i just mean Seasons 1 and 2 of Project Runway. and THERE IS NO FIC FOR MY FAVORITE PAIRING. life. eta: oh hey, wait, that is actually not true--there is fic, sweet, hot Daniel/Nick fic!!!!!!, and it is by none other than our lovely recrudescence! :D :D :D
Anyway, while driving over all the mountains and fearing for my life and clutching my steering wheel and muttering "DON'T LOOK DOWN, OH MY GOD" to myself, I re-cast Harry Potter with the stars of Project Runway. Don't even front, you know this is brilliant.
Harry - Daniel Vosovic <3 <3 <3
Ron - Nick Verreos (this is a Harry/Ron fic, just to be clear)
Hermione - Kara Sang <33333333333!
The Weasley Twins - Santino and Jay
Draco - Christian, of course
Luna - Oolie!
Fleur - Austin! :D
Dumbledore - Tim Gunn!!!!
McGonagall - Laura the Architect
Umbridge - Wendy
Hagrid - Chris March! :D
And then I got stuck trying to figure out who Heidi Klum would be. WHO WOULD HEIDI KLUM BE, YOU GUYS? eta: omg bennet_7 is totally right, Heidi is totally the Sorting Hat! :DDDDDD
Also to come in the future of this journal (which I'm writing here before I forget): YA rants, rants about Mad Men, and Southland, and probably Project Runway, and maybe even actual fanfic now that I can tear my head away from my job for the first time in three years. OH GOD I'M SO HAPPY TO BE BACK. <3
(and i made it with four minutes to spare! happy July 4th to me!)