they call us killers, honey
It's time to write about happy things again. Herein, some things I've loved a lot this week.
Books
I've been reading Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but every time I pick it up, I read two paragraphs and fall asleep on my couch, so...that one may go back to the library until I find my attention span.
I did read Love Saves the Day by Gwen Cooper on Sunday afternoon. It's a story about a mother and her adult daughter and their relationship told mostly from the point of view of the mother's cat - and I swear it isn't as ridiculous as that makes it sound. The mother-daughter relationship was really engaging, the New York City where it was set was entertaining, and the cat-narration was right up there with the sort of charmingly precocious that you get from novels that successfully utilize child narrators. Also, I cried through basically the entire thing, in a good way.
Television
I watched all of the first season of Orphan Black so I could watch the second season when it began, and I might be in love with a pack of clones. I originally didn't watch because the premise ("clones" was all I got out of the pre-pilot press) held zero appeal for me, but I watched at the urging of people whose opinions I trust and I've seen the error of my ways. Coming out of the season two premiere, I'm looking forward to learning more about Rachel. And Helena! She's alive and I didn't even know I wanted that! Basically, just don't ask me to pick a favorite clone because I can't. (It's Alison. Or Cosima. Or Sarah.)
There was also a lot to love about this week's Game of Thrones (and I'm going to leave out the things I did not enjoy because this is about positivity, okay?). I really like Shireen in the books (she's one of those characters that I wanted to get more of when I was reading), so I love what they've done with her in the show, particularly with her and Davos. I'm really looking forward to what's coming for Sansa. I've been watching the show with a guy friend of mine who didn't really get Sansa at first, in that he was the sort who felt that Sansa ratted out Ned to Cersei and truly didn't understand why she didn't make an effort to get out of King's Landing with Littlefinger or the Hound until I pointed out the things that I thought were obvious (she's a terrified teenage girl who can trust literally no one in her life). He's now looking forward to what comes for her almost as much as I am. After saying that he's given up trying to predict the show (because he hasn't read the books) when I asked who he thought was responsible for Joffrey's death, he said, "But I'm almost positive that Sansa's going to end up being important." It warmed my heart.
I'm also really enjoying Once Upon a Time. Regina's arc this season has been one of my favorite things, and it just keeps getting better. Summoning Cora's ghost - which required both her murderer and the murder weapon, excellent - only to have her inhabit Snow to give her all of the memories that explain not only why she gave up Zelena, but why she hated Snow's mother so much. Ugh. So good.
Little Bits
♥ enormous mugs of hot water with honey and lemon when I'm sick ♥ wearing cardigans and cute shoes ♥ adorable text messages ♥ grape hyacinths ♥ plotting, plotting, plotting ♥ sleeping through roofing projects ♥ cats who check on you after you've had a twenty-minute coughing fit ♥ snow flurries ♥ glitter nail polish that satisfies the Tiny Nic who lives inside of me ♥ days at work that fly ♥ getting scheduled to substitute teach in pre-k the last week of school ♥ kittens ♥ drawing fictional family trees (incidentally, if anyone wants to come and talk to me in the comments about what something like matriarchal Westeros would look like, that would be The Best) ♥ lilacs finally blooming - possibly my favorite scent of all time, ever, full stop ♥ Sunday morning cinnamon rolls and lingering over coffee ♥ sweet lemonade-flavored Peeps ♥ my bridesmaids dress is finally on its way! ♥ Sebastian Stan's face. I mean really. ♥ that the neighbor's dogs like me better than they like him ♥ the stuffed tiger I found that sings "I'm Sexy and I Know It" while dancing in erratic circles; it's so funny and I don't know why ♥ Lupita Nyong'o being named People's Most Beautiful Person of 2014 ♥ deleting useless things from my phone ♥ Scarlett Johansson on the latest issues of Vanity Fair ♥ lilacs again because I love them that much
Lovely kittens, please tell me what is making you so happy this week. Or, alternatively, let's do this meme taken from waltzmatildah:
Give me a character (or several) I will tell you:
* How I feel about this character
* All the people I ship romantically with this character
* My non-romantic OTP for this character
* My unpopular opinion about this character
* One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon
* Something about them I consider true, though it's just head canon/fanon