post! with stuff!
Not, y'know, interesting stuff, but stuff nonetheless. Considering that it's grading season, and the dog is wearing me out the rest of the time, uninteresting stuff is about as good as I get.
1. The dog. Y'all, I don't know. Last week, I thought we'd totally turned a corner, where we finally felt settled. This week, I've been thisclose to giving up. Next week, I'll probably adore her again.
Some of it is still new dog settling in stuff, exacerbated by her shelter background. Some of it, though, is breed stuff. In all the ways that Italian Greyhounds are like other sighthounds, I adore her. In all the ways they're like hyper, needy, attention-seeking small dogs, I get really frustrated. I thought I'd done my homework and knew what I was getting into, but at least for this IG, "velcro" means much more "being a pest" than it means "doing her thing in the same space I'm doing mine." One moment, she's an utter delight; the next, I'm longing for a whippet or a greyhound who would just leave me alone for five minutes, omg. How much of this can she learn to overcome? How much can I learn to live with? I can't bear to think of giving her up, but on the other hand, neither can I imagine going through the next decade of my life with a dog that's quite this needy.
In the next few weeks, classes will finish for the semester, and the weather should, at least, continue to improve. I'm hoping that both things will allow us to settle into more ideal conditions for both human and dog, and we'll see how things function at that point.
2. Bike!!! At long last, I have a road bike!!! I've wanted one for years, but I didn't have a good place to keep one before (nor did I really have the extra money to put into one). I've only been out on it a couple of times, and the second time I fell rather spectacularly (still adjusting to the clipless pedals, which I've never used) and messed up my left hand a bit. Fortunately nothing was broken (I was quite worried for a little while), but this along with grading and weather, has curtailed things a little bit. I'm looking forward to getting serious about the cycling this summer, though!
Back when I got my last bike, and gabolange was getting hers, we were in the height of Battlestar Galactica fannishness, so we had this Cylon family of bikes: mine old, crappy bike is the Toaster, and hers are the Hybrid and Number Six. We all know how I feel about BSG these days, but I felt like I couldn't quite break up the Cylon family, so the new bike is Athena, with the advantage that I can pretend, when I'm feeling less charitable toward BSG, that it's named for the goddess.
3. Castle is getting rather frustrating, no? I really believed they wouldn't go the tired will-they-or-won't-they route, because these writers seemed to know how to grow an actual relationship. But now the show is like Bones meets Law and Order at its most ripped-from-the-headlines-iest. I continue to tune in, but it is all a bit frustrating.
4. BASKETBALL!!!!!!!! Final Four is going to be EPIC!!!!!!!! So excited for the 'Cats to eat some little red birds!!!!!
5. Meme! I did this one that's going around: Comment to this post, and I will list seven things I want you to talk about. They might make sense or they might be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself.
gabolange gave me the following:
Tunnels: I'm not sure I have strong opinions about them, really, though they make me think of my New York days, even though I lived in a bridge borough rather than a tunnel borough. But I suppose in my various urban-dwelling years I've spent a fair amount of time in subway tunnels, and I was always grateful for them.
Guidebooks: Before I studied abroad in Oxford as an undergrad, I got a book that was a little more history of Oxford/famous people who have lived in Oxford than it was strictly guidebook, and that was lots of fun. I carried it around with me for at least the first month, doing the typical slack-jawed American-in-Europe-for-the-first-time thing.
Music: Um, I like it? I almost don't know where to begin with something this broad. Lately I've been listening to a lot of Florence + The Machine, for some reason. And then I also keep coming back to Dar Williams, like you do. Dar, I think, is my deserted island artist: if I could only take one, it would be she.
Snacks: Snacks are more difficult than they used to be, and also more necessary. Because I can't eat gluten, I have to plan ahead with food, and inevitably I do things like think, "oh, rice cakes or almonds will be fine" as I'm leaving the house, and then I either get too hungry or too tired of rice cakes or almonds mid-day and do something stupid like get a Snickers out of the vending machine. I'm not sure I was necessarily smarter about this in my gluten days, though, because sugar has always been my nemesis.
Mountains: I love mountains!!!! I love to look at them, I love to climb them, I'd love to live near them! I prefer desert mountains, though, because I find that too many trees make it difficult to really see and enjoy the mountains. Apparently this is an opinion that lots of people find weird.
Birthdays: I'm lousy at birthdays. I usually remember them well enough--well enough to call people to wish them happy birthday--but I'm TERRIBLE at birthday gifts. There aren't that many people I even bother with, and I've been known to forget to give birthday gifts to immediate family members. I'm almost always late with them, and if I'm not, it's because I just sent an Amazon gift certificate (which, frankly, I do most of the time, anyway, because who wouldn't want an Amazon gift certificate, really?). The one exception, oddly, is one of my close friends from college whose birthday is the day after mine. Somehow the fact that we started celebrating together (and then she lived in Asia for a while, and we'd get a kick out of Skyping when it was both our birthdays at the same time) means that she's really the only non-family member whose birthday I consistently celebrate, and I usually try to get her something that means something. It's almost never on time, though.
Xhalax Sun: Oh, Xhalax Sun!!!! First of all, I just have a thing for ambivalent mothers (see also: Irina Derevko), and Xhalax hits that button in a big way. But the real reason I love Xhalax so much is that Farscape used her to subvert their main principles, and I really appreciate a show that can do that. Farscape is a show about love and family, and even when the universe kicks you to hell and back again, love really counts for a lot. But the show didn't just take it for granted that love would conquer all for John and Aeryn, and I appreciated SO much that we got this foil character who showed how destructive love could be in the Uncharted Territories. Xhalax tried to be more, and it destroyed her.
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments. Comment here or there.
1. The dog. Y'all, I don't know. Last week, I thought we'd totally turned a corner, where we finally felt settled. This week, I've been thisclose to giving up. Next week, I'll probably adore her again.
Some of it is still new dog settling in stuff, exacerbated by her shelter background. Some of it, though, is breed stuff. In all the ways that Italian Greyhounds are like other sighthounds, I adore her. In all the ways they're like hyper, needy, attention-seeking small dogs, I get really frustrated. I thought I'd done my homework and knew what I was getting into, but at least for this IG, "velcro" means much more "being a pest" than it means "doing her thing in the same space I'm doing mine." One moment, she's an utter delight; the next, I'm longing for a whippet or a greyhound who would just leave me alone for five minutes, omg. How much of this can she learn to overcome? How much can I learn to live with? I can't bear to think of giving her up, but on the other hand, neither can I imagine going through the next decade of my life with a dog that's quite this needy.
In the next few weeks, classes will finish for the semester, and the weather should, at least, continue to improve. I'm hoping that both things will allow us to settle into more ideal conditions for both human and dog, and we'll see how things function at that point.
2. Bike!!! At long last, I have a road bike!!! I've wanted one for years, but I didn't have a good place to keep one before (nor did I really have the extra money to put into one). I've only been out on it a couple of times, and the second time I fell rather spectacularly (still adjusting to the clipless pedals, which I've never used) and messed up my left hand a bit. Fortunately nothing was broken (I was quite worried for a little while), but this along with grading and weather, has curtailed things a little bit. I'm looking forward to getting serious about the cycling this summer, though!
Back when I got my last bike, and gabolange was getting hers, we were in the height of Battlestar Galactica fannishness, so we had this Cylon family of bikes: mine old, crappy bike is the Toaster, and hers are the Hybrid and Number Six. We all know how I feel about BSG these days, but I felt like I couldn't quite break up the Cylon family, so the new bike is Athena, with the advantage that I can pretend, when I'm feeling less charitable toward BSG, that it's named for the goddess.
3. Castle is getting rather frustrating, no? I really believed they wouldn't go the tired will-they-or-won't-they route, because these writers seemed to know how to grow an actual relationship. But now the show is like Bones meets Law and Order at its most ripped-from-the-headlines-iest. I continue to tune in, but it is all a bit frustrating.
4. BASKETBALL!!!!!!!! Final Four is going to be EPIC!!!!!!!! So excited for the 'Cats to eat some little red birds!!!!!
5. Meme! I did this one that's going around: Comment to this post, and I will list seven things I want you to talk about. They might make sense or they might be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself.
gabolange gave me the following:
Tunnels: I'm not sure I have strong opinions about them, really, though they make me think of my New York days, even though I lived in a bridge borough rather than a tunnel borough. But I suppose in my various urban-dwelling years I've spent a fair amount of time in subway tunnels, and I was always grateful for them.
Guidebooks: Before I studied abroad in Oxford as an undergrad, I got a book that was a little more history of Oxford/famous people who have lived in Oxford than it was strictly guidebook, and that was lots of fun. I carried it around with me for at least the first month, doing the typical slack-jawed American-in-Europe-for-the-first-time thing.
Music: Um, I like it? I almost don't know where to begin with something this broad. Lately I've been listening to a lot of Florence + The Machine, for some reason. And then I also keep coming back to Dar Williams, like you do. Dar, I think, is my deserted island artist: if I could only take one, it would be she.
Snacks: Snacks are more difficult than they used to be, and also more necessary. Because I can't eat gluten, I have to plan ahead with food, and inevitably I do things like think, "oh, rice cakes or almonds will be fine" as I'm leaving the house, and then I either get too hungry or too tired of rice cakes or almonds mid-day and do something stupid like get a Snickers out of the vending machine. I'm not sure I was necessarily smarter about this in my gluten days, though, because sugar has always been my nemesis.
Mountains: I love mountains!!!! I love to look at them, I love to climb them, I'd love to live near them! I prefer desert mountains, though, because I find that too many trees make it difficult to really see and enjoy the mountains. Apparently this is an opinion that lots of people find weird.
Birthdays: I'm lousy at birthdays. I usually remember them well enough--well enough to call people to wish them happy birthday--but I'm TERRIBLE at birthday gifts. There aren't that many people I even bother with, and I've been known to forget to give birthday gifts to immediate family members. I'm almost always late with them, and if I'm not, it's because I just sent an Amazon gift certificate (which, frankly, I do most of the time, anyway, because who wouldn't want an Amazon gift certificate, really?). The one exception, oddly, is one of my close friends from college whose birthday is the day after mine. Somehow the fact that we started celebrating together (and then she lived in Asia for a while, and we'd get a kick out of Skyping when it was both our birthdays at the same time) means that she's really the only non-family member whose birthday I consistently celebrate, and I usually try to get her something that means something. It's almost never on time, though.
Xhalax Sun: Oh, Xhalax Sun!!!! First of all, I just have a thing for ambivalent mothers (see also: Irina Derevko), and Xhalax hits that button in a big way. But the real reason I love Xhalax so much is that Farscape used her to subvert their main principles, and I really appreciate a show that can do that. Farscape is a show about love and family, and even when the universe kicks you to hell and back again, love really counts for a lot. But the show didn't just take it for granted that love would conquer all for John and Aeryn, and I appreciated SO much that we got this foil character who showed how destructive love could be in the Uncharted Territories. Xhalax tried to be more, and it destroyed her.
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments. Comment here or there.