also? I can kill you with my brain.
I haven't posted for a while.
Partly that 's because I started a new job . . . which is excellent, which I needed, which is like the last missing financial piece of the puzzle in our household economy. It's good for all these reasons and more, but there's still that whole thing of not being in control of my own time. Which is a bit of a drag. Not so much, though, that I'd trade it for being as broke as we've been in the past few months. Feh. The longer-term challenge is to adjust my life/attitude/everything else so that I can tolerate having this job for a while and still get what I want out of life (which are basically things that require a high time investment--like writing). Like I said, challenge.
Partly I haven't posted because I wanted to contribute something in the whole "slash: is it anti-feminist?" discussion that's been going about recently with much ire on all sides. But after some honest tries, I still haven't been able to articulate my feelings well enough for them to be worth sharing with the world. The thesis statement of my meta post on slash, though, would run something like this:
I love it. And that means two things: The first: Because I am an intelligent, thoughtful woman, I suspect there are good reasons to love it. Not just "it's okay to indulge your private fantasies" type of good reasons, but "we collectively and with our deepest selves yearn for a different world" type of reasons, and slash is somehow a part of that. As I said, I'm not ready/able to articulate all of it yet, but there is something there that still remains to be said. The second thing: Because I am also a woman who's been deeply shaped by living in a sexist society, there are probably reasons for suspicion about the entire pursuit and legitimate critiques to be made. Like most things that touch us at a deep level, slash is a pretty complicated issue and a thoroughly mixed bag. 'Nuff said for now.
In uncomplicated news, I have started watching the series Firefly. I love it. I love it with a pure and unsullied love that can be explained partly by how extra-great the concept and the storyline and the characters are, and partly by how fundamentally stories feed me.
Let me offer an illustration: My husband is an avid meat eater, which I can't relate to on a literal level. But he gets in these moods where he's like "I need meat," and then he cooks up several (not kidding) really rare steaks and eats them up, and then he's so happy and satisfied. For hours afterwards, he announces to anyone in the vicinity, "I feel so good. That was just what I needed." And the reason I can relate to how he feels is because that's how nourishing a good story feel to me.
I don't know how else to say it, people. I devour good stories. I eat them. Watching this series is what gives me the strength to get up in the morning and go to the ambivalent job; it's what gives me something to think about on the 1-hour-each-way bus commute. Participating in this story is what keeps my heart open to the world around me and makes life still worth participating in, even though so much about it is un-ideal.
So yeah. Firefly. Love it.
And another cool thing is that we started watching it because two of my (non-fannish) friends wanted to watch it with us. So now the four of us have this great new connection around the sharing of an awesome show, and I was able to share some fannish things with them, like
y_fish's vid. They watched it and appreciated it in a way I couldn't because they knew the source material in a way I didn't (but soon I will!), and I got to feel like they saw a little bit of this world of fandom which is so important to me, but which seems so opaque to the rest of the world. So, wins all around there.
Partly that 's because I started a new job . . . which is excellent, which I needed, which is like the last missing financial piece of the puzzle in our household economy. It's good for all these reasons and more, but there's still that whole thing of not being in control of my own time. Which is a bit of a drag. Not so much, though, that I'd trade it for being as broke as we've been in the past few months. Feh. The longer-term challenge is to adjust my life/attitude/everything else so that I can tolerate having this job for a while and still get what I want out of life (which are basically things that require a high time investment--like writing). Like I said, challenge.
Partly I haven't posted because I wanted to contribute something in the whole "slash: is it anti-feminist?" discussion that's been going about recently with much ire on all sides. But after some honest tries, I still haven't been able to articulate my feelings well enough for them to be worth sharing with the world. The thesis statement of my meta post on slash, though, would run something like this:
I love it. And that means two things: The first: Because I am an intelligent, thoughtful woman, I suspect there are good reasons to love it. Not just "it's okay to indulge your private fantasies" type of good reasons, but "we collectively and with our deepest selves yearn for a different world" type of reasons, and slash is somehow a part of that. As I said, I'm not ready/able to articulate all of it yet, but there is something there that still remains to be said. The second thing: Because I am also a woman who's been deeply shaped by living in a sexist society, there are probably reasons for suspicion about the entire pursuit and legitimate critiques to be made. Like most things that touch us at a deep level, slash is a pretty complicated issue and a thoroughly mixed bag. 'Nuff said for now.
In uncomplicated news, I have started watching the series Firefly. I love it. I love it with a pure and unsullied love that can be explained partly by how extra-great the concept and the storyline and the characters are, and partly by how fundamentally stories feed me.
Let me offer an illustration: My husband is an avid meat eater, which I can't relate to on a literal level. But he gets in these moods where he's like "I need meat," and then he cooks up several (not kidding) really rare steaks and eats them up, and then he's so happy and satisfied. For hours afterwards, he announces to anyone in the vicinity, "I feel so good. That was just what I needed." And the reason I can relate to how he feels is because that's how nourishing a good story feel to me.
I don't know how else to say it, people. I devour good stories. I eat them. Watching this series is what gives me the strength to get up in the morning and go to the ambivalent job; it's what gives me something to think about on the 1-hour-each-way bus commute. Participating in this story is what keeps my heart open to the world around me and makes life still worth participating in, even though so much about it is un-ideal.
So yeah. Firefly. Love it.
And another cool thing is that we started watching it because two of my (non-fannish) friends wanted to watch it with us. So now the four of us have this great new connection around the sharing of an awesome show, and I was able to share some fannish things with them, like
y_fish's vid. They watched it and appreciated it in a way I couldn't because they knew the source material in a way I didn't (but soon I will!), and I got to feel like they saw a little bit of this world of fandom which is so important to me, but which seems so opaque to the rest of the world. So, wins all around there.