Compressed

 I've been on vacation for the past week. Well, "vacation" as in not being at work. Haven't been more than twenty minutes away from the house this week and that was for an appointment on Tuesday and then for breakfast with family on Thursday.

Aside from those things, I didn't really do anything. Okay, I did some chores -- swept up the house, washed and changed bedding, sharpened knives -- but I mostly watched TV shows and movies. (Got all the Thin Man movies on Blu-ray. So great.) (Also, yeah, I still buy physical media when I can. I can watch it when the inderbluts goes out and I can loan it to people, who still have players.)

What I wanted to do was write. Fiction. Uh, fanfiction. I couldn't, though. My brain wasn't decompressed enough to even seriously consider writing fiction until Saturday night. I even broke out notes I have for a story at around 10PM and didn't write a word. I skimmed the notes. I opened my preferred word processing program. I titled and saved the document. I looked at the notes again. I closed the document. And I went to bed.

Part of it is that writing fiction stretches brain muscles that I haven't used in a while. I forced it over a year ago, and it exhausted me. In bad and good ways. But I don't want to feel that way again. It wearied my brain for a long, long time.

Part of it is also that the notes I brought out -- the fic I most want to write -- are for a story from the point of view from a character I find detestable. Sandy Griffin. Oh, how I want to finish those last two parts, though. And Quinn has to be the final one. Begin with the one I like the best and end with the one who showed growth before the post canon's came around.

My brain is much better than it was a year ago or even six month ago. The fact that I have a want to write fiction is proof of that. Further proof is that I'm reading before I go to sleep again. Not a lot. One or two issues of a comic book or a dozen or so pages of a novel. I used to read a larger volume, but the fact that I pretty much didn't read anything for seven or eight years makes me... content that I'm able to read something again. Maybe I'll even be able to get back to my annual reading of To Kill a Mockingbird next spring. That would be nice.

And there are so many fics that I want to write. I have the notes I listed above. I have notes for more post canon Gravity Falls stories that are connected to the others I've written; one is an almost New Year's date between Dipper and Zia, a character of my own creation. I have notes and ideas for so many Daria fics, including the continuation of the crossover with The Tick, a Mack and Jane story based inspired by an Iron Chef from forever ago at PPMB (which is where I did my first non-lurk on that forum) that's been in my brain for more than 15 years, a Daria/Defending Your Life crossover only I asked for,and a series of stories inspired by the songs from the Semisonic album Feeling Strangely Fine. And then there's that The Good Place fic I want to write to challenge a couple of things presented in the show, but really I want it to be a comedic/depressing self-insert story.

As for today? Today was about preparing for next week. Five lunches are packed. Dishes are scrubbed. Laundry is folded and put away. My brain is preparing for all the people I'll have to deal with again. No, writing fiction was not in the cards for today.

Maybe I'll be able to decompress from work faster when my next vacation comes around in December.

Until then...

Be well.

A Painting My Brother Did

 

It now belongs to me.

A Beehive State of Mind

 Each morning, shortly after I wake up, I wish I were in Utah.

Sometimes while I'm peeing. Sometimes while I'm showering. Sometimes while I'm brushing my teeth. Always withing twenty minutes of rising out of my bed.

During the rest of the day, thoughts of Utah intrude. Over and over again.

I wish I were in Utah as I turn off the lights and close my eyes.

As I've written in the past, I have not plans to send myself to Utah, but many times a day, I wish I were already there.

Dear Critics,

Please stop using words like "you," "we," and "us" when describing how a book/song/movie/TV show/whatever makes you feel.

You are not me. You do not know me. You do not tell me how things make me feel. (Sometime I have trouble knowing how things make me feel and I'm me.)

You are you. You know you. Tell me how the things make you feel.

Then take the time to explain why the thing makes you feel the way it makes you feel.

The delicious prose. The rocking riff. The color of the lighting. Why do they make you feel what they make you feel? Help me to understand why creators make the choices they make through your lens.

But don't say that the things make us feel the same. They may, but they may not.

*hugs*

ticknart

Over and Over Again

 I think I've listened to "Conventioneers" more than sixty times today. It was the only song I listed to as I drove from work to the house.

A lot of my favorite songs are the ones that sound contradictory to their lyrics and/or ultimate meaning. And "Conventioneers" is one of those songs.

The tune and the way Mr. Page sings are pretty darn sexy. And the first part of the lyrics are all about coworkers being attracted to each other and sneaking off to screw. The speaker (singer?) even says "I'm already thinking marriage / I know that in the past it was something I'd disparage" and "As we danced, I could see in your eyes / You and me as senior citizens in love." Clearly imagining something beyond the one night.

After sex, though, he sings, "Then you slept, and I dressed, and I left."

To make it worse, when they get back to work after the convention the speaker asks "How can I just avoid a conversation?" and ultimately decides that "It'd be great / If you transferred out of state" to solve what he sees as a problem.

He wants her to move. To. A. Different. State! Because he feels awkward now.

So unsexy and cruel and awful and against the tone of the music and voice.

So delicious to my ears.

Also, I really like this image: "You stationed in the warm glow of the TV / Too patient as I'm playing L1 O1 V4 E1." (The point value is important, even if the number aren't sung.) In my mind, the light flickers and changes colors occasionally as whatever they're watching (the hotel's info channel probably) cuts from scene to scene while the extra small tiles are placed.

And this bit as the emotional transition of the song: "Before all the fireworks exploded / Our conversations were so loaded, innuendo flying / Now what can we say?"

I want to hear it again.

A Moral Quandary

I learned yesterday that The Dresden Doll are touring again and will be with a couple of hours of where I live this fall.

On the one hand, this band was very important to me in the mid-2000s. I remember the good radio station playing Coin Operated Boy just enough that I kept the station on all the time so I could hear it again. The music is a fun tune with lyrics about loneliness and, I'll say it though many disagree, self pleasure. I'm a big fan of when the music is counter to message of the lyrics.

Then one night, while I drove home from work, after 11:30, the station announced a new song by The Dresden Dolls and played Girl Anachronism. Something in my brain shifted that night. The rawness of the emotion. The brutality of the lyrics. The wonderful piano bashing to emphasize frustration. The song was exactly what I needed in the moment and I had to buy the album. If vinyl had been the order of the day, I would have worn the grooves flat listening to the album.

On the other hand, even if the direct allegations against her aren't true, she was complacent in the sexual abuse her ex-husband performed while they were married. An open marriage is one thing, good thing, but not warning the women in your life, the women you bring into your home to care for your son, that your husband is a sexual predator and then not working to remove them from the situation is something else entirely.

Do I want to give my money and my time to a person like that?

Dear Fanfic Authors,

I have a request. It's a simple request: Please stop apologizing when you post a chapter.

I understand the impulse to apologize when you do something that you think is later than it should have been or when the ginger snaps you make aren't as snappy as they should be or the fire in the woodstove heats the house too well. (Yes, these are all my experiences.) It's an impulse (habit?) that I've been working on for several years.

I also understand that the apologies hit differently when a fic is read as the chapters are posting.

But it's annoying when the fic is complete(ish) and every other chapter has an apology attached to it. It's cool with me you acknowledging that the chapter is later than you'd hoped, but there's no need to apologize. Your fic is a gift that you are giving to all of us. We are not paying you for it. Fanfiction is not (and should never) be transactional. You do not owe us the chapter. People should be thanking you every damn time you post a chapter.

Please remember, your fic will be around for a long time. (Unless you get filled with a stupid, craziness and erase everything.) More people will, hopefully, read and enjoy your fic after you are done with it. If there's no reason to apologize to the people reading as you post, there's even less of a reason to apologize to those of us reading it later.

I enjoy your fic. I'm glad to have read it. I want you to enjoy writing the fic and I want you to know that it is appreciated.

Be well.