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May. 13th, 2016
talk to me
May. 13th, 2016 01:31 amvia http://ift.tt/1OmzDAJ:
help, I feel weird. I feel cut-off and lonely and weird and stuck. I’m serious, I cried this morning because an old pickup truck smelled like my dad.
I was going to like, put prompts here for asks I’d like to get so I’d have something to talk about but I couldn’t think of anything. And I looked for an ask meme or something because that would be just the ticket, but naturally, I can’t find anything. (The ones that ask if you’re a virgin or have ever drank alcohol are very cute and make me feel a billion years old. Listen, virginity is a social construct and I lost mine before memes existed okay. Likewise my first alcoholic drink was probably related to my first communion and thus is lost to us in the deeps of time. Listen.)
Do feel free to ask me weird shit, though, it would please me to think about something besides the gross shit between my ears.
Anyway, instead of anything fluffy or useful, here’s a Did You Know based on the last picture I posted (which, since it was uncaptioned, I’ll explain here– it was an aerial shot from above of a damaged WWII medium bomber, a B-17, with one of its four engines trailing smoke, and I’d hashtagged it #same because, you know, accurate):
WWII bomber crews didn’t wear their parachutes because the packs were too heavy and bulky. In the event of a plane going down, if the pilot lost control all hands would perish because the plummeting plane’s G-forces would pin them down and they’d be unable to move, to get to their parachutes or to escape even if they could get the packs. (B-17s were normally staffed by a crew of up to 10.) Consequently, a lot of pilots rode their crashing planes down, knowing it would kill them, but trying to maintain control of the plane as long as they could so as many crew could get out as possible. Sometimes crew bailed early because of this; at the first trouble, the pilot would order them out, in case he lost control later; this meant a lot of gunners wound up with the Resistance or in prison camps or killed in hostile territory, even though the pilots managed to limp the planes back to base. So take those feels, which are a lot of feels if you feel me, and go read and subscribe to the WIP Blue Skies (feat. Poe Dameron and a Lancaster, which is the plane in my blog heading if you’re curious; approximate RAF equivalent of the B-17; also featuring Luke Skywalker and some excellent slang, and Finn just showed up, so–).
I’ve started and discarded a WWII bomber AU for probably every fandom I’ve ever been in, just FYI. I did a shitload of research on the French Resistance, to the point of actually attending a re-enactment in persona (I cheated and used my Dad’s WWI Enfield because guess what, the US airdropped a shitload of them on France and they were a common Resistance weapon).
But I’ve never written anything about it. Maybe someday.
Ugh I’m so disgusted with myself in general, I wish this brain chemistry situation would stop. Tell me stories? Ask me weird things. Or talk to me about Home Out In The Wind, I’d like that, next week is the last chapter and I’m starting to become genuinely terrified that if I don’t emotionally resolve it *enough* I’ll be burned at the stake or something. Like, I’m getting really worried. Listen, it’s better than it was going to be, I had Poe running away from his feelings a lot more before I fixed it, but I’m sort of. It’s. Uh.
Listen. When I emotionally hurt you, I do it to myself worse. Yes I just “it hurts me more than it hurts you”’d but I promise you I have cried actual human tears over this shit for months now do not give me that look.
Oh Christ, I need to come up with a titling gimmick for the next segment and I don’t know how. I just. I don’t. I don’t have a lot of cope, folks, and this shit is hard okay.
help, I feel weird. I feel cut-off and lonely and weird and stuck. I’m serious, I cried this morning because an old pickup truck smelled like my dad.
I was going to like, put prompts here for asks I’d like to get so I’d have something to talk about but I couldn’t think of anything. And I looked for an ask meme or something because that would be just the ticket, but naturally, I can’t find anything. (The ones that ask if you’re a virgin or have ever drank alcohol are very cute and make me feel a billion years old. Listen, virginity is a social construct and I lost mine before memes existed okay. Likewise my first alcoholic drink was probably related to my first communion and thus is lost to us in the deeps of time. Listen.)
Do feel free to ask me weird shit, though, it would please me to think about something besides the gross shit between my ears.
Anyway, instead of anything fluffy or useful, here’s a Did You Know based on the last picture I posted (which, since it was uncaptioned, I’ll explain here– it was an aerial shot from above of a damaged WWII medium bomber, a B-17, with one of its four engines trailing smoke, and I’d hashtagged it #same because, you know, accurate):
WWII bomber crews didn’t wear their parachutes because the packs were too heavy and bulky. In the event of a plane going down, if the pilot lost control all hands would perish because the plummeting plane’s G-forces would pin them down and they’d be unable to move, to get to their parachutes or to escape even if they could get the packs. (B-17s were normally staffed by a crew of up to 10.) Consequently, a lot of pilots rode their crashing planes down, knowing it would kill them, but trying to maintain control of the plane as long as they could so as many crew could get out as possible. Sometimes crew bailed early because of this; at the first trouble, the pilot would order them out, in case he lost control later; this meant a lot of gunners wound up with the Resistance or in prison camps or killed in hostile territory, even though the pilots managed to limp the planes back to base. So take those feels, which are a lot of feels if you feel me, and go read and subscribe to the WIP Blue Skies (feat. Poe Dameron and a Lancaster, which is the plane in my blog heading if you’re curious; approximate RAF equivalent of the B-17; also featuring Luke Skywalker and some excellent slang, and Finn just showed up, so–).
I’ve started and discarded a WWII bomber AU for probably every fandom I’ve ever been in, just FYI. I did a shitload of research on the French Resistance, to the point of actually attending a re-enactment in persona (I cheated and used my Dad’s WWI Enfield because guess what, the US airdropped a shitload of them on France and they were a common Resistance weapon).
But I’ve never written anything about it. Maybe someday.
Ugh I’m so disgusted with myself in general, I wish this brain chemistry situation would stop. Tell me stories? Ask me weird things. Or talk to me about Home Out In The Wind, I’d like that, next week is the last chapter and I’m starting to become genuinely terrified that if I don’t emotionally resolve it *enough* I’ll be burned at the stake or something. Like, I’m getting really worried. Listen, it’s better than it was going to be, I had Poe running away from his feelings a lot more before I fixed it, but I’m sort of. It’s. Uh.
Listen. When I emotionally hurt you, I do it to myself worse. Yes I just “it hurts me more than it hurts you”’d but I promise you I have cried actual human tears over this shit for months now do not give me that look.
Oh Christ, I need to come up with a titling gimmick for the next segment and I don’t know how. I just. I don’t. I don’t have a lot of cope, folks, and this shit is hard okay.
via http://ift.tt/1Tak9la:
I have been thinking a lot about what it would be like to be able to see infrared/ultraviolet light because I was writing a character with better-than-standard-human eyesight, and I have a mild interest in infrared photography, and I was thinking about how crazy foliage looks in infrared photos, and so I’m really super taken with how foliage would look if you had better-than-human vision.
(Anyone interested in Star Wars stuff, I’m talking about Iolo Arana, who is Keshian, and what he’d think of jungle planet Yavin 4, but this photo from last summer’s picking garden will do for now.)
I have been thinking a lot about what it would be like to be able to see infrared/ultraviolet light because I was writing a character with better-than-standard-human eyesight, and I have a mild interest in infrared photography, and I was thinking about how crazy foliage looks in infrared photos, and so I’m really super taken with how foliage would look if you had better-than-human vision.
(Anyone interested in Star Wars stuff, I’m talking about Iolo Arana, who is Keshian, and what he’d think of jungle planet Yavin 4, but this photo from last summer’s picking garden will do for now.)
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OO good one!
I would go back to Norway via Iceland and bring the two sisters who didn’t get to go to last summer’s wedding. (Our cousin got married; we’re not Norwegian, his mother emigrated there from New York, but it’s a lovely place to visit.)
I don’t know if I posted the wedding photos. Maybe I’ll do a post of those!
(This is my cousin’s cousin, in her traditional garb, which I know how to pronounce but not spell, checking her smartphone, which is also traditional.)
OO good one!
I would go back to Norway via Iceland and bring the two sisters who didn’t get to go to last summer’s wedding. (Our cousin got married; we’re not Norwegian, his mother emigrated there from New York, but it’s a lovely place to visit.)
I don’t know if I posted the wedding photos. Maybe I’ll do a post of those!
(This is my cousin’s cousin, in her traditional garb, which I know how to pronounce but not spell, checking her smartphone, which is also traditional.)
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1) go read that fic, go read it, only it’s not stormpilot i think her endgame is poe/luke which is not my deal and yet, it’s an obscure ship so it’s basically all hidden treasure shhh i have discovered this is the way to happiness, find something most people don’t ship, it’s a great little goldmine of relaxation
2) well, I mean, the Norway/Iceland thing, sure, but actually separately considering a vacation, I’d love to go travel in the US Southwest again because I went to the Grand Canyon when I was twelve and, predictably, enjoyed it but didn’t exactly make the most of it.
Alternatively, somewhere they sell pozol, because I am super super intrigued and want to try it and unlike atole, which I have bought ingredients for and made myself, pozol involves fermentation so I feel like I should try some from someone who knows what’s up before I just dive in and give it a shot???
1) go read that fic, go read it, only it’s not stormpilot i think her endgame is poe/luke which is not my deal and yet, it’s an obscure ship so it’s basically all hidden treasure shhh i have discovered this is the way to happiness, find something most people don’t ship, it’s a great little goldmine of relaxation
2) well, I mean, the Norway/Iceland thing, sure, but actually separately considering a vacation, I’d love to go travel in the US Southwest again because I went to the Grand Canyon when I was twelve and, predictably, enjoyed it but didn’t exactly make the most of it.
Alternatively, somewhere they sell pozol, because I am super super intrigued and want to try it and unlike atole, which I have bought ingredients for and made myself, pozol involves fermentation so I feel like I should try some from someone who knows what’s up before I just dive in and give it a shot???
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I have mostly lived in rural areas. I live in the suburbs just now– well, for the last decade– and it’s kind of… I just don’t like lawnmower culture? I don’t like how a Good Yard here is one that has zero weeds and nothing growing wild. I get yelled at for this. But I like weeds. I like things doing as they please. But that’s not cool here.
I have lived in New York State all but two years of my life, as well. (Those odd two years were 1. scotland and 2. new jersey, so make of that what you will.)
I like living somewhere that I can go outside in my underwear just to look at the moon, and nobody will see.
However, it is nice to be able to walk to the store if you run out of coffee creamer, so there’s that.
My favorite place I’ve visited is a tricky one because I think mostly what pleases me to remember about places is what I was doing there. I do miss living close enough to NYC to just day-trip in and look at stuff, though. For my twenty-second birthday we went to the Museum of Natural History there to see the mammoth skeleton and the Hall of Dinosaurs, and then we sat in an Irish pub with the windows open and drank Guinness and looked at the rain. I think I’d been dating my dude about a month then…
I have mostly lived in rural areas. I live in the suburbs just now– well, for the last decade– and it’s kind of… I just don’t like lawnmower culture? I don’t like how a Good Yard here is one that has zero weeds and nothing growing wild. I get yelled at for this. But I like weeds. I like things doing as they please. But that’s not cool here.
I have lived in New York State all but two years of my life, as well. (Those odd two years were 1. scotland and 2. new jersey, so make of that what you will.)
I like living somewhere that I can go outside in my underwear just to look at the moon, and nobody will see.
However, it is nice to be able to walk to the store if you run out of coffee creamer, so there’s that.
My favorite place I’ve visited is a tricky one because I think mostly what pleases me to remember about places is what I was doing there. I do miss living close enough to NYC to just day-trip in and look at stuff, though. For my twenty-second birthday we went to the Museum of Natural History there to see the mammoth skeleton and the Hall of Dinosaurs, and then we sat in an Irish pub with the windows open and drank Guinness and looked at the rain. I think I’d been dating my dude about a month then…
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I have this awful tendency to come up with really long titles that I then get super sick of. :/
I can’t really write for multiple fandoms at the same time. I try a little, but it’s just so hard to keep things straight. I already sort of worry that i sort characters into categories, and in every fandom I just– I always Pick One who is my Favorite, and I tend to ascribe to them various self-inserted things. And so I’ll write a ton of POVs but there’s always one who I Like Best. (That’s actually what Full of Grace was– me realizing that everything else was Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky, and saying ok, this one can’t have his POV AT ALL, and that was– I couldn’t do it, I had to cheat with the videos! I had one job! I couldn’t do it! It turns out writing is hard you guys.)
I’m sort of feeling shitty about doing that with Poe in SW– like, I guess nobody writes Finn’s POV, and that’s terrible, and they should, but listen, I’m doing the Thing that I Do and it’s Poe and I can’t stop right now. But anyway.
I’m super bad at toggling fandoms and I also really really have to immerse myself, I feel you about the ones where there’s not a ton of other fic to bury yourself in. I’m a little worried about the Raksura challenge, but– I mean, that’s novels, I can reread those until my eyes fall out, I’ll be okay. I hope.
I have this awful tendency to come up with really long titles that I then get super sick of. :/
I can’t really write for multiple fandoms at the same time. I try a little, but it’s just so hard to keep things straight. I already sort of worry that i sort characters into categories, and in every fandom I just– I always Pick One who is my Favorite, and I tend to ascribe to them various self-inserted things. And so I’ll write a ton of POVs but there’s always one who I Like Best. (That’s actually what Full of Grace was– me realizing that everything else was Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky, and saying ok, this one can’t have his POV AT ALL, and that was– I couldn’t do it, I had to cheat with the videos! I had one job! I couldn’t do it! It turns out writing is hard you guys.)
I’m sort of feeling shitty about doing that with Poe in SW– like, I guess nobody writes Finn’s POV, and that’s terrible, and they should, but listen, I’m doing the Thing that I Do and it’s Poe and I can’t stop right now. But anyway.
I’m super bad at toggling fandoms and I also really really have to immerse myself, I feel you about the ones where there’s not a ton of other fic to bury yourself in. I’m a little worried about the Raksura challenge, but– I mean, that’s novels, I can reread those until my eyes fall out, I’ll be okay. I hope.
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Yes! I love that post.
Which is a boring answer to post, so I’d answer privately, but that’s not going to work for an anon, so I’m going to pad this out with a fic snippet of the Keshian in question, so, hold onto your butts you poor saps. This is Iolo going home with Poe on a school break from the Academy, so they’re meant to be teenagers, and Iolo has a mild crush on Poe that they both *mostly* handle well. Iolo got space-sick on the last leg of the journey, plus it was dark when they landed, so this is his first real look at the place.
(And remember, in my head, Iolo is played by Rami Malek, so, imagine that as you will.)
The next morning Iolo’s headache was gone. He had slept for twelve solid hours, his chrono informed him. He didn’t really remember going to bed. Vague notions of Poe making him brush his teeth and physically hauling him around, but no concrete recollections.
He was in a bed in a dim room, and could smell humid green wet air, and could dimly hear a soft roar he eventually recognized as rain. Yavin 4, right, right. He rolled over. It was dim because the window’s shades were drawn, but he could see from the light at the edges that it was dim outside.
Rain for four days, Poe had said, the phrase echoing in Iolo’s memory. Poe. Iolo sat up on his elbow and looked around the room, blinking a little dazedly. It was a reasonably big room, and there were two beds in it, and he had the vague idea that Poe had slept in the other one.
The walls were covered with old, slightly-faded holoposters of starcraft. Mostly starfighters. That was… sort of hilariously, embarrassingly cliché. Iolo rolled out of bed, discovered that he had somehow gotten stripped down to his underwear, blushed a little thinking that Poe had maybe undressed him. He pulled up the blinds and looked out.
Jungle, bright green; he could see the dazzling array of infrared shades in the foliage that showed growing, dying, rotting, and more growing. Mostly growing. It was the most vibrant thing he’d ever seen, reflecting the sky back up in some wavelengths, absorbing others. It was hypnotizing, and he stared at it in fascination.
A clanking sound from down the hall tore him away from his rapt concentration, and he hastily dug in his duffel and found enough clothing to be decent. He found the fresher, just down the hall, and relieved himself. The little room was decorated strangely, with small painted panels on the walls in symbols he couldn’t recognize, and a bundle of dried leafy sticks hanging up in the corner of the room that it took him a moment to realize had to be a scented herb of some kind.
He washed his hands and his face and braved the kitchen, where he could hear the low sounds of voices.
“Papa,” Poe was saying, and went on in Iberican. Iolo caught the words lloviendo and, later, selva, which he thought meant raining and forest respectively.
Kes laughed, and answered him. Iolo made it as far as the doorway, just as Kes bent over Poe, who was sitting at the kitchen table, and kissed him on the top of his head. Poe laughed, and put his arms around his father’s waist and held on. Kes straightened up as Poe pulled him in, and stood with his hand on Poe’s head, tousling his hair.
Which– whoa– was a mass of tight, tousled curls. Iolo had never seen Poe’s hair look like that. He knew Poe fought with it sometimes in the humidity– he did too, a little– but he had no idea it was to this extent.
Kes noticed him then, and smiled broadly. He had a really friendly face, like and yet unlike Poe’s; Iolo hadn’t really taken him in, last night. He was big, long-legged and broad-shouldered in a way Poe really wasn’t; his hair was salt-and-pepper, close-cropped, and his beard was still black, very exactingly trimmed. He had dark, dark eyes, deeper-set than Poe’s and a little hooded.
Iolo swallowed hard. For Keshians, age wasn’t as significant a factor as for humans, and Poe’s dad was really hot. He hadn’t forseen that at all. “Hey,” he said.
“Good morning,” Kes said, and Poe yanked back a little, turning to look. Kes ruffled his hair again, and let him go.
“Hey,” Poe said. “How’s your head?”
“Better,” Iolo said. “Sorry I was such a lump!”
“I’m just glad you’re all right now,” Kes said. “Did you sleep well?”
Iolo nodded. “Like a, uh, asleep thing.”
Both Poe and Kes laughed at that, and Iolo realized they laughed the same way, and it was a thousand times more devastating in stereo. Oh fuck. He was in trouble.
Yes! I love that post.
Which is a boring answer to post, so I’d answer privately, but that’s not going to work for an anon, so I’m going to pad this out with a fic snippet of the Keshian in question, so, hold onto your butts you poor saps. This is Iolo going home with Poe on a school break from the Academy, so they’re meant to be teenagers, and Iolo has a mild crush on Poe that they both *mostly* handle well. Iolo got space-sick on the last leg of the journey, plus it was dark when they landed, so this is his first real look at the place.
(And remember, in my head, Iolo is played by Rami Malek, so, imagine that as you will.)
The next morning Iolo’s headache was gone. He had slept for twelve solid hours, his chrono informed him. He didn’t really remember going to bed. Vague notions of Poe making him brush his teeth and physically hauling him around, but no concrete recollections.
He was in a bed in a dim room, and could smell humid green wet air, and could dimly hear a soft roar he eventually recognized as rain. Yavin 4, right, right. He rolled over. It was dim because the window’s shades were drawn, but he could see from the light at the edges that it was dim outside.
Rain for four days, Poe had said, the phrase echoing in Iolo’s memory. Poe. Iolo sat up on his elbow and looked around the room, blinking a little dazedly. It was a reasonably big room, and there were two beds in it, and he had the vague idea that Poe had slept in the other one.
The walls were covered with old, slightly-faded holoposters of starcraft. Mostly starfighters. That was… sort of hilariously, embarrassingly cliché. Iolo rolled out of bed, discovered that he had somehow gotten stripped down to his underwear, blushed a little thinking that Poe had maybe undressed him. He pulled up the blinds and looked out.
Jungle, bright green; he could see the dazzling array of infrared shades in the foliage that showed growing, dying, rotting, and more growing. Mostly growing. It was the most vibrant thing he’d ever seen, reflecting the sky back up in some wavelengths, absorbing others. It was hypnotizing, and he stared at it in fascination.
A clanking sound from down the hall tore him away from his rapt concentration, and he hastily dug in his duffel and found enough clothing to be decent. He found the fresher, just down the hall, and relieved himself. The little room was decorated strangely, with small painted panels on the walls in symbols he couldn’t recognize, and a bundle of dried leafy sticks hanging up in the corner of the room that it took him a moment to realize had to be a scented herb of some kind.
He washed his hands and his face and braved the kitchen, where he could hear the low sounds of voices.
“Papa,” Poe was saying, and went on in Iberican. Iolo caught the words lloviendo and, later, selva, which he thought meant raining and forest respectively.
Kes laughed, and answered him. Iolo made it as far as the doorway, just as Kes bent over Poe, who was sitting at the kitchen table, and kissed him on the top of his head. Poe laughed, and put his arms around his father’s waist and held on. Kes straightened up as Poe pulled him in, and stood with his hand on Poe’s head, tousling his hair.
Which– whoa– was a mass of tight, tousled curls. Iolo had never seen Poe’s hair look like that. He knew Poe fought with it sometimes in the humidity– he did too, a little– but he had no idea it was to this extent.
Kes noticed him then, and smiled broadly. He had a really friendly face, like and yet unlike Poe’s; Iolo hadn’t really taken him in, last night. He was big, long-legged and broad-shouldered in a way Poe really wasn’t; his hair was salt-and-pepper, close-cropped, and his beard was still black, very exactingly trimmed. He had dark, dark eyes, deeper-set than Poe’s and a little hooded.
Iolo swallowed hard. For Keshians, age wasn’t as significant a factor as for humans, and Poe’s dad was really hot. He hadn’t forseen that at all. “Hey,” he said.
“Good morning,” Kes said, and Poe yanked back a little, turning to look. Kes ruffled his hair again, and let him go.
“Hey,” Poe said. “How’s your head?”
“Better,” Iolo said. “Sorry I was such a lump!”
“I’m just glad you’re all right now,” Kes said. “Did you sleep well?”
Iolo nodded. “Like a, uh, asleep thing.”
Both Poe and Kes laughed at that, and Iolo realized they laughed the same way, and it was a thousand times more devastating in stereo. Oh fuck. He was in trouble.
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*jazz hands* my parents! I know, boring supervillain origin story, but.
They met as re-enactors during the American Revolution’s bicentennial. She was a museum curator, he worked for the NYS Dep’t of Historic Preservation. He was just a nerd, came up with that stuff on his own; she was a legacy, born and raised to be a Total Nerd ™. Her mom, my Gram, was super into genealogy and was also the world’s leading expert on the Shaker community at Watervliet, and her brother worked for Historic Preservation too– my uncle’s job was to assess whether sites were eligible for inclusion on the State Register of Historic Places, so. I mean.
Dad was really fascinated by military history, and so as a little kid I just… read all the books around the house. I probably shouldn’t have read all those primary source materials on the wreck of the Indianapolis and the Bataan death march when I was in sixth grade, but. I’m sort of. Well. I know some stuff now okay.
Some of my earliest memories are of the linoleum floor of the back hallway at the Rensselaer County Historical Society’s Hart-Cluett House, and I had forgotten that until last year when I went in there for some reason and was just blown away seeing that floor. I can’t really describe it but I know I spent a lot of hours grubbing around on it. It’s weird what you forget that you remember.
It’s 37 seconds into this video, and it’s a close-up, so you can’t really understand: it’s an entire hallway that looks like that, and it’s not that striking unless you imagine yourself being probably about 18 months old and sitting on it.
Last summer or maybe the summer before, Mom was on a long car ride with a bunch of us and confessed that as a kid she used to get super excited reading about the French and Indian War and thinking that she was walking on the very ground where these events took place (we were up by Lake George at the time) so uh. I am honestly a lot less into history than the rest of my family.
I think I’ve mentioned on here that Mom recently wrote an entire book about our small town’s participation in the Civil War. She’s researching the same thing for WWI currently. If I ever run out of fanfic to write, I will give the fanfic treatment to some of the dudes she’s researched. Like the guy who during the Civil War mailed a bomb home to his 10-year-old cousin (that ended well), or the woman who married a WWI veteran who almost immediately died, but left her with a son, who died in a car crash ten years later, and Mom was like oh that’s a shame, wait I wonder if there’s any newspaper clippings about the car crash, and looks it up and sure enough the boy was, wait for it
*riding on the back of a pickup truck that was
* hit by a drunk driver and
*pushed off a bridge onto
* a moving freight train
RIGHT? Truth is stranger than fiction. The strangest part is that of the like seven people in the car, several survived! Not the boy though, that’s a bummer. His mom made it into her nineties though, and Mom realized that she’d actually met the woman, and is super sad now that she hadn’t known any of this story while the woman was alive, because I mean, okay, awkward to ask about, but on the other hand, what a goddamn story.
*jazz hands* my parents! I know, boring supervillain origin story, but.
They met as re-enactors during the American Revolution’s bicentennial. She was a museum curator, he worked for the NYS Dep’t of Historic Preservation. He was just a nerd, came up with that stuff on his own; she was a legacy, born and raised to be a Total Nerd ™. Her mom, my Gram, was super into genealogy and was also the world’s leading expert on the Shaker community at Watervliet, and her brother worked for Historic Preservation too– my uncle’s job was to assess whether sites were eligible for inclusion on the State Register of Historic Places, so. I mean.
Dad was really fascinated by military history, and so as a little kid I just… read all the books around the house. I probably shouldn’t have read all those primary source materials on the wreck of the Indianapolis and the Bataan death march when I was in sixth grade, but. I’m sort of. Well. I know some stuff now okay.
Some of my earliest memories are of the linoleum floor of the back hallway at the Rensselaer County Historical Society’s Hart-Cluett House, and I had forgotten that until last year when I went in there for some reason and was just blown away seeing that floor. I can’t really describe it but I know I spent a lot of hours grubbing around on it. It’s weird what you forget that you remember.
It’s 37 seconds into this video, and it’s a close-up, so you can’t really understand: it’s an entire hallway that looks like that, and it’s not that striking unless you imagine yourself being probably about 18 months old and sitting on it.
Last summer or maybe the summer before, Mom was on a long car ride with a bunch of us and confessed that as a kid she used to get super excited reading about the French and Indian War and thinking that she was walking on the very ground where these events took place (we were up by Lake George at the time) so uh. I am honestly a lot less into history than the rest of my family.
I think I’ve mentioned on here that Mom recently wrote an entire book about our small town’s participation in the Civil War. She’s researching the same thing for WWI currently. If I ever run out of fanfic to write, I will give the fanfic treatment to some of the dudes she’s researched. Like the guy who during the Civil War mailed a bomb home to his 10-year-old cousin (that ended well), or the woman who married a WWI veteran who almost immediately died, but left her with a son, who died in a car crash ten years later, and Mom was like oh that’s a shame, wait I wonder if there’s any newspaper clippings about the car crash, and looks it up and sure enough the boy was, wait for it
*riding on the back of a pickup truck that was
* hit by a drunk driver and
*pushed off a bridge onto
* a moving freight train
RIGHT? Truth is stranger than fiction. The strangest part is that of the like seven people in the car, several survived! Not the boy though, that’s a bummer. His mom made it into her nineties though, and Mom realized that she’d actually met the woman, and is super sad now that she hadn’t known any of this story while the woman was alive, because I mean, okay, awkward to ask about, but on the other hand, what a goddamn story.
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1) treigylgweith, which is Welsh for “whimsy”, 2) sometimes it’s a pretty sound but at various points since about 1995 it’s been at about 2:43-46 into this song, 3) buttercream frosting 4) cat fur (specifically, my cat) 5) lilacs, which are currently blooming, hurrah 6) sadly, the clock ticking over to Time To Leave Work, which is a terrible way to pass one’s life.
1) treigylgweith, which is Welsh for “whimsy”, 2) sometimes it’s a pretty sound but at various points since about 1995 it’s been at about 2:43-46 into this song, 3) buttercream frosting 4) cat fur (specifically, my cat) 5) lilacs, which are currently blooming, hurrah 6) sadly, the clock ticking over to Time To Leave Work, which is a terrible way to pass one’s life.
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oh wow everyone who sat through the Wild Ride of last night definitely deserves MVP awards. I love everyone in this bar. I stayed up way too late and then I woke up at like 5:30 this morning with an absolutely emotionally devastating sex scene all blocked out in my head for Finn and Poe so I guess you’re welcome, chapter 9 will be Explicit and possibly kind of nasty.
Poe laughed, low and soft, and it went straight to Finn’s dick. “You tryin’ to hold me down?”
Finn loosened his grip a little, but he was more than halfway to hard, and his hips kind of moved of their own volition, rubbing him against Poe’s hip. “I, I mean,” he stammered.
“No,” Poe said, turning toward him, “it’s cool, do it,” and kissed him, hot and hungry.
Usually uh those kinds of scenes take me like hours to write but I just banged that one out in about fifteen minutes before I really woke up so uh. I’m gonna let it mellow and reread it later and see if it winds up in the Extras bin or if it stays.
I have a couple more asks to finish up but I’m going to kind of save them, because my underlying shit is not really Dealt With and I’m looking forward to the distraction at some indeterminate later point.
Also, because I mentioned a wedding and photos of it, some wedding photography blog just followed me, and hi, you’re welcome, but that’s sort of not really my jam so buckle up.
I will be drinking a lot of coffee today and attempting to Not Deal With My Shit. For the record it is again 55 outside, not even sunny, the a/c is set to 68, and it is 75 in here at 9am. For shits and giggles I should convert that to Rest Of The World temps but I like the aesthetic of it being in unlabeled Fahrenheit. There’s always kind of a frisson to undeclared measurement systems, like, could this person possibly be insane or is this a different unit of measurement? (I spent about half this past winter thinking it was really freaking cold in Toronto because a friend I knew was American lived there and was discussing the temperature in C as you do but I had just made the assumption, like you do, because I am an American capitalist pig and honestly hadn’t thought about it too hard. I was like daaaaamn TO you go hard in the paint, I thought we had the same climate, you’re like right there, but that’s some hardcore shit you’re like ten below zero and it’s like fifteen here! … oh. Oh, those are the same temperature. Nurr hurr hurr.)
That said I know there’s at least one place in my collected SW writings where somebody just blatantly uses miles or feet or inches or something and it’s just ridiculous, and as I wrote it I was like, I don’t know what unit of measurement they use in-universe but I can tell you for damn sure it’s not English Standard, but I’ll fix it later– and now i have no idea where that was, so somewhere, sometime in all of this, that’ll be what I miss, and you’ll be reading along and suddenly someone is five foot seven or going a hundred miles an hour or something careless like that, and it’s going to fling you screaming out of the narrative. So, I mean. Like, brace yourself for it. It’s in there somewhere. I have no idea.
oh wow everyone who sat through the Wild Ride of last night definitely deserves MVP awards. I love everyone in this bar. I stayed up way too late and then I woke up at like 5:30 this morning with an absolutely emotionally devastating sex scene all blocked out in my head for Finn and Poe so I guess you’re welcome, chapter 9 will be Explicit and possibly kind of nasty.
Poe laughed, low and soft, and it went straight to Finn’s dick. “You tryin’ to hold me down?”
Finn loosened his grip a little, but he was more than halfway to hard, and his hips kind of moved of their own volition, rubbing him against Poe’s hip. “I, I mean,” he stammered.
“No,” Poe said, turning toward him, “it’s cool, do it,” and kissed him, hot and hungry.
Usually uh those kinds of scenes take me like hours to write but I just banged that one out in about fifteen minutes before I really woke up so uh. I’m gonna let it mellow and reread it later and see if it winds up in the Extras bin or if it stays.
I have a couple more asks to finish up but I’m going to kind of save them, because my underlying shit is not really Dealt With and I’m looking forward to the distraction at some indeterminate later point.
Also, because I mentioned a wedding and photos of it, some wedding photography blog just followed me, and hi, you’re welcome, but that’s sort of not really my jam so buckle up.
I will be drinking a lot of coffee today and attempting to Not Deal With My Shit. For the record it is again 55 outside, not even sunny, the a/c is set to 68, and it is 75 in here at 9am. For shits and giggles I should convert that to Rest Of The World temps but I like the aesthetic of it being in unlabeled Fahrenheit. There’s always kind of a frisson to undeclared measurement systems, like, could this person possibly be insane or is this a different unit of measurement? (I spent about half this past winter thinking it was really freaking cold in Toronto because a friend I knew was American lived there and was discussing the temperature in C as you do but I had just made the assumption, like you do, because I am an American capitalist pig and honestly hadn’t thought about it too hard. I was like daaaaamn TO you go hard in the paint, I thought we had the same climate, you’re like right there, but that’s some hardcore shit you’re like ten below zero and it’s like fifteen here! … oh. Oh, those are the same temperature. Nurr hurr hurr.)
That said I know there’s at least one place in my collected SW writings where somebody just blatantly uses miles or feet or inches or something and it’s just ridiculous, and as I wrote it I was like, I don’t know what unit of measurement they use in-universe but I can tell you for damn sure it’s not English Standard, but I’ll fix it later– and now i have no idea where that was, so somewhere, sometime in all of this, that’ll be what I miss, and you’ll be reading along and suddenly someone is five foot seven or going a hundred miles an hour or something careless like that, and it’s going to fling you screaming out of the narrative. So, I mean. Like, brace yourself for it. It’s in there somewhere. I have no idea.
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kiwisson:
*waves pom poms* tag for car accidents
*throws glitter* tag for car accidents
*backflips and lands in a split with jazz hands* i don’t care how you do it just pick a way and do it consistently!
*sets off fireworks* FUCKING TAG FOR CAR ACCIDENTS!!
Oh no was it me I didn’t know! I thought oh hm this is probably sad so I tagged for death but I didn’t know! :( :( :( I would send a msg or sthg but am on mobile have no other options I am sorry and I have only the most nebulous grasp of the concept of tagging things and I don’t know how to do it properly or consistently. :( So I guess this is a PSA: I literally have no idea what to warn people about and so I kind of try to hit obvious points, but I have the memory of a goldfish and basically no idea what the current best practices for anything is. :(
kiwisson:
*waves pom poms* tag for car accidents
*throws glitter* tag for car accidents
*backflips and lands in a split with jazz hands* i don’t care how you do it just pick a way and do it consistently!
*sets off fireworks* FUCKING TAG FOR CAR ACCIDENTS!!
Oh no was it me I didn’t know! I thought oh hm this is probably sad so I tagged for death but I didn’t know! :( :( :( I would send a msg or sthg but am on mobile have no other options I am sorry and I have only the most nebulous grasp of the concept of tagging things and I don’t know how to do it properly or consistently. :( So I guess this is a PSA: I literally have no idea what to warn people about and so I kind of try to hit obvious points, but I have the memory of a goldfish and basically no idea what the current best practices for anything is. :(
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PSA from your friendly online photofinisher: don’t do the thing where you give out disposable cameras at your wedding. Just. Don’t.
It was kind of never a good idea? But now everyone is low-key used to how digital cameras, even phone cameras , can take pictures in the dark?
Film can’t do that shit.
PSA from your friendly online photofinisher: don’t do the thing where you give out disposable cameras at your wedding. Just. Don’t.
It was kind of never a good idea? But now everyone is low-key used to how digital cameras, even phone cameras , can take pictures in the dark?
Film can’t do that shit.
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deputychairman:
jakegyllcnhaal:
Oscar Isaac talks ‘Ex Machina’
THE FUCK IS THIS??? YOU EXPECT ME TO STAND FOR THIS?? HUH? DO YOU, PUNK????
DON’T YOU WINK AT ME WITH YOUR TONGUE OUT
deputychairman:
jakegyllcnhaal:
Oscar Isaac talks ‘Ex Machina’
THE FUCK IS THIS??? YOU EXPECT ME TO STAND FOR THIS?? HUH? DO YOU, PUNK????
DON’T YOU WINK AT ME WITH YOUR TONGUE OUT
kiwisson replied to your post “Lunchtime.
May. 13th, 2016 10:20 pmvia http://ift.tt/1XpM1Sw:
kiwisson
replied to your post
“Lunchtime. Shirt’s been on inside-out all day. BONUS: AND BACKWARDS”
you’re cool! absentminded professor types are cool!
deputychairman
replied to your post
“Lunchtime. Shirt’s been on inside-out all day. BONUS: AND BACKWARDS”
i think you’re SO COOL and ilu
Awww you guys.
Actually shortly after I posted this, there was a kind of humorous incident. So after the Worst Coworker left, she was replaced by a new store manager, a guy who was the store manager like fifteen years ago and decided to come back. (Terrible divorce, etc., time for a change in his life, why not go back to his weird old job.) He’s kind of rad, and is like, in his late 40s. Tattooed, has been a professional photographer for, well, the entire interim time since he last worked at the camera shop. And– he has FOUR DAUGHTERS, and one son. Five kids, this guy has. He is the DADDEST DAD to EVER DAD. If there was a dad-off, he would win it. (Narrowly edging out my dad, of course, who only had four daughters, so, clearly. I mean. You know.)
One of his daughters works at the shop. She’s like 18 or 19. Came in this morning in V-E-R-Y short shorts. He instantly sent her home to change. She grudgingly went, and came back in jeans.
That afternoon, the closing girl came in. She’s about 21, a college kid. She was wearing the EXACT SAME SHORTS he had sent his daughter home to change out of. He came to me and said, “I don’t know how to handle this, do we have a dress code,” and I said, “the thing is, man, it’s up to you, buddy. It really is, you’re the manager and it is your call.”
He was like, “I can yell at my daughter for looking unprofessional but I feel weird yelling at some grown woman who is my employee about her thighs. I just feel like you can’t wear real short shorts at work but I am uncomfortable making this call.”
His daughter, who is rather shy but has come out of her shell a lot since he came back, and has revealed herself to be pretty sharp all together, said, “Dad, it’s your job. If there’s gonna be a dress code, you gotta make it up.”
He gave me a look of despair and said, “I don’t know why I didn’t think of this,” and I said, “because last time you worked here, short-shorts weren’t in fashion.”
It’s true, though.
kiwisson
replied to your post
“Lunchtime. Shirt’s been on inside-out all day. BONUS: AND BACKWARDS”
you’re cool! absentminded professor types are cool!
deputychairman
replied to your post
“Lunchtime. Shirt’s been on inside-out all day. BONUS: AND BACKWARDS”
i think you’re SO COOL and ilu
Awww you guys.
Actually shortly after I posted this, there was a kind of humorous incident. So after the Worst Coworker left, she was replaced by a new store manager, a guy who was the store manager like fifteen years ago and decided to come back. (Terrible divorce, etc., time for a change in his life, why not go back to his weird old job.) He’s kind of rad, and is like, in his late 40s. Tattooed, has been a professional photographer for, well, the entire interim time since he last worked at the camera shop. And– he has FOUR DAUGHTERS, and one son. Five kids, this guy has. He is the DADDEST DAD to EVER DAD. If there was a dad-off, he would win it. (Narrowly edging out my dad, of course, who only had four daughters, so, clearly. I mean. You know.)
One of his daughters works at the shop. She’s like 18 or 19. Came in this morning in V-E-R-Y short shorts. He instantly sent her home to change. She grudgingly went, and came back in jeans.
That afternoon, the closing girl came in. She’s about 21, a college kid. She was wearing the EXACT SAME SHORTS he had sent his daughter home to change out of. He came to me and said, “I don’t know how to handle this, do we have a dress code,” and I said, “the thing is, man, it’s up to you, buddy. It really is, you’re the manager and it is your call.”
He was like, “I can yell at my daughter for looking unprofessional but I feel weird yelling at some grown woman who is my employee about her thighs. I just feel like you can’t wear real short shorts at work but I am uncomfortable making this call.”
His daughter, who is rather shy but has come out of her shell a lot since he came back, and has revealed herself to be pretty sharp all together, said, “Dad, it’s your job. If there’s gonna be a dress code, you gotta make it up.”
He gave me a look of despair and said, “I don’t know why I didn’t think of this,” and I said, “because last time you worked here, short-shorts weren’t in fashion.”
It’s true, though.