So because I am a MASSIVE DORKFACE, soundslikej and I went to see the This American Life live show. Yes, that's super dorky, but it was also AMAZING - heartwarming and funny and sharp and all of the things that TAL always is, but with the added benefits of:

a) excellent animation sequences,
b) live music by OK GO (and audience participation! I love audience participation!),
c) a short film with Terry Gross, which - okay, if you know who Terry Gross is, this will crack you up - it's funny regardless, I think, but it is particularly hysterical if you grew up listening to public radio.

AND ALSO THERE WAS D) IRA GLASS, oh my god, sir, please never leave my life. *________*

Some of the sequences were less my bag - David Sedaris' bit had some gratuitous fat jokes; some of the other bits were overly long or mottsy - but overall it was an extremely enjoyable night, well worth leaving the house on a rainy Tuesday.

ALSO, AN ANECDOTE:

Before the show, soundslikej and I hit the bathroom, as one does. Since The Avengers is still playing on several screens, we briefly discussed sneaking into a later showing, but concluded that the spirit was willing but the flesh was likely to be sleepy. This conversation turned into an appreciation of Natasha Romanova, as all such conversations must do, and somehow Amy Pond entered the discussion.

While we were washing our hands and silently pondering the hotness of that, a woman emerged from a stall toward the end.

"So what do you think - have you had enough of Amy Pond?"

We admitted that we would probably never have enough of Amy Pond, but allowed as how the last season had gotten a little much, in places; all present agreed that we were psyched for the new season of Who - depending of course on the new companion and the quality of the writing, etc.

This woman proceeded to follow us into the theater and sit in the row behind us. J and I whispered "one of usssssss" and tried not to giggle too terribly hard.

Which is all by way of saying: If you were sitting behind us in Theater 5 at the Showcase Cinema De Lux in Revere, hi! We should probably be friends.

We are rewatching Thor tonight, as every wonderful household does on a Friday night, and I have THOUGHTS. And FEELINGS.

( ...spoilers for Thor? Can people still be spoiled for Thor? )

5. God damn, Hemsworth really is a blond Heath Ledger, isn't he? HEEEEEEF ;____;

In other news, I'm done with classes! and am guaranteed to graduate! Which means that, with the exception of some interviews and some family shenanigans, the only things I need to do between now and the end of the month are:

• pack for the summer
• put the gd a/c in the window
• write the story about how Tony and Pepper Make It Work (which is also the story about how Stark Tower comes to be, maybe? And might also involve a threesome with Bruce Banner, fuck you, don't judge me.)
• write the ridiculous gen epic about Steve Rogers Discovering The 21st Century, ugh, angelsaves and soundslikej are the WORST enablers.
• write about Thor and Jane sleeping with everybody
• write about how everybody sleeps with everybody in the Avengers Mansion, for reasons of plot.

My life choices: actually fairly valid, for a change! If you have thoughts on Thor, or on the Avengers more generally, or if you have things you think I should write, you should come have opinions at me in the comments!

Here's a twist on that one meme: I've got a list of 15 characters from the Avengers and various associated films. Give me two (or three, or four, or whatever) characters and a thing they do together, and I will do my best to write you a snippet of how that happens! So, for example, "2 and 5! Cuddling!" or "3, 7, and 12 on a road trip" or "4 and 9, oral sex".

These probably won't happen right away, for reasons of or relating to the PLOT, but I will do what I can!

If any of you are ever in need of something adorable and hilarious, I highly recommend this playlist of various guest stars hanging out with Elmo. Zoe Saldana's 'transportation' clip is my personal favorite, but Amy Poehler is also great, as are the many many other fabulous people.

In other news: finished my student teaching, watched the Avengers twice in less than 24 hours, and spent the entire day hungover on the couch, reading fic and refreshing tumblr. My weekend: pretty excellent, thanks much!

So I was thinking about doing that "my week in pictures" meme, but 90% of my day would be a FERPA violation, so, nope! Instead, here's a post about things I have recently watched and enjoyed. Feel free to share your feels and/or suggestions in the comments - I think the next thing in our netflix queue is The Fantastic Four, for reasons of Chris Evans and his stupid rubber face, but we are both very suggestible humans.

( My Week With Marilyn, The Hunger Games, The Artist, Entre Les Murs, Friends With Benefits, Project Runway All Stars, Parks and Recreation, Korra )

In other news, I'm wicked excited for the Avengers, I can't even lie. The fact that it comes out the same day as my last day of student teaching is just the cherry on top of the sundae of fabulousness that is that movie. MOVIES ABOUT SUPERHEROS AND BLOWING SHIT UP, PARTY OF ME. *\o/*

Internet, for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture (aka I took a practice licensure test, because I like suffering), I am the proud possessor of a $100 gift card to Penguin Books. Rejoicing! Celebration! But I have to use it all at once, which is...I mean, not that I couldn't spend $100 on books at one go? But being restricted by publisher is kind of a tricky thing.

SO: What books should I own? Don't worry about checking if Penguin has them (although if you know that they do, that's cool!) - if nothing else, it will serve me well to have a list of recommended books to come back to at a later date.

OKAY, so, for reasons that do not need exploring at this juncture, I have been pretty much DEAD for writing purposes for the past...while. Like, excepting Yuletide, I've written exactly one story since early 2009, when I posted my last bandom longfic. Which, ugh, cue guilt guilt shame shame NOT CONTRIBUTING TO THE FANNISH ECONOMY WHY DO YOU SUCK SO MUCH, SELF? -type spiral of unproductive feelings, eurrgh, please exit to your left, o ye haters.

BUT. I am graaaadually getting back into the fannish swing of things, by which I mean that I am feeling like I might like to write something again EVER, which is pretty thrilling. And yet: blocked on absolutely everything I have ever started ever.

SO. We're going to play a game that goes like this: you comment to me and say something like hey, M, tell me about the time that Tony Stark accidentally dyed his hair blue, or hey, what about the time Jake Jensen wore women's clothing on a bet, or but what about that time that Amy Pond met John Watson and they totally made out?

And then I try to write it! for values of "write" that contain an awful lot of handwaving and FOR REASONS OF PLOT. This is STORYTIME, not fic-writing time; High Literature Hour has been cancelled due to inclement weather and a shitty acronym.

FANDOMS: Avengers/Captain America/Iron Man, the Losers (but preferably movieverse, because I like it when everybody lives), Doctor Who, Pride and Prejudice, Friday Night Lights through s1?. Anything else I've written or capslocked about is potentially up for grabs, but those are probably your best bets.

Explain how, throughout the learning segment, you will help students make connections between and among language functions, key words and grammatical structures, vocabulary, and/or phrases for the concepts and skills to produce and comprehend the target language in a meaningful cultural context.

BY BEING AWESOME, THAT'S HOW. ALSO, BITE ME.

I have things to say, but this week has been an enormous pile of hot fresh RIDICULOUS, and so I don't really have the words to say them. Suffice to say that I have impersonated an actual grown-up on multiple occasions this week, mostly successfully, and also I have not stabbed anybody in the face, so I am going to sit right here and eat the chocolate peppermint cookies of righteousness (and possibly also the cauliflower chili of triumph?) before I have to go to class tonight.


Also here is my love meme thread! I will probably not actually leave comments tonight, because of the aforementioned class, but tomorrow is Friday and all things are possible. If I miss anybody's comment, though, I ♥ you all!

ETA: ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME. I got an email from instructor, saying that if we feel that it would be unsafe for us to come in to class tonight, we should feel free to skip class without being penalized (which is a big deal, because this class only meets for about 6 sessions overall).

I got this email at 6:15pm, which is...15 minutes after I'd already left the house. THANKS A FUCKING LOT. *grumps*

I was going to make a post about my ~feelings~ after this weekend, but FEELINGS, and also ahahahahaha fuck no.

Then I was going to make a post about the things I brought home from my grandparents' house, but I can't find my camera charger, so that didn't happen.

Then I thought I might make J watch Lil Abner, one of my favorite childhood movies, and liveblog her horrified faces, but the movie is down in the car, and it's raining, so, no.

And then I said, oh, hey, I could post about going and getting the car appropriately insured and titled and registered today! ...which post would interest approximately NOBODY.

So instead I am just going to say ( project runway spoilers ).

I, yeah. That's what I've got today.

So last night I made soundslikej watch O Brother, Where Art Thou? with me, for reasons of Clooney, and it was an A+ life experience! And then afterwards we were discussing Clooney and how great his face is, and this happened:

M: I don't think I've seen another movie where he was this silly, you know? Like, I guess Ocean's, but those are really more caper movies than actualfax comedies.
J: Yeah - he's like that in interviews, but I guess not so much in movies.
M: And he's got such an expressive face, while simultaneously being really classically attractive - you know who he reminds me of?
J: Who?
M: Chris Evans! Oh, and also the guy who played Steve Rogers.
J: ...
M: What?
J: ...oh honey.
M: .../o\

Relatedly, last week my parents went to the movies! During one of the previews, my dad leans over to my mother and says, "hey, this looks good, we should see it sometime!" Only for my mother to inform him that the movie in question was in fact the last movie they'd seen together, two or three weeks previously. I'm just saying, it's not like this shit is in any way surprising.

In conclusion, George Clooney is incredibly attractive and makes some really great faces, Oh Brother is still the only Coen Bros movie that I've really loved, and also my facial recognition circuit is a piece of shit. Happy Saturday!

(YES, LIZ, I HAD TO ASK GOOGLE HOW TO SPELL THAT. ILU2.)

I had an absolutely EXCELLENT day today, with lots of wine and noms and fangirls and due south! There was a lot of hilarity surrounding the notion of a sex-voice GPS function (to be voiced by one ms. shiningartifact, CLEARLY), and also a great deal of general delightfulness - and on the car ride home I inflicted the following on C, who said that clearly this was something that needed shared with the rest of the world.



I'm just saying, blame C, not me.

Many awesome people have been posting about their goals recently - it's the beginning of the year, so that makes sense, but I've been kind of sticking mentally on the resolutions thing.

Some of that is ( cut for dead relatives )

But a lot of my goal-related stuckness has been a question of framing. See, almost everybody has goals about health and fitness stuff, including a lot of weight-loss and meal-planning stuff. Which are swell goals, and I don't mean to give anybody with those kinds of goals a hard time; you need to do what you need to do, and you talk about it in a way that is useful to you. But I've read a lot of posts, on lj and off, where people have talked about eating mindfully - being aware of what they're putting into their body.

( food- and health-related goals! )

Other goals:

• Lay out my clothes for work the night before, in order to avoid the sneaky hate spiral of FUCK YOU, I PUT ON PANTS YESTERDAY, WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WANT ME TO PUT ON PANTS AGAIN TODAY? AND A SHIRT? AND THEY CAN'T BE THE SAME ONES I WORE YESTERDAY? FUCK YOU. It's sad, because I generally do enjoy picking out outfits...just not in the morning. Relatedly, check the weather before choosing clothes for the next day.
• Read books with pages on a semi-regular basis; visit BPL every so often.
• Call or videochat my parents once a week; call my brother at least once a month.
• Be awesome at my full-time student teaching gig.
• Graduate.
• Get a job starting next fall.

So, you know. NO BIG DEAL. *flaps hands*

so I have actual posts to make (family stuff! flaily life stuff! oh my god I start student teaching in LESS THAN A WEEK oh fuck oh fuck panic stuff!), but I just need to get this off of my chest:

If visibility is less than absolutely perfect, put your fucking headlights on when you are driving. That includes twilight! That includes heavy rain or snow! And that absolutely includes heavy rain/snow/ick in the early morning or late evening! Your headlights may not do a fuck of a lot of good for your ability to see the road, but they make an enormous difference in how well the rest of us can see you.

This announcement has been brought to you by the department of JESUS FUCK, PUT YOUR FUCKING HEADLIGHTS ON, PEOPLE.

...and now I will go back to Operation: Bake ALL the cookies!

...bake ALL the cookies?

So J and I finally watched Bridesmaids! And as EVERYBODY EVER predicted, we totally loved it, so thanks for calling that one, everybody. Someday I will manage to pick up on the media you are recommending me in a timely manner!

( FEELINGS )

CONCLUSION: A+++++ movie, would watch again, I am still the awkwardest human alive.

So at the beginning of 2011, I started a log of every book I finished, and somehow I've remained more or less on top of that? And I took notes along the way, and it's the end of the year, so, idk, here, have a list.

( Books What I Read In 2011, complete with handwavey feelings. )

If I just finish the 3rd Jemisin book, I will be ahead of J! …but yuletide. /o\ Still, I feel pretty damn good about the number of books-with-pages I have managed to read this year (although I did technically read most of the Butcher and a good bit of the Bujold on the computer...still, those books are all published! I could have read them in dead-tree form!).

(Looking back, it's incredibly obvious when my life got stupid busy on me: April (exams), June (camp), and September/October/November (school again) are all fairly bare.)

Goal for next year: keep on keeping on! Maybe read more nonfiction - I really enjoyed a lot of the stuff that I read on my own for school, and I loved Packing for Mars. More of that! Maybe some biographies! Also generally I want to use BPL more, because it is THERE. ...also I should maybe finish the MOUNTAIN OF BOOKS I have checked out from the school library, idk /o\.

IN CONCLUSION, books are great! You should feel free to come and talk with me about these books or other books that you think I should read.

Hi internet! I...kind of fell off the edge of lj for a while, there - school stuff, mostly, and also a generalized desire to flop on the couch and do nothing. Winter, why must you be the worst? But I have been reading books - some of them with actual pages and things! - and watching movies and TV! And now I will make a post about things that I have enjoyed recently.

1) Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows. DELIGHTFULNESS INCARNATE. I saw this with a huge crowd of fangirls last night, and we were loud and ridiculous and had all of the fun in the world. Every time I thought the movie had reached a new height of ridiculousness, it proved me wrong and became even more absurd. And gay! But mostly I want a million words about Mary Morstan Watson, kicking ass and taking names and smiling serenely.

2) Friends With Kids. Not even gonna lie, I decided we should watch this movie based entirely on a gif of Adam Scott with a small child, and it was an A++++ life decision. I expected it to be a lot more mottsy and terrible than it was, but it was genuinely incredibly charming and adorable. Adam Scott! And a kid! And Jennifer Westfeldt, who I don't think I'd ever seen in anything before, but who I liked tremendously! A+ film, would creep on Adam Scott being a dad again! (Not Adam Smith, as I initially typed. BRAIN WHAT ARE YOU.)

3) Friday Night Lights. SHOWWWWWWWWW. We are halfway through the first season, and pretty much every second of every episode is me flapping my hands and yelling out characters' names. The writing and the acting of this show are just - and the relationships - jfc, so good I can't even handle it. It is a show about football - and I grew up at a Big Ten school, so I can say with some certainty that I am not a football fan, if ever I was gonna be it would have happened a long time hence - and I love this show so much I can't even handle it sometimes. Also I want to form a Tyra Collete Appreciation Society, meetings twice weekly. IN MY PANTS.

4) The Vorkosigan Saga. IDK why I have resisted this series so long, but oh my god, it is DELIGHTFUL and also ridiculous. The amount of cackling in handflappy glee I have done in the past week is absolutely rigoshdarndiculous.

I am so fucking sick of people shitting all over multitasking. SO. FUCKING. SICK. Because it's never just saying, "hey, sometimes when you are doing multiple things at once, you don't do them all as well or as attentively as you could!" it always turns in to people complaining about how TECHNOLOGY IS RUINING OUR BRAAAAAINS.

Which - no. Just no. When I was in 4th grade I was daydreaming and staring out the window and reading books under my desk, and I had trouble memorizing facts but I always remembered where I would be able to find that information. And today I am faffing about on lj and tumblr and twitter, and I'm thinking about Yuletide and a story I might write sometime this weekend, and I don't remember offhand when Alaska became a state but I know where I can find out. Technology didn't change me, it didn't ruin me, it didn't make me any other than I already was - it just gave me different tools for interacting with the world.

(I think that this is something we need to respond to, absolutely - I think that we need to teach students to use technology strategically and thoughtfully and productively, and I think that there is absolutely value in spending a certain amount of time without technology - but technology and distraction and multitasking are not all the same thing, and I think it's complete and utter horseshit to blame technology for the the fact that sometimes teenagers aren't great at paying attention, that they maybe aren't the greatest at deciding when to multitask and when to just sit down and get shit done.)

Here's a thought: maybe if my students aren't giving me their undivided attention, it's because they don't need to - maybe it's because, ultimately, what I'm saying is not challenging them very much.

Hello, wonderful yuletider! First of all, let me say that I am DELIGHTED to have you writing for me, and that I will adore absolutely anything that you write, because STORY! For ME!

...but since that's not a lot to go on, here's some more information.

Generally:

I don't care for: death, pining that doesn't get resolved, rape, torture and abuse, incest.

I like: shenanigans, snappy dialogue, domesticity, porn, teams, stories about characters teaching and learning, stories about making the world a better place, stories about local government, stories with kittens in them, stories with babies in them, smart and competent characters, characters who have to make difficult decisions, absurdly codependent bff pairings, outsider POV, obliviousness, awkwardness, pining that gets resolved, roadtrips, bodyswap, fucking around with gender, cross-dressing, epistolary fic, libraries, historical retellings, cuddling (for warmth or otherwise), characters taking care of each other, negotiation of kinks, threesomes and moresomes, stories with sex toys in them, shenanigans.

Obviously, some of those things will work better in certain fandoms than in others! But if you want to write me a Yeine/Itempas/Nahadoth story about local government, you should feel free to do so! ...because that would be amazing. *_____*

( Specifically: Good Wife, Parks and Recreation, Tamir Trilogy, Inheritance Trilogy )

In conclusion, hi! I'm etben, and I like ridiculous codependent pairings! And also Kalinda Sharma.

But I didn't want to get my teacherfeels all over the meme, so: Meme! Pick a number or numbers, ask me questions, I'll tell you things, it'll be swell.

( the list )