elanya

I have been terrible at updating regularly, even when I have things to talk about!

I did have things to talk about, but of course I forget most of them /o\

But Yesterday I went to the Aggiecon for part of the afternoon, and sat in on a few panels - mostly [minority] in [geek culture] sorts of things. They were interesting but I don't know that I learned anything particularly new, but it is interesting to see people talking anyway. One of the more fascinating things to me was seeing an audience member in the Gender in Geek Culture Panel talk about how it was awesome that Elementary made Watson a woman, and a Woman of Colour at that, and in the very next panel, which was LGBTQ+ in Geek Culture, have one of the (male) panelists complain about the same thing because it wasn't true to the canon/men don't get to have close friendships? And by interesting I mean it was annoying, and even though there were some of the same panelists in both, no one (including me, tbf) said anything about it. Although I think one of the panelists either tried and failed or just misunderstood, I'm not sure. Anyway.

The other thing is that Jeffrey Cranor was there, wooh! He was on a couple of the panels mentioned above, and then he did a Night Vale Q&A, which was awesome. He also read us one of the NYNF skits that first got him and Joseph Fink being friends - I believe it was called Things Our Children Will Learn from the Time Traveler (in four parts). He also told us we are supposed to read Elizabeth Barret Browning's Sonnets form the Portuguese by Tuesday. I think he is a little obsessed with them at, judging by twitter. And the fact that he most gave us an assignment to read them ;) It was cool, but mostly it was spoiler-free conversation. There was a chance to meet him afterward, but there was a line (as much as he was trying to make it more informal) and I had to leave to catch my ride, so I didn't stick around. I also had a chance to meet him briefly when he was here with the Neos in November. I will still take unofficial credit for getting him here, since I did email the confolks back then to try to get them to invite him/the Night Vale folks. But really I suspect it was not a hard sell as he is an alumni. :p

In other news I am *almost* finished my sweater, and now I am having trouble picking up the stitches on the neck ;_; I literally just have to pick them up and knit 5 rows of stockinette and cast off and it is just a huge fail pile, weh :( And my local knitter friend is away next week :(

I thought I had something more to say but I forget what! Err... I had a dream that I was in the navy last night? But I don't remember much more than that :/

No big plans, but some plans none the less. I have already accomplished some of them, which is good because it is now after eleven! I have walked the dog, showered, made and consumed pancakes, and listened to today's Welcome to Night Vale. Which, btw, was really good! I think it is my favourite so far of the Zack Parsons episodes. I like the stuff about Nulogorsk. And that telephone is crying out for a Person of Interest crossover.

My other plans for the day involve baking bread (already started, actually - I have the oatmeal sitting and have a timer set so I can bloom the yeast), and trying to finish my Diablotin Space AU before Fan Flashworks closes. We'll see how that goes - I think I have a good handle on the rest of it, and it isn't going to be super long overall. It is a shortened, bastardized version of the first adventure of the game. I included all the PCs, mostly because i wanted to write from Kalman's PoV, and because I wanted them to be an established group already. Anyway, I hope people will find it fun :D

Gonna get working on that now, and maybe catch up on more of Our Fair City while I am kneading bread...

So, the Academy of Visual and Performing Arts brought the New York Neo-Futurists to Texas A&M.

The neo-futurists are a theater group originally conceived in Chicago, and the TMLMTBGB production started there something like 20 years ago. They don't do 'acting' they way you might think of in a typical play - everything in the theater is real, the people are real, the audience is real, and you are all there together sharing an experience. I mean, this is true in general, but they make it explicit, and make it part of the performance.

The show is actually made up of 30 different plays, and they only go for an hour - there is a big darkroom clock on the wall, and they start the show, they set it to 60 minutes. And when it stops, the show is over.

The audience (who are all renamed for the experience - you show up and are greeted by Neos with microphones wearing big ear protection who loudly ask your name, don't hear it, and then write you a whimsical name tag - I was Baby Alligator) are given a menu of plays, and shout the number of the one they want to hear when the performers call the end of the last play (code word: Curtain!). The plays are all short and very fun! Well, some of them are more sad or poignant, but most are pretty funny. I am very good at shouting quickly. But really, we got to see all of them, because they'd come so far to put on the show for us. They'd named someone Damocles, and they let her decide, after the timer ran (with three and a half plays to go) if they would keep going and how much time to put back on the clock. I've kept my menu, anyway - some of the plays they did are on the website.

So... I am familiar with them in reference to Night Vale, because as far as I can tell the NYNFs are what all the main players have in common. Jeffrey Cranor and Cecil Baldwin are both currently members, as is Meg ....her last name starts with B but I can't find is... who is, as I like to think of it the Voice of Commonplace Books. I was curious about the NYNFs, in any case, because of this connection, and figured that by association it was bound to be a pretty cool show. And then Jeffrey Cranor was actually here tonight, wooh! I thought it would be cool to see his performance and writing in a different context, and was pleased (perhaps slightly relieved?) that I still enjoyed it immensely. It it a very different project, but definitely worth it.

I also got to talk to him (eee) after the show and managed to do so, I think, without being overwhelming or super awkward! I talked to one of the other Neos too (Cara), but peeps were waiting on me so I didn't get to meet them all, alas. But hey - maybe they will come back? I would 100% recommend that anyone who has a chance check out the show, anyway! It is always different...

I was re-listening to The traveler (Night Vale ep 17), and realized that it actually described my today pretty well. I mean, I go through a lot of latex gloves at work anyway, but today was a bit of an ordeal @_@ maybe that is why I'm so wiped today - that + bees :p

To recap my life briefly - I work in a glass museum. It's really cool. I have spent the past... 3 or four weeks, maybe? Cataloging Steuben art glass. It's fucking gorgeous. If you want an idea of what it is like... ( Pictures of shinies under the cut! )

Anyway, I usually unpack a box, take all my notes, put all my notes into the database, take picture, process all the pictures, and re-pack all the things. That is pretty much all there is to my job most of the time. Sometimes I do a little minor conservation or labeling/relabeling for variety.

Today I was helping/doing a photoshoot for some marketing materials for some of the exhibits going up after Christmas. This meant getting out about ten different boxes, some of which I haven't gotten to and so are packed horribly, and pulling one thing out of each box, moving all the stuff into the other room, setting up all the photo stuff in the studio, working with the marketing lady to get shots of all of these things that are much fancier than I usually do (the shots I take are generally nice, but they are mostly for identification purposes, whereas these will be on postcards and in brochures and such). Anyway, it was a lot more intensive, and I was kneeling on concrete pretty much all afternoon to get all the photos. I think we more or less got all the shots we needed, but it was after 5 when we finished and I didn't look at them all yet. I also have to put everything away tomorrow, including dealing with all the stuff that came out of really poorly packed boxes that no one has looked at in at least 5 years and possibly more like 10 :p

As for the latex gloves, fingerprints leave permanent marks on glass really easily - especially fancy art glass that has had various surface treatments applied to make it iridescent and such - and we have gloves (technically nitrite and not latex) to keep from getting prints on. You can't use the white cotton ones that are okay for other art handling because they are too slippery. But the gloves get warm - especially when you are doing photography with hot lights - and I went through a lot of them because my hands were sweating so much, yum!

So all in all, my Monday was long and tiring, but didn't harm me, and I went through a lot of gloves. Thanks, Night Vale!

So, Carlos comes in to his lab, and there is quiet mellow music playing. One of the other scientists is working, obviously very listlessly, and then yawns. They look up and shake their head. "I don't know why I'm so sleepy. It's probably the Weather." :V

Well, okay. Technically I have a job I have been hired for, yes, but I can't actually start work until i get my Visa, which I'm hoping will be by the end of the month. Really *really* hoping.

For now... Well, there are things gong on. My dad is coming down here on Wednesday for my graduation on Friday morning. He flies out again on Tuesday morning. I have no ides what all we are gong to do, though - he doesn't really want to leave the sweet protection of the air conditioning ;p I guess I can get him to listen to Night Vale? Watch Firefly? I dunno :3 I'll figure something out, I suppose. Theoretically on Sunday night I have my game, but I'll see if he minds if I play, or what.

I'll be through house sitting next Monday, and then back at the condo. There was someone who was interested in renting the other room, but I never heard anything more about it, so I assume that is not happening. ( This turns into rambling about money things )

That is really not what I meant to write about when I sat down to do thins though. I meant to talk about the fact that I am already flailing about uselessly due to the lack of structure. It used to be I would get home from work/social lunch at like 2:30 and do fuck of of use for the rest of the day. I mean, I've written a lot in the past couple of weeks/months. A *lot*. And that's great! I do enjoy it. I'm having a lot of fun playing in the Night Vale fandom. I even got a tumblr! That should really tell you everything about how my days have turned into a wasteland of uselessness (measured-words.tumblr.com, for the record. Reblog allll the Night Vale @_@). I'm one of the tag-wranglers for the fandom on AO3 and it is hopping. My co-wrangler cleared out the bins of new stuff earlier this morning, and there are already 17 new ones. I'm slow and picky about it too, so it eats time, but I enjoy it as well. But at the same time, it is not precisely helping me get ahead in life. Okay, so it is actually very similar to what I will be doing with my new job, on a smaller scale, but I'm not sure how I'd put it on a resume :p

I'd meant to be doing all kinds of useful things with this time. I thought I'd have started the new job a lot sooner, and that I'd be acclimatizing to a real, actually busy, 8 hour work day, but that once I'd done this, I would start, say, putting together course syllabi and trying to get articles published from my dissertation research. I have done... none of this. I was planning to read more academic stuff on fandom and poke at my co-hosts to keep gong with more ficthropology stuff, and that hasn't happened either. And just read more academic stuff in general! I have so many books I've bought and have only really just peeked at, or read parts of, or never even opened. I need to read more - I have the time now - I should do that right? Heck, there are books in this house I should read if I have time in the next week :p

Anyway. I have a lot of time on my hand, and I'm having trouble organizing myself to make good use of it. I have writing commitments, and I have story ideas and I have original material I want to do Something with. I have knitting to work on. I have articles to write and courses to design. I just need to figure out how I can make myself do these things. Maybe I need to make more lists? Schedules? I don't know. If you see me online too much, make me do something useful. If I'm being morose and whiny, tell me to have some tea. I was feeling meh when I started this, but now I have had tea and feel less meh and more just... bored I guess? I know not having concrete things to do is not going to be good for me longterm :p

Right now, I'm going to go make lunch. That should help too. And after that... I dunno. Maybe I'll read, or knit. Maybe I'll do some market research for stories. Maybe I'll do something with friends in town...

I made a Three sisters soup tonight - summer squash, black beans and corn, with turkey and turkey broth and a small can of crushed tomatoes. And some random spices - chili powder, sage, cumin, salt, pepper. pretty tasty! I froze some for lunches, and have some for lunch tomorrow as well. I have one little squash left now, and some onions. I... need to go grocery shopping, apparently.

In other news, I have joined the Tumblr. I am over here if you're interested, but it is about 95% reblogged Night Vale stuff. Maybe higher >.>

ps: Welcome to Night Vale.

And now.... to write!

Anyone wanna beta a ~600 word Night Vale fic for me? Contains innuendo but nothing graphic.

I usually have Fridays off, but because of some trainings and such, I swapped worked last Friday and have today off instead. For some reason - probably just the change from the usual, it feels a lot more relaxing this way. And I have Friday off again this week,which makes for just a 3-day work week. Sweet!

It is actually really raining today, for once. Or at least, we had some real rain. And its cool! It's all so novel! It may interfere with my plans to go in to campus and then do errands - that entails a lot of walking in the rain. But we'll see! I'm going to go take the dogs out in a bit, and I can decide depending on how that goes. I have to pick up a prescription and send some mail to the ppl I'm house sitting for (at least that is all in the same general vicinity) and drop off a form to the thesis office (more out of the way).

I have some other things I want to do today as well - I want to make a summer-squash soup to use up more of the garden squash that I got from Megan and also have something for lunches. i want to keep going on the socks I started (and ripped back, and restarted, times a zillion). I'd like to do some writing as well, or maybe something else productive. I have professional goals I'm slacking on - I wanted to get some courses/syllabi prepared to work on job applications with, and try and get an article published somewhere... Maybe I can look at some of that stuff today. I hadn't because I wanted to wait until after I was done with the dissertation, but I still haven't heard back from the thesis office about my corrections... I know I'm later in the queue, and I knee this would happen, I just feel like I've lost a lot of momentum as a result. *sigh*

Speaking of Corrections though, I am going to take the time to pimp a new love of mine - the Welcome to Night Vale podcast! it is a community radio podcast for a quaint but odd little American desert town, narrated by Cecil, a civic minded and enthusiastic gentleman who embraces the eccentricities of his home. Eccentricities like... the dog park. Dogs are not allowed in the dog park. People are not allowed in the dog park. Do not approach the dog park. Pay no attention to the hooded figures in the dog park. Forget about the dog park - the Sheriff's Secret Police would like to remind residents that they are watching. Please do not hold conversations in private or in secluded areas where cameras and recording devices cannot easily 0penetrate. Also try to keep your conversations lively - remember, you do have an audience.

On that note, I think it is time to load up another 20 min episode and go walk the dogs... but not to the park.