Kaesa

Occasionally I come across awesome or amusing quotes in my textbooks. I never posted the really amusing one I found freshman year, about the extremely admirable chemist who blew three of his fingers off for science, but more philosophically, my history textbook now notes that "Greatness, one assumes, is distributed randomly across time and space."

There was another one about symbolic fishladders in my Russian environmental politics textbook, but that was mostly just depressing. I just like the mental image of some people looking at a four-dimensional map and noting the random distribution of dots indicating greatness nodes. And I really need to get off my ass and get some Doctor Who icons.

So I had a nice day.

This morning, I woke up actually awake, and after weightlifting, the traffic lights changed as soon as I pressed the button, so I was filled with the urge to shout "BUAHAHA! I CONTROL ALL THE TRAFFIC!" So I did, and after that, the traffic lights behaved for me the entire day. Then in Religion, Mr. Goddesses-Are-Just-Weird gave a spirited and logical and feminism-based attack on Sun Myung Moon/the Unification Church's attitude towards women, which was cheering if confusing. I think my history midterm went well, I drew a pretty good picture of Rowena in Polisci, and on the way to Karate I saw an owl. It was about the size of both my fists together, and I got close enough to grab it (although, for obvious reasons, I did not) before we both decided we had other places to be. Flowers-san let us out early because it's Mardi Gras, and then when I got back, my RA was taking down the bulletin board on the dangers of hookah-smoking, and I learned about the hookah-smoking epidemic that's sweeping the nation. (Okay, not really, but the billboard had baffled me, as I had no idea that there was a hookah bar in Normal that let you in if you were over 18. The more you know!)

Yay. Also, I have accidentally done all of my reading for Polisci two days in advance.

Sometimes the mental image I get when I read Gmail's ads is probably not the one the ad writers were intending:

Someday, I would really like to know why every single Environmental Studies project I'm assigned turns to shit.

Oh, they all go perfectly well. Well, not perfectly. But they all do what they're supposed to do, or rather, I do what I'm supposed to do, and I can write, and I have this ridiculous ability to finish papers just before they're due.

I just end up having to talk about fecal matter a lot. Apparently the universe has a sense of humor even more immature than my own.

Anyway, on the topic of schoolwork, I did my presentation on Wicca last Thursday. I was disappointed in the class, half of which thought Wicca was Satanic before we covered, you know, the actuality of Wicca. (Seriously, wtf. When I was a kid, the topic of "if I stopped being Jewish" came up a lot and Wicca and Baha'i were the two semi-respected religions "good enough" to be not-Jewish for. Maybe when you grow up Christian all your options are other versions of Christianity?) I'm by no means an expert on Wicca, but it miffs me because damn, I try not to assume someone is a Satanist unless, you know, they tell me they are.

Anyway, the crowning moment of wtf came when a guy told us that he thought Wicca was a cult anyway, even if no Satan or brainwashing or suicide-encouraging creepy leaders were involved, because he thought "a female god" was just too weird. That point of view had honestly not occurred to me -- I really like mythology, and the Greek goddesses have always really appealed to me because despite some misogyny in the actual myths, they got to be awesomely kickass -- well, goddesses in general often get to do that, being, you know, goddesses -- and to be honest, I think a female creator deity makes a little more sense than a male creator deity, because your options for creation myths are either Frankenstein-y ("I MADE THE WORLD and gave it LIFE, and all y'all have to OBEY!") or pregnancy (which does not happen to most men and no, fanfiction doesn't count) and pregnancy seems like maybe less of a stretch.

(Although now I want to write a Frankensteiny creator goddess, or maybe one who mixes it up a little and does both.)

Anyway, back to my point: apparently goddesses = CRAZY CULT, even though plenty of intellectually-respected ancient peoples worshipped goddesses as well as gods, and even though there are female saints, and even though goddess-worship doesn't mean you have to do things like give women rights and all that inconvenient shit. (In fact, you can easily make up stories about the goddesses themselves reinforcing misogynist beliefs! See also: Athena's decision in Eumenides vs. Orestes.)

But yeah. I really should have said something to him, but I was a little too horrified to think anything but Kaesa, he is allowed to have an opinion that is different from yours. Even though it's fucking stupid. But later, while I reading feminist blogs, I thought of insults.

Hence my new icon. Argh.

The lump on my forehead is gone, but it still hurts to facepalm. Please, do not embarrass me for another few days, world.

I'm about halfway through A Feast for Crows, which is surprising since I started it yesterday, but there you go. I need to finish it quickly because I accidentally got it in hardcover, so it's not easy to carry. On the other hand, it's difficult to lose and forget, and having left A Storm of Swords on the airplane to Las Vegas when I was about twenty-five pages from the end, that's kind of reassuring.

Also, oddly, I keep finding badly confused fanart of the Lannister twins. I have so far found one silver-haired Jaime and one black-haired Cersei. With other authors, I can see how you'd make a mistake like that, but in this series, it's just weird.

Anyway. I've been trying to write a thousand words a day. My favorite thing from today comes from a conversation betwen two Trainee Unspeakables, sometime in the late 1940s:

"Maybe Cadwallader will hit him," said Toby.

"There's something I would love to see," said Ed. She stared off into space serenely for a moment, apparently contemplating the glorious spectacle of Cadwallader's disused Beater's bat against Winter's cast-iron arm. At least, that was what Toby had imagined. She was an Espis, so who knew what went on in her head, really. "Who do you think would win?" she asked.

"Cadwallader," said Toby immediately. "She's terrifying. She'd turn him into a rat and eat him in a sandwich."

"Not that it wouldn't be an improvement on the Ministry cafeteria food, but Winter's got that metal arm," said Ed. She winced. "It's horrible and cold. Anyway, he'd make a bad lab rat. He'd be a better guinea pig." The lift doors opened, and they stepped out into the Atrium.

"Maybe," he said doubtfully. He couldn't see Winter as anything fluffy. "It's only the one arm, though. I bet Cadwallader could knock him out without trying," he continued. "It makes sense, you know, that they would choose a Department Head who can keep the Department in control with, er. Percussive maintenance."

"You think it's a physically demanding job?" Ed asked.

"Remember that rampaging pipe-organ our first week of testing?" Toby asked.

"Oh yeah," said Ed, her face lighting up. "That was brilliant, wasn't it?"

She was an Espis. Right. Mad.

Dear creepy slouching guy who walked RIGHT FUCKING BEHIND ME AND KEPT MATCHING, THEN EXCEEDING MY EVER-INCREASING SPEED on the dark path back to Gulick:

I am certain you were only a student minding his own business, not a potential rapist/mugger, but that was not clear to me until our paths diverged, especially since I couldn't see you until then. However, it was quite dark, I could hear that you were too damn close and getting closer, and the fact that I kept speeding up and looking back, and checking that my keys were easily accessible, should have maybe indicated some discomfort on my part. I would like you to know that next time you do this sort of thing to me, I will be much more likely to just run, or maybe preemptively kick you in the crotch, rather than hurrying to Gulick paranoiacally and opening the door into my very own forehead, giving me a huge lump on the head and probably a mild concussion. I prefer this former set of actions (that is, violence) not because they are wise (as I know they are not), but because they hurt me less and I don't really care about you. Because you're an inadvertent asshole, but you're still an asshole.

Unfondly,

Kaesa, who does not want to go to all her classes tomorrow

PS: I feel kind of stupid ranting about this, because nothing Bad has ever happened to me, but argh. I know irritability is a symptom of concussion, and the above post is probably pretty unreasonable, but I'm so frustrated. Especially since if anything had happened to me the second question after "OMG ARE YOU ALRIGHT?" would be "What were you doing walking back from Ames alone after eleven, anyway?"

PPS: But seriously, what am I supposed to do? Turn to him and say "Excuse me, but I don't know you, and I was going to run away, but I don't want to be insensitive to your feelings. Are you planning on harming me in any way? No? Oh, all right, then, I guess you can keep ominously creeping up behind me!"

PPPS: I will be so pissed if I miss Karate because my head hurts tomorrow. I was just getting the hang of the advanced kata.

PPPPS: Yes, I know that my opening a door into my head was not his fault. I'm just annoyed.

My textbook for Cults in America has a whole section about H. P. Lovecraft. It makes me wish my next book to read was something fictional, and not The Struggle for Russian Environmental Policy.

Right, classes. I promised I'd post about that, didn't I?

( I'm taking six classes this semester. )

And that is that. The first five are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so that wears me out a little, but then I have a four-day weekend. (Well, I try to lift weights on Saturday or Sunday.) I really didn't mean it to be that way, but that's how my schedule worked out. It's actually really nice, because I know with absolute confidence if someone invites me to a party one evening, I can either say Sure! or No, I Have Class, Sorry -- none of this "ooh, uh, well, I might need to do homework..." and then I don't.

Anyway, I should sleep because apparently I'm going to church tomorrow morning. Man, I don't even know what you wear to church. And we're walking.

...

What. The fuck.


Why not set up a gilded shrine to the Goddess of Reason clutching her offspring - Self? Around her position several bowing figures of famous atheists such as Nietzsche, Marx, Ingersoll, Russell, Huxley, Mao, O'Hare, Sagan, etc.

Our atheist friends could then make their own religious statement without dragging in Christianity which they detest anyway.

Man, I'm not even an atheist and seriously. What the fuck. I can hear the writer insisting that he was just trying to be nice, just trying to give some advice. I can hear it. "I don't know why atheists should be offended when I say that they're Communists, worship themselves, and universally hate Christianity! Everyone knows that's true!" I mean, I'm surprised there was no suggestion that if atheists aren't going to have moral codes, moral codes being the province of divinity, the least they could do is blah blah blah fuck you.

I'm not even an atheist. I'm agnostic! And I'm still pissed off! What am I supposed to do, build a gilded shrine to confusion? I mean, I really like mazes, but it doesn't seem terribly practical.

(To be fair, there are some atheists who do hate Christianity, like Dawkins, and there are magical traditions/religions that explicitly worship the self, like LaVeyan Satanism. But I can't imagine the Satanists getting along well with Dawkins, and I can't really blame them. He seems like kind of an ass.)

...ironically, I am going to church on Sunday for the first time ever (minus that one funeral) this week. But I'm going with Katie so she's not lonely, and it's Unitarian Universalist, so I know there will be superintelligent gerbils.

I should post about my classes, I guess. But basically everything's been going well, except I keep sucking at Karate and Weightlifting. Because I have them on the same days as all of my other classes.

But! I got my room mostly decluttered and semi-decorated, and I finished Feet of Clay, which was excellent. I'm not caught up on Discworld, I never am, but the books tend to hit me at just the right time to fully appreciate them. That and I get distracted by rereading Small Gods. Anyway, right now I'm halfway through The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, which has disappointing golems and alchemy -- well, I mean, next to Pratchett, anything is a little disappointing -- and kind of cardboard characters. But it works as mind-candy. Still, I'm missing my good YA. I need to dig out my Bruce Coville books next time I'm home, and I have to read all those Young Wizards books I missed when I was busy taking myself too seriously back in high school.

AND NON-BELIEVERS.

I did not realize this would make my day. And forgive me my fonts, as I forgive those who type things in horrible colors and sparklies. But YAY.

Also, acknowledgement of environmental issues. And SCIENCE. Please actually do these things, Mr. President.

So I'm having plotbunny difficulties. As if I didn't have enough to write what with the Founders, of course, and my various other unfinished projects -- Martin Umbo, and the ... the thing which only Kitty knows entirely about that is basically one of those awful romcoms where Nerd Girl falls for Popular Guy, gets a makeover and changes her ENTIRE PERSONALITY, Popular Guy finally realizes how hot wonderfully intelligent she is, and they live happily ever after. Except it's written by me, so none of those things happens. Especially not the ending. And I think the characters involved would horrify some of my flist, so I'm waiting until it's posted to talk about that.

Anyway, then I've got this original-fiction cyberpunk superhero thing with character-seeds mostly taken from the Founders. I'm wibbling about race right now, because the thing is set in the Chicago of about fifty years in the future, and while it's ...not so weird to have an entirely-white main cast in a European medieval setting, I do not expect Chicago in 2060 to be populated entirely by white people. (I especially want to do this thing right because Girls Read Comics was both my introduction to the wider world of feminist and progressive blogs, and is still sort of my jumping-off point into superhereoes and comics.) The main characters are two ex-pat Brits, because try as I might, I could not make Rowena American. I once tried to make an elflilke race and ended up with a slave race of giant intelligent horseshoe crabs, so it's a little weird that she refuses to be American, but whatever. Anyway, Livia (by which I mean Rowena) is a pyrokinetic superheroine (by which I mean she's just starting out and trying not to die or kill anyone) and an independent political blogger (by which I mean she is a recently laid-off bookstore cashier). Her plant-controlling restoration ecologist best friend from university ends up becoming a supervillain. (There are reasons. They just encompass a large plot arc which is difficult to explain in less than a paragraph.) Then we have the technopathic Batman wannabe, his dad who works for Daley III, the terrified-of-heights postdoc student who can fly, and the superhero-hating FBI agent on the evil restoration ecologist case. The whole thing also largely baffles me because while I didn't create her as one specifically, the protagonist is a bisexual English major girl gamer.

The other plot gnawing on me at the moment is one that just kind of started bugging me again after a year or so of dormancy. Originally, the plot was, Kid from Our World is dropped into Fantasy World, realizes the whole setup sucks, takes over, becomes well-intentioned Evil Overlord, realizes he will be conquered by later Kid Heroes from Our World, and is doing his damndest to keep that from happening without hurting his people. Now it's... different. The necromancer ruler in my head seems very sad and worried for the country he's been trying to rule, and at this point I think that if he is indeed from Our World (as he doesn't seem to be from Fantasy World) he's from somewhere else. At this point I'm wondering if being From Our World but sometime in the past would be better. Anyway, the Fantasy World seems to be in the middle of an ice age, this being an ideal time to have armies of the undead, since they wouldn't rot. I also kind of want to have volcanoes in there, but I'd rather have more Inuit inspirations than Scandinavian ones -- mostly because there are already a lot of Scandinavia nerds in fantasy fandom and Inuit mythology is... different. Oh, and there will be Neandertals in there somewhere, as well as "modern" humans. But I need to have more characters sorted out first. Mostly I'm annoyed with Necromancer Dude for giving me only emotional impressions (sorrow, hope that the heroes won't fuck up his hard work after he's dead, hatred because they killed his lover's daughter) and nothing concrete about who he was beforehand. I think probably he was in a war earlier, because that would explain both his fighting skill, and his willingness to take over his area and end the fighting.

Anyway, more random picspam: Godric and Rowena illustrate several tropes at once. The much better-looking pencilsketch of Rowena. A sketch of Edwina Espis, Unspeakable and ex-convict. Me on Halloween, in a meticulously-planned costume which I never bragged about on LJ. (Sadly, you cannot see my awesome boots in it, or the gun's paintjob. However, they are there.)

So I did a presentation on the propspect of using vermicomposting both as a sustainable waste management tool and an educational one in a local elementary school. Sadly, my research results suggest that this is not likely unless the school redoes its schedule and hires more custodians. If anyone wants my powerpoint or paper, comment.

I also took my Earth System Science final, and it is such a relief to be out of that class. It is a fascinating subject, but now that Dr. Hoffmann is gone it was being taught by a very nice woman who does not know when the Little Ice Age was and says that pH is the concentration of hydrogen in solution. (I'm not even sure she meant protons.) Having accidentally gotten a teacher fired in middle school, I cringe every time my classmates go on about how evil she is, since she's not, she's just bad. But. It still sucked, because every time we sat in lab and she told us to put down an answer that was demonstrably scientifically wrong, Meaghan and I were all "SCIENCE WILL SAVE US!" and ignored what she told us to write.

(I realize in some cases "well, she's a professor, she obviously knows more than you" is a valid objection. I'm pretty sure, though, that she did know these things and was just trying to make it easier for the rest of the class to follow by not including her ironically non-Earth logic.)

...also, speaking of actual evil professors, Dr. Mohan held the door for me today. But to object would be like one of those weird guys who refuses to go through when I hold the door, so hell, I dunno, I thought, and I thanked him and went through. Happily, the door led to CNS, as I was hoping, and not to some terrible hell-dimension. Perhaps he is losing his chemistry vampire powers.

Anyway, best inadvertently-funny line read while procrastinating today:
"You can trust Albus to be discrete, Harry."

It is a little-known fact that Albus Dumbledore is non-continuous and can be counted. How this makes him more trustworthy, I'm not sure, since the entire point of the last book was that Voldemort is also non-continuous and can be counted. Although to be fair, it takes a lot longer to count Voldemort.

Dear world,

I actually kind of love you right now.

But! Back to work. Always room for improvement.

And this is not an excuse to slack off.

Squeefully and Amid Fireworks in a (Surprisingly) Blue District of Central Illinois,
Kaesa

...also, I totally got a review for my Millicent/Ron-and-maybe-Millicent/Neville. Now if only the fruit flies would clear off my compost and people would learn to recycle paper they don't reuse or compost. And maybe if I could get a good grade on this lab report? That'd be cool too. Also, Earth Systems Science should stop sucking.

There, that was enough to remind me that not everything is awesome. For a few seconds.

...LAUNDRY. I knew I forgot something important today.

Oh well. EEEEE.

Also, I'm very sorry to any McCain supporters to whom this post is obnoxious. I'm not sorry y'all lost, but I know this post might make you a little more irritated.

Aaagh election. How the hell am I supposed to get to sleep tonight? It's like if Christmas was a huge test where your grade depends entirely on whether everyone else studied but talking about it results in looking either like a sad nerd obsessed with pet issues (in my case feminism and the environment) to those who don'tcare, or an ignorant moron to those who actually understand politics. I have cobbled together a small text document telling me who all I am voting for. I feel bad that I'm not really supporting third parties this year, but it's my first presidential election and I cried the last time when Bush got a second term, so I'm not sure I could live with myself voting for something crazily idealistic if Obama does not win. Even though I live in Illinois.

...um, if anyone else cares, I am frustrated that, in the little research I have done on this particular issue, neither candidate seems to be acknowledging the uselessness of clean coal to combat global warming, but at least Obama has considered environmental issues that are separate from (admittedly the most urgent environmental issue) global climate change and energy issues. In this particular case, I know most about how they have acted on issues of water qualilty, so if anyone wants a quick rundown that's more detailed and has more evidence than just "I prefer Obama's stances on this issue because McCain has got a hard-on for deregulation, and people are fundamentally well-meaning, hopeful, incompetent selfish ignorant assholes."

Tomorrow night I'll be rewriting a lab report on forest ecology and trying to hammer together a policy paper using my research on vermicomposting in local schools. And all the while I really want to just write Founders or superheroes or something. ...Okay, mostly I just want to write action and fighting or Sparky arguing.

Also, Halloween was AWESOME. Went trick-or-treating for Habitat for Humanity, raised $75 among three people, and yes. ...well, okay, the party we went to was crap, but my costume? AWESOME. Even though the premeds kept asking me why a mad scientist would have a gun. Fools. Eventually I will post pictures.

...At some point I may also describe my recurring Doctor Who themed nightmares about senior seminar. The last one was about visiting Torchwood London, and how I apparently can never have a working Oyster card, even in an overdramatic dream wherein members of my ecology class are brought back from the dead and Tiamat, having long been imprisoned inside some modern art, destroys large parts of London before the Doctor comes and saves us all. Ancient dragon-goddess of chaos is really sufficiently advanced alien bound to Earth? Yes. Undead obnoxious asshole premed classmate? Sure! Being able to use public transportation to visit museums in order to do vital interviews for my senior project? NOT IF YOU'RE ME. I'm so glad that in reality I chose to do the project on worms, and not whatever the hell I'm doing it on in that weird alternate universe of my dreams.

Okay. Yes. I should sleep, I have an environmental community service thing to do tomorrow. And voting, and laundry, and replies to emails about worms.

Oh my god how am I supposed to sleep how?

I just want to wake up and suddenly have the world's problems miraculously solved. No more dumbing down of scientific issues. No more shitty economy. No more people undeservedly suffering for situations they couldn't do anything about and no more pretending that it's their fault anyway because it's easier than doing something about it.

...so yes, basically I want to wake up in the impossible and unstable Dimension of Sunshine, Daisies, and Rainbows.

But instead I'm going to wake up and vote. Which, let's face it, won't help, but at least I'm doing something.

Things I have to do before Friday:

( Sadly, it does not end with TAKE OVER WORLD. )

After that's all done, I might be able to return to LJ. In between writing this huge-ass lab report and this other huge-ass senior sem paper. But once I'm done with HALR it's done, and at least HASSP allows me to use tiny children to feed earthworms! ...with their leftover lunch garbage. I mean. Not the kids.

Needless to say, I will not be doing NaNoWriMo this year.

However! I was reading a troll-laden conversational thread on a feminist criticism of an advertisement. This was too good not to blog:

kaesa:

plus if you want to get really technical, by my personal experience with women, not anyone elses... not from the media or any outside source... these are the women I've dated...

1. Women ARE crazy spenders who run up massive credit card debt on frivolous shit... like who in the fuck needs a god damn motherfucking "toe" ring or over a hundred different lip balms?

2. Women are financially irresponsible... not all the women I have dated, but a vast majority... like having a car/house/rent payment due in 2 days... having the money for it, but deciding that a pair of shoes is needed more, you know in case the store sells them all? and all the other stores run out of that one specific pair... ha..
kaesa: Yeah, I'm guessing this guy has multiple personalities which he projects onto his Metal Bikini Princess Leia action figures.
kaesa: and "dates."
[...]
thinkatory: -____-
thinkatory: sorry, you put this conversation into my head:
thinkatory: Guy: Hey honey, have you paid the rent yet?
Guy: *waves the action figure back and forth* *falsetto* "Oh, I bought shoes! TEEHEEHEEHEE! SILLY ME."
Guy: You stupid bitch! Now we're going to get evicted!
Guy: *waves action figure* *falsetto* "What if I give you head?"
Guy: ... well, okay.
kaesa: HAHAHA.
kaesa: the punchline is he fits.

So I finally have a bed. It is awesome. If anyone else is still sleeping on the floor, I would highly recommend taking advantage of this new technology. I will also have a nighttable soon, which is great, since I keep having to sleep with the (screenless) window open and I have nowhere to put my glasses but my windowsill. It's always hard to find your glasses when they're not where you thought you put them, but it is infinitely harder when they have fallen into the backyard.

I am working at my mom's law firm now, three days a week, as her boss' second secretary. His real (temp) secretary and I have been working on organizing the shit that his last permasecretary hoarded in a vaguely archaeological manner. Dragons have often been depicted as hoarders, sitting stupidly in their caves, the glittering remains of other people's useless wealth strewn about them. Hers was a four-cubicle hoard of pleadings, discovery files, correspondence, personal emails, and horoscopes, piled on top of each other in boxes and folders and binders, but never actually organized. I know nothing of the noble secretarial arts, but am not sure why she thought this was okay. I'm very biased against her, though, since I've met her in person, so maybe this is common practice or something and the temp and I are like "aah wtf" where others would merely find it homey.

Anyway, today we finally got this one case all organized, except for a few memos my boss wants me to correct and print out for him (he Does Not Type, although it is fun to watch him try) and a few other files my mother needs scanned. The details are fuzzy since I'm not a lawyer, but the case basically concerns the flailings of a lawyer with a severe and tragic case of the sockpuppets. Throughout the case, I've been collecting typos.

My favorite four are:

• Dear Mr. Bryan, addressed to my boss, whose first name is Bryan and whose last name is not.



• a discussion regarding the precise definition of "clams" of "bad faith" -- obviously meant to be "claims," but murderous shellfish are something near and dear to my heart. The hilarity of this is compounded by Bryan's inability to go two clauses without putting two "things" in "unnecessary" "scare quotes" (and occasionally parenthesis).



• discussion of bath faith, apparently a New Age religion of ill repute and great attention to hygiene, probably practiced by ill-intentioned clams.



• by curious instead of "vicarious." I... I got nothin'.

Um. Hm. What else is new? Oh! I finished watching New Who a while ago, and this is my new favorite vid. (Major spoilers for the Series 3 finale. Also, I would advise against eating or drinking while watching it.)

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who commented on my post about Cody. I can't really respond sensibly to the comments, but you guys were helpful. Rosabelle is also dead now, but she died much more peacefully and seemed oblivious rather than frightened. I'm not saying oblivious is good or anything, but it sure beats panic. And finally, a family friend has died. Her husband is probably not going to be around much longer, since she was pretty much his life. Both are/were quite old, so it's not unexpected, but I feel I ought to mention them since she was a really wonderful person and so is he. Apparently this is a bad summer to know me and not be dead, because you will be fairly soon. NOBODY ELSE CAN DIE, OKAY?

Um. Anyway. I didn't start writing this post to be gloomy. Because, you see, I have found something. It's partly inspired by watching old TV episodes (...Smallville. Such a cracky show. And the writers just tried to pass off "You don't look like a science geek!" as a compliment to a girl who's into astronomy. Oh, misogyny.) and partly because I had a terrible dream that I mistook Dr. Horrible for Dr. Impossible at a villainy Q&A and oh the shame, and partly because now that we have broadband, I can sample bizarre older comics without being spendy. All this leads into the research I was doing tonight.

I've had this original!superheroes plotbunny in my head since my failed NaNoWriMo attempt to write a different original!superhero story. I eventually gave up on that NaNo idea because it was really hard to write about someone in high school Acheiving Things and Fighting Crime on the streets of Chicago, since my time in high school was mostly spent writing about adults (ha! most of those characters are barely older than I am now) in the Middle Ages dealing with magic, science, and politics, or adults in the 1970s dealing with magic, science, and politics. Acheiving things and fighting crime is not something I am experienced with, and for someone who went through the system, I don't really know what high schoolers act like. I just remember wanting out. While no one is going to call me on my inaccurate characterization of medieval magical politicians, they might get pissed at me for not writing believable high school kids.

I do think it would have been a whole lot easier to deal with the high school issues had I had some decent resources that helped me out with the Fighting Crime part of the story, and just now I am finding these things. For some reason I found myself reading that stupid blog post about how the wimmins would nevarr be superheroes because we are just so nice and sweet and pure and angels in the house and blah blah fuckety blah, you get the idea, and I was like "wait wait wait. I never did resolve this question in my head. Not the gender essentialism crap, I resolved that, but ...what kind of person actually does this, anyway? Fighting crime's understandable, crime's usually bad and all, but in that?" I mean, certainly I wouldn't, but there are reasons for that having nothing to do with my practicality. I'm just more of a labcoat death ray goggles kinda girl myself, because labcoats don't twinge my body image issues and, more positively, science is fun! But, I wondered, were there perhaps people with less issues, more idealism, and no real interest in supercritical fluids?

Well. Yes. For example, these people. And them.

"Okay, Kaesa, you found some crazy people on the internet. Additionally, water is wet. What are you getting at?"

I'm not really sure what I'm getting at. It's just interesting, is all. I may do a bit of actual numbercrunching to confirm this, but it does appear that there are significantly less female costumed patrollers. And yet, there are some, and that alone is nice to see, considering all the social factors that suppress feminine audacity. There are also a whooole lotta people who, at the very least, are willing to tell the world that they dress up in silly costumes and Do Good. Some of them, clearly, are nuts. But some of them are very eloquent (which is certainly not the same thing as sane) and really do seem to be trying to help in a lot of little ways. I don't expect much in the way of crime-fighting, since that's dangerous and opens up a whole squirmy can of ethical worms. The main idea seems to be crime-prevention and charity/volunteer work, and I think that has way more potential to help people than going around slugging muggers. Plus, since enthusiasts and hobbyists who write resources for each other are often an awesome resource for writers, it also means I have better chances of finding applicable information for my writing.

In conclusion, yay.

Now, if only I could get this carbon monoxide alarm thing figured out. It was going off last night without displaying an increase on the screen, which doesn't seem to be broken either. My father refuses to allow for it possibly being a lemon (it's new) but I really doubt it's sensitive enough to pick up changes on the ppb level. But after lying awake all night headachey and terrified of waking up dead (...well, you know) I decided that my lack of grogginess meant I was definitely okay, at least for now.

We just moved on Wednesday and I was mentally planning a long, self-centered blog post about how I have no bed and no toiletries and no internet and my parents are woefully inconsiderate of me as they move into the house they hope to retire in, in what's probably the last year I'll be living with them.

I should add that the stress of watching one of our three dogs, Rosabelle, die slowly of cancer -- physically seeing the big fucking lump on her muzzle and wanting to rip it out and stomp on it, and not being able to do anything as she obliviously grumbles to herself and licks the couch -- has also not been easy for any of us.

But today Cody died. Cody was another dog, a big black German Shepherd with epilepsy, who we got from a local shelter when everyone who took him in kept returning him saying a big dog with epilepsy was just too much for them to handle. He had seziure after seziure when we first got him, and later when he was exhausted and dazed, I would sit by him and pet him and soothe him. I think I must have imprinted on him, because after that he liked to sit at the stairs and guard me, and then -- for my own safety, of course -- he would bark at me whenever I tried to come down the stairs. He wasn't vicious or angry, and he knew it wouldn't do him any good. We think he thought it was funny. He liked to wag his tail and trot off after I'd yelled at him, or rub up against me like a cat, wanting to be petted.

He was, in all respects, a ridiculously good dog, affectionate and loving and usually very high on phenobarbitol.

When we got to the new house, he seemed all right, but. But. Today I was home alone, organizing my mother's cookbooks and getting the boxes out of the way so that we could move more furniture in and around and have, you know, rooms that were not mainly taken up by boxes. He was asleep by the front door, as is usual with Cody -- he isn't happy when he's not in the way, "guarding" something. And he just... I don't know, he was tossing and turning and maybe I should have noticed something was wrong. And once my dad came home he stumbled onto the porch and my dad asked if he'd been drinking water and I realized he hadn't -- and the thing about Cody is he goes and drinks water and it goes right onto the floor so our kitchen is usually a lake. So we got him some water and he just looked really bad, and he wasn't even lying in a comfortable position. I finally got him to drink, and then we started unloading the odds and ends the movers forgot to take to our house that my dad had brought, and every time I came to the porch he would half-heartedly lap up some water.

Then he started making noises. Wretching noises. And he just looked bad and he wasn't breathing right. My dad came over, and said that he thought he was dying. I immediately made myself useless, asking if there wasn't anyone we could call and what I could do and what should we do and muttering useless things under my breath like "no" and "oh god." And we got him onto a blanket and walked him to the car, whereupon he vomited one last bit of mucus and died right outside the car.

I'm usually fine with dead things, but there was just something wrong when it's someone you know, because you look at them and they shouldn't be lying there in that uncomfortable position, they should be up and about and breathing and happy and now they're just a hunk of meat with fur on it, and eyes that don't close, and a frothy mouth.

And now I'm just so tired and sad and angry, for some reason. I know it's not my fault -- my mother keeps telling me it's not my fault but I know it would have taken godlike omniescence to have realized something was wrong before it happened, and even if I had known, what good would it have done? I can't drive and I don't know where the closest vet's office is, and I don't have house keys that work anyway. If it had to be anybody's fault -- and it's not -- it's the fault of the assholes downstate who decided to breed a bunch of beautiful black German Shepherds and didn't take into account their genetic predisposition for epilepsy. And I know hurting them wouldn't make me feel any better, because I just want Cody back barking at me and trying to keep me upstairs where I belong.

He was a happy dog, though. I have a picture of him in my camera from the day before the move, with a post-it on his head, signifying that he goes in the living room. Maybe once we get decent internet I'll upload it. I just wish he was still here and I'm worried about how my dad is taking it, because Cody was his dog, and he's the second big black dog we've had who died while he was trying to get him to the vet.

So I'm back from the UK and gradually working through the flist, but keep in mind I'm on dialup and have the attention span of a gnat. I would like to write about my experiences on the trip, but I have this sneaking suspicion it won't end up happening. Mostly I keep having the urge to rant about bottled water and people who can't live without hairdriers. (I have hair down to my ass. Do not whine that your hair takes so long to dry.) Anyway, about midway through the trip I sent postcards to anyone who asked, so hopefully you got them all. I know of at least four that made it. Anyway, I'm not here to talk about the trip.

Instead, I am here to talk about spiders. I'm not afraid of spiders. I used to be, when I was very young and terrified of other silly things, like blood, but now I'm not. Mostly.

It's just that, the other day, I wandered into the bathroom at one in the morning and this enormous thing the color of burnt butter scuttled across the ceiling purposefully, and I froze. Maybe, I thought, turning off the lights, it would just leave. A few minutes later I went back in, and of course it was sitting on top of some of the toiletries I brought back from school, as if it was thinking "What a nice view of the sink! This would be a wonderful place to build a civilization."

Now, I have nothing against spiders. Not even spiders that are about two inches in diameter including all the legs. Nor do I have anything against spiders building civilizations. But at the time, my bathroom was already part of a civilization and I did not intend to cede it to spiders. So, after trying to scare the spider away and doing absolutely no good, I killed it and flushed it and felt horribly guilty about it. I joked to Kitty that I was worried its tiny spider children might start writing death threats on my ceiling, a la evil!Charlotte's Web.

Ahaha. I crack myself up.

The next morning, my father pops in. "You have to come see this!" he says.

"What is it?"

"A whole bunch of baby spiders are at the corner of the house -- they must've hatched this morning!" He grinned innocently. The poor man.

As you can imagine, this did not provoke the fascinated-by-nature reaction it usually would have. "Oh," I said, hoping he meant, perhaps, some other corner of the house, and not the one my bedroom is on. He didn't.

They were all smaller than the tip of my little finger and the color of burnt butter, and there were two gumball-sized chunks of them rappelling up the building towards my room in an adorable yet terrifying vertical traffic jam.

That was yesterday. They were halfway up the building when I saw them today, but they were moving a lot faster.

The sun has set. I don't think I have much longer before they arrive. Maybe they'll be merciful and pass me by, but I'm keeping the windows shut, just in case. Maybe I should turn the lights off, too, but they'll probably hear the sound of my typing.

If worst comes to worst, I am prepared to offer them my bathroom.

I still exist.

I don't think I've updated in a month, for a number of reasons -- finals, mostly, but directly after finals my poor laptop Mnmemosyne stopped working and needed a new harddrive, which has just been installed. The "new" laptop is called Moxana, because about a week before she crashed, I was forewarned by all of MS Office failing to work, and I sensibly saved my entire "My Writing" folder to USB. I'm trying to figure out how to get everything installed on her that I need, right now, and wishing I had my character playlists to destress. At this point it's mostly iTunes and AOL and OpenOffice, since MS Office dislikes me, but those are not fun to download over dialup, so they're going to have to wait until June, after my trip.

Yes, my trip. I'm leaving for the UK on Monday, to take an Environmental Studies course. If this cranky old desktop will permit, I can even tell you where I'm going!

...okay, not so much. Um. Aha!

Okay. We're spending lots of time in London, but we're also seeing other parts of England and tromping through bits of Scotland and Wales. We're spending most of our time in Scotland at Aigas Field Centre, which sounds delightfully remote and necessarily prevents me from visiting my Scottish relatives. In Wales we are hiking Mt. Snowdon. Wikipedia comments that it is "also called Yr Wyddfa," but I am from Illinois and have enough trouble believing that mountains exist in the first place (I HAVE SEEN AND BEEN ON THEM but it always seems so dreamlike when I get back home), much less pronouncing their Welsh names, so I will wait until someone tells me out loud how to say "Yr Wyddfa," and I will just have to hope that they're right.

Anyway. What I am posting for is this: if you would like a postcard from me in the exotic and faraway United Kingdom, please comment with your late May/early June mailing address by late Sunday night. (Comments are screened by default.) I make no guarantees that I will even get to send postcards out, and even if I do they might have stupid things written or drawn on them, or have boring pictures, so do not get your hopes up that this postcard will cure cancer, make grown men weep, or arrive in a timely fashion.

My molecular model set fell off the bookshelf and now there's carbon and hydrogen all over the floor.

The hydrogens are mostly split in half, and there's bonds everywhere, too. That can't be good.

This (of course) happens while I'm writing my Environmental Ethics paper and procrastinating on Toxicology. I thought to myself "well, it's 11 PM on a Saturday. I could write this paper or read that paper, or I could watch Flash Gordon. I think I'll be a klutz instead!"

Goddamn hydrocarbons. I'LL GET BACK AT THEM, JUST YOU WAIT AND SEE.