Things that make me happy
Feb. 28th, 2010 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anghraineBeing the pianist for the children at church is not one of them. Neither are finals. Or crowds, or several conversations happening at the same time. Or, y'know, sudden noises. I'm considering whether to fill my paroxetine prescription and -- yeah. So, instead of all that, I'm going to list the happy fluffy things that keep me (mostly) glued together.
(1) Daffodils.
I hate springtime. And sunshine. And the smell of freshly cut grass. And puppy dogs.
Rationally, daffodils shouldn't be an exception -- I'm just as allergic to flowers as everything else -- but they make it all worth it. They're so bright, and yellow, and cheerful. Roses are charming and lilies are elegant, but daffodils are happy.
(2) My computer.
It's an Asus laptop. It has a 9800 NVIDIA card, and uber processers and a built-in webcam and microphone. I love it and if I didn't dislike the name I would call it George. (Georgiana?) Every time I drag the graphics quality up to "high" it makes my day a little brighter. Er, figuratively.
(3) Being praised in a discussion I haven't participated in.
Thanks, Jack. ;)
(4) Bones.
I love this show madly, even when it sucks. (Like at least two season finales but STILL.) Mostly because Booth/Brennan is just ... *SQUEE* Not just the UST and prettiness (and they are very pretty), either. That's practically required, after all, it just makes the squeeability of their entire dynamic more squeeable.
And after spending half my life trying not to talk (... and act) like Brennan, she is very sympathetic. And I love that she's the detached, uber-rational scientist with a Mysterious Past, and he's the charming, romantic one with mad empathy skillz, and yet it's not a simple inversion of gender roles either (e.g., he's very much the All-American jock type). And I really, really love that even though they're obviously Meant To Be (TM), they both have other relationships along the way and this is portrayed as normal. Especially with Brennan, whose active and enjoyable sex life is never portrayed as promiscuity (if anything, her friends think she doesn't have enough of one).
It's mildly embarrassing that I have a real, honest-to-God OTP, though.
(Also, on a similar note: Castle. I don't know whether Richard Castle or Alexis Castle is more adorable, but ZOMG SO CUTE.)
(5) My aunt's baby.
Said aunt is five and a half years older than I am, seventeen years younger than her sister (my mother). So while I have no siblings and therefore no nephews and nieces, my aunt's son is twenty-one years younger than I am and effectively my (only) nephew. I don't even like children (... except watching their little brains develop and absorb language and social mores, which is fascinating) but I adore him madly. I gave him the wooden train I had as a child -- imagination is good! -- and he's been obsessed with trains ever since (2+ years -- and he's three), and he's the only one of her children to survive and ... yeah. Anyway, he called to tell my mother that he's going to be a brother and we're all thrilled and celebrating and I actually flapped my hands.
(6) My university.
Portland State is awesome. It's huge and my classes have dozens of people but my profs mostly know me and social psychology rocks. Since I'll have to take years of classes for the residence requirements, I'm thinking of switching from from English major/psych minor to an English/psychology double major, which would effectively give me two degrees and make me feel less crappy about having taken so long just for a BA. (Mental breakdowns = bad for academic success. Shocking, I know.) But it's a city-within-the-city and there are restaurants and dentists and everything within the university itself, and whenever anything happens they let you know.
The library is awesome, too.
(7) Star Trek Online.
I'm even more of a nerd than ever, but it's insanely cool. And the character customization is beyond description. And it has Leonard Nimoy in it.
(8) au_bb
I've been writing my genderswap for AU_Big Bang, and having an outline, and re-reading P&P to figure out how it will work, and ... it's really fun. I'd forgotten how much I love P&P (madly) and how fun interpretation and recreating and ... the whole process is, when you're not worrying about being months behind on your posting and incorporating years' worth of plots and so on. (I do love SC2! It's just -- been a really long time since I did a long plotty new thing without posting or worrying about posting or wondering if it's even worthwhile to do something so totally unrealistic etc etc.)
Also: I know it's obvious, but the constant rape/race/gender/history/decency fail has occasionally overshadowed it: Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet are, if not the most adorable couple in fiction, certainly one of the most fascinating.
(9) Writing original fiction.
I suck at coming up with names, though. Several are typos I happened across. At least I avoided Aerith-and-Bob, though.
(10) Genealogy.
I don't know why I love this so much, except that it's methodical, charty, and about me. Sort of. It is interesting to try and set out family trees, and compare conflicting data, and make sense of the multifarious cousin marriages, and discover meaninglessly distant connections (hey, my grandparents are both eighth cousins of Winston Churchill! repeatedly!). And the speculation is fun, too -- I noticed that a pair of sisters' husbands had the same last name, and they turned out to be brothers. There's clearly a story there. Or there's this lord who was a widower for decades until his second marriage -- when both groom and bride were in their eighties.
If I were inclined to write RPF, that's who I'd write about.
(1) Daffodils.
I hate springtime. And sunshine. And the smell of freshly cut grass. And puppy dogs.
Rationally, daffodils shouldn't be an exception -- I'm just as allergic to flowers as everything else -- but they make it all worth it. They're so bright, and yellow, and cheerful. Roses are charming and lilies are elegant, but daffodils are happy.
(2) My computer.
It's an Asus laptop. It has a 9800 NVIDIA card, and uber processers and a built-in webcam and microphone. I love it and if I didn't dislike the name I would call it George. (Georgiana?) Every time I drag the graphics quality up to "high" it makes my day a little brighter. Er, figuratively.
(3) Being praised in a discussion I haven't participated in.
Thanks, Jack. ;)
(4) Bones.
I love this show madly, even when it sucks. (Like at least two season finales but STILL.) Mostly because Booth/Brennan is just ... *SQUEE* Not just the UST and prettiness (and they are very pretty), either. That's practically required, after all, it just makes the squeeability of their entire dynamic more squeeable.
And after spending half my life trying not to talk (... and act) like Brennan, she is very sympathetic. And I love that she's the detached, uber-rational scientist with a Mysterious Past, and he's the charming, romantic one with mad empathy skillz, and yet it's not a simple inversion of gender roles either (e.g., he's very much the All-American jock type). And I really, really love that even though they're obviously Meant To Be (TM), they both have other relationships along the way and this is portrayed as normal. Especially with Brennan, whose active and enjoyable sex life is never portrayed as promiscuity (if anything, her friends think she doesn't have enough of one).
It's mildly embarrassing that I have a real, honest-to-God OTP, though.
(Also, on a similar note: Castle. I don't know whether Richard Castle or Alexis Castle is more adorable, but ZOMG SO CUTE.)
(5) My aunt's baby.
Said aunt is five and a half years older than I am, seventeen years younger than her sister (my mother). So while I have no siblings and therefore no nephews and nieces, my aunt's son is twenty-one years younger than I am and effectively my (only) nephew. I don't even like children (... except watching their little brains develop and absorb language and social mores, which is fascinating) but I adore him madly. I gave him the wooden train I had as a child -- imagination is good! -- and he's been obsessed with trains ever since (2+ years -- and he's three), and he's the only one of her children to survive and ... yeah. Anyway, he called to tell my mother that he's going to be a brother and we're all thrilled and celebrating and I actually flapped my hands.
(6) My university.
Portland State is awesome. It's huge and my classes have dozens of people but my profs mostly know me and social psychology rocks. Since I'll have to take years of classes for the residence requirements, I'm thinking of switching from from English major/psych minor to an English/psychology double major, which would effectively give me two degrees and make me feel less crappy about having taken so long just for a BA. (Mental breakdowns = bad for academic success. Shocking, I know.) But it's a city-within-the-city and there are restaurants and dentists and everything within the university itself, and whenever anything happens they let you know.
The library is awesome, too.
(7) Star Trek Online.
I'm even more of a nerd than ever, but it's insanely cool. And the character customization is beyond description. And it has Leonard Nimoy in it.
(8) au_bb
I've been writing my genderswap for AU_Big Bang, and having an outline, and re-reading P&P to figure out how it will work, and ... it's really fun. I'd forgotten how much I love P&P (madly) and how fun interpretation and recreating and ... the whole process is, when you're not worrying about being months behind on your posting and incorporating years' worth of plots and so on. (I do love SC2! It's just -- been a really long time since I did a long plotty new thing without posting or worrying about posting or wondering if it's even worthwhile to do something so totally unrealistic etc etc.)
Also: I know it's obvious, but the constant rape/race/gender/history/decency fail has occasionally overshadowed it: Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet are, if not the most adorable couple in fiction, certainly one of the most fascinating.
(9) Writing original fiction.
I've been doing it since I was seven, but pretty much put it on the back burner for the last several years, because it's all secondary-world fantasy and ... well, I wasn't into it. But I've been going over my notes and my hundreds of stories and mostly just trying to figure out what I'd done re: world-building (honestly, my favourite part of writing) and ... heeeh. In high school, I apparently invented a lot of random crap, like some obscure laws around twins that nobody pays attention to, old religious beliefs that nobody accepts any more, different and contradictory theories of How Magic Works (which, I noted, were both wrong), long sets of rules around family and inheritance, asexual lifebonds, fantasy!Alsace-Lorraine, and magical holograms.
It's weirdly fun. I've kind of missed it, especially since it's ... well, all me. (Which is why nobody has seen it. Ever.)I suck at coming up with names, though. Several are typos I happened across. At least I avoided Aerith-and-Bob, though.
(10) Genealogy.
I don't know why I love this so much, except that it's methodical, charty, and about me. Sort of. It is interesting to try and set out family trees, and compare conflicting data, and make sense of the multifarious cousin marriages, and discover meaninglessly distant connections (hey, my grandparents are both eighth cousins of Winston Churchill! repeatedly!). And the speculation is fun, too -- I noticed that a pair of sisters' husbands had the same last name, and they turned out to be brothers. There's clearly a story there. Or there's this lord who was a widower for decades until his second marriage -- when both groom and bride were in their eighties.
If I were inclined to write RPF, that's who I'd write about.
no subject
on 2010-03-01 05:12 am (UTC)yes! i have been watching season 1 in the last week (i started watching in season 2, so catching up is fun!), and i love this show. basically, they had me at 1) solving mysteries and 2) devotion to grammar and story. i want to write dialogue like that.
and in general, i'm glad that you seem to have enough happy to (hopefully) balance the unhappy.
Thank you!
on 2010-03-01 05:51 am (UTC)Re: Thank you!
on 2010-03-02 12:49 pm (UTC)My mother prefers Alexis to Rick (and to everyone else). My dad likes the two cops best, strangely enough. I like to ship them madly and that I can hardly ever foresee who did it.
Oh, have you seen the Nikki Heat book they published? On the Castle website you can read up to 10 chapters. It's like an episode, only written by Castle. Totally LULZy.
Re: Thank you!
on 2010-03-02 02:16 pm (UTC)I can, but only when it's 'hey, I've seen that plot twist before, it was this Christie book from the forties...'
And Alexis makes everybody around her cooler. ;)
I have! And I LOVE that when he tells her about the juicy bits in the bathroom stall on pg 106 or whatever, and you actually *go* to that page ... ha!
Re: Thank you!
on 2010-03-02 09:00 pm (UTC)I loved Castle's narrative voice describing Rook's coolness and Heat's sexyness, it was so wishful and obvious sometimes. *pats his head*