FYI: I am leaving for vacation for the next week – beach, whooo! Though New Jersey beach, so not that exciting. I will have internet access, but I probably won’t be keeping up with everything as much as usual. If there’s something you post that you really want me to see, feel free to email or leave a comment with a link! Also, apologies if I owe you email; I am so far behind on email and am probably going to be even moreso while I’m away.

dhampyresa posted: When you see this post, feel encouraged to post something in your journal. Short or long, trivial or profound, it doesn't matter, just something. And if you like, you can pass on the token by copying this notice at the bottom of your post.

And so I suppose I will post too!

It's raining an excessive amount here today, which on the one hand: blugh, what a gray, cold, rainy day. But on the other hand, I finally have an excuse to wear my new rain boots! I bought them back in... March, I think? And hadn't had a reason to wear them until today. I think they'll mostly be useful once the snow comes (though I dread that day) but today is such a swamp I figured I'd wear them anyway. And I only got soaked above the boots and below my jacket, so: success!

In case anyone has missed all the many announcements about it, it's nominations week for Yuletide. (Yuletide is a Christmas-timed exchange for fic from small fandoms. If you love a book or movie that only has a few stories written about it, this is your chance to ask for more!) You have until tomorrow to nominate any fandoms you want. I nominated Benjamin January (unsurprisingly) with Ben, Rose, Hannibal and Ayasha (mostly because someone else had already nominated Shaw); The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ & Amal; and Heian era RPF (Murasaki Shikibu and Sei Shonagon). Though at least one of those choices was because people had already nominated things I'm thinking of asking for. I haven't entirely decided what to request yet; there's so many excellent things to choose!

Anyway. Yuletide! Who else is excited?

Completely stolen from just_ann_now
Last Things Meme

1. Thing that you read - The last book I read was "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith. The last fic I read was chapter six of this bandom AU that I don't even know why I'm reading, I don't know who any of these people are, but it's strangely compelling.

2. Thing that you watched - The first episode of 'Sleepy Hollow' on Monday night. I don't watch a lot of TV. If internet video counts, the most recent episode of the Ask A Slave webseries, which is HILARIOUS and you should all watch it.

3. Thing that you listened to - "Shove It", Santigold

4. Thing that you wore - Does what I'm wearing now count, or is it supposed to be the previous thing I was wearing? Anyway, now I'm wearing jeans, brown boots, an orange t-shirt with a fox on it, and a brown jacket.

5. Thing that you ate - A turkey sandwich with brie, pesto, and cranberries.

6. Thing that you wanted - Pork belly bao from a local dumpling restaurant. But I'm in the wrong part of town for that, so turkey sandwich instead.

7. Thing that made you happy - The amazing S'More Ice cream I bought I pint of the other day. IT IS SO GOOD.

8. Thing that made you sad - My favorite coffee shop's announcement that they're closing early today and not opening again till Monday, forcing me to go to far inferior coffee shops.

9. Thing that made you worry - The possibility that I have TB? (I'm going to find out on Monday! I got tested today.)

10. Thing that you're looking forward to - finishing my dumb polybigbang fic that I am so not enjoying writing at the moment.

So, I'm not dead! Nor have I abandoned LJ. I just, uh, went to rural India for three months and forgot to mention to LJ that I was doing so.

As a side note, I don't want to give the impression that India doesn't have internet access. I am still in India at the moment, in fact, and the internet is here and easily accessible. More so than in the US, perhaps, since India has these amazing things called 3G tabs, which appear indistinguishable from a regular thumb drive. But 3G tabs allow you to plug them into a laptop and thus connect to broadband internet anywhere, anytime (well, okay, not anywhere. You've got to be in a large enough city that it has a good 3G network). Why do we not have this technology in the West? Between this and the invention of cold coffee with ice cream, India is the new superpower of my heart.

But archaeology tends to happen in extremely remote areas, and rural India is much like rural anywhere: not known for its wifi hotspots.

As for how I managed to forget to post about something like that, let's just say that it turns out that Seasonal Affective Disorder is not just a one-time thing. Who knew! I am now morally obligated to start acquiring drugs as soon as October starts. (Still, another thing India has: sunlight!)

But I've missed you, LJ! How are you all? What's been happening? I hear American politics and the media has gone a little crazy, re: birth control/Santorum/Republican nomination/basically everything. Here the major scandals involve a General's birthday (don't even google it; it is the most boring news story ever and yet somehow people have been writing thousand-word articles about it every week for months) and cellphone networks (also boring).

Also, I've succumbed and finally signed up for twitter. I'm not going to be doing the thing where I post my tweets to LJ, so if you're interested, you can follow me at @brigdhs or click this link. I think? I'm not sure how this works yet. And let me know if you have a twitter, so I can follow you!

So, to follow up on the we're-looking-for-an-apartment post, we have found one! It's in Greenwood Heights, which seems like a nice neighborhood, though I don't know much about it. I'm excited to move to Brooklyn, since I haven't lived there before, and a lot of my friends do.

Hopefully now I will finally, finally, finally catch up with LJ, since I am no longer dealing with looking at apartments/finding brokers/parents in town/teaching all at the same time. It is SO EXCITING to have a weekend where I have enough time to write my lectures for the week ahead, instead of doing them all the night before, I CANNOT EVEN TELL YOU. Which is kind of pathetic? But happy-making!

Anyway, Brooklyn! Does any have any recommendations for restaurants/stores/coffee-shops in the area, or other feelings about it?

I know I haven't posted in about two weeks, but that is because my life has been crazy.

My grandfather died, my apartment was robbed (of, among other things, my laptop with the un-backed-up syllabus and information for the class I was teaching in a week), I went to Ohio for the funeral, two (of three) guys were arrested for the robbery so I had to go testify in court, I got a new laptop, my class started and I had no time to do anything other than furiously rewrite my lectures and find new scans of the readings, I went to Boston for four days. Whew.

And so in all that, I have not been entirely keeping up with LJ. But now, finally, I'm back! So, what all's been happening with you?

\o/ I HAVE MY COMPUTER BACK OMG IT IS SO EXCITING. \o/

So, my laptop broke about a week before I left India; I suspect it was due to the difference in electric power between there and here, as I had a transformer but not a converter (or maybe the other way around. I can never remember which word refers to which device. At any rate, I had the thing that changes the shape of the plug but not the thing which changes the actual amount of electricity coming through). Anyway, my laptop went from 'slightly wonky but no different than it's been since the first day here in India' to 'hey, I'm totally not even going to turn on' overnight. Which was distressing. I had an appointment to drop it off at an Apple store the first full day I was in NYC, and they thought it would take 5 to 7 days to fix. Unfortunately, I did not get it back until 9 days later. 9 days! Of no internet or the files I needed to work! Okay, so my girlfriend did in fact generously share her laptop, but you know: the keyboard was the wrong size, and it didn't have my bookmarks, and it was ALL WRONG. WRONG. My problems are totally real, you guys.

Anyway, I finally have my laptop back, and the world is wonderful. And in Apple's defense, although they did take way too long, in addition to fixing the logic board (which is what had broken), they also replaced the battery and the keyboard (which had gotten a little cracked) for no additional charge. Which is pretty awesome.

One of the things I can do, now that I have my laptop and its files back, is post poetry! April is National Poetry Month, as y'all probably know, and I usually use this as an excuse to post poetry. But I did not have the file where I keep my favorite poems until now, meaning I had to Suffer In Silence. Woe! Anyway. Poetry!


The Lights Are On Everywhere - Charles Simic

The Emperor must not be told night is coming.
His armies are chasing shadows,
Arresting whippoorwills and hermit thrushes
And setting towns and villages on fire.

In the capital, they go around confiscating
Clocks and watches, burning heretics,
And painting the sunrise over the rooftops
While the people wish each other good morning.

The rooster brought in chains is crowing.
The flowers in the garden have been made to stay open,
And still dark stains appear on palace floors
Which no amount of scrubbing can wipe away.

I am back in America! It is very exciting to be home, since it's been about seven months since I was able to spend more than five days here. Not that I don't like traveling, but Jesus, that is a long time.

Also! It's my birthday! (Not coincidentally, since I had to try hard to be back from India in time for the day.) Tell me you love me.

1. I have finally seen the new BBC Sherlock! ( Thoughts and Vague Spoilers )

2. Have you seen the trailer for The Eagle? Because if not, you should watch it right now. It is possibly the slashiest movie ever. I became a member of the fandom about 1:06 in, when the cynical guy tries to slit the throat of the other guy, and then they bond. HELLO MY FAVORITE STORY TROPES, HOW ARE YOU. I cannot wait for this move to come out.

3. I was in London yesterday, walking down the street, when I heard someone call my name. I dismissed it at first, because, well, I don't know anyone in London. But it turned out to be a friend from school (who is himself supposed to be in China right now, to make it even weirder), also walking down a street in London. And not even a particularly tourist-y part of London! My life is so random sometimes.

4. What Teachers Make (video). Spoken word poem by Taylor Mali. Really wonderful.

5. I have no context for this picture (apparently it's from a production of Twelfth Night?) but it is AMAZING.

6. Still working on that story.

It is in the thirties and people are sitting outside at tables to eat! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I do not understand.

Also (while I'm being childish), it is in the thirties! I thought the whole deal with me coming here was that the winter was not going to be as extreme as in NYC? Where it is probably also in the thirties, I know, shut up. Because weather is clearly way more important than, you know, my studies.

So, what is bothering you all today?