Entries tagged with tosplit

( Work bitching. Basically, everything went wrong and I didn't breathe all night. )

But Copy Editor Brandon changed his dinner plans when I expressed a desire for a Chicken Grilled-Stuft Burrito, bless his soul, and now I have hot tea and chocolate-dipped biscotti pilfered from home, because my mother thinks I should lose weight but loves me more and so happily shares anything that brings me joy, and there's no biscotti to be had in this bloody county but she has a Costco membership.

So, in celebration of my hellish day being over, a few less chocolate-covered things that have nonetheless made me happy recently for you (songs are YouSendIt links):

NEWS The St. Petersburg Times is what newspapers in Florida want to be when they grow up. They're like an indie New York Times, with long narrative stories specializing in the people, not the talking heads. Yesterday, they ran a story about a Vietnam veteran father whose Marine son was wounded in Iraq last year, and how the process of his recovery has been healing them both. Expertly told, with compassion but without sappiness. I'm not sure it's good journalism – single source, no real time element – but it's wonderfully compelling, which is what any journalist worth her salt tries to be.

Apparently, there's a softer side to us all, including hardass Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who has been quietly helping his friend's widow to find information about his possibly having survived a 1956 plane crash. It's... such a human thing for this man I've always thought of as immutable, cold and intimately familiar with the concept of loss being a principle of war.

FIC

trinityofone - The Man Who Rose From Earth She posted a bit of the conversation that spurred this story at the end of it, saying that wingfic involving John Sheppard would be the "most angst-free wingfic ever." And yeah, this is what happens when something makes you that happy – everything else melts away. There's freedom in happiness, and I loved John's unreserved willingness to embrace it, even knowing the cost to everyone else.

corinna_5 - The New Math In which Atlantis plays yenta. It was… unexpectedly poignant.

siegeofangels - Business As Usual Aliens make them do it, and it's not the start of something beautiful. The way John deals through Elizabeth, and Rodney doesn't quite manage much beyond avoidance is so painful and just like two straight guys would react. Not my usual fare, as John and Rodney belong together forever is the mantra of my heart, but smart and honest, and that's special too.

MUSIC The Caesars - Jerk It Out The first time I heard this in the iPod commercial, I might have done something embarrassing like shudder publicly. Goes straight through me like a shot of adrenaline every time. (Bonus track: their kickass cover of (Don't Fear) The Reaper, though I do miss the cowbell.)

Prodigy - Breathe The cure for what ails you. Sublimation in crazy, angry rhythms that feel both finely balanced and out of control.

The Vines - Ride With Me You may know it from the Stargate previews hyping the second halves of their respective seasons. Very fitting and kicky.

Ben Lee - Gamble Everything for Love Song of my heart at the moment. Simple and sweet and so optimistic, it makes my jaded soul ache.

Sarah Vaughan & Peter Gunn - Max Sedgley I don't know who Max is, but when I heard this outside Starbucks, it sounded like Sarah had taken her action hero boyfriend's theme song and wrote him a little piece of her mind about what she thought of his absentee, womanizing ways.

Carbon Leaf - Life Less Ordinary Another hopeful little ditty by someone convinced of love and its obvious simplicity.

Oh, by the by, if anyone has Sarah Hammer's Lodestar, I'd be ever so pathetically grateful.

( Journal redesign strife. )

So, hey, I graduated college! Not that the whole renting a cap and gown, sitting through a long, boring ceremony, walking across a stage, shaking hands with the two people I would've been content to never meet, then bounce between two sets of relatives thing didn't feel real enough. But my diploma arrived in Saturday's mail. Really, by itself it was a fairly forlorn and unimpressive piece of parchment paper. But then I put it in the frame my mom got, and all of a sudden it's this official, regal document wrapped in mahogany that says thing like The University of Florida has conferred on and bachelor of science and all the rights and privileges thereunto appertaining, two of which I didn't even know were actual words, and upon recommendation of the faculty of the College of Journalism and Communications. I'm a journalist, y'all, a whole college's worth of faculty say so! It was neat, I had to swipe at my cheek a little while holding up the final result. It's such a satisfying thing, to be that much closer to the person I've always wanted to be.

( Sports Editor Ted is likely a lost cause, Copy Editor Brandon and I have started to bond over questionable foods, and why I love working for Metro Editor Billy. )

Hitting up MegaCon in Orlando on Sunday was a neat little time warp exercise in remembering middle school, but otherwise largely unproductive. What's with the dearth of Stargate swag in the world? However, there was soft-serve ice cream and John Schneider (Bo Kent, as we call him down on the farm) juggling. He looked really ridiculously good, tan, longer hair with blondish highlights, fantastically fitting shirt, laughing and jumping around with fans. There was also driving with the top down in gorgeous, breezy weather, which meant not even getting a half hour's worth of lost dampened my spirits. And at the end of the day, I do have an Atlantis mission patch to sew on the ass of my favorite jeans.

The real reason for my lack of updates is that I've been reading SGA fic like a fiend. Came across something incredibly depressing the other day involving John and Rodney living to be old enough to retire from the Atlanis mission. They had bought a house by the ocean and Rodney swung a puddlejumper for the garage, and it was so hard to read. I don't even mean the fact that the likelihood of them living that long is infinitesimal, but the idea of wanting to preserve some pale shadow of the lives they'd led. Anyone who's ever lived knows the impossibility of recreating anything, a moment, a place, a memory. None of it will be perfect, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

( As I fall deeper into the television abyss thanks to the DVR... )

And it's officially at the point where I'm making a list of things I have in my refrigerator as opposed to things I need. To Publix it is.

( Quotes )

sometimes used and yes, confused

(no subject)