worryingly jolly batman

For those who are interested I just did a spam at knittingpix with some of the things I'm working on lately. A lot of what I'm doing at the moment is knitting (when I'm not tweeting, fishbowling the Hockey RPF tag on the AO3 and wringing my hands over the NHL lockout) - taking advantage of the cold knitting-friendly weather while I can, I guess, and it's been fun. Overall this year I've knit a lot - finished one jumper, knit a whole cardi, made a solid start on a dress ... of course I still owe Liz her cardigan (I'm about a third of the way through) and Claire her socks (I picked the pattern last week? but um, she probably won't need them in summer?) but ssssssh. I'm doing a lot of successful stashbusting and on the weekend I moved all of my yarn from a couple of bookshelves to some storage under my bed.

I desperately needed the bookshelf space after turning up about 30-40 books during my epic room-clean, which turned into a ( house-clean. A lot of navel-gazing about cleaning under here )

That's enough navel-gazing about my housekeeping. I was going to post about how my boss told me my necklines were offensive last week but I should probably leave that for a locked post. Instead, a qualified rec: my favourite thing about this Teen Wolf AU where Derek is a single dad and Stiles is a kindergarten teacher is that Scott is probably the most in-character character in the whole piece. Scott is 5 in this fic. (I enjoyed it, but more as an original romance with like a mild wolfy flavour than as Teen Wolf fic. I personally don't have a problem with that since a lot of canonical Teen Wolf fic is absolutely freakadelic in terms of its weirdo social power dynamics which I hate in 9/10 fics. It's an okay stopgap fandom though.) Here's a less qualified rec: I absolutely loved Buoyancy (also at LJ) by ethrosdemon, which is a really really great fic about Danny. If you've been crying out for fic that is actually about Danny and not Jackson's issues or Derek's arms, this could be the fic for you!

In other news if some good long hockey RPF doesn't get posted at the AO3 during the lockout I might, like, cry or something, god.

Well, that'll learn me. Went to a seminar at work today (very interesting by the way, about the effects of insulating and heating houses on energy consumption and health). I was there early to set up so I pulled out my ipod and started reading some fic, a) because I don't have the emotional wherewithal to read fiction without 1) romantic resolutions and pornography or 2) characters I am attached to already right now and b) because that's what I was going to take notes on anyway.

Before the seminar starts my coworker plops down next to me and is like, "What are you reading?"

I don't think I've blushed so hard in my life. Or closed Stanza so quickly.

(I told him it was none of his beeswax. I quite like him so I felt bad that I wasn't able to make up a plausible lie, but then he might have tried to look and what I was reading was definitely on the romantic-resolutions-and-pornography scale.)

Awesome weekend full of fangirls and hockey and movies (and also relatives due to a couple of ill-timed birthdays. Why were you born 60 years ago this week, uncle? Poor decision-making, very poor).

- I had a shihadchick! A rare privilege and delight. :D

- Got to admire hazel and tamarillow's adorable new house! And the storied Pile of Hedge!

- Ate mermaid's amazing brownie!

- Had FEELINGS ABOUT HOCKEY with the abovenamed and owlbeer! Oh, so many feelings about hockey, like boo, Yotes, and yay, Rangers, and YAY, KINGS! I also made C play me an old Blackhawks/Preds game from 2010 which was, uh, it was SUPER FUN to see the Hawks be awesome. *bandwagon fan* owlbeer seemed pretty intensely amused by my fledgling sportsfannishness.

- Somewhere in there I watched half a rugby match (Hurricanes/Chiefs) and it was really interesting ( in a navel-gazing kind of way )

- Caring about sports was affecting my self-image strangely, so luckily there was also fangirl dessert in there with the abovenamed and china_shop and arysteia and also, I am pretty sure, some other people whose LJs I haven't necessarily connected with their faces? But who are really super delightful humans. A pretty enjoyable conversation about hurt/comfort and celebrity heights ensued. (SUPER SAD I missed the Avengers squee though.)

- I'm gonna go read porn and do the dishes now. Blissfully great weekend. &FANGIRLS;

Blissful long weekend in which I actually, for once, managed to adequately balance the amount of sleep I wanted with the amount of social time I wanted to have and the amount of responsible stuff I needed to do:

- Changed sheets on my bed (to deliciously warm flannel sheet set, bliss; it's like a big warm cuddle)
- Watched some Blackhawks hockey and 24/7 (the Flyers/Rangers edition) with owlbeer (I ended up rooting for the Flyers, she ended up rooting for the Rangers). K mocked my feelings a lot, also we ate hot cross buns and really excellent biscuits
- Washed some clothes!
- Cleaned bits of the house, caramarie cleaned some other bits, between us the house is pretty much all good. Hygiene!
- Fed some people lunch on Saturday, with a leek and potato pie and a really excellent feta/walnut/orzo/beetroot salad of caramarie's that I'm going to make again really soon because it was freaking delicious
- Watched some very late Farscape; it turns out I've pretty much erased most of S4 from my memory, because we watched all of We're So Screwed and I had barely any idea what was going on at any point. Gotta do a rewatch at some point.
- While Farscaping, FINISHED THE FIRST SLEEVE ON THIS JUMPER!!!!!!!!!!! I have been stuck on this project FOREVER because I stupidly made a million modifications and lost the notebook I did all my calculations in. But on Saturday night I decided, fuck it, I'm just going to make a sleeve up so I did and other than a sticky bit at the bottom which I think I'm going to rip back and reknit, it worked out okay! I picked up and knitted about an inch on sleeve #2 and it's going okay, so I've set myself a challenge to wear this sweater this winter and to be honest, I can't wait!
- Went out to the Wellington Young Feminists' Collective first birthday party which was awesome - some excellent, excellent dancing, first to Sophie & the Realistic Expectations (AWESOME cover band, brilliant vocals, awesome sax/horn, veeery cute bassist) and then Lisa Tomlins (also amazing covers, incredible vocals & guitar) - they both had an incredible energy. They were followed by Disasterradio who plays like original electronica - it was fun to dance to for awhile but, tbh, just way too loud for me and I wasn't convinced that I was getting anything extra out of it being live. Still an awesome gig though.
- Brunch for aimeesworld's birthday at Plum today - deeeelightful, and although I probably ordered too much food and the service was a) slow b) not what I would describe as competent, it was nevertheless super delicious (I got the Plumster with avocado, hold the mushrooms - poached eggs on sourdough, hollandaise, bacon, sausages, hash browns, grilled tomato - it was totally, unbelievably delicious).
- Aaaand wrote my application for a six-month contract job that's come up. I don't know if I want to get it or not - not really sure about six-month job security, to be honest, although it would be a good way to leave my current job and still be able to go back to study next year - but work ( continues to be frightful )

I also managed dinner with my family (and poor old caramarie) and, for a change, plenty of sleep. (Too much on Sunday, when I slept right through the alarm that was supposed to get me up for the last Blackhawks game of the regular season :( but still, never look gift sleep in the mouth.)

Dance class tonight, and then an early night for me, I think. Oh, and this week's Fringe.

YOU GUYS ME AND caramarie FOUND A FLAT IT IS PERFECT AND AT THE CONVENIENT END OF ARO VALLEY AND CLOSE TO THE VEGE MARKET AND AN EASY EASY WALK FROM MY WORK

and I will take some photos NEXT WEEK because that is when we get to move in. :D

*twirls off back to work*

Ew. I just did twenty minutes of pilates and I smell absolutely *rank*. It's not that I haven't been showering, but I feel like this is a judgement on my holiday diet of junk food and the occasional salad. Ick. Now I need to shower before I go buy tomatoes, poo.

1. The election. Yeah, whatever, I'm not even going to go there. I went to hazel et al.'s and got trashed on vodka and revolting apple sours and that enabled me to just kind of not think about anything.

( boring talk about feelings )

4. I'm thinking about maybe going back to study clinical psychology in 2013. This is something I have been thinking about on and off for a couple of years. So I have to investigate more and I am not really looking forward to the concept of being an undergraduate again (fuuuck) and I definitely don't want to halfass another degree but if I did. I think I would probably do a grad dip in clinical psych, then honours, and then try to find a DPsych or PhD programme somewhere overseas who might, like, pay me. Uh, yeah. We'll see about that. I guess I have to email ... careers/study people? Anyway, your thoughts, I want to hear them, especially your thoughts on clinical psychology.

5. And then I'm like, but am I just thinking about this because I don't like my job? Well, sort of, but at least what I'm thinking about switching to is actually a career path. And then I'm like: but shouldn't you get your shit together before trying to do something where grades will really matter? Well. Yeah. But if I knew how, I already would have, so.

6. I have four AO3 invites. I don't really believe that any of you guys need them but if you know anyone who might, hit me up. labellementeuse(at)gmail.

So there's this vegetarian/vegan restaurant on Cuba St called Aunty Mena's and although I am not vegetarian I ate there awhile ago with my friend Clare who is a vegetarian and had this thing called curry noodle and it was totally. delicious.

It was very fresh, not at all limp or soggy cauliflower and broccoli and carrots on fried thick noodles covered in a curry sauce with vege balls and what I think was tofu but I'm not actually sure. It is completely delicious and I urge you to try it next time you're on Cuba St and don't know what you want for lunch or dinner. Really, really good stuff.

Anyway I also like the fresh udon sold by a lady at our Saturday market and wanted to do something different with them than just shove them in a laksa, so, I googled a bit and messed around with some tofu and I came up with this: a really very good knock-off. It's not quite the same as the original dish, which is a little sweeter and has potatoes and also their vege balls are AMAZING, but it's really pretty good.

( read on for the recipe! )

In other news:

( generic RL update )

- And speaking of milk what would you do if you had a cup of cream and half a cup of coconut milk and a litre of blue top that you needed to use in the next couple of days?

( generic fannish/teevee update )

Quick rec:

Twenty-Year Man, by ellen fremedon. Vorkosigan Saga, spoilers through Cryoburn (although not significant ones, I don't think), Byerly/Ivan aka the pairing I never knew I wanted but am now OBSESSED WITH PLEASE WRITE ME SOME PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE.

Ahem.

OK, with more dignity, I think I've read this fic five times since shihadchick linked to it a couple of weeks ago. It's long enough to wallow in a little, it's brilliantly written, perfectly Ivan, a fascinating character story and a seriously good plot and interesting look at Barrayar and oh my god guys they're perfect together PLEASE EVERYONE WRITE THIS PAIRING FOREVER. Oh look just go read it, OK? You'll like it, I promise. and while I'm at it if anyone has some good Ivan fic, I'd love to hear about it.

Nothing much else going on except that a) I got two FREE bookshelves yesterday, bliss oh bliss, b) I'm registered for swing classes starting next week, eek, and c) oh my god if you ever have to fill out a FoRST grant report just don't, just say no, quit your job, change your name, move away, start over. Horrendous.

Although I might be overstating the case because I haven't been sleeping well lately on account of not being able to breathe well because a couple weeks ago my allergy meds ran out and I didn't motivate myself to go and get some more. Idiot. I always think after one day oh it's not so bad, but two weeks later I can't breathe through my nose at all, my sleep is really interrupted and I wake up exhausted every morning, I have no brain at all when I am awake, tired all the time, etc. NEVER AGAIN.

DD has just released the name of the next YW book: Games Wizards Play. I'm pretty excited, NGL (even though it probably won't be out for another ... year at minimum, probably more like two). She's also going to release a blurb tomorrow so I'll save up any commentary until then, but there's also a thing where if you retweet this tweet you may win one of five cameos in the book - which I find interesting because she said there'll be a bunch of bonus wizard cameos, not as many as W@W but still a few. Which is pretty neat because I love those scenes, like the one at Gili Motang in WoM, too. (Sudden re-read craving!)

I've gone through three Connie Willis novels in the last month - Blackout, All Clear and The Doomsday Book. I read a couple of books by her last year and am really digging her work - should have listened to whoever it is on the YW forums who recs them all the time years ago, apparently. (I think it's Kathy Li, who has impeccable taste in everything.)

The landlord is redoing our bathroom. This is great because it was a mess, but crap because we don't have a shower and have to flush the loo with buckets and also the place is a mess because the builder is apparently not into dropcloths or anything. He also ruined a towel we laid down to catch the massive leak that runs along an internal doorframe by standing on it in his boots (like, it was filthy). grrrr. OTOH, hopefully the leak will also be fixed. And the bathroom. And the kitchen. And then I'll be able to actually have people around without blushing.

Finally caught up on Doctor Who after realising that tumblr was not going to let me stay unspoiled until September (;.;). SCREAM. I cannot cannot CANNOT wait until September.