subterrain | Entries tagged with halifax

My dad just signed off a ten-word email with old one hand. As in:

good to know.

surgery went well.

old one hand

It's kind of like I'm receiving coded riddle emails from my maimed arch-nemesis, a rogue privateering sea captain confirming the date of our french polynesian rendezvous, where he'll hand over my captured ward (a stubborn teenage boy in a ruffled collar from a good family) who he's recently performed some kind of high-seas butchery on with a hacksaw and a bottle of rum, because an encounter with the British fleet - my own ship, mayhaps? - put a cannonball through my ward's foot, and when I see him the boy will be pale but stoic and Old One Hand will threaten to walk him off the plank until I commit some act of derring-do, and it is revealed that my arch-nemesis has always been my estranged father, and by our own similarities in the midst of an action sequence we will be reconciled.

Fortunately, I know my dad was not getting a hand amputated. So. Crisis averted. I will not be joining the navy any time soon.

'Tis the season of awkward gifts and tokens from people you don't like well enough to have got gifts for yourself. In this case: bag of chocolate, and a silkscreened print. :/ One more reason to work people up so I can blacklist Christmas entirely next year. The secret is to have a social circle so small or held at perfect arms-length, so they'd never think of you, either, and then tell the people you actually care about that you refuse to buy into the megatheocorporatocracy. I WILL GET THERE. I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL.

Current Music: Woodpigeon - Chorus Of Wolves | Powered by Last.fm

So, a girl in my program just sent an announcement over the departmental listserv, entitled "December NaNoWriMo" which - and let me tell you how my heart started racing in that confluence-of-two-separate-and-distinct-social-spheres kind of way - said the following:

I was incredible [sic] saddened by the fact I was unable to participate this year due to an overwhelming work-load [bitch bitch bitch] and the corresponding social commitments [brag brag brag], so I've decided to cheat and do NaNoWriMo in December. Any of you who want to join me in the revelry are welcome and encouraged.

It took me approximately two minutes to Google her full name, plus my school's name, find a dormant bravejournal account, transfer her username to livejournal, and find her recently-updated and terrifyingly un-flocked journal.

FYI, she talks about her diet and the Anita Blake series. :/

EDIT: and her fanfic.net account. WHAT. WHAT.

NO. NO ADMITTING FANDOM INTERESTS IN PUBLIC PLACES, DUMBASS. WHY ARE YOU ASKING FOR MOCKERY.

In other news, saying goodbye to acquaintances and ~~lying~~ promising to come back for convocation in May has made me even more smug about leaving. SMUG SMUG SMUG GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE.

Current Location: the 26th floor
Current Music: Woodpigeon - Oberkampf | Powered by Last.fm

I pulled a tragic, toe-scufflingly remorseful resignation at work this week. NAMELY BECAUSE I'M LEAVING IN 15 DAYS, 11 HOURS, YESSSSSSSSSSS. But on one level, I guess I could say it's kind of sad: I'm kind of getting used to spending 15 hours/week scanning archival documents from Halifax's House of Assembly in the 1810s, and listening to much of the following:

a) This American Life, aka Ira Glass' adorable lisp (sometimes he doles out relationship advice!);

b) CBC Radio 3, podcasts or just plain radio or sometimes just a random fishing of New Music Canada's billions of sexy Cdn artist pages;

c) podfic (even though I have to skip through the sex because dudes! I AM AT WORK!);

d) the New Yorker's terribly fucking hip Fiction Podcast that makes me want to simultaneously forget about writing real fiction ever and also delete my lj entirely because I am just that ambivalent;

e) my own excellent taste in music, which you should all definitely friend on last.fm so that I can be further shamed out of listening to Placebo ever again;

and;

f) the occasional mortgage advice podcast, because I am obviously living in a fantasy world where crippling student debt doesn't exist and me and my future pound dog will live in idyllic bliss in my fantasy 2-bed, 2-bath, fenced-yard character home within walking distance of the LRT, the Central Library and probably the homeless shelter, too, by virtue of geographic reality.

However, I have two weeks of full-time work left to fill with distractatory talkin and/or tunez, so if anyone has any recs for favourite radio stations, podcasts, music sources, AND YES, THE BEST PODFIC, do tell.

Current Location: the 26th floor
Current Music: Corb Lund - Student Visas | Powered by Last.fm

Today's ~~Accomplishments

purchased two long-distance grad school courses from two different well-known Canadian universities, on credit. At $1200 apiece. UGH.
watched the first episode of True Blood: porny and kind of unfortunately Smeyerlike, but I'll giver a shot. Mostly because I reeeeeeeally liked it when Bill said, "May I call upon you?" TEEE FUCKING HEE.
muttered to myself in the elevator about the guy who got off one floor down being an asshole (he was one of those door-close button punchers! THE DOORS WILL CLOSE ON THEIR OWN, FUCKWAD, DON'T PRETEND LIKE YOU HAVE SOME SORT OF EXTRA POWER OVER IT) and I totally got caught by the singular attractive dude who lives on my floor. Like, reddish-blonde hair and blue eyes and looks a lot like Owen Pallett and until today I had plans to deduce his musical taste via trick questions in the elevator and/or laundry room and/or garbage chute room. But now he thinks I'm a crazy knob who wanders around hissing "asshole" under her breath. Which, I guess, would be true. :|
finished that spatial data infrastructure analysis with an idealistic flourish towards open access for georeferenced data and user participation and the good of Albertan society, etc. etc. I couldn't even convince myself. But I suspect the prof has an undiagnosed learning disability and probably won't read it. WHAT. I SAID IT.
listened to a podcast reading by the dude who won this year's Giller prize (which is worth $50k, which I did not know, oh lord). He read his lovingly detailed attempted-rape-and-predictable-rescue scene. I was not fucking impressed by the choice. Seriously, Margaret Atwood? As the resident man-hating judge (according to my ex-hair stylist) aren't you supposed to be here to protect us from that crap?
crossed my fingers for delighter on her epic trip elsewhere, and her hopefully porn-filled plane ride.
crossed my fingers for fortuna_major WHO IS COMING HERE AT 7AM TOMORROW, 4 SRS.
AND, AN EXTRA BONUS ACTIVITY: I also read Michael Chabon's opinions on fan fiction (of the Sherlock Holmes variety, which he wrote and published and got paid for) and the soul-killing nature of the "contemporary, quotidian, plotless moment-of-truth revelatory story" that I have been agonizing over all month. Thank you, Michael Chabon, for making me want to write nurse romances for the rest of my life.

Current Music: holy fuck // lovely allen

So Stars was sold out tonight, and lucky me, the entire church was packed with teenagers. Yet I still managed to take a prime seat at the front, despite pissing off the girl who was forced via east coast heartiness to scooch her fine ass over. And while I definitely made it through Hey Rosetta's sloppy but enthusiastic cellos, I cannot get over the fact that I am just not that into Stars.

I made it through maybe five songs before I just gave up and left? That Torquil guy is a fucking tool, ladies. He's just. He practically fell off the stage as soon as they got on, and was all falling into the front row's underage arms, AND THEY THREW FAKE ROSES INTO THE CROWD and Amy Millan is arguably the frumpiest rock star ever, yes? When she pulled out her flute I promised myself I could go at the end of the song. Eeeeegh. Why so old, Stars? Gen X, no one's into you anymore. Go hang with Coupland and his apocalypse fantasies or smthg.

ANYWAY. Four concerts down, I've officially maxed out my low level indie cred with three different colours of stocking from superstore, so. We can all move on now and I swear I'm not going to anything by myself again for a fucking year.

On the non-antisocial side, last night me and the granny gang went to see King Lear. As a ballet. Set to Shostakovich. It was genuinely moving in parts, but I won't lie: I was there for the tight shirts and the no shirts and the sweating and leaping around the stage in rly rly tight pants.

But you know what probably the best part of my weekend overall was? That R.Pattz boy. Thanks for being there for me, kid. You and your waxy moustachios.

Current Music: Stars - Take Me To the Riot | Powered by Last.fm

Oh my lord, I can stop fretting about death by malaria or undertow or sketchy sex-tourism STD: Zach Condon is back from Morocco and releasing shit and promising to tour in the new year. THX, LOVER. ATTEND SASQUATCH AGAIN, PLS?

Obviously, in that interview when he says girlfriend he means gaymo lover.

Also, he released a song because Natalie Portman personally begged for it. Maybe I should send her a thank you card? Of course, while I am wary of this return to lofi synthpop, I am as always a terrifyingly obedient listener.

In other news, I discovered/outed myself to my first (non-

delighter) IRL fandom friend last night. For serious, the conversation went:

AC/DC is alright for one reason only -> Dean Winchester is only the hottest man alive -> the word "fandom" was dropped -> and then I pulled out the "jay-two shipper" codewords while purporting to be more of a wincest fan myself -> and then I verified she was in lj fandom -> and then she told me her key fandoms and admitted she was mostly a lurker -> and then she got out of the elevator.

And, yeah. I haven't asked for her username yet because that would mean giving out mine, and all of my frightening p0rns would be revealed to an entirely new subsection of my social circle, possibly, which I am mostly unprepared for.

Still, what a frigging relief. I was beginning to think you were all an elaborate fantasy world set up as sockpuppet government pawns, or something. IS IT NOT NATURAL TO WANT TO SEE HOT DUDES BANG? YES, YES IT IS.

Current Music: beirut // my night with the prostitute from marseille

Yeah, my lameness is pretty much spiraling out of control lately. Like, obviously I don't tell people that I write stories about canpop indie legends like Final Fantasy banging dudes who aren't his boyfriend, and filming highbrow music video porn with other Toronto indier-than-thou non-entities. I find that not telling my acquaintanceship about my deviancy makes them more likely to attend concerts with me. I have to mask my massive boner with my math notebook, of course, but, like. I'd rather not have to explain slash in its entirety to my librarian granny gang.

( are they still my gang? it's up for debate. )

PS. I've given up on fandom for the next month or so. There will be no fic. Not that there's been relevant fic here for a while. But. Just fyi. I'm not about to stop making navel-gazing posts about my ~~feelings, either, so if I'm still on your reading filter at this point, you may as well give up and just defriend. Fortunately, I hold very few illusions about my interestingness to the vast majority of humankind, and I'll only cry for a little while.

Current Location: the 26th floor
Current Music: Meligrove Band - Our Love Will Make The World Go Round | Powered by Last.fm

I'm having one of those days where I go to the grocery store just to get some social interaction. Like, I don't care if I run into a cute guy who wants to give me his air miles, or one of the awkward-as-fuck kids from first year who may or may not be rolling his eyes at me, or if I just have a quick thanks-bye conversation with the checkout girl.

I just need to look at someone's face, you know? I need someone to look at mine.

So, I also downloaded all the Placebo albums that I keep in my "shameful music no one is allowed to know I listen to" box at home, the ones that I haven't listened to since 2003 and I was a lonely first year liberal arts student who did romantical HP RPGs on yahoogroups and was personally mortified by the term "sloppy handjobs." So I've been listening to basically their entire discography, and mourning Brian Molko's self-righteous pretty face and bitter, vengeful vocals all day. Way to be 36 and still sound like a narcissistic self-destructive 17 year old, kid. It's too bad that you were at your height way before the boy-bands-faking-gay thing got big.

Of course, the only reason I even came here to post to begin with is because I finally got around to watching Control last night, after a year of yearning for it. Joy Division puts Placebo to shame in all the ways that count. Just looking at that kid's face makes me want to cry, even though I know he's not the real Ian Curtis.