Mei-mory Lane

Weirder than an Electrified Yurt

Sunday, June 20, 2004 04:36 p.m.

(which was my last vacation)

Iceland, ho! Here's to saddle-sores, forty-degree weather, and geological instability on a grand scale. All that penny-pinching, those months where none of y'all saw or heard from me because I never had a day off - finally, here's the payoff. I shall enjoy myself immensely.

(For general edification, that extra gait that Icelandic horses have is called a "tolt", not a "trollop", as certain people would have it. You know who you are.)

Leaving Monday, probably won't check email again before that. Will be gone until the last day of June. If you need me, call the house and leave a message with my sainted brother, the pre-med who is peeing my cat. I'm told he takes good notes ^_^.

I'll leave y'all with some of those old skool Starsky&Hutch humor recs (which would give non-fans an only slightly exagerated image of TV's original gay couple): Sarah Problem's "The Evils of Science", Ellis Murdock's "Stakeout Games" and "Torino Tales", and, for the fur-lovers among you, Alexis Roger's "It's a Dog's Life" and "Harold C". For non-humor and better characterization, try the post-series Fractured Discipline, by Elizabeth. Be warned: this and every other post-series fic contain major spoilers for the final episode.

Ciao!

Work vs. Mei: Round 2
(+historical movies wherein other people's lives suck more than mine, which entertains me)

Sunday, February 1, 2004 07:19 p.m.

• Number of days requested off this week: 1
• Number of shifts scheduled as a result: 10 (+1 training meeting)
• Number of doubles resulting: 3
• Number of days off: big fat 0
• Number of shifts other servers begged me to take (and I did, being congenitally stupid): 1
• Total number of doubles: 4
• Point at which I expect to see the rest of the universe again: Sometime in March. Maybe.
• Point at which I expect to sleep: July, 2005

In better news, Master & Commander got nominated for Best Picture! W00t! My opinions side with the best critics in the industry. Now let's just hope they're not stupid enough to give the Oscar to RotK. (But then, they were stupid enough not to give it to FotR, so.)

Also, was watching the game and just saw the trailer for "Troy". Get this - Orlando Bloom as Paris. Does it not rock? Is it not perfect? I know what movie I'm gonna see in 2004, baby.

(Hey Miko, wanna make a date for it? You and Sarah and I should all go and see if they include Troilus. And we should check out the soundtrack, 'cause you never know, maybe the rest of the world has realized that the entire Trojan epic is best edited to fit Backstreet Boys and Brittney Spears pop songs. Hey, it could happen.)

Finally, soon to be an update to Briarbrae, and possibly a popslash fic, inspired by the sexy pop ballad "Na Estrada" and my fervent desire to be wintering in the tropics.

A slight case of misplacement

Wednesday, January 7, 2004 06:16 p.m.

Does anyone know what happened to waxjism.net? And all the people who used to be posted there (e.g., Helen, Betty Plotnick, Wax herself)?

I'm used to finding geocities and angelfire sites down or deleted, but an entire domain? Very odd.

Sailing to my happy place

Sunday, December 28, 2003 11:05 p.m.

So Giglet was mentioning her favorite slashy line from Master & Commander, and a few other moments flashed through my mind, especially the first time in the books when Jack leaves Stephen on shore and promises to come back for him, then spends the rest of the voyage fretting until Stephen is safely returned. (And "returned" is how Jack thinks of it - in his mind, Stephen belongs at his side - on the ship - and no other allegiances or duties are more important than that. Too bad the reverse isn't always true.)

But to be honest, I never thought M&C was slashable. Or if it was, that no author was equal to the task. My brief forays into the genre left a bad taste in my mouth and a certain conviction that even if Jack could be written properly, Stephen could not. This, with 22 books' worth of material from both points of view! ::sigh::

Then shalott started writing. And Giglet recced her. Now, I know the chick can write other genres, H/W included, but still I thought "It's too hard, there's too much depth to the characters, and Jack would never get it even if Stephen ever asked. Which he wouldn't."

Pardon while I eat my hat.

The Undiscovered Ocean is my new favorite shipwreck story. It's sad and sweet, full of euphemism and possessed of the most incredible Jack-voice I could have imagined, and since Stephen is all from Jack's point of view, the level of obliviousness and inuendo just rises throughout the story. A starlit dinner of roasted pelican - how romantic is that? Not to mention the turtles.

Other fun stuff: Invasion and All the Wonder are both excellent AUs, the first a "what if things went Bonaparte's way?" and the second a brilliantly conceived space adventure based on a Verne- or Lewis-type universe. Then, Played in Tune is a cute, non-sexy WAFF for music lovers. The sexy version is Adagio (complete with hot artwork - no pr0n though, sorry ladies).

Cut off from my happy fic at the rents' house, I've had to make do with the 5.2 million history books scattered about instead. But rather than read 19th century sea stories and merely fuel my desire for more good Jack/Stephen, I've jumped ship to another era entirely. Has anyone ever heard of the Estruscans before?

Me neither. But at least they didn't wear epaulets and deify Nelson.

Mona Lisa Smile

Tuesday, December 23, 2003 05:36 p.m.


Renaissance Master. You prefer representational
art - what you see is what you get, and looks
amazing! Whether you go with Da Vinci or
Raphael, you are realistic and somewhat
balanced.

WHAT TYPE OF ART ARE YOU?
brought to you by Quizilla

So true. Thanks for the quiz link, Helen!

Coincidentally, I just saw "Mona Lisa Smile", and I must say: huh? Well, not that bad, really - just at the beginning. And the birds coming out of the tower - was that necessary?

It just seemed like the kind of film that's made from a book by an indie film group trying to break into Hollywood. Which is too bad, because Julia Roberts could mostly act, and I treasure those movies when they actually happen.

Bye Bye Bye

Friday, December 19, 2003 11:15 p.m.

I'll be starting for home at approximately 6am on Sunday morning, and thereafter will be in questionable email contact until New Year's Eve. Please direct all urgent inquiries to my email addy by tomorrow afternoon. After that, I will leave my home number with Bina and Sarah (it's also in the Wellesley books, but with area code 478 instead of 912) in case anyone needs me.

Nobody better need me.

Btw, has anyone else seen the PoA trailer yet? Omg. It looks like it's going to be so much better than the first two. Wow.

Shutting up now.

They shine for you

Thursday, December 11, 2003 01:17 a.m.

So, I was thinking of what I would put on a sparkly recs page, if I were ever to create such a thing, because I think my tastes are rather different from many people's (read: not so much on the sex, please), and I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Also, it's RPS. But that's another discussion entirely.

In a seemingly unrelated moment, Bina and I were talking about Robin Hood yesterday, and about how that's The Story for her. The big myth that encapsulates everything she wants in a story. The one that always brings her back. And I was wracking my brain but couldn't come up with a similar one for me. I'm not like Robin McKinley, with ten versions of "Beauty and the Beast" running through my head. I have stories, but not The Story, and that makes me feel kind of sad.

But at least I'll always have "The Deluge at Norderney", right? And "The Green Hills of Earth". And Kipling's regiment stories - maybe "Only a Subaltern" or "With the Main Guard".

And now, "It Knows Not How It Sounds" by Em. JC/Lance. PG13 at most. Dealing with Lance's insecurities and JC's flakiness in one fell swoop. Forever.

This all just makes me wonder how much I really don't know about Bina.

In search of a beta

Sunday, December 7, 2003 12:36 a.m.

No, not the fish. The kind person. The kind person who reads popslash. The kind person who would consider reading my popslash and telling me where, exactly, it sucks.

For incentive, may I dangle sweet!JC and TrickyFish?

How can you catch the sparrow?

Saturday, December 6, 2003 11:44 p.m.

How's this for a historical antecedant for Jack Sparrow?

The brig Cyprus, on being sent to Van Diemen's Land with prisoners re-sentenced from the Australian penal colony for minor offenses, had a little accident. His name was William Swallow, a former seaman.

"Swallow was a veritable Houdini. In 1810 he had hijacked a schooner in Port Jackson and been sent to Van Diemen's Land as his secondary punishment. The ship that took him there, the Deveron, was disabled in a storm and Swallow, 'remarking that his own life was of little moment,' volunteered to go aloft and cut away a slatting tangle of broken spars and rigging. It seems that the Deveron's sailors were so grateful for his courage in saving the ship that, as soon as Swallow was landed in Hobart, they smuggled him back on board. Thus he escaped, and got all the way west across the ocean to Rio, where he was captured again by the British authorities. Once more he got free and stowed away on a London-bound boat. But he was finally recognized in London, arrested and shipped out again to Van Diemen's Land. Such was the man who, 'confined within a dismal hole' with his fellow convicts as the Cyprus rode at anchor near the southern tip of Van Diemen's Land, decided to make a last bid [for freedom.]

"After a rush, a scuffle and some shooting, the convicts overpowered the guard and carried the ship. They put the officer-in-charge, Lieutenant Carew, over the side along with his wife, the soldiers and thirteen convicts who had not joined the mutiny. The Cyprus was heavily laden with stores for Macquarie Harbor, enough to sustain 400 men for six months, but the convicts gave the forty-five castaways a stingy ration - a live sheep, some salt beef, a bag of biscuits and 30 pounds of flour, with no weapons and no boat.

"After prolonged sufferings from exposure and starvation, living on a handful of raw mussels and a quarter-biscuit a day, the castaways eventually got back to Hobart. They might not have done so without a convict named Popjoy, who framed up a 12-foot coracle out of mimosa branches, covered it with hammock canvas (sewn by Mrs. Carew, who had a needle) and waterproofed it with soap and resin. Popjoy and Carew sailed this fragile shell twenty miles to Partridge Island, where they were saved by a passing ship.

"In the meantime, the Cyprus and her pirates were well away. Swallow[, now captain,] shaped his course for Tahiti, and then turned north for Japan, where he and his crew landed sometime in 1829; seven of the convicts jumped ship there. Several months later, Swallow and three of his mates appeared in a skiff off the Chinese trading port of Whampoa. They had abandoned the Cyprus. Swallow presented himself to officials in Canton as Captain Waldrom of the Edward, set on fire and sunk at sea by the Japanese. In this way, Swallow and his mates wrangled a free passage home to England. Unfortunately, soon after they sailed, other survivors of the Cyprus turned up in Canton and Swallow's story began to unravel. Eventually, Swallow and his mates were arrested in England and were identified by Popjoy, who, by a bizarre stroke of colonial ill-luck, had returned to London after receiving a free pardon for helping save the castaways at Recherche Bay. But Popjoy insisted that Swallow had been forced by his fellow absconders to navigate the ship, and the court believed him. So, although Swallow's companions were hanged, he was not. For the third time, he was forced to go on board a transport and make the long, lugubrious journey to Australia. It was his last." - Robert Hughes, The Fatal Shore: The epic of Australia's Founding

In other news, yes, I'm alive. Details later.

More fic, and "hi" to Truss

Wednesday, October 1, 2003 11:22 p.m.

Princess Tutu fic. Shounen-ai, if you can believe it. Moonlight Sonata. Sankyuu to Beru for beta-ing in spite of an owie wrist.

Also, hi Truss! I'm sorry I didn't see you right away today. Am slow. Have fun whipping a whole new batch of LARPers into shape! (Btw, your evil glint is showing. You may want to hide that before the players show up.)

It's another duck-butt Monday

Tuesday, September 30, 2003 03:55 p.m.

Whoops. Forgot I had a blog there, for a while.

So, um, I could do the usual "squeee!" over Pirates of the Carribean (except that's old news) or over episode 19 of Princess Tutu (injured duck scenes always get me Right. Here.), but nobody else has seen that.

So instead, I will tell you about my Monday from hell.

After fielding two phone calls by management at 9:30 in the morning (while still wearing my bathrobe, thankyouverymuch), I got in 20 minutes early to find that management had ignored my assurances and mucked up the neat little arrangement the employees made to cover all the bases while being fair to one another. Management is not concerned with fair. Management prefers to panic that it might be understaffed, and thus drag poor, unsuspecting sods out of bed to cover the shifts of other people who are already planning to be there. But anyway.

After dealing with this unpleasantness in a manner mutually unsatisfactory to everyone involved, I proceeded to run carryout and hosting by myself. During this process, a salad was dumped on my head. Accidentally, I think. Though I had been harrassing the salad cook, so hell, it could be my fault. At least there wasn't any dressing on it yet.

I got a whole hour off between shifts to clean up.

Then one of the guys scheduled for that evening called in sick, and we couldn't find anyone to cover, then we finally did find someone to cover, only to discover that there were no patrons in the restaurant on a Monday night (big surprise). So we all went home after 2 hours and got paid nothing.

(I'm leaving out the unpleasantness of rehashing the morning's adventures and over-hearing them rehashed in ways that didn't actually happen, etc. I'm sure y'all have sufficient experience to fill in the blanks.)

However, when I got home after 7.5 hours on my feet, there was a cardboard box in the mail basket, and inside the box was a grey DVD case with a picture of Jeremy Brett on the cover. Postal service, you salvaged my Monday. Many blessings upon you.

Sherrrrrrrlock. Yum!

(Just for the record, yes, I still enjoy delivering pizzas. It's the extra stuff around that that's not always so pleasant.)

What really pisses me off...

Monday, September 8, 2003 04:31 p.m.

...Is when politicians think government is about power. It's about compromise, jerkwads. It's about somehow managing to all live together in too small a space with limited resources. It is not about railroading your own agenda through at the expense of everyone else.

Or did you not notice that black people are no longer considered 3/5 of a person each?

Texas used to be the land of the painfully, foot-stompingly free. Guess parts of it still are.

(Oh, and btw, I'll be at a Patriot Act protest tomorrow morning, with the ACLU. If anyone wants details, email me.)

Explanatory Notes

Sunday, September 7, 2003 09:38 p.m.

In order to read this blog, you will need to know the following:

1. Stuart and Vince are from "Queer As Folk".
2. Pike, Mythos, Fakir, and Ahiru are from "Princess Tutu".
3. Mei is a dork.

Sorry, K. In recompense, here is Briarbrae (Sherlockian slash-land). Something old, something new, many things borrowed, very blue.

Anyone who wants to is invited to skim through and look for further ways in which Mei has been a dork, including typos, broken links, errors of idiocy, and annoying page construction. Hit me with your best shot!

Waaa~h! I wanted Fakir!

Saturday, September 6, 2003 10:06 p.m.


You are Mythos (Mute). Selfless and Compassionate,
you give freely of yourself to save those who
are weaker. Now, if only you'd stop throwing
yourself out of windows in only your
sleepshirt.

Which Princess Tutu character are you? Version 1.0
brought to you by Quizilla

Quiz cribbed from Tetchan. Btw, Pike is Ahiru's friend in the dorm, the normal, practical one. She's a nice change from all the nutsos in the story.

That's 0 for 2. I propose that this test is on crack.

Technical difficulties

Saturday, September 6, 2003 09:49 p.m.

If anyone has had email to me bounce in the past 2 weeks, I am under attack by the 100K spammers. May their own email addresses become unusable in perpetuity! May their fingers cramp up and their hard drives fail! May they receive the social stigmatization they deserve!

Somehow I feel that my gentle Southern upbringing has left me deficient in the cursing department. Hmmm. Must remedy that.

Meanwhile, call me. I do have a phone, yo.

Stuart Alan Jones!

Wednesday, September 3, 2003 10:05 p.m.

"Oh my god, Stewart, don't shag the bridegroom!"

Hey Miss Canis, do you recall rhapsodizing over the sweet raburabu ending of hacksign? Well, I've got one for you - the campiest, sweetest, most f*cked up "they didn't die!" ending to a big gay love story that you could possibly imagine. I'm pimping it as an antidote to certain lame authors and their lame death scenes.

The library in Boston has it. Not sure if the one in Iowa would... *sweatdrop* Let me know if you're interested, and I'll see what I can scrounge up.

Oh, and new Sherlock fic: At Peshawar. Very Kipling. Very indirect. No snogging.

Queer As Folk

Monday, September 1, 2003 12:19 a.m.

"I can't be the best shag he's ever had - he's Australian!"

He's a cock-sure asshole with a penchant for fast cars and faster men. He's a mild-mannered Dr. Who fanatic with no self-esteem. They shag guys!

Beru-slore, you live up to your name. Must. Read. Fic. ::staggers off in search of yet another obscure British fandom, cursing the day she was born an anglophile::

In other queerdom, while studying Asian history, one must stop to comment: Alexander the Great was so gay. Not pink sparkly chaps gay, but yippy-yi-yi, let-me-hold-that-shield-for-you gay. (Bina sez: Um, duh. He was Greek.) I think it's a crime world history classes don't mention this. They babble on about Henry the VIII's 6 wives, as if that syphillic philanderer played a greater role in the history of civilization than the guy who conquered large chunks of Europe and Asia by the time he was 33 and made Greek culture a permanent part of the Central Asian melting pot.

But anyway. Far be it from me, the anglophile, to question a Western Euro-centric, het-dominated school system, especially one modeled off the Prussian system for producing foot soldiers. Great army. Great school system. Can anyone out there point to Prussia on a map?

All I'm saying is, I can definitely find Greece.

A most frabjous week, all 'round

Saturday, August 30, 2003 04:31 p.m.

So after Shoujocon last weekend (where the number of pics snapped of Bina and myself on Saturday exceeded my personal record by almost half again, where I picked up cheap Haku/Sen doujinshi and free music videos, and where WA was mostly reunited - *beeda* to Miko & Washuu!), you would think this week would be quiet.

The planets are not alligned for that.

Anyway, Sarah and I saw Mars on Wednesday night (not like you couldn't see it just standing on your front porch), including polar ice caps and gray spots, which someone assured me were... something. M31 also starred on the 8-inch telescopes, while cheesy Edgar Rice Burroughs stories were advertised on cheesy covers of Amazing! magazine, in larger-than-life size on the side of the building.

Thursday, I finished a Sherlock fic and got a new job. Meet Bertucci's newest delivery girl. Look Ma, I deliver pizzas for a living! (well, only for cheap health insurance and an excuse to leave the house, but...)

Friday, my new job did not suck, and they played Pat Benetar's "All Fired Up" on the morning radio. Rrrawr! The world will be at my feet!

(Oh, and Briarbrae 2 is almost done. 1 review left. Beta testers sorely needed.)

If anyone needs me, I'll be living my wonderful life. Leave a message and I'll call you back.