lunabee34

1. We went to see Downton Abbey. It is glorious and exactly what I was hoping for--basically a two hour episode with a little drama which is entirely resolved by episode's end. ( spoilers ) Delightful.

2. Emma and I watched Into the Spiderverse last night. OMG! I mean, I knew it was going to be good. You've all said it's good. Everyone I know who's watched this movie has said it is amazing. And it *still* exceeded my expectations. Wow. I really hate that I missed this one on the big screen.

3. I have finished Carnival Row but am balking at typing up my notes for the final ep. Soon! Loved the hell out of the whole thing.

4.

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is such a good book--the world building, the characters, the plot! Wow! I am blown away.

I wish I could give it 5 stars but the relentless and unremitting child harm made this an excellent novel I struggled to read at times rather than an excellent novel I could lose myself in.



View all my reviews

( spoilers for the child harm ) I would not recommend this series for anyone who has issues reading child death and harm which makes me sad because it's really that damn good.

( spoilers for actual plot ) I would recommend this series for anyone to whom the previous trigger warnings do not apply. It's incredibly well written.

1. I just realized something about Captain Marvel. ( SPOILERS )

2. Sexy Sci-Fi Heroes Shitpollst Round-up:

John Sheppard wins sexiest male hero; Jack Harkness and Jeffrey Sinclair tie for the write-in category.

Aeryn Sun wins sexiest female hero (with Zoe Washburne in a close second); Kara Thrace and Sarah Connor tie for the write-in category.

Thank you all for answering this poll so symmetrically!

3. Episodes 3-4 of Guardian: ( SPOILERS )

I enjoyed the heck out of this movie.

( SPOILERS )

I hope I get to see this in the theater again!

Where can I find some Captain Marvel icons? Any ideas?

ETA: ( SPOILERS )

Emma and I saw Venom yesterday and enjoyed it.

( SPOILERS )

( spoilers for Deadpool 2 )



In other news, I thought I wasn't getting an ecore class this summer, but I am!!!!!! I am so relieved. I really wanted the extra cash so we can buy furniture for the new house all at once rather than having to do it piecemeal. I feel like an enormous weight just rolled off my back.

The house is still set to close on May 31st. That seems to be plugging along nicely. We've started purging and packing some things. I sold some furniture we don't want to take with us for more than I thought we'd get which was a great bonus.

Annual conference of The Org went off without a hitch mostly last week. Just the usual hitches of a technology glitch in the afternoon and conference attendance attrition. When you've got 200 participants and a multitude of panels, a small number of people not showing up isn't a huge deal; when you're a small, one-day affair, even a small number of presenters not showing is a huge kink in the works. But not to worry! I am keeping a file of no-shows who are blacklisted, BLACKLISTED I SAY, and we're redoing the membership so that you must pay your registration by the early registration date if you're going to present. Almost all the no-shows the three years I've been doing this have been people who don't pay by early registration; they've almost all been graduate students as well. Some people have genuine emergencies, and that's fine, but the number of people who just don't show up and never email me at all is beyond the pale. Oh, well. On the whole, it went really well. Lots of good papers; our keynote was excellent; the journal is more robust this year than last; I got to award a founding member with a lifetime membership. Josh and I got to go to dinner with the rest of the Executive Committee for the first time because Emma (bless her!) was hanging out with Fiona, and for the first time we didn't have to take two cars and one of us rush home to do toddler duty.

I spent a great deal of last week in the depths of despair because I thought I had screwed up my data collection in my study. Without getting into it, the math for the instrument just wouldn't work out, and I spent several days on the verge of throwing up and just Not Understanding what the hell was wrong. Turns out there's an issue with the instrument in the original 1975 publication!! I think I can use my data after all! It is not insurmountable, and I did not waste my time writing the whole article except for the data section. I had worked myself up into a tizzy about how I'd wasted a whole year and wouldn't be able to submit this article for publication after all (which is maddening because I am trying to build the scholarship section of my CV so I can go up for full professor soon; I'm eligible to apply in fall 2019, but I don't think I'll be ready then IDK). I am doubly relieved.

Today has been a double whammy of relief and hilarity.

I am definitely basking in the gratitude today.

1. We decided Emma is old enough to watch Deadpool. She loved it, naturally. I had forgotten how hard this movie hits me in the feels; for what is ostensibly a couple of hours of crude humor, it makes me sniffle an awful lot.

2. ( Luke Cage )

3. ( Westworld )

4. Emma and I went to see Love, Simon. We both loved it. It was a very sweet movie. There was an obligatory "this is a film about teenagers, so we must include one scene with alcohol" moment, but I really liked that it wasn't about teens being rebellious or getting into trouble.

The author of the book it's based on is apparently from Atlanta, so a couple of days before we saw the movie, I listened to an interview she gave on a Georgia Public Broadcasting program (On Second Thought) that bothered me. The host asked her a question that I think was about how she might change the book or something, and she answered that she probably wouldn't have written it at all because she's been listening and learning and devoting herself to supporting voices from within the community. Which, I mean, I haven't read the book; I know that when people from outside write about a group, they often fuck shit up. And maybe she did. Maybe the book is offensive in some way (if it is, it doesn't show up in the movie). But her response made me think she's been dogpiled on the internet about this book, and it made me sad that now she thinks she shouldn't have even written it. Also, if she mentioned once that she knows that everyone doesn't have a positive coming out experience, she mentioned it at least four times in a fairly short interview. So clearly, she's been criticized that Simon's parents and friends are accepting which blows my mind. While clearly not everyone's experience, many people do have positive coming out experiences. IDK It bothered me.

1. Josh, Emma, and I watched Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 this week and loved it. I think I even liked it more than the first one.

( SPOILERS )

1. I called all my CongressPeople and asked them to oppose Steve Bannon's appointment as President-elect Trump's chief strategist. It took less than five minutes to make all three calls which were each answered after the first ring. All three are Republicans, so who knows what effect, if any, my calls will have.

2. Reviews of the last two weeks of The Walking Dead: ( SPOILERS )

3. We saw Doctor Strange. ( SPOILERS )