I spent about a week in Roswell where I got another tattoo, spent five dollars to get into the international UFO Museum and Research Center to look at newspaper clippings and grainy photographs (they have to charge now since they're raising money to build a brand new state-of-the-art facility in which to house their newspaper clippings and grainy photographs) and managed not to run into people I didn't want to see. I have so much more affection for Roswell now that I don't ever have to go there, and it's so good to be back in New Mexico. I never realize how much I miss the desert until I'm here. I love New Orleans completely, of course, but here you can drive outside of town and see forever in any direction and the sky looks so much bigger and I think I have a certain amount of constant claustrophobia when I'm anywhere else that I just kind of adjust to and don't think about and don't even notice until it lifts.

Of course, being here after almost a month in Chicago does bring into stark relief how there is nothing to do. Now I'm in Albuquerque and there's more to do here, obviously, but I remember when Albuquerque was The Big City and we would drive three hours up here to go shopping. It definitely doesn't feel that way anymore. It's different, but still. I get to see my friends and I get to eat green chile and it's good to be here all the same. My parents have a house up in the Jemez Mountains and that was always home just as much as Roswell was (if not more, since it still feels that way and Roswell probably won't ever feel that way again) and I want to go there desperately and won't have the time. that's the one piece that will be missing from the New Mexico portion of this trip. Otherwise, I've done the things I felt like I needed to do. With my parents in Birmingham and me pretty much committed to at least two solid years in DC, who knows when I'll be out here again.

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ANYWAY, HERE: Have some unrelated fannish content. I stole this from rawkenr0ll and reuploaded it. GUILTY PLEASURE IN SPANISH You guys may have seen that, but I had not. Sometimes I just feel knocked over the head with how very very much Cobra Starship is my favorite.

Happy birthday leni_ba! And happy belated birthday to netweight! And to anyone else I missed? I've only sort of been around.

I am unlikely, at this point, to write any kind of long Chicago HCT review, mostly because everyone else has done it better, but a few things. ( Read more...Collapse )

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Also, Pete Wentz and Ashlee Simpson are having a baby. This leaves me with an overwhelming emotion of "eh, whatever," because I am the type of cold, heartless person who is completely unmoved by babies as a concept. But hey, I do have affection for Pete and Ashlee, so if they're happy, I'm happy for them. *shrug*

(Semi-relatedly, I do wish Ashlee hadn't said she thinks that women should take their husband's name when they get married. That made me twitch a lot. :/)

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Otherwise, I feel a little out of the loop fannishly in that I didn't even find out about the lj user-representative election until yesterday. I don't know how much difference I think it will make, but I like the idea of having someone who is fannish in that position. I'm late to the party, I know, but I haven't seen as much about it in bandom circles as I have in other places, so here is the link to fandom_votes with their information on it, just in case anyone else hasn't seen it. It's worth reading through the information, at least.

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And that's all I got. I'm supposed to be working on my cover letter and resume right now, but I'm procrastinating. Las Cruces has been fun; I've had a lot of beer and actual New Mexican food. This evening I am going to Roswell, which will be interesting. I haven't been there in a year and a half and I think it'll be weird being back, but it'll only be for a couple of days. We can stand around in the parking lot arguing about what we want to do until everything closes and then go drive around in the desert. It'll be just like old times.

I've pretty much been offline since Christmas Eve between the family activities and the applying to grad school and the Supernatural/Cowboy Bebop marathon.

Some things:

1) With four episodes and the movie of Cowboy Bebop to go, I acknowledge that it is an interesting show and definitely my kind of thing, despite the fact that I'm usually not much of one for anime. It reminds me a bit of Firefly, which doesn't surprise me because everyone always told me it would.

2) With six episodes to go in season 1 of SPN, adronai acknowledges that it is an interesting show and is not, in fact, "Charmed with boys." \o/ Victory.

3) Much to my dismay, adronai still deems Pete Wentz and all things related to him completely unacceptable. So I went to lunch with southernbangel and told her about Pete Wentz instead. Uh. Sorry, Lee? (Despite his distaste, adronai does seem to have picked up bandom information by osmosis. Particularly knowledge of personality quirks of Pete Wentz, Gabe Saporta and Gerard Way. I do not think this pleases him. Uh. Sorry, Sam?)

4) For Christmas I gave adronai s2 of BSG because that's the only way to make him watch it.

5) For Christmas my dad gave me the ENTIRE RUN of She-Ra: Princess of Power. I AM SO EXCITED YOU GUYS, YOU HAVE NO IDEA. That is my childhood in a BOX right there. SO EXCITED.

Sam and I head back to New Orleans tomorrow. It was a great Christmas and I decided I like my parents not living in the place I grew up. I miss New Mexico, but it was hard for me to spend too much time in Roswell without feeling suffocated and that had nothing to do with my family and everything to do with being back in my hometown. I can spend a length of time here in Birmingham and not feel that way. It's nice.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas!

I made an icon out of the picture I took of the streetlights in Roswell last December. This should have occurred to me much earlier. This picture has been the screen saver on my phone for a YEAR.

I got back from Birmingham last night and ever since then my cat has done nothing but look at me with big eyes and cry. She is so incredibly needy and when I say "big eyes" I don't mean like normal cat eyes. She has anime character eyes; they take up half her face. It is completely irresistible - which is probably good for her because her meow sounds like croaking and is really not all that cute at all.

This year was the first time that my family has been altogether on Thanksgiving since I graduated from high school. That was nice, especially since Christmas is going to be all kinds of INSANE now that Dad's gone back into the parish; there's something to be said for my parents living in a real place that is easy to get to. (Speaking of not-a-real-place, sad news on the Roswell front: The Alien Surveillance Cafe has closed. This hurts my soul. I just hope Roswell follows through with its plans to make a UFO amusement park because that would pretty much make my life.)

On Saturday night I went over to marenfic's to geek out and watch "Razor." I tried to keep the bandom talk to an absolute minimum. It's possible I failed in this, but there was much BSG related geeking as well. I'm so out of the loop in that fandom. I haven't read fic in it in over six months and I didn't even realize "Razor" was this weekend until Maren asked me if I was excited and then I was like "WAIT. That's happening now?" It did remind me how much I love it. BSG is probably my favorite show right now. I mean, SPN might be my favorite, but if you removed all fannish influence and I was just a regular viewer, I'm pretty sure it would be BSG. If I had in-depth thoughts about"Razor", they would just echo Maren's, so I'm going to be lazy -> what she said. Also, though, ( SpoilersCollapse )

So I am back in New Orleans and back to freaking the fuck out about the living situation. I hate moving every year. And how is it even possible that I have this much stuff? I always want to get rid of all of it when I realize I have to move it, but then I realize it is mostly books and dvds and I need those.

I also just clicked on *that* Dr. Who spoiler. Wow. This should be interesting. ETA: DR. WHO SPOILERS IN COMMENTS.

and the money it's making for Roswell
all the people who come here are swell
Spend your money, fill up our hotels
Take a tour of the o-ffical site
where the alien bodies were discovered
take home an official coffee muuuuug
tell all your friends you think we're great and they should come here.

-To the tune of "The Stars and Stripes Forever" - I think this was a radio commercial ten years ago at the 50th anniversary, or maybe one since? I don't know. We've been singing it for years.

So I pretty much never want to be in Roswell, NM, but it's the 60th anniversary! Tourists in alien costumes! Or tin foil hats! Apparently this year there was a parade. WIN. I might have actually gone back for UFO-fest if my parents hadn't moved to Birmingham because it's pretty much the only time that Roswell is consistently fun. poepi called me yesterday to tell me that she met Dean Haglund and told him all about how our The X-files obsession kept us from being drunken losers in high school. Which, you know, I hadn't thought of it that way, but I guess that we were generally having XF parties instead of getting drunk and passing out in someone's backyard. I'm not totally convinced that makes us less of losers, but okay. He asked her if we were 'shippers or noromos. Wow, I barely remember when 'shipper was a fandom specific term. Back in the day, guys.

Speaking of back in the day, tvlinks is the best website ever. nojah has been talking about it forever, and Femme linked it yesterday, but I'd never really checked it out because I figured eh, I have everything I need. But then adronai called last night because he was watching Dr. Who (I approve) and was like, no seriously, you need to see this. And yes, I did need to see that. Things I didn't know I wanted! Shows I didn't even remember I liked! First Wave, you guys. Ally McBeal! OMG, Are You Afraid of the Dark! I don't even need a television anymore. Thanks to tvlinks, adronai has finally agreed to watch Supernatural so that he knows what I'm talking about. He didn't really want to because he thinks that it is Charmed with boys and that I only watch it because I want to lick Jensen Ackles. I have assured him that that is not the case and that it is a very creepy and likeable show, even if he may not like it for all of the same reasons that I do. (He will probably not want to lick Jensen Ackles). Like most obsessive fangirls, there's nothing that pleases me more than when someone new starts watching one of my shows. In high school I made everyone I knew watch The X-Files. EVERYONE. It almost got to the point where our XF parties weren't completely the geekiest thing going on because, like, people wanted to come. Those parties are still an embarrassing fannish shame given our behavior, but yeah. We were almost respected in our dorkitude - in high school. In hindsight, it was bizarre.

I put together the elliptical machine. WIN. I like it when I manage to put things together. I feel all competent and effective. Of course, I still can't get some of the bolts tight enough. I was half way through before I figured out that it came with a tool with which to tighten them and that I do not need to go buy a wrench tomorrow. Perhaps I should anyway. I do not own a wrench, and it is just that kind of lack of foresight that would get me killed during a zombie apocalypse.

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I've been watching that meme about writing letters to your sixteen year old self go around. I like to think I don't have that many regrets, but there are a few things. Everyone has a few things. I, umm, think I'm supposed to have twelve. I don't think I have twelve - at least not twelve that are interesting.

( To sixteen year old meCollapse )

broadwayschatzi just told me that the scary Denny's on the south side of Roswell (aka the Denny's of prom night infamy) has closed and is now the ALIEN SURVEILANCE CAFE. It has a DOWNED WEATHER BALLOON and a GOVERNMENT TANK in front. This is the best news I've heard all week. HAHAHAHAHA! Oh, Roswell, you are made of so much cheese, with your UFO shaped McDonalds and your alien head shaped street lights. How I DO NOT MISS YOU AT ALL.