harborshore | Entries tagged with love

wow. hi! i didn't mean not to post. i'm mostly on tumblr (infierceways) and twitter (veethorn) these days, but i'm definitely here as well.

since i last said hi, i've received an extension at work until november 1st (and a somewhat mostly likely one until january 1st, but i don't have the contract yet). sweden has moved into summer and so i can sit on my balcony and drink beer and look at the water. i went a bit mental from stress for a while, but my anxiety levels aren't near where they used to be, still, (or at least the spikes are way fewer and further between). oh, and i've fallen into both hockey (the blackhawks, which means that my fretting is at ulcer-inducing levels at the moment) and les mis, so along with avengers there are rather a lot of good things happening, fannish-wise.

how are you? what's new? love love love.

Happy Galentine's Day, lovelies! In honor of the day, I would like to offer the following:

- Comment with "COMPLIMENT" and I will give you a compliment!
- Comment with a female character from any fandom/source I know about and I will tell you at least one thing I love about her. (or if you pick one I don't, I'll use the google machine and make some shit up.)
- Comment with a prompt/scenario involving two or more female characters and I'll give you a SHORT rundown of how it went down.
- Comment and ask me to tell you about that one time that you and I ___________ together.

Today was entirely mine. Well, except for my initial stupidity, resulting in a minor chemical irritation in my left eye, which resulted in a visit to the local clinic. But then: salad with thyme, sesame oil, radishes, marinated tofu, avocado and spinach for lunch; nap; best latte ever; eating at Taste of Stockholm: oysters, quorn wrap, crepe; reading Dandelion Wine in the setting sun and weeping behind my sunglasses; best chocolate; now Avengers.

It's been a month, darlings. I'm constantly exhausted, grateful for spring, worrying about things settling down. I found out it's going to take 5 months to get into the clinic I need, my brother's knee is pretty much fucked (surgery can do a lot, but), I still don't have a job in the fall--but I have an apartment on a magical island in the middle of the city starting on August 1 or so. I have a job right now. And I had an interview yesterday and it went well.

Two things!

First, the You Are Beautiful meme is happening again. My thread is here: THE YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL MEME

Second, I'd like to write about cuddling. Give me any two or three (or five) Avengers characters and a setting, and I will tell you about them cuddling. XMFC characters are also fair game.

There is a love meme? And my thread is here?

I can't even tell you how much I could use some love right about now. Also you should go put your names in, because I am not the only one having a terrible 2012, and I'd love to tell you all about how fabulous you are.

I wrote today's essay for 14 Valentines on LGBTQ women. Brief TW for a mention of corrective rape (absolutely no description of it) and internalized homophobia.

And on that topic, it's my least favorite holiday tomorrow, but it's Galentine's Day today, and if you want to leave me prompts, I could try writing some ficlets. Because I'd like to show you some love, okay?

Fandoms I can currently write: XMFC, BTVS, DCU (pre-reboot, because I don't know what's going on atm), most things Tamora Pierce has written (or I could post a snippet from the Alex/Thom I'm working on), any book-related fandom you've ever heard me talk about or seen me write in, Leverage, potentially something else I've written in before (but not bandom).

The end of the year sort of requires a post. I've been quiet lately, but I'm here.

( This year has been a chaotic one. )

It's been a strange week. I haven't been doing especially well (semi-difficult news and continuous uncertainty will do that to the anxious heart) but today I realized something. A year ago, I was sitting in a subway station sobbing because I couldn't get myself to walk down the hill and join the conference dinner I was supposed to be at. The same dinner is happening in a week, and I'm fine with that. This weekend I joined my coworkers for a dinner and then a bunch of local bands in a pub, and that was mostly fine, too. It's been a year, and what a year it's been.

I wanted to talk a little about what that means. I'm using myself as an example, and I'm absolutely not saying my experience is universally applicable. At all.

( on anxiety and getting better )

Hi all! It's Friday. It's finally finally Friday. Tonight I'm going to a Songs-of-Edith-Piaf concert, and I'm very much looking forward to it. And to the weekend. Oh my god, the weekend. *naps on you all*

It's been--someone smart told me I'm kind of running on empty right now, and that's true. Many parts of my life are very excellent (upon being told I'd applied to take the UN aptitude tests, my boss said, "I'm going to hurry the negotiations for next year up, because we certainly don't want to lose you"; I'm going to see my sister in a WEEK; I have somewhere to live; I got into the choir I auditioned for) but there are no breathing spaces and I find myself longing so hard for next Saturday night when I can curl up on a couch next to my sister and not move. I can make it another week. I can, I can.

So that's why I'm not here much, either. I'm very tired, and there is so very much to do all the time. But I'll be back, yeah? I love this space, I love you guys.

Yesterday was my birthday. Ten years ago, I was very ill (I had a fairly serious case of mono) and home from school and spent a couple of hours not knowing if my best friend was alive or not. I was lucky that day. So many people were not. Eight years ago I had just started college and I woke to find out our foreign minister had been murdered.

It's a little strange, having your birthday be 9/11. For more than one reason.

And yet, yesterday was a birthday like any others. A really wonderful one. My parents, sweethearts as they are (the most wonderful), came by with breakfast and a mixer and a giftcard for my favorite bookstore in Stockholm. Mom cried, I cried, dad cried. There were a lot of hugs.

In the evening, I saw relatives and a couple of friends at a restaurant, and I got some fuzzy slippers and a yoga mat ♥ and everyone was lovely and the vegetarian buffet was great. I spent some time freaking out about my birthday in the past week (not because I'm getting older, more because, well, it's just one of those anxiety-inducing social musts) but none of my fears were warranted, it was absolutely the best. Despite having a mammoth cold, a maternal grandmother who does her very best to be bitchy, and an application to work on.

And you lot--thanks for the birthday messages and twitter congratulations and general awesomeness, I so very much appreciate it. Also, did you know

torakowalski is the best? She wrote me a fic about bb!Rogue and pre-Alex/Hank and Charles and Raven and the mansion and basically about how family is what you make of it and you can choose your family, if you need to. It's wonderful. She's wonderful. Send Me The News From A House Down The Road.

That's sort of what I've ended up taking away from having my birthday on what is historically a very violent day (going a little further back, it's also the day Salvador Allende died). Love, that is. Family. Friends. A quiet reaffirmation of what is important. Part of why I like doing the work I do (youth policy work). You know. Etcetera. That sort of thing.

Arcade Fire played in Stockholm tonight. I can't quite articulate what it--all words are insufficient right now.

It was one of the best shows I've ever seen. It was sheer, unadulterated magic, it was joyful, glorious musicianship, it was a band that just didn't stop doing more, with every song they played. It was so exactly what I needed that I'm still at a loss for what to do with myself. It was one of the best shows I've ever seen.

I just. They played Crown of Love mid-show, and I thought, "Surely that was it, they can't do more than that, but I'm sure the rest will be lovely," and then they followed that up with a transcendent version of The Suburbs and then they played Month of May with such furious energy that I screamed myself hoarse and danced until my feet hurt. There were more songs after that, and they were so good, so good.

And then, then they dedicated Wake Up to the Norway victims and ten thousand people raised their hands to the sky and sang along. And after that, when we thought they couldn't give us anything else, Régine danced us out with The Sprawl and the world was just, it felt filled with light.

So there was supposed to be a story. But we're writing and editing this other story that is pushing 40K and is supposed to be done very soon, so the first story isn't done yet. Sorry about that. ♥

I did want to tell you happy birthday, and how glad I am that we found each other, telepathic-feminist-thinky-weird-pairing-loving sister of my writing soul. (I told you I was going to get sappy. Deal with it.) Love, darling. I hope today continued to be great and I hope many more great days are yet to come. And I can't wait to meet you.

( here, have a poem )

And timely, too.

I am here:

THE YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL MEME

and I am working my way through it to find you lot. Because you are. And bright. And amazing. And supportive. And, you know. So on. ♥

YOU GUYS. God, you're so fucking awesome. Many, many recs of female musicians. Go find something new to listen to, add your own, etc. I love you.

And speaking of sharing posts: here's a post for sharing cheap/easy/healthy recipes that contains vegan enchiladas, among other things. Om nom nom.

First, the part that made me feel sad and pretty naive and stupid: I was late for a lunch meeting and when I came down into the subway, I was accosted by a woman who told me she needed money (about 15 euros) for a train ticket home. She was good, I'll give her that; I believed her. I didn't have any Swedish money on me, but I gave her a 10-euro note I found in my wallet, and then I realized she was lying. And before I could react, she was gone. I felt really dumb, and I also felt sad.

But then, oh. I got on the train and sat down next to a man, and across from us (on the other set of four seats) sat a little boy of about 4. He was pointedly not looking over, and it took me a second to realize that the man next to me was his dad. I looked at him and grinned, saying something about stubborn kids, huh (it was pretty clear he'd decided to sit over there because he WANTED to and his dad could just deal), and the dad nodded, laughing. I looked back over at the kid and made a funny face at him, he promptly lost his grumpyface, grinned and made a funny face right back, and that was our cue to make funny faces at each other for about four stations.

And then they were going to get off, and I smiled at the dad and waved at the kid, and then he marched right up to me and reached up for a hug and then kissed me on the cheek with this awesome smile on his face, and oh, you guys, I was grinning for ten minutes straight after that. First of all, what a great dad--that was one happy kid, albeit with quite the independent streak (which it seemed like his dad was completely okay with, letting him sit in the seat he wanted to sit in). Second--MAN, I can't even. How great are kids sometimes, you guys. How great. ♥

Because SKATING.

You guys. This is Sarah Meier, Swiss figure skater. In the final competition of her career, the European Championships in Switzerland, her only competition this season, she skates perfectly in the free skate and wins her first gold. I can't even. She was STUNNING. I can't even fathom the kind of mental strength it would take to go out last in your last competition in your home country and not fall (when everyone else did) and skate so well.

Watching her wait for her points was absolutely--I can't even. Then they came and she didn't realize until she saw the actual "1" on the screen that she had won. Cue jumping and crying and beaming ♥.

And then afterward there was an adorable "interview" with her and Stephane Lambiel where he's teary-eyed and hugging her with one arm and saying, "Before you went in you told me you were going to die because you were so nervous! You didn't die! You won the gold!" and she's just shaking her head and trying to articulate what I'm pretty sure is impossible to articulate. ETA: Which is here!

( and here is her program! )

Oh, I'm so happy right now. SKATING.

ETA: or rather, let's file this entry under awesome ladies/winter sports fandom, yes. That one I can claim to be in. (♥,

thesamefire.)

The world is making me sad. If it's not victim-blaming, it's racist riots in Moscow and a suicide bombing in my city. (The latter of course taken by the Swedish racists as some reason to be smug, conveniently forgetting in one case that he got arrested back in 1993 for showing up at a leftist rally with a hand grenade in his pocket.)

But I went skiing and I'm going to go talk to students about multilingual writing tomorrow and I get to be encouraging and tell them that what they're doing matters, that literature should reflect the fact that we're not all monolingual and monocultural and that the racists and the extremists are all wrong. So there's that. (I get paid to do this! It's a one-off, but still.) I'm nervous, but oh, well-timed.

And this, too. I have a million tabs open from it, you don't even know.

HOLIDAY LOVE MEME
my thread

First, the not-so-serious part of this entry: I haven't seen Harry Potter yet, and I really really want to but work is really busy and my friends want to do other boring things. Therefore I will take my gift card this weekend and go by myself.

Until then, please indulge my Harry Potter cravings and sort me!

❝WHICH HOGWARTS HOUSE DO I BELONG IN?❞

( and now for the part where I am grateful )

Hey, darlings. A couple of you might know D., aka

jubella. If you don't, in brief, she's been in a pretty bad situation and

impertinence,

justkatarin and one more lady whose LJ handle I have forgotten are driving to Florida to get her up to Chicago, where she will live on their couches until she can get an apartment and a job. This is--D is a lady who deserves a new start, she's been very good to me and a number of other people even when she had no reserves to use to help, if that makes sense.

The thing is, D will pretty much be coming with nearly nothing.

impertinence has a post over here with more details, and if you have a little bit of extra cash or anything, it would be most appreciated. People are amazing and have already pledged winter clothes and sheets and money and--I don't know, people make me cry when they're wonderful like this. Because I am a sap, and because my belief system is pretty much founded on the belief in the innate amazingness of people and their ability to do good things.

There's been some conversation about diverse characters and fandom again--

inlovewithnight has a fascinating entry about the mechanisms of that over here.

In that vein, I just found 6 Degrees for Band(om) Femslash, and oh man, it is the best thing in the world. It is now easy to figure out how a whole bunch of female musicians may have met through a series of different links--they use Vicky-T as a starting point, but its entirely possible to extrapolate. So if you're like me and hate doing canon research for RPF, look no further. Also, this project has short primers for 700 female musicians. Uh-huh. That number is indeed correct. Go tell them they're awesome.

In other news, I had a birthday two weeks ago! And people were wonderful, as they tend to be. ♥ There were birthday posts and emails and fic IOUs and a lot of love going around, and then--yeah.

blindmouse posted what she tells me is a placeholder for a different story, which, okay, if you're going to post a short not-the-real-present-fic for me and have it contain Z/Tennessee, mermaids, magic, THE SEA, and us-against-the-world, well. You win at placeholders. ♥ Sea Child. ♥

And then, okay,

torakowalski? She just--she wrote me a story that has everything I love IN THE WORLD. And she's the biggest sneak, too, because she mentioned the idea to me in London and I went *____* and then she went quiet, but I HAD NO IDEA. It is THE BEST STORY, you guys, THE BEST STORY.

Seriously. It's called Normal Life Like Sleepwalking, it has Bob-as-a-girl, Bob/Brian, Bob being competent and quiet and funny, it has The Like, it has LAENA AND A VIOLIN, it has violence and people being stupid about caring about each other--IT IS THE BEST STORY. I'm repeating myself. But oh, I love it so fucking much.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

the wrong end of the telescope

and I'm walking the firm margin

has it really been 3 months?

happy belated galentine's day <3

learning to fly

lovers alone wear sunlight (prompts post and meme)

shine a light

one moment there was road beneath us (prompts post)

don't forget, don't forget

odd little anniversaries

time to slow down

in inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife

i can see where i am going

happy birthday, fictionalaspect!

what a lovely meme

OH. <3

on going from :( to :D in less than five minutes

SKATING. i'm going to pretend i'm in a different fandom for a second

if all of the strength and all of the courage

this part i have kept

a request

things to read and things to love

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October 2024

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