Misc fannish and travel

I'm in that place. Yeah, that place. The one where you have somewhere to be in twenty minutes and the entire twentieth century feminist canon to read before Friday, but you've still got six tabs open and all of them have long fics in. I haven't been reading fic for a while - I gave up searching out Doctor Who fic a while ago, and now I'm only really reading fic by people I know personally. (And I'm not even keeping up with that - casirafics gave us Ten/Remus here, but I haven't read it yet. Take this as a sight unseen rec, because it's by her and it's Ten/Remus. I'm sure it's marvellous without having read it yet. Um, I digress.)

Where was I? Back in the news of the weird, I have six tabs open of X-Files fic. I am as baffled as everyone else. As far as I know, it's because Evolution was on Channel 4 the other night, and I watched it gleefully. It is my favourite example of a film that's so, so fucking awful that it comes out the other side and becomes funny and charming and eminently watchable. I mean, it has mutating aliens in it! And disgraced Pentagon scientists! And a black guy who goes around saying, "I saw this movie! The black guy dies first!" (He doesn't, but he does need to have an alien surgically removed from his colon, and later, he himself is not-so-surgically removed from the alien's colon.) It's all very slashy - of course, it would be; there's something slashy about a guy murmuring, "Hold me," and clinging to another guy whilst an alien is removed from his colon yes I talked about that bit already. I saw it originally in the cinema, actually; I was dragged with my parents to see Lagaan, and at the last minute I realised that I'd let myself in for three hours of relentless singing and dancing, and went to the next screen to see whatever they were showing. I have since seen Lagaan and realised I was doing it a disservice; it's probably the best modern Hindi film I've ever seen and was absolutely robbed of the Oscar for Best Foreign Film (or whatever it's called), but again, I digress and anyway, dude, mutating aliens.

The point was - yes, there was one - Evolution has David Duchovny in it, and I've always thought this a good thing. He has puppy-dog eyes. He droops at people. I'm all for this. And it got me wondering in passing if there does exist X-Files fic, and well, the internet has a disarming capacity for giving you what you want. I was fannish about the show once, actually; a long time ago when it was in its first run and being shown on BBC2. It was before I got into SG-1 and thus online fandom - I guess I must have been about twelve - but I remember liking it very much and making up stories in my head, natch. I wasn't fond of the myth-arc episodes - although I think one of the first ones I saw was the one where Mulder finds his sister, and I did like that one very much - and I liked the monster-of-the-week ones. Actually, that probably goes for everything; rather than making sci-fi drama an ongoing saga, like Buffy turned into eventually, I'm quite fond of the reset button. It helps with the escapism factor.

So I am wasting lots of time, which is something I suppose, but really, I want to write my quote unquote extended essay this week. I'm reading lots and lots of feminist theory, which is fun but makes my head hurt after a while. And that's all, really. I haven't been working, for a stupid, stupid reason - every time Tony rings up and says to come in and work, I'm ready to go and then I can't, because I have to wait for the gas man. He's been in three times and brought the wrong parts to fix the boiler each and every time. I haven't calculated how much in wages I've lost through waiting for him, as I'm sure that will only depress me.

And more than that, I need the money. I've finally sorted out some sort of travel arrangements. On August 8th, I'm going to Paris, then to Berlin, and then to Rome. I want to see all these places, but more than that I'm sort of making a point to myself; that I'm not rubbish, like I've been thinking over the last few months, that I'm an adult and I can handle this. I don't know why I think I can't. We shall see, I guess.

Also: I'll be in Paris until the tenth, Berlin until the twelfth, and Rome until the fourteenth of August; I'll be in Indiana visiting relatives from September 1st, and then Boston, and then I'll be home again on the twelfth. (Yes, I am flying transatlantic on September 11th. This may or may not be the best idea I've ever had.) But anyway, if any of you lovely people are in any of those places at any of those times, please do let me know, I'd love to meet up.

Um, yes. Time to go and read about feminism. I'm enjoying the peace and quiet.