la fée verte

Last Thursday was sdwolfpup's More Joy Day. I missed it, because I am idiotic - I noted all the joy on LJ, especially jenlev's lovely roastery story - and thought to myself, I meant to do something for that. Specifically, I meant to send out chocolate by pigeon post. But I forgot to get any, see above where I am idiotic, so I figured I should send text-based joy instead. I pidged poetry, webcomics and fic to people - writing fic small enough to fit in a brown envelope was a fun challenge - and sat back and felt the reverberations of the joy.

Because there is lots of joy in the world at the moment. I am hugely, enormously sleep-deprived at the moment, which is not a thing of joy - the low point came at half seven this morning, when I was riding out waves of insomniac nausea and thinking hard about asking someone who loves me to hit me on the head with a frying pan - which apart from other messy symptoms, makes me very easily frazzled and hypersensitive to everything. The fact I am still functional and happy is a testament to how much joy there actually is in the world.

Which is probably a good thing to have realised, as I am now a week short of having been in the world for twenty-one years. This is a horrifying thought, naturally - twenty-one is, well, it's a proper grown-up age, I can now drink in America and, er, run for Parliament if I so desire - but I do get the fun of a birthday to make up for it, so. Last night, counter-intuitively, was my birthday party - mine, along with mundi_gaudium, sebastienne, deepbluemermaid and lizziwig - at pridehouse, and it was candlelit and thronged and lovely. The theme was "the nineties", but as everyone was keen to point out, not the nineteen-nineties - more like the n-ninties, I think. Anyway, there were people dressed as Aristophanes and Domitia and Socrates (well, Claire was walking around with a bottle filled with Fairy liquid and labelled "HEMLOCK") and as robot prostitutes from the 23rd century and numerous other beautiful things.

I went as the Green Fairy. I am not keen on absinthe - every time I drink it bad things hapen, and besides, it tastes far too much like aniseed for my liking - but the costume was pretty fun. Green skirt, green tights, green eyeshadow, pretty-fairy-ish top from Pat, glittery eyeliner and wings and shoes with roses on the buckles. And after a night of drinking wine and eating beautiful home-made cake and dancing around under fairy lights, I was quite happy curled up in a corner at half three in the morning feeling, Dionysian-fashion, loved by everyone and a part of everything.

I didn't sleep, but you can't have everything. (Although I am sleeping a little when exhausted, I keep waking up again every half an hour; there's a strange fragility about lying exactly between sleep and consciousness in a room that's buffetted by howling winds. Perhaps I'll sleep better when the wind changes, or at least when the weather stops being so utterly awful.) Instead, I rolled out of bed again at lunchtime and ran down to see anotherusedpage, who is awesome, and we spent three hours talking about, er, fandom, and female-defined space, and OTW, and language as power, and the philosophy of Star Trek.

Yes, unashamedly. I am twenty-one years old and this is my world, welcome to it.

(Actually, while I'm talking about that, something of note. I was rewatching the TOS episode "Mirror, Mirror" - love, so much love, evil Spock, evil Spock has a GOATEE, heee - which I have seen an embarrassing number of times over the years. But. This time around, I noticed something I really, really should have spotted before. Near the end, mirror!Spock is being dealt with by McCoy - who has, I think, just hit him on the head with a vase, see above re: embarrassing number of times I have seen this - and then he wakes up. And stands up, walks menacingly across the room and pushes McCoy up against the wall into a forced mind-meld.

Which, forgive me if I'm wrong, has a very specific meaning in the Star Trek universe, right? It's rape. Mirror!Spock, who is then described as a "man of integrity" in both universes, is clearly not - because, well. Rape. And it's actually played as rape, as well. Which is very interesting, and an actually dark note in an episode which has enough ridiculous bits to keep me rewatching it for years. It made me think, anyway. There must be fic written about it, I'm sure.)

Yes, well. Meanwhile, back in my real world, foulds and I are also casting our Aeneid - amidst much good-natured agreement about cheese and cheesegraters and their relevance to the script - and I'm suddenly far too busy for someone whose Finals are this year. (No, not Virgil's Aeneid. Ours.)

Okay, now I think I shall go to bed and lie awake until morning. In the meantime, I meant to do this for More Joy Day, but better late than never. Request drabbles! Give me (at least one of) fandom, characters, plot, quote, prompt, whatever. I shall do my best, and wish you all more joy.