all is clear, all is bright

[raven]

I just got back from the airport to drop Shim off, where Delta were most interested to discover he'd been planning to fly to Heathrow when they'd been planning to send him to Schipol. Luckily, the people at Ithaca airport are wonderful. This is entirely sincere. I have previously written them letters detailing their myriad wonderfulnesses. My beloved is going back where he's supposed to be.

Also luckily, happydork has provided me with precisely the tool I needed to express my feelings on the matter.

Ah, the last week or so seems to have passed in a breezy two hours. The South African Siren commented that "you can show him all the sights of Ithaca! The farmers' market, the waterfalls... shouldn't take more than an hour or so." This isn't quite true. It took us at least a day. We did go to the farmers' market, where we bought a butternut squash and a bottle of raspberry wine; we went to the county booksale, where we bought seventeen books between us for the princely sum of five dollars and twenty-five cents; we walked along the Commons and bought nothing and talked about nothing at all. We went to Moosewood, together with a bunch of friends of mine, and, well, lawyers are awful and if you get seven of them in one place they will talk shop, but we ended up talking about the failings of American legal pedagogy over cheese strudel and Finger Lakes wine, and a good time was had by all, I think.

And at the end of the evening, another friend gave us a lift home and we walked the last bit of the way through a sparklingly cold night, beneath the sodium lights, and got home just before we froze. This is my least favourite part of my life, at the moment, walking through my apartment door. When I first throught of it, I mentally called it a substantive/procedural distinction (see abover re: lawyers being awful) but it is, it really is. I miss Shim every day of my life. (I'm sorry, I'm in the mood for winter-afternoon sentimentality.) I do, and I do, what can you do.

But more than that... I miss coming home at the end of the day to someone. I miss cooking for two. I miss each day's half-dozen passing touches between hands. Most of all, I miss not being afraid of the dark. Especially here in Ithaca, the town that public transport forgot,^[1] but generally: I miss knowing that I can go out as late as I like, dance as much as I like, drink three glasses of wine and not be afraid to walk home in the dark. It sucks, but there you are.

But I had a whole week of Shim being here, and we did things and went to places but also abused my Netflix subscription, watched random old Blackadder and Yes Minister and stayed up late drinking whisky, and just spent time... spending time. Which I wanted, and needed, and I actually feel much better, now, than I expected. This time we won't be apart for twelve weeks, we'll be apart for seven. We'll be in Edinburgh for Hogmanay. We made plans for next summer (Shetland? Israel?) and for what we'll do if I plan to take the bar, if I don't, if we decide to just skive off life for a couple of months and buy soft furnishings. The long view is coming back into focus.

Speaking of television, we got through The Middleman, too. livrelibre and eruthros showed us the first couple of episodes, and then Shim and I got through the next six in a worryingly short period of time. I really like it: it's dead silly, with bright colours and explosions, but I love the character stuff. I love especially how it quite often passes the Bechdel test in an episode's first forty seconds, and I love the Middleman and Lacey's abortive milk-and-lone-ranger-based love affair, and I love the word "tuba". It's an inherently funny word. A whole episode where they say it in nearly every sentence is like pie to me.

(Speaking of, something insidious is happening to me. Shim was rooting around in my room for a comb or something and I said, "It's on my desk, could you go get it, please."

...and then paused, said weakly, "Go and get it...." - and went to have a metaphorical lie-down.

I suppose it's inevitable. Doesn't mean I have to like it.)

Anyway, I have declared my intention to get a cat, once we move to Cambridge, and name it "The Middlecat!", pronounced with jazz hands. What, I think this is a great idea. Also, I want to know where all the Wendy/Lacey fic on the internet is. It's somewhere, right. This is not a DIY issue.

Now. I am being kind to self, today. Hallowe'en whatnot tonight, my costume so far consists of "Hallowe'en burlesque", whatever the hell that means (the Siren, in the meantime, is going to dress up as a bear if I have anything to do with it), and maybe I'll do some work or maybe not. Someone nice has already claimed my rs_small_gifts prompt, so maybe I'll work on mine.

Onwards and upwards.

---

[1] If you're dying to tell me right now that actually Ithaca is pretty good for public transport, as small towns in the US go, just... don't, okay?

Comments

[kaberett]

This is all, of course, lovely, because your writing is, but especially:

The long view is coming back into focus.

I am very pleased to read this.

[raven]

Thank you, on both counts, my dear. :)

[musesfool]

ART CRAWL! \o

[raven]

ART CRAWL! Why is there not Art Crawl-themed Wendy/Lacey? Why does the whole internet not cater to my whims?

[musesfool]

It is one of the great sad mysteries of the universe that there is not more Middlefic. There was some lovely Wendy/Lacey in femslash10, iirc, though I don't believe it was Art Crawl themed.

[thingswithwings]

MIDDLECAT! I would say it with jazz hands every single time, I promise.

I'm sorry that you're feeling a bit sad trombone-y! But if it eases your malaise at all, you're welcome to come over and hang out sometime this week, shitty Ithaca public transport be damned.

[raven]

Oh, I would love to. Could I hang out with the puppy? *hopeful face* Could I tell him what a pretty puppy he is?

[thingswithwings]

I am in fact eager for you to hang out with the puppy! He needs to have lots of people friends. And it is like a RULE that you have to exclaim over how pretty he is. When are you free this week?

[raven]

Eee, puppy! Wednesday or Thursday evening? Would either of those suit you?

[thingswithwings]

oh awesome! why not come over on wednesday evening? we can make dinner perhaps, or watch a movie, or both, or neither. also PUPPY

[raven]

Sounds lovely! Drop me an email re: time/bringing of things? Can't wait. :)

PUPPY!

[eruthros]

Middlecat would be a great name for a cat!

Feeling sad and wistful in the winter is a not-great feeling, and I'm sorry you're in that space! Also, soon T'wings will have her car back from the mechanic, and then you can stay out as late as you want and she can give you a ride home, I say on her behalf.

[raven]

Awww, honey, thank you. I have to say, I think my LDR-winter blues would be much worse if I hadn't met lovely fangirls in Ithaca. :)

[toft]

Awww, the sites of Ithaca that take up to a day to see! Me and thingswithwings (oh, um, hi! I'm not sure if we've been introduced. T'wings said you were cool? Hi!) always joke that one day we'll run out of stuff to do and she'll have to take me to the glass museum. Last time to avoid going to the glass museum we hired a car and drove half an hour to play pirate-themed minigolf.

And North American syntax! It creeps up on you. I no longer feel bad about myself when I say, "Are you done exams?" (a uniquely Canadian thing, I think) or call my trousers 'pants'. But I'm self-conscious about it when I go home to England.

[raven]

Hihi! Lovely to meet you. :) And, er. Um. Okay, so. I think glass is really interesting. I AM AWARE OF HOW WEIRD THIS IS, OKAY. My partner - er, Shim; the chap I am moping about above - and I went to Copenhagen over the summer and I was seriously, honestly disappointed that we didn't have time to go to the glass museum. He also thought this was hilarious. We should totally go to the glass musem and you and T'wings can make fun of me while I sit there mesmerised by silicates.


...also, pirate-themed MINIGOLF. Truly this is a land of opportunity!

[toft]

Haha! Yes! Let's all go to the glass museum next time I'm there. Actually last time I was talking to someone about how I go to Ithaca to see my friends, they said, in tones of great excitement, "Have you been to the GLASS MUSEUM?" Oh those silicate fangirls.

The pirate-themed minigolf is, I must say, epic.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that Shim isn't going to Schipol; not that it's not a perfectly pleasant airport (there is a fake cow painted with Dutch scenes somewhere in it! This entertained me and my travelling companions greatly when we were there), but I can see how it would be a problem if one was intending to go to Heathrow. I'm glad it's not too long until you see him again; I remember how I felt when Rob was in America last Michaelmas, and I missed him constantly. It was horrible. Long-distance relationships are distinctly unfun.

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

I should probably clarify that I was meant to be going to Schipol, but I'd been under the impression I was then going to be on a flight out of it again, and they seemed to think this was an unwarranted luxury...

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Well, of course; why on earth would you be so demanding as to want to actually leave Schipol? It's got a pretend cow in it, hasn't it? What more do you want?

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

A pretend cow, a small art gallery, stroopwaffels in presentation boxes of sixty, and its own international railway station. I am not sure if one could reasonably ask for more.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Seven weeks feels a wee bit longer in the cold light of day! Of course you're right that it isn't that long, but also that long-distance relationships do suck. They really, really do; I remain in awe of people who do it for years at a time. I know I really couldn't.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

*hugs* It must; I hope it goes by very fast. (And no, I couldn't either, I think. Four months was long enough, thanks.)

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you're doing as well as can be expected, post-visit, and doing good things for yourself.

(I had no idea that "go get it" and "go and get it" was one of the American/British linguistic divides! I say both, I think with equal frequency.)

Basically this comment is just to say ♥, and I hope the fall down there is as beautiful as the one here.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

It really is! After I'd said it, Shim gave me a look and said, "And when I go home, should I write you?"

...divided by a common language, again! Although I don't know what he's complaining about, he keeps using words like "ben" and "dreich" and "mithering" that just make me blink.

<3 thinking of you, my dear. The autumn is shaping up beautifully, and the cold is bracing if kind of a shock.

[rose71.livejournal.com]

Hello, I am the (very happy) claimant of your rs_small_gifts prompt, just dropping by to say hi! But I see that I've found you on a sad and bittersweet day, when you've had to say goodbye (for now) to someone very dear to you. I'm so sorry! (I hope you don't mind a personal comment on this from a complete stranger.)

Anyway, I remember reading and loving your HP fic (particularly "Love in Fire and Blood") when I first got into fandom and was too shy to comment. So I'm really excited (if slightly intimidated) to be writing for you. I also have so much love for your "want and do not want" prompts, especially the "no anyone-bashing."

By the way, I've just applied for a teaching job at Cornell (though it's a long shot, with around 500 other applicants), so Ithaca has been on my mind. I'm intrigued to find that you're there! It sounds lovely, but also quite terrifying in its quietness and lack of public transport.

Hope you'll end up enjoying Halloween!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Hullo hullo! I do not mind, and my apologies that you find me on a distinctly unfannish day. Thank you very much for taking my prompt! I remember a story of yours that I enjoyed a lot a couple of years ago, so you're not entirely an unfamiliar face. I hope you have a blast with it!

Heh, small world! Ithaca is nicer than I make it sound here - right now I am pissed off at it for not being home, which while true is hardly its fault - and I'm sure you'll like it, if you do end up coming here. Good luck with the job. :)

[dormouse-in-tea.livejournal.com]

*sympathetic* We're in ur brainz, corruptin' ur language.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

this is so true.