raven: [hello my name is] and a silhouette image of a raven (stock - love)
the boring brain bit first )

2. If I were in my sane mind, my [livejournal.com profile] yuletide request would fill me with glee. As it is, I am pleased, and fully intend to write it well and enjoy it before the deadline. So there.

3. Speaking of stupid things happening at improbably early hours of the morning, a couple of nights ago I was being mildly crazy and sitting in bed watching Mulan when the most abysmal noise started up outside my door. I sat still for a minute, then ran outside on the landing down the stairs yelling, "What the fuck is that?" only to run right into New Housemate running up the stairs yelling, "What the fuck is that?"

A pause, as we both figure out: smoke alarm, and the landing smelled of smoke. "Shit," I said, and we went into New Housemate's room and found nothing and went into my room and found nothing and then went back out, had the exact same horrible thought at the same time and launched ourselves bodily at [livejournal.com profile] chiasmata's door yelling, "WAKE UP!"

Unhappily, we did this just as she was opening it from the other side, and there was a moment of argh wake up please don't be dead mixed up with further what the fuck is that? and then, suddenly, we realised it was above us that was the problem. The lightbulb was black. Further investigation revealed that it had set fire to the lampshade, which I could not get off. Cue my fetching a pair of scissors from my room. New Housemate seemed doubtful. "It's house property, guys, I don't endorse this..."

"It's really ugly," I said, feeling very decisive all of a sudden. "It is three o'clock in the morning and we have been woken up by a smoke alarm and it is the ugliest lampshade in the world. Also, dude, it's on fire."

For some reason, all three of us took the opportunity to look at the lampshade anew and notice, all at once, how ugly is is - seriously, it is; it's a globular paper lantern of horror, it looks like an adipose cell blown up a million times actual size - and stood there laughing hysterically while I carefully cut the thing to pieces. It didn't come off. It hung there like some sort of eviscerated piñata, and then the lightbulb melted in my hand. I kind of just stood on a chair and laughed until I cried.

So, on the bright side, we didn't all die by fire. And are unlikely to, considering the smoke alarm works. And also, I feel that if we ever do have a fire or other night-time disaster, someone should be sure to drag [livejournal.com profile] sebastienne physically out of bed. She didn't stir at all.

4. Mulan is really great. It actually is. A couple of years ago my flatmates and I tried rewatching some of the Disney films and realised, much to my unsurprise, that The Little Mermaid is really anti-feminist. I mean, Disney princesses in general are not awesome, but I was really shocked by it. But, Mulan is awesome - it's about a woman (whose parents are both still alive, and are not evil!) who gets up one morning, thinks, fuck this, and goes out to fix things. And, and, she does not do it for a man. Rather, the man chases after her. Ineptly. And needs a cup of tea and a sit down when he finally finds her. And the music and the visuals are all really pretty. I like it. Actually, I like it so much I redid my [livejournal.com profile] yuletide sign-up with four minutes to spare.

(I am not sure, though, what it's like in terms of race and ethnicity, simply because of my ignorance of Chinese history and culture - I don't know what to watch out for in terms of its being problematic. But the tone of it, I like - it doesn't do the "look at the funny ethnics" thing, which is always a start.)

5. Contract law. Not that I have anything in particular to say about it, just I ought to go and do it. I am so behind with my work, it's not funny. (And this weekend I really ought to do some criminal law coursework, and considering it's supposed to be my favourite one, I really am being spectactularly fail in its general direction.) Yes. Work now.



[1] Number one on the list: my [livejournal.com profile] yuletide recipient wouldn't get a story.

(Number two: I wouldn't get a chance to try out my new purple glitter eyeliner. Look, I never said I was cool.)
raven: [hello my name is] and a silhouette image of a raven (firefly - kaylee's parasol)
Having lived in the Mousehole for almost a week now, I probably ought to have written down something about the experience before now, but stuff - canoes, mathematics, babies with hats - keeps intervening.

Firstly, the Mousehole is a small, pretty house in East Oxford, inhabited by me, [livejournal.com profile] chiasmata, [livejournal.com profile] sebastienne, an itinerant and tolerant Frenchman named Pierre, and [livejournal.com profile] shimgray has more or less been living here for a week in the capacity of Man With Hammer. (The great problem with living in a queer feminist socialist commune is that you occasionally need someone to pin up your rainbow flags for you. And change your lightbulbs. As women of a certain political persuasion, we could of course have done these things for ourselves. But he seemed to enjoy it, and the flag is very well hammered.) Slowly, slowly, the place is becoming home; we're in the process of getting the contract drawn up, which is complicated, and I probably need bookshelves in my room before I can quite relax. At the moment the books are everywhere unorganised and are making me twitch a bit.

Secondly, thank you all for your many kitten-naming responses. We shall have our kitten in three weeks once it's weaned, and it shall be named Harriet. (My original suggestion, I would like to point out, was in fact Harriet Taylor Mill - because I had said, look at me, be proud I didn't demand we name the cat Socrates, or Mill, or Plato, and.... yes.)

Thirdly. People have been visiting us all week, and it's been very nice indeed. [livejournal.com profile] jacinthsong came to stay, and that was lovely; she was here for three days and we drank wine and ate lots of delicious vegetarian food and watched a programme on Channel 4 entitled "The Perfect Vagina". It was... hideous. There was surgery. At one point Laura and Katie and I were all sitting with our legs crossed whilst Shim whimpered in my lap. Yeah. After that we mostly drank, and recounted the story the following day in the manner of Vietnam veterans, to [livejournal.com profile] foreverdirt and [livejournal.com profile] footnoteplato, who had come with cake. We made them more risotto - with a brief interlude for playing with our food - and ate a lot of cake and drank yet more wine. Wine has been a theme, this week.

Actually, the theme this week has been a mixture of things that seem terribly grown-up and mature, like the contract, and a job interview on Thursday morning up at the business park, and the letting agency demanding a witness for the signing of forms ([livejournal.com profile] shimgray stepped up to the plate, signed his name as a respectable member of society and thoroughly perturbed the agency, who wanted to know why he was listed as "tenant's partner" but not the partner of any of the actual relevant tenants, it all got very complicated very fast) and things that are not at all grown-up and feel strangely transient, like wine and the coming and going of people, and Thursday evening, idyllic and sunny by Hinskey Lake, with a box of home-made tiffin and everyone taking it in turns to jump barefoot into the canoe. It felt like an Arthur Ransome novel, and doubly strange that it was the same day as that job interview, and again, the admixture of perpetual summer holidays and future-ghasts.

In brief, I guess, everything is quietly good, but I can't relax very easily. I am more and more frightened that I won't get a training contract, and more and more convinced that I am an intellectual fraud; I can't tell all these people that yes, employ me, I am the best person for the job, because I don't believe that myself. (It doesn't help that my parents are still of the opinion that I'm a confirmed failure. I keep having stiff and stilted conversations with them in which we avoid the white elephant in the room. It's very depressing.) A return of the unspecified neuralgia is possibly related; I am back on the codeine after a brief holiday. Opiates, lest we forget, are really great.

Tomorrow, we're going to the zoo. I am looking forward to this with childish intensity. There will be elephants. Also, I am looking forward to August being over. It's humid and unexciting and the worst month of the year.

Kittens

Aug. 17th, 2008 07:45 pm
raven: [hello my name is] and a silhouette image of a raven (misc - our feline overlords)
We went to see kittens. They were omg omg omg SO CUTE OMG. We went in and all made "awwwww!" noises of awww. They were so little and so fluffy and omg omg cute. OMG.

Anyway! We picked one out, a pretty grey tabby with white feet, and now we need a name for her. And so:

[Poll #1243442]

Thanking you all kindly for your assistance on this matter.

ETA: ...pictures!... )

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