chelseagirl

So it turns out my department is putting me up for both Excellence in Teaching by a University Lecturer and Excellence in Research by a University Lecturer this year.

The cynical part of me thinks a) of course, the one year there's not a big in person ceremony -- although that was last year as well, and b) yes, I've been around long enough and it's my turn. Also, note I am not competing with tenured/tenure track faculty for these awards; it's for us NTT also-rans.

The idealistic part of me is just thrilled for the recognition.

The pragmatic part of me says yes! Because I am applying for promotion to Senior University Lecturer (which is mostly an honorific, with a small pay bump) for next fall, and either or both of these awards should make it difficult for them to deny me.

Of course, I'm also trying to get the first 30 or so pages of my manuscript revised to submit to my local Mystery Writers of America chapter's mentoring program, which has to be done by the end of the month, and while I've been working on it, spring break is rushing past.

So my cousin's daughter got married last year and it ended up being a small group attending and the rest of us beaming in via Facebook Live for the ceremony. The reception is this coming June. Except . . . rather than in Maryland (where her parents live and the wedding was originally scheduled) or Chicago (where the couple lives and where the small actual wedding was held), it will be in Des Moines, Iowa.

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Today is the first day of Spring Break. Although I'm going to do some small work projects, my main goals are two: writing and spring cleaning. The latter is mostly self-explanatory, deeper cleaning than usual, and pulling apart some drawers and cabinets and etc. looking to get rid of stuff. I have things in filing cabinets from academic articles I was going to write twenty years ago, or fifteen, or ten. Clearly if I was that motivated, they'd have been written by now. And another bookcase sorting -- same thing with books that have been sitting unread for fifteen years, or were bought for projects past, or etc.

My local chapter of Mystery Writers of America has a mentoring program where members can submit their first thirty pages and someone who is published will mentor you. Whether you have been previously published or not. Someone I know got Lyndsay Faye as her mentor! The only thing is that you can submit anytime between March 1 and March 31, and since Spring Break made sense for me to work on my revisions -- it's been seen by my Writers Group, which had excellent suggestions but kind of research intensive. So I'm a little worried that anyone with a historicals background may have already been taken by the time I submit. But that's okay -- my Writers Group is historicals people and I definitely need a mystery perspective.

So that's my week. It's sad not to be running up to Buffalo to see mom, or to see my BFF up in the Hudson Valley, one or both of which I usually do over spring break -- but as all of us are getting our second doses in the next few weeks . . . finally! In the next few months, some minor trips will happen!!!!!

So every review I'd read about this movie said it was disappointing.

I'm not sure what they were expecting. It was just what it needed to be.

Spoilers behind the cut. ( Read more... )

It is now 6am. At 5:30am, I noticed M's phone was charging in our living room. M had left 5 minutes earlier. (They work 6:30am-3pm. Normally 7-3:30, but they're staggering arrivals and departures now and M volunteered to be earlier.)

Unlike me, who works in an office (and the classroom), M's phone and their nextel are their lifelines during the day. I forget my phone once or twice a semester, but I have my laptop and my office landline, so . . .

I threw on my coat and sneakers and grabbed my keys and metrocard, and ran out several blocks through the snow, swiped my card to get into the subway, and found M still on the platform. They had just discovered it, and had their nextel out, presumable to call me? So all's well that ends well, and I dashed back off but found an effusive text of gratitude on my own phone when I got home, and another effusive phone call while I was typing this and M arrived at the park in Brooklyn.

I'm not sure who's been paying attention, as I don't talk about it often, but M is a trans woman. They began presenting female full time 5-6 years ago now (we've been married for 18). They have often mentioned their discomfort on the subway platform at that time in the morning, because, alas, the homeless folks who shelter there are often quite vocal about their transphobia. What struck me -- and I know it is partly that, because of the pandemic and the winter, the homeless don't have many places to go -- but how full the subway platform was for 5:30 am.

Forgot to post here yesterday, so I thought I'd catch up today.

January 23: Talk about your early fandom memories (Muccamuck)

When I was growing up, I used to watch Star Trek reruns with my Dad and he'd always joke about taking me to a Star Trek convention down in the city. (We lived about an hour and a half away.) But as Dad was a pastor, weekends were pretty much out -- Sundays were obviously church day, and Saturdays were spent reflecting, writing sermons, doing any other prep. [I mean, seriously, my friends were invited to come over or I could have sleepovers on Friday evenings, but if I wanted to hang out with friends on Saturdays either I went to their places or we went out to the movies or whatever -- Dad needed quiet Saturday evenings.]

But finally, in high school, this one girl we were friends with had moved up from Queens a few years earlier, and therefore, travelled to and moved about the city much more freely than we other suburban types. And she used to go down to Star Trek conventions. In those days, they were at the Statler Hilton, by Penn Station (though ironically where we lived we could come in via Grand Central or Port Authority, but not Penn Station), and it was a place to celebrate all your nerdiness. We all loved Star Trek and Star Wars -- and I was also Tolkien-mad. We were fascinated by what had not yet been named cosplay -- two of my friends, who were planning to major in music in college, made papier mache masks to be like the Cantina band musicians, but in pre-Internet days, they didn't have great images available and didn't really get them right. I decided to be an original Han Solo-esque female character, so I added high boots and a vest to a shirt and trousers, and I bought the only toy gun of my life to make a blaster out of. Another friend did Han's outfit more exactly. I'm pretty sure I've got photos stashed away somewhere, still. We also discovered fanzines and I made my first bad attempts at fanfic, and did costumed visits to movie theaters and overall were in nerd heaven.

After one last hurrah -- The Empire Strikes Back came out right after my freshman year of college and we reunited for a con -- I pretty much drifted away, though I stayed in touch with friends I'd made and got interested in Tom Baker era Doctor Who.

When I got online in grad school, I discovered one of my old fandom friends was on an email list for Forever Knight, and I'd seen it and liked it. It was amazing how I got pulled right in -- I was reading and writing fic -- so much more available online, even though archives were pretty primitive -- and making friends and taking roadtrips and occasionally plane trips. And people would dub VHS tapes of the episodes I'd not managed to record myself. It was a brave new world!

I've been more or less active at various times, ever since. Sometimes I go long stretches without feeling fannish about anything. But I did meet my partner at a convention -- MadCon in 2001, in Madison Wisconsin. I went to see Neil Gaiman and M went to see Harlan Ellison, and we made friends and despite living actually in different countries, we got married a year later so that we could correct that. And are still married.

January 24: What is an outfit from before 1950 that you'd love to wear, and why? (merisunshine)

As someone who basically spent several years going to work in a low-key stealth version of Peggy Carter cosplay, a few years back, I'd say a wonderful 40s suit. Finding a whole suit, instead of just a jacket, intact and in my size, would be marvelous. And I could do the hat, the gloves, the bag. The only thing is I don't really like to wear heels higher than 2 inches - so 40s heels are right out!

Honorable mention to a pretty, feminine 1930s dress, and of course, my love for Downtown Abbey 1910s clothing is immoderate, though I haven't figured out a way to indulge it since I drifted away from steampunk.

January 21: What is your favorite place in NYC? (oracne)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a place I remember loving when I'd come to visit my aunt in the city, long before I ever moved here. I love going for special exhibits, or just to wander around, with friends or alone.

I also really love my semi-crumbling early-Victorian (1831) church, St. Peter's, in my old neighborhood, Chelsea. I'm not sure I'm going to continue my membership much longer, but there's something really magical and historic about the space. I got married there, AND I had my book launch there.

Describe your perfect day (bethynyc)

Now I will have a Lou Reed earworm for the rest of the day; mind you, that's not a bad thing.

I don't have one perfect day. I contradict myself; I contain multitudes.

My perfect day would be chilling by myself, it would also be hanging out just with Marty, it would also be seeing friends! Friends, I miss you, I have some distant pre-pandemic memories of in-person socializing! (I do occasionally meet people for walks or for sitting outside in the back garden of a neighborhood coffeeshop/bookstore.) On the other hand, introvert me.

My perfect day would be reading at home, it would also be going to museums, it would also be seeing some amazing musical performance, it would also be upstate in green places!

My perfect day would be relaxing and enjoying myself without anything hanging over my head, it would also be doing something really productive so that I could feel accomplished and creative and proud.

So.

I'm doing a Senior Seminar this semester which I've taught as a shorter summer class before (5 weeks and they're all working or doing internships full time, so limited in what can be assigned). I was working on my syllabus when I saw an email from the department chair regarding the fact that some of the classes have a reputation of being not rigorous enough. So I emailed him, because I worry. And heard the nicest thing back: my classes apparently have a reputation of being "hard, but interesting and fun," which as he said, was exactly the right place to be. Yay, me! (I am not the Queen of Self-Confidence.)

Watched: Lupin, WandaVision, Miss Scarlet and the Duke

Lupin is fabulous and I recommend it highly. I was lazy and watched the dub but it's short enough that I'll rewatch in French (with subtitles just in case) before the second half drops. Senegalese immigrant takes revenge on the man who framed his father 25 years earlier; said immigrant is a total fanboy of French gentleman thief Arsene Lupin (who seems to be kind of to the French what Sherlock Holmes is in the UK and US); plot very clever and twisty and very moving. Also Omar Sy is all kinds of handsome.

WandaVision: intriguing, funny, and I'm preparing for heartbreak if what I think is going on, is actually going on. Great cast. M didn't enjoy the first episode as much as I did, due to less familiarity with midcentury American sitcoms, but started to like the second one a lot more. It was a good idea showing the first two together, to build momentum.

Miss Scarlet and the Duke: female Victorian detective, London 1882. Of course I'm in. Not as stylish or original as The Alienist or Vienna Blood, but also less likely to break my heart like the former. I suspect I'll like it in the way I like Frankie Drake Mysteries -- pleasant & feminist but doesn't go too deep.

I'm falling behind on the January meme, mostly because setting up Canvas classes that are brand new rather than revised/adapted from earlier versions -- very time consuming. I've got the asynchronous online ones under control, but the synchronous/converged one is still a work in progress. But since it doesn't meet until Thursday, I'll manage. (Assuming, of course, there's not a civil war begun on Wednesday.)

But my writing group meets tonight and I need to still do some set-up work for the Writing Center, so . . . .

I'll move a few days' worth to later in the month. I've really been enjoying it.

January 15:What was your first fandom? Bonus: what fandom or 'ship do you find most improbable? (herselfnyc)

First fandom: do I count my crush on Mr. Spock in third grade? Or the Sherlock Holmes scrapbook I kept in junior high/high school? Maybe Star Wars, which motivated my high school friends and I to take the bus into the Scary Big City (the one I've now lived in for decades) to go to a Star Trek convention (we also loved Trek) which was kind of nerd central in those pre-internet days. We dressed up as Star Wars characters to see the movie on a HUGE screen at the Loew's Astor Plaza. First online fandom with ficcing and online discussions and all the trappings of modern fandom was Forever Knight.

Improbable fandom or 'ship: I'm going to assume this means the fandom or ship that I'm most improbably into. Alias Smith & Jones, which I write most of my fic in, is totally different from anything else I like. I didn't see it when it originally aired, so I don't share the teenage or preteen passion that many in the fandom have. I tend to find most shows from before Buffy to be difficult to rewatch nowadays, and there is a lot about this show that SCREAMS "1971 version of the old West," not to mention 1971 production values and 1971 gender relations. And although I'm obviously very into the 19th century as a whole, I'm not ordinarily that fond of Westerns -- really just this and Deadwood and Strange Empire, the latter two of which are made in the 21st century with a very different sensibility. But it inspires me to write and I have amazing friends I've made through the fandom.

As for 'ships, I'm an oddball in fandom in that most of my 'ships are canon and I'm not much of an M/M slasher. I quite love a number of canon gay couples, I just don't see the slash where others do. So that would make Tomas/Marcus from the Exorcist tv show my most improbable 'ship. Both are priests and Marcus is canon gay but Tomas . . . at least hadn't gotten there yet and had an affair with a female parishioner in the first season. But they were so obviously a future couple to me that my partner used to say "Your gay priest show is on!" Of course, as a pastor's kid and an Episcopalian, married clergy and gay clergy and gay married clergy are also totally normal to me -- if I were going to write Tomas/Marcus I'd probably have them end up as a happily married couple of Episcopal priests, though, you know, still risking life and limb doing exorcisms. Although I've never heard of an Episcopalian exorcism. Details, details.

January 12: Tell me about your icon and where and why you got it! Alice is one of my favourites too. (kore)

I have a couple of altered Alice icons (one with an astrolabe and one where she's putting on a tophat with goggles, from my steampunk days) which a friend made for me, but this one I actually made myself. Hence its stark simplicity. *cough*

The first chapter of my dissertation was on representations of the legal system in the Alice books. (There was later an article version, in a journal called Law and Literature.) At one of the colleges where I was teaching as an adjunct, I taught a seminar on Lewis Carroll a couple of times. And while I'd always collected a bit on Alice, around that time, I started to seek out different illustrated editions; people started giving me Alice-themed gifts, and so on. So it seemed appropriate to have an Alice icon -- and this was always one of my favorite Tenniel images.

I identify with Alice so much in this picture -- so often life feels like a session of Flamingo-wrangling!