one more miracle

[originally written for Tumblr last night, Aug 17th. Thought I'd try good old fashioned blogging on.]

August 18 is my birthday. I feel like I need to say something about this year of my life... and this is the closest I have to a blog. Pull up a chair.

Tonight I stood on the roof of my beautiful modern apartment building, in the most vivacious neighborhood of Seattle, gazing at the panoramic view of the downtown skyline, Space Needle, mountains and water and the rolling hills, all backlit by a softly electric sunset, listening to my gorgeous and sweet neighbor working shirtless on his bike behind me, and reflected on what a fucking year it's been.

Tomorrow I turn 36. One year ago, I thought I would never be happy again.

( Read more... )

So, wacky story: eating lunch at work yesterday, I glanced at my keys and noticed to my GREAT surprise that my car key had been bent dramatically! Like, the strong steel rod had been bent at least 30 degrees. ????!? I still have exactly zero idea how that happened. It is a mystery for the ages.

Needless to say, I couldn't drive my car, so I sent an email to the whole building (high school) asking a kind soul for a ride (I live half an hour away) that evening and the next morning so I could get my spare key. An older woman showed up at my classroom and said she could give me a ride as she lives out past me. I had never met her before (my building is HUGE) but I was so grateful and took her up on it. This lovely guardian angel was named Patty.

We were talking about teaching in the car, mostly, until I happened to glance in the back seat and see that Patty had a MARAUDER'S MAP IPAD CASE!!!! And a HOBBIT TOTE BAG!!!! I freaked out a little bit and we immediately launched into nerd code - you know, the conversation you can only have with a fellow Confirmed Nerd. :D We shared our biggest fandoms - she's old school, into Star Trek and Wars, LOTR, HP, etc. We bonded over both being the girl in middle school who read LOTR once a year (at least). We even have the shared experience of getting really deep into Wheel of Time but never actually finishing. It was magical! And she's just an absolutely lovely woman all around.

As the cherry on top, she also plays SOCCER every week in an indoor league! WHAT! At that point I was freaking out a little, because I'm PRETTY SURE she's me in 20 years. I even want to move to the same area she lives in, and she's been teaching at this same school for 19 years. Could that be my future?! I don't know, but she seems to be doing pretty fabulously, and I wouldn't hate it!

In any case, I LOVE everything about this - random nerd encounters, but especially making a new delightful friend at work. Yay!!

(Happy Epilogue: The welding shop at my school was able to fix my key for free! It's got a slight crack in the metal so now it's just my spare key, but I am SO grateful. I love my colleagues!!!!)

Hello my lovelies! I'm going to actually make a FIC REC, mostly because I CAN. A few in fact! How thrilling! In the past couple years, I haven't been reading much fic, one because I'm so damn busy, and two because I just haven't been in a fandom in the same way as I used to be. I dabble here and there but honestly my greatest joy still comes from reading old McShep classics. My obsession with them is occasionally alarming in its enduring intensity. Space jockey and his irascible scientist! <3333

Anyway, I got off topic. Let's talk about love in space of a different sort! I actually am most interested in gen Hermes crew fic for The Martian because I love everyone on this Hermes, but for now I'm just reading whatever is linked to me and not being picky because I LOVE EVERYONE ON THIS HERMES! So here's a couple recs.

• Numqvan te tradam by otter - This is almost exactly what I needed, which is basically the Hermes crew mother-henning Mark with love and cuddles all the way back to Earth. It's from Beck's perspective and brings in Mark/Beck/Johanssen which I don't necessarily need, but it's sweet and adorable and warms my heart in the best way. :')

• Interstitial by Lanna Michaels - A lovely three-part continuation of Mark's log both on the Hermes and then back on earth. Again some undertones of OT3, but mostly just Mark's lovely snarky self and his love for his whole crew-family. <333

ENJOY!

I do want to say though, I'm a bit annoyed by fandom immediately jumping on Mark/Chris. Yes Beth is getting included a lot, yay, and Chris and Beth are the only unmarried people on the Hermes, BUT you know what I want to read? Mark and Martinez snark! They're best friends, remember? And they're delightful! There is not NEARLY enough Martinez right now. Get on that fandom. I guess I'm just annoyed because the whole Mark/Chris thing has a large whiff of "attractive white dudes! make out!" Hrm.

Sorry, got crankypants. ENJOY ANYWAY!

(Oh my god I need new icons. If you know a currently active place I could find some let me know!!)

I'm so exhausted that I can't even contemplate a real post, but a few things:

• THE MARTIAN!!! No really, THE MARTIAN!!!!!! Today I did an activity with my Algebra 2 kids where their answers, once put in order, yielded "THE MARTIAN" and then I showed them the trailer and got nerdy at them. I LOVE IT SO MUCH!!!! I read the book in two days, saw the movie the day it came out, started the audio book, saw the movie again, and am now listening to the audiobook on my commute every day. I just. MARK WATNEY. YOU BRILLIANT SARCASTIC LITTLE SHIT. And can we talk about how much I ADORE the Hermes crew? A D O R E. I liked them on the first read, but after seeing the movie it's like - all their adorable faces! SEBSTAN'S ADORABLE FACE AND HIS ADORABLE COZY SWEATERS!!!! And I'm in LOVE with Martinez. I literally want an entire movie about them going back to earth and hugging Mark way too much and Sebstan and Johanssen trying so hard to be secretive and everyone teasing each other and smiling all the time because they did the most INSANE AND WONDERFUL THING IN THE HISTORY OF SPACE TRAVEL!!!! Ahem. I have feelings.


• Supergirl! You should watch it! I've only seen the beginning which was basically the same thing as the extended trailer but I love it! Melissa Benoist is so friggin cute! And for some reason I cry every time she goes to save her sister. SISTERS. YAY.


• JANE THE VIRGIN! I had heard great things but hadn't gotten around to it. Started it randomly on Netflix and I'm in LOVE. IT'S SO DELIGHTFUL. Jane is just SUCH a dear, Gina is so great. Her family is super cute. And Raf is stunnnning and super precious too. Also Petra for some reason I find riveting even though she's so terrible? Something about the enormous bambi eyes and pillow lips. She's gorgeous *__* Michael is sweet sometimes but I generally find him a bit off putting. Anyway. THIS SHOW. YOU SHOULD WATCH IT. YES.


• Fuck the Walking Dead. (I haven't watched the latest but I'm spoiled. Fuck everything.)

OK I'M DONE BYE.

I didn't post last night because my computer was being so hideously slow that it was a herculean struggle just to get my work done. It was trying to do a backup to an external HD and apparently that was so laborious that it just froze - like 5 times. It was awful. I left it running overnight with no other programs open and it still failed to do the backup. No bueno. :( I hope this isn't a sign of a deeper problem.

Then today I stayed at work until 7 PM just doing... stuff. Planning, grading, organizing, planning. My workload never ends, and I can never stop because if I do my kids suffer. I'm worried about whether I can keep this up for any significant amount of years. Of course I'm still near the beginning so it will get better, but I'm such a perfectionist, I can't see myself ever putting in less than 70-80 hour weeks. Ugh. You know, in other countries teachers are given less students and more prep time during the day. Oh and they pay them decently. Doesn't that sound nice?! Fuck America.

Ahem! I'm currently self-medicating with amazing pizza and BROOKLYN 99!! What a good show. Terry loves ecologically responsible farming practices!! <3 And Holt and Jake are teaming up! AMAZING. I also deeply love Amy Santiago. What a gal. If you haven't seen this show, DO YOURSELF A FAVOR. Seriously. It's happy wrapped up in a bow.

I LOVE HAVING A LJ TO WRITE MY FEELS IN AGAIN. *rolls around* Come say hiiiii! Tell me what TV you're watching!