Peacock Dreams

Fic: All the Beautiful Things (The Mighty Boosh, Howard/Vince, PG-13)

2013-08-05T22:36:36Z

Title: All the Beautiful Things
Fandom: The Mighty Boosh
Characters: Vince Noir, Howard Moon
Pairing: Implied Howard/Vince
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Howard never corrects people when they mention his ugly girlfriend. But that wasn't always the case.
Notes: I'M BACK! And I brought fic! And I will update you on my (very busy but very good) life soon, I promise. But for now, I have fic, and it fells very good indeed to finish a project and be in a good writing space. :D

This story is the result of a collaborative effort with kristinagrey, who helped me hammer out the entire plot and resolved one particular logistical snag for me, as well as sparking the original idea. So basically, she's responsible for the whole thing. I am forever grateful.

And because it's been some time since I've written, please forgive the rust! This is fluffity fluff fluff fluff... with a dash of angst. Title comes from the Eels song of the same name, which is such a terribly Howincey song that you should all go listen to it, if you haven't already.

All the Beautiful Things on LJ

All the Beautiful Things on AO3

IT'S GOOD! IT'S GOOD!

2013-02-16T02:00:37Z

Very, very, very briefly, because I have been up for a long, long time, and I finally just got home, where I soon will be enjoying my pyjamas and some good Mexican takeout, and very shortly thereafter, my bed. (Hopefully for the next 12 hours or so...)

But: the surgery is over, and it went as perfectly as possible, according to Dad's surgeon, and Dad is in a beautiful room with a beautiful view, and they're taking excellent care of him. It was a long surgery, but they were able to make it as minimally invasive as possible, which is also wonderful. Pain management was an issue this afternoon/evening, and we stayed with Dad until that was settled satisfactorily, but they were finally able to sort him out, and when I left him, he was watching some wonderful-horrible show about nightmare infestations and finally dozing off for some much-needed rest.

Speaking of much-needed rest... I should get some. Thank you a thousand times for being such wonderful, supportive friends, and all for all the love and positive thoughts and healing vibes you sent today. I swear we could feel it, all day long, and it felt like the best sort of hug. &hearts

With crossed fingers and high hopes...

2013-02-15T09:01:11Z

I've been up since 3 AM and am now off to take Dad to the hospital for his surgery, because he needs to be there by 5 AM. (The surgery itself will be at 7:30.)

Today is the day, obviously, and we're going forward with all possible hope and determination for the best outcome. From all indicators, it should go well. I hope so. I very much hope so. I'm filled with an almost unshakeable uncertainty that all will be well, which means that I am either naive or an optimist--or maybe both. But I do feel certain. I'm trying to will that same feeling of calm certainty into my Dad's mind and heart right now. Any good thoughts or healing vibes or prayers or positive energy or candles or whatever you have to offer him now and in the days to come would be very much appreciated.

It'll be a long day. But in the end, I have hope that it will also be a good one.

All WILL be well.

(And a Happy belated Valentine's Day to all of you, and a million glittery kisses of thanks to pokeystar for the lovely e-card, and another million glittery kisses of thanks to imashambles for sending me such a touching note and such sparkly valentines, and another million glittery kisses to pyjamapants for sending me such an awesome box of awesome and a note that made me cry happy tears [I'm wearing the peacock socks today, PJ, for luck!], and finally, a million glittery kisses to ideserveyou for the surprise Valentine gift of a wonderful, wonderful little fluffy-angsty gem of a Mighty Boosh story, which I HIGHLY encourage you all to read and lavish with the praise it deserves: Might Have Been. Thank you, all of you, for being such wonderful friends.)

And so it begins...

2013-02-05T23:03:18Z

In which there is an update on my Dad's situation, an outpouring of gratitude, some reassuring news, lots of positive thinking, lots of reflective and thinky thinking, and the reaffirmation that although life is sometimes hard, it is also very good and beautiful, too.

I want to just start by thanking all of you profusely for your support, your condolences, your comfort, your inspiration, your good thoughts, your encouragement and perspective, your generosity, your offers of crying shoulders and listening ears, your sharing of your own stories and pain and hope in response to my last post and the news about my dad. I have always known that I am far more fortunate in my friends than a person has any right to be, but you have all made me so aware again, over this last week, that I am surrounded by wonderful, compassionate, strong, extraordinary human beings. I love you all very much, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for being there when I and my family have needed you, not only now but in so many times past. Thank you for being my friends. The privilege is mine.

I have been bowled over by the GOODNESS that people have shown to me and my family over the last week, both in real and virtual life. I have even received the encouragement of people who don't even know me, a phenomenon that blows my mind and humbles me. If there are few absolutes coming out of this last week, I am at least reaffirmed in this certainty: my faith in the essential goodness of humanity is not misplaced. I have been so supported and loved that I can't help but feel braver for it, and better able to provide the same positivity and support to my family.

In other words: thank you for helping me sparkle when I need to do it most. After I posted last week, Geography Teacher and I and my brother got together and took my parents out for a good night at Buddy's Pizza, where we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, got happy, appreciated each other's company, and I made my dad EXPLODE with laughter and giggles with a series of jokes about the bizarre choice of the phrase "rest room" as a euphemism for the toilets. Where there is humor, there's perspective and hope, yes? It felt like a good and life-affirming way to set the tone.

Now then, onto the promised update and encouraging news! Dad met with his surgeon last week. That afternoon was one of the tensest I think I've ever spent in my life, waiting for the phone to ring and not knowing whether I should be filled with hope or dread. But Dad called almost immediately afterward, and I could once again tell his mood from his tone of voice--and this time, he was audibly relieved and more optimistic.

Without going into more clinical detail than most of you probably want, I will simply say that although the news is not the absolute BEST possible result, it is not far off from it, and the prognosis is very positive. It helps that the cancer was found via a routine colonoscopy (behold, the virtue of preventative medicine and regular cancer screenings!), before there were any symptoms, because it means that it was not able to advance very far. It did permeate the mucosa--but it didn't penetrate through the intestinal wall, which means that it was contained and thus does not seem to have spread. There are plenty of ongoing tests and scans to verify this result, of course, and they will still need to operate and take part of the colon, but... it IS good news, and it's nice to already have a little victory in there, you know?

The doctors and nurses are optimistic. During the consultation with the surgeon, the nurse practitioner noticed the scar on my dad's forearm and noted that he must have had a coronary artery bypass. When he confirmed that he had, she told him, "Well, that didn't kill you, and this won't, either." If/when I ever meet this woman, I am going to give her a massive hug and make her any ice cream her heart desires, because that is EXACTLY the sort of thing my dad needs to hear. The diagnosis was naturally scary to him, both because cancer is just naturally scary and because his mother--my grandmother--died of colon cancer. But his case is NOT her case, and he learned from her misfortune; my grandmother died because she was too afraid to seek help until she had no choice, and by that time, the cancer had spread to her kidneys and heart and ultimately her brain. Had she gone for regular cancer screening like my dad, her fate might have been very different. My dad's story WILL be very different.

And now starts the hard work, of course... but after the initial shock, we're all more than up for it. As I've reminded my dad, we're Scots and therefore notoriously bloody-minded and difficult to kill. You've got to kill a Scot a hundred times before they'll die! Not long after the diagnosis last week, Dad commented that he must look like a mess on paper, with all the health issues he's had in recent years: polycystic kidney disease, third degree burns and a skin graft, a heart attack and two bouts of open-heart surgery, cataract surgery, and now colon cancer. I allowed that that was one way to look at things, but at the same time... had he considered the fact that he's been through all of those things and lived? Not just survived, but really lived? He's fit and functional and active and living a very full and happy life, and none of those things have defined him! He's been hit by a CAR and shaken it off! As I told him, being through all those things and beating them and being poised to beat other things doesn't make him unlucky--it makes him really fucking metal. He's a badass!

Yesterday, I took dad for the start of all the testing and procedures and prep. The surgery won't be until next week Friday, but there's lots to be done before that. Yesterday's testing wasn't too onerous, though--just stressful and time consuming. But it was, oddly enough, not a bad experience at all. I took him to the hospital where I spent a significant chunk of my own sickly childhood (a facet of my personal history that I tend to forget), now a massive, sprawling neo-Gothic castle of medicine, with shiny new wings of modernism grafted on here and there. It is so beautiful and shiny and posh inside now that it was like stepping straight into an episode of House (TRY OUR MASALA-SPICED ROASTED COD, read one of the cafeteria posters, looking more like a slick restaurant ad), but I was equally struck by how warm and cheerful and human and vital it felt there. It's a place that pulses with humanity in every direction, flowing through its corridors and waiting rooms and cafeteria lines, and for all that each person's head and heart must be filled with fears and worries of their own, their faces were smiling, and there was a lot of kindness on display, both from staff and fellow visitors. It's not a place where people go to die, but to live.

I met and observed so many terribly interesting people while I was there, both with Dad and while I was waiting for him. I met an 88-year-old veteran of World War II, who'd enlisted when he was only 18 and now, 70 years later, has survived to see the world change in remarkable ways. (For the better, he thinks.) I met quite possibly the most adorable little girl on the planet, all filled with bright brilliance and joy and giggles and squeals of pure delight, dressed all in pink, with sparkly boots and her kitty cat hat pulled down over her face so that her mother had to talk her through wherever they were going ("Go forward... stop, now go left..."). Her squeaks and laughter made everybody in the waiting room smile. I met a woman who's rescued countless dogs who have needed her over the years, and I met the Hospital Dog, a beautiful and sweet Golden Lab called (appropriately) Hope, who cast a kind of magic over the waiting room crowd. A group of people who had been waiting in their own little bubbles of anxiety all afternoon were suddenly all smiles, eager to tell each other about their own pets.

Both Dad and I left the place feeling strangely uplifted by the experience. I felt so full of a nameless wonder and gratitude and happiness that I felt almost like it would explode out of me, like it was too big to be contained inside me. I half-expected to burst into tears, but instead I found myself grinning at everybody, wondering if they even realize that they're each remarkable.

Afterward, we headed to lunch, because Dad had had to fast for hours before the test. I wanted it to be a GOOD lunch, so we went out for Italian (one of his favorites, and mine) and had a hell of a meal, complete with good service and good wine and good food and good coffee and dessert afterward, just enjoying being with each other and feeling happy to be alive. I talked about writing, and Dad listened, and I think he understood just a little better than he had before. He looked contented and more relaxed, and he admitted that he feels very positive and empowered now, and once again, I had that feeling that my heart might burst. I'm proud of him and the way he's handling this. He's doing everything he can to set himself up for success.

It was a good day, and it is a good life, and it will continue to be a good life, and maybe we'll all appreciate that just a little bit more now than we did before. I know there will come some days when I'll need to remind myself and others of that, but I am always grateful for days like that one. Those are the moments we live for, aren't they?

And on another note entirely, I just want to thank whatever guardian angels or fortunately aligned stars conspired to bring about a photoshoot of Noel Fielding dressed up like Ziggy Stardust and Brian Eno and other godfathers of glam on a week when I most needed the distraction! I'm not really a narcissist, but the timing on that, combining two of my very favorite things in the world... well, it's almost enough to make me think that somebody's looking out for my interests. ;)

Hugs and love and glittery kisses to all who need or want them!

Merry and Bright

2012-12-27T20:39:31Z

A belated happy holidays to all my wonderful flist! I'm sorry for being so absent. The end of semester and the demands of the season really caught up with me. But I had an excellent holiday (as I hope all of you did as well), and here are some of the reasons why:

*The week before Christmas, Geography Teacher and I went up to spend the day in Frankenmuth, Christmas shopping and enjoying the atmosphere--and picking up the custom wool quilt I'd ordered from the Frankenuth Woolen Mill a few months ago. The service at the Woolen Mill was great ("Oh, it's you! I'll just get it for you right now," the woman at the counter said when we walked in.), and the quilt itself is just exactly what I'd hoped for--so beautiful and colorful! I know I chose all the fabrics and notions myself, but they really brought it together into exactly what I'd envisioned. The top is covered in a painty-looking fabric that appears to be alternating stripes of pencil and watercolors in shades of hot pink, lime green, electric blue, and a vivid purple, against a white background. The reverse is a rich ombre fabric in a million or so shades of purple. And the whole thing is brought together with variegated yarn ties that incorporate just about every color of the rainbow. And it's warm, too! While we were there, I also spotted the perfect Christmas tree ornament to represent the memory of my Aunt Jean (a little woolen Siamese cat), so I picked that up, too.

The rest of the day was equally wonderful, despite yucky rainy weather. I got to flap around Frankenmuth in a cape, we picked up some great Christmas presents, got some fudge to put out for the holidays (candy cane swirl, turtle, butter pecan, and dark caramel sea salt), and enjoyed all the holiday displays. We did have to wait in line for an hour at Zehnder's for dinner, but the experience was totally worth it; everything was beautiful, the people in line were good-humored about the wait, and while we waited, there was a very real sort of Santa Claus (real beard, infinitely patient and gentle and kind) visiting by the fireplace with the little ones. And the dinner itself made up for the wait, especially with the hot mulled wine that accompanied it.

It was the perfect experience to kick off Christmas week, and it filled me with holiday cheer through all the last-minute prep that followed. I think we might make that a tradition!

*After a more or less dry winter last year, and virtually no snow at all this winter? We got a truly white Christmas! It came out of nowhere on Christmas Eve, several inches of snow, and it couldn’t have looked more perfectly CHRISTMAS outside. (Of course, that got followed by a Boxing Day blizzard that brought much more than an atmospheric amount of snow, but that's another story.)

*Everything looked beautiful inside, too. Candles and lights and ribbons and tree and lots and LOTS of glitter! (Pictures coming soon.) There is just something magical about the world when all those things are together and the lights are shining and the fire is waning and the candles are at a low, contented glow. If I could bottle that sight and feeling, I would. Thank you, also, to everybody who sent beautiful Christmas cards, because I put them all up on the wall and made a collage out of them. Every time I look at the cards, I think of the lovely people who sent them and feel thankful to have their friendship.

*Yummy food. Lots and lots and lots of yummy food. I made fresh spinach and cheese stuffed shells with vodka sauce for dinner on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day featured glazed ham with all the trimmings (garlic mashed potatoes, French beans with toasted almonds, sweet potato casserole, fresh bread), and on Christmas Morning, I made these amazing almond-y Stollen muffins for breakfast. (They are not like a traditional Stollen per se, but they are loaded with marzipan and taste absolutely divine. I'm thinking this is a new tradition in the making.) In between all of that, there’s been roughly a billion different types of nibbles and cheeses (olives, dry-cured salami, roasted peppers with garlic, smoked blue cheese) and cookies and candies and goodies and fruit. I tried my hand at candy-making for the first time this year and had toasted coconut truffles and a chocolate-topped almond-pecan toffee to show for my work, along with rum balls, cherry gems, and candy cane chocolate chip cookies. I'm happy to report that they were all a success!

*The Kraken Rum. I had never had the stuff before, but I'd heard good things about it, and the bottle design and art sold me, because sometimes I actually am that shallow. *g* Fortunately for me, it is AMAZING. It is fantastic by itself, with coffee, with eggnog, with warm apple cider… I think it might actually be good with everything on the planet. And it warms you right up, from the inside out, as any good winter spirit should. And did I mention that the bottle looks cool? And every time one of us needed a top-up on our drinks, we just bellowed, “RELEASE THE KRAKEN!” (Who am I kidding? I'd have bought it for that alone.)

*My aunt put scratch-off lotto tickets into everybody’s card for a bit of fun and a laugh, and I WON FIFTY DOLLARS. :D Nobody else got a match, and I got four of them! I also somehow managed to get the only Christmas cracker out of the whole bunch that had a piece of jewelry (a ring) rather than a little animal toy, and a different color of crown--green, as opposed to yellow. My brother joked that it had somehow magically changed to better flatter my coloring. ;)

*Everybody seems to genuinely love all the presents they got, which thrills me. It seems as though we all put a lot of thoughtfulness into these gifts for each other, and the result is that we are not only all very happy with what we've received, but also deeply gratified with the ability to make each other happy. As somebody who loves giving presents, this is perhaps the best gift of all.

*My dad has disliked dancing for forever and feels awkward about everything related to it, but he knows that my mom loves ballroom dancing… so he arranged for them to have ballroom dance lessons together as a couple, and they’re going to go out and buy nice dancing clothes together and make a regular thing of it. They'll have been married for 38 years this year, and I love that they’re still this adorable together. I can only hope for the same level of delight in each other when I reach the same point. (I hope I do.)

*I had a chance to show off gifts from two INCREDIBLY talented and generous friends! I got to wear my gorgeous beaded necklace from ideserveyou, and both Geography Teacher and I got to model our new beautiful (and warm and cozy!) scarves from kristinagrey. (Geography Teacher's is a nice, subdued loden green, in keeping with his usual "forest casual" color scheme, and mine is all variegated purples and blues, in a color palette that's called--appropriately!--"Luxury.") They were universally admired, which also gave me a great excuse to talk up my terrific friends and their skills. Pictures will be forthcoming in the next post, so you can all admire their handiwork and generosity, too!

*I wore a leopard-print santa hat with glitter fur all Christmas day, and also socks with glittery figure-skating santas on.

*I got lots of clothes and scarves. And nearly every item of clothing I got is glittery or studded or sequined in some way.

*I also received a glittery peacock feather top. It is so perfect for me that I can hardly believe it is a real thing that exists.

*Also: the world's most wonderful and ridiculous array of slipper socks and feather socks and fun, warm winter socks. Some of them have pom poms. Some are metallic and glittery. Others have all the colors of the rainbow. They're all comfortable and warm and fun, and they make me smile.

*I also got a poncho. It’s blue and black and white, and I love it kind of a lot.

*Geography Teacher wins the gold star for best presents, which included both a stunning Andy Warhol cat-themed address book (with all the artwork drawn from his 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy book) and a Warhol print to be framed for the master bedroom, but also a replica of the short black faux-fur coat that Noel Fielding has worn numerous times on Never Mind the Buzzcocks! It is honestly gorgeous, and I love it to pieces, and it has already been much admired. The gift also included a super-long, lacy, frilly, utterly soft and wonderfully glittery red boa scarf. The entire effect is ridiculously glam rock, and I love it.

*We watched the Doctor Who Christmas Special together and loved every single second of it. I will not go into great detail here, because I know there are some people who have yet to see it, but it was pretty close to perfect. I loved all the homages and blended influences, the period setting was delightful, the characters and acting were even more delightful, and it gave me massive amounts of FEELS, as the Tumblr set might say. I completely adore Jenna Louise Coleman already; not only is she a firecracker, but she's shrewd and mysterious and immensely clever and charming and whimsical, without ever being gratingly precocious or overbearing. Yes, there is a great brain there, and great determination and tenacity, but there is also immense heart and insatiable curiosity. I like it. She challenges the Doctor in very good ways and defies his expectations, and it was beautiful to watch him becoming enchanted with her, against his determination to remain aloof from the world and thus safe from further pain.

And on another note, I thought it was a very visually beautiful episode, too. I'm more than a bit in love with the image of that spiral stairway to the stars!

So that was a fairly spectacular Christmas in every respect, and I was looking forward to a bit of early shopping and lunch with Bluey Mom on Boxing Day, followed by copious amounts of lazing around. Snow had been forecast, but when nary a flake had shown up by the time Bluey Mom and I had snapped up all our discount wrapping and holiday cards and other deals, I was ready to write the whole thing off as typical weatherman exaggeration.

And then it started to fall. And fall. And really, REALLY fall, like we were trapped in the middle of a snow globe, or some Hollywood set for a Christmas film. We stopped for a yummy early lunch of Chinese (during which I encountered THE COOLEST SODA MACHINE EVER--like being in the future!), and by the time we'd finished, several inches of snow had fallen! We both made it back home, crawling all the way, and hunkered down to ride out the Boxing Day Blizzard, which ended up dumping at least 8 inches of snow on us.

We woke up to a glittering, white, diamond-dusted world this morning, and just finished digging out the important stuff not long ago. ("Sexy Lumberjack" is totally the correct look for show shoveling, right?) But it seems like the perfect excuse to huddle inside with blankets and a fire and holiday leftovers and hot chocolate.

And maybe to sculpt some Booshy snowmen. *g* But that's another project for another day...

P.S. My fortune cookie from yesterday's lunch read, "You are a lover of words. You should write a book someday." Bluey Mom and I both smiled over that one. A lot.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2012-11-23T03:43:31Z

I wish a very Happy (if slightly belated) Thanksgiving to all my American flisters! I hope that you all had many reasons to feel thankful, and wonderful, bountiful days. And I hope all the rest of you had wonderful Thursdays. ~sends love, hugs, and glittery smooches~

As for me, I am grateful for so very many things this year--too many to list here, because if I start, I'll never stop. But right at the moment, I am very grateful that my epic plans for the Epic Thanksgiving of Epicness (which is to say, my first time hosting a Thanksgiving for my family AND Geography Teacher's family, which is not a small number of people) all went well, and everybody got along well, and the food tasted and looked good and was on time, and just... anything that could go well did, aside from the ending to the Lions game. (We will not speak of that.) We had glorious, 60-degree, sunshiney weather. I did not have a single Barbecue Breakdown. My brother brought over some of his more exotic world percussion instruments and kept Geography Teacher's nieces and nephews occupied with an impromptu drum circle. I got plenty of help and understanding in the kitchen, and everybody pitched in to make things go smoothly. It was a totally Norman Rockwell kind of day... you know, if Normal Rockwell's families were blasting the Rolling Stones while smoking their 22-pound turkey in a fire-engine-red smoker out in their driveways. ;)

And now the dishes are done and the doggie bags dispatched and the guests hugged and on their merry ways and the fridge is groaning at full capacity with leftovers galore. And my garage smells like a barbecue joint. But it was a beautiful, beautiful time, and worth every minute of it. Tomorrow, I'll be up early for shopping and coffee and fun times with my mom and Geography Teacher's mom and sisters. And that will be fun, too. But for right now, I want to savor this moment of pure contentment.

And what was on the menu?

Assorted cheeses and crackers, prosciutto, figs, dates, pears, and satsumas
Balsamic-glazed Cippolini onions
Spicy marinated olives

Mixed Field Greens with Candied Pecans and Pomegranate Vinaigrette
Cider-brined Smoked Turkey
Cranberry-Apple Chutney
Cornbread-Ciabatta Stuffing with Fresh Herbs
Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
Smoky Gratin of Brussels Sprouts and Pearl Onions
Sweet Potato Souffle
Bakery rolls and butter molded in the shape of a turkey. (Just because.)

Pumpkin Crunch Layer Cake with Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Icing
Dutch Apple Pie
Homemade Salty Caramel Ice Cream

Coffee, tea, cranberry ginger ale, craft beers, and a really, REALLY nice Chilean Pinot Noir that I will be getting again

Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all a good night! And a good weekend beyond, too. &hearts

Taken from everybody...

2012-09-24T18:09:22Z

Bold the ones you have and use at least once a year, italicize the ones you have and don't use, strike through the ones you have had but got rid of.

I wonder how many pasta machines, breadmakers, juicers, blenders, deep fat fryers, egg boilers, melon ballers, sandwich makers, pastry brushes, cheese boards, cheese knives, electric woks, miniature salad spinners, griddle pans, meat thermometers, jam funnels, filleting knives, egg poachers, cake stands, garlic crushers, martini glasses, tea strainers, bamboo steamers, pizza stones, coffee grinders, milk frothers, piping bags, banana stands, fluted pastry wheels, tagine dishes, conical strainers, rice cookers, steam cookers, pressure cookers, slow cookers, spaetzle makers, cookie presses, gravy strainers, double boilers (bains marie), sukiyaki stoves, ice cream makers, fondue sets, healthy-grills, home smokers, tempura sets, tortilla presses, electric whisks, cherry stoners, sugar thermometers, food processors, bacon presses, bacon slicers, mouli mills, cake testers, pestle-and-mortars, and sets of kebab skewers languish dustily at the back of the nation's cupboards.

Generally speaking, I don't buy gear that I'm not going to use, so if it's in my cupboards or on my countertop, it's going to see a lot of use. When I think something is overly specialized and I can perform the same function myself with something I already have (like an egg separator, or a double-boiler), then I don't bother buying it. I stone cherries by hand, I use a bamboo skewer to test a cake for doneness, and I cook rice on the stovetop.

One of my very favorite and most frequently used gadgets isn't listed here, though: an immersion blender. Mine has different attachments, has worked like a beast for a long time without ever once balking, and makes almost everything easier, from whipped cream to pureed soups to salad dressing and beyond. It's the single tool I would most recommend for a tiny kitchen, because it does a lot with a little and takes up so little space.

Of the rest of the list, I have to say that I'd love a tagine. I have a recipe for a lamb tagine that is massively time-consuming to do properly and yet worth every single second of the fussing. I make it in a dutch oven now, but to actually make it in the vessel it was designed for would be a treat...

House Meme!

2012-09-19T21:48:35Z

A real update is overdue (and forthcoming), but today is the second time in three days that I've woken up with a lingering migraine and nausea, so I am afraid my poor abused brain is really not in a very compositional space right now. ~sigh~ This aching-head-and-nausea business is getting a bit old. I hope it doesn't last for much longer. I haven't had this many headaches since I was a teenager and filled with crazy, raging hormones.

Anyway. In the meantime, I picked up this house meme from dear pokeystar, and it was fun, so here we go!

1. What kind of soap is in your bathtub right now?

Um... "Vanilla-tini" and "Strawberry Sparkler" for me. "Noir" is his.

2. Do you have any watermelon in your refrigerator?

Weirdly, yes. Somebody gave us a gigantic watermelon, and we're working on it, but I think I'm going to have to turn the rest into sorbet. Who can eat that much watermelon?

3. Is there anything mouldy in your refrigerator?

Not that I know of. At least, not anything that isn't supposed to have some sort of culture...

4. What would you change about your living room?

Well, that's one of the rooms that I'm about to redo, so... a lot! Specifically, the icky carpet needs to be pulled out and the wood floor beneath refinished (I already have a new area rug), the walls will be repainted in a different color scheme, new art on the walls, and some new pillows/accessories to augment what's there.

5. Are the dishes in your dishwasher clean or dirty?

I don't have a dishwasher! So my dishes are pretty much always clean.

6. Do you have a can of mushrooms in your pantry?

No. That's kind of a weirdly specific question.

7. White or wheat/brown bread?

Sesame semolina bread, torta buns, and whole-grain bread with millet.

8. What is on top of your refrigerator?

An aloe vera plant, plant food, paper plates, plastic cutlery, a basket in the shape of Michigan (filled with fruit and nut bars), and a gigantic box of Pop-Tarts.

9. What colour is your sofa?

The leather one is a very dark black/brown, and the fabric one is sort of a sage green, with shimmery dots.

10. What colour or design is on your shower curtain?

Shiny silver, with sequins on it.

11. How many plants are in your home?

Only one, which is an aloe vera plant that the cats have no interest in eating. Otherwise, all my plants are of the outdoors variety, because the cats are too tempted to snack on anything indoors.

12. How many candles are in your home?

Oh, a lot. Considering that there are eight in my bedroom alone and fifteen in the family room... yeah, there are a lot of candles. I really like candles.

13. Is your bed made right now?

...No. But cats are sleeping in it, and I couldn't disturb them!

14. If you have a coffee pot, what colour is it?

The coffeemaker is black. The pot is glass, with a black handle.

15. Electric or standard can opener?

Standard. I've never had an electric one.

16. Comet or Soft Scrub?

Soft Scrub.

17. Is your closet organized?

For the most part, but it is crammed to the gills. It's time to go through it again and put together a donation bag of things that are in good shape but don't get worn enough.

18. What colour is the flashlight that you use the most?

Bright blue.

19. What kinds of things are in your junk drawer?

Chip clips, birthday candles, twist ties, a billion different takeout menus, tape measure, light bulbs, address book, business cards...

20. Do you drink out of glass or plastic most of the time at home?

Plastic for every day, glass for the nice occasions.

21. Do you have iced tea made in a pitcher right now?

No. I have pink lemonade, though.

22. If you have a garage, is it cluttered?

It... sort of is, but it's much better now, particularly since the dejunking and selling of stuff at my aunt's garage sale last weekend.

23. Curtains or blinds?

Blinds everywhere, except the bathrooms and the living room. I don't do drapes--too heavy, too prone to collecting dust, too formal. I like a lot of light in a room, and not much of anything getting in the way of that. I have a few valances, just for visual interest and to make things less stark, but have no need for more than that.

24. How many pillows do you sleep with?

...Five. ~shifty eyes~

25. Do you sleep with any lights on at night?

Yes. I can't stand full darkness; it totally creeps me out. I have this skull night light to help.

26. How many ceiling fans are in your home?

One.

27. How often do you hoover?

Once a week... ish.

28. What colour is your toothbrush?

The electric one is purple, and the other is hot pink.

29. Do you have a welcome mat on your front porch?

Yes!

30. What is in your oven right now?

Bakerella's Chocolate Chunk Muffins. (All keladry_lupin's fault! Thanks, Kel. &hearts)

31. Is your microwave clean or dirty?

Not as clean as it should be, probably, but it's not especially dirty, either.

32. Is there anything under your bed?

Just the occasional cat. And some assorted cold-weather shoes that don't see a lot of wear.

33. Chore you hate doing the most?

Cleaning.

34. What retro items are in your home?

Aside from my clothes and accessories? Picture frames, some chairs and tables that I've inherited from various relatives, from various periods. I do have some vintage salt and pepper shakers, and a lot of other things from my grandmother that fall firmly into the retro-kitsch category. My favorite is a picture of a peacock that she had up for years and years, all covered over with metal and "jewels." And then there's my basement, which... is pretty much entirely retro-kitsch and swinging sixties, yeah, including the turquoise wet bar in the corner, and the vintage lounge and bar signs. Oh, and the giant martini glass; I don't even know where that came from.

35. Do you have a separate room that you use as an office?

Yes, although truthfully, it all creeps into my bedroom. And sometimes the kitchen and family room.

36. If you have a yard, who mows it?

Me, Geography Teacher, and sometimes my brother. Not all at once. Alternately, you know.

37. Is there anything on your kitchen floor right now?

Two laundry baskets (nested in each other), a big bag of cat food, and a chef's mat in the cooking area.

38. How many mirrors are in your home?

14, not counting hand or vanity mirrors. ~hides~ That makes me sound horribly vain, but I swear that part of it is because I have mirrored closet doors!

Yeah, that doesn't really sound less vain, does it?

39. Do you have any hidden emergency money around your home?

Yes.

40. What colour are your walls?

Which room? I have lots of different colors! The kitchen is yellow, the half-bath is blue, the guest bedroom is purple, the family room is green. My bedroom is currently kind of a taupe-y beige (...I know, I know. It's not very me. What can I say? I was going through my sensible phase then), but I'm about to repaint it to a very pale, glow-y sort of pink called "Candy Mix."

41. Which rooms in your house have wallpaper?

None of them have full-on wallpaper. The kitchen and master bedroom have a little border as an accent only, but the bedroom one is going to bite the dust soon, when I repaint.

42. Do you have a peephole in your front door?

Yes. Though I don't think it's all that helpful, given that the front door is right next to a giant picture window...

43. Do you keep any kind of protection weapons in your home?

No. I don't think a Leatherman tool that I barely know how to use really counts.

44. What does your home smell like right now?

The Sticky Toffee Pudding-scented candle I've been burning. And the muffins in the oven. Mmmmmm.

45. Favourite candle scent?

Mmmm, everything except for really dusty florals or anything aquatic or grassy. Vanilla, sandalwood, anything food-related, coffee, fruits--all good.

46. What kind of pickles (if any) are in your refrigerator right now?

Garlicky sour dills (my favorite), Wickles half-sour pickles (also good), sweet hots (ew, but Geography Teacher likes them).

47. Who are in the pictures you displayed?

Family, friends, pets. Random people I photographed in Paris.

48. What cE43. Do you keep any kind of protection weapons in your home?

No. I don't think a Leatherman tool that I barely know how to use really counts.

4olour is your favourite bible?

I don't even understand what this question is asking. That seems like a very strange way to judge the merits of a bible?

49. Do you have plenty of cabinet space in your kitchen?

I do, which is one of the things I really love about this kitchen. But that's not to say that I haven't filled it all. *g*

50. Ever been on your roof?

Nope.

51. Do you own a stereo?

Yes.

52. How many TVs do you have?

Three.

53. How many house phones?

One landline with a bunch of handsets, though I'm on the verge of getting rid of it. And one cell phone.

54. Do you have a housekeeper?

No. To be honest, it's not a concept that appeals to me much, as boring as I find cleaning. It would just never occur to me to pay somebody else to do it, at least right now, but I suppose that might change depending on where I am in life someday.

55. What style do you decorate in?

When possible: an eclectic mix of quirky vintage details and bold, theatrical, colorful, Pop Art-influenced modern, with a healthy dash of glam and rock 'n' roll. I have a vintage Queen Anne-style ladies chair that I want to have redone with black-painted wood and zebra print upholstery, which I think summarizes my taste pretty well. ;-)

56. Do you like solid colours in furniture or prints?

Solids definitely have their place, because patterns lose their impact without a contrast... but I am totally a print sort of girl, and I'm not afraid to mix them.

57. Is there a smoke detector in your home?

Yes. With batteries and everything.

58. In case of fire, what are the items you would grab if you only could make one quick trip?

Assuming people and cats are safe (and they aren't items anyway...), I'd grab my laptop, iPod, Kindle, camera, photo albums, a few treasured books. I admit that I'd be tempted to grab jewelry and accessories, but not at the risk of burns and smoke inhalation!

59. Do you know how to work your electrical box?

Er... a little bit, but not much.

60. What temperature in your home is most comfortable to you?

Th house is comfortable up to about 76-77 degrees or so; beyond that, it gets stifling and hard to breathe, especially if it's humid. But whether it's winter or summer, I can't tolerate temps under about 71. I get chilled VERY fast, and then I can't warm up, so... yeah, not energy efficient, but necessary to keep Bluey from actually turning Blue.

Of teaching and gardening and glittery boots...

2012-09-01T16:34:50Z

(Insert all usual apologies for taking so long in between real updates here.)

The first two weeks of teaching are history now for both me and Geography Teacher, and we celebrated surviving the first week last Friday night by going out to Luigi's on the lake, so we could relax with a drink and some yummy Italian food and enjoy a sunset so gorgeous that it looked like it had been painted in the sky. Luigi's is one of my favorite places; it's tiny and dark and unpretentious and comfortingly old and crammed full of happy boaters, and the food is obscenely yummy. And needless to say, the company was second to none. ;-)

Aside from the standard sort of start-of-semester bobbles and irritants, it's all gone VERY well. I am pleased! The retirement of one particularly grumpy and toxic colleague has had a positive impact on the entire department, or so it feels, and this year's crop of new grad students includes some very cool, funny, intelligent, promising souls. I also baked a bunch of different varieties of cookies before start-up week, so that both Geography Teacher and I could bring in some treats for the long-suffering admins (the first weeks of the semester are always brutal on them, and we'd be lost without them), and those seem to have gone over well. (Maybe a bit too well! The admins gave me a card and a gift certificate for a local funky jewelry/clothing boutique, which is incredibly kind of them, but also not at all expected. How do you respond when somebody gives you a thank you gift for your thank you gift?)

It also feels like I have some very good groups this year. That is, of course, based on the early days, and time will tell, but... yes. Good. I am happiest that I was able to very successfully incorporate an episode of Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy into some of the intro lectures! I wanted to get students, especially new students and non-English majors, to think about interpreting/analyzing art, and letting go of the idea of there being one single right answer, and of the way even artists can be surprised to discover what's embedded in their own work, and the ways in which art comes to life when we interact with it, and... well, I don't need to explain it to all of you; you know. *g* It inspired a lot of laughter, a LOT of good thinking and discussion (which has carried through to the following classes), and a little bit of uneasiness, which is I think exactly what I'd hoped for. It was really not what they expected, which I think can only be counted as a success. Whether the lessons stick remains to be seen, but I feel like it was an effective primer for the sort of thinking I want to encourage (that is, don't be afraid of the weird stuff, keep an open mind, just dig in and give it a try), and it definitely encouraged more widespread participation and discussion.

So that's good. The whole summer was good, too. The longest, hottest, driest, sunniest summer I can remember in a very long time--but packed with good things.

The garden has bloomed gorgeously and profusely. The intense heat and sunshine of the summer means that most of the residents of the Garden of Misfit Plants flourished and bloomed in a very impressive way. The petunias are winding down now, but since they ended up a foot tall, with blooms several inches across, I don't think I can really complain. Likewise, the basket of Thousand Bells is probably nearing retirement, but only after its tendrils reached an impressive 2 and a half to 3 feet, blooming all the way. Almost everything else should keep going well into the autumn: purple-black-magenta Black Dragon Coleus, blue-violet verbena, lime and scarlet and cream and splatter-painted Wizard Mix Coleus, yellow and burgundy and cheerful pink dahlias, the tuberous begonia in all its sherbety orange-salmon-pink-coral glory. The split-off hosta that I transplanted at the start of summer has taken to the spot so well that it's actually produced a plume of new leaves and filled out the space--and for those resurrective qualities, I think it's earned the name Sherlock. ;-) (His partner, of course, is John.) It turns out that Sherlock also brought some English ivy with him, and that is also doing well. Not enough to be trellised this year, of course, but next year...

I've also made good food and eaten at great restaurants and had good times with family and friends this summer--most notably with Geography Teacher (the trip to Frankenmuth was a delight from start to finish), but with lost of other treasured people, too, which has been a joy. I had a completely delightful Fangirl Friday lunch-on-the-lake at Fishbones with clairvoyant, who is as wonderful as ever, and despite the fact that it's a New Orleans-inspired restaurant, we spent three hours nibbling sushi (I couldn't resist ordering something named the "Boom Boom Roll", for the name alone--Luxury Comedy fans will probably know why), sipping some wonderful fruity Hurricane-esque cocktails, and talking about everything. These lunches are always several hours of solid delight, and this was no exception. :D

And of course, there's been ice cream. I've made lots of ice cream for people, got lots of good feedback on it (and demand for it!), and have had a ton of fun experimenting. I made a special 13th Hour Coffee-Stout ice cream for Bluey Dad's birthday, infused with Kona coffee and swirled with a deep, spicy Imperial-style stout, and for Geography Teacher's birthday, I made a deep, deep truffley sort of dark chocolate ice cream infused with peppermint oil, like the darkest and most intense Thin Mint ever. Both were well received by the respective birthday boys!

And there have been other experiments, too, guided by the advice of the Jeni's book, and the produce available, and my own tastes and curiosity. I've made a Banana Pudding ice cream (a custardy base redolent of bananas and vanilla, layered with crumbled shortbread cookies), a Baked Peach Crumble ice cream (fresh peaches baked with brown sugar and nutmeg, then pureed and swirled into ice cream with buttermilk and Amaretto, with a ribbon of homemade oatmeal-brown sugar crisp), and a Roasted Black Cherry and Buttermilk ice cream--with fresh Michigan cherries, obviously. I've also made a chocolate, kulfi-style ice cream with toasted coconut, curry powder, and cashews folded in. (Verdict: thumbs up, even from Geography Teacher, who was equal parts intrigued and terrified by the idea. He takes the sanctity of chocolate very seriously.) And this weekend, for the Labor Day BBQ, I'm making Gravel Road ice cream, which is a salted caramel ice cream layered with smoked almonds.

The ice cream also lead to an interesting... concept, I suppose that we've been toying with. It's really just a germ of a thought right now. But it came to pass after another amazing dinner with Geography Teacher at The Union Woodshop, which has kind of become our place, despite the fact that it's a bit of a drive and often requires a two-hour wait for a table. (It's got more popularity than it can really handle, since being featured on the Food Network, but it's worth every minute of the wait for the food, service, and distinctively funky, unpretentious atmosphere--and besides, there's a bar and lounge upstairs, and a main street full of shops and Victorian-era houses to stroll.) The restaurant itself is stupendously stylish and tasty and resolutely weird; the only thing it takes seriously is the quality of food and service. (To give you an idea: dinners are served in prison-style aluminum trays, there's a quote from the Simpsons about the pig being a "magical animal" etched into a wall-sized mirror, and the last time we went there, our server was wearing a mechanic's shirt that informed us that his name was Nacho.) Everything is local and from-scratch, and they even have excellent vegetarian selections on the menu, which is a major achievement for a barbecue joint.

So we love the place and have never been less than thrilled with it, and it was no different on this night that I'm telling you about. On that particular night, we decided to try the Ice Cream Sandwich Tray for dessert, because that's the sort of thing that rotates depending on what experiments they're trying out on any given day; you never know what you'll get, so it's an adventure. That night, we got chocolate chip cookies sandwiching maple-bacon ice cream and peanut butter cookies sandwiching chocolate malt ice cream. (I'm technically allergic to peanut butter and not supposed to ever ever eat it, but I can have a little bit every now and then, shhhh, don't tell my immunologist.) They were both really delicious and clearly homemade in every respect, but I have to admit that as I was eating it, I had the thought: My ice cream is better. Creamier, silkier, more intensely flavorful, with better body. And then I felt like an idiot for thinking it, but of course it is natural to compare your own stuff against the pros; it's how you figure out how far you have to go.

I might not have ever given that a second thought, except that, as we were leaving, Geography Teacher leaned down and whispered in my ear, "Your ice cream is better."

Well. That's a bit different. And that sparked a thought, on the walk back to the car. And the thought sparked a bunch of "what ifs" and a conversation on the drive home. GT pointed out that there really is no indie ice cream shop in the area, and it's true; there's nothing else that comes even close to filling that sort of niche, even though the interest in artisanal food is extremely strong here, and there are a number of areas in Metro Detroit where that sort of shop would fit well and have a strong potential audience...

I don't know. I don't know. It's not going to happen today or anything; it's the sort of thing that requires a lot of time and thought and research and commitment in order to be successful. But it is also an idea that feels worth pursuing further, and I think I just might. It's an exciting and scary sort of thought. But it was also really, really wonderful to be able to talk about a fantasy like that with another person, and talk about ways in which we might be able to make it more than just a fantasy, and feel like it was valid and possible and real and supported and maybe even inspired. It's hard to share the scraps of your dreams with other people, but it feels so good to do it and get good feedback. It feels good to have your trust honored and rewarded. &hearts

So yeah, there's that.

Hmm, what else? In matters peacocky, I have come to that time where I have to groom my feathers, so to speak, because some of my old favorite standbys are at the point where they have to (very reluctantly) be pitched. I always develop an emotional attachment to clothes and accessories, and I tend to want to wear my favorite pieces until they are very literally full of holes and falling apart--and that's happened with a few things lately! This is always a bit sad, but at the same time, I'm looking at it as an opportunity to add some new things and refresh my look, and that is fun and exciting.

So I've lost some beloved shoes and boots, but that means I'm making way for these and these and these (in the grey and pink) and these, right? ;)

~whistles "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life"~

Right, now we're off for shopping for provisions for the weekend and the upcoming holiday BBQ, which has now been moved from Monday to tomorrow, in deference to the oncoming hurricane fallout. There will be eleventy billion things to do before then, I'm sure. Hope you're all doing well, and for those of you who are going through some rough times right now--and I know there are a number of you--please know that I am thinking about you and holding you in my heart and sending all the virtual hugs and love I have to offer.

There Will Be a Proper Update Later

2012-08-27T17:33:37Z

But in the meantime, the drizzly, mold-ridden weather has a might-be-a-migraine squeezing my brains and making me feel like I'm wearing a python for a hat. The migrainey nature is indicated by the nausea, light sensitivity, and total resistance to any of the usual treatments. Every time I sneeze or cough or clear my throat, I feel like the top of my head might blow off, and I feel vaguely sorry that it doesn't, because at least that would relieve the pressure.

Thankfully, tricky bits of teaching are done for today, because I have all the mental acuity of a ball of wet Kleenex. And Geography Teacher's classes were canceled for the day, because a power outage has his whole campus in darkness until tonight, so he had consoling things to say and will be making dinner, and I think I can look forward gratefully to being coddled. &hearts

But in the meantime, until regular and intelligent thought is restored, here, have a quiz! You have to laugh at yourself when you realize that you're taking a quiz entitled "What Kind of Scarf Are You?", but on the other hand... it feels seasonally appropriate, and the result made me smile.

You Are a Funky Scarf

You are flashy and outgoing. You love to experiment with new looks and ideas.

Sometimes you prefer form over function. You are definitely quite whimsical.

When it comes to style, you are usually a trendsetter. People envy the way you can put together a look.

You're curious about the world in general, and you're always making amazing discoveries.

What Kind of Scarf Are You?

Blogthings: We Have a Quiz for Almost Everything

Off to the Magic Land of Fudge and Christmas

2012-08-03T14:51:22Z

I meant to update before now, but it will obviously have to wait until next week. Geography Teacher and I are off up to Frankenmuth for a few days, so I'm just putting the finishing touches on packing (I really, really need to learn how to pack more efficiently) and then we are off.

I plan to have fun and loll around in the psychedelic water park and eat fudge and Zehnders chicken and come back with far too much in the way of pretty yarn and quirky accessories and peacock-themed Christmas ornaments. I think there might be something in the way of horse-drawn carriage rides and riverboat cruises, too. ;-)

Since I have no idea what the internet reception will be like at the hotel, I can't promise I'll check in this weekend. But if I seem to have disappeared, now you'll know why! I'll probably be reachable by Twitter or text, but can't promise anything else.

Please don't break the internets while I'm gone! Hugs and smooches to all of you. &hearts

Va Va... Vroom?

2012-06-26T18:09:19Z

I stumbled onto one of those amusing/silly time-wasters today, in the form of the Deluxe Pinup Maker, which allows you to recreate yourself in classic pinup girl style. It was entirely too much fun to play with all the options for customizing!

But, you wonder, what would I look like in pinup format? Well, click the cut to see.

You know, I think I like her. And before you ask: no, there weren't any options including peacock feathers. If only!

I'd kind of like to see what interpretations of themselves others might come up with, too. That always fascinates me about these things, the way our personalities and self-perception are reflected in the avatars we create for ourselves.

Ah, but that's not the most exciting thing going on in my corner of the world just lately. Not by a long shot. The most exciting thing would definitely have to be the motorcycle.

Yes. Soon-to-be-64 Bluey Dad bought himself a motorcycle. A Honda Nighthawk 750, to be exact.

And I couldn't be happier for him.

This is not my dad's first motorcycle. When he was young and in the Air Force and wore headbands and had long hair, with the sort of sideburns that would make even Noddy Holder jealous, he owned and rode bikes. For a time, in fact, motorcycles were his sole method of transportation, and I will always treasure the slightly epic story he tells about driving down from Marquette to Detroit in the middle of winter, shivering on his bike and trying to keep himself warm through the power of positive thinking and singing "Here Comes the Sun" to himself in an endless refrain. (That song will always have a very special place in my heart for that reason, as I know it does in his.)

He continued to ride right up through the early years of my parents' marriage. But when I was a very little girl, he and his brother witnessed an accident in which the driver of a motorcycle was killed in front of them. My dad wasn't riding that day--they were in a car--but he felt an impact all the same. (Even now, he and my uncle both remember that day and the incident in vivid detail, too horrible to be forgotten.) It pulled my dad up short, and it made him think about the fact that he was young, and had a little girl at home, and a wife, and he just didn't feel like it was a risk worth taking at that point in his life. So he sold his bikes, and hung up his helmet, and for 30 years, he never once rode a motorcycle. He sometimes felt the itch to ride again, that wistful impulse that always seemed a bit stronger when he'd see a particularly beautiful specimen out on the road, but he withstood it. The time wasn't right. He didn't feel ready.

But more recently, he'd felt the urge more and more frequently. And by this point in his life, he looked at the matter a bit differently. After making it through a diagnosis of congenital kidney disease, a kitchen fire, third-degree burns and a skin graft operation, a heart attack, two bouts of open-heart surgery, a radical lifestyle change that saw him lose over 80 pounds, and being struck by a car while on his bicycle... well. His perspective has shifted a bit, and he looks at life somewhat differently at the age of almost-64 than he did back then. Now, it seemed like he could let go of the fear and embrace something that gave him joy.

So Bluey Dad decided to test the waters. He enrolled in the motorcycle safety class at the nearest community college, so he could polish up his skills and decide whether the reality lived up to the memories. At any rate, he would be recertified, and he could decide what to do from that point. Besides, he reasoned, he was bound to be rusty and could use the practice.

He got perfect scores on both the written exam and the road test. After 30 years, he hadn't lost a thing, and it was just as good as he remembered. He loved every minute of it, aside from having to attend class in the middle of a scorching heat wave.

And then the fates aligned, as fates sometimes have a way of doing, and Bluey Dad came across the right listing for the right used bike at the right time from the right seller. The bike needs a little bit of TLC, but it runs beautifully, and my dad is very much looking forward to working on fixing it up to look its best.

He brought the new bike over on Sunday, in order to make the introductions, and took me for a spin around the neighborhood, which was... thrilling. And he's just so happy with it, and so proud, and I can see how much it means to him, which thrills me even more. He lights up when he's talking about it, and according to my mother, the minute he comes home every day, he takes a moment to just sit and gaze at it in admiration. *g* I'm so glad that he found the right time to do this, and I hope he loves every minute of it. This is, in a way, my dad's own Project Peacock: acknowledging a part of himself and embracing something that brings him joy. I'm very proud of him for doing that.

Here it is!

Now all that's left to do is convince Bluey Dad to get himself a flashier helmet. I mean... safe, but flashy! Besides, when it comes to motorcycles, visibility IS safety, so the flashier the better, right? ;D

Might get myself a flashy helmet, too...

Of Peacocks and Chameleons and Life and Stuff

2012-06-20T21:47:35Z

It's that Interview Meme again! You know, the one where you comment to a post, and get seven topics to discuss, and then you talk about them? And then you offer topics to people who comment to your post and ask to join in? Yeah, that meme.

The lovely karelia gave me some lovely topics to discuss, so I'm going to do that now. And if you'd like some topics of your own to discuss, just comment and let me know!

Now then... if you for some unfathomable reason missed those posts where I ramble on and on about things, you're in luck. Because this is one of those posts. Not sure if that's a warning or an enticement. ;-)

1. Peacock! - I always loved peacocks, both the birds themselves and the type of personality it's come to represent: theatrical, dramatic, proud, flamboyant, unapologetically expressive and celebratory of their own weirdness. For as long as I can remember, I've idolized peacocks. But it wasn't until just a few years ago that I realized that I myself was a peacock, and adopted it as my own personal symbol. In retrospect, the signs were obvious; when I was seven years old and the teacher asked us to draw a picture of what we wanted to be when we grew up, I said that I wanted to be famous, and I drew a picture of myself draped in feather boas, surrounded by photographers. (Ten years later, there were pictures of me all over my high school yearbook--mostly in feather boas.) I do feel like recognizing my essential peacockness was a turning point in my life, in that I finally had a firm sense of who I was and could proudly embrace it.

For me, a peacock is who I am, but peacocking itself is about more than fitting one narrow and personalized definition of the word. Peacocking isn't really about glitter jumpsuits and feather boas; underneath the glitz, it's about self-expression--about knowing who you are, and being proud of that, and embracing it, and showing it to the world, and not apologizing for who and how you are. It's about caring for and nurturing yourself, and not diminishing the importance of that self-love and enrichment. (True story: if you cultivate and embrace the weirdness in yourself, it's much easier to offer that kind of love and acceptance and support to others.) Insecure people abound, and those insecure people have a way of trying to punish people who dare to be confident and believe in themselves; learning to be a peacock means learning to recognize the judgments of insecure people for what they are--jealousy and fear--and not letting that get in the way of what you know to be of value in yourself. Not everybody wants to wear a dress made of peacock feathers, but we all have something about us that deserves to shine in a way that's true to ourselves, and I love seeing people find that self-confidence--and find themselves, in the process.

2. Life - I love life. I'm very happy to be alive. I try to live very fully, to make the most of the time I have, and I'm drawn to people with similar philosophies. That's "living fully" in the sense of being positive and being open to the universe and its strange, capricious ways--being open to new experiences, new ideas, new people, new places, new points of view. It's also about being mindful of life as you're living it, and not taking it (or all the expressions of it) for granted. It's not always easy, but I try to remind myself to live in the moment--to take note of all the beautiful and sweet moments that help us get through the less kind and beautiful ones--and to remember that I'm connected to something much larger and more meaningful than myself. For some people that means religion, and for other people that means humanity, but what it really means to me is that life is everywhere, all around, pulsing and vital--in animals and bugs and plants and trees and people who stand for everything I think is wrong and people who make the lives of others immeasurably better simply by existing. The older I get, the clearer it seems to me that we are all connected to each other, in one way or another, and I try to keep that in mind every day, and to live accordingly.

3. Writing - Like the peacocking, I think I was always a writer, and just didn't realize it until I was an adult. Or rather, I didn't realize that there was much value in my writing, outside of an academic context. I still boggle a bit at the thought that there are people who have any interest in hearing me write about anything else, but I couldn't stop doing it if I tried. Long before I starting putting the words down, I was putting them together in my head, building stories and exploring concepts and recording all the things I saw and noticed and putting them in my mental Writing Box for possible future use--an image, a turn of phrase, a concept, a constellation of character traits. I didn't know what I was saving them for, but I knew that I had to save them. I was always narrating things in my head, immersing myself in stories and then picking them apart, wondering what if and speculating about how they might be different IF. I saw narrative arcs in almost everything, and to be perfectly honest, I still do. If you know me, you know that I'm an insufferable chatterbox, and writing for me is the purest expression of that trait. I can't not think about things, and when I think about things, I write about them, sooner or later. I couldn't stop up the words, not if I tried. I think I would explode into a million shards, and every one of them would be written over with words and words and words.

4. Michigan - I do love Michigan. It's a complicated sort of love, because there is also a very long list of things that I dislike about living here (mayflies, stubborn resistance to change, ridiculous humidity, the even more ridiculous and incompetent Republicans in our state house at the moment), but the good things outweigh the bad, and although I have traveled to a number of places, I have spent more of my life here than I have anyplace else. It's a deep bond. There are lots of things I love about Michigan: cherries and apples and fudge and coney dogs and pasties and Detroit-style pizza and paczki, Red Wings hockey and Tigers baseball, the sound of Ernie Harwell's voice, the ability to pop over to Canada for lunch, the funky and artsy character of Midtown, the spectacle of Greektown, the historic churches that are as aesthetically beautiful as they are profoundly weird, the awe-inspiring rush of Tahquamenon Falls, the dense, dark fortress of pines and hemlocks in the Upper Peninsula, the frothy and frilly beauty of the lilacs on Mackinac Island, the thrill of being suspended above all that deep blue water as you're trapped between two peninsulas, the glittering rosy-gold sunset on the lake that I grew up near, the riot of flowers that lines Frankenmuth in the summer, the defiant and unpretentious character of the people here, the "fuck you, I don't need your rules" punk rock attitude that nurtured a music scene and reverberates here still, the offbeat funkiness of places like East Lansing and Ann Arbor and Royal Oak and Ferndale.

I love all of that, and more, about Michigan. It's not a perfect place. But that doesn't make me love it less.

5. Music - I love music. I need music. I crave music. Music while I drive, music while I'm writing, music while I'm exercising, music playing in my head when I wake up in the morning and when I go to sleep at night. When I cook things, I sing. When I fold laundry, I sing. When I clean the house, I sing. When I go out in public places, I judge how pleasant I find them based on the quality of the music that they're playing. I will pick out the wispiest, tinniest thread of music over the public address system, and if it's good, my body will start dancing and moving to the beat just a little bit, without my having given it permission, so that I'll be standing in the grocery store and swaying my hips just a little bit in time with the Rolling Stones.

I have no ability to play a musical instrument myself, and this might well have something to do with my total stupidity when it comes to math and math-related pursuits, including music theory, but I do like to sing and dance and strut and lose myself in the music, and I can't imagine a life without it.

6. Gay bushes - When I say that I have a pair of gay holly bushes, I actually mean exactly that: holly bushes usually come in pairs, and mine just happen to be gay. By that, I mean that, while landscapers usually plant holly bushes in male/female pairings, so that they can produce berries, I happen to have two male bushes in my garden. So although they do their best every year and bloom up a storm and love each other very much, they're not going to produce any berries of their own that way. They are both beautiful bushes, however, and they do very well together, and I could never, ever dream of splitting them up. Perhaps one day, when they're ready, they might consider adopting a small, red-berried bush of their own. But they certainly don't have to. And they are both looking extra-fine just lately, because Geography Teacher and I gave them summer haircuts yesterday, so they're no longer shaggy and overgrown.

7. David Bowie - If you've known me for a day or so, then you probably know that I love David Bowie. Probably because I've mentioned it. Repeatedly. *g*

I admire Bowie for a lot of reason. Obviously, I adore his music, and his fashion sense, and his stagecraft, and his embrace of spectacle and weirdness and things that challenge your perception (of self and identity, of gender, of sexuality, of happiness, of consciousness, of music, of the future). But I also love him for being unapologetically intelligent, for sandwiching terrifying sci-fi short stories and fantasy ballads and philosophical ponderings in between the kind of irresistibly catchy anthems that get everybody dancing and singing along, even if they haven't quite picked up on all the nuances of the lyrics. (Sneaky, Bowie, very sneaky! Philosophy by stealth! Don't think I don't see all that Nietzsche in The Man Who Sold the World.) I love that he was able to put together an album like Ziggy Stardust, which is, despite the dystopian future it paints and the themes of alienation and space, a profoundly humane album that has love all in between the cracks--in the bright-eyed optimism of Starman, and the achingly fond tribute of Lady Stardust, and the world-embracing, oddly life-affirming anthem that closes it out, Rock 'n' Roll Suicide. ("You're not alone!" Bowie assures all the world-weary souls. "Give me your hands, 'cause you're wonderful!" It was inspired by Jacques Brel's Jef, but I find Bowie's take to be the more inspiring for being directed to humanity, and not only to one man.)

One of the things I love best about Bowie, and that I find most inspiring about him, is his refusal to be easily defined--that restless, chameleonic creativity that is always exploring, always reinventing, always redefining, always trying out look after look and sound after sound, while still retaining his essential distinctive Bowie-ness. (It's all spelled right out there in "Changes," a song that always resonated with me and has come to be one of my personal anthems.) There are people who dismiss that sort of reinvention as the mark of the shallow dilettante, but I couldn't disagree more. I like people who are constantly challenging themselves and evolving and adapting and growing. Why be limited to one thing? I'd rather be like Bowie and try on a million looks, taking the bits and the pieces along the way that make me who I am.

Blast from the Past

2012-06-19T14:25:47Z

Quiz stolen from the marvelous Dicky and kellychambliss.

I think mundungus42 and clairvoyant will know EXACTLY why I found this result so amusing. *g* You see, when I was a little Bluey, I idolized Wonder Woman. Quite a lot. To perhaps, say, the extent of owning the Wonder Woman Underoos costume and leaping around on my bed while wearing it. How I imagined I was fighting crime that way, I have no idea. But I'm sure I looked fabulous. ;-)

Your results:
You are Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman		85%
Superman		70%
Spider-Man		70%
Robin		65%
Catwoman		65%
Supergirl		60%
Green Lantern		55%
Iron Man		55%
The Flash		45%
Batman		35%
Hulk		20%

You are a beautiful princess
with great strength of character.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero am I?" quiz...

Happiness is...

2012-06-03T20:21:54Z

... waking up to a filthy sinus migraine and the reality of a house without coffee... and then having your Knight in Shining Cardigan bring you both a giant, freshly-brewed coffee, and a healthy supply of coffee beans for later, because caffeine is the only thing that really helps. (Thanks, Geography Teacher. &hearts)

...having wonderful and treasured friends who are there for you when you're most in need of comforting and a shoulder to cry on. This goes double for those friends who would even brave Universal Studios theme park in the middle of July, just to make you smile. (Thanks, sc010f, and all of you who offered good thoughts and support this weekend. &hearts)

...blue skies and sunshine and marshmallow fluff clouds and pleasingly warm, benevolent temperatures.

...poking around in the garden and seeing that all your plants are doing well, and the flowers are flourishing, and Vince the Vine has had two extra bonus blossoms that are just opening, and the red lilies are getting ready to pop.

...having a lovely conversation with neighbors, during which they admired my garden and I admired (and made friends with) their sweet new Black Lab puppy.

...the sound of wind chimes, dancing on the breeze.

...being carded for a product that only requires you to be EIGHTEEN to buy it. This is particularly flattering when it occurs in the same week as your birthday. *g*

...receiving a coupon for a free cupcake on said birthday!

...having the great delight of reading a wonderful feature in the Free Press this morning on Patti Smith (who is back in town this weekend to open her photography show) and her personal walk-through of the Detroit Institute of Arts. It makes me wish for a virtual Patti Smith to accompany me on my own visits to the museum! Her unpretentious joy and insight and enthusiasm and wit and thoughtfulness are beautiful, and a welcome breath of fresh air in connection with art.

(There will be a more involved updating later, when brains are more fully functional and less squeezed, but in the meantime: all is well. ~smooches and hugs to all~)

More Good Things Are Happening!

2012-05-22T18:05:41Z

First of all, a thousand thanks for all the incredible kindness and good wishes on my last post, which has totally overwhelmed me, and just... thank you for being wonderful. I've always known you were excellent friends, but you continue to impress me with said excellence all the time. I don't know what I've done to deserve your friendship, but I'm so grateful it exists. &hearts

Oh, and I think I forgot to mention one other critical detail to all of you, which is that Geography Teacher is not even a little bit weirded out by fandom or fannish things. His cat is named Bellatrix, so... I suppose that detail speaks for itself. ;-)

But I have even more good news to share, because Best Friend texted me yesterday, out of the blue, saying that she was in town for some family business, and would I want to meet for lunch, even though it was short notice?

My response, of course, was a resounding HELL YES. *g* And we had an absolutely fantastic time. She had some great news to tell me, and we spent hours talking. But to fully appreciate just how awesome this all was, and how happy I was to see her, I need to fill you all in on a bit of background.

The most important thing to understand about Best Friend is that she has been wrestling with depression for some time. Within a period of about six months, as some of you might recall, she got engaged and married, moved out of the country, lost her dad, and had to cope with a horrible, invasive, emotionally abusive mother-in-law who tried to sabotage Best Friend's wedding day and then undermine her marriage. (I did not know about the attempted sabotage then. I've only just now learned the full extent of her manipulation.)

All of that would be enough to make anybody depressed, and Best Friend really was. She got to a point where she couldn't work. (She's a lawyer. The thought of going to court was suddenly overwhelming.) She didn't want to talk to anybody. She didn't want to do anything but learn how to cook and knit, because she didn't feel like she could handle anything else.

She spent most of the rest of that bad, bad time angsting about her thank you notes from her wedding.

Yeah, thank you notes. She knew she had to do them, but every time she tried, it brought back all the horrible unresolved feelings about her wedding day and her mother-in-law, so she just couldn't face it; she'd take them out and get set up to do them and then just cry and cry, because she couldn't. The longer they went undone, the more guilt got added to the heap, because then she felt like a failure for being so late. Her well-meaning mother kept calling her to remind her that she hadn't done them, and even offered to travel there so they could do them together and just get them done... but that just made Best Friend feel even more incompetent, so she judged herself even more harshly, and the cycle continued endlessly. Lather, rinse, repeat. Those silly little pieces of card stock totally became the mascot of her depression--the tangible symbol of all her feelings of failure, of being totally out of control, of being weak and helpless and unable to stand up to her mother-in-law.

She had not told me any of this. She spent the better part of a year isolating herself and feeling awful and shutting me out and pushing me away as hard as she could. After a certain point, I just... never heard from her. It was like she'd disappeared. It was like having a limb amputated; all my feelings for her--15 years worth of them--remained, but she was gone. And while I admit that a tiny part of me did wonder if I had done something wrong to make her dislike me, or if she'd made new (cooler) friends there and we'd just drifted apart, I was much, much more concerned about her being alone in a different country, away from her family, dealing with a lot of Big Stuff. I was, to be honest, worried sick about her.

I finally just started sending her texts and e-mails every now and then--not all the time, and not to pry or demand information, but just to let her know, once in a while, that I was still out there and still thought about her and still loved her very much. So I'd text her little notes like, "I thought about you today. Do you remember that time with the pigeons in Chamonix?" And I'd write her e-mails about what was going on with me, send her pictures, ask her to give my best to her family, tell her stupid jokes, tell her that I loved her and missed her. I never mentioned the fact that she never answered. I didn't want her to feel obligated to respond. As far as I could tell, the texts and e-mails were going out into some vast electronic void, or piling up in some no-longer-used e-mail inbox, or possibly even being directed into a spam folder or deleted as soon as they arrived... but they never bounced back, so I kept sending them. I wanted her to know that I cared, that I hadn't forgotten her. And of course I hoped that she'd write back one day.

And then, yesterday, she did. I do not think a word exists for the joy this gave me.

I was simultaneously ridiculously excited to see her--and strangely nervous. We've always had the sort of friendship where we could be in different places and yet always connect as though no time or geographic distance were in the way, and yet I suddenly felt a strange flicker of fear that maybe it wouldn't happen that way this time, and that maybe too much had changed.

It was a stupid worry. We recognized each other right away (she looked good and HAPPY, which made my heart happy) and tried to squeeze each other to death via enthusiastic hugging, after perhaps 30 seconds of awkwardness. It was wonderful. I'm sure we made a scene, and I don't care; it was worth it.

After we'd finished glomping, we sat down to lunch, which was lovely, and went for tea, which was also lovely, and we talked. A lot. Mostly I let Best Friend talk, because she had a lot to say, a lot that she'd been holding inside her (see: most of what I explained to you up above), a lot that she needed to get out into the air so it couldn't fester in her head anymore.

So she told me her story, including all the things I hadn't known and she hadn't been able to say. She and her husband got counseling from a very savvy therapist (and fellow MSU alum!), eventually, which is the best thing they could have done for themselves. Because of it, Best Friend has had support while working through her depression and grief, and her husband has had support as he's been wrestling to get over all the emotional scars his mother and her manipulative ways have left on him, and they've felt completely in tune with and devoted to each other as they've worked out ways to dramatically reduce Mother-in-law's ability to interfere in their lives. (They've decided it's them against the world; she has no power over them anymore.) Their marriage has never been healthier, and they're both feeling so much better, and things are looking really good for them.

And to top it all off, her husband just accepted a job offer with a practice in Lansing. Which is only, at the most, a two hour drive away. It is, of course, also where Best Friend and I first met each other all those years ago, in our second week of classes at MSU. It's very familiar and beloved territory. It's so much closer to home and family. They can see her family often. We can visit each other often. They'll have an important border between them and his mother, which means they'll feel much freer to start a family of their own. It is awfully close to an ideal outcome.

She told me all of these things, over the course of the afternoon, and I was thrilled to death: that they've had help and they're feeling better, that they've figured out emotionally healthy ways to deal with his mother, that Best Friend looks good and contented, that they're going to be HERE again soon enough, that she'd answered my text and we were together having a nice lunch and it was just like old times. I was just so happy to have her back in my life, and to know that she was okay, that I just wanted to bask in her presence all afternoon.

And then she said to me, out of the blue, "I'm sorry I'm such a shitty friend."

I was kind of stunned. And then I said that she wasn't, and I said so, and that I'd never had shitty taste in my life, so she couldn't argue with me on that point.

She laughed at that, but then she stopped and looked at me and said very seriously, "I hope you can forgive me for not sending you a thank you note. I hope you'll still be my friend."

I couldn't believe she'd actually said that, had actually feared that I'd be angry with her over something so trivial. As if I would throw away a friendship over a thank you note! As if I'd even care! I'd never be upset about that in a million years, and it certainly would never have occurred to me to be offended, particularly when all I was doing was worrying about her and her husband. And then I felt terribly sad to know how much guilt she'd been carrying, to think that she could ever believe I'd judge her or hold that against her. How could she have ever been afraid that my love for her might be conditional?

I wouldn't judge ANYBODY for that, much less my best friend.

I didn't want to be dismissive or tell her that her fears were silly, so I just told her that of course I understood, and there was nothing for me to forgive. (If anything, she needs to forgive herself; she's still at the point where it's hard for her to separate what was the fault of the disease from her own perceived sense of personal "failure.") I said that anybody who could hold a missed thank you note against her would be a failure of a human being--and in any case, there is nothing that she could ever do to make me not love her and be her friend.

I genuinely cannot conceive of anything she could do that would drive me away. My imagination fails at that task. It's just not possible.

And she smiled and thanked me--no thanks necessary, honestly!--and we spent the rest of the time talking about Geography Teacher-related developments, and also books and movies and our families and where I got my skull ring and hair care and Benedict Cumberbatch's cheekbones, and then it truly was like old times. (In my head and my heart, I still think of us as 18 years old and full of promise. I think we always will be, at least around each other.)

And before we parted ways, we hugged again, and promised to do it again soon. (We're both counting the days until next year, when it will be even easier to meet whenever we'd like.) And she thanked me for sending those e-mails and texts. She said that even though she couldn't bring herself to answer them, she'd read them and kept them all, and it had been very good to know that she wasn't forgotten, even though she couldn't understand why I hadn't given up on her.

As if I ever could. That's not how friendship works! I'm just grateful she's back in my life.

So. Yes. Good things aboundeth. And now I'm off to turn a large amount of lemons into the Lemon Lemons Loaf from the Baked cookbook. Only I'm planning to add a lemon glaze, so they'll be Lemon Lemon Lemon Loaves. Wish me luck!

And big hugs and love to all of you, as ever.

I have no idea what this signifies, but...

2012-05-12T00:50:09Z

Your result for Game of Thrones House Quiz...

House Tyrell

40% Stark, 47% Lannister, 18% Baratheon, 43% Tully, 79% Tyrell, 32% Martell, 31% Targaryen, 10% Greyjoy and 41% Arryn!

- Prefer subtlety over direct confrontation

- Ambitious

- Willing to use any and all tactics to accomplish their goals

- See lying as useful

- See morality in shades of grey

- Fond of things with aesthetic value

- Like to be thought of as refined, cultured people

- Want to be taken seriously

Take Game of Thrones House Quiz at HelloQuizzy

I'm sure I'd understand this a bit better if I knew anything about Game of Thrones, but as a character summation, it's not bad. A bit off the mark in a few traits but pretty close, particularly in being fond of things with aesthetic value and preferring to avoid confrontation. On the whole, it sounds quite a bit like Slytherin to me, which amuses me greatly. :D

Strawberry Feels Forever

2012-05-09T19:52:59Z

I'm seeing SO much squee for The Avengers movie everywhere that I actually feel hesitant to admit that I feel utterly indifferent to seeing it, and more so every time I see more hype about it. I'm not entirely sure what it is that holds me back, since I did enjoy the Iron Man movies (yes, even the second one)--but I think on reflection that that was more to do with liking RDJ and Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury cameo, rather than any great connection to the universe itself. I had zero interest in seeing both the Thor and Captain America films, too, which probably says something--perhaps just that this particular thing isn't MY thing. Even after I've seen it, I can't imagine I'll have any desire for fic or fan art.

I must also admit that I don't actually understand the squee over the (apparently) unbelievable attractiveness of the cast (with the exception of RDJ, obviously). Tom Hiddleston seems like a lovely guy, no doubt about it, and I can theoretically see how people might find him attractive... but I'm just not at all attracted to him myself. And the rest of them barely even register for me, beyond a vague impression of muscles. (Which... are so not my thing.) Again, I'm certain that says more about me and my own tastes than about anybody or anything else, but it does leave me feeling as though everybody else is giggling themselves silly about a joke that I just fundamentally don't get.

I'm delighted that so many people are enjoying the film, don't get me wrong, and the last thing I want to do is rain on anybody's squee parade or diminish anybody's joy in the movie or the fandom. And perhaps I'll feel differently after I see it, in which case I'll be happy to revise my opinion. (I'm sure I will see it at some point; I just feel no great pull to do so now.) But as it stands now, I'm very happy for everybody, just... also bewildered.

Okay, I just had to get that off my chest, after nearly a week of being relentlessly pelted with Tom Hiddleston's face. I'm glad people are having fun with it, though. It's always good to see a resurgence of fannish enthusiasm, even if it isn't a fandom that calls to me. :-)

But that's not really what I wanted to talk about today. What I wanted to talk about was... strawberries. Because, through a series of strange events, I recently came to have a whole lot of strawberries, and the search for a recipe to do them justice took me on a nostalgia trip.

I like strawberries. A lot. Beyond just thinking that they're tasty in virtually every preparation, I also have a lot of fond memories associated with them. We grew tiny little strawberries in my backyard when I was very little, and I never stopped thinking that this was anything short of miraculous. (Strawberries! Growing in MY garden! Was there ever anything so amazing? You could buy them at the market, but we were growing our own! Out of dirt!) I could hardly wait for them to ripen; I remember checking on them every single morning to determine if today would be THE day. They were horribly undersized, and too scarce to even be called any kind of crop, but I was enthralled.

But my fondest association with strawberries tracks back to the very first time I went to France, when I was living in Tours as a college student. Through our program, we were all randomly placed with families (or, quite frequently, single women) who supplied room and board for us. In pretty much all the other cases, several students from our group were assigned to each household, but I was the only one in the program who was assigned to the Monsieur and Madame A, which admittedly made me nervous that I'd be lonely or wouldn't fit in. It seemed like an intimidating prospect, but I was determined to make as good an impression as I possibly could.

I needn't have been so anxious. Monsieur and Madame A (and their two grown children) turned out to be some of the most wonderfully sweet, funny, quirky, brilliant, and generous people I've ever met. They were so kind and so welcoming, and they almost instantly made me feel at home, like one of their own children. I've never been able to figure out why they took such a particular shine to me, out of the other students in the house, but I was grateful for it because I thought the world of them and their positive, friendly, open-minded attitudes. There was a tremendous generosity about them that went well beyond the monetary; they were people who were generous of enthusiasm and spirit, and I still find them inspiring in the way they treated others.

("Only you," one of my male friends said once we were all back home in the US and had told all our stories about living abroad. "Only you could go to France and get randomly placed in a house where they cracked out champagne and a cake for your birthday, and packed you special little lunches with cakes, and brought you breakfast in bed!" I tried to explain that the breakfast-in-bed thing had only happened a few times, and most of those had been when I was sick with bronchitis and Mme A was just trying to look after me a bit, because she was a nice person and sensed that I was totally inept at doing that for myself. But it is probably true that my experience was not the standard one for students abroad, and that was down to sheer luck on my part.)

You may be wondering how any of this relates to strawberries, and this is how: in addition to Madame A's many other talents and virtues, she was a truly excellent cook with great passion for good food. (It is because of her that ratatouille and quenelles and quiches and roasted chicken and potatoes are, even now, total comfort food to me. If I can ever roast a chicken as well as Madame A, I will consider myself accomplished.) But one of her greatest specialties was in the area of jams and jellies and marmalades. She never used the store-bought kind; she always made them from scratch, and they were always SO good: quince jelly, orange marmalade, black currant, red currant, raspberry, apricot.

And strawberry.

There was something especially magical about the strawberry, and I'm not quite sure what it was. It transformed the morning tartine into something divine, alongside a salty smear of butter on baguette. And when Madame A was making it... oh my sweet lord. I always knew which days were strawberry-jam-making days, because I'd be turning down our street on my way home from class, and I'd be able to smell the intoxicating, jammy aroma of strawberries cooking down, wafting down our street and perfuming the neighborhood and almost certainly driving our neighbors insane with ravenous hunger and rampant Jam Envy. And I'd just smile and smile, because I knew that it meant there would be strawberry jam on the breakfast table, soon enough.

So that memory, you see, is the pinnacle of my strawberry love. It's the standard for superior strawberry-related experiences, the one I'm always trying to match, the rose-tinted remembrance that never fades. My own strawberry sauce comes close, but it's never quite there. So imagine my joy and delight, then, when I decided to use my recent strawberry bounty to make this Strawberry Crumb Cake from the Alchemy Baking blog, and the smell that it produced as it was baking was a match for that intoxicating memory of Madame A's jam, all those years ago. :D

Not only that: the recipe is incredibly delicious, too: tender cake, crispy topping, not-too-sweet vanilla-tinged berries that melt in your mouth. It's also beautiful, and this is the part where I would ordinarily upload photos to prove this claim, but the camera and the laptop do not want to play nicely together for some reason today, so that will have to happen another time.

And best of all, the recipe that I linked to provides all sorts of thoughtful conversions, so whether you are baking in the US or the UK or... almost anywhere in the world, really, you ought to be able to find useful quantities and instructions without a hassle! So you can all share this slice of heaven and all know, if only for a short time, what it was like to appreciate Madame A's strawberry jam. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. (Speaking only for myself, I am now very, very cheery at the prospect of a long strawberry season ahead and more opportunities to make this cake before it's over.)

Aside from the strawberry feels and all that up above, life is good, if mostly unremarkable... which is good, actually, if you're in a de-stressing period. The dinner and date at the Lebanese restaurant that I mentioned in the last post were both very successful, albeit cut shorter than it would have been, due to a spectacularly dramatic thunderstorm that had it pouring rain down my chimney and through the bathroom vents. (Don't worry; it's all fine. And the restaurant is EVEN BETTER than advertised--clairvoyant, I might just have to take you there. They're magicians!) We took a rain check for dessert. ;-)

Not much else to mention. The writing continues, and I continue to be happy with it. I rescued two more homeless plants, for my Garden of Misfit Plants: two pretty green-and-white hostas, which have been transplanted to the front bed, near the rescued daisies, and so far seem to be doing well. The other resident Misfit Plants are thriving; Vince-the-vine is outdoing himself with the buds, although I've given up on trying to separate him from Howard-the-bush, and the redheaded lilies that I rescued two years ago seem to be in love with their location near Remus-the-holly, judging from the way they've filled out the space.

Have also agreed to watch the godchildren--Goddaughter, Godson, and Mini-me--for some extended time this summer, which should be fun, as well as a nice vacation for their parents. I had a long conversation with their mother, Cousin M, about Goddaughter and her progress in her first-grade progress. It turns out that she loves languages and shows an aptitude for them, is tremendously artistic and imaginative and wants to take on every creative project that drifts through her head, and is a massive ham when performing in front of large groups, but goes utterly blushy and shy and self-conscious in smaller, more intimate groups.

I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I'm pretty sure Goddaughter has inherited my personality. *g* Poor dear...

It's a Beautiful Day...

2012-05-03T18:27:25Z

(And if you mentally sang the title of this journal entry, I hope it was with the voice of Freddie Mercury and NOT Bono.)

I woke up with a sentence in the front of my mind this morning, very clear and distinct, almost as if I'd been repeating to myself in my dreams so that I would remember. It's an intriguing phenomenon, because although ideas and scenes come to mind very often when I'm near sleep, I don't remember often having such a specific arrangement of words to show for it. (The last time it happened, I think, was when I wrote The French Connection!) In any case, I've decided to hang onto it, for I'm sure that when the right opportunity comes to use it, I'll recognize it.

I love imagining what my mental writing box must look like. I visualize it as some glittery, colorful jumble of scraps of ideas and concepts and jokes and thoughts and turns of phrase and observations and remembered moments and unexpected insights and clippings of scenes to come, frozen in time until they can be glued into place, and raw-edged, unfinished feelings. In my head, it's halfway between my one grandmother's overflowing box of sewing notions and my other grandmother's overflowing box of paints and pastels and other art supplies.

Anyway. Writing productivity has been little short of explosive since kissing adieu to the semester and final grades. (Imagine that! Much easier to write when you can devote so much more of your brain to the activity. Who'd have thought it? *g*) I'm terribly pleased with what I produced over the weekend, and I got some wonderfully encouraging feedback from trusted sources (~squishes said sources with pure love~), so hopefully I'll be able to post that very soon. I'm in a good writing place: the images flow freely, and so then do the words; I just need to get out of their way.

Everything else is well. I had a fabulous fangirl lunch (as always) with lovely clairvoyant last week in Royal Oak. It was a gorgeous sunny day, albeit an oddly chilly one, and the food at Little Tree Sushi Bar was as enjoyable as always. (I had a salmon roll and another roll that included spicy tuna, eel, smelt roe, and avocado. Both delicious. Oh, and topped off with a "Sky" saketini: Hpnotiq, pineapple juice, and gold sake, with a twist of lemon.) I also had a try of Clairvoyant's seaweed salad and will definitely have to order that in the future, because it was YUMMY, the best I've had--perfectly dressed and delicate, with just the right amount of nutty sesame. We had hours of fantastic conversation about writing and fandom and archives and family and life, the universe, and everything. As usual, I walked away feeling bright in outlook and heart and spirit: the perfect way to start a vacation.

I had a few errands to run after hugging goodbye to Clairvoyant, and at the end of it, I impulsively decided to stop in at Taste Love Cupcakes, which just won Cupcake Wars on the Food Network, so I could pick up some cupcakes for my family and judge their worthiness for myself. I ended up buying a four-pack: Chocolate Peanut Butter for my brother, Red Velvet for my mom, Vanilla-Chocolate for my dad, and the award-winning Raspberry Mocha for me. I stopped by my parents' house so we could all test and share and compare results, and the verdict was unanimous: these cupcakes are deserving of every award they win, because yes, they are THAT good. The cake is the perfect balance of pleasingly dense texture and lightness of crumb, the tart raspberry filling in mine was wonderfully sophisticated (not sugary at all, and a lovely complement to the dark chocolate and deep coffee flavors), and their frostings... well. They are very good. It's very hard to make a frosting that doesn't come off as overly sweet, or heavy, or else too fluffy and tasteless, but theirs is perfect: flavorful, silky-smooth, rich without making you feel like you just swallowed a boulder. I tip my hat to them--I'll definitely be back. Bonus points to them, too, because one of the owners herself was behind the register, and she admired my skull ring. ;-)

The rest of the week has been good as well, studded with nuggets of enjoyable activities, but with enough room for the emotional, intellectual and physical decompression that you need after a semester's end. I went out for a lovely pancake breakfast, I've worked out a good bit (yoga, cycling, treadmill), I've watched a few good films, I did some beta-reading on a wonderful story, I did a bit of shopping that resulted in picking up mirrorball slippers and a copy of Jack White's new album, Blunderbuss. (The album verdict is that it is good, very good--semi-addictive, in fact. It's a big fat slice of electro-blues-rock brilliance, with a very light touch of folk and classic country, for interest, and it is, as anonymous_plume noted, essentially playful. Which is obviously a quality I admire.) Now I'm turning my focus to reading and commenting on all the ficcy goodness that I had to miss out on in the last several weeks. So if you're getting late comments from me... well, that's why. Hope you don't mind!

I've also been experimenting in the kitchen, which is always fun. Just lately, I came into a ton of fresh English peas, so I've been using those in all sorts of ways: cooked a la fracaise, with sweet lettuce (at duniazade's suggestion), folded into a from-scratch cottage pie, and my favorite: muttar paneer. I started with Nigella Lawson's recipe as a jumping-off point, and I've since made adjustments and adaptations where I wanted them. I think I've finally got it exactly where I want it, and it is just SO good--a new comfort food favorite, for sure, even though the house does smell like CURRY the next day. I'm looking forward to more experiments, as the spring and summer produce arrives. Always so many possibilities...

Probably enough nattering for now. It's nice to have the mental room to natter, though. I've got plans tonight for a dinner date at this new-ish Lebanese bistro that's supposedly one of the best in town (a pretty stiff competition, considering that Mediterranean cuisine is pretty much omnipresent here in Metro Detroit, but I have heard lots of good things, so we'll see). High hopes!

And today is also my parents' 37th wedding anniversary, so I'll have to wish a very happy anniversary to the Hippie and the Smart Cookie, too. I do owe them quite a bit, after all. ;-)

Hugs, big love, and glittery kisses to all!

On the passing of OWL and the raising of wands

2012-05-01T16:09:27Z

I've read so many entries this morning about the passing of OWL--tributes, elegies, rants--and all of them were intelligent and illuminating and justified, and I think that mulling them all has finally helped me to crystallize my own feelings on the matter in word format. I thank you all for sharing your perspectives and your feelings. It has been, I think, a good discussion.

To preface: these are simply my own feelings, and my own effort to get some perspective and understand my own motivations and reactions a little better. This is neither a criticism nor a judgment of others and their own reactions, and it is said with the utmost respect for them. There is no one right way to feel; we all have had our own legitimate reasons for feeling the way that we do, for wanting to raise (or not raise) our wands.

If the wand is raised in tribute to anything, it is to the stories, the sense of community, the good things that were born there that have been pointlessly wasted.

But really, the wand is raised to dispel the Dark Mark, because I did feel one hanging over OWL for these past two years, watching it all run to ruin while we could do nothing to help, while the offers of help were ignored and rejected, while those of us who were admins were shut out of the discussion, the process, the site itself. The anger and frustration and disgust at the entire needless wreck are real and warranted. I feel it, too; of course I do. I mourn for the things that were lost, both personal (some dearly treasured reviews, including several from PJ that touched my heart and made me grin and had me cackling, all at the same time) and not (the stories that couldn't be saved). I don't look kindly on the burning of libraries, either; if you know me, you know the value I place on words and stories and books and the places that are meant to protect and preserve them. On the other hand... we knew death was imminent and felt it in our bones, even if we didn't know precisely when the hour would be. This was a call I'd been expecting to get sometime over the past few years, on some level, and there is a strange sort of release in knowing that it is done.

But I choose not to let that loss and frustration taint my joy in what was, and what I know will be again, albeit in different ways, in different venues. We know how good it can be (and certainly we have all seen a painful object lesson in what NOT to do), and we will make something that good once again. It may not be precisely the same thing--for if we are honest, many of us have changed a great deal in these two years, and our needs are not exactly the same now as they were then--but it will not be lesser for that.

I'd prefer to make this about the best of people and the best of the community, which I most certainly saw in my time at OWL, even during the House Cup competition. I still glow with pride at my fellow Slytherins when I remember the projects we put in motion, the stories we wrote as a cooperative hive mind, the glompings we distributed to those in need of love and support and appreciation. (I love you, Slytherin House!) And there was so much more beyond that. The commitment and hard work and creativity and generosity of spirit from my fellow admins, the stunning investment of their time and energy--I have no words for it (imagine that, ME being lost for words) but I'm so honored to call them my friends, and so proud of what they accomplished.

From my own intensely personal perspective, I'd rather focus on restoration and reconciliation and reconstruction than on anger and bitterness. There are reasons for anger, but I don't want to be angry. Anger does nothing to rebuild the library or retrieve what's been lost; it just makes me feel bad. I want to accept what is, learn from it, and move on. I want to dispel the lingering taint of the Dark Mark that was there for too long, because our light is brighter, and stronger, and more enduring.

And so is our love--for each other, for the characters, for the stories and the words themselves.

And that's why I raised my wand.

And as I finish writing this, "Don't Look Back in Anger" has randomly popped up on shuffle. ~laughs and claps~ Never let it be said that my psychic iTunes doesn't have a sense of humor! And thank goodness for that, because I'd rather smile than cry. &hearts

Farewell, OWL

2012-05-01T01:51:58Z

Goodbye, OWL. I was honored to work for you, I was continually delighted by (and admiring of) the creativity and talent you nurtured and showcased, and I will forever be enriched by all the friendships and partnerships, creative and otherwise, that you helped to forge.

I'll miss you.

51 Questions Answered About Vince Noir (and Quite a Few About Howard Moon, Too)

2012-04-26T23:39:24Z

Title: 51 Questions Answered About Vince Noir (and Quite a Few About Howard Moon, Too)
Fandom: The Mighty Boosh
Characters: Vince Noir, Howard Moon cameo appearances from Naboo and Bollo
Pairing: Very heavily implied Howard/Vince
Rating: PG
Summary: In which the author tells you more than you ever wanted to know about the life, times, and history of Vince Noir. And a bit about Howard, too.
Notes: Not exactly fic as such, since this is a meme response for ridiculously detailed backstories that turned into a writing exercise. More like... a big fat slice of ABSURDLY DETAILED Booshy meta, with Boosh Fic nuggets sprinkled liberally throughout? In any case, I'm parking it here for safekeeping and future reference. If you want to know how I generally see Vince, though, the answers lie beyond the cut...

1. What does their bedroom look like?

Vince shares a bedroom with Howard, but his side of the room is a cheerfully cluttered-but-clean explosion of purples and pinks and blues and glitter. The duvet is deep blue and purple and turquoise, with stars all over, and although the bed is piled with funky pillows, it’s rarely made completely. There are scarves and belts and ponchos draped about—although actual clothing has been meticulously pressed and hung up in the full-to-bursting wardrobe, sorted according to season, trend, color, level of formality and fabric weight—and there’s a multitude of boots and stacks of fashion and entertainment magazines on the ground. To one side, there’s a vanity table littered with little piles of jewelry and pots of makeup and brushes and cans of hairspray and root boost and various products lined up like little glam soldiers. On every available surface, there’s an endless array of tacky little plastic trinkets and snippets of ribbon and newspaper clippings and other sentimental mementos. In the corner, there’s a tackle box, decorated with glittery puff paint and stickers and overflowing with art supplies, and a pile of canvases in various states of completion stacked against the wall. To another side is a tiny table, just large enough to hold Vince’s battered old sewing machine; there’s a cardboard box underneath that’s stuffed with fabric scraps and spools of thread and buttons and elastic and zippers and sequins and trims, and other sewing notions.

There are iridescent glow-in-the-dark stars stuck all over the walls and ceiling, along with selected posters of David Bowie, Marc Bolan, Mick Jagger, and Joan Jett. There is also a unicorn nightlight, which neither of them ever mentions. Vince is more grateful than he’ll admit that Howard’s never protested or asked him to explain it.

2. Do they have any daily rituals?

Like Howard, Vince has many daily rituals—too many to recount here. But he does start most days in a very similar way. He starts by waking early and then curling up in the duvet until Howard’s got up and had his shower, after which Vince scurries into the bathroom, tuts at the mess Howard’s made, and enjoys a brisk 30-minute shower, as hot as he can stand it. He breezes to the kitchen in a billow of steam and silky kimono and towel turban to enjoy the milky, sugary tea Howard’s set out for him, which is by now the perfect temperature to drink. After dawdling over breakfast while leafing through the latest issue of Cheekbone, Vince starts on an extremely involved set of grooming rituals: blow-drying, straightening, styling, fluffing, spraying, shaving, plucking, concealing, shading, matching, tucking, accessorizing. The specifics vary according to the look he’s going for, but it’s always a long and demanding process, which is one reason why Vince never gets to work on time.

The other reason Vince is always late is part of the last daily ritual: it’s so that he can offer up a carefully concocted tale of silliness from his notebook of excuses, in the hope that Howard will find this one funny and clever and impressive enough to write it down for remembrance in his own little notebook.

3. Do they exercise, and if so, what do they do? How often?

Consciously? No. Vince’s exercise consists of pulling shapes, trotting around Camden in high-heeled platform boots (admittedly very good at toning certain areas), and occasionally jumping on the bed, when the mood strikes him.

4. What would they do if they needed to make dinner but the kitchen was busy?

It’s very unlikely that Vince would need to make dinner, since that’s usually Howard’s job, and Vince lacks most cooking skills beyond the bare-minimum basics. But if the kitchen is busy when dinner needs to be prepared, Vince just suggests different takeaway options to Howard until Howard relents and agrees to one of them.

5. Cleanliness habits (personal, workspace, etc.)

In terms of personal neatness, Vince is fastidious and doesn’t like to have a hair out of place. Most of his workspaces, however, are organized in such a cluttered, personalized way that to any other person, they look like pure random chaos. To Vince, however, they make perfect sense, and he knows where to find everything that he needs—which is the only thing that matters. And he does get severely annoyed when Howard attempts to rearrange all his little bottles and pots and tubes and jars in the bathroom in a “more efficient” way.

6. Eating habits and sample daily menu?

Vince didn’t grow up in a setting where there was especially appealing food, and certainly there were no junk food treats (or indeed, many treats of any kind). The result is an adulthood love affair with all forms of sweets and childish junk food. (In fact, Vince blew his entire first real paycheck on an orgy of sugary, processed goodness; Howard came back to the hut that evening to find the table filled with bags of sweets, biscuits, crisps, bottles of pop, and the like. ”I got a bit carried away,” Vince told him sheepishly.) The only things that prevent Vince from surviving on a diet consisting entirely of Jaffa Cakes and Hula Hoops are Howard’s nagging about nutrition and the fact that he knows all of Camden will notice and sneer if he gains so much as an extra pound or two. Also, he’s a vegetarian, because being able to talk to the animals means that he can’t bear the thought of eating their friends or relatives.

Vince’s tendency to get distracted and lost in whatever’s absorbing his attention at the moment means that he can unintentionally go for long periods without food, only stopping to graze on something when he remembers that he needs to eat occasionally—or, more likely, when Howard reminds him.

Vince’s breakfast: Tea (milky, with sugar), Strawberry Nesquick, a bowl of Coco Pops with chocolate milk, half a choco-mallow Pop-Tart.

Vince’s lunch: There was no lunch as such, but during the course of the day, Vince did manage to finish off a handful of cheese and onion crisps, two Babybels, a banana, a large white chocolate-caramel latte, and some malt loaf.

Vince’s dinner: Half an order of takeaway muttar paneer (mostly the paneer bits; he picked at the peas), garlic naan, and all the burfti. (He did offer some to Howard, but something about the way he asked it seemed to make Howard decline his share. Which not-so-secretly pleased Vince.)

7. Favorite way to waste time and feelings surrounding wasting time?

Vince doesn’t consider anything he enjoys doing or wants to do to be a waste of time. In Vince’s mind, the only things that waste his time are pointless, boring, mundane tasks, like filling out paperwork and stocktaking.

8. Favorite indulgence and feelings surrounding indulging?

Vince is not the sort of person to feel any guilt about allowing himself to do the things that most people would consider indulgences. Vince’s idea of true indulgence is very different: allowing himself the freedom to relax and not be “on,” in performance mode—to be allowed to be imperfect and to do things that make him happy, instead of things that go toward helping him meet other people’s expectations. So for Vince, a real indulgence is staying in on a Friday night, sitting on the sofa in a big, fuzzy, unfashionable sweater, finishing a bag of pic-and-mix instead of more malt loaf, not having to worry about whether his tummy sticks out, and crimping with Howard about something silly.

9. Makeup?

Yes, please. Vince wears makeup to a greater or lesser degree almost every day, and he almost never goes out without a bit of eyeliner, mascara, and lipgloss. More special occasions and certain looks require more involved makeup, including foundation, powder, eye shadow, and—naturally—glitter. Vince loves makeup and the way it makes him look, and he enjoys experimenting with different effects.

10. Neuroses? Do they recognize them as such?

Vince wouldn’t call them neuroses, and he’s got very good over the years at hiding his vulnerable spots (even from himself), but he’s as susceptible to self-doubt and insecurity as anybody else, despite the image he tries to project. (The more insecure and unsettled he is, the more he acts out and uses bravado to pretend otherwise. On this point, he and Howard aren’t so different after all.)

Although it’s true that Vince has more optimism and confidence than the average person, and he’s made an art out of not overthinking things, he does have a few nagging worries. Several of them have to do with his awareness of getting older (and softer), and the stresses that come with being the Mayor of Camden, knowing that he’s being scrutinized and judged, and that he has a perfect image to live up to, even though he himself isn’t perfect. But most of Vince’s deeper anxieties are directly related to Howard: how to get and keep Howard’s attention, how to make Howard smile and not worry so much, whether it’s possible to get Howard to take him a bit more seriously sometimes, how to make himself more like the sort of person Howard might actually admire or be attracted to, might want to be with that way. And, of course, how to please and impress Howard.

More than anything, Vince worries about when Howard’s going to push him away and leave him behind for good.

11. Intellectual pursuits?

Vince doesn’t seek out intellectual pursuits. This is not, no matter what people might say, out of natural stupidity, but rather out of his preference to be out in the world doing things, rather than sitting and thinking about things other people have already done. Howard might suggest otherwise, but Vince isn’t really naturally shallow; it’s more that he learned a long time ago that it was wisest to live in the moment, rather than dwelling on the past or the future, and all these year later, he’s basically made it a way of life.

12. Favorite book genre?

Vince prefers magazines and children’s books, but he’s also been known to leaf through art books, and he has an entire shelf in his bedroom devoted to style and hair and makeup and fashion books. Nicky Clarke’s Hair Power is a particular favorite, though Vince is also fond of Kevyn Aucoin’s Face Forward.

13. Sexual Orientation? And, regardless of own orientation, thoughts on sexual orientation in general?

Vince is unapologetically pansexual, and by the time of the third series of the Boosh, he’s pretty comfortable with his orientation, although he hasn’t actually had much experience with men, at least beyond kissing. He just knows he’s attracted to people for their personalities—but most especially to Howard. The only conflict he feels about this is in the fact that he’s convinced himself that Howard is straight and can’t/won’t return his affections.

14. Physical abnormalities? (Both visible and not, including injuries/disabilities, long-term illnesses, food-intolerances, etc.)

Vince has a burn scar across his right hip and lower belly, from the Nicky Clarke straighteners incident, and he also has a moderate allergy to jazz. He has a small, thin white scar just under the tip of his chin, from when he tried to climb the kitchen cabinets to make himself breakfast, when he was four (he fell off, face-first, and split his chin open).

Vince also has the calloused, marked-up feet of an athlete—because wearing genius shoes with sky-high heels is some tough business, and it leaves its scars. This is why you’ll never catch him in sandals, no matter how hot it gets.

15. Biggest and smallest short-term goal?

Vince’s smallest short-term goal is figuring out the precise combination of backcombing, Root Boost, volumizing mousse, and high-performance hairspray to add approximately ½ inch of additional hair height to his barnet, while maintaining both structural integrity and shine.

Vince’s biggest short-term goal is to figure out how to move on from humiliating himself in front of the Camden elite during the Black Tubes debacle and from Howard leaving him behind to go off and be an actor in Denmark. He’s feeling a bit at sea at the moment; he knows that he can’t continue to go on as he has been going on, but he can’t figure out what he’s meant to do next.

16. Biggest and smallest long-term goal?

Vince’s smallest long-term goal is to try to be a bit more self-sufficient. If—no, when, definitely when—Howard comes back from Denmark, Vince wants to be able to be a bit more organized and mature and able to do nice things for Howard sometimes, to make things a little bit easier. He thinks he might need to learn to cook. Or perhaps drive. And he thinks he probably should learn how to accept the strange, quiet emptiness of a day without Howard, just in case he ever needs to do that on a more permanent basis.

Vince’s biggest long-term goal is to be happy, to make Howard happy, and to make the other people he cares about happy, no matter where they go or what they do. He’s had the same goal since he was a kid, and he has no plans to change it.

17. Preferred mode of dress and rituals surrounding dress?

Vince’s preferred mode of dress changes with his look, which is to say: often, and sometimes dramatically. Regardless of the look, though, he’s always a rock ‘n’ roll Peacock with a capital P, and he tends to the androgynous, glitter-sprinkled, glam rock side of things, often with a Ziggy-esque futuristic twist. He works hard to stay ahead of the style trends (or better yet, set them), and there is no look that he doesn’t think could be improved by some custom details and a few good and flamboyant accessories: scarves, rings, belts, cuffs, hats, ponchos, capes, and so on. He is entirely comfortable dressing in women’s clothing (if he’s being honest, the fit is often better), or combining articles of men’s and women’s clothing, although he’s not (usually) trying to pass as a woman. He generally wears boots, preferably with a heel, and not infrequently with a platform, too.

Vince’s rituals surrounding dress vary with the occasion and his current look, but they usually involve very careful and deliberate preparations, and always end with one last look in the mirror, just to be sure he’s displaying all his peacocky plumage to best advantage.

18. Favorite beverage?

Vince never has just one favorite of anything, and that includes beverages. But some of his favorites include tea (with five sugars), fancy lattes (with whipped cream), hot chocolate (with marshmallows), Diet Coke, Ribena, and Vimto.

19. What do they think about before falling asleep at night?

For a man with a single brain cell, Vince actually thinks about a surprising lot of things as he’s lying in bed: the day (and night) he’s had, what he’s going to wear tomorrow, what excuse he’ll use on Howard in the morning and whether it will make Howard smile, what Charlie’s been up to and whether it’s time to write another book again, whether he’d look good with a few chunky highlights in a contrasting color, what it would be like to meet Colobos the Crab, and a million other fantasies and stories and what-ifs.

20. Childhood illnesses? Any interesting stories behind them?

Vince was a mostly healthy kid, and he didn’t get a lot of coddling or TLC during his childhood illnesses and injuries. But he does remember one particularly miserable case of flu when he was very little, when his fever was high and all the lights felt too bright and the sounds were too loud and everything hurt, but his mum’s friend Wendy let him sleep in her bed and brought him cool flannels and ice lollies, and generally took care of him, so it wasn’t so bad, really.

Vince’s most traumatic childhood illness, though, is the one that got him taken out of his home, such as it was, and put into care: the time when he accidentally got drunk on alcopops that his mum and her friends had left out, because they looked pretty and like pop and he was thirsty and didn’t know better. He remembers feeling very confused, and then very sick, and then he was in hospital, where they pumped his stomach, which was scary and awful and lonely, especially because he didn’t know anybody there. He’d hoped that his mum might come and visit him in hospital once he felt better, but she never did. Vince never went back home after that, and for a long time afterward, Vince wondered if she had sent him away because she was angry at him for doing something wrong.

He’s still not too keen about hospitals, to be honest.

21. Turn-ons? Turn-offs?

Vince’s turn-ons are being complimented (especially on something OTHER than his looks, although that’s always very nice, too), closeness and snuggling and other forms of physical affection, and being pampered/swept off his feet by somebody he trusts.

Vince’s biggest turn-offs are being crowded or cornered, being pressured or pestered or controlled, sex in full darkness, and having his hair pulled/used to control him, as opposed to having it stroked or petted.

22. Given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and nothing to do, what would happen?

Doodles, doodles, doodles, and more doodles. Of Howard and Naboo and Bollo and his animal friends from the zoo, of his favorite rock n roll idols, of clothing and hairstyle and makeup designs, of monkey skulls and regular skulls and cats and butterflies and things he might want to paint later.

23. How organized are they? How does this organization/disorganization manifest in their everyday life?

Vince is not a terribly organized person, at least by the standards of more conventionally organized people. His method is very intuitive and idiosyncratic, which means that he’s one of the few people on the planet who understands it. To everybody else, it probably just looks like a mess.

24. Is there one subject of study that they excel at? Or do they even care about intellectual pursuits at all?

It might be a stretch to call this a subject of study, but Vince does actually excel at reading people and their moods. He’s good at noticing the little things, picking up on habits and quirks and tone and interpersonal dynamics and subtext, and uses that to try and give people what they want or need or expect out of a social interaction. It’s not an academic subject of study, but it is one that he takes seriously.

Other than that, Vince tends to memorize dizzying volumes of trivia and information, but only about his favorite people and things. Just ask him about Gary Numan or David Bowie... but only if you have some time to spare.

25.How do they see themselves 5 years from today?

With Howard. The rest of the details don’t concern Vince nearly as much. As long as he’s with Howard, he’s content to believe that the future will be beautiful and full of adventures.

26. Do they have any plans for the future? Any contingency plans if things don’t work out?

Vince’s plans for the future are usually vague at best, and his contingency plans tend to be to try to charm his way through whatever didn’t work on the first attempt.

27. What is their biggest regret?

Although Vince generally tries not to waste time on regrets, there are a few things that Vince would take back if he could. One of them is taking a bite out of Howard’s beloved Voodoo Scat album, and not even just because he got sick and nearly died as a result. What really made Vince feel queasy about the whole experience was the look on Howard’s face as he watched Vince destroy something he’d saved so long to buy for himself, and knowing that Howard turned his anger in on himself, rather than taking it out on Vince.

28. Who do they see as their best friend? Their worst enemy?

Howard is the only best friend Vince has ever had, or will ever want. Vince’s worst enemy is… not Lance Dior, although he was close, and pretty much an embodiment of Vince’s real worst enemy: self-doubt and fear—of not being original, of not being wanted or valued, of being abandoned or replaced. He’s usually pretty good at keeping those things hidden away in the cupboard in his brain, but they have the power to undo him under just the right circumstances.

29. Reaction to sudden extrapersonal disaster (eg The house is on fire! What do they do?)

It depends on the disaster. If people are involved and there’s a chance that Vince can either logic or charm his way out of potential disaster, then he can remain amazingly calm and quite brave, and will probably take control of the situation. Natural disasters and accidents and fires and sudden illnesses, though… those result in panic and squawking and hand-flapping and—in the case of a fire—frenzied attempts to save as much of his stuff (clothes, music, personal mementos) as possible. Although he would make sure all people and animals were safe first, before worrying about the stuff.

30. Reaction to sudden intrapersonal disaster (eg close family member suddenly dies)

Crying, depression, being quiet and withdrawn and tragic-looking, comfort eating, staying in bed, not making himself up, not going out or being his usual social self.

31. Most prized possession?

There are a few things that might compete for the honor, like his lovingly customized Zooniverse jacket and a certain diaphanous tunic/minidress that he wore on a certain rooftop while kissing a certain other person on that certain other person’s birthday.

But Vince’s single favorite possession is a quilt that he’s been working on for almost as long as he’s known Howard. Some of the squares document their adventures, and other squares are made up of some suspiciously familiar fabrics. Tatty corduroy and tweed sit comfortably alongside glittery mirrorball squares and swatches of what just might be a candy-colored silk Mod neck scarf, and there are also patches of brocade for Naboo’s robes, and fuzzy faux-fur to represent Bollo. Vince likes to think the whole of the quilt is an accurate representation of his and Howard’s lives together, and nothing makes him feel warmer when he’s snuggled in front of the TV.

32. Thoughts on material possessions in general?

Vince likes and admires many material objects, and he draws great comfort and pleasure from surrounding himself with beautiful things. He’s also prone to attaching sentimental significance to certain objects, and to collecting all sorts of little souvenirs of places and events he’s experienced, no matter how seemingly small and inconsequential, because he wants to remember them all. They give a tangible sense of permanence to Vince that hasn’t always been available to him in his life.

Having said that, Vince is also terribly generous and not at all greedy or inclined to hoard, in the sense of wanting to keep things only for himself. He’ll happily share what he has with others, because he’s more interested in the emotional significance than the material value. He also can’t understand the concept of wanting to have something simply because it’s expensive, or as a show of wealth. From his perspective, something is only worth having if it’s cool and you like it and/or it means something to you.

33. Concept of home and family?

Home and family are where Howard is—always have been, always will be. Vince doesn’t care where he goes, as long as he’s with Howard.

34. Thoughts on privacy? (Are they a private person, or are they prone to ‘TMI’?)

Vince certainly can be extremely open and a breezy oversharer on certain topics, but there’s a certain core of feelings and personal history that he keeps very, VERY tightly locked down, and not even Howard is allowed full access to that. Not yet, anyway.

35. What activities do they enjoy, but consider to be a waste of time?

Vince would never consider an activity he enjoys to be a waste of time.

36. What makes them feel guilty?

Disappointing anybody, having to say no, not living up to other people’s expectations (or his own), hurting anybody (especially Howard), having to be “mean” or pushy.

37. Are they more analytical or more emotional in their decision-making?

Emotional. Vince prefers to go with his intuition, every time, although Howard is occasionally uncomfortably reminded that Vince CAN be analytical in his insight, when he wants to be.

38. Would they consider themselves a Type A or Type B personality?

Generally Type B… but he does have a Type A, detail-oriented, anxious, perfectionist streak when it comes to certain things.

39. What recharges them when they’re feeling drained?

Sunshine, painting or drawing, blasting his favorite music and singing/dancing along, buying himself something new and pretty, doing something that he knows will make somebody else happy, a quality snuggle and some alone time with Howard, positive social interaction, getting a compliment or being admired by anybody.

40. Would you say that they have a superiority-complex? Inferiority-complex? Neither?

Neither, really. Although it’s true that Vince does long to be special, and he does believe that his hair is among the best in the world (admittedly, there’s some proof for this), he doesn’t really believe that he himself, as a human being, is superior to anybody. He believes that the best outcome is always a possibility for him, but he doesn’t expect it as a god-given right. He’s optimistic, but not entitled.

41. How misanthropic are they?

Vince is as far from misanthropic as it’s possible to get. He’s compassionate to everybody, even monsters, and he generally tries to be understanding and refrain from judgment. Except about jazz.

42. Hobbies?

Vince has many hobbies, which include but are not limited to: listening, singing, and throwing shapes to his favorite rock ‘n’ roll songs, reading fashion/entertainment/lifestyle magazines, watching cartoons and nature programs, being a part-time frontman for his and Howard’s band, experimenting with different hair and makeup techniques, shopping, scrapbooking, painting/drawing/other forms of art, writing Charlie books, chatting with his animal friends, going out to the clubs/the cinema/anyplace fun and social and a bit arty, doing jigsaw puzzles with Howard, crimping with Howard, having Satsuma fights with Howard… well, you get the picture.

43. How far did they get in formal education? What are their views on formal education vs self-education?

Vince left school just before taking his GCSEs, to work at the zoo with Howard, but later went back to night school to get his BTEC qualifications in hair design, fine art, and textiles/fashion design. This suggests that Vince actually CAN be a decent student and does value formal education… as long as it’s a subject that interests him. He can’t force himself to care overmuch about any subject that’s boring or dull or not especially relevant to his interests or his life, especially if it’s tediously presented and doesn’t encourage creativity of thought or expression. Such things make Vince’s mind wander, and for a very long time, he accepted this as evidence that he was hopelessly thick and couldn’t be taught. Howard was the first person Vince met who suggested that Vince might actually not be stupid, and instead ought to focus on his interests and talents, which in turn led to Vince eventually feeling confident enough to return to school.

Despite having gone back for further education, however, Vince does also believe very firmly in the value of common sense, observation, and intuition—street smarts, in other words—and he knows you’re not going to learn a whole lot of any of that in a classroom or from a textbook. He isn’t as impressed with a very prestigious degree and intellectual honors as he is with the ability to actually use your brains. On the other hand, he has nothing but admiration for Howard’s ability to think about stuff and make it sound important.

44. Religion?

None. Vince is just… areligious. He wasn’t raised in any religion, and church would bore him silly.

45. Superstitions or views on the occult?

Vince has no difficulty believing in magic and the occult, given that he lives with an alien shaman and a resurrected gorilla, has traveled to another planet on a magic carpet, and has mucked about with various magic books, potions, and artifacts.

46. Do they express their thoughts through words or deeds?

Vince is quick to say that he’s not good with words, and he gets frustrated at not being able to express everything he’s feeling properly that way, so he does tend to express himself through deeds and actions instead. He likes to do lots of little things to show that he understands the people around him, and that he cares about their needs and wants. A prime example of this is the Library Suit that he designed for Howard, but there are others, like the birthday gift of the Bouncy Castle, to make up for Howard’s bouncy castle disappointment all those years ago.

When Vince does express himself through words, it’s usually through metaphors, analogies, or other sorts of symbols. He might tell a story filled with metaphors and symbolism about growing up in the jungle, he might write a Charlie book as a means of untangling and expressing his own feelings, or he might use fashion- or art-based analogies to explain his perspective on things. This is especially true when it comes to articulating things he’s too shy to express more directly to other people, like sadness or fear or anger—or love. It’s easier for him to approach those things in a roundabout way.

47. If they were to fall in love, who (or what) is their ideal?

If he’s just looking for somebody to dance with and have a bit of fun, Vince likes happy, laughing girls who like bright colors and soft fabrics and good music.

But in terms of love, Vince’s ideal is somebody who grounds him, somebody who makes him feel safe and stable and loved. He needs somebody who loves and wants him for himself, rather than for what he can do or be for them, somebody who doesn’t need him to perform and be perfect. Vince’s ideal is somebody who genuinely likes and accepts him exactly as he in, in all his dorky and enthusiastic and imperfect glory underneath the glitter, and would never make fun of him or reject him for that. So, really… he was always going to fall in love with Howard.

48. How do they express love?

Longing looks and worshipful gazes, wanting to spend almost every waking moment in the presence of the object of affection, coy flirtation, affectionate touching and cuddling, playful bantering and teasing (which might turn less playful and more like acting out if left too long unreciprocated, in an effort to gain SOME attention, even if it’s negative), trying to please the object of his affection in ways large and small.

Although maybe it’s truest simply to say that Vince expresses his love through unswerving loyalty. No matter how many cool people want him, or don’t, Vince always comes home to Howard at the end of the night, and he can’t honestly even imagine the thought of living a life without him. Even when Howard got sacked over the Crack Fox incident, Vince couldn’t actually grasp the idea of Howard being out of his life.

49. If this person were to get into a fistfight, what is their fighting style like?

Curling into a ball and covering his face. Luckily, Vince has enough charm and wit to talk his way out of most fistfight situations, at least now that he’s an adult.

50. Is this person afraid of dying? Why or why not?

Vince certainly doesn’t want to die, because he loves being alive, so in that sense, he’s afraid to die. But he also isn’t the sort to beg for his life, and he seems to be philosophical enough (and open enough to new possibilities) to take the idea of his own death in stride. Truthfully, the thought of his own death doesn’t scare him even a fraction as much as the thought of somebody he cares about dying. Now THAT scares and upsets him.

51. Sleep habits? And what does this person wear to bed?

Usually, Vince wears pyjama bottoms and old t-shirts to bed. When it’s hot outside and he can’t stand the extra fabric, it’s just his pants and the old t-shirts. As far as dressing gowns go, he prefers silky kimonos... except for when he's freezing and desperately wanting to be cuddled and comforted, in which case he opts for Howard's big old dressing gown. But only when nobody's around to see him and make fun, and he always makes sure it's hung back on the right peg afterward, so Howard will never know.

Vince is a surprisingly light/restless sleeper, and his sleep is often/easily disturbed, especially when he’s not in the same room with Howard. He also can’t sleep in a fully dark room, because full dark feels too close and suffocating and claustrophobic to him. It feels like anything might be out there, including stuff that he doesn’t like to think about. Every now and then he’ll have nightmares, though he has fewer of them now, thanks to the presence of Howard (and also, the unicorn nightlight).

Still, Vince doesn’t sleep as much as people would expect him to, and he uses the odd awake hours during the night for midnight ironing and barbering, and sometimes just watching Howard sleep a bit, because it’s nice to see Howard all relaxed and content and vulnerable and soft that way.

51 Questions Answered About Howard Moon (and Quite a Few About Vince Noir, Too)

2012-04-26T22:56:41Z

Title: 51 Questions Answered About Howard Moon (and Quite a Few About Vince Noir, Too)
Fandom: The Mighty Boosh
Characters: Howard Moon, Vince Noir, cameo appearances from Naboo and Bollo
Pairing: Very heavily implied Howard/Vince
Rating: PG
Summary: In which the author tells you more than you ever wanted to know about the life, times, and history of Howard Moon. And a bit about Vince, too.
Notes: Not exactly fic as such, since this is a meme response for ridiculously detailed backstories that turned into a writing exercise. More like... a big fat slice of ABSURDLY DETAILED Booshy meta, with Boosh Fic nuggets sprinkled liberally throughout? In any case, I'm parking it here for safekeeping and future reference. If you want to know how I generally see Howard, though, help yourself. :-)

1. What does their bedroom look like?

Howard shares a bedroom with Vince, obviously, but his side of the room is all right angles and organization and a tasteful medley of beiges and other earth tones. The duvet is corduroy, in a Muscular Chestnut; he makes his bed every morning and changes the sheets bi-weekly. (He changes Vince’s at the same time, too, because… well, that’s just more efficient. Or so he tells himself.) He has a small desk, with all supplies and stationery meticulously organized, and a few select posters of jazz greats on the wall. (He had to take down the Dizzy Gillespie one, though, because it kept scaring Vince in the dark.) He also has bookshelves, on which he has a selection of worthy books by great authors and also—organized into sleeve holders—his vinyl collection, sorted by (in order) genre, sub-genre, artist, and release date. He re-sorts it twice a year, just to be sure no new purchases have corrupted the system.

There is also, in this joint bedroom, a unicorn nightlight, which neither of them ever mentions, but Howard would never remove, no matter how much it offends his eyes.

2. Do they have any daily rituals?

Howard has many daily rituals, which are too numerous to recount here, but he is a man of plans and organization and repetition, and he likes to start each day off the same way: wake up early enough to get to the bathroom before Vince and thus have a shower while some hot water remains, make the morning brews (one for him, unsweetened with lemon, because that’s how he thinks a great man should like his tea, and one left out for Vince, heavily sweetened), enjoy a sensible breakfast of either porridge or bran cereal (he likes to mix it up sometimes, wild man that he is), read the newspaper, and then finally head down to the shop at precisely half past, so he has time to reorganize everything before opening the Nabootique for the day.

3. Do they exercise, and if so, what do they do? How often?

Howard’s primary method of exercise is Jazzercise, which he attends at least once weekly. It keeps him loose and jazzy-fresh.

4. What would they do if they needed to make dinner but the kitchen was busy?

Howard does most of the cooking, with an occasional assist from Bollo. In the event the kitchen were occupied while he needed to make dinner, he would stand there with his arms crossed, frowning and making passive-aggressive comments, until Vince persuaded him to just give up and pick up dinner from the Indian takeaway across the street instead.

5. Cleanliness habits (personal, workspace, etc.)

Howard is meticulous in most of his habits—his workspaces are always painfully efficient in their organization—but his Achilles heel is clothing and personal appearance. He’s never got the feel for dealing with fabric, and his clothes always tend to look vaguely rumpled and unkempt. (When Vince can’t stand watching it any more, he sneaks into Howard’s wardrobe and irons things. And of course, he’s kept Howard’s mustache and hair in check for years, via regular Midnight Barbering.)

6. Eating habits and sample daily menu?

Howard is a sensible and responsible man, or wants to be one, so he tries to eat a healthy and nutritionally balanced diet with sufficient fiber content, whether he fully enjoys it or not.

Howard’s breakfast: The aforementioned bowl of porridge or bran cereal, unsweetened tea with lemon.

Howard’s lunch: Turkey sandwich on wholemeal bread (with mustard), an apple, and a few crisps surreptitiously stolen from the bag Vince has been snacking on.

Howard’s dinner: Takeaway chicken chop suey, because Naboo is using the kitchen to brew something dangerous and almost certainly illegal. There was to be a spring roll as well, but Vince was eyeing it so longingly that Howard let him have it.

7. Favorite way to waste time and feelings surrounding wasting time?

Howard feels very strongly that he shouldn’t waste time on anything non-constructive… and yet he enjoys doing this far more than he’ll acknowledge, and he can be cajoled into it. Howard’s bouts of time-wasting invariably include Vince, and sometimes also crimping, jigsaw puzzles, watching cartoons, listening to Vince’s stories, and running around in his pants, pelting Vince with satsumas.

8. Favorite indulgence and feelings surrounding indulging?

Like time-wasting, Howard’s superego doesn’t think he should indulge himself often, aside from collecting rare jazz albums and allowing himself to watch seven hours of obscure foreign art house cinema in one go, when there’s a marathon on television. But again, he can be convinced, and again, this almost invariably includes Vince, who can persuade Howard to indulge in junk food, flights of fancy, and all sorts of silly games. ~~And sometimes snogging.~~

9. Makeup?

Aside from that time when they were goths and he allowed Vince to tart him up with eyeliner, Howard’s not really a makeup sort of guy.

10. Neuroses? Do they recognize them as such?

Howard is a bundle of neuroses, loosely held together by tweed and elbow patches, but he prefers to think of those neuroses as entirely healthy and rational fears of intimacy, embarrassment, mortal peril/death, injury, obscurity, success, rejection, emotional expression, anything he can’t control, and impending middle age.

11. Intellectual pursuits?

Howard has many self-improving intellectual pursuits, including reading Worthy Books by Important Authors, watching obscure art house films, questioning the nature of reality (and other deep philosophical ponderings), writing dairy-based poetry, and, of course, the study and appreciation of jazz.

12. Favorite book genre?

Howard’s favorite book genre is “Important.” But he’s also fond of Russian Literature in general, and also of the Beat authors. And Joseph Conrad.

13. Sexual Orientation? And, regardless of own orientation, thoughts on sexual orientation in general?

Howard’s sexual orientation… is not as clear-cut as Vince’s, since Vince comes right out and says that he swings both ways, and Howard gives all kinds of mixed signals. But generally speaking, he’s gay, and just taking a long time to fully process that. (Which… might have something to do with why he’s still a virgin.) When he appreciates women, it’s always in a sort of really unrealistic, theoretical way; he likes the IDEA of women and being in a relationship more than he actually likes women. He likes the idea of the sort of life he imagines he’d have with Gideon, and yet he doesn’t have any chemistry with her or understand anything about her. He never even thought to create a female love interest on the island in Milky Joe, until Vince already had--in the hopes of making Howard jealous, naturally. (Please note: it worked like a charm.)

Howard’s making some strides to accepting his sexuality in canon, actually, hence the whole “I could go gay like THAT” declaration in Party, even before the rooftop kiss… as you can see, he’s not quite ready to go all the way. Yet. At least not in public.

14. Physical abnormalities? (Both visible and not, including injuries/disabilities, long-term illnesses, food-intolerances, etc.)

Howard’s physical abnormalities are the tiny eyes of a shrimp… and that third nipple business, but he clearly had that removed, or else Vince wouldn’t have been so eager to get him into a loincloth on Xooberon. ;-)

15. Biggest and smallest short term goal?

Howard’s smallest short-term goal is to finally make a sale in the Nabootique. His largest short-term goal is to lose his virginity/fall in everlasting love with the person of his dreams.

16. Biggest and smallest long term goal?

Howard’s smallest long-term goal is to train Bollo to remember his name. His largest long-term goal is to become a universally respected, extremely famous man of action/novelist/poet/photographer/actor/jazz musician/thinker.

17. Preferred mode of dress and rituals surrounding dress

Howard doesn’t have any particular rituals surrounding dressing, aside from the occasional pondering over the right combination of earth tones, Hawaiian print, and corduroy gauge. But his preferred mode of dress is firmly mid-20th Century suburban dad, with a dash of 50s-60s beatnik poet intellectual and 40s jazz man thrown in for spice. He claims to not like accessorizing, yet is inexplicably fond of hats. And he remains firmly convinced that Hawaiian shorts and the socks/sandals combo are coming back in style.

18. Favorite beverage?

Howard’s favorite beverage is tea. Usually unsweetened, with lemon, but every now and then he lives it up and has eight sugars. But don’t tell Vince that.

19. What do they think about before falling asleep at night?

Howard thinks fleetingly about a million different things at night: things he has to do tomorrow, things he worries that he hasn’t done, or hasn’t done well enough, things he’d love to do in his greatest fantasies come true—but just before he falls asleep, he thinks about that rooftop kiss more than he’d like to admit.

20. Childhood illnesses? Any interesting stories behind them?

Howard was a very hardy lad, befitting his sturdy Northern roots, and so was very rarely ill, aside from the occasional sniffle. However, he did break his arm on the one occasion that he was persuaded (by Vince, naturally) to try climbing a tree. Vince was very remorseful and apologetic about the whole thing, and he decorated Howard’s entire cast and sling with signatures and colorful little doodles. Howard’s never been entirely sure if Vince did this because he was trying to perfect his signature for future autographs, or to cover up the fact that none of their other classmates had even offered to sign the cast… but although he never told Vince as much, Howard was proud to show it off.

He’s never tried to climb a tree again, though, and hopes he’ll never have to.

21. Turn-ons? Turn-offs?

Howard would say that his turn-ons are organization, jazz, and sophistication, but the truth is that he’s turned on by joy, sincerity, and somebody who can make him laugh. He’s also turned on by the idea of being in control, being masterful, having somebody look up to him… and having his hair gently stroked.

Turn offs include genuine shallowness, somebody trying to dominate or humiliate him, and sex with no emotional strings attached.

22. Given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and nothing to do, what would happen?

Howard would make lists. Lots and lots of lists. And he might scribble some poetry in the margins as well. Perhaps something about blue eyes and creamy skin being like a creamy bowl of blueberries in cream. ;-)

23. How organized are they? How does this organization/disorganization manifest in their everyday life?

Howard is painfully organized, sometimes so much so that he would forget to actually live, if Vince weren’t there to pull him off track and remind him that not everything can be planned and scheduled.

24. Is there one subject of study that they excel at? Or do they even care about intellectual pursuits at all?

Howard would like to insist that he excels in all subjects of study, his grades wouldn’t support that boast. (Especially not considering that he was lost enough that he was asking Vince for the answers.) Howard did do well, though, in subjects that required a lot of memorization and organization of information, like history. And of course he has an encyclopedic knowledge of jazz.

25. How do they see themselves 5 years from today?

When Howard tries to consciously plan, he sees himself as a well-respected figure in some discipline or other (it varies, depending on his current preoccupation), attending tasteful champagne receptions and graciously signing autographs, while Vince serves as his eternally loyal pen caddy/personal assistant.

But when he just closes his eyes and thinks of the future, the only thing he sees is himself on the couch, watching television, with Vince cuddled up next to him, dozing and using Howard’s shoulder as a pillow.

26. Do they have any plans for the future? Any contingency plans if things don’t work out?

Howard is always making plans for the future. It must be said, though, that (as Vince has noted) Howard’s plans are actually frequently terrible, and he’s not great at coping with change and making alternate arrangements. This doesn’t stop him from writing up more itineraries.

27. What is their biggest regret?

Howard never admits to regrets, but if he did (and he was honest), he’d say that it was dumping Vince at his birthday party and going off with Pencil Case Girl. That’s partially because she turned out to be Old Gregg in disguise, yes, but it’s more because Howard now knows that he broke something rather badly without quite meaning to, and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

28. Who do they see as their best friend? Their worst enemy?

Vince is unquestionably Howard’s best friend, the kind of friend he'd never thought he'd be able to make, before he met Vince. Howard’s worst enemy is Howard himself, but he’d probably say it was Vince.

29. Reaction to sudden extrapersonal disaster (eg The house is on fire! What do they do?)

It depends on the situation. Sometimes in dangerous situations, Howard’s reaction is undeniably of the panicky “Run away! Run away!” school of cowardice. But at other times, when he has no time to think about things or psych himself out, he can surprise himself by just reacting in the moment. Howard is braver and stronger than he believes he can be, especially if somebody he loves is in danger.

30. Reaction to sudden intrapersonal disaster (eg close family member suddenly dies)

Being quiet and brooding, bottling his feelings up and venting them/redirecting them at other people (which is to say: mostly Vince) as anger, irritation, and blame, until he feels emotionally ready to deal with the real, more helpless feelings. But if somebody close to Howard suffers a disaster themselves, he really shines. He’s surprisingly good at being steady and reassuring and solid in those circumstances. (See: the opening of Power of the Crimp, and Howard’s calm assurance to Vince that “it’s me and you, all the way.”)

31. Most prized possession?

His plaque from the mayor of Leeds is definitely one of them, along with a few very rare jazz albums, but Howard also has a very well-hidden corner in his sock drawer, just past the Angry Beige and before the Belligerent Umber, where he keeps a selection of the little notes and drawings Vince has given to him over the years, scribbled over paper placemats and receipts and gig handbills and old school papers.

32. Thoughts on material possessions in general?

Howard will go on at length about being a man of substance who has no need to place meaning in cheap trinkets, but there are certain material possessions that he values (and covets) very highly. Mostly the sort that bring and/or signify glory and success.

33. Concept of home and family?

A part of Howard--the part that still aches about his parents' divorce, though it was long ago--longs for and idealizes the traditional family. But he does know that Vince, Naboo, and Bollo are his true family, and he appreciates them as such.

34. Thoughts on privacy? (Are they a private person, or are they prone to ‘TMI’?)

Howard is generally deeply private and suspicious… but in certain particular things, he’s still more open than Vince is. Still, Howard likes to be able to keep a certain distance, not to mention a certain gentlemanly mystique. (His phrasing, not mine!)

35. What activities do they enjoy, but consider to be a waste of time?

Howard tends to classify anything that doesn’t have some obvious intellectual component to be a waste of time, no matter how enjoyable he finds it.

36. What makes them feel guilty?

Howard tends to metabolize his guilt into defensiveness, so he can feel justified in his actions, but he does feel guilty about hurting somebody else (especially Vince). He also feels inexplicably guilty about deviating from his self-set standards for behaving like a respectable adult or great man.

37. Are they more analytical or more emotional in their decision-making?

Analytical, typically, or so he'd like to think, but Howard does have it in him to make grand, swooping, emotion-based gestures at times. Or fear-based ones.

38. Would they consider themselves a Type A or Type B personality?

Type A all the way, sir.

39. What recharges them when they’re feeling drained?

Listening to his favorite jazz on vinyl, reading a good book, enjoying a fresh pot of tea, reorganizing Stationery Village, a particularly invigorating bout of jazzercise, listening to one of Vince’s rambling stories.

40. Would you say that they have a superiority-complex? Inferiority-complex? Neither?

Both, at times. Howard alternates between boasting that he is the cleverest, smartest, most capable man who has ever lived, master of everything he attempts, and fearing that he’ll never achieve anything of significance and that everybody who matters to him can barely remember that he exists.

41. How misanthropic are they?

Howard definitely has his moments of grumbling sourpussness, but regular exposure to Vince’s sunshine ways has helped him maintain a relatively charitable outlook on life and other people.

42. Hobbies?

Many. Howard’s hobbies include, but are not limited to, creative writing, photography, stationery management, music (both playing it and listening to it), collecting rare jazz albums, making jazz-themed pencil cases, reading almanacs and studying maps, acting, and seeking his fame and/or fortune.

43. How far did they get in formal education? What are their views on formal education vs self-education?

Howard completed his basic studies as a relatively indifferent student and then never went to uni. He does, however, put great stock in self-education and improving yourself in ways that formal education can’t allow. He would wax philosophical on the virtues of self-education and enrichment, and the history of such, for well over an hour, if Vince didn’t interrupt him about five minutes into it with a question about why grapefruits don’t taste anything like grapes.

44. Religion?

Not religious.

45. Superstitions or views on the occult?

Well, considering the magical realism of the Boosh universe, the fact that he lives with a shaman who does magic, and the fact that Vince once rescued him from Hell… yes, Howard is a believer.

46. Do they express their thoughts through words or deeds?

When Howard expresses himself in words, the feelings tend to get a bit stilted or over the top or lost in translation or just plain embarrassing, so… he does try, but his actions often speak more eloquently.

47. If they were to fall in love, who (or what) is their ideal?

If you asked Howard what his ideal was, he’d probably say that she’s a classy lady, a sophisticated, jazz-loving, intellectual woman of the world. This is why Howard’s still unhappily single: he doesn’t know what he ACTUALLY wants. His real ideal is his opposite, somebody who both balances and complements him. Somebody whose optimism balances his innate pessimism, and who believes in his dreams, even when they're outlandish. Somebody who keeps him from getting too gloomy or uptight and reminds him to live in the moment and be happy. So… Vince.

48. How do they express love?

Stalking, writing cream poetry, weeping into fish ponds, attempting to box a kangaroo and generally trying to act impressively. But that’s just what Howard does when he’s infatuated. When he’s actually in love, it’s evident in all the little things he does: changing sheets and making tea, baking little cakes, making dinner, straightening Vince’s hair when he wasn't able to do it.

49. If this person were to get into a fist fight, what is their fighting style like?

Generally: flailing, curling into a ball, and/or hiding behind Vince. But if he had no time to think beforehand and had to just react, Howard could… maybe not do well, but well enough. His form is embarrassing, but he’s got size going for him, and he's stronger than he realizes. At the very least, he’s capable of punching out ten-year-old boys and nanas.

50. Is this person afraid of dying? Why or why not?

The phrase to remember here is, “Don’t kill me! I’ve got so much to give!” Howard is notoriously afraid of dying, and what he says at those times when he's threatened tells us why: he’s afraid of dying unfulfilled--of not having achieved any of the things he wanted to do, of not having lived up to the potential greatness that he feels inside himself, of not loving and being loved in the way that he’d like to. He's a man of grand designs; he'd like to realize at least a few of them.

51. Sleep habits? And what does this person wear to bed?

Howard's a traditional, button-up pyjama sort of guy, and sometimes he gets zany and wears them in stripes. His dressing gown is big and warm and a soothing shade of oatmeal, and although it's more than a little worn in places, he has no plans to replace it anytime soon. Interestingly, Vince does not fight him on this--though perhaps that's because he wears it sometimes, too, when he's bloody freezing and wants a cuddle and he thinks Howard won't know. (Howard always knows. His dressing gown doesn't usually smell like vanilla and tropical flowers and hairspray.)

As for his sleeping habits, they're surprisingly solid. Well, they'd have to be, for him to sleep undisturbed through all of Vince's comings and goings and middle-of-the-night hairdressing--not to mention his snoring, though Howard's never been able to bring himself to inform Vince that he does, in fact, snore. Most people would probably peg Howard as a man too worried to sleep well or deeply, but they're only a little right: his customary anxiety does sometimes make it tough for him to fall asleep, but once he does, he's usually out for eight hours of solid and peaceful slumber.

The only time when Howard was plagued with sleeplessness was during his time in Denmark. He's still not sure if it was just because of the unfamiliarity of the surroundings, or his unhappiness and humiliation at starring in that stupid advert... or just possibly it was the absence of a familiar and comforting snore from the opposite side of the room. Silence had never seemed so unwelcome to him before.

Almost there, almost there...

2012-04-26T17:59:54Z

Willpower, don't fail me now. I am almost to the end of Grading Madness, so close that I can just graze it with my fingertips, though it's not yet within my grasp. But it's imminent. And thank goodness for that, because I have to admit that I am tired and more than ready to blow a sparkly goodbye kiss to this semester. Said tiredness derives more from certain colleagues and administrative officials than from students, but. The sentiment remains.

Soon. Very soon.

And my reward for good behavior will be a fabulous fangirl lunch out with clairvoyant tomorrow! I can't wait for the sushi, saketinis, and copious amounts of squee, because it will be the perfect (and perfectly social) antidote to any lingering feelings of tension and angst. I always come back from these afternoons out glowing like a megawatt bulb and bubbling over with cheer, which is as much a testament to the pleasure of my dear Clairvoyant's company as it is to the delicious power of saketinis. Can't wait! And it's supposed to be sunny, which virtually guarantees a good day in Royal Oak, if not a parking space. ;-)

In more fandomy news, I just realized that I'd written out two LONG and ridiculously detailed character profiles/backstories for Howard Moon and Vince Noir, which started as a meme response and ended up as a serious writing exercise... but I never posted them here! So I will rectify that today, because although they aren't exactly stories as such, there are a LOT of mini-Boosh stories in them, and it's a good idea to park them here for safekeeping and future reference, anyway.

And of course, you're all welcome to read them, too, if you're curious and want to know what my particular Howard and Vince look like from the inside out...

Right. More coffee. Some form of sustenance might also be a good idea. And then onward in the red pen march...

On Solitude, or: Something I Have Learned About Myself

2012-04-23T00:32:06Z

I tend to write more about the physical aspects of Project Peacock, and those aspects are important--indeed, much more important than those who reflexively sneer at or dismiss fashion and style and outward self-expression realize or would credit. But one of the things about restoring my outward self to the person I am, and choose to be, is that taking on that work (and being successful at it) meant that I had to really get to know myself from the inside. It turns out that you can't effectively express who you are on the outside without accepting who you are on the inside (imagine that!), and the process of doing that was... interesting. Mostly good, but it did sometimes involve discovering and accepting a few surprise nuggets of truth about myself.

And one of those things that I learned--the thing that I ran face-first into last evening, the thing that is relevant to this entry--is that I really am an essentially social creature. I need people--need to hear from them, be around them, touch them, talk to them, listen to them, be in their presence, make them smile and laugh.

Put simply: I don't do well in solitude. It does not nurture me; it smothers and starves me. And although I accept it as a necessary condition for certain things (writing, grading, researching) that are crucial to me and what I do, I really do need to figure out a better way to protect myself against too much of it.

As I said, this is one of those discoveries of self-acceptance that I've made over the past few years: realizing that I am an extrovert, that I need to have contact with people, or in the absence of human contact (physical or digital), need to have a really absorbing project--or better yet, several--to consume my attention and distract me from the lack of social input.

In the absence of both of those things, so I have found, I can go for perhaps two days (at most) without social contact before things start to go weird and uncomfortable on me. I'm almost never cognizant of having reached this point before it all just hits me like a derailed freight train of boredom and anxiety. Where I normally feel like I can metabolize sunshine and small pleasures and excitement into a nearly bottomless supply of joy, I will suddenly feel like so horribly, achingly lonely and sad and small and forlorn and invisible--forgotten, even, although I know that's silly. Creativity dries up--in fact, almost everything does, because it's like I've run out of fuel, and I'm so very bored. I won't feel like dressing up or being particularly peacocky. It feels like what little protective barrier there normally is between me and the world has gone thin and weak, and every little thing makes me want to burst into tears, no matter how ridiculous. I feel like the silence is suffocating me, like I've been cut off from the world, and it's awful. (The idea of being alone in the world, genuinely alone, fills me with a primal horror that I'm not sure I'll ever have the words to describe. It's like the nameless, cold, and absolute terror that shocks you as a child, when you realize that you're lost and you can't find your parents or friends and you think that you might be lost forever, adrift in space, unclaimed and unwanted.)

It's in those moments, more than any others, that I wish I didn't live alone, because what I want more than anything is for somebody solid and unshakable to be there: to let me cuddle them, to curl up on the sofa with me and eat ice cream and watch cartoons or something equally silly and funny, to pamper me just a little bit and tell me that my hair looks good, to laugh at my jokes and make me feel connected to the world again and remind me that I haven't gone invisible. The cats, lovely and loving as they are, can't quite provide that sort of comfort.

As dire as I'm making it sound, and as terrible as it feels, it's actually amazingly easy to dispel one of these moods. It honestly doesn't take much. All I need is a text or tweet from a friend, a call, a quick visit, a snippet of chat online--something, anything that brings that spark of connection, to remind me that I haven't floated away and I'm still connected to humanity. And then everything snaps back into focus, like it was never out in the first place, and life makes perfect sense again, and all that loneliness and sadness just disappears, forgotten as quickly as it arrived. The sun parts the dark clouds, and all is well.

You'd think I would remember this simple fact when I'm in the middle of one of these transient fits of existential angst, wouldn't you, and then seek out that social interaction I'm lacking, and be happy and productive and positive again. You would think that, but you'd be wrong; it seems to take me by surprise every time. I never seem to anticipate those rare moments when I'm going to be genuinely alone, when most of my friends and family will be out of town, out of reach, or otherwise occupied. And in the midst of one of these times, I can never remember exactly what I need or how to seek it out. I just know that I feel horrible and not myself--and worse, I feel guilty about that, because I know that I'm expected to be cheerful and upbeat and self-sufficient, the wheel that never squeaks. In all fairness, that is usually accurate... but every so often, it isn't, and I somehow feel as though I'm letting people down in not living up to that expected standard. And I never want to reach out then, because I know that said people are very busy (which is why they aren't where they usually are), and it feels horribly needy and clingy and presumptuous to contact a friend or loved one out of the blue to say, "I need you to hug me right now, because I'm feeling unloved, and I'm not as self-sufficient as I appear to be." Not least because I know that so many of them are introverts who don't necessarily have those emotional resources to offer, and I don't want to make them feel uncomfortable--or smothered.

I seem to be pretty good at knowing when to offer emotional support to others (and I like doing that!), but I am not skilled at all at asking for it on my own behalf. I am not sure how you get better at that, but I think it might be a skill worth cultivating. ~ponders~

In any case, I am thinking abut these things because yes, I did have one of those times this past weekend. As usual when this happens, many of my friends and family were unreachable this weekend, and for a variety of very good reasons. This didn't register with me as silence for some time, because I've been occupied with grading--which is, as I said at the start, one of those activities requiring solitude that I've come to accept, and to which I've adapted. When I'm writing, or creating something, or grading, or researching, it feels to me like going inside a diving bell and being plunged down to the depths, in a little cocoon of contemplation and quietude. I don't hear the rest of the world at times like those; everything else feels far away, muffled, indistinct, and I don't miss the world because it hardly seems to exist outside of what's in front of me.

But eventually, I need to come up for fresh air, and when I do, I crave company like... well, like fresh air. *g* I need companionship to break through that cocoon, recharge me, revive me, remind me that I'm human. Without it, well... ~gestures up above~ When that happens, it's like I'm trapped inside that cocoon, and it isn't at all comforting or conducive to creativity--it's smothering me, cutting me off, blocking out any spark of idea or insight.

I'm not entirely certain where I'm going with this, to be honest with you. I suppose I feel like I've detected enough of a pattern in these times to want to work it out on the page (or in pixels) and see if, in doing so, I might push myself to understand it--and myself--a little bit better, because if I can start to understand it, perhaps I can start to figure out ways to protect myself just a little bit better. It is, at very least, a start.

But don't worry about me; I'm completely back to my usual self by now. These things never last long, and a good night's rest is, almost without fail, like wiping the slate clean and starting again, whistling a happy tune. Sunday has been--fittingly--a much sunnier day, literally and figuratively, and I see no reason to anticipate clouds on the horizon anytime soon. :-)

In any case, hugs and love and glittery kisses to all who want or need them! These are stressful times for many of us, in different ways, and I hope you know that no matter the situation, I'm always wishing all of you the best.