Batcave
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tafadhali- May 28th, 13:42
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- tafadhali
- May 26th, 19:54
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- tafadhali
- May 23rd, 18:36
pissed off
Know what really sucks? Being told you'll get one more week extensions on your essays due Thursday and then being told in an e-mail, at 6:30 PM on Wednesday, "Oh, you meant those essays?"
Yes, I meant the only essays I fucking have.
I've done just enough work on one of the essays over the past three days that I'll feel like a total jackass if I can't get that one in on time, but I would definitely not have spent so much of today chilling out, thinking that all I wanted to get done before bedtime was going over the plays again and firming up my outline so I could write the paper tomorrow night, if I'd known I'd suddenly have less than eighteen hours to churn this thing out.
Also, my other essay is going to be so fucking late, I don't even know. If I can write it by Monday I'll only have lost, you know, nine points or whatever. Only nine.
- I read lots of happy fanfiction.
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- tafadhali
- May 21st, 15:49
As I was adding the three gloomy books I finished today to my list of books read this year, I was reflecting on the profoundly depressing nature of nearly every book I've read this year.
A sampling:
A Monologue About Death by Christopher Marlowe
Everyone Dies (Especially the Rape Victim) by William Shakespeare
Women are Whores by William Shakespeare
Men are Rapists (Part II) by Stieg Larsson
Women Can Rape Too by William Shakespeare
Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler
Hard Times: Seriously Mills Were No Fun At All by Charles Dickens
Children Committing Genocide by Orson Scott Card
Children Knowingly Committing Genocide by Orson Scott Card
Teenagers Dying of Cancer by John Green
Psychopaths Are Everywhere by Jon Ronson
Racism and Science by Rebecca Skloot
Racism and the Death Penalty by Ernest J. Gaines
Childhood Sexual Abuse by Scott Heim
Racism and Childhood Sexual Abuse by Toni Morrison
Harry Potter and the Death of Your Favorite Character by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Ongoing Trauma of Dead Role Models by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Death of Everyone Else You Loved by J.K. Rowling
My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece (Because She Was Killed by Terrorists and My Dad is a Negligent Alcoholic) by Annabel Pitcher
This Book is Literally Called The Sad Book by Michael Rosen
Bonus points to anyone who can tell me which title here is not doctored at all. Also who can guess which book is which.
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- tafadhali
- May 21st, 9:56
happy
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- tafadhali
- May 21st, 4:18
exhausted
I am overcome with Sunday dinner, it was too much for me, stick a fork in me I'm done -- and how do the British have so many things called pudding, there's pudding that's bread and pudding that's dessert and pudding that's entrails -- and this is after I fell asleep for seven hours following dinner.
I'm pretty ready to be asleep again, actually, if that would be okay. So that I can get up and pretend I'm going to work again and maybe actually read my part in the play, which I have not thought about at all, before I go to rehearsal tomorrow finally.
Ugh, why did I think dessert after cheese tart and veg and mash and potatoes and Yorkshire pudding was a good idea, I am still so full. I swear to god I'm only going to eat grapes tomorrow.
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- tafadhali
- May 15th, 22:36
I'm in a place in my life where all my essays are due soon and I meant to work on them but then my kitchen flooded and I now just need to get lightly plastered and listen to moody rap tonight.
Except the moodiness keeps getting ruined by my giggling every time Eminem says "Guess that's why they call it window pane" in "Love the Way You Lie" or Kanye tells us that the same people who tried to black ball him forgot about two things -- his black balls.
pleaseletmykitchenbedryinthemorningkthx.
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- tafadhali
- May 6th, 6:38
exanimate
Avengers was awesome. I'm too zonked to give more info than that, but it pretty much sums it up. Everyone in it was awesome. Mark Ruffalo? Astonishingly amazingly awesome playing a character I've never liked before. Natasha? Way more awesome than I gave her credit for. Everyone was totally awesome.
But, reading the original comics on my plane ride last night, I couldn't help but wish we'd gotten my surprise new favorite character in there: Janet Van Dyne. Oh, she makes a constant stream of low-level sexual harassment endlessly charming. EVERYONE ELSE ON THE TEAM IS THINKING THE SAME THING ABOUT THOR'S SHOULDERS, JAN. YOU'RE JUST THE ONLY ONE TO SAY IT. (Okay, to be fair, Ant-Man probably hasn't realized Thor has shoulders yet.)
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- tafadhali
- April 30th, 17:28
- exhausted
Last night's Mad Men was amazing, but possibly a bit too thematically relevant to my life, especially after the unresolved blow-out I had with my dad this afternoon. But Kiernan Shiiiiiipka: so wonderful. More Sally and Roger scenes! All the Sally and Roger scenes! And all the supportive lady friendship scenes! Thank you!
Anyway, now I'm watching The West Wing to make me feel better about my life, though not in the usual way (the "oh god, real politics suck" way) but in the "at least I didn't hide my MS from the American public" way. Things could be worse.
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- tafadhali
- April 26th, 21:46
Let's have a post not about my life for once:
I'm rewatching Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and I can't be the only one who wants fic where Paula Patton as Agent Carter is another of Peggy Carter's awesome secret agent nieces. Like, she just has a cadre of kickass nieces.
The end.
Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.
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- tafadhali
- April 12th, 2:11
- exhausted
For the record, 2012 may be going down as the shittiest year in Johnson family history.
Not the worst year for me. I'm doing pretty damn well this year. I like where I live, I have high hopes for the future, I'm succeeding academically (if we ignore the pre-essay panic state I'm in).
It's everything else that is happening to or around me and my loved ones that can just go ahead and suck my cock.
I just keep telling myself that it is like the spectacular ski crash that started my year with a bang: we just keep slamming our heads into trees, getting up, brushing ourselves off, and feeling stronger for knowing that the thing that makes us sick with fear has happened and we've survived it.
- Fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face
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- tafadhali
- March 30th, 20:02
- exanimate
1. Today I feel as if all of the vital energy has been sucked out of my body. Probably the Russians, stealing my precious bodily fluids. Or the awful, exhausting dreams I had last night compounded by my being too apathetic to eat breakfast or lunch.
2. All the friend tension going on up in Community isn't helping either.
3. However, yesterday was awesome, and I am BEFRIENDING MY NEIGHBORS. It is crazy! Just last week-ish I discovered that my next door neighbor is actually my friend Cecilia's friend who recently joined our choir, and so now I'm going over there to pregame for dancing in like twenty minutes and I am super psyched. Between them and my friends Jamie and Jude on the other side, I know more of my neighbors than I have since I was ten years old.
4. And I have a friend!date to see The Hunger Games tomorrow! FINALLY JESUS CHRIST.
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- tafadhali
- March 28th, 23:35
excited, but sleepy
Over my lovely dinner in London, I was composing a Livejournal post about my day in my head. The post was to consist of roughly this text:A relaxed travel day that got started (very, very) early, but otherwise went smoothly, both today's highpoint and lowpoint were embarrassingly petty and also just embarrassing. The highpoint merely confirmed what we all knew: I am a total Hermione Granger.
...It was when the man at passport control asked me if he could keep my Border Control card and use it as an example of how to properly fill out the form, legibly and clearly, on the first go around, and I had a ridiculous flush of that feeling in 9th grade when your teacher reads an anonymous paragraph aloud to demonstrate good sentence structure and it's yours. WHATEVER, GUYS. I JUST LIKE BEING GOOD AT THINGS. EVEN IF IT'S FILLING OUT SIMPLE PAPERWORK. I GOT UP AT 4:15 AM THIS MORNING.
The lowpoint quickly brought me down to earth, as it involved me getting my suitcase handle hooked around the bathroom turnstile in Paddington and having to dole out an extra 30p just to rescue it. Also, I had to borrow 10p of that from a woman in line.
However, I was being overly hasty in thinking that my day's highs and lows had already occurred by 8:30 PM, and since dinner I have had to totally reevaluate. Because the new lowpoint is definitely my 9:00 train being half an hour late and my exhaustedly realizing I was going to miss the last transfer to Stratford. Luckily, that was resolved when I ran across a classmate at the station and we were at least able to split the expense of a cab.
THE NEW HIGH IS THAT WILL SENT ME BAKED GOODS. Um, yes, they have probably been sitting under my doormat for four days, but it's been very mild and dry out, and they are fudge and rum balls and I ate some of both to make sure they were okay, and I am happy to say: PERFECTION. WILLLLLLLL. BEST FREELOADING TENANT EVER. (HOW CAN IT BE FREELOADING WHEN HE STILL SENDS ME BAKED GOODS. HE MADE RUM BALLS NOT AT CHRISTMAS JUST FOR ME. IT IS ACTUALLY LIKE HE IS PAYING RENT FOREVER.)
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- tafadhali
- March 25th, 22:28
MySummerSpring Vacation, by Emma Johnson, aged 23 and nearly 1/2
( A litany of crime and celebrity sightings. Someone I know is actually literally in jail for murder now. )
On top of and almost certainly because of all that -- in addition to having been sick for over a week and still doing touristy things, choir, and a play -- I entirely lost my voice this morning. It's still barely hanging in there, and my utter unwillingness to rest it isn't helping things. At least French is a bit easier on it -- my French is lower and flatter than my English. In French I sound jazzy; in English, I sound like a teenage boy whose voice is breaking as my voice goes painfully up and down.
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- tafadhali
- March 21st, 20:12
sick
I'm finally listening to the NPR All Songs Considered Valentine's Day show, and listening to Bob and Robin act like they're going to dedicate total joke songs to each other and then going legitimately heartfelt instead is both (a) sweet and (b) giving me all these Danny/Casey feels. Like, if there were a Sports Night public radio AU...Dan would abuse song dedications. There would be definite tenth anniversary "THIS IS FROM OUR FIRST SHOW!" song dedications, and atypical birthday songs, and not as goofy as they should be Valentine's songs. I would read this.
Alright, napping again now. Unless maybe I can get myself out of bed for ice cream. Last night -- I honestly couldn't tell you what time, or if it was before or after I went to sleep, but I'm leaning towards "after" -- I was so tired and out of it and probably feverish that I not only spilled a glass of water on my bed, but (a) was convinced I was drunk and it was vodka (which, WHAT, SICK EMMA? WHEN HAVE YOU EVER JUST DRUNK STRAIGHT VODKA? WHAT FEVER DREAM WERE YOU LIVING IN?) and (b) just tossed a towel on it and fell asleep there, instead of...moving to the other side of the bed. I am amazed I made it to class today. (NO MORE CLASSES UNTIL AT LEAST 2013. CRAZY.)
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- tafadhali
- March 19th, 18:08
I have yet to read anything by the critic I'm meant to be impersonating on Wednesday (TI-TUS!), but having just skimmed his Wikipedia entry for a sense of his most influential works to read tomorrow night, I believe I shall rather like him:Empson was a charismatic personality, variously described as gruff, scornful, brusque, cold, and of immoderate appetites (sex and alcohol being the most obvious), partly because he was also a roundly paradoxical figure. He was bisexual.[citation needed] He was critical of the Judeo-Christian God and attracted to Buddhist philosophy. His sophisticated and subtle intellectual refinement contrasted sharply with his rather lax attention to personal hygiene (the filthiness of his lodgings throughout his life is legendary) and grooming (in later years he affected a bizarre style of facial hair, shaving his chin, but allowing the hair around his neck to grow unimpeded, so that it resembled a shaggy, white cravat). He was deeply sympathetic to the cause of Maoist revolutionaries in China, but was brought up in the cavernous luxury of a rural estate in Yorkshire with all the attendant prerogatives of a member of the landed gentry. He was a scholar of imagination, erudition and insight specializing in the highly traditional domain of early and pre-modern English literature at the heart of the canon (Shakespeare, Milton, the Metaphysical Poets), but his work is marked by great humour, the indulgence of an eloquent and cavalier dismissiveness (reminiscent of Oscar Wilde's critical bon mots), and an astonishingly rich and varied erudition. He was esteemed the revolutionary forefather of modern literary criticism, but disavowed "theory" altogether and evinced a deep concern for distinctly psychological elements in literature: the emotions of desire and love, the sensibility and intentions of authors. He was an intellectual and scholar, yet, he spent a good portion of his early years living the life of an imperial adventurer (more a Richard Francis Burton than a C. S. Lewis). These paradoxes of character and approach partly help to explain the sense that many scholars have that, while imaginative, insightful and well-argued, his critical judgement sometimes partakes of the bizarre and, indeed, the downright perverse. Nevertheless, the importance of his early critical works to the history of literary criticism is widely acknowledged and Milton's God remains of considerable importance to Miltonic studies. Empson's critical legacy, despite occasional gaffes and less occasional idiosyncrasies, remains secure.
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- tafadhali
- March 17th, 8:02
- sick
I completely flubbed two of my opening speeches in an embarrassingly obvious way last night! Hurray for worst stage performance of my life!
There were also several missed cues and at one point Charlie forgot he was missing a hand when he went on stage and had to keep his arm shoved in his apron pocket for an entire scene.
Luckily it was a professor's 30th birthday party, so almost no one except a few family members came. Hopefully it will suck less today.
However, since part of my suck may have been that I was on the verge of becoming sick, which became quickly evident after the show when I started to feel like crap and is more or less confirmed by how badly I slept last night and how terrible I feel now, I may be only moderately better for our two performances today.
I like that I can't make it through the first night of having a guest without calamity striking at any point this year. If I keep getting worse from here, I have no idea how I'm going to make it through the insane amount of homework I have this week and the travel I'm doing next weekend, let alone the plays and after-party and a day trip tomorrow. Right now I want to lie curled up in bed and never move.
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- tafadhali
- March 16th, 0:29
giddy
Today was a good fucking day. Do you want to know why today was a good fucking day?
1) Fell asleep at a reasonable hour yesterday and therefore woke up easily at 10:30 today, instead of, say, 2:00.
2) Still riding the high from turning in my thesis proposal yesterday, learning I'm the only student with a Distinction in my program, and having it firmly suggested to me by my head of program that I would be a great PhD candidate. EVEN IF OH MY GOD THAT IS NOT MY PLAN RIGHT NOW.
3) Got to eat leftovers for lunch! I never get to eat leftovers. Because I don't have a microwave and my oven doesn't work. But, luckily, rice and curry is eminently suitable for frying pan reheating.
4) Ran into Ms. Skeele and Mr. Murdock (my high school English teachers) and their students on the street and got to tag along with them to historical sites.
5) Choir!
6) Had an invigorating bitch fest about the state of women's reproductive rights in the U.S. over chilli and a pint for dinner.
7) OPENING NIGHT WENT REALLY WELL. I mean, I sort of fudged some of my lines and I feel I was gigglier than I meant to be in one scene, but WHATEVER. GOOD OPENING NIGHT. And Mr. Murdock and many students were there!
8) And then I got to go and talk to the students about the play and my LIFE and EVERYTHING, and I got to feel all adult and accomplished and like I know what the fuck I'm doing, and I think they liked the play and, although they were quiet, enjoyed my commentary on it, and maybe enjoyed seeing an alumna doing something cool with herself right now, and I definitely felt proud of my massive wave of English major cred right now in front of Skeele and Murdock.
9) And then PUB, with all the Titus people, and we were tipsy and adrenaline high and giddy from the play, and yes.
And tomorrow can only be good too because REINA MY COUSIN is coming to town, and she will see my play, and YES. AND ALSO COMMUNITY WILL BE DOWNLOADABLE. !!!
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- tafadhali
- March 13th, 16:59
- tired
I just spent literally all the cash I am allowed to have for the next two weeks (my British bank account is...bare, and I have a bill due the 1st) on laundry, but I am appreciating the clean sheets.
At least that's one thing off my list. Other things on the list include: tidying whole house, writing my thesis proposal, my homework for tomorrow, beginning to do all the massive amounts of reading required for my next week's History of Performance class, being in a play four times, preparing an audition monologue for As You Like It.
Which brings me to my next point: I NEED TO KNOW WHO TO AUDITION FOR. I'm leaning towards Oliver, but I guess Phoebe could be fun. Also, Orlando is one of my all-time favorite Shakespearean lovers, because he is a total dumbass, but realistically it's a bigger role that I can comfortably carry. (Rosalind is actually tied for my favorite Shakespearean heroine, but this show definitely, definitely deserves a better Rosalind than me. I would actually die of a coronary.)
Poll #1826126 WHO? WHOOOOO?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 0
Who should Emma audition for in As You Like It?
View Answers
Orlando -- dream big, Emma, there's NO WAY this will go to one of the two guys to actually audition, NONE AT ALL 
0 (0.0%)Oliver -- because that actually seems sensible and you really don't actually want to carry half the show 0 (0.0%)Celia -- I don't know, maybe you should be a girl sometime? 0 (0.0%)Duke Frederick -- um, because that's who Merc was like NINE YEARS AGO, and it would be funny? 0 (0.0%)Phoebe -- because being disdainful to guys who like me and crushing on girls in drag should come naturally to you 0 (0.0%)I will make a compelling case for someone else in the comments 0 (0.0%)
- Alec Guinness, you are a sociopath in this movie.
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- tafadhali
- March 11th, 22:56
tipsy
Um, let's be real about my Sunday: I spent all of it reading Darcy/Clint fic, drinking wine, and eating junk food. There was a lot of Ben & Jerry's Half-Baked in my day.
So let the wine be my excuse when I say, I am halfway through The Bridge on the River Kwai, which my dad has been insisting I watch for about twenty years now and I'm ... kind of liking it, I really struggle with the elitism inherent in the Geneva Convention saying that officers may not be used for physical labor, and I prefer Bill Holden's brand of dickishness in Stalag 17 to here, but: if they blow up the bridge at the end of this movie, whether or not the bridge helps the "enemy", I will cry.
I have a thing about property destruction on the best of days -- frankly, it is amazing I like superhero things so well -- and here the bridge is like the men's reason for being. Sure, a day spent eating ice cream, drinking wine, and reading fic probably could be called "the best of days", but let's not test it.
Oh shit, now there are leeches. Please don't let anyone have a leech on their dick, I have seen Stand By Me too many times already.
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- tafadhali
- March 11th, 13:53
cheerful
They have called this day the Eleventh of March! And whomsoever of you gets through this day, unless you are shot in the head or somehow slain, you will stand at tiptoe when e'er you hear the name again, and you will get excited at the name March the Eleventh!
We happy few, we few, we band of brothers. Our names will be as like household names. And those who are not here, be they sleeping or doing something else, they will feel themselves... sort of crappy. Because they are not here to... to join the fight, on this day, the Eleventh of March!
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- tafadhali
- March 11th, 4:25
sad
I was just going to watch a couple episodes of The West Wing tonight, and then I realized I was so close to the end of season 2, and that meant TWO FUCKING CATHEDRALS, so I had to keep watching.
I got to the last two minutes of "18th and Potomac" and I was doing okay, just doing the Sunday NYT puzzle on my phone while half-watching, and then I saw Charlie's face when he got the call about Mrs. Landingham and I just started silently crying and pretty much didn't let up until the end of the next episode. About forty of the best minutes of television ever.
And then I pulled myself together and decided to surf the internet a bit before bed. I went to AfterElton.com and was going through their most recent links post and, out of idle curiosity, clicked on a link about WHO IS GOING TO DIE in an upcoming Desperate Housewives episode...and immediately said, looking at the list of possibilities, "WAIT. WAIT. IS THAT THE ACTRESS WHO PLAYS MRS. LANDINGHAM? IS SHE GOING TO DIE AGAIN? I CANNOT TAKE THIS. TELL ME IT WON'T BE HER." ( Spoilers for the show. )
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- tafadhali
- March 8th, 21:29
- tired
1) I finally got my last essay of the term back, and I came through my first semester of grad school with a First! Two awesome scores and one score just this side of shittastic, but it all averages to "pretty darn good", which is what I needed!
2) I saw The Artist and it was delightful and lovely and the whole point of going today was that I knew I was walking a tightrope of emotion and I was like, "I want a film that won't make me cry." SPOILER ALERT: It made me cry. Like three times. Mostly in scenes when his dog was worried about him. I am a WRETCH today.
3) In a fic I am reading, a character just described himself as being on "the wrong side of twenty." Anyone who says they are "on the wrong side of twenty" and isn't in high school is straight up insane.
4) Can popcorn and Oreos be dinner? Y/N? I really don't feel like doing the dishes right now. Possibly becauseI might be getting sickI AM NOT SICK AT ALL AND COULD NOT POSSIBLY BE SICK IT IS ONE WEEK UNTIL MY PLAY GOES UP.
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- tafadhali
- March 4th, 22:46
I mostly know like two-thirds of my lines. As Bassianus. I know zero of my lines as second goth. We'll work on that.
And it better be soon, because I just talked with Ms. Skeele, one of my favorite high school English teachers, and she and Mr. Murdock and a bunch of high schoolers are COMING MY WAY in two weeks, and they are COMING TO THE PLAY, WTF.
My intense excitement about their stopping by Stratford during their literary tour of England is warring with my terror of performing in front of them. The last time I did Shakespeare in front of them, they hadn't met me yet so it was okay. Now they're all, "WHY DON'T WE COME SEE YOUR PLAY, SINCE WE'RE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD" and I'm like, "I'M TWO BLOCKS FROM THE RSC. GO THERE INSTEAD. but okay. if you insist."
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- tafadhali
- March 3rd, 3:07
