*brushes off cobwebs*

[constance]

Many thanks to all of your sympathetic comments on my previous couple of posts. Someday soon I'll get around to answering them all, but for now, I'm going to move on to something a bit more upbeat.

I mean, sure, I could moan and whine about how this summer, like every summer in recent memory, is kicking my ass like Pai Mei and his crane, but why belabor the point when I could tell you instead about

ten things that are making me happy right now

1. My mother, who when confronted with a plate of delicious food wriggles in her seat in anticipation and bumps her hands together in a gesture reminiscent of Wallace, before she tucks in. I call this little tic her Dance of Good Food.

2. My car: it is going to be fixed, I have insurance money in hand, parts have been ordered, I am getting a rental car for the duration, and it is, as Kiki Kavanaugh says at her wedding, all so fucking grown-up that I am having trouble getting my head around it. My car! It will be fixed!

3. Harry Potter. Oh, my Harry Potter, my new-found-land. I would count the ways (not to mix allusions, but hey, I seem to be on an allusion-mixing roll, here, so why stick at mixing them within one paragraph?), but I'm sure the ways have all been discussed to death by now. I took a two-week break after my first reading, but over this past weekend, I read it twice more, and I'm listening to it on audio, and I am all anxious to get started on a project I've been contemplating for a few weeks now: a plan of Harry and Ginny's House of Dreams as requested by amelia_eve. Not to mention that I have an ongoing list of Fics I'd Like to See and/or Write, which I'm sure you've all shared yours as well, by now, but if you want to share them -- any of your thoughts, really -- again, I am all agog to hear.

4. George R.R. Martin, whose four-thousand-page saga A Song of Ice and Fire saw me through two of the worst weeks of my bad summer in high chivalraic semi-magical style. I will tell you a secret: I am currently designing the gown I will wear at my wedding to Tyrion Lannister, who has become one of my favorite characters of all time.

5. Marvin Gaye's "Got To Give It Up," Stevie Wonder's "I Wish," and Nina Simone's "My Baby Just Cares For Me," which played in high rotation over the weekend. I find it nearly impossible to be sad or mopey when any of these three songs are playing.

6. There is a new accessory rack in a little store near my house which consists entirely of dozens of headbands made of brightly-colored tie silk with long sashlike fluttery ends. I suspect that if any (or all, which is a minor dream of mine right now) were in my possession, I would treat them the same way I treat my hats, gloves, and scarves, of which I have plenty: I would eye them with reverence, stroke them tenderly, admire them without reservation, and never ever wear them because they made me feel conspicuous and self-conscious. I am working on overcoming this ridiculous attitude, because, I mean, why have thirty pairs of vintage gloves if you're not planning to wear them? Why lust after something you don't have the courage to don? Why grow out your hair if you're not willing to accessorize it as frivolously as possible?

7. Creme Brulee with fresh berries. Enough said.

8. Andre Benjamin. I like Outkast well enough, though they've never figured all that heavily in my musical pantheon; but the other day on a whim, I bought a used copy of Idlewild and brought it home, and as soon as the first scene started playing, I suddenly remembered how much I loved it when it came out last summer. It was a glorious extravaganza just suited to pulling me out of last year's ass-kicking, not a perfect film so much as a perfect frothy spicy late-summer confection, like the pecan-and-sweet-potato pie a la mode my mother had for dessert yesterday. But it wasn't until the very end, with Andre 3000's radiant ending-credit performance (can men be radiant? If any can be, he was), that I remembered how painfully much I loved him at the end of last summer. I want to marry him, too. I think Tyrion will understand, once I show him that performance. Tyrion is wise that way.

9. Fanfiction. I have all these fandoms and recs to get through, stories I've been waiting for, stuff I've been saving for the right moment, and I think, now that I've emerged blinking from DH and A Feast for Crows, that that moment is upon me. Just thinking about all the great stuff in store is sustaining me, and I haven't even started looking or clicking on those links yet.

10. You. I've missed you an awful lot. Hello. How are you doing?

Comments

[gmth.livejournal.com]

I am getting a rental car for the duration, and it is, as Kiki Kavanaugh says at her wedding, all so fucking grown-up...

Princess Daisy reference FTW!

Glad to see there's still some joy left in your life despite recent events. :-)

[ainsley.livejournal.com]

10. I am doing pretty well, after what amounts to a stay of execution today. A return of happy! And I? am a fan of happy, the kind of fan who refuses to let it out of her sight.

9. Oh, man, that's the one reason I'm sad about life returning--less time to read fic. At least I have a few hundred bookmarked to read so that I can instantly find something in my rare downtime. And I'm always discovering new fandoms (did you know the GRRM series is a Yuletide fandom? I shall be checking there after I finish the series.)

4. Yay books! I've been returning to the second book over a bumpy weekend just past, and it helps.

Mostly I'm glad you have things that are making you happy.

i want a man who loves my morning armpit.

[kickthebeat.livejournal.com]

i think all of these things sound absolutely delightful -- i still have not seen Idlewild, what is WRONG with me -- but you, you are the most delightful of all. although i have not been around either, i've still missed you dreadfully. i hope things are settling, love, and you are doing well.


on a completely retarded note, though, harry and ginny's dream house!!1! i am gibbering unintelligibly at the mere thought. xoxoxoxoxoxo

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

It's so good to see you again! Congratulations on getting your car fixed soon. To me, the plumbing of one's own sink and the crawling around under the house looking for ducts seems even MORE fucking grown up even than the car stuff, but maybe that's because I've never had to do either of those two things.

And wow, the headbands sound gorgeous! Both girlies are growing out their bangs right now; perhaps it's good that we haven't seen ANY store that has anything like a tempting and beautiful display of headbands like the ones you describe. Oh, the wheedling that would ensue.

Do you make your own creme brulee, or do you indulge while out and about?

[coco-palmolive.livejournal.com]

I hope Harry and Ginny's Dream House Plan answers my most pressing question, which is, do they keep Kreacher? I hope so, because although Harry is not the servant type, any happy ending for Kreacher probably includes a family who appreciates him. (Yes, I am a total sap re: Kreacher.)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Let me ask you a question about A Song of Ice and Fire.

A while back, I had one of those collections of novellas that authors had written in their own universes, and there was a ASOIAF novella in there, and it whacked my torture squick on page one, so hard that I made no effort to read further.

(It was one of those things that was probably meant to signal in an offhand way the Medieval-ness of the place -- that this is not a universe in which people care about your human dignity or your achievement of your full potential, that life here is nasty, brutish and short, etc.)

Is there any point in my trying to read the books, or are they going to squick me like that too?