(no subject)
Jan. 21st, 2024 10:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatSitting here in my jammies, with a robe on, drinking calming tea. Preparing for bed.
Not tired yet, due to impromptu nap around 11 am this morning.
Anger has been an issue the last few weeks, along with irritability. Every January since 2022, I want to kill Bright Young Thing. This is getting exhausting. Then, somehow, it passes, I get over it, and we start the whole process again, rinse and repeat.
I'm hoping this year pans out differently, but with my job still intact.
When I'm worried and feeling insecure about things - the internet does a very good job of making me feel even more so. Why is that? Not so much Dreamdwidth - which is my home and safe haven on the net and has been since I fled Live Journal (which used to be). I actually prefer Dream Width, there's no kerfuffles or angry posts. Mainly because I'm not really in a fandom arguing over characters, or fighting over politics. We're all like-minded at the moment or for the most part.
It's the anniversary of the ATPOBTVS & ATS Board, which started in January of 1999 (I know this because Masq posted about it on FB today). I joined in late April of 2002, following a meta I wrote - which someone had asked my permission to repost to that board. And I got curious and wandered over. I discovered it was among the few fandom boards or discussion boards - where you could rationally and calmly discuss characters, plots, storylines, and analyze them with like-minded souls - and very little argument. Oh we had debates, and we lost our tempers, but overall it was pretty tame. 75% of it was kerfuffle free. And I've not seen its like since. I think the reason it was so calm - was it was monitored by people in their thirties and forties, scholars, and academics. And the people on it - were more interested in analyzing the story, speculating about where it was going, then reacting emotionally to it? Or pushing a specific character or ship.
Having lurked on the fringes of other fandoms, or attempted to interact with them (*cough*GeneralHospital*cough* and cough*X-men*cough) - I really appreciate the ATPOBTVS board.
My weekly goals are minor ones:
1. To get my blood sugar down. And stop eating chocolate bars. (I'm eating organic gluten free dark chocolate with either toffee, gluten free pretzel, or almond butter in it.) Basically stop eating desert and carbs. Which is hard (I miss oatmeal in the morning).
2. Work on my book in the evenings, I want to finish the second draft by the end of January, if possible.
3. Complete my work goals (which I can't really write about here).
4. Try to exercise more.
See minor goals. And not lose my temper or let my irritability get the better of me.
***
Books that I'm working my way through? I'm in a reading slump, so I've been dabbling in more than one book at a time, with little grabbing my interest.
* My Name is Barbara - I've finished about 16 hours of this book, and have about 15 to go or thereabouts. It's a 46 hour book.
After regaling me with the ins and outs of Yentle, we moved on to her affairs with Jon Peters, Peter Matz, Richard Baskin, and Don Johnson (who I'd forgotten about, and damn I was happy forgetting about that one - that pairing never made sense to me). She also talks about her benefit concerts, the film Nuts (and why it didn't work), and attempting to film The Normal Heart (a play she'd fallen in love with in the 1980s and was obsessed with, but ran into problems with the playwright and ultimately lost it to Ryan Murphy).
Out takes?
My god, she needs an editor. Although, I have a feeling she'd be impossible to edit. She talks about everything, and her main purpose for writing this book (which took her over five years to write - that's what she's been doing the last few years, in case anyone was curious?), was to set the record straight. So, she says little about her friends, and a lot about the people she doesn't like or said nasty things about her or made her life difficult or hurt her.
- Mandy Pantikan drove her crazy on Yentl. He'd been cast as the love interest at 28. It was his first movie role. And for some reason or other he thought he'd have an affair with Streisand. And much like Stanley Chaplin before him - threw a hissy fit when she didn't reciprocate. When Streisand confronted him, and discovered that's what he expected, she was flabbergasted.
-She keeps flirting with Pierre Trudeau, but was involved with Don Johnson at the time. Unfortunately, Don wanted to pursue a singing career - and she agreed to help him and asked him to sing with her on an album, and he got (understandably so) a bit nervous and insecure about it. That kind of broke them apart.
- Nuts - the film which is based on a play that she optioned, was problematic because of the directors. First she ran into issues with Mark Rydell, who wanted explicit sex scenes, and didn't see her in the part. She was producing it. So off he went. Then Martin Freidman, who was a misogynist, and catered to the male cast.
But, she interviewed a lot of inmates and psychiatric inmates for the role.
And discovered a frankness about them. Striesand states she has no filter, likes to be up front and honest about everything, and hates small talk.
Also is quite blunt. I identified.
That's the experience of listening to this - at times she's highly relatable, others, annoyingly self-involved, and others charming and all about the process.
Other books? Outside of a lot of digital comic books - which don't require a long attention span, and I read before bed...
* I Will Repay by Baroness Orczy the same woman who wrote The Scarlet Pimpernell, and this is actually a story within that same universe and series. The Pimpernell pops up, but as a supporting character. It's a sequel to the original novel, yet comes third in the series, after Sir Percy Leads the Band, and before That Elusive Pimpernel.
I like her writing style - there's none of the pining or yearning, it's straight forward and in an odd way, somewhat snarky about the upper crust or elite. Considering she wrote this in the 1800s/early 1900s or thereabouts, I was impressed.
Baroness Emma Orczy (full name: Emma Magdalena Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála Orczy de Orci) (/ˈɔːrtsiː/; 23 September 1865 – 12 November 1947), usually known as Baroness Orczy (the name under which she was published) or to her family and friends as Emmuska Orczy, was a Hungarian-born British novelist and playwright. She is best known for her series of novels featuring the Scarlet Pimpernel, the alter ego of Sir Percy Blakeney, a wealthy English fop who turns into a quick-thinking escape artist in order to save French aristocrats from "Madame Guillotine" during the French Revolution, establishing the "hero with a secret identity" in popular culture
* We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian - this is a homosexual romance that appears to take place in the 1950s? It's in the US, between two male reporters. This is a nitch - ie. m/m by female heterosexual writers. (At least I think the writer is heterosexual, I may be wrong about that. But I'm pretty certain. Ellen Kurshner is not. I know I'm on Twitter and Bluesky, and they tell us.)
I'm struggling to get into it - too much pining and yearning. Apparently this happens regardless of gender?
* Paladin's Grace - I'm thinking that I don't care about perfume as much as the writer does? Or soliders? I don't. Also, there's a lot of pining, and yearning, in italics, and normally this wouldn't bother me - but I think I'm burned out on the genre?
* Yellowface - first person narration, where the protagonist is whinging about a POC writer who is getting all the accolades and she isn't. And I'm annoyed. It's a satire about the publishing industry and I don't know if I'll make it through it. I may gift it to Wales, who doesn't have any chips on her shoulder about the publishing industry to get in the way of a good read.
See? Reading slump. I may read the hard cover book I got for Christmas, or go back to the Marlon James paper back fantasy novel, or The Witch King.
Right now sticking with I Will Repay. (It has an enemies to lovers story, plus Scarlet Pimpernel - so...).
Not tired yet, due to impromptu nap around 11 am this morning.
Anger has been an issue the last few weeks, along with irritability. Every January since 2022, I want to kill Bright Young Thing. This is getting exhausting. Then, somehow, it passes, I get over it, and we start the whole process again, rinse and repeat.
I'm hoping this year pans out differently, but with my job still intact.
When I'm worried and feeling insecure about things - the internet does a very good job of making me feel even more so. Why is that? Not so much Dreamdwidth - which is my home and safe haven on the net and has been since I fled Live Journal (which used to be). I actually prefer Dream Width, there's no kerfuffles or angry posts. Mainly because I'm not really in a fandom arguing over characters, or fighting over politics. We're all like-minded at the moment or for the most part.
It's the anniversary of the ATPOBTVS & ATS Board, which started in January of 1999 (I know this because Masq posted about it on FB today). I joined in late April of 2002, following a meta I wrote - which someone had asked my permission to repost to that board. And I got curious and wandered over. I discovered it was among the few fandom boards or discussion boards - where you could rationally and calmly discuss characters, plots, storylines, and analyze them with like-minded souls - and very little argument. Oh we had debates, and we lost our tempers, but overall it was pretty tame. 75% of it was kerfuffle free. And I've not seen its like since. I think the reason it was so calm - was it was monitored by people in their thirties and forties, scholars, and academics. And the people on it - were more interested in analyzing the story, speculating about where it was going, then reacting emotionally to it? Or pushing a specific character or ship.
Having lurked on the fringes of other fandoms, or attempted to interact with them (*cough*GeneralHospital*cough* and cough*X-men*cough) - I really appreciate the ATPOBTVS board.
My weekly goals are minor ones:
1. To get my blood sugar down. And stop eating chocolate bars. (I'm eating organic gluten free dark chocolate with either toffee, gluten free pretzel, or almond butter in it.) Basically stop eating desert and carbs. Which is hard (I miss oatmeal in the morning).
2. Work on my book in the evenings, I want to finish the second draft by the end of January, if possible.
3. Complete my work goals (which I can't really write about here).
4. Try to exercise more.
See minor goals. And not lose my temper or let my irritability get the better of me.
***
Books that I'm working my way through? I'm in a reading slump, so I've been dabbling in more than one book at a time, with little grabbing my interest.
* My Name is Barbara - I've finished about 16 hours of this book, and have about 15 to go or thereabouts. It's a 46 hour book.
After regaling me with the ins and outs of Yentle, we moved on to her affairs with Jon Peters, Peter Matz, Richard Baskin, and Don Johnson (who I'd forgotten about, and damn I was happy forgetting about that one - that pairing never made sense to me). She also talks about her benefit concerts, the film Nuts (and why it didn't work), and attempting to film The Normal Heart (a play she'd fallen in love with in the 1980s and was obsessed with, but ran into problems with the playwright and ultimately lost it to Ryan Murphy).
Out takes?
My god, she needs an editor. Although, I have a feeling she'd be impossible to edit. She talks about everything, and her main purpose for writing this book (which took her over five years to write - that's what she's been doing the last few years, in case anyone was curious?), was to set the record straight. So, she says little about her friends, and a lot about the people she doesn't like or said nasty things about her or made her life difficult or hurt her.
- Mandy Pantikan drove her crazy on Yentl. He'd been cast as the love interest at 28. It was his first movie role. And for some reason or other he thought he'd have an affair with Streisand. And much like Stanley Chaplin before him - threw a hissy fit when she didn't reciprocate. When Streisand confronted him, and discovered that's what he expected, she was flabbergasted.
-She keeps flirting with Pierre Trudeau, but was involved with Don Johnson at the time. Unfortunately, Don wanted to pursue a singing career - and she agreed to help him and asked him to sing with her on an album, and he got (understandably so) a bit nervous and insecure about it. That kind of broke them apart.
- Nuts - the film which is based on a play that she optioned, was problematic because of the directors. First she ran into issues with Mark Rydell, who wanted explicit sex scenes, and didn't see her in the part. She was producing it. So off he went. Then Martin Freidman, who was a misogynist, and catered to the male cast.
But, she interviewed a lot of inmates and psychiatric inmates for the role.
And discovered a frankness about them. Striesand states she has no filter, likes to be up front and honest about everything, and hates small talk.
Also is quite blunt. I identified.
That's the experience of listening to this - at times she's highly relatable, others, annoyingly self-involved, and others charming and all about the process.
Other books? Outside of a lot of digital comic books - which don't require a long attention span, and I read before bed...
* I Will Repay by Baroness Orczy the same woman who wrote The Scarlet Pimpernell, and this is actually a story within that same universe and series. The Pimpernell pops up, but as a supporting character. It's a sequel to the original novel, yet comes third in the series, after Sir Percy Leads the Band, and before That Elusive Pimpernel.
I like her writing style - there's none of the pining or yearning, it's straight forward and in an odd way, somewhat snarky about the upper crust or elite. Considering she wrote this in the 1800s/early 1900s or thereabouts, I was impressed.
Baroness Emma Orczy (full name: Emma Magdalena Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála Orczy de Orci) (/ˈɔːrtsiː/; 23 September 1865 – 12 November 1947), usually known as Baroness Orczy (the name under which she was published) or to her family and friends as Emmuska Orczy, was a Hungarian-born British novelist and playwright. She is best known for her series of novels featuring the Scarlet Pimpernel, the alter ego of Sir Percy Blakeney, a wealthy English fop who turns into a quick-thinking escape artist in order to save French aristocrats from "Madame Guillotine" during the French Revolution, establishing the "hero with a secret identity" in popular culture
* We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian - this is a homosexual romance that appears to take place in the 1950s? It's in the US, between two male reporters. This is a nitch - ie. m/m by female heterosexual writers. (At least I think the writer is heterosexual, I may be wrong about that. But I'm pretty certain. Ellen Kurshner is not. I know I'm on Twitter and Bluesky, and they tell us.)
I'm struggling to get into it - too much pining and yearning. Apparently this happens regardless of gender?
* Paladin's Grace - I'm thinking that I don't care about perfume as much as the writer does? Or soliders? I don't. Also, there's a lot of pining, and yearning, in italics, and normally this wouldn't bother me - but I think I'm burned out on the genre?
* Yellowface - first person narration, where the protagonist is whinging about a POC writer who is getting all the accolades and she isn't. And I'm annoyed. It's a satire about the publishing industry and I don't know if I'll make it through it. I may gift it to Wales, who doesn't have any chips on her shoulder about the publishing industry to get in the way of a good read.
See? Reading slump. I may read the hard cover book I got for Christmas, or go back to the Marlon James paper back fantasy novel, or The Witch King.
Right now sticking with I Will Repay. (It has an enemies to lovers story, plus Scarlet Pimpernel - so...).
no subject
Date: 2024-01-22 01:42 pm (UTC)I beat you to ATPo by a few months (late 2001). Best discussion board ever.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-22 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-23 01:05 am (UTC)