a conspiracy of cartographers

Despite it now being May, Massachusetts remains full of dismal grey rain. I really like this weather, within reason, but dammit, I'm supposed to be uncomfortably warm and slightly dazzled by sunlight right now, not feeling like a sad hibernating beastie. Because the weather won't get with the program, I think it's time for to list some things that are making me happy. (It may also be time for me to make a habit of this, maybe in a weekly way, to be good to myself.)

+ My job is really great! I like all my coworkers (even the slightly unfortunate seriously cishet white boy one, in large part because when all else fails we can talk about Lord of the Rings), and I like many of our regulars, and it's low-stress and happymaking and it may not be A Career but it makes some money and I actually like it, so I think on balance it's still a win.

+ filiabelalis is still the best sweetie, news at 11. My housemates and in fact all my local friends are really great; weekly D&D is the best (and made us all die a little laughing last week when a plot twist was revealed and songofsongs just thrashed around on the floor going "NOOOO" for five minutes straight); scribe is probably going to drag me to a number of womens' soccer games this season; my social life is just really good and fulfilling without being too overwhelming.

+ Avocados are in season! I mean, they're around all year but they're nice and fresh right now, and yes, they get their own bullet point, avocados are the food of the gods.

+ Captain America fandom is being wonderful! I'm going through fics quite slowly -- usually only about one a day, so tabs are definitely accumulating faster than I'm closing them. My latest favorite fic is your favorite ghost by augustbird; it's Steve/Bucky, and the official summary is It's harder than Steve ever expected to bring Bucky home, but it got me where I lived at the line The worst part of having Bucky back is that he doesn't.

+ AGENTS OF SHIELD CONTINUES TO BE BAFFLINGLY GOOD?? ( Spoilers just love Skye so muuuuch. )

+ WISCON IS SO SOON! I hope this year I will be enough out of my dazed sad fog to do con properly, but even if I'm not as extroverted as I'd like, it's still my favorite time of year, and I'm looking forward so much to seeing those of you who are going <333

i. ( Christmas tree! )

ii. Visiting my parents was, as usual, a weird mix between my increasing frustration with their tolerant amusement re: issues I feel strongly about (though they will at least actually listen and ask questions about queer stuff), and the ability they both have to make me cry laughing because they're ridiculous people. I also mailed myself a bunch of stuff that was still in their house (very important stuff! like Beanie Babies!) and brought up some of the remainder of my clothes and books. It felt like getting a lot of new stuff for the holidays, even though it was mostly old stuff, because brains are cool like that.

iii. I continue to be the sort of person who goes out for drinks with coworkers and dresses up to go to work holiday parties and things? The work holiday party was pretty delightful, actually! Nothing of note happened or anything, but I did stand around in a room full of people and talked to them for three hours without wishing I was somewhere else, and I enjoyed myself, so SUCCESS.

iv. I saw the Hobbit earlier this week! It held together a lot better than the first installment, I was only cranky with one bit they left out, and I continue planning the edits I want to do in order to make a Just The Book (+ maybe some other parts I like??) cut when all three films are out. I kind of wish I had more feelings, but instead I just keep having lots of Avengers feelings, and resurgent due South feelings as Housemate A and I make our way through season two, and that's a pretty comfortable place to be, fannishly.

v. I just really like this time of year. We had so much snow, and then most of it melted, and though I'd love to have snow for Christmas, this is really nice too. I'm spending good time with people, and there are so many lights everywhere in the city, and ... I'm happy right now. It feels important to catalogue when I'm doing okay, so yes: I've spent the morning wrapping presents, and I made bacon and eggs-in-a-basket for myself and Housemate A like a goddamn adult who can cook meals, and I'm about to start my second cup of tea, and I'm happy.

A list of things that are currently making me really happy:

+ Housemate A continues phenomenal. She is a degree of tidy that makes me really happy -- we had a cleaning session with blasting music the other day -- and she brought home the most adorable geeky posters from Otakon. She also, of all horrors, bought an Xbox this weekend, as well as Dragon Age: Origins, so ... that's what we've been doing. A is doing a round as a city elf rogue, Polaris as a casteless dwarf rogue, and I have discovered that I have a really bad attention span for video games, so I am [a] a human mage (named Loki because fuck you of course I'm playing as Loki, GONNA BE A BLOOD MAGE JUST TRY TO STOP ME) and [b] a forest elf rogue and nothing else yet but I really also want to play a dwarf warrior maybe? Comparative gameplay!! Curious about how soon I will burn out and wander off, but so far it is a delight.

+ I finished The King of Attolia! I don't know if I feel fannish about the Queen's Thief books? although obviously I'd be happy to be talked into feeling fannish about them. I do know that somewhere in the third book Gen tipped over from "someone I enjoy reading about" to "someone I will clutch metaphorically to me screeching about how great they are" because I just ... am so easy for people who are heartclutchingly good at what they do while not liking themselves nor what they need to do very much, so sdkldsfjdfs. I suppose I should read A Conspiracy of Kings next, but, well, we've been mainlining Hornblower and I keep on having all these Thor/Loki feelings and then wishing astolat had written more fic, so OBVIOUSLY the solution is to reread His Majesty's Dragon. (I tapped out of those books at the beginning of Empire of Ivory last time for reasons of having a Thing about plagues, and specifically not wanting to read about them, but I think I'm going to give it another go.)

+ Work is SO GREAT, especially now that my boss has basically scheduled me opposite shifts as Difficult Coworker (because my boss: also really great). I don't have anything more substantial than that, just, I'm really enjoying my ridiculous life being a barista at an indie bookstore. Also I may have discovered that my ability to make good caffeinated drinks means I've become good at making mixed alcoholic drinks as well, although obviously this bears further investigation.

+ At the end of the month my cousin is getting married! I'm excited to see my family, especially my parents and my grandma, and my cousin's fiance is excellent, and ahhh what am I going to wear, I haven't figured this out at all! My dad told me to spike my hair (and to ... wear a collar? I think he's confusing queers with punks; that or he knows something about my personal life that I have never ever told him) and generally dyke it up, because he is a delightful human sometimes. Eh, I will figure it out.

+ So many delightful things are happening this fall!! Dessa is here in September, and Vienna Teng is here in October, and excellent boss is giving me off those closing/following opening shifts so I can 100% make those concerts. She is also giving me off October 10-12th, which means I can [a] GO TO THE NIGHT VALE LIVE SHOW (oliviacirce: the best fucking wingman ever, with tickets for us both) and [b] go to Friday New York ComicCon if I fancy. Still debating whether it's worth $50, but if you are going to be at NYCC, let me know! Having people to hang out with would greatly up my incentive to go.

+ I ... may have also been given off the close/open of November 7/8th for reasons of midnight Thor 2. HELL YES THIS GETS ITS OWN BULLET POINT. Okay, also in this bullet point I will say that my fic is trucking along nicely and I loooove it. Gonna be done in plenty of time for people to read it before Thor 2 Josses the hell out of it.

This list brought to you by, oh my god, this isn't even a list of things I'm being determinedly cheerful about, this is just genuinely how happy and excited about life I am today. :DDD

Summer!! Everything is a riot of green, and the air feels thick, and we keep having blazing sunlight punctuated by torrents of rain. I'm sure by late June I'll be wailing about how I can't stand the heat -- and my sleep is already much more restless, seriously, my body hates heat -- but at the moment it feels like a lovely change. Plus I get to wear skirts and shorts and dresses and tank tops! Yeeeeah summer clothes.

Work feels much less stressful now that -- that it's summer, or identifiably the most stressful single thing in my life, I don't know. It feels very doable, which is nice! I've been entertaining myself by playing Marvel Bingo, otherwise known as the little ping of happiness I get when a customer's name is shared by a character. I've had Tony, Steve, Bruce, Natasha, Nick, Maria, James, Erik, Jane, and (Baldur) Thor, although bafflingly no Clints or Phils or Darcys yet. I've had Virginia and Margaret, along with lots of variations though none of them Peggy, and Elizabeth and variants though no Betty, and I'm not holding out for a Pepper even though there was that guy named Shark once.

Baldur Thor is no longer my very favorite, though, because last week I rung up a woman named Laufey. I now will not rest until I've collected the entire Norse pantheon!! (Terrible life choices.)

I've finally stopped dithering about and showing Housemate K the Angel/Buffy crossover episodes from the first two seasons of Angel, and we've officially embarked upon season six. I'm gonna ... very judiciously edit, for my own self-care, although I think the only one we're actually tapping out of entirely is Hell's Bells. Possibly we'll do Once More With Feeling tonight! And meanwhile I've given up on basically all other tv except Elementary and Warehouse 13 with Polaris, because PERFECT SHOWS ARE PERFECT, or at least mostly perfect, and if I need a break from Buffy I might do judicious rewatches.

Also WisCon is in three weeks! I feel a little bit like I'm carefully pulling myself from one nice thing to the next -- post-work telly-watching with K! adventures with scribe this coming Friday! out-of-town friend visiting next weekend! WISCONNN -- but I also feel like that's okay right now, and a lot better than I was doing, and honestly if I have a series of bright points to head towards, that feels much nicer than the tired determined slog.

Today I was ringing up a woman who gave her name as Annie. "Like the little orphan, I guess," this Annie said. "Actually," said I, "I associate that name with the character on Community; have you seen it?" She was familiar, she said, but only because her roommate watched it, so I explained a bit about Annie Edison, with great enthusiasm, while I got her change. "Okay, sold," Annie said. "I'll totally check it out." VICTORY!

Unrelated to Annie, a protip: if you don't deign to get off your fucking phone whilst ordering coffee, your barista may be smiling, but they will probably also be harboring warm fuzzy thoughts of totally murdering you right in the face.

I don't ... actually spend a lot of time at work imagining barista AUs, but the Avengers one would be so easy. Like, Nick Fury owns the coffee shop, obviously; I don't know what the coffee shop is called, because I can't think of any coffee-related puns with the word "shield" in them. Whatever. Coulson and Hill and Natasha run shifts; Clint has been there longer than Tasha, and got her hired, and watched starry-eyed while she got promoted, and may or may not be dating her. The other baristas are Steve, art student; Bruce, PhD student who works weekends; Janet, who hates the part where she has to get coffee for her asshole ex-boyfriend Hank every morning; Loki, who got Frigga in the high school divorce and needs this job to pay for college; and Thor, who got Odin in the divorce and could totally be a junior partner at dad's company but is rebelling in what Loki thinks is the most irritating way possible by working at the same stupid coffee shop. Tony, obviously, is that one regular who flirts with absolutely everyone (especially Natasha and Bruce) despite the fact that Pepper meets him there half the time. And I guess this coffee shop is near a school with a good science program, because Jane is obviously also there, and has recently become a regular in order to stare at Thor more frequently. (Darcy endorses this.) Uh so probs Reed Richards uses it as his local too, and ... probably the X-Men are around too; Charles and Erik play chess in the back room every day. And I'm going to stop now! But this AU would be SO EASY, whee.

The newest hire at the coffee shop is an adorably beautiful dude who looks like a younger Neal Caffrey with a Superman curl on his forehead, so let's call him Clark for future reference, since I will probably talk about him again! An excerpt of the conversation we had today after I clocked out:

ME. You know the show White Collar?
HIM. Yes!
ME. You look a bit like the guy who plays Neal Caffrey.
HIM. [lighting up] That's such a flattering thing to say! He's gorgeous! What's his name again?
ME. Matt Bomer.
HIM. Right! You know he's gay?
ME. Yep.
HIM. And I think he's married, but I might still have a chance with him!
ME. Do you want a chance with him?
HIM. Oh yeah.
US. [queer solidarity fistbump]

CLARK CAN WE PLEASE BE FRIENDS.

Seriously, though, work: doesn't feel very long, only mildly stressful sometimes, despite the early days I have decent amounts of energy afterwards and am getting so much done, and on the whole my coworkers are a delight. Pleased.