MOOP!

Merry May!

Despite having lived less than a mile away for all four years of college, and within five miles of Harvard Square the subsequent twelve years, this is the first time I've ever made it to the May Day festivities!

Context: it's first of May, first of May, and the morris dancers are out a'dancing in order to make sure the sun rises and the harvest is bountiful or whatever it is exactly morris¹ dancers do. There was a Maypole and singing and a big ol' circle dance and several performances by various local teams!

There were like...100? 150? people there, to dance and sing and hang out and lean on each other tiredly. I biked in with Elishka, which was splendid for so many reasons, not least of which was having made this plan in advance, we were both stuck with it for fear of disappointing the other, and so we both rolled out of bed at stupid in the morning to head out. It was also a good plan because she actually knew where we were going --I knew the optimal route to Harvard (since my college was literally next door, and indeed, I gave her the tour² as we biked past) but she got us the rest of the way once we were in the square.

I saw many people I knew, which was very pleasant! Elishka commented that she might've known more bellringers present³ than contra dancers, which was a very funny and not false observation. I spent lots of time chatting with Elena, and some time chatting with Martin, and was pleased as punch to see Neil⁴ and Iz and of course I said hi to all the morris friends in passing -- Laura and Amanda and Gillian and Sam and Lisa. Avalon was the first one to say hi to us, and I was unfortunately overwhelmed by their enthusiasm at 0'dark'thirty, but was good to hear them sing.

My biggest conclusion is that next year I need to figure out that obviously this is an event that I dress like I'm going to FaerieFest. Except I've biked home and had just enough time to eat some breakfast and type this out, so that would be a pretty quick turnaround if I had to also change into work-drag.

It was a really nice start to the day, month, season. And now I go off for work --seven weeks left, but who's counting?

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Do we capitalize "Morris Dancers"?

2: "I lived on that street for two years and that street for one year and in that tall building for one year annnnd now we're on Harvard's turf."

3: I think we had minor? Elishka, Kyle, Rachel, me, Mira, Arthur, Laura? Rachel and Mira were the two that showed up with bells on though, so bonus points to them!

4: Looking far more dapper than the rest of us, since this was "late night" instead of "early morning" for him, and also he had an *amazing* leather coat that looked real good on him.

Today has been a pretty good day!

I am in Providence for the weekend, more'n a month since the last time Tuesday and I got to spend any time together. So that's already very very nice, just being able to be warm and cozy with someone I love. We had exactly one plan for the entire visit, and we've already done it, so the rest of tonight and all tomorrow is just about hanging out together and doing lovely nothing.

The one plan was a ~gondola ride~. She won it from an event she went to: a two ticket private ride up and down the river that runs through the center of town. We packed a blanket and a charcuterie board and wandered down to the dock, holding hands as we walked through the streets. The weather was...not as perfect as hoped, but between the walls of the river and the blanket, we were downright cozy.

Gondola came with two gondoliers, who sang songs, shared historical information, and generally contributed to the overall positive tenor of the ride. It also came with yummy "wine biscuits", which were sweet little cookies, and a nice counter to some of the more salty/savoury cheeses and meats we'd packed.

The singing was an absolute highlight, especially because they kept doing it under bridges --the final song was under a long stretch of road, the only bit remaining from when PVD paved over its river, and there was something beautifully eerie about being in this dark space, between the water and the road, and hearing her voice echoing across and around us. Makes me want to write fae shit, mostly.

It had cooled down considerably by the end, so we thanked the gondaliers and scampered home, Tuesday wrapped in the blanket, me turtled into my hoodie. Once home we were able to do other plans, which meant mostly playing separate video games together (I learned I'd been ignoring a Very Important part of the Necrodancer lobby, which made beating stage 2 suddenly MUCH more possible, Tuesday successfully killed her dad in Hades). Eventually, we forced ourselves back towards being productive, working on or grading papers, as is our wont (it is not our want).

We got food eventually and I slept a bunch while Tuesday worked, and soon we will go to bed all snuggled up warm. I'm pleased with these plans.

~Sor
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It Saturday!

It a _really good day!_

Today started with scrambling out of bed as subtly as possible in order to not wake up Austin, then going to the online photography class I'm taking. (Photo class is honestly mostly just an impetus to take more pictures, since that is a thing I actually like in my life, but frequently forget about. But I also get to see lots of pretty photos taken by other people, and I get to see some of my faraway friends, and I do get to listen to someone who is an expert talk about stuff (which is _always_ a good thing!))

After photo class, I went and jumped on Austin so he'd be awake, We had a nice leisurely morning, with lots of Steven Universe and eating breakfast, and doing a yoga. Finally around three we got ourselves together and left the house, to go on a bike-and-hike adventure!

Masks safely on, we went waaaaaay down Trapelo road, basically into nearly Waltham, and did some wandering around a green space that had _shockingly_ few people for how nice the day was. I took a huge number of photos (some of which might even be good for photoclass next week, yay!!!!) and it was a very nice time for the legs.

Also we saw these wildlifes: red-winged blackbird, dark-purple-headed-bird-that-is-otherwise-black, robin, geese, GOSLING!, duckduckduckducks!, duckfuck¹, bumblebee, firefly (unlit), fireflyfuck, chipmunks, squirrel, really big seagulls, AND A MUSKRAT!!!!

Also a small mummified mammal of some sort, on the steps to the possibly-haunted-but-definitely-full-of-asbestos abandoned hospital. It's pretty clear that some weird ass-teenagers left it there in a fake satan ritual. It was cool as shit and no I did not touch it.

So long walk around and looking at aforementioned abandoned hospital and also the water tower _covered_ in graffiti, and then we got on our bikes and biked way into Waltham proper so we could go look at train infrastructure. Look, Austin was patient with me while I photographed all the bright coloured graffiti and pointed out every single bumblebee I saw, I was patient with him while we wandered on bits of gravel road and behind buildings because it used to be a train tracks. He and I are pretty good at the buddy system and I am very happy for it.

We biked home along the Charles bike path, and it was only marred by me having weird PrivateSchool feels (we were very close to parts of my commute from a long time ago), and also by it having been _four and a half hours_ since we left and we were starting to flag.

Luckily when we got home, Austin was willing to take point on dinner --I washed dishes and helped sous chef and stuff, but it was really nice to have him in charge of the mental load for that one-- and we made Ash's really wonderful Ethiopian lentil recipe, with added potatoes. Putting the whole thing over rice was an Excellent Decision as well! Gosh that's good. It turns out spices are awesome ;)

And then post dinner we had a really nice time on the couch where I played some Animal Crossing (mom came over! Yay mom!!) and he worked on his secret train project and both of us just...rested together. It was _really_ lovely.

One of the nice things about him coming to visit on weekends is that it really does make them feel like _weekends_, like a chance to get away from the rest of my life and rest and do some things different. Tomorrow we might make a cake (we've been meaning to for ages) and we will probably go outside again for a while. Definitely do yoga, they lied. (actually, we're pretty good when we're both in person and reminding each other to do it, it's just really hard to keep track when we're apart.)

I love you, and I hope your days have had something nice in them, despite...everything else.

~Sor
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1: Maybe? It appeared to be one duck humping another duck while they were in the water, but it also appeared to be two male mallards. I am not judging?

Today's New York adventure was also very High Quality New York!

Today was shopping day, which means we hauled butt to Union Sq and hit up the Strand, Forbidden Planet, and Books of Wonder. I did not buy the uncorrected galley proof of Howl's Moving Castle (I didn't even ask how much it was). I also did not buy the $500 25th anniversary edition Where The Wild Things Are signed and doodled by Maurice Sendak. I *definitely* did not buy the $22,500 (yes, five digits) first edition signed and doodled one.

I did buy a copy of the Audubon field guide to Insects and Spiders, mostly because there were several copies on the shelves of the Strand for $25 bucks, and then one suspiciously identical copy that was marked at $11.50. I have not yet figured out why it was ten bucks cheaper, but I assume it's for a parallel dimension's worth of bugs, and they will all be subtlly...off.

Since we were in the area, we went to the Museum of Sex as well! That was pretty cool, although a little smaller than I was hoping. They did have a very cool punk rock exhibit going on! And there was a section on early stag films, which I was hoping would dovetail nicely with my recent obsession with The Rialto Report (site not remotely safe for work, details in footnotes¹). It actually largely predated the stuff I've been focused on, which meant I got to watch snippets of a whole bunch of super early loops --black and white silent films and every bit as filthy as we like to see today!

The effect was ruined some by some of the other patrons, who were giggling wildly and uncomfortably any time anything happened, like...a penis. You are at the Sex Museum. There is sex. Kindly _get the fuck over yourself_ or at least go be utterly immature about it over there somewhere.

Also mom and I got to bounce around in a bounce house made of boobs. It was amazing. There are photos, but you can't see them because obviously².

Post museum, we walked back to Times Square and picked up some tickets for The Play That Goes Wrong. Oh my poor sides. There's less _analysis_ to be done with this one than there is Hadestown. Suffice to say, the title is utterly accurate. I kinda want to see a "proper" staging of the Murder At Whatever Manor now, ideally done as overwroughtly as the actors would hope.

We waited outside the stage door, and probably made the casts day, as there was no one else except a couple of friends of a couple of the stars. Friendly chatting and signed playbills all around!

Now we are home again, and I am procrastinating completing my grades which are due in about ten hours. I'm sure I'll find the time to do them somehow!

~Sor
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1: The Rialto Report is a highly academic podcast and website that collects interviews and primary source documents for the golden age of pornography, with a special focus on late 70s/early 80s NYC. It is so cool!! There is something beautiful and powerful and tragic and painful about all these stories of people living and fucking in that sweet moment after the pill but before AIDS. About half the interviews end with pictures of smiling 70 year olds, laughing somewhere far away. About half the interviews end with a drug overdose thirty years ago. It is such a _fascinating_ archive.

And yeah, it is _deeply_ not safe for work. Nothing about it is safe for work. There are full scans of smutty magazines from the eighties with big ol' tiddy spreads, and headshots of porn stars, and film stills, and backstage shots from strip clubs. It's academically awesome, it also can be some genuinely titillating stuff.

2: "Were you not just being enlightened and holier-than-thou about how well you can handle the existence of sex?" Yeah, but there's the whole point, and some people who are immature and can't handle it are my bosses and the parents of my students.

Fun Fact About Sorcyress 1: I passionately and viscerally dislike passing through tunnels when out and about in the world.

It's not a claustrophobia thing --I was thrilled to be squirming my way through tight spaces at Boda Borg. It's something to do with the sudden and total restriction of freedom in case of attack. Long stretches of scaffolding along the sidewalk elicit the same reaction. If someone were to jump out at me in this space, my options are terrifyingly constrained.

(And it's definitely got an aspect of "can I be attacked here" --I can drive through tunnels with no trouble at all, or ride through them on the T.)

Fun Fact About Sorcyress 2: Approximately every 4-6 months, I spend Way Too Long getting sucked into the terrifyingly dark part of humanity and read about a whole lotta shit I shouldn't be reading about.

When I say "terrifyingly dark" I mean that I've largely stopped reading about serial killers on wikipedia, because at this point, meh. (Plus, you know, I've read 'em all). Humanity's a lot more fucked up and terrifying when it's *not* killing each other.

This is ALWAYS a bad idea. Always¹. I get spooked and nervy and do not like being anywhere with my back exposed. I have made huge strides in the field of "being able to handle my fear" but it still leaves me jumping at shadows for a few days. I have a wonderful large imagination, and a good retention of things I've read. This does not serve me.

Fun Fact About Sorcyress 3: There is a tunnel I have to pass through on my commute.

***

So it's possible that I am leaving work much later than usual due to FFAS2 up there, and it's also possible that I spent a considerable part of the last two hours reading about gross things². And I've been listening to music, and daydreaming, and mostly calmed down the part of my brain that's busy going "YOU ARE ABOUT TO BE KIDNAPPED AND TORTURED FOREVER OKAY"

And I reach the tunnel! The tunnel goes under a bridge. There is technically one on each side. There is no easy way to cross the street over the bridge otherwise, which kinda makes sense --why bother with pedestrian walkways interferin' with the cars when you can just waltz on under! The tunnels are lit at night, which is cool, but the path angle is pretty awkward for the side I usually take.

So I'm cruising along, pretending that I'm not super nervous, because let's face it, I've been kinda fucked up on fear a few times in the last month, and I just keep gritting my teeth and sailing on through because the tunnels only like 50 feet wide, maximum. So, bike bike bike bike THERE IS A SHOPPING CART THAT WAS NOT THERE THIS MORNING AND HOLY SHIT THAT'S A PERSON NOPE NOPE NOPE.

Fun Fact About Sorcyress 4: My brakes currently work! Boy do they!

I screech to a halt and call "sorry!" across because I see the person starting to stir and oh shit I just woke them up, and then I try to back up while still straddling the bike which causes me to fall ass over teakettle and drop my bike on the ground. "FUCK!" "wait, sorry, sorry, have a nice night, bye!"

And I grab my bike and hightail it away from the tunnel and say "fuck it" and watch the traffic and rabbit my way overland across the street because I don't care that there's probably not someone in the other tunnel NOPE.

And I feel _really_ guilty, because the person was A) just trying to sleep and I woke them up and B) probably feels kinda gross and not-a-person and offended that I didn't want to go near them. I wish I could explain that it's totally not them, they are probably perfectly nice, it's just that I hate that tunnel anyways and I was kinda freaked and something being different was just completely unacceptable.

But you know what? With the exception of falling off my bike, I didn't get hurt or tortured in the slightest, and I'll take that small victory.

~Sor
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1: "So why do you do it?" Eh, some combination of morbid curiosity and an enjoyment of the adrenaline rush. Plus, some of the scary shit I frequent contains some degree of "here's how to protect yourself" and that might be useful in the long run (hi r/Let'sNotMeet!)

2: Baltimore tried real hard to win the title of World's Worst Catholic Sex Scandal, and no, I don't want to know the actual competition for that one, I've had quite enough for one night thanks.

It's Balticon! How did I get to Balticon you ask, when I had two separate ride-structures fall apart on me and couldn't leave Boston until about 4:00 PM? WELL LET ME TELL YOU!

See, about ten days before the con, I posted on my Facebook being all "boo, my second ride-structure has fallen apart I just don't think I can go since every method is too expensive right now".

And then my friend Dan posted a comment. (paraphrasing) "Well, Abby and I have been meaning to go to Balticon for forever, why don't you fly down with us."

Fly. Because Dan, in addition to being good at tech and photography, owns a plane. And he's been offering to take me up for a right age, we've just never made it work out. So here we go, I have an opportunity to get to the con I love above most others, and an opportunity to fly with a pocketknife. HELLS TO THE YES ON ALL ACCOUNTS.

So at about six thirty this evening, I was sitting in a teeny-tiny four person one propeller plane --the interior is smaller than the minivan I grew up in-- about to take off. I don't think I stopped smiling until the sun set and I immediately conked out because I do not have enough sleep in me.

It was _glorious_. It was so extremely glorious. The windows are so SO much bigger than on a commercial jet, and I can twist around and see out of all of them, even out of the back a little. We cruised at about 6,000 feet the whole way, close enough to see trees and rivers and mountains and farms --David reported on which farms had red barns. We flew over the Hudson and Mount Monadnock and watched a just _beautiful_ sunset.

(and I get to do it all again on Monday, squeeeEEEEE!)

This was the best fucking trip to Balticon I have ever taken, beating out (by far!) the year where I arrived on Thursday through a hilarious series of transportation options and beat everyone else to the con by a full hour. Riding in a tiny plane has done nothing to dissuade me from the opinion that planes are the Very Best Things.

I want to learn how to fly. I still can't afford to learn, but it's on the list, and higher than it was before.

***

As far as the con itself is concerned, well...

The Hunt Valley Inn was bought a few years ago. Between last year and this year, they...redecorated. It is _very_ awful. I described it as "the sort of hotel people who like the place I grew up in go on vacation". Galia described it as "do you know how many little girls are going to have their Bat Mitzvah's here?". It's...insipid and boring and drab. The new scheme is slate grey, cream, and navy. It's grown-up, in the worst way possible.

I miss the ugly carpets from hell. I miss them so _very_ much.

The only upshot of the redecoration is that they have started up this fabulous horse theme, and like all the art hangings are these vaguely sensual close-up pictures of horses. It's completely disturbing and utterly hilarious, and I am SO SAD I did not bring my Equius cosplay, because can you even _imagine_ how much fun that would be to play with?

Anyways, I'ma get Galia to help me take a video of me doing an appropriate big-no vis-a-vis the carpets. She seems to be the only one who feels the depth of my pain (I knew there was a reason she was my favourite robot).

***

I arrived at the con a bit after 10:30 at night, which was very late. I dropped stuff off, wandered around, and was just...home. I haven't managed to find Kitty-Aaron yet, but I played Junglespeed (with breadMarc and Sonya and Tucker and other people who I should remember the names of) and chatted with Lanthir and Ian-Beastie and Galia, and did my push-ups with Galia's encouragement and got some lascivious hugs from the pervy artist, and oh, it is wonderful.

About the only thing I haven't managed to do yet is dance with Larry or Chort --they weirdly frontloaded on the dancing this year, so I think I've missed the swing dance (BOO!) and the time travelers ball was more'n halfway through by the time I stopped by (I was just too late to get into a quadrille) and the teen/college club dance required you have a special thing on your badge --I have no badge, so none for me.

People are friendly and wonderful. I am happy. Even if the new carpet is the most boring and awful carpet ever. The older carpet may have been ugly as sin's baby, but at least it had character and was interesting! This is so very derivative and insipid I don't even know where to start.

Hope all y'all are okay.

~Sor
MOOP!

Day two among the Californians. I am integrating myself into their ways. I have been learning how to operate the button-machine, to playact characters. This appears to be some sort of marker of friendship, despite the occasional swearing, or shooting each other to death. Later I will make dinner for the tall one, to further develop our trust-bond.

(The tall one is intrigued as I write this. I think they might be able to communicate, but only in a snarky fashion. More investigation required.)

The long-haired one has left the domicile for the time being. I suspect he is foraging for "stuff".

The skittish ones continue to not trust me, despite the encouragement of the tall one. I shall bribe them with bits of food later, or more likely leave them the hell alone.

The long one has been quiet, though I heard word last night about it eating a member of the enemy. The green one has been decidedly not quiet, though has not been attempting to declare its dominance over me, like the last time I travelled to this wild place.

Now I am requested to use my typing machine to create a form of communication known as "Lambchop fanfiction". Oh these strange Californians! Will I ever truly understand their ways?

~Sor
MOOP!

((Postscript: Yes, I'm in California visiting mek. I meant to mention at some point, but the last week was sortof intense and terrible and distracting. So yeah. I'm here a bunch of days.))

GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS!!

WE'RE GOING TO THE SCIENCE MUSUEM TODAY!

I AM EXCITED!

That is all.

~Sor
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Original Tags:ycros-the-succinct, excitement, science, tagged

There is a very important "State of the Sorcy" post lurking, and it needs me to be rational to do it. Be warned, ranty thoughtstreaming will appear in this journal before too long.

***

I'm not as strong as I thought. Kinda knew that, at any rate. I am also piss-poor at not crying when I'm upset.

***

On a similar note, it seems someone gave me one of those presents that I've been really looking for for years and years now, and I don't look a total mess when I cry. I don't know if it was just winter or what, but as far as I can tell, I stayed mostly one colour today.

***

I'm actually really displeased with how emo my livejournal is too. The problem is that I assume just writing about my day to day life is boring, and I haven't written any intelligent thoughtstreams in a rats age. I write and write and write, and the majority of everything is crap, both in content and style.

I think I really need to make one of my New Years resolutions to be to write something, every day.

***

Besides, my life is fundementally boring. When I'm in MA, I go dancing on Monday nights, and to class the rest of the week. Ocassionally, I'll actually do something coherent with my friends, that we actually plan ahead of time, but ninty percent of everything happens spur of the moment, and I don't usually bother to document that, because it's not anything special, it's just a lot of getting together with friends and screwing around.

Take a mostly typical day, a couple weeks ago, the day I found out that my harddrive was unrecoverable. Dominik wanted to know if Lauren, Emily, and I were willing to randomly go to the social security building with him, just so he'd have company. We walked over, and sat down on the floor waiting for Dominiks number to be called. While we waited, we discussed gender, and where we all fell on the male-female scale, amoung other things that I don't remember. Eventually, Dominik got called, he did his stuff, and we walked to McIntyre and Moores to try and find a book for Emily's class. We stopped off at Diesel so that I could buy something delicious as a "fuckfuckfuck, I have no harddrive" treat, then we went and got on the T and rode back to Porter Square. I peeled off and went to Magus' haus, to be emo and distracted, the two of us eventually went dancing, and then came back and...I think watched the first season of Coupling.

I went home, woke up the next day, and went about my merry business.

Adventures do not happen to me. A good long time ago, I had this theory of making something adventurous happen each day, but that fell through after a grand total of two days. Mores the pity.

Maybe that's all I really need. To just start having an adventure a day.

***

Still haven't seen Sweeney Todd yet, unlike everyone else I know. Fuckers. Going to try and catch it with Renee and assorted other people tonight, but it seems moderately unlikely. We'll see.

***

I'm going to go rock out now. Ta.

~Sor
MOOP!

It is my esteemed opinion that life is just not fun without a great deal of adventure intermixed.

So I've resolved to have at least one adventure each day. And to post about them so that they *seem* like the adventures they were! And if I can't manage to have an adventure, I'll make one up, by golly!

( My brother...Kidnapped!! )

~Sor
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