stillane | The end is near. Really. (Reply)

Signs of the coming apocalypse:

(cut to save my flist-ers' space)

1. The sun has appeared thrice in as many days. (If, like me, you live somewhere that this has not occurred in two+ weeks, this is a big deal.)

2. I have actually completed my readings for class. Wow. Alright, so they were kinda interesting, and so therefore worth reading anyway. They're still done.

3. My mother - whose previous reaction to all fan-like pursuits has involved eye-rolling and deep sighs - recently inquired about my writing. Of fanfic. And proceeded to be both encouraging and mildly impressed. Unfortunately, this preceded a request to read said fic... How exactly does one explain to their conservative, politely lightly-squicked-by-homosexuality mother that they write and read slash? (Lest anyone get the wrong impression, Mom is generally a very supportive, reasonably cool human being. She's just a little...dated... sometimes. Little Sis and I are working on it. So far, the kid's got the parents singing Offspring. Nothing is more frightening than hearing your parents belt out Pretty Fly for a White Guy, complete with falsetto bits. Trust me on this.)

4. The prof who agreed to sponsor my wanderings into fandom academics wants samples of fic. When I tried to pin him down to a particular show he would be familiar with, he cited Miami Vice. My immediate response was, "Okay. How do you feel about Crockett being madly in love with Tubbs?" Or at least that's what it should have been. Unfortunately, I'm rarely that uninhibited on the spot. You see, the poor bastard had no idea what he was getting into when he signed on for this. He's got absolutely no background in fandom, but he was the only one in the department willing to take on another student. I'm tempted to just lob all of Jenkins at him, but for the moment I've restrained myself to a chapter at a time. We haven't gotten to the one on slash yet.

5. Jonathan. Edwards. No, not the psychic. For those who haven't yet come across this wonderful source of puritanical crack, he was a minister famous for his fire and brimstone sermons. The most often referenced of these is Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. In high school, we listened to a truly horrific reading of this by an actor who was obviously waaay too into the part. I can't do it justice in print, but it sounded something like a pissed off Cronkite on LSD with a side helping of southern baptist minister (accent and deportment only - I'm not implying that southern baptists are puritanical, or Cronkite, for that matter). All that and more. We got a good laugh out of it back then (which really confused our teacher, 'cause that wasn't quite the reaction she was going for), and then filed it away for inside joke material. Then I walked into class Monday morning, and was handed the text of Sinners. I'm really glad I had the chance to explain it to my prof later on, because otherwise the way I cackled through class might have seemed a bit, well, disturbed.

6. They actually subtitled British children on Nightline. My God, we've linguistically deteriorated to the point that even native english speakers confuse us. Maybe the apocalypse will be welcome.

7. I got more than 3 hours of sleep last night. Considering I can't tell you when that last happened, it's earned its place in this post.

Hmm. Yeah, that seems to be it for now.