Battlestar Craptastica

I just watched the finale last night, and OH GOD it was so bad. So bad. I had to actively remind myself that I had talked to people while I was watching the final season, and I was really into it, before the finale, because after the credits rolled, I was completely convinced that the entire season - if not series as a whole - was bad. That's how truly horrible the finale is.

Luckily, I had notes, so I can say that the first 16-17 episodes of the final season are actually good, at least where they don't concern Starbuck or Fat Baby. Let's go:

1) The Cylon Civil War: awesome. Boomer voting against Eights: awesomer. Removing the Centurions' inhibitor: awesomest.

2) Then Apollo left the service and donned a v-neck... blouse for his farewell. Bad image.

3) When they let Jane Espenson do something with Baltar, she mines him for comedy, and the actor actually has pretty decent timing, but the character is so aimless and deplorable at this point that it just doesn't click for me.

4) When Adama sends Starbuck on her random quest, he gives her a crew that includes Gaeta, who is his best FTL specialist, and Helo, who is his executive officer, except suddenly demoted. I get it that they ran out of people we care about, but it was just hilariously unreasonable.

5) Tory killing Cally - obviously a high point. One of the more satisfying deaths on the show in terms of execution (pun intended).

6) The next ep after Cally's death, Escape Velocity, was penned by Jane Espenson, and stuffed with unintentional hilarity where Chief/Cally were concerned, and otherwise all-around awesomeness:
a) I don't know if Mary McDonnell had a twitch, an off day, or what, but during Cally's funeral she looks bemused/politely interested. I'm pretty sure it wasn't intentional.
b) Fat Baby reminiscing about Cally in the requisite memory montage: remember when I SMASHED YOUR FACE IN AAARGH! - they actually used that footage. I died laughing.
c) This conversation, between Baltar and Roslin: "Are you threatening me?" "No, i'm saying have a quiet life, and I'll die a quiet little death, and everyone will be happy. It's just that I'm not in the mood any longer to indulge you."
d) Caprica Six smashing Tigh's face in with an angelic smile. I actually made a clip of that.

7) The scene where they are aboard the baseship, and one Six loses it and kills a human pilot, and then is put down by another Six for the sake of the alliance - jesus fuck. Compare and contrast with Fat Baby in the finale.

8) The Eights' appeal to Athena to lead them in mutiny against the Sixes - fantastic. That's probably where I finally kind of grasped the nature of the generic Eights (as opposed to Boomer or Athena). Good stuff.

9) On the other hand, Athena killing the rebel Cylon leader was a major WTF moment. I mean, sort of good storytelling, but crappy, crappy logic. That was some Fat Baby shit right there.

10) Sine Qua Non was I thought the worst episode of the season, untilI watched the final ones that is. Either way, it's very bad. Basically 45 minutes of bad speeches and delaying the "obvious" "conclusion", a completely random gunpoint moment, shitting all over the Lampkin character... The man who wrote it is called Michael Taylor, and he also wrote the boxing episode from Season Three. He is, in other words, responsible for a lot of what is wrong with BSG.

11) But in the next episode we return to Jane Espenson who has Roslin saying to Helo with barely masked exasperation: "Captain, you are not married to the entire production line."

12) ...and D'Anna telling Roslin she's one of the Final Five only to burst into giggles a moment after with an: "Oh, the look on your face... ridiculous!" Yes, made a clip of this one too. Rock on, Espenson.

13) However, the resolution of the standoff? Ridiculous. A basestar has nukes trained on the civilian fleet, which needs sseveral minutes to spool up their FTL drives, and the Admiral himself states that the moment they start doing that, the basestar will fire. And then the humans' gesture of good will is "sharing the way to Earth, even though they could have jumped away with it." No, dumbas, you just said you couldn't have. This is possibly the first time where the show didn't make any sense in regard to a major plot point. A whole plot arc was resolved because the writers said it was resolved, as opposed to presenting an actual solution within the narrative.

14) But the last few minutes of the 10th ep, when they land on Earth - awesome.

Final 10 eps in the next post.

BSG: the ionian nebula

Let's wrap up season 3, shall we?

1) It's official - all Starbuck-centered episodes in the entire series are lame. All of them.

2) Romo Lampkin seems more cartoonish the second time around. He's still a good character at this point, but he does veer dangerously into being gimmicky.

3) Even more gimmicky: hybrid talk. I have absolutely no interest in trying to decipher poorly written obfuspeak. I'm sure you're all very happy with how it all actually makes sense when you're the one writing it, but no. Most of the time it doesn't flow at all, instead it screams "hey look, see how we made it sound seemingly random?"

4) Baltar's trial itself was pretty entertaining. What I think I like most about it is the fact that Baltar himself is more or less a pawn in the proceedings - we never really see the action from his point of view. And that makes perfect sense, because the trial itself is not about him either, it's just the arena in which more universal issues are being resolved. If the writers intended this parallel to play out that way - kudos to them.

5) Apollo's testimony from the witness stand was really well written. I was completely over that character by then (not that he was ever a favorite of mine) and yet I did not cringe, and was even momentarly convinced.

6) Colonel Tigh has added a new weapon to his acting arsenal - in addition to the bug-eye he now also goes slack-jawed. To express anything. Good for him.

7) Finally - the use of Bob Dylan in the finale. Much as I like the BSG version of All Along the Watchtower, I find it grating that they featured a real-life song as a plot device in a sci fi show, and had fictional characters actually recite the lyrics. I understand that they wouldn't have been able to write anything better, but I still think they should have tried.

And that was the 3rd season. By far the worst of them all. Basically the only episode of note, from what I recall, was the escape from New Caprica, and parts of the finale. Not much.

BSG: the downhill years

This one covers more territory, from post-Pegasus to post-New Caprica. Most of it not that great, unfortunately.

1) Twice in a row, the Apollo-centered episodes resorted to the teaser + "X hours earlier" trick. As if they were trying to say "Look! We know it's Apollo, but something interesting WILL happen at the end. Just bear with us!" Unfortunately, neither episode was that great. And Black Market - aka "Lee suddenly has a hooker!" - was up there with the worst of them.

2) Starbuck-centered episodes still suck. The exception: Starbuck and Leoben on New Caprica.

3) What is it with the fucking flashbacks. Whenever they use one, they repeat it over and over again, like 10 times within one episode. Starbuck was strobeflashed with "Oh Anders my Anders", and Lee with "That random lady on Caprica whose name we never even learned". Ok, ok, we get it.

4) Baltar's political coup (suddenly running for President) was pretty nifty, but unfortunately delivered the first unconvincing Head Six moment of the series - her slow clap for looked ridiculously staged and not even amplifying the sound for dramatic effect helped. I've no idea what didn't work, but it looked rather silly.

5) From some point on, the actor playing Baltar has decided that the only sure way of conveying emotion was trying to eject his eyeballs from their sockets. He just goes bug-eyed, and that covers surprise, fear, shock, anger, pain, sadness... Great. Also, it becomes painfully obvious just how subpar he is, craft-wise, when he has to play Caprica Six's Head Baltar. It's just embarassing. And when compared to Tricia Helfer's Head Six - downright cringeworthy.

6) When Chief went Neanderthal again, this time on Cally, I got this huge neon sign in my head saying FAT BABY ANGRY. And now I can't shake it off. When he suddenly went off to find himself a temple (wtf?!) I got FAT BABY EXPLORE. When he then couldn't blow up the temple and almost went fetal, cuddling the detonator: FAT BABY CONSTIPATED. It's my personal lolcat. He also continues to be the most annoying character around, and that's no easy feat with Baltar, Starbuck and Apollo around.

7) New Caprica meant that Helo got a terrible haircut, and Adama grew a moustache which made him look like Paco the friendly plumber.

8) Starbuck is a terrible asshole and there's really nothing redeeming about her anymore. My favorite part was when she was all traumatized post-New Caprica, and acting like a major jerk, and then had some sort of epiphany, and cut her hair, which was very very meaningful... and proceeded to be the same gigantic asshole as before. Another crowning achievement: literally driving Cat to suicide by heroism for no apparent reason, and then visiting her on her deathbed and giving her sleeping pills, so she can finish herself off. And then we get 3 minutes of Starbuck not-quite-crying (cuz she's tough, y'all) while putting up Cat's picture in the memorial hall. Say... Wh... You gotta... Huh?

9) Dualla is nearing Stockholm Syndrome in her relationship with Lee. Anders I kind of get, he outright said that he knows she's fucking around, and he's accepted that, and he won't leave her anyway. I can respect that: you relinquish any semblance of self-respect, don't ask the tough questions, and just take whatever you get. Dualla though... She's aiming for moral highground, she's disgusted with the whole situation, she knows the best solution is to extract herself completely from this mess... and yet she allows herself to get sucked in again. I refuse to see the parallels and instead choose to treat her with utter disdain. I said shut up!

10) Helo has become something of a safety valve for the viewers' frustration with various characters. Whenever one of them gets too annoying, he punches them in the face. So far, he's done Apollo and Tigh. I'm hoping he'll do Starbuck next, but from what I recall that never happens :(

11) The Threes' suicide obsession - amazing. Love that idea. Sad to see Lucy go.

12) Gina's last appearance was heartbreaking and kind of awesome, I have to admit. And the escape from New Caprica was cool. But aside from those two eps - no real highlights so far. It's really sad to see how much better plotted the first 2 seasons were.

13) Unfortunately, I also got to the point where the series started contradicting itself or being just downright ridiculous:
* Caprica Six killing D'Anna as "the first act of Cylon on Cylon violence". Because Athena killing those Cylons on Caprica was just vocational training.
* When that pilot comes back in a stolen Raider after 3 years, they determine he's not a Cylon because "his blood matches the sample from his military records". Huh? And Boomer's doesn't? How does that prove anything?
* Wrapping up the Cylon-killing virus storyline as a one-off (so that people won't expect it to ever pop up anymore) by Gaeta saying that it matches a virus reported 3000 years ago, when the 13 tribes were departing Kobol. Let me reiterate: they have precise records of a virus from Biblical times. They have to get all the other information about that period from their religious texts, but they're fully stocked on biological samples from that era. Maybe their Corinthians is a medical database or something.

Stop flaring your nostrils

I didn't give a crap about James Marsden and Chelsea Handler isn't funny more often than she is, but I literally can't stop watching this interview (I've tried embedding it, no dice). I've seen it close to 15 times already, and it still amuses me. The barbecue bit is priceless. I also think this is probably what it would look like if I were asked to do an interview with someone I knew well and really liked.

I might actually like James Marsden now. He gets really cute when he's being obliterated.

Marlowe

Ditto.

Yet more BSG!

Quite possibly my favorite image out of the series so far (maybe with the exception of the vista of Pegasus and Galactica tearing into two basestars, but that's all CGI):

Six gone casual

The scene was hilarious. Conversely, here's the perfect image to demonstrate why I hate the Chief:

Me smash you argh!

It really doesn't get more Neanderthal than that. Additional points for going apeman on a guy who did not want to fight and refused the urge to kick his ass twice in a row. Go, grease monkey, go! I realize that not all characters need to be smart and have their shit together, and that you need this type of people for narrative purposes as well, but it doesn't mean that I have to like them.

Back to bulletpoints now (are they still bulletpoints when they're numbered? What do you call that?):

1) As a general rule, all planetside scenes in this series are boring. New Caprica may be the exception - but I'll only be able to verify that once I get to those episodes. The resistance bits on Caprica and most stuff on Kobol are fast-forward material for me (except fast-forwarding is wrong and I never do it).

2) Helo post-impregnation is actually a pretty nifty character, and an integral part of the whole equation. He's not a gamechanger, but he has his own agenda and makes a good pawn (or even knight) to Sharon's rook. His presence alone alters the power dynamics - and in my book, the more factors the better, so I'm on board. That being said, his "rehabilitation" in the eyes of the crew was completely unconvincing. One second he's a Cylon-lover and they won't even shake his hand, but the moment he goes "hey, let's use a different kind of colored paper for this arts and crafts project!" he's one of the crew? Huh?

3) Apollo is already being moved towards the "whiny asshole" end of the character spectrum, so I guess the middle of the 2nd season is where the change begins to occur. Too bad. He wasn't the most captivating of people, but he had his moments and you could actually empathise with him.

4) There's a very nice scene after half of the fleet jumps away with Roslin, in which Adama is assembling his ship in a bottle, or doing something along those lines, and absent-mindedly airs his various grievances to an unseen interlocutor. After a while it is revealed that he is actually talking to Dualla - quite possibly the last character you'd expect to see in this scene (or any scene for that matter). And she calls him on his bullshit saying: "I think you called me in here to talk to me, because you don't think I have anything to say. But I do." Not only was it a good - and perceptive - line in and of itself, but it also worked nicely on the meta level. I actually found myself thinking: "Oh right, Dualla, what's her deal anyway?"

5) I was convinced that the Pegasus arc lasted around 10 episodes, that it constituted the latter half of the 2nd series. Turns out, it's just 3 eps. The actual PEGASUS part I mean, before it' was reduced to being "that ship we can sacrifice". Also, a funny thing happened: I'm devouring BSG at a very rapid pace atm, but when I got to the Pegasus part, I almost started watching something else instead - not because I was bored (it's my favorite part after all), but because I remembered how intense and upsetting it was, and didn't feel like coping with that stress. Which I think means it's the first moment in the series where I was (and am - it was the same way this time) actually invested in the plot to the point of being unable to switch off kneejerk reactions.

6) There's a scene between Baltar and the captured Six in which he recalls a memory that Head Six had told him about, and claims it is his own, quoting it to to her word for word, as Head Six watches, mortified. I remember I was really impressed with it (I can't really say I "liked" it because it was very unpleasant to watch), but I don't think I understood it the first time around. I figured it was either a cynical attempt to establish some sort of rapport with the captured Six, or his revenge on Head Six for her various mind games. This time it struck me that he might actually be in love with this woman, and is making a choice: picking the tangible, if broken, version over the ghost in his head. Which, too, seems a bit cynical on some level, but also very... human? I don't know. Less deplorable, Head Six's pain notwithstanding.

7) Michelle Forbes is just so very, very good. And I appreciate the fact that they didn't make her go full-on monster, and that some of the characters actually got Admiral Cain's rationale (see Starbuck's eulogy).

8) Finally, those 3 episodes apparently also contain my favorite musical cue from the entire soundtrack:

BSG continued

More randomness:

1) Baltar's conversation with Boomer as she is trying to kill herself - wow. Really, wow. It's hard to imagine an exchange more densely packed with layers of meaning. And when you inject Six's reaction to it... again, wow. Basically, when they play the Baltar/Six dynamic right, it's just stellar narrative work, and here they literally flipped it on its head. Watching the usually dominant Six listen to him and watching her condescension turn into confusion, alarm, and then this sort of suspicious not-quite-respect was such a pleasure. And Tricia Helfer delivered once again

2) Leoben is another great character. More Cylons plox.

3) The Cylon refinery ep - another solid one

4) The series one finale/series two premiere - overall decent, but the Kobol planetside scenes were just horribly dull. They killed off 2 characters we hardly knew anything about, and then spent a ridiculous amount of time on "mourning" them. I might be biased, because most of the mourning was done by the Chief, and I still loathe him, but I'm almost certain it was objectively dull. At least there's some Crashdown in the mix. Too bad they paint him as an incompetent asshole.

5) A little bit of cryptic and spooky awesomeness, courtesy of Six. When the Kobol party bury those two anonymous dudes, she states that "nothing awaits them here - no afterlife, no damnation. Only oblivion." And when Baltar, still trying to find his footing religion-wise asks "Because they haven't seen the face of God?" she replies with surprising and creepy clarity: "Because they died here. On Kobol." This is later echoed in an even more menacing manner, when Baltar deflects her warning by asserting that he can't die yet, because he's an instrument of God, and she replies: "God turned his back on Kobol. What happens on Kobol is not his will." I don't get why yet, but I love me some fine print.

6) Saul Tigh flashbacks. I don't care. I really don't.

7) The crib, the opera house, and the baby have all made their first appearance. I'm already fatigued.

8) I had a short discussion with Janek about the differences between Six's zealotry and Leoben's, but it's too chaotic to copy and paste, and I'm too tired to parse it. Either way, conclusions were reached. Take my word for it.

9) I can't help but see the events in the series through the lens of the boardgame mechanics. Autojump executed, but heavy raiders were activated first, ergo: Centurions on board. Boomer gets an executive order and nukes a basestar with her first action, and then reveals she's a Cylon with the second one (effect: send a character to Sickbay). And the Admiral just sent the President to the Brig (failed to strip her of her title though)

BSG revisited

Lately I've been playing the Battlestar Galactica boardgame a lot - it's ridiculously good and very, very addictive. So much so in fact, that I've decided to re-watch the series which, from what I recall, I was never that wild about. It was more of a love/hate thing.

Anyway, I'm after the first 8 episodes or so, and wanted to jot down some general impressions:

1) the first episode (33 - the one where the Cylons catch up with the fleet every 33 minutes, and they have to keep jumping) is just fantastic. It should get an Emmy, or something. A perfectly paced, oppressive mini-movie.

2) the next one, Water, is really good too, actually, and establishes the "enemy within" problem almost as well as the previous one laid out the constant pursuit factor.

3) come to think of it, almost all the episodes I've seen so far have been good, with with the exception of two, both of which were Starbuck-centered. Number 4 (Act of Contrition) kept hammering home the whole Starbuck "killed" the Admiral's son motif over and over again, and number five (You Can't Go Home Again) is the one where she finds a dead Raider and miraculously learns to pilot it in several hours, or something. After ripping out its brain. It made about as much sense as if she had found a dead cow, ripped out its brain, crawled into it, and galloped home. Except that cow was now once again magically airtight and spaceworthy. Oh, and produced oxygen, even though it was dead.

4) the guy playing Baltar is a horrible actor. And I find I can't suspend my disbelief enough to see how anyone would treat him with even a sliver of respect, seeing as he spends half the time talking to air in public, fidgeting, and at one point even fucking an empty table. I'm not completely on board with the character psychologically either, and so I couldn't understand why he would hide the fact that Boomer was a Cylon from the rest of the fleet, but in the last episode it was hinted that he kind of did the same for Ellen, so now it seems he has simply disassociated himself from the human race. If they keep pushing the assumption that he's basically only interested in his own survival and believes in this "God's plan" Six has been brainwashing him with - I'll bite. That actually seems plausible.

5) Adama is a pretty shitty Admiral. I hope they didn't try to sell him as some sort of military genius anywhere down the road, since he already risked the entire fleet for Starbuck, and said outright that if it had been his son who crash-landed, they'd keep looking until the Cylons killed them all. Horrible military leader. Also, Adama/Apollo bonding scenes are excruciating. I think they have their own musical cue too - it involves bagpipes and induces vomit.

6) Apollo is very pretty though. He has those insane cheekbones that actually result in concave cheeks. Pretty, not handsome, but pretty works for me.

7) On that subject, there was a sex scene with Helo on New Caprica and they didn't show even a bit of skin. That's what I call wasting your actor's major (only?) asset. Made absolutely no sense.

8) Final bit of eye-candy roundup: Crashdown. I didn't remember this character at all, but he's there, kind of hulking and sickly pale, like a sexy sexy cadaver.

9) Tricia Helfer is spectacular as Six. Sensuous and menacing and fragile and pious and zealous. She does it all.

10) Cylons in general are fascinating and - at least so far - very well-written. I was surprised to find that certain characteristics I had learned to associate with various models were hinted at from the very beginning of the series, which means that they actually knew where they were going with it all, or at least were mindful not to contradict themselves as they made things up on the go.

That's it for now.

So elegant and sleek

Ok, this one's been haunting me for 3 days in a row, to the exclusion of all other music:

It works on so many levels that it landed squarely in obsession territory.

Firstly, ever since bumping into Flesh Tone, I've had a weird thing for Kelis. Intro notwithstanding, the music took a backseat to the look and the person(a): I just found myself being fascinated with her, in that iconic capacity reserved for things unapproachable and unrelatable. So I had that going, and then this performance happened, and took it to another level. I know it's completely subjective, but I find her absolutely awestriking in this video - at least in those fleeting moments when you can actually make her out from behind the craptastic visualizations courtesy of David Lynch.

Secondly, the song is great, obviously. Grand and darkly romantic with a touch of menace - it's right up my alley.

Finally, the lyrics. Take a moment to read them:

Do you know where we are?
I'm longing for the dark
Of our nocturnal life
It begins and ends with you
Don't spill my secret

You were once running wild, hiding in the morning mist
Game demands I make you mine
I thought that I could resist, but the leopard in you
Silently preyed on me.

I made my way back home (Did you follow her?)
I handled her with care (Were you in control?)
So elegant and sleek (Were you not afraid?)
I need her to be near (Does she belong to you?)
Don't spill my secret

You were once running wild, hiding in the morning mist
Game demands I make you mine
I thought that I could resist, but the leopard in you
Silently preyed on me

Deserted by my friends (Don't they understand?)
She's so much more than them (How could they compare?)
So now she's just for me (No one else can see)
I watch her while she sleeps (Be sure she dreams of you)
Don't spill my secret

(It's been quite a while) Since we were last outside
(And do you miss the chase) Now that we've both been tamed
(Inside this gilded cage) Prisoners of our thoughts
(You saved me from myself)
Don't spill my secret

Today a man was taken from his apartment at the New Jersey Shore, and arrested under suspicion of entrapment of a wild animal. Police from forced entry discovered a caged leopard in the building. The fully grown feline was said to be surprisingly domesticated, by zoological experts who gave her a thorough examination before preparing her for relocation. A large crowd has gathered outside to watch the beautiful creature, and the giant cage was lowered slowly onto the street by a crane. From here, the leopard was transferred into the back of a truck for it's journey ahead. A startled onlooker said, it's extraordinary to think that any human being could have lived in such close quarters with such a dangerous animal. Police are saying that the captive was simply besotted with the creature, and barely left her side. It's alleged that he hunted her in the wild and expertly forged documents to facilitate her illegal export to the United States of America. The incident has already created much controversy, and is now likely to lead to a major international investigation into the life of the man who stole a leopard.

So yeah, it starts out pretty generic - at times even cringeworthy - only to turn into a psychotic ode to bestiality. And a superbly crafted one at that. I like the call and response structure of the verses. I like that they picked a female vocalist for the counterpart, which makes the number sound like a bona fide - if a bit dark - love song until the final reveal. And I absolutely love that she doesn't sing from the leopard's point of view, which would be tacky, exploitative, and put the animal on equal footing lyrically, implying that it could have ever been anything more than a passive/unwilling object of obsession (I'm trying to use neutral wording here).

In fact, I think the song is a really kickass depiction of someone's descent into madness. The male vocals are initially focused on the tangible; they're pretty straightforward. But as the song progresses, they become increasingly warped by the second, more twisted vocal line, until they are eventually overtaken by it.

If you follow Kelis' lines, you'll see that the second voice starts out very disassociated - inquiring and doubtful, as if it were voicing concerns which the protagonist doesn't want to address. By the next verse, it has become more integrated, echoing and complimenting the still relatively pragmatic male narrative, though with darker and more abstract undertones ("Be sure she dreams of you"). In the ultimate verse, the second voice finally takes over: the female vocals assume the lead, and the twin narratives reach perfect cohesion, becoming one. The psychosis is complete.

Pretty nifty for a little pop number, huh?

Bellringer

People get compartmentalized, you get labelled, and I thought: "I don't want anyone to label me as anything other than the Funny One." Because if they say: "She's the Funny One" they haven't then got to say: "She's the Ginger One" or "She's the Speccy One". "She's the Funny One" and that's it. I wanted "funny" to define who I was (...) I suppose it is a survival instinct, and it is one I think I still use now. I would still rather... I just think if people think that I'm funny, they are not going to look any further. They're not going to delve any deeper. "I'm funny, don't look at me! Look at me with your eyes closed, look at me with your ears."

- Catherine Tate, Girls Who Do: Comedy

Red Dot

I think I've finally triangulated the exact position of my "let's write another blog entry" button. The formula is: if I'm at least a little bit drunk, and too tired to log into WoW, but not yet incapacitated enough to just lie down and watch something before going to sleep, AND if Ana is not online for me to dump whatever happens to be leaking out of my brain at the time... on.

As you can see it's a tiny spot indeed. And I'm already talking to Ana...

And now I've updated the borgs, and I'm completely out of steam again. Until next time.

I felt like I was cheating, so I figured I'd at least throw in a song. It's one of those bands that popped up on too many websites and was advertised by too many of my music-savvy friends for me to ever properly check out, but it played in the background on our last evening in Bham - the only one, I think, during which we flirted with some sort of collective nostalgia - and got inset into that snapshot. I've since listened to the whole album a bunch of times and now know that I only like 2 songs from it, so it wasn't exactly a miraculous conversion, but still. This one's really good.

Previously on...

Hello, dear diary. It's been ages, as usual. But I'm tipsy and retrospective, so let's try to rehash the last month or so.

For a long while I've been convinced that if I ever was to have a piece of music that got played whenever I entered a room (you know, my personal intro), then it would be the guitar part from Hazy Shade of Winter. Because obviously.

Now I'm listening to Hazy Shade of Winter on YouTube.

Anyway, there's another contender. I think it's an intro for those precious moments when I feel totally in touch with my mindblowing sexhualitay:



Seriously though, it's pretty haunting.

We went to Birmingham for about a week. It was yet another one of those low-intensity episodes, and I couldn't shake off the thought that it's weird to fly all the way to Britain to play WoW in the evenings and go to movies and stuff... but when I was able shove aside this nagging and somewhat abstract preconception of a "foreign adventure", it felt great. We went to a really fun poetry event, which incidentally is a phrase I have just retired, as I doubt I'll ever use it again. We saw Stratford-upon-Avon, and don't. And we went to Jamie Oliver's restaurant, which for some reason became my most vivid memory of the batch. I think it's a case of retroactive retouching, but I really loved the place, as a space to sit around in and feel vaguely jubilant (the food itself was ok, but so not the focal point). In hindsight it seems so warm and golden-bronze. I'd get into details, but i don't think I can do it justice, and I'm not even sure there's any justice to be done. It's just one of those subjective time capsules, and I've already dwelled on it more than enough.

If I have one regret it's probably that Karolina was so overworked and tired from the baby's antics, that we hardly had a chance to have any "moments" (I'd say "talk to each other" but it's sort of a different animal).

Ok, I was certain I had enough fuel for a huge sprawling tirade, but I'm literally falling asleep at the desk, so that's it for now. Hope to continue at a more convenient date.

Sun pokes through my lashes

I have a new wallpaper. It brightens my day:

I firmly believe that blond stubble can cure cancer.

I'm also much better, although I did puke unexpectedly at 8a.m. Didn't see that one coming.

For 29 years

I had a mild, extended anxiety attack today. That was fun. A kind of dull, barely palpable pain in my chest and a slight shortness of breath I've learned to associate with either pre-exam stress or a distant aftershock of heartbreak, suddenly emergent. I identified the immediate basis, but the feeling lasted - lapsing when I had company - until midnight, at least. Even though I was utterly certain I had nothing to feel anxious about. It dissolved only after some mental gymnastics which finally revealed other, underlying causes. All the necessary buttons got pressed and I'm fine and dandy now, but that was a fucked-up episode. I hate not knowing where my emotional responses come from.

I'm closing up. As if something kicked in, a latch fell into place, and I've begun nesting. Except I'm plugging the holes up with just me inside.

The observer worries, the glacial drift continues unaware and unabated.

Ana sent me this a short while ago, saying she heard it first when she was 29.

Out of words now.

5:25

I'd much rather be sleepless in Seattle.