what the bloggery

Down and down and down. Into the abyss, as I like to think. Further and further into the pit. The narrow stairs are crumbling and cracked in some places, brown and algae-slick in others. It’s very windy, and the air is so cold. The first stretch of stairs takes me through the overgrown brush; through patches of blackberry bushes, branches overgrown, leaves glistening gold in scant light, thorny vines crawling wild and bold. The second stairs take me to the bridge, where in the distance I can see the city, and the city is made of light. It burns in the dark.

The last staircase is silent. The brush is wild and dense all around yet I cannot see it, not anymore. I can feel the wind and I can see stars retreating very far away, and for one moment, that’s all. Me alone with the sky and the steps under my feet, the wind and the thorns, and my heart is full. I ache for nothing.

 -

This is the kind of shit I think about when I’m on my way to work. I haven’t done any concrete writing in months. I sit around and I do some thinking. An awful lot of thinking. Mostly I miss writing fanfiction, because fanfic fucking rules, even if it makes you kind of a lamer to admit to doing it. I mean, who feels the warm surge of pride when they tell all their new friends, “Yeah, I spend most of my free time writing erotica about some guy from a Japanese cartoon blowing Johnny Depp”?

(For the record, I may have pulled that example out of my ass, but I’ll bet you it exists somewhere.)

Lately, though, as hard as I may try to focus on my own characters, my mind wanders and I end up thinking about characters like, say, Deadpool and Nightwing and Iron Man and Batman and Captain America and Hulkling and Blue Beetle and ASSGUARDIAN—er, Wiccan—and oh yeah, Tim Drake!Robin. My point is this: I REALLY LIKE COMICS. I love Marvel and I love DC and I have spent way too much of my income the last few months at The Dreaming….Yet, somehow, not enough. My shelf o’ comics is nothing in comparison to Nat-attack’s. I can’t wait for ECCC (alternatively: ECx3 or the Easy Three), because last year there were at least four booths that did nothing but sell discount trades and older single issues. At the time, I glanced through some boxes, but I did not know what I was looking for. Now I do. Next year is going to fuckin’ rock.

Now let’s see, what am I reading lately…Ah, BLUE BEETLE.

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I seem to be responsible for setting up a party for a fellow in the office who is retiring. The kind of party where I have to reserve a whole restaurant and order food and drinks and oh my god what the—what is this—are they for real?

NO SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE SHIT.

…on the plus side, if I succeed at throwing this party, I mean. Wow. Maybe they’ll keep me full-time! D:

HELLO RESPONSIBILITY.

I seem to be employed again! For now. My agent at Talent Tree assigned me to a small company over in Queen Anne for the next six weeks, although there’s a possibility that if they like me (and I like them) that I could be hired on permanently. That’s some good fuckin’ news right there, as eight days of unemployment was eight days too long.  

(There was a weekend or two in there at some point, but those doesn’t count because they were WEEKENDS.)

So the environment is completely fucking different from the Bookstore. I am an honest-to-jeebus receptionist now in a very small security company. There are maybe twenty people who work here.

On my first day, the woman training me said this: “It can get pretty busy here, the phone might ring five, maybe twenty-five times–” 

“At the same time?” I gaped, and she burst out laughing. 

“No, no,” she said, “I mean all day.” 

Going from 1,000 calls a day to 25 calls a day…it’s sort of weird. 

I have discovered that in Corporate America, the amount of work you do is inversely proportionate to the amount you get paid. After three years at the Bookstore, I had so much work to do that I had to come in often on my days off just to finish everything. I had hundreds and hundreds of calls per day. I made 10 bucks an hour to do it. Here, however, in lovely Queen Anne? Shit, I’ve been here since 7:30 (it is just after 9) and I filed like, six folders and answered about ten phonecalls, and I made 12 dollars an hour to do it.  

Should that be exciting? I mostly feel guilty. I can’t tell if I’m too badass for this place or what. I mean, it’s really really lovely. The building is on Lake Union and everyone’s been incredibly nice to me. The commute is lame, but the view is astounding. Anyone here ever walked down Queen Anne hill towards the water while the sun’s coming up? Fuck me it is amazing.  

…Also it doesn’t hurt to mention that if I get hired here (permanently, mind) my pay rate automatically bumps to 13. Shit, son. I could deal with a little guilt.   

However, as I am now starting to feel really guilty, I will log off and find something work-related to do.

In the last 24 hours, I split up with my boyfriend (because he lied) and quit my job (because it sucked). You’d think I’d be freaked out or something, but I’m so happy I think I’ve gone stupid from all the adrenaline. Life just keeps moving and moving and it’s the most amazing thing ever.

I AM IRON MAN AND SO CAN YOU.

At long last, I begin my Iron Man post! Partly because Nat’s been asking for it, but also because I’m kind of sick of playing Mario and Fishdom, therefore I am writing a review for a movie I have seen five times. We saw it on Independence Day last, because really, how best to celebrate your nation’s independence than watching a movie in which a bazillionaire womanizer in a metal suit blows up terrorists?

I cannot say this enough: I love this movie. And to think, I nearly didn’t see it! I wasn’t watching much TV at the time, so I wasn’t really up to date on the movies that were out and those coming out. Then one day, out of no where, Nat turns to me and says, “I think…I think I want to see Iron Man.”

“What, really?” I ask. As far as I knew, she hated superhero movies.

“Yeah, I think I do,” she said, looking sheepish. “I mean, it’s like he’s a hero, but he’s an asshole. Will you come with me if I go and see it?”

I agreed, and we went. And then again. And then again. And twice more. I’m not even sure how that happened! It’s like we woke up some mornings, blinked, and then we were at the theatre. Weeeeird.

AND NOW FOR THE BREAKDOWN.

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’sup, ladies. As most of you know, I’ve recently taken to living in sin with the one known as James, so things have been really hectic since we got back from Florida. Things are good, for the record, just busy. Which is probably why I haven’t managed to blog at all and why I have to keep promising Nat that yes, I will totally make up for all the days I missed. Which I guess I’ll have to, even if it takes me the rest of my days >:(

(oh yeah, I will post pictures when I get around to it—there are over 1100 of them, it might take me some time.)

Today Nat and I went to The Dreaming, which is a fantastic hub of geekery (also known as a comic book store), and our favorite place to get a fix. I spent about forty bucks on a combination of Nightwing and Angel: After the Fall. However, this isn’t my comic review—that will come later tonight, maybe—it was just so much fucking fun to be the only two girls in The Dreaming on New Comics Day. There was this one part where we were ripping into Urru’s art in Angel and we noticed that a store full of nerdy guys had fallen completely silent. Around six guys were attentively listening to us talk. That was so endearing it wasn’t even creepy.

On our way back to the Bookstore, Nat and I had the following conversation:

“So, where’s all those posts you owe me?” she asked.

“I’m working on them, I promise,” I said. “I’m trying to write my reviews for Iron Man and The Dark Knight, but I’m at a loss about what to say.”

The answer was quite simple, as all brilliant answers are.

“Dude,” she said. “Just babble.”

Brilliant. I’m not being sarcastic, either. I was putting way too much effing thought into this shit. On that note, I present to you my babble on The Dark Knight. I ain’t even gonna call it a review, as I don’t much bother with being objective or very thoughtful. I find it difficult to say anything constructive or even remotely critical about this movie, mostly because I love it too much to dare.

p.s. nat, does this mean you’ll update your blag as well?
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I love this crazy fucking city.

It’s not just the endearingly (embarrassingly) nerdy letter that the article is focused on—a couple of the comments are pretty fantastic, too. Like this one:

What made that monorail system so nice was that Bruce Wayne’s father built it with his own money, then gave it to the city. I mean, I would be all for a light rail system in seattle if Bill Gates paid for all of it.

Wouldn’t we all! Srsly though, this one is my favorite:

The bad: Highly vulnerable to damage by terrorists! Is the train seen anywhere in Dark Knight? Nope. Because it got trashed in the first film. (”…but the city was saved!”)

I think I’m getting sick on a buck’s worth of Hello Panda. Ugh. TOO MUCH HELLO PANDA.  Also, I seem to owe Nat like a billion blog posts, including but not limited to reviews for Iron Man and The Dark Knight. Which I shall get around to eventually. Hopefully this week.  Just not now.

*enters Hello Panda-induced coma*

—

I must have whispered your name 65 times.

I seem to be in Las Vegas, Nevada. A city I had never considered worthy of a visit. Hell, I still don’t. I haven’t left the fucking airport. I can see the big, shiny, famous Las Vegas buildings from where I’m sitting right now. That’s close enough for me. Apparently it’s 99 degrees out there right now. “Right now” being two in the morning. What. the. shit. That can’t be natural.

6 AM cannot get here fast enough. I was only supposed to spend twenty minutes in Las Vegas, and after some totally bitchin’ mechanical failures on my plane in Seattle, I ended up missing my flight and got booked for one at 6 AM. Which was better than nothing, I suppose. I haven’t slept in about, hmmm, 40 hours? More. Definitely more. I want to try and sleep now, but this place is fucking creepy and there aren’t really many places to curl up. I also don’t really want to sleep since that means my laptop and camera would be defenseless. Scary.

I have one more detour before I hit Fort Lauderdale: Phoenix. I have no particular thoughts about Phoenix aside from, “probably hot”. Still, another city I’ve never been to. That’s kind of exciting, even if I’ll only be there for a short while. Hopefully I’ll have the time to grab a shirt. I bought one in Houston and Las Vegas, so I may as well get one for Phoenix too.

I’m mostly just babbling. It’s two now. I think I’m gonna go hobo it up under that bench across from me.

—

We were warm until we went to Hell.

Ugh. You know it’s been way too long since you’ve done your fucking laundry when you start to feel like an archaeologist excavating layers and layers of earth that encompasses several thousand years. I used to own only enough clothes to run one load of laundry. That was it. I could only go about a week before I was literally out of things to wear. Now, apparently, I can go more than a month (two?) before I start noticing certain key articles of clothing have gone MIA.

Yesterday, the cats could probably hear me babbling to myself as I dug through these layers of clothing. It sounded an awful lot like this:

“What the fuck is this—blue pants? Whose fucking pants are these!? I don’t own any—oh wait. I guess they’re mine. When the fuckshit did I buy blue pants? Oh hey, I remember this shirt—I wore it to the Hullabaloo. Wait. The Hullabaloo was like a fucking month ago. Oh my god what is wrong with me.”

Yeah, I kind of swear a lot. Oh, the “Hullabaloo” was a Bookstore thing. It was pretty great until Casey sat at our table. Then Jason and I drunkenly talked about hot guys. I love my freakin’ coworkers.

I can’t remember why I’m making this lame-ass post.

(Yes, Nat, I owe you an Iron Man post. It’s half-done! :D)

I HAVE RETURNED. I meant to post this much sooner, as I saw the movie on Friday night and it is now Monday night, but oh well. We got back late and it was a bit of a busy weekend. Besides, right after the movie, I was rather at a loss of what to say. It’s been a day and some change, so now I feel I might have a better chance at articulating how much I freaking loved this movie.

The Golden Army was astonishingly good. It was so beautiful and it, fuck, I want to use the word crafted. I want to crawl inside their world and live there forever. The pacing was fantastic; they crammed so fucking much into two hours that it felt like it was over in minutes and days at the same time. I loved this movie. I think it’s one of the best I’ve ever seen. I’m really, really not kidding. It was amazing. I honestly cannot think of a single negative thing to say about it. I will henceforth regard any such talk as blasphemy D:

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