i may be a bird in a cage but at least it's your cage

talk to me about frank pembleton and tim bayliss. as partners, as friends, as individuals. defining moments, best arcs, important episodes. what you think they did post-series. best lines, best exchanges, best scenes together and apart.

i'm trying to get in the right headspace for a story, and you guys can help. all right. frank and tim. go.

something i learned on friday: did you know that a group of dragons is called a dreadful? what a wonderful turn of phrase. dreadful of dragons. the things you learn doing reference assignments.

friday night i went to see a student production of noises off with meganberrieh, smashsc, ash's little sister c., and april. it was in playmakers, which is normally fine, but between the torrential rain that the audience was caught in, waiting for the doors to open, and the fact that the theater was sold out and completely packed with damp sweaty people, the entire place was swelteringly humid and also smelled like wet dog, which is never a good experience for watching theater. regardless, the production was pretty good. they had some pacing issues early on, and the accents (or lack thereof, which was the case) were rather distracting, but it was pretty solid undergrad theater. it was, for the carls, about the equivalent of an above average etb production.

plus it was free, and i never say no to free.

saturday morning i got up and registered for classes for spring semester; or, i should say, i attempted to register for classes. ( rant and rave about computerized registration systems )

possibly i am the most impatient person on the planet.

but classes are registered for, and if anybody's keeping track at home (i can assume only scratchyfishie might possibly give a crap about the details of my schedule), i'm taking ( a bunch of classes )

i cleaned the bathroom on saturday morning. i also finally used an old j.crew giftcard to buy a pair of corduroys to replace my old most favorite pair of pants, which died a sad death from overwear this summer. go me. i did not take all the cardboard recycling out or mop the kitchen floor or vacuum. i lose. i am trying to keep my apartment here cleaner - or at least less cluttered - than the apartment in chicago, and it's sort of working, except that apparently even when i CAN get to all my bookcases (which i rarely could in chicago), i still prefer big heaping stacks of books all over the floor. go figure.

elese had a barbeque saturday night, wherein i ate too much grilled meat and gossiped with my classmates and spent three hours watching dogs try to hump each other, and then i went home and spent the rest of the evening lying on the couch watching homicide s5: ( the documentary through wu's on first, plus SERENITY SPOILERS )

i got up at the asscrack of sunday morning (by which i mean nine am) and hauled myself over to the laundromat to do some laundry. the washer/dryer for my apartment is backordered and should be here in a couple of weeks, but as it was, i was almost out of underwear. those of you who have witnessed my underwear collection can gape and stare at how long that means i've gone since doing laundry - seriously something like almost 7 weeks. i own A LOT of clothes. and EVEN MORE underwear. but i went and washed clothes and now all my cute shirts are clean again and i have underwear. woo!

i lay on the couch for most of the afternoon, and ate a big bowl of cheese grits and watched more homicide, and then april and i went to see a history of violence: ( SPOILERS )

the domino trailer is running with history of violence, and i am fairly certain that if it had been insidian sitting next to me instead of april, i probably would have clawed all the skin off sid's leg within the first fifteen seconds of the preview. as it was, i restrained myself admirably from making inappropriate noises in a movie theater, because HOLY FUCKING SHIT, people, is my girlfriend a hottass in this movie.

wow. how long has it been since y'all got a big honking weekend update like this from me? MONTHS AND MONTHS.

hi, kids, what's going on? tell me about your weekends.

HAPPY TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY, MINIONS! ARRRRRRR!

google: continues to rock my world with their personalized homepages; if you have a gmail account, you can set up your own! oh, google, i love you.

farmer's market haul: one potted jade plant, bringing my patio-plant total to two, neither of which are dead yet; one wheel of local (chapel hill creamery) double-cream brie; two small cherry pies. mmmmm, pie.

musically speaking: i spent the weekend listening to lots of early live mason jennings, and it's so strange. early live mason, even the A+ good cave soundboard recordings, sounds so tinny and hollow. even when he got chris and rob in '98, to round out the sound, the live recordings don't really come alive until '00 or so. despite that, though, man, i love me some mason. and i continue to be obsessed with mike doughty's blog.

other things i am enjoying, musically, lately: the star room boys, a country joint from athens, georgia; lots of holly cole and tom waits; rilo kiley; and, of course, the best album of 2005, mike doughty's haughty melodic, which i promise i will post cuts from later this week.

( SPOILERS for last week's oc )

( continuing onward with homicide s5 )

basically this weekend i lay on the couch and read poetry and avoided my ref assignment that's due on thursday and drank tea and orange juice, and i kept dozing off, stoned on cough and cold medication, with mason in the aural background of my brain, and having weird cold-medication-and-mason-influenced dreams. my chest hurts from coughing so much. on the upside: i finally filled the prescription for the antibiotics for my nagging ear infection, and my ear feels significantly better.

and finally, today's brief moment of i shoulda gone to the university of texas: i would kill undergrads for a chance to be at the austin city limits festival this weekend. sweet jesus fuck, that's a hell of a lineup.

tuesday: packed clothes. lots of clothes. cleaned bathtub. watched homicide s4. downloaded doctor who for bear. smoked up and went to see wedding crashers with emma. watched slings & arrows for the 6th time in three days. read shitloads of firefly fic. did not make it to the art institute like i wanted to, as the siren song of vince vaughn was too strong for me.

current music: the album version of this song still sounds funny to me - too polished, too perfect, none of the adrenaline and fierceness that comes through live; the only version that should exist, ever, is the one from that december 2000 show, in st. paul, where he played it live for the first time.

wednesday: got email from guy i'd sent cover letter and resume to months ago, asking if i still wanted the job. (YES OMG YES I DO PLS PAY ME SO I CAN PAY MY RENT.) picked up laptop case from repair place. had lunch with ms. heloise. got my john glover hair cut into something that more resembles a fashionable style. fretted that the screen on the laptop is doing something funny and is it still under warranty from when i had it repaired two years ago. fretted that if it is doing something funny and not under warranty i'll have to borrow money from my folks to fix it. fretted some more about money. finished homicide s4. was surprised by my landlord bringing people over to see the apartment and almost accidentally flashed them. went to see an early preview of the aristocrats, which was in fact the funniest, filthiest joke ever. read shitloads of firefly fic.

homicide s4: is growing on me. i still prefer s3, for the whole ( spoilers for the end of s3 and all of s4 )

thursday: took all my posters off the walls. picked bear up from the airport. sat around the apartment watching mean girls. ate a blt. watched the good bits version of wilde (all the bits where jude law is on-screen being hot, gay or hot and gay, and none of the bits with the plot). called jude a rageful lemur. howled with laughter. watched down with love. howled with laughter some more. read lots of terrible epic harry/draco fic.

the thing about fangirls coming to visit (as opposed to relatives coming to visit) is that when fangirls come to visit, you usually just end up sitting around, watching movies full of good-looking mostly naked people, and laughing until you cry. or maybe that's just us.

( biggish spoilers through the end of homicide s3; STEPH, DON'T READ THIS! )

in conclusion, kay howard.

i promise i will shut up about homicide and return you to your regularly scheduled fannishly omnivorous journal just as soon as i finish this kay story. honest.


p.s. OI, MINIONS, WHERE IS MY KAY HOWARD/RAY KOWALSKI? YOU ARE ALL FALLING DOWN ON THE JOB.