PTSD

Some thoughts on the weekend

It is entirely possible to lounge on a sofa all day (Saturday), with frequent trips to the kitchen to replenish one's appetite. In fact, it's fun to eat even when not hungry because you have loads of healthy food (for once) and the fridge is stocked with fantastic stuff only available after a long trek to Silver Spring's Thai Store.*

Lounging on said sofa allows one to read five books, none of which are guaranteed to make you intellectually superior to anyone else, if that is your aim. Me, for instance, I managed to read Eragon (which I'd never read till now. Yes, I know it's a children's book. So's HP); something I already returned to the library so I can't remember what it was called, except that Canada ruled the world and the people (unsurprisingly?) wanted to rise up against that; The Concept of the Political (it's thin and written by a Nazi-sympathising Catholic. Fits right in with Canada taking over the world somehow); Blindsighted (mainly because I'm a sucker for thrillers/mysteries but this one was rather gory in bits, even for me); A vampire one which was really bad because it had vampires hatching out of eggs--yuck. I'd saved this till the last since, as all PTSD readers should know, vampires are fantastic. I, probably in the minority of one, rather liked the film Van Helsing. It did help that VH had not one but three** of my favourite Australians in it.

Then today, topping off the weekend by watching X3. X3 was actually extremely good fun--great special effects, not too much emoting, loads of people dead and dying, inconsistencies which are then talking points after the film ends, heaps of special powers (I'm not spoiling it for readers if I mention Frasier from the telly plays a Mutant version of the Tasmanian Devil). I'm all ready to go watch it again when LilSis gets here. She's not here yet since she apparently missed the only bus from small town to big city. Did I mention she's the organised one in the family?

Eating some more. This time, it wasn't Thai snacks but home-cooked chicken and potato salad and cake and ice cream at E's place. The cats are probably tired of this constant company by now. Oh, and the Doctor, of course. I find it hard to actually criticise much of the news Doctor probably just because I'm so blasted happy to have the show back on so I like pretty much anything. Of course, there was the old Doctor on telly last night where Doctor 3 beat off pterodactyls with a mop and messed around in broom cupboards with the Brigadier. Not much has changed, you might say, except the pterodactyl is now a hungry alien woman in a TV and the Brigadier is probably Rose. RFD shouted a lot but the TV woman was still creepy enough and the 1950s prettiness was well done (where was the grime and the pollution and the traffic and the crowds of London? I always thought Cardiff was a much cleaner city and the new DW shows this every episode).

I also just received an email from Workshop in SmallTownVA folks telling us, among other things, that the dress code would be "casual" but that we were expected to wear "business formal" for two dinners and "pants" for the field trips. I would have thought pants would be necessary, no matter what one was wearing (I shall not mention E's comment about Logan's costume in X3).

Back to Conference-ing now and trying to decide if it's worth it to submit a paper abstract for BigNameMeeting 2007 on a topic which has nothing to do with my actual dissertation or just stuff it and be present, if all goes well, as an observer rather than as a participant. I've got a couple of days to decide so will think on it.



* Said trip is also useful because SS accomplishes many tasks in one visit--Thai Supermarket, excellent Thai restaurant, a bookstore with loads of Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror/Thriller books, a store with cheap yet comfy shoes and clothes, two Cinemas and a BigNameBookstore.

** Hugh Jackman, David Wenham and Richard Roxburgh. Yes, I do watch far too much television.

posted by Priya @ 11:08 PM