Right in the middle of some gratuitious snuggling

MY WEEK IN PICTURES

ahem...

Snowday!


Unchartered amounts of fanfic reading!


No more epic fanfic reading.

Thanks for nothing, Webroot.

In which I'm a tease

Monica and I are still working our way through BSG. She's been avoiding spoilers (mostly), to the point where she hasn't even seen screencaps or promo art from any of the later seasons (which is way impressive when I think about some of the things I'd been spoiled for at this point). So with her permission I'm posting some teaser images, nothing too spoilery (or are they???), primarily "interesting" images to get her wondering. We're almost done with 2.5 (we've got the 2-part finale left), and I wish I'd thought to do this earlier, because pictures of Roslin kissing Adar, Six downloading into a tub of goo, and Adama drowning the baby on Kobol would've been really fabulous options. Alas.

But there's still Roslin kissing Baltar, right?

Hee.

As if I could love him any more

Edward James Olmos is talking about writing a (massive spoilery spoilers in the link, Monica) graphic novel chronicling what happened after the end of BSG. What are your thoughts? It's been pointed out there's a good chance he couldn't actually get the rights to do it. I have mixed feelings, but if it were actually to come to fruition I would of course buy one.

I has the sad

My friend who's going to Dragoncon this weekend just came down with a cold. To my very estimable credit, my first thought was, aw man, that really sucks for her. Immediately, however, my second thought was CRAP, she can't hug EJO for me now. (Which, loyal friend, she was planning to do.)

He... he just looks so huggable.

So incredibly huggable.

Sniff.

Moore, don't get me started on you

Dear Bear McCreary:

Please stop being so good at your job. I love your work -- your music's beautiful -- but every time I'm at the office listening to my ipod on shuffle, innocently doing my job, la di da, and So Much Life comes up... BAM. Even if I hit skip immediately, it's too late, and I spend the rest of the day feeling like I've got a lead weight in my chest. I realize this was the intended effect, but dammit, did you have to do it so well?

Much love/hate from your most devoted admirer/irritated fan,

Me

P.S. This is where I would say something snarky about Pegasus, but it's probably been done to death so I'll let it slide.

She seems confident Adama's not a cylon

As you're aware, Monica's started watching BSG. When previous plans were cancelled on us a few weeks ago, she proposed getting together to start the miniseries instead. It went something like this:

Monica: I have to leave half way through to go do homework, but we can at least get it started.
Holly: That should be doable. I watched it for the first time in two installments. I'll let you know when it's at the half way point.
[Girls settle down with dinner. Movie starts. Monica's rustling wrappers get quieter and quieter.]
Holly: [pauses movie] K, it's half done.
Monica: PRESS PLAY, DAMMIT
Holly: Are you sure? I know you have to—
Monica: NOW

She eventually got to a point where she decided to stop and go home, but by then there were only 23 minutes left and at that point, really, come on, so I talked her into staying. Most vindicating statement of the evening: "I can see why you're obsessed with this!" Always good to have one's insanities validated.

We're moving through s1 at a pretty steady clip, but the much-anticipated EriktheSwede is now in town, so that will put things on hold for a bit. Monica swears she's not going to disappear for the whole summer, that their goal is to spend these three months acting like people in a normal relationship where they're not separated by an ocean, who occasionally come up for air to see other people. We'll see. Frankly, who'd blame her for staying submerged? I've made her promise to see me for my birthday, but the awkward glory of Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down may have to wait.

In other news, I had a really lovely weekend. My friend Kate and I drove to Ann Arbor, where we had dinner somewhere we never could have afforded when we actually went to school there, and where we visited our friends Seth, Theresa, and their 10 month old daughter, Chelsea. I then spent Monday and Tuesday (which I'd taken as PTO) running errands and cleaning. I have finally become that person who uses vacation days to run errands and clean, which I guess means I'm officially a lame adult. I'd feel lamer and more irritated, but it felt just so damned good (just not being at work staring at a screen all day was amazing) that I'm thinking about doing it again in a couple weeks. I really am lame.

Life continues

There's been unexpected improvement on the dad front! His heart, which had been working at 30% capacity (I think I said 35% earlier -- I was wrong), is back up to 65% 58% (EDIT) which is amazing. They said if it improved at all, it would be in the first 45 days, but by that point there'd been no improvement at all. His body continues to defy the medical books. However, one of his... um, ventricles? I dunno -- one of the quadrants or whatever of his heart is extremely enlarged, at 5x its usual size. It's not quite so bad that they're worried about a dangerous amount of arrhythmia (apparently at 6x, they start talking pacemakers), but they're keeping an eye on it.

My mom, on the other hand (for those of you who don't know), has been diagnosed with breast cancer. She had an MRI on Monday to make sure it hasn't spread, and we'll be getting the results early this coming week. Assuming it hasn't, she has a lumpectomy scheduled for next month, followed by six weeks of radiation. But can I be an odd combination of shallow but strangely serious for a moment, and point out how weird the timing was? When we found out, I had just a few episodes of BSG left, and in case you're not familiar with my mom, I should point out point out she's a brunette, blue-eyed retired school teacher. I needed a week or so to emotionally distance myself before I finished watching.

I have been so emotionally involved with this show -- an almost bizarre amount, especially with Roslin's character -- and when I found out about my mom.... I don't know, I felt like the fates were mocking me, or like I'd had my experience with BSG almost to warn me or prepare me or something. (My mom and I are pretty close.) After about a week, these creeped-out feelings calmed down into more rational, normal coincidence territory, but my experience with Battlestar is not one I think I'm going to forget.

In which Holly expends emotional energy on something fictional

I finished BSG! I loved the finale; it was so good. I ended up being glad I saw the spoiler I did early on... it made things easier to take. At any rate, to mark this momentous occasion, I wanted to share my favorite Roslin/Adama Battlestar icons I've found scouting around livejournal the last few months. I hope you enjoy the pretty; it's a bit overwhelming, but I narrowed it down from hundreds, so, well, there you go. If you want to know who made one, I usually save them by artist, so just ask.