Bikers, Timelords and Footballers, Oh My!: A Fan Friday Link-Up...

...on Sunday night. 

I had originally planned on something of a follow-up to my last post, but I've been so deep in the feels lately that I need to come up for air for a minute. 

So instead of further musings on things that hurt but are good things, I'm gonna link up with Sarah for Fan Friday. I'm a fan of a lot of things, so this'll be E-Z-peasy, assuming I don't get too wine drunk to finish this post. Here's what I've been consuming lately. 

Pretty much the whole show, right there. 

Sons of Anarchy: I remember watching the first handful of episodes with my dad when it first aired, but I soon wound up with some thing or other taking up all my time, so the show fell off my radar. One day, the Chef was talking about Sons and I thought 'hey, I think I recall liking that show!"

The first 4 seasons were on Netflix, and I located the rest of it online. Because the Chef and his wife both watch Sons, they understood when at work, I would randomly laugh out loud, or whimper, yell or cry when I'm watching  in the office and doing paperwork. Jesus that show stresses me out. 

Not as much as Doctor Who, though - but that's not so much about plot and story things as from being really frakking frustrated with the way the show is being run. I'll explain that mess one day...

Double the Doctor!

I'm still not 100% on how I feel about the big 50th anniversary special, but I don't hate it. It was a good story, full of feels and giggles and the way it incorporated ALL THE DOCTORS was pretty darn awesome... But a certain major plot point did kind of feel like a giant middle finger to the entire fandom. If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about.

Again, that's the show, right there.

Then there's Downton Abbey, or as I like to call it "No One's Allowed To Be Happy" might possibly be even more emotionally taxing than Doctor Who. That show is a big fan of the Break the Cutie and Break the Haughty tropes. Especially with Mary. Good greif. I didn't really like her all tha tmuch but now I just want to hold her and tell her everything is going to be okay. I hope.

Also, how fabulous was Shirley McClain as Cora's mother?

I need season 4. Neeeeeeeeeddd.

And finally, there's the AFC Wimbly Womblies! 

I'm gonna leave it there, because I'm getting dangerously close to weepy drunk. Later, ya'll.

"About Face"

Pic semi-related. 

I've been way busy lately, and therefore got a bit behind on my bloglovin feed, so this post is a rather late response to a post from Sarah over at Venus Trapped In Mars.

As part of the continuous string of Serendipitous Bullshit that is my life, I keep running into blog posts that happen to address an issue/topic/idea I'd been thinking about and/or planning to write about.

Sarah mentioned that she feels like every post needs to be something grand and and really clever, a problem I'm running into a lot of. (Hence my recently having only two posts in as many months. Oops.) I feel like I should have some point to make, that just relaying a story wouldn't be interesting enough.

But then I realized, one of my favorite things about reading "lifestyle" blogs is learning about the people behind them. That's why even though I frequently feel like I have so little in common with most of these people, especially the girls I read (which I confess, usually boils down to 'she's pretty and thin and I'm so not') I become fascinated with them, invested in what's going on with them.

I'm all about stories.
Everyone has stories, and I want to hear all of them.

...and who the hell knows, maybe someone wants to hear mine.

Falling Into Fall Swap!

Okay, so clearly I suck at doing things on time. Apparently I was supposed to have to this swap reveal post up on the 15th and just completely lost track of what the hell day it was.

I've never done a swap before and thought it would be fun to connect with someone else out here in Blogland. The swap was organized by Allison and I was paired with the lovely Nicole.

Someday I'll take really nice pictures for this blog...

My gift from Nicole was amazing. Even the packaging was amazing. If I could re-create the way things were wrapped inside the box, I would, but I can't. Way to make me feel inadequate :P

...today is not that day.

These knee socks are so cute and will look awesome with boots. The pumpkin candle smells so good, burning or not burning. Shiny silver nail polish, Dr. Seuss quote sticky notes, and "I Can't Sleep" Journal. I've seen this journal in bookstores and always thought it was right up my alley, haha. My favorite piece is this scarf, though. I may or may not have have already planned several outfits around this thing.

So now that something finally FORCED me to post for the first time in over a month, maybe I'll actually get around to finishing a couple of the ones I've had in the works for weeks now...

...like the Bar Guy story that I've been promising everyone.

It's not all crap all the time.

I realized my last several posts have all been pretty... down. 

And yeah, that's because I'm a few weeks into a pretty significant mental Down, but if there's any misconception about Depression that bugs the shit out of me more than any of them, it's " How can you be Depressed? You're laughing and having fun!" 

That kind of shit makes me want to claw my eyes out.
...or you know... the eyes of whatever asshat said it. 

Also found $5 in the pocket. W00t!

For the record, Depression doesn't necessarily mean that I have to be crying all day every day. It is possible to laugh at things and have fun, even when you're in the middle of a big ol' pile of crap.

So, even though I'm in the middle of a great big crap pile, it hasn't all been mental anguish and bullshit. Some good things have happened lately too.

1. The weight loss thing is still happening. Like, holy crap, things are still working. Slow as hell, but still happening.

As you can see in Exhibit A, these 22's, which were a little bit too big for a while are now WAY too big. Like, take a step and they start falling off too big. In fact, right now, I'm wearing a pair of 18's from the same brand. So I think I've reached the point where my 22's are officially retired and the 20's get to move up to the "Reserve Fat Pants" status.

2. The school year has started again (for public schools, not for me yet) which means I have a job again. 2 weeks straight of not working between summer camp and the start of the school year actually kind of sucked. Mostly because money. But also because bored. Sure it was great for the first day or two of "LOL I'd be at work right now, but instead I'm sitting on my butt blogging and marathoning Drop Dead Diva" but then it was more like "Ugh. I'm tired of just sitting here not writing anything and watching Netflix all day." So, yay job! I'm going to try to remember that I actually really like my job - most of the time - I'm gonna need to remind myself of that from time to time. Working with kids can be... challenging, to say the least.

3. I went shopping yesterday with some of The Family. We were on a mission to find some clothes for the boys. Ellie and I talked the older one  into two pairs of nice jeans and three shirts that weren't black and/or band t-shirts. (Today he wore the purple one that I fought valiantly for!)  We even talked him into a vneck after he swore up and down about much he hates vnecks. Didn't have as much luck with the younger boy, because he's got some weird sizing going on right now. Mom has decided we have to go along every time the boys need clothes now. Challenge accepted yo.

Ellie and #puggacrowley

4. After shopping,  Ellie, Raif and I went over to the Crowley Compound where the Chef made THE BEST PORK LOIN AND GLAZE EVER OH MY SWEET BABY JESUS.

Many shenanigans were had and among them was my inability to stop taking instagram photos of #puggacrowley. That's right people, we made this bitch a hashtag.

5. Slowly (okay very slowly) but surely, I'm working on the whole de-cluttering my life thing. For clothes and shoes, if it doesn't fit, it goes. Goodwill, Salvation Army, whatever, it doesn't matter, it just has to get out of the house. If it's a book or movie that I don't want anymore, it goes to 2nd & Charles (and then I use the store credit to buy vynil that I really want). Unless it's a textbook; those go on Amazon.  And then there's all the other... stuff. That's probably the hardest part of the whole effort is all the other, assorted clutter. The 'well, it's still a usable thing' stuff and the 'kinda-sorta-sentimental in a I've had this forever kind of way' stuff, and the 'I don't know if I still want this or not so I'll hold on to it until I decide,' stuff. Just... stuff. And things.


6. I've actually compiled a list of 5 things that I'm happy about, and didn't have to go back several weeks to do it.

Diana and I

Yesterday, as I was more or less putting off finishing my last post, I had a sudden, desperate need to get the hell out of my house. I had no idea where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do, I just knew that I needed to be somewhere that wasn't my house. I needed to see something that wasn't my computer screen, or my TV screen or my walls or my ceiling.

So I got in the car, and after stopping at Sheetz to grab a Mountain Dew, I went North and found myself wandering around Hagerstown. (This is about 15-30 minutes’ drive from my house, depending which part of the city we’re talking about.)

Now, usually when I need to get away for a few hours, I wind up by the Potomac River, either at the C&O canal in Williamsport, or down in Shepherdstown, or occasionally in Harper's Ferry. Those places are all pretty good for spending time alone with the voices in my head. This time, though I found myself at the city park in Hagerstown. I hadn't been planning on going there, but I was glad I did.

I did some wandering around the park, mostly around the lake because I always find the ducks, geese and swans pretty friggin entertaining. As I wandered, I listened to my Existential Crisis playlist (I really have one of those. Srsly.) and thought lots of thinky thoughts.

But the best part was the art. Within the park is a little building called The Washington County Museum of Fine Arts. And in that museum is one of my favorite pieces of art ever.

This beautiful lady here is Diana of the Chase. She was sculpted in 1922 (lookin' pretty damn fine for a woman 91 years young, yeah?) and was a gift from the artist, Anna Hyatt Huntington to the museum in 1941, for their 10th anniversary.

I fell in love with this piece a few years ago when I was taking that general ed Art Appreciation class, and we had to visit a gallery and pick a piece of art to write about. I can't remember what the hell the details of the assignment were or what exactly I had to say about her, but I know that it took me a while to write something that wasn't just gushing about how amazing she is.

Now, there are a lot of things I love that I can't quite explain why, other than just you know, it appeals to me, but this thing, this I know why.

I’ve always loved Diana. Or Artemis. Whichever you want to call her. I’m not saying I identify with her, or anything. I wish I identified with her, even a little bit. I wish I could be more like her - this amazing, strong woman who is totally contented with her dogs, her bow, and the hunt. She is perfectly happy on her own.

So what does it say about me, then, that my favorite version of her story is the one where she falls in love with Orion? I mean, the thing I admire most is that she’s happy on her own, but my favorite story is the one where she isn’t on her own. (Well, until until her d-bag brother tricks her killing him and all...)

She found this person, a fellow hunter, perfectly suited to her, and she loved him. Wanted to marry him. She was willing to redefine herself - virgin goddess of the hunt, of women and childbirth - to be with him.

..I’m not sure where I’m going with this.

Maybe I’ve just been spending too much time thinking about Love and shit. Partly because it seems in the last few months I get asked about my love life much more frequently than usual. And partly because I’m going to a wedding tomorrow and I’m wrestling with conflicting feelings of “OMG IM SO HAPPY FOR YOU” and “your happiness offends me.”

...or maybe I’ve just had too much to drink tonight.