rhivolution | (no subject)

This post sort of starts in medias res because I can't figure out how to start it otherwise: I managed to be a responsible adult last week in epic ways, before starting to come down with a cold the day after. It whinged for a while as my body threw things at it, but then I ended up so poorly early this week I had to take a sick day for the first time in two years. (Oddly enough, I was also sick, though with GI issues, in early April 2012...idek.)

So this week has pretty much been a wash. Shit has not got done outwith work. And here we are in April and Easter is next week and the US in a month or so and I am thirty... ~~cue existential crisis~~

A few things I know for sure, though.

I've not seen Winter Soldier so I feel a bit left out, but carry on squeefully!

I will be at Wiscon on the Friday so make your plans accordingly? (insert Sally Field moment here with not understanding why people like me so damn much.*) I need to vid for this omg, but my idea involves going through a ton of canon which is causing much anxiety.

In a similar vein, I finally am reading through the copy of the Year's Best SF that I picked up before going to Birmingham (2009, so this'd be YBSF 2008?) and now I remember why I stopped reading SF indiscriminately. Not just because of the obvious fail, but also the more insidious things...for example, I feel like I want someone to talk with about Ian McDonald and why his work creeps me out so much. Also, it's helped me realise that I made the right choice in not touching Bacigalupi's work. (Conceptually the protagonist's work and workplace in that story is a fantastic concept that rings stunningly true to today's social media and pageclick driven journalism. But that's negated and buried under the amount of sideeye I have to do because it's just...)

so many white dudes in this omg thank fuck there's at least an Aliette de Bodard story near the end and I think Nancy Kress is in it somewhere

This is part of my project to read more, and while it's not failing, I need to push myself a little harder, I think. Or track what I read over lunch better, because I don't tweet about what I don't find amazing.

I...have run out of steam thanks to exhaustion. Ask me things, instead, maybe?

* To deconstruct this, I think this is a combination of imposter syndrome and the fact that at school/work (e.g. social situations where the group is not self-selected) I have always been deemed 'pleasantly quirky' at best and 'wtf' at worst. Therefore I believe the negatives because I am a goddamn cynic.

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God, I'm so conflicted about Bacigalupi. There's so much in his stuff that I frankly enjoy, and I've actually assigned that story in one of my intro classes, but at the same time... yeeeeeah. I guess for me the side-eye just doesn't entirely overwhelm for whatever reason.

I'm getting into Madison on Friday, though I don't yet know when. Probably early. Have a panel on fic at midnight but otherwise wide open if you want to collide at some point.

I keep trying to articulate what bugs me about him. He's a good writer and storyteller, but in "The Gambler", I think what got me was that the characters were all such tropes--which can be done, but as he's a white dude writing from the first person standpoint of an an Asian immigrant to the US, it made me itchy. (Also I'm fond of Thoreau and found that aspect a little oversimplified, but that's minor.) Also, that he just sorta screwed over Laos in his worldbuilding for the sake of his story having meaning...idek.

Which, as I said, is a real damn shame, because there are some very good IDEAS in it, and I can see why you assigned it from that perspective. AUGH.

I would definitely like to meet up if you would like to!