My parents rang earlier this afternoon to let me know that they're separating. Mum and brother #2 are moving out on Friday; Dad and brother #1 will move out shortly thereafter. It seems mutual and fairly amicable, and I'm not surprised except that I totally fucking am.

Like. This is a relationship that has been terribly, terribly dysfunctional for as long as I can remember; I'd have thought that given the amount of shit that's gone down over the years without a separation they'd be staying together until death. But no.

IDK. I forsee quite a bit of angst over this one (and it's going to be much harder for me to negotiate my relationships with them now, since I'm much closer to dad and mum has always, always been terribly jealous about that—and now I'm not going to be seeing mum by default when I go up to see dad, so). Oh how selfish my priorities are! But. But I think they'll each be happier without the other, and. I don't think I can process this properly yet.

A meme from callie:

1) Fanfic. What appeals about it as distinct from original fiction?
Um. I think (and I'm not sure if I can explain this well) it's the creativity. Like, you get canon events: Buffy dying, James T Kirk being on Tarsus IV, Xander turning into Dracula's minion for a while, Sirius going through the veil, that house-elves are essentially enslaved, that fanon!Draco is just misunderstood, et cetera et cetera, and multiply that for every single moment in every single canon, and.

And it gets picked up and run with by fandom, so that you can read the same background story a dozen times and it'll be slightly different every single time. It also shows off an author's style really well: how they write exposition, how they write dialogue. It has a lot fewer restrictions on it than professionally published stuff as well: not just in terms of content, but stylistically. I like that.

I really like that it's essentially a female space, and how communal it feels even though I'm always on the very edge of it.

I think sometimes it tells me stuff about the original characters that I really wanted to know, and sometimes it tells me stuff that I never knew I needed to hear, and sometimes it twists like a knife in my gut and just sticks there. And there are a few fics that. Just. That sit amongst the best things I have ever, ever read.

2) What country/ies would you most like to visit (assuming a reasonable budget)?
Scotland and England, coz that's where my dad's parents were from; Russia; Denmark; Sweden; Greece; Turkey; China (specifically Hong Kong); Morocco.

3) Recommend me a recipe (linky is fine, you don't have to type) and tell me why you like it.
It's not online, but I really like the lemon tart in Stephanie's Cooks' Companion.

4) MMP - good/bad/flawed/limited etc?
All of the above, in part. Some of that's less to do with the limitations of the system of voting and more to do with the limitations of Westminster, but. I think it's a very great improvement on FPP; I think STV and other such systems are probably more representative; I don't know that we have a politicised enough population to cope well with a more complex system of vote-counting.

I really like that MMP gets us MPs like Winston Peters and Sue Bradford and Rodney Hide, for all of their flaws (in policy and in life). I think people are losing sight of how badly FPP fucked us over. I think it's good for the main party to have to constantly compromise.

5) Tell me about your dream house.
It has an attic with low walls lined in bookshelves and windows at each end; in one window is a big squishy chair, a small table, and a lamp. Halfway down the room there's an EPIC stereo (and some of the bookshelves hold CDs).

The kitchen is big and old and slightly cold, with french doors off a seating area into the garden. There's a big oven and a bookcase of cookbooks and a wine rack and a cabinet filled with old china and another cabinet filled with spirits. There's another squishy couch (or maybe just a big armchair) and a table, so I can take books with me when I go to cook. There's a stereo there, too (I think music should follow me everywhere. Alas, cooking with iPods is not a good plan), and a big potplant that I throw the mail next to.

The dining room is painted dark purple and has white brocade curtains and black-and-white photographs of all kinds of shit lining the walls (there are a lot of photographs, so the room isn't too dark). There's a long table with a runner on it and a bunch of flowers. I eat there every night.

That's all I've got right now.

Meme participation, if desired:
• Leave me a comment saying "Free Helicopters On Demand"
• I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity.
• Update your journal with the answers to the questions.
• Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions. (Or not, it's up to you)

1. I had a bit of a shit day at work yesterday. An example: the harddrive on my computer died. Although our IS team is brilliant, I still lost half-an-hour of productive time that I really needed.

2. So I came home and had two large glasses of rum and coke, which didn't get me drunk (or even tipsy) but did relax me enough to enjoy the fic I was reading.

3. Then this morning I got up, read fic for a while, went back to bed, got up, read more fic, and then eventually got dressed just in time for waffles wot nishtalitha made.

4. I've spent the afternoon reading fic and have just now vacuumed.

5. Now I'm drinking wine—this is a lead-in to the copious amounts of tequila I plan to drink tonight. I think after this weekend my next chance to get really drunk is Christmas. And that might not be socially appropriate, IDK.

6. Have a song: Angel of the Morning by the Pretenders. \o/

7. I'm still really fucking tired.

1. At dinner tonight, we had a long conversation about fandom, specificly Star Trek, in which nishtalitha and I talked about who had the most ridiculous Mary-Sue (me, by a wide margin) and tamarillow refused to divulge the details of hers; we argued the merits of Kirk/McCoy v Kirk/Spock (Kirk comes out the winner in that one. COMES. HA.); and we all acknowleged that there may be a great deal of fantastic fic about the construction of New Vulcan but it probably all exists in the gen part of fandom, which we're all terminally unaware of.

2. See above.

3. Ugh, I want a nap.

4. No, seriously, Kirk/McCoy. Reboot fic. I think the thing that makes me like them as a pairing is the same thing that made me like Harry/Ron far more than I liked Harry/Draco, even though (a) there is a lot more Harry/Draco in the world and (b) I consequently read more of it: namely, that the canon shows them as people who have a strong basis for a relationship. Reboot Kirk/Spock... kind of doesn't do it for me. IDEK. Not that it's stopping me or anything.

4A. Just, like, conceptually. Conceptually, there is a bar, and I can't quite find it convincing.

4B. Whereas Kirk and McCoy are all about banter and drunken shenanigans. I understand that a lot more than I understand a public choking.

5. Borders has just sent me a 25% off EVERYTHING coupon. They've just got in a lot of Eloisa James. I might well be convinced.

6. Also, just generally in fiction I like banter and comedy and people liking being in each other's presence.

6A. I'm a really lazy person; I hardly ever make an effort to be friends with people, and consequently am friends with people who, like, 95% of the time are not an effort to be around and hopefully I am the same.

6B. I don't get why you'd bother to spend months pushing through emotional barriers and brush-offs and whatever the fuck when you could just as easily spend the time with someone who's all "Saturday. My place. Bring bourbon. I'll bring the lube."

6BA. Especially when you're supposedly a giant spaceslut.

6C. But, yes, liking each other is a lot more important for me—to be able to see that on the page—than, like, a ~mystical soulbond of OTP~ (and I'm not specifically talking about Star Trek here; it applies to A LOT of the stuff I read).

6D. God, Mary Balogh. So, right, she has this one novel about a prostitute and the minor-nobility John-who-loves-her, and whenever they have sex the girl has to lie completely still coz that's the only way he can get his rocks off (not that he's fantasising her being dead or anything (I think) but just because he doesn't like pushy women) and then they end up getting married... for convenience... or some shit, I don't really remember. I mean, she's an ex-prostitute and now his mistress and I cannot conceive of a single situation with the possible exception of syphilis and an heir you really hate where that would be remotely convenient in Regency England, but. But.

6E. Basically, people should like each other! Especially if they're committed to a long-term relationship!

7. My posts are way more ordered when I number them. Funny that.

seriously vodafone why so hard to contact? SERIOUSLY. IT'S THIS FUCKING BIZARRE, DIFFICULT TO FOLLOW MAZE OF "PRESS ONE FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE. TO CONFIRM YOU WANT TO SPEAK TO A CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE, PRESS ZERO NOW."

YES, YOU CUNTS, I WANT TO SPEAK TO A CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE. FFS.

So I cocked up, right, and accidentally paid one bill the amount that I was supposed to pay for another bill, so I called up vodafone to say, hey, I have cocked up, please to be giving back my fucking money now.

And ended up speaking to some jaded disaffected youth who was all, what is your bank account number? And, it'll take one to two weeks to get back into your account.

FUCK YOU SIDEWAYS, VODAFONE. It transfers from my account to yours overnight; you are a modern business; what do you MEAN it's going to take UP TO A FUCKING FORTNIGHT to return my fucking money to me you fucking asshats!

... is what I did not say to the customer service rep, because it's not her fault that the system design is so fucking poor.

Anyway, am home sick with a headcold, tired and cranky and still reading Star Trek: the AU. *facepalm*

I've been thinking thinky thoughts about politics lately—and about religion—and about books and movies and why I'm reading Kirk/Spock; but I'm exhasted, so I'm going to try sleeping instead of talking and see how that works out.

22 days of work left this year. Go team!

Jemima: *rustling noises*
Me: Oi! You! Get out of my bed! We do NOT have that kind of relationship! *throws back bedcovers*
Jemima: *offended* mrrrrow! *scarpers off*

Also, I have officially sprained both my ankles, the right worse than the left. I am not impressed at the world, or at my ability to walk across my own bedroom floor.

The Earnest Liberal's Lament
by Ernest Hemingway
I know monks masturbate at night
That pet cats screw
That some girls bite
And yet
What can I do
To set things right?

\o/ \o/ \o/

I am done with university for the year, people. It is possible I have failed both papers and will need to decide whether to retake them or give up on the degree, but. I am DONE. DONE, I say.

And in honour of the first weekend since freakin' February that I have been able to do all the things that I usually do on weekends but without feeling guilty about it all over the place and whining to my flatmates and the internet about how difficult my life is, I have... done the things that I usually do on weekends, but without feeling guilty about it all over the place.

To wit, I:

• tidied my room yesterday, including semi-shelving the books I bought at Bookfair back in early September (they're not on the floor anymore! Yay!)
  
• had callie and factioncat around for lots and lots of drinking and conversations about, alternately, wenching and politics. It's the piratical way!
  
• suffered through a vodka- and bottled margharita-induced hangover this morning. Never again with the Jose Cuevero bottled lemon shit, callie! Never again, I say. From now we are sticking to the class that is Apple Sourz and Vodka Cruisers.
  
• ate packet pasta stuff for lunch! Chicken curry-flavoured pasta for the motherfucking win!
  
• listened to a LOT of Beyonce. What?
  
• started cracking with a playlist for jessikast, who wants to run places
  
• vacuumed the entire house
  
• talked tamarillow into watching vids with me and nishatalitha into barbequing shrimps for dinner (neither of these things took much persuasion, it must be said)
  
• read porn. For the fucking-your-mother win! :D Actually, I lie, there was no incest or talk of incest, I don't read that anymore.
  
• contemplated making fudge, which I might do once we haul the barbeque up from the garage
  
• took a bunch of pictures of the house and garden, coz it's a very sunny day here in Wellington and I'm feeling all happy or whatever-the-fuck.
  
• snagged episode 3 of White Collar, which I am enjoying immensely!

And, for serious, now it's time to go DO THINGS again. I'm wearing jandals! Uh, doing things and jandals aren't connected, but I'm okay with that!

Ahaha NO MORE EXAMS UNTIL NEXT YEAR! WHEE! \o/

So like. Last night I randomly fell over when walking across my entirely flat and clear bedroom floor (well, the clear part of it) and rolled my right ankle and twisted (I think) my left, and while my left ankle is today only slightly sore, the right is still totally all puffy and shit.

So like. nishatalitha is kind of accident prone.

I thought, for one glorious day, that I was the reigning flat clumsy person, but then she went up the hill with tamarillow to watch the fireworks while I stayed at home and ostensibly studied (for "study" read "read a lot of porn").

And while she was there, she fell off a small ledge hidden in the grass in the dark and really badly rolled her left ankle and fucked up that knee as well. Her other knee and ankle are fucked from, like, tripping on the sidewalk in heels on Sunday night (as well as that thing where she was playing frisbee and then thought she'd broken her ankle a couple of years ago).

So now she's lying on my bed clearly in pain, with her left knee iced and up on pillows, while tamarillow and I debate just not letting her out of the house anymore, jesus fuck. Who's with us?

I have my Torts exam tomorrow morning. AHAHA. Total amount of study: circa 15 hours, I think. Total amount of study done today, on a day which I took off work so I could study? Three minutes.

Tobias: mrrrrrow
Me: I appreciate your life drama—1. that you have it; and 2. that you are so eloquent in describing it to me.
Tobias: mrrrow!

I am reading the most ridiculous fic in the world ever (and I'm not going to link to it, because it's not meant to be ridiculous, and calling it that is therefore mean), and even as I'm laughing at the crazy, I'm sighing at the sweetness of it all. So maybe I can't take the hurt/comfort bit seriously, but good god I <3 romance as a genre.

Almost bought a couple of Mills and Boons today with titles such as His Pregnant Housekeeper Project (she dresses like an old bag! but has secret curves that light him on fire! he's used to casual affairs, but somehow he can't stand the thought of any other man coming near her! also, for various business reasons that make very little sense in the current social climate, he has to pretend to be engaged so as to get the respect of his other billionare friends! she's his housekeeper! then she's his pregnant mistress (never a girlfriend) and then she's his bride! sigh) and The Greek Playboy's Secret Love-Child (he has bettered himself so now can take his wicked revenge and/or go back to the woman he loved and lost! also, little timmy has a grave disease). But then I didn't, coz of standards and also coz I'm kind of considering an amazon order, what with the exchange rate, and therefore should save my pennies for georgian porn by eloisa james.

i have descended into contempt for the shift key. it is therefore time for bed and/or more chapters of the lolacious h/c fic of awesomeness.

I am a mineshaft of intellectualism, and the canary is dead.

My braaaaaaain. What the hell. I go to bed—lights off; iPod off—at like 11pm. I get to sleep SOMETIME AFTER TWO because I was having a dialogue in my head about what I would say and what I would vaguely expect to hear back if I went to the doctors to talk about insomnia. In my head I was angry, as well, because the doctor kept saying that I needed to make my body tired, and I was saying things like "but my body IS tired, it's my MIND that's all BLAH BLAH BLAH ELEVENTY!"

Goddamn. Exam in ~2 hours; it'll all be over in 5.

I have been drinking coke and playing SimCity 4 all day, and now when I close my eyes all I can see is brightly coloured tiny cars stuck in a traffic jam like swarming ants near a smear of honey.

The stupid thing is that I think I was this bad last year (not that I can really remember it) and certainly this bad through 1998-2003, those unlucky years where I was regularly sitting exams. And now 2008-2014 are going to be exactly the same, only this time with legally-purchased alcohol, tears of manpain, office chairs, law texts, low heels, and the crackling sounds of packets of crunchy noodles and low-rent chocolate.

Academia: a lot less fun than advertised.

Today I have:
- eaten a large packet of maltesers
- had a glass of coke
- eaten various slices of Bread With Things On It
- talked about unconscionable bargain, undue influence, and various nasty relatives (not mine)
- had 2 backrubs given to me by various delightful friends
- whined
- headed steadily downhill on the path to Crazy Exam Me
- whined
- talked about politics and futility and knowing your fora and your audience with callie
- comforted myself with the fact that after this year I only have 4 1/2 years to go, assuming I pass
- thought upon that
- stopped being comforted
- whined
- whined
- studied for a grand total of half an hour
- thought about privity
- played computer games
- whined
- read a lot of fic
- complained to myself (and now to the internet!) about there not being more fic
- complained to myself (and now to the internet!) about not enough people posting on my flist

Uh. 34 hours, ish, to exam 1. Eek?

I own this black top with beige polka dots, right, and I'd completely forgotten that I owned it until I randomly found it folded under my bed two weekends ago. So then I washed it again (who knows what else lives under my bed? I sure as shit don't) and wore it to work today with a black cardigan and black pants and my formerly-pink-now-beige docs. It was fairly rocking.

Anyway, the purpose of that story is to give this story, which is that I was randomly talking to one of my drafters, and she said: "hey, I really like that top of yours!"

To which I replied, "Thanks!" and then "Yeah, so I'd completely forgotten that I owned it until I randomly found it folded under my bed two weekends ago."

And she said, "So, basically it was like Christmas, then?" And she laughed, and I laughed, and then I did the sudoku.

The point of this story is not that I get along with my drafters, but that I have no brain-to-mouth filter and it is a constant struggle for me in conversation (with people I know fairly well) to not, like, randomly start telling them every little thought that pops into my head about how my life is a pit of misery right now (not really) and just what I think of the tort of negligence (bollocks, piss, shit, ass, inconsistent vocabulary usage combined with a lack of imagination on the part of both counsel and judges so that we have a system where we think that the words we use—proximity, reasonable forseeability—somehow make sense even though the sense in which they're meant is so stretched from the original meaning as to be entirely insane and ILLOGICAL, KIRK).

Yeah.

So I got to sleep this morning c. 2am and got up when my alarm went off at 6.40 and am consequently ANGRY AT THE ENTIRE WORLD WHY GOD WHY. See, I turned my light off and my ipod off at a roughly sensible hour—shortly before midnight—and then proceeded to spend the next two hours worrying about exams, why I was still awake, why I was cold, whether I should get another blanket, which blanket I should get, whether just huddling in the middle of my bed for another 15 minutes or so would do the trick, et cetera.

And while I was in the shower I composed a completely hilarious and literary lj/dw post about my pain and how it makes me suffer, but somewhere between there and here I have lost it all. Oh my life. Oh my life.

Things to do today:
- drink a lot of caffienated beverages
- not cry under desk
- write out notes for at least one and preferably 2 of the smaller torts while at work
- pick up squaringkarma at Borders at 5
- come home and reread/write out notes for contract formation and possibly unconscionable bargain
- write lolarious ode to leftover fish curry (it's what's for dinner) (no seriously)
- wail to my flatmates about how difficult my life is
- get to sleep before midnight, jesus fuck

Goodbye Facebook and Bebo.

In lieu of me actually studying, I have deleted my accounts with both: honestly, I keep in touch with the people I want to keep in touch with anyway, and I'm not really that fussed with the idea that future employers/acquaintances might get Internet-happy and look me up. IDK. I never really used either site, and having my real name and photo clearly identifiable on a really well-known and populated site always made me a bit uneasy.

It's not that I haven't put my photo up on lj before. But, like, it's not associated with my real name (unless people already know it) and lj has a way different code of social conduct (at least, the bits of it I'm on do) than Facebook and Bebo. By which I mean: on lj/dw I can create filters however I choose and thus retain some measure of control over who has whatever information I'm letting out. And nobody on lj/dw has ever put photographs on me online without my permission and then tagged me in them, unlike Facebook WTF. Not that Facebook possibly did not have filtering options, and not that I was somehow unable to complain about the pictures if I'd felt moved enough to do so. But. But.

This rant has been brought to you by too much corned beef and not enough contracts study (by which I mean "a lot" and "none", respectively).

The lecture part of university is now over for the year, and I'm heading into EXAMS. I have my Contract exam on the morning of the day after labour day, and my Torts exam on the morning of the 6th of November. I have done no study thus far this weekend, although I'm about to go start cooking corned beef and will probably take my contract books with me into the kitchen as I'll have to be in there for a while, skimming off the fat and deciding what I want to cook with it.

I'm fairly sure that as soon as I'm done with exams for the year I'll go on a massive Heyer kick. It'll be awesome.