ekaterinn

Sat, 26 Dec 2020 20:13:17 GMT

Happy Boxing Day! I hope everyone who celebrated Christmas yesterday had a wonderful time.

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Mon, 23 Dec 2019 00:18:22 GMT

Happy Solstice! May you find light in this wheel's turning.

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Good Omens fic: a great storm (waves be hushed)

Sun, 21 Jul 2019 22:35:45 GMT

I have been consumed by Good Omens, and as a result have written my first fic in literally years: a great storm (waves be hushed). Summary: It has been a particularly bad string of days for Crowley. Aziraphale helps, as best he can.

I'm also up for talking about angels and demons, a certain bookshop in SoHo, and dates at the Ritz with anybody who finds themselves similarly obsessed!

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First Day Greetings

Wed, 23 Dec 2015 03:55:49 GMT

Happy First Day of Winter to all in the Northern Hemisphere! The weather may get colder, but the days will get longer. Celebrate the returning Sun!

Happy First Day of Summer to all in the Southern Hemisphere! The days may get shorter, but it's the season for doing what you love to do outside. Enjoy the Summer weather!

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Yuletide Letter

Tue, 27 Oct 2015 03:04:22 GMT

Dear Yuletide author,

Thank you so much for writing for me! (And I'm sorry this letter is a bit late). Pretty much anything you write for me will make me deliriously happy, so please don't worry too much about any optional details in the sign-up or below!

( Optional details are optional! )

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On almost every sunday morning

Sun, 14 Jun 2015 16:40:12 GMT

This Sunday marks the end of an intense first year of my PhD program. I'm done with my last class of the year, and almost done with grading for the class I was assisting with. I've missed my friends badly, but I've met some incredible people here, and I've just returned from spending a couple of days in DC with my best friend in the program and her kids. They've become family to me too. I'm ready to start writing the paper that will hopefully be a) the foundation of the lit review for my dissertation, and b) something publishable.

I also saw Mad Max: Fury Road last weekend with my sister, and I have to say that I was not expecting one of the most visually appealing, well-written, and feminist films I've seen in recent years to be a reboot of 70's action films, but there you go. I'm eager to talk about it (may post more later), if anyone else was blown away like this!

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Reading is memetastic!

Sat, 27 Sep 2014 22:33:27 GMT

Ello all; still not ded; have a meme (thanks to the lovely kat_lair):

Rules: List ten books that have stayed with you in some way. Don’t take but a few minutes, and don’t think too hard – they don’t have to be “right” or “great” works, just the ones that have touched you. ~~Tag ten friends.~~

1. Among Others by Jo Walton. Utterly fantastic. Anyone who's ever loved sf/f or even just books in general should read this.

2. Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. A book about a ship who's no longer a ship. It swept all the major sf awards in 2014, and deservedly so.

3. The Likeness, by Tana French. French uses beautiful prose to write mysteries with compelling characters - this book is about a favourite character, going undercover in unusual situation.

4. Brown Girl in the Ring, by Nalo Hopkinson. Magic, Toronto, and a wonderful narrator - what's not to love?

5. With Child, by Laurie R. King. One of her Kate Martinelli mysteries, less well-known than her Mary Russell novels - in this the lesbian detective takes on a missing child case. Kate is a joy and a cynical delight, always.

6. Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Angels, demons, witches, and an Anti-Christ who's not quite right, oh my!

7. Faking It, by Jennifer Crusie. Ultimate comfort read and funny as hell; would rec this to anybody looking for a fun book, whether or not they usually read romance.

8. Other People's Children, by Lisa Delpit. Central to any understanding I have about teaching students from different cultural backgrounds than my own.

9. Komarr, by Lois McMaster Bujold. Ekaterin and Miles, a mystery, past hurts, and future hopes.

10. Alanna: The Lioness Quartet, by Tamora Pierce. Gender play in fiction! Going undercover as a boy to become a knight! Alanna was, remains, and will ever be badass and fantastic.

Things I noticed: mostly fiction (and sf/f at that), mostly women (yay!), and mostly white (could be a lot more diverse). If you feel up to it, I'll love to see the list of anyone on my flist/dwcircle!

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packing and moving and driving

Wed, 13 Aug 2014 03:53:01 GMT

*pops head up* Er, hello there. I am alive, and also leaving for grad school tomorrow, which is totes exciting. Though I am so, so glad to be done with packing, let me tell you. My aim over the next couple days is to make my sister drive so I can finish this WTNV fic I've been working on. :P

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Thu, 26 Dec 2013 01:02:20 GMT

Happy Christmas to all who celebrate!

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The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow

Tue, 17 Dec 2013 06:43:14 GMT

A list of happy things:

My mum and my sister visiting
My students, who are creative and loving and adorable
4.0 GPA
The book Pete the Cat Saves Christmas
Being totally done with my M.Ed.
Latest episodes of Welcome to Night Vale
Being almost done with the grant
Seeding the bookclub suggestion list with queer sci-fi books
The therapists and aides who work with my students - they're all amazing
Writing fic again (and writing fic with my best friend)
Lovely comments from people on LJ/DW
Only 4 more days left of school!

What's something happy in your life now?

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waves

Sun, 01 Dec 2013 06:49:07 GMT

Um, hi. So I got into a bad car accident, and then I went back to school, and then I spent several months feeling like I was walking through molasses, and then I figured out that I was probably having a depressive episode. So I'm trying to get back in touch with people and communities, and I thought I'll try to post something here.

I've been listening to Welcome to Night Vale and doing some writing, though nothing publishable. I'm working on a grant for my classroom, and I took the GRE (my Verbal score was awesome, but my Quant score was abyssal). I'm thinking about dating again.

ETA: I just made a tumblr thing: http://ekaterinn.tumblr.com/ If you are reading this and you have a tumblr, I'll love to follow you!

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Day 5: when he asks you to stay

Mon, 12 Aug 2013 03:06:13 GMT

So, between setting up my classroom and freaking out at my roster, I got off-track with Week of Poetry. I'm going to try to do the last couple of poems this week. Meanwhile, have a belated Day 5 (though I'm not entirely happy with it):

when he asks you to stay

when he asks you to stay,
you say ATTTCGCGCGA,
& count how DNA turns into RNA turns into proteins,
turns into your reasons for leaving;
you say that this continent makes you strange,
& familiarity is an addiction
you were never good at -

(you sleep on floors with satin sheets while your calluses grow soft,
& you lie & you lie & you lie)

there's lines on his face
like cracks in the ocean floor,
when he asks you to stay.

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Day 4: The Music of the Spheres

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 04:29:34 GMT

The Music of the Spheres

you sleep,
your back cut by the lime
of your dress,
your left shoulder rising
with your breath,
my breath, mixing with
the air-conditioning.

the last shuttle breaks though the clouds,
shooting straight towards the heavens
that we see only fleetingly in dreams.

I believe in the glory of small things;
the ice clinking & melting in the glass;
the sky bisected & complete through the blinds;
the book hidden & waiting in the shop -
(I believe in you).

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Day 3: Lost Tongues

Thu, 08 Aug 2013 04:07:58 GMT

Lost Tongues

we are pixels,
you and I,
though sometimes I fear we are ghosts,
speaking in lost tongues,
through these modern plantation walls.

I sleep with books and blankets,
and your bracelet, and when I dream,
I dream of everything but you.

where is the love?
fingers tracing
the hollow of your neck -
I cannot say if they are
mine or yours
or someone liminally
luminous,
a third woman
who walks between
us,
trading our touches
for bytes on the hour.

will we go down to the sea together?
or will we stay on dry land,
and drown?

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Week of poetry, day 2: how to be good

Wed, 07 Aug 2013 02:18:55 GMT

how to be good

first, breathe.
breathe deep and uneven.
investigate other ways of breathing.
breathe in with your belly.
breathe out with your heart.

obtain clean bandages.
bind up others' wounds.
leave yours flayed.

wash your face in fresh streams.
scratch omens in your skin.
try not to bleed.

listen when someone says,
"penance is a noun; love is a verb."
don't believe them.
(don't quite disbelieve them, either).

when all else is smoke,
leave.

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Week of poetry, day 1

Tue, 06 Aug 2013 03:11:59 GMT

posthuman doom
this future, full of sexiest cookies
and library waffle shops
and no public wi-fi
in this future there is no unethical treatment of elephants
(there are no elephants)
in this future
you are growing up global
you are already dead
you are making starstuff
you are a new wave movement
in this future the secret is in our genes
in the systemic power structures
that replicate like tumor cells
in which the better angels of our nature
are twisted upside down
in this future where your rooms are full of
empty stuff and light
where kindness is common
and love the only mechanism of survival
in this future.

***
I blame kat_lair entirely. Also, sexy cookies to anyone who spots all the song references.

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Wed, 24 Jul 2013 06:11:20 GMT

is this thing on? *taps mic* Hey, I ain't ded! Also, I got a letter from my adviser that read in part:

"I am happy to inform you that you have passed the comprehensive examination required for the master's degree in special education."

I PASSED COMPS! I will soon be a MASTER of SPECIAL EDUCATION! *cackles evilly* *writes IEPs*

...shit, this means I need to start applying for PhD programs, right?

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Murder Your Darlings!

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 03:59:34 GMT

One of my own today:

Constructive Criticism

the verbs were charging, stabbing, chopping,
the nouns had a defense of spears, arrows, swords,
the adjectives were brave, strong, bloody,
the adverbs sneaked quietly, fought admirably, died quickly;
word against word, sentence versus sentence, page against page -

murder your darlings!

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God Says Yes To Me

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 03:11:05 GMT

God Says Yes To Me

by Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

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Thu, 04 Apr 2013 01:57:27 GMT

First Cell

by Ruth Padal

Born in a deep-sea vent, synthesised
by lightning in a reducing atmosphere
or carried here by meteorite, we're all
from somewhere else. Algae, first
self-replicating molecule on Earth,

pulls carbon from organic substrate,
performs the world's first magic,
photosynthesis of air to oxygen,
and creates copies of herself, uncountable
as starlings flocking or the pure gold bricks

Sheba sent to Solomon by mule.
Cell in the air, on the rocks. Song
hoping to be heard in a heart cut open.
Little Blue-Green, dreaming of pattern
and form. Tiny horseman of apocalypse.

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Wed, 03 Apr 2013 03:39:42 GMT

Dreamwood

By Adrienne Rich

In the old, scratched, cheap wood of the typing stand
there is a landscape, veined, which only a child can see
or the child’s older self, a poet,
a woman dreaming when she should be typing
the last report of the day. If this were a map,
she thinks, a map laid down to memorize
because she might be walking it, it shows
ridge upon ridge fading into hazed desert
here and there a sign of aquifers
and one possible watering-hole. If this were a map
it would be the map of the last age of her life,
not a map of choices but a map of variations
on the one great choice. It would be the map by which
she could see the end of touristic choices,
of distances blued and purpled by romance,
by which she would recognize that poetry
isn’t revolution but a way of knowing
why it must come. If this cheap, mass-produced
wooden stand from the Brooklyn Union Gas Co.,
mass-produced yet durable, being here now,
is what it is yet a dream-map
so obdurate, so plain,
she thinks, the material and the dream can join
and that is the poem and that is the late report.

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1st of the April Poems: Sometimes by Sheenagh Pugh

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 04:22:05 GMT

Sometimes things don't go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

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Joy to the World!

Tue, 25 Dec 2012 21:36:07 GMT

Happy Christmas/Yuletide/Tuesday to all! I've just finished opening presents with my Mom and sister - got jewlery, books, clothes, kitchen stuff, and best of all, from amai, a talking, stuffed Dalek! I asked for something geeky from her, and lo! she delivered. I'll post pictures later.

For Yuletide, I received a lovely, somber (but still hopeful) Points story: In the Line of Duty! The author matched Rathe's and Eslingen's voices perfectly, and there's even a quiet mention of how they got together. I had given up on ever getting a Points fic, and to receive this quiet, perfectly wrought one was beyond my wildest dreams!

I hope all of my flist has a lovely day as well, whether or not you celebrate!

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Holiday Cards!

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 04:01:52 GMT

So, I'm actually going to try to send cards this year - if you wish to receive a holiday/Christmas/winter card, please comment with your address below! (Comments are screened).

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Midnight Poetry

Tue, 01 May 2012 04:19:12 GMT

One more poem for April, a poem that I wrote during the year I spent in Dublin:

Midnight on a Bridge Over the Liffey

Heartsick and half-afraid, I stumble over difficult cobblestone
and unto more solid concrete.
The river is calling me.
The Liffey is calling me,
under the lights of Dublin.
I reach its precipice and
find myself on the edge of falling -
its turmoil has caught me up,
and I’m churning and churning -
I wrench myself away, force opposing force,
until I am breathing on the bridge.
But the voice of the river -
it still whispers seductively along my skin,
it still thuds drumlike in my ears.
River water runs in my veins,
mixing with warm blood;
I hear my ancestor’s voices join with the river’s,
and they are singing.

Half a city away, buildings are quiet.
Half a city away, people are in bed.

But I - maybe numb from the cold -
I am illuminated.

Thanks to everyone who commented on mine or other people's poetry! I've enjoyed this month tremendously.

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