Nice try, but this might as well read: "Area with cushioned booths...who are we kidding? We know you're going to sleep here..."

It's an interesting demographic, those who opt for the 12-hour overnight layover and actually sleep in the airport. It says: I have at least enough money for a transatlantic flight, but not enough for a direct flight, and I am unwilling or unable to pay for a hotel room for a night, so I voluntarily attempt to sleep in a circular booth with a stranger across from the 24 hour McDonald's in the Dublin airport food court, and this to my mind is definitely worth the $100 I saved by not getting a room. You have to belong to a very specific a) socioeconomic group or b) state of mind. As for me, I ran out of money and I just don't believe in paying for things I can get for free, so when Aer Lingus informed me a few days before my departure from Spain that my original flight to New York had been canceled and that my new connection was in fact 12 hours after my new flight and that it was, by the way, over night and that if I chose to accept this flight I would be staying in Dublin "AT YOUR OWN EXPENSE," I said, Guess what, suckers: That means FREE because I will sleep in a circular booth with a stranger across from the 24 hour McDonald's, so help me God, do not test me.

I really can't say I recommend the booth sleep, but mostly because at about 2:30 a.m. a presumably disgruntled airport food court employee came by and VERY noisily unstacked all the metal chairs for the first wave of early morning departures. Perhaps it's difficult or impossible to unstack metal chairs without causing a ruckus, but even in my dazed half-sleep on the circular booth I could sense a vindictiveness in this gentleman's approach. Perhaps he felt no loyalty to a group of fools who had chosen--or perhaps had no choice but--to sleep in circular booths across from the 24 hour McDonald's, or maybe he was just cranky about unstacking chairs at 2:30 a.m. Whatever the case, his cacophony was uncalled for and no I did not get any sleep. But I did talk for a long while with a girl who was returning from 9 months in Bilbao about Spain, the strange ways of the Basque country, drinking outdoors, and why exactly we were sitting in a circular booth across from the 24 hour McDonald's in the Dublin airport food court. So it wasn't a total drag.

Now I'm in Brooklyn for one night and one night only to play with my neighbor/friends' new kitten (!!!!!!!!) and eat Artichoke Pizza and then it's off for another epic Lone Star summer. Uncork the Shiner Bock, here I come!

Idolator has had technical difficulties lately and since my first bandom post isn't on the site anymore (hopefully it'll get back on there eventually) Maura sent me the raw text and I'm republishing it here so that it still exists in some form. The formatting is wack, but I'm too impatient to fix it right now.

***

By now it's no secret that the internet is a haven for bored teenagers, music fans, and
individuals with unique proclivities, groups which intersect as often
as not. Online fan-fiction has existed since the early days of the
web, but only in the last few years has a scene so perfectly tailored
to the form seeped into popular culture. Designed to appeal to
introverted, overwrought, sexually frustrated adolescents, the pale
waifs parading around the emo universe--with their snug pants,
same-sex makeout sessions, and penchant for eye makeup--practically
beg to be objectified by horny teens. And one GreatestJournal group,
discovered after putting together our own male-objectification
list, exemplifies the farcical tone and tenor of emo fan-fiction
fandom. It's also a little like watching nature-show rutting if all
the animals were wearing girl's jeans:

The Bandflesh
group is a 40-member collective of emo devotees who write round
robin stories featuring Gerard and MIkey Way of My Chemical Romance,
Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump of Fallout Boy, William Beckett of The
Academy Is..., Brendon Urie of Panic! At the Disco, and many other
musicians associated with the genre. Some of the stories are set in a
strange alternate universe emo high school called St. Danzig's--these
kids are more clever than you give them credit for!--complete with a
prom and a principal (represented by a picture of Samuel L. Jackson).
Others are just good ol' fashioned porn. The most disturbing aspect
has to be the Gerard/Mikey incest angle. (Though to be fair, the
female twin-on-twin fantasy rarely rates a second thought.)

When we dropped in on the action over at St. Danzig's, things were
heating up in the library where
Patrick Stump is trying to study and William Beckett refuses to
lower his erection to a whisper:

WILLIAM: Patrick! *straddles a chair* My wrists are still
chafed from the ropes. Kiss it better?



PATRICK: We're in a public place!



WILLIAM: *bats eyelashes* It's first aid. You can't get in trouble for
just playing doctor, can you?



PATRICK: Uhhhh. I think the first aid you want is not going to be okay
with the librarian.



WILLIAM: We can hide in the reference section. It's the only action it
ever gets.



PATRICK: *is indecisive* Someone is going to catch us...



WILLIAM: No, just leave this situation to my manly charms. Well,
girlish charms...*pokes you* My girlish charms! Appreciate my girlish
charms!



PATRICK: *pokes back* I think I appreciated them many times over
Saturday night. And Sunday morning. And Sunday afternoon. And in the
car on the ride here.



WILLIAM: *grins and pushes you against shelf* My charms never fail! *kisses*



PATRICK: *mock surprise* I thought we were researching! *kisses*



WILLIAM: *giggles* We're researching the sturdiness of the shelving.
It's important work. The lives we save may be our own.



PATRICK: Public service! I can put it on my resume. *wraps hand around
your neck*



WILLIAM: *moans* I love your spirit of volunteerism.

I wonder if Patrick was wearing his fedora at this point?

Meanwhile, out in the hallway Spencer from Panic! At the Disco and Avril
Lavigne are having a heated Election-esque argument about prom
posters.

AVRIL: Don't you "Avril dear," me you fucking FREAK! You
are RIPPING down my posters!

SPENCER: *smirks* I did not lay one solitary finger on your precious
posters, Avril dear.



AVRIL: Fine, whatever, you're having your fucked up friend rip down my
posters. Look, I don't know what your damage is that you want to be
prom queen, but in case you haven't noticed, you're a guy. At least, I
assume you are. I have no proof of it.



SPENCER: *narrows eyes* I don't need to prove anything to you,
darling. My "damage" is that I'd rather Pete's dog be Prom Queen than
a scene queen wannabe with little verve and even less class. And you
had better watch your mouth about Brendon. He's a better person and
much better dresser than you'll ever be.

And back at the Way household things
are getting very inappropriate between brothers Gerard and Mikey
of My Chemical Romance.

MIKEY: *lying curled around Gerard, sticky, sated, and
definitely no longer platonic* *smile* Hi. Did I wake you up?



GERARD: *smiles back* No, you didn't. How did you sleep?



MIKEY: Really, really well...what about you?



GERARD: *hugs you tight* Better than I have in a long time.



GERARD: *inhales deeply* But if you move, I have to let go of you. I
don't like that plan.



MIKEY: *sneaks fingers up to your chest and strokes you* I don't
either. *yawns* I think maybe I should stay right here and touch you
in all the ways I've ever wanted.



GERARD: *shivers pleasantly* I think I like that idea a whole lot
more...*kisses you lightly on the lips*



MIKEY: *grins and kisses you back* *strips your shirt off and runs
hands over your shoulders and chest* Wanted to do this
forever...

And it only gets freakier from there.

It's easy to point and laugh at these kids if we're being honest.
But on some level, you also have to hand it to them: They're having
fun, expressing their freaky urges in a healthy, non-threatening
manner, and writing emo porn that has its own creative flair. Their
round robin is a neat twist on a time-tested format and most of the
writing is surprisingly competent, if not a little trite. On the other
hand, it is fan-fic, which itself is fundamentally creepy, and
this particular brand is especially cringe-worthy due to the emo
factor. But to be fair to this GreatestJournal group, they are not an
isolated unit: A Google search for "Gerard Way fanfic" returns 118,000
hits alone. These emo erotica authors could probably raise an army. A
very emasculated army, but a force to be reckoned with nonetheless. So
think before you snicker too hard, or you might wind up with an
eyeliner pencil to the jugular.

Another semester down. It occurred to me that eventually I'm really going to miss living my life four months at a time.

Between two lit classes this semester I read more novels in the past four months than I have in the past five years. No question about it. My favorite was Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor, obviously.

This is one of the funniest things I've ever read. It's from Joan Didion's essay "The Women's Movement."

"Should she work, she was paid "three to ten times less" than an (always) unqualified man holding the same job, was prevented from attending business lunches because she would be "embarrassed" to appear in public with a man not her husband, and, when she traveled alone, faced a choice between humiliation in a restaurant and "eating a doughnut" in her hotel room.

The half-truths, repeated, authenticated themselves. The bitter fancies assumed their own logic. To ask the obvious-why she did not get herself another gynecologist, another job, why she did not get out of bed and turn off the television set, or why, the most eccentric detail, she stayed in hotels where only doughnuts could be obtained from room service-was to join this argument at its own spooky level, a level which had only the most tenuous and unfortunate relationship to the actual condition of being a woman."

Memorias del subdesarrollo (Memories of Underdevelopment)



I like eeeeet.

I dig these dudes. That video is a little goofy and it's basically propaganda, but interesting nonetheless.

Tonight after a seriously mediocre Miss Marple episode of Mystery, New York PBS showed this:




It's called Posh Nosh and it's the best thing to happen to comedy since Kath & Kim (the original Australian version). Well, and 30 Rock (if you're not watching 30 Rock you've lost your way in this world). Here's the Wikipedia. Here's another funny episode:

I continue to receive wonderful gifts that I love but nonetheless make me wonder about myself and the image I'm projecting. The latest round:

My cousin knitted these amazing booties for me. I truly love them and have been wearing them all day (because I decided not to leave the house or get dressed today in preparation for what's sure to be the most nightmarishly busy semester of my life--I can already feel it sucking me in like a malevolent vacuum cleaner). According to her, I was one of the first people who came to mind when she had an urge to knit booties, which is both sweet and a little disquieting. Actually it doesn't bother me at all; I just like to feign concern in order to maintain a connection to social acceptability--in reality I'm very secure in my role as crazy bootie-wearing cousin.

Now this, I must admit, is a little more genuinely concerning. These are two cards I received--one from Allie, and one from my cousin (it came with the booties)--within a two-day period, both featuring anthropomorphized felines. Not that I don't ask for this (note that both cards are already hanging on my wall), but at this rate I'm already apparently a "cat lady," a distinction typically reserved for the post-40 years. I really only fear the tangential associations of cat ladiness--aloneness, mental decay, the distinct odor of cheap cat litter--but those are enough to put me on edge, to be honest.

In other news, I just completed a winter session as a part of my scheme to blow this popsicle stand a semester early. Unlike most reasonable humans, I took two classes during this very concentrated 2-week session, and it damn near put me in a coma. I'm glad I did it though. I took a sociology class about American cities and learned a lot of scary stats about race and median income and the suburbs. Basically it boils down to the fact that we got some problems in this country. But anyway, I also took Intro to Jewelry, which, TRUST ME, was as challenging in actuality as it is ridiculous-sounding in theory. Turns out that jewelry is really artsy, not to mention extremely difficult to make due to the fact that you're most of the time attempting to cut and bend metal to your will. I gained a tremendous respect for jewelers and just generally people who construct things with their hands. Here is my final, which I was fairly proud of:

The grapes and leaves came from a plastic bag that I got at a liquor store. I cut them out and apoxied them onto brass, which I had to cut and file into the shape of the cutout. And I made the chain, which was incredibly tedious.

My mom told me that she had a dream she was surrounded by kittens who had the face of Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs. Happy inauguration day!