The Marci Rating System

I've just decided this: I think every fandom (more fandoms? at least more) should have a Steve&Robin relationship.

KEY FEATURES LIST THAT I'VE JUST MADE UP:
*ride or die? YES
*do they love each other? YES
*is it romantic? NO
*is it sexual? NO
*do they hold hands? YES

It probably helps that in Stranger Things fandom, they have to explain this a lot. Yes, they're listed as each other's emergency contact on every form. No, they're not dating. Yes, they date other people. No, that doesn't seem weird to them.

WHY IS THIS SO GREAT?
*please can we have a million more examples in popular media of the vast multitudes of human relationships?

I'm trying to space out the Murderbot Diaries audiobooks to give me time to enjoy the anticipation, so I've been sprinkling in other books in between. And the library very conveniently delivered 'A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet' (by Becky Chambers) from my hold list at the perfect time!

Things that are GREAT about this book:

*I fell asleep almost instantly. Woke up about an hour later, fell back asleep. VERY RESTFUL. (Full disclosure: I was already planning on napping)

So, yeah, the narrator has a very calming voice, I guess? (I just checked the book; it's narrated by Rachel Dulude. Thanks Rachel! That was the nicest nap I've had in a long while.)

Things that make it unlikely that I'll finish this book:

*The loan is for 7 days, and the book is 14 hours long, and I'm not actually planning on napping for 14 hours in the next week. I mean, that might be good for me? But also maybe not.

I've only listened to one Becky Chambers book before (Psalm for the Wild Built), and found it similarly calming, although I'm pretty sure I managed to stay awake for that one. (Different narrator!)

[NOTE: I'm so intrigued by how much the narrator impacts the audiobook experience! In my limited experience of listening, it seems like there are narrators who read the book, and there are narrators who tell the story, and those are way more different than I would have guessed.]

This morning I got an AO3 kudos on a fic from 2009, which I then re-read, and had a delightful time doing so.

(It's fun to see what people feel inclined to kudos, and AO3 has a startling longevity in this time of ephemerality. The internet assures me that is a real word.)

AND the author's note reminded me that back in ye olden days (2009), I thought "you get all your coffee for free" would be a good fic title. AND IT IS, I LIKE IT! I never used it, but there's still time!

Okay, I have ALSO now watched (parts of) X-Men: Dark Phoenix (thanks, starandrea!), and I am ALARMED at their lack of post-mission safety checks. EVERYONE should get a post-mission medical* check**, right?

(*PS: I do not think Hank is that kind of doctor.)

(**PPS: I did laugh that a genetic scan is part of the 'basic' checkup. LOL he probably IS that kind of doctor by that point in movie canon.)

(haven't they ever read comics before? going into space and coming back is a CLASSIC way to wind up with an alien passenger, an alien symbiote, exposure to unknown space radiation, etc, etc, etc)

(STORY TIME: Many years ago, I wound up in the hospital. I was asked again and again if I'd hit my head. Every time I said "no, I didn't hit my head; my head is fine." I had no memory of hitting my head! I was SURE I hadn't hit my head! It wasn't until DAYS LATER, and I was trying to figure out why brushing my hair hurt, that I realized I had a pretty large bump on my head. I DEFINITELY HIT MY HEAD. The shock of the entire experience meant I didn't remember hitting my head, and it genuinely felt fine when they asked (thanks, adrenaline). Luckily I was not in space, so no aliens or space radiation.)

ANYWAY the point is that I am fully supportive of believing people when they say they're fine, but also sometimes they have no idea what they're talking about.

Last night I dreamed about taking a nap in my old college dorm room. And then I woke up and thought about how much of what I remember fondly about college (or at all, honestly) is taking naps in various places around campus. (After two years, I was "lotteried out" of student housing, and after that I commuted, which is why the dorm room napping didn't continue.)

College napping was SUCH a common thing, it was a lucky day to find a chair (or better yet, TWO chairs!) in the library that wasn't already filled with someone sleeping. But those were pre-cellphone times. (Not quite pre-laptop times, but certainly pre-ubiquitous-laptops.) Maybe students spend their napping time online now?

Just some Monday morning ramblings about napping, and my suspicions that whatever school experience exists now would be completely foreign to me, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

*The good thing about a Monday holiday is that everyone else at work ALSO wasn't working yesterday.

*Presumably, much of the day can be excused as "catching up."

*But do I really have to have another progress meeting with my boss, since we just met last Friday???

*lol I have so many things to do today

*so why have I spent the last half hour reading fic?

*truly a mystery for the ages

*also I think I've read this fic before but I can't remember what happens in it

Most of the time I don't remember much about my dreams, and what I do remember is a mishmash of random feelings.

But every once in a while, I have (and remember!) one of those very clear moments while I'm dreaming, when I think something along the lines of 'this dream is making me work really hard, but it's a dream, I don't need to do that! I'm going to go take a nap instead.'

And last night was one of those nights! I was dreaming, and it was daytime, and I was outside with someone, and we were running -- maybe to a store? Grocery store? Mall? The store was also outside, maybe? Anyway, I was absolutely like 'why am I spending my sleeping time doing all this physical exertion? that's counterproductive! let's just find somewhere to sit down and relax.'

And I think that's great advice for the waking hours too!

*Two nights ago I dreamed (and then remembered!) the phrase: "History sees everything. It's what we shine a light on that reflects back." I have no idea what that means. (As these things often do, it seemed very profound in my dream, and considerably less so once I was awake.)

*Earlier this week: very humid, raining, but not hard enough to close the windows, lots of mist and fog, and from somewhere I could hear the 'this is a test of the emergency broadcast system' alert tones echoing. For MUCH longer than I expected. (I had some concern that it was an actual emergency, but the radio was on next to me and wasn't announcing anything, so...?)

*Now it is still extremely humid but also sunny, which is a mixed blessing for sure. (I was thinking this morning that when I say 'it's so hot,' people ask 'well, do you have AC?' As if that solves everything. But in the winter, when I say 'it's so cold,' no one says 'well, do you have heat?')

I've been reading a lot of Stranger Things fic recently, which has led to many humorous web searches like 'what is the range of a walkie talkie' (not very far) and 'is indiana flat' (pretty flat, yeah).

Since I've never watched the show, I remain particularly baffled by the setting -- a town small enough to bike around, that also has a mall and a skate park??? But I guess it also has a semi-secret government lab and portals to a different dimension? IDK, as a coastal resident, I remain suspicious that maybe the midwest is just Like That. (::quickly searches the internet to confirm that Indiana is in the midwest::)

And of course, the show is set in the 1980s, which means I have read so many fantastically inaccurate assumptions about how cassette tapes work, and I love them all.

But also it has made me feel incredibly grateful to have the internet at my fingertips, because I feel so bad for those kids, not being able to look things up instantaneously and privately! Do bats have rabies? They don't know! They're going to have to go to a library and look it up in a book!

(PS: I checked this, because I didn't have to go to a library, and yes, bats can carry rabies. According to the CDC, bats are the leading cause of rabies deaths in the United States. Don't get bitten by a bat!)

APPARENTLY I am missing a lot of workplace drama by not being on linkedin. I've avoided being on the site for years and years, because mostly I would prefer not to be perceived? But yesterday one of my coworkers let me know that a former employee posted something that was PRETTY CLEARLY a callout of the company, and several other former employees had commented on it.

None of which made me want to join the site, but all of which made me curious about the site's value overall. I'm terrible at networking and prefer to avoid it whenever possible (hahaha those things are not unconnected), but I grudgingly accept it is the only way I got hired at any of my jobs. (Maybe not one of them; it's hard to say.)

There is no conclusion. Just a wondering of what people will think of sites like that when they look back in 20 or 50 years.