Night Island

Today was better than yesterday, but I'm still staying up too late and sleeping in too late. I woke up around 10 this morning, and I was feeling pretty good until the afternoon. I did what I wasn't supposed to do, which is take a nap around 3 o'clock. I woke up around 10 or 15 minutes before 5. Then, I started to have some stomach pain for no discernible reason.

I decided to go ahead with my daily writing goals, but I'm doing something controversial in counting what I write in my journal entries toward my goals. Sure, it's not fanfic, original fic, or poetry, but journaling is often a recommended tool for writers. It's a way to keep the ball rolling, and I hope to write more fiction/poetry as time goes on. Besides, I will be taking a creative non-fiction class this semester, so this can be practice for that. I feel that just putting any kind of words on the screen is beneficial, and I believe that keeping a journal has helped me find my voice over the years. Fiction, poetry, non-fiction, blogging: it's all one to me.

I finished my stageoffools letter tonight. It still needs tweaking in order to be easy to read, but it's essentially done. This was accompanied by watching the 2016 Russell T. Davies version of A Midsummer Night's Dream because I wanted to refresh myself on the details. That was probably not the best idea as this version had some obvious changes. The most obvious was that ( Spoilers ) This was more of a reinterpretation, but I enjoyed the changes and they made me look at the play in a slightly different way.

The last few days have been eventful and productive, media-wise. I went to see the Welcome to Night Vale live show "Ghost Stories" on Friday night in LA, and it was great. The weather guest was Erin McKeown, who provided the weather for the most recent episode of the podcast. She played that song ("The Queer Gospel") as well as several others. I decided that I really like her music. She has a good voice, but what I really appreciate is the lyrics of her songs. Just that night, she played songs about LGBTQ self-love and acceptance, immigration, and the beauty and wonder of living the creative life.

The show itself... ( Spoilers because it was so good )

On Saturday, I watched the first few episodes of Stranger Things on Netflix. I'm on episode six, and it's really great so far. I wasn't even alive in the majority of the 80s, but it really hits the nostalgia spot. I also watched the Fellowship of the Rings movie for the first time ever and fell in love with it. It was very well done, and it made me fall in love with the story all over again. It's kind of a shame that I didn't see these movies when they originally came out, but I'm trying desperately not to be pop culture illiterate anymore.

Speaking of which, I also watched Moulin Rouge for the first time ever this weekend. I enjoyed it, but I wasn't so convinced by the insta-love. I didn't really connect to the characters as much as I thought I should. On the other hand, I just loved the fact that Kylie Minogue and Placido Domingo were the fairy and the man in the moon respectively. Watching it reminded me a lot of Phantom of the Opera, and I suppose that both musicals have a lot of crossover appeal. I guess that it's partially that same operatic form of storytelling as Moulin Rouge has elements of La Boheme, La Traviata, and Orpheus in the Underworld. Aside from the fact that they both take place in France, they both involve creative types putting on a show and a musical within a musical. One of the characters unexpectedly takes the place of another on stage a la "The Point of No Return." Plus, both musicals begin in the future when all the action is over and done with and tell the story in flashback. Come to think of it, I bet they have a lot in common if I were to sit down and think about it some more.

So, in short, I became less pop culture illiterate this weekend. It's nice not living under a rock for a change.

I also watched Toonami on Satruday evening. I love how it has become a fixture of my week again. Not since the days of Yu Yu Hakusho have I been so eager to catch every episode. I think it'f fitting that Hunter x Hunter is the main reason why since they were both created by Yoshihiro Togashi. I've meant to check out Hunter x Hunter for years, but it's on Toonami now and all of those teenage feelings are coming flooding back. The team dynamics remind me a lot of those from the main cast of YYH. Kurapika is my obvious favorite, and I'm getting all kinds of Kurama flashbacks from him. My second favorite is probably Leorio, but they all have their own charm. Somone once said that if you liked the puzzle-like parts of the Maze Castle arc in YYH, you would also want to check out Hunter x Hunter. I will say that the Hunter Exams are definitely giving me a distinct Maze Castle type vibe.

That pretty much covers everything except my reading and writing habits, but that can wait for another time. I also got a new mattress on Saturday, so that's something too.

Today was an utter waste. Or not. It all depends on how you look at it. I have scarcely gotten out of bed for most of it. Just in case you are looking for a suggestive meaning in that last sentence, it was nothing like that. God, I wish!

So, as I mentioned in my last entry, I went to the movies yesterday to watch Into the Woods. It was a lot of fun. Overall, I'm pleased with the adaptation although I'm not sure if I have listened to the original cast recording all the way through or watched a full performance of the stage version. At any rate, it kept the adult themes and darker elements intact. That is what makes it one of my favorite musicals, and I'm glad that they didn't Disney-fy it. I love Disney, but this story is very much the anti-Disney and the anti-fairytale. The fairytale characters have to grow up and face a world of uncertainty.

Is it wrong that I want fic for this? No, of course not,

As for today, I spent most of it reading and milling about on the Internet. I started Pandora by Anne Rice. Most people would say that I have already read all of the Anne Rice vampire books that matter, but I couldn't stay away. Pandora is one of the most powerful female vampires in her universe, and I wanted to learn more about her. Plus, there is a video of Anne Rice reading from this novel on YouTube that has always intrigued me. I meant to start by simply reading Interview with the Vampire or The Vampire Lestat to see if my viewpoint on those books has changed at all, but Pandora was listed first in the ebook collection that I downloaded, so...

Let me be the first to say that I love the ancient setting of this book. I love antiquity, and maybe that's half the reason that I'm reading the book. Anyway, this book goes farther back than I would have expected. After Pandora is done talking about the joys of writing and David Talbot, she records her life from childhood. I think that Pandora may have been a little too precocious in this section, but it didn't bother me that much. I was surprised to see how far she and Marius go back, too. The passages about her time in Antioch are intriguing as well. I have just gotten to the place where she encounters her youngest brother, Lucius.

I think that's all I care to say for now... Until next time.