Cleolinda everywhere

Just a teensy bit of linkspam, because I'm going to try to get that fourth True Blood recap done:

Days of Our Lives & Passions headwriter, James E. Reilly has passed away at the age of 60; The Creator of The Best TV Show Ever, 'Passions,' Has Died. Please refer to our discussion here if you're unacquainted with the wonderful madness that is (was) Passions. ("In 2002, Julian and Timmy [the Talking Ventriloquist Doll] set out on a journey in the magical land of Oz as Theresa was 'executed' for Julian's 'murder' "; "Passions also broke new ground in 2007 with its portrayal of Vincent as a hermaphrodite who becomes pregnant with his own father's son." This is not even to speak of the Salem Stalker/Crazy Love Cage Jan storyline on Days that I recapped for a few months there.)

Neal Hefti, Composer, Is Dead at 85; 'Batman' TV theme composer dies.

Gale Harold of 'Desperate Housewives' injured in motorcycle accident; 'Desperate Housewives' Star Seriously Injured.

Madonna + Ritchie Confirm Divorce; Madonna And Ritchie Face 'Biggest Ever Showbiz Divorce.'

The EW Star Trek cover, on which you finally get to see Zachary Quinto in full Spock makeup. Oh, and also the dude playing Kirk.

ETA: Pete is home from the vet--pitiful but okay.

ETA 2, from bella_stella78: We have sparkling! Or we will, by the time the effects are put in! Y'all, I am gonna get thrown out of this theater.

Dammit! My Fiction Press account got eaten! Probably because I never used it! Oh well. I was kind of antsy about having unpublished stuff online anyway. The only thing I wasn't sure I'd backed up was "The Two Tickets," and my Google-fu unearthed a backup here on my journal.

Anyway. I'm doing sort of a dual project at the moment--setting up the Cleoland wiki and going back and tagging all the LJ entries I was either too lazy to tag or that I wrote before the tagging system was in place. Given that there are at this moment 1700+ entries, this is kind of a daunting task, but I think it'll be fun. And yes, it's something I have to do myself (because, technically, I could allow other people to tag my own entries), because if nothing else I need to go through and skim the entries for things to put in the wiki--and also to make sure there's nothing public that should, on second thought, be made private. Actually, I was able to unlock an entry about family drama that probably needed to be locked at the time, but was written so vaguely that it's almost meaningless three years later, and can be enjoyed just for the lines

I want to put a sign on my door that has the Swiss flag on it and, in 18 languages,

Vendez-vous la folie ailleurs; nous avons suffisament ici-là.

Vende ústed la locura en otro sitio; aquí ya tenemos demasiado.

GO SELL CRAZY SOMEWHERE ELSE, WE'RE ALL STOCKED UP HERE.

The wiki, meanwhile, is going well. I just like setting up wikis, really. But I'm also starting to look at it as kind of a three-dimensional memoir; I can write about specific things at length and connect them to other ideas in a way that you just couldn't in a linear book. Which is simply to say, the wiki doesn't exist because I feel that I'm so important that there are things you're just burning to know. It's there because, as I mentioned yesterday, I wanted a place where I could link to an explanation of "Bad Cat" or "Potterdämmerung" or even various abbreviations that people wonder about ("IIRC," for example), and then secondly, a place where I can write about things for my own benefit.

(I've also gone through and written up annotations for some of the m15ms. That was fun.)

Meanwhile, I'm also finding old things I'd written and... well, mostly it's humbling, because a lot of my entries aren't very good. A lot of them have a manic, trying-too-hard quality (which isn't limited to the distant past, either), but c'est la vie. On the other hand, I'm finding things like The Most Awesome Thing That Ever Happened on Passions, which makes it all worthwhile.

( Linkspam )

Let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Quinlan, who is awesome. He's Irish, and used to be a monk, but now he's married and has kid(s? not sure), and got his degree in Southern literature, and just emailed me back and said he'd give me the handout and let me turn the Heaney two-pager in next Monday, because he is awesome. Just so you know.

Although I still don't understand how we're on "Day 11" on the syllabus and not "Day 10" (see where the lack of dates was confusing me?).

So now, because Dr. Quinlan is awesome--holy shit, why are Sheridan and Luis in a Hansel and Gretel fantasy sequence with Beth as the witch... from the Wizard of Oz? Seriously, how much money did they splash out on that? Sorry, watching Passions--I get to catch up on my sleep, since I lay bolt awake staring at the ceiling until four o'clock last night, and I get to update the Digest, and I get a head start on the Larkin packet for Wednesday (which I just have to turn in--the presentation is for the next week), and I have a week to figure out what the hell some of those Heaney poems were about. They're not all as straightforward as "Digging," it appears. Did I mention Dr. Quinlan is awesome? Because he is.

Crap, I keep almost-forgetting: I have to register for spring classes online at 3pm. It's no big, except that I have to hit the "register" button at the stroke of three to get into some of these--thank God I'm a grad. Of course, if I didn't, I'd just go around and beg professors and get sigs until I did, and fortunately since I know both the workshop professors this time, we won't have a repeat of the unfortunate incident that began the semester ("I'm sorry, if you haven't had the previous class, you're not qualified. Get out." Suffice it to say the professor wasn't aware of the different requirements for grad students, and I ended up getting an email of apology).

(Dude, they're back to the Hansel and Gretel fantasy. This is too trippy, even for Passions.)

Speaking of Hansel and Gretel, here's what I'm taking: Fiction Writing Workshop (again), with the same professor as this time; Children's Literature Workshop, with my poetry professor; and some 600-level seminar to knock out another requirement. You know, I haven't taken much American lit; maybe I'll take that seminar. I could take Beowulf (I hear Vladimir screaming at me from another continent right now, TAKE IT! TAKE IT!!!), but then I'd have two 2-1/2 hour classes in one night, and--no. I'm getting my creative writing MA, in case you can't tell. Not that this is terribly marketable, but I was a Spanish major/French minor in undergrad, which was lovely and gave me a nice linguistics background, and I still do a little Spanish translating for my stepfather's company here and there, but by the time I was done I was determined to get a degree in something I actually wanted to do.

(How can Hansel and Gretel have a baby? Aren't they siblings? And how much did it cost Passions to get rip-off Wizard of Oz music? And why does the Beth actress have Meg Ryan fish lips--heeeee, Beth's mother is a giant chicken. That's awesome.)

So. Ought to get to work, then. Extreeemely anxious about my Black Ribbon workshop tomorrow night, because they're going to hate it. When I workshopped the first chapter, half the class was vocal (they mostly liked it, but had constructive things to point out, things they didn't understand and needed clarified, etc.), but the other half just stared sullenly. Not looking forward to Workshop 2: Electric Boogaloo. And my poor Lucky Dog is getting multiple lime baths today for his fungus. Poor baby. I miss my dog.

Reposted from my old Easyjournal:

Hi, my name is Cleo, and my sister got me hooked on Passions.

(“Hiiiiiii, Cleeeeeeeo!”)

I want Theresa and Ethan to get together so bad I can taste it—mostly because then THERESA WILL SHUT THE HELL UP and I will never have to listen to her whine again. Someone who’s taken a logic class will have to tell me what this gambit is called, because it’s both infuriating and brilliant: ( But Ethan, you love ME! )