So a while ago, a friend on Tumblr had this sort of epiphany over Robert Smith, of the Cure. Dude’s pretty iconic if you’re of a certain age and sensibility, and at the age of 64 he is staying pretty true to his aesthetic, and said friend had a whole moment about growing older on your own terms (there’s an essay about this in an issue of FUCKIT), and as I tend to with my friends, I was like, “Awesome. Love the Cure. Love that for you.”
Smash cut to a few weeks ago, when the family settled in to watch the third season of Picard and Vadic showed up.
And I went “Oh. Oh that’s what Karen meant.”
Amanda Plummer, my beloved.
Like, here is this woman looking like she just got out of Crispin Glover’s hair salon, sitting with her feet in her captain’s chair, having the time of her life as she stalks the Titan and just does not deliver lines like she’s on Star Trek, and all I could think was I am at the height of my powers! Like, just how much fun and also how good was she? 66 years old, no vanity, totally weird, completely amazing. Also gorgeous smile.
As a newly-minted Old, she was just the best thing to see. I do feel like I’m at the height of my powers, even if my hair looks terrible at the moment.
What else has been going on? Eh, day job is day jobbing–some upheaval going on there, so I’m now in recovery mode from that. Revisions are being revisioned. Just finished a couple pieces for the next ‘zine. Watched Morbius, which was a mistake on par with watching Spawn, with only the fact that I saw Spawn in the theatre keeping The Morb ahead in the competition.
Is there a fanvid out there that has Matt Smith dancing in his closet to Matt Smith doing “Morning Routine” from the American Psycho musical? Because that should exist.
I’m also attempting to learn Welsh because the eldest BFF is learning three languages like the language nerd he is, and I thought “Surely I can learn one other language!”–conveniently forgetting that I failed Spanish and he’s the one who got me through two years of French. I have to keep reminding myself that I’m not doing this for any goal past I loved Wales when I went there, I think the language is cool af, and if I ever get to go again it might be nice to stumble through a basic conversation and possibly order dinner. (Or tell someone how much I like … ironing?) It’s much more fun without the pressure of grades.
(Scott is getting tired of being called bachgen ofnadwy whenever he annoys me, though.)
Oh, and I finally read My Heart Is a Chainsaw and Don’t Fear the Reaper, both of which I highly recommend if you like horror and/or slasher movies. I’ll be honest, I liked both of them, but I liked the second book better–however, if I’d read it by itself, I don’t think it would have worked as well. Looking forward to the third one in the series.
Other stuff I’ve read recently and really liked:
● Dweller On the Threshold by Skyla Dawn Cameron – did not go where I was expecting, at all. Haunted house story, set during early Covid, and seriously, fuck Greg. There were some bits I didn’t think worked or got tied up like they should have, but the main character is awesome; the plot, again, did not go where I thought it was going; and this was exactly the kind of haunted house story I like. I feel like if you like my haunted houses or enjoyed Sarah Gailey’s Just Like Home, you’d like this one. And if (like Scott) you wanted to like House of Leaves but just could not with the pretention, give this one a try.
● Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White – so this one, I was like, “Okay, two options here for the ending, badass or Divergent-esque” and it totally went with the badass option. Trans rep, autism rep, but this is a post-apocalyptic nightmare scenario, so bad things happen to basically everyone in the book. Read the foreward.
● The Curator by Owen King – I honestly did not expect a lot, but this was really cool. It was a little disappointing in its ending–like, there were a lot of avenues that did not get explored that I felt would have been more interesting–but the worldbuilding and the voice were really great. Reminded me a bit of Clive Barker. And there was one bit that made me think there’s some sort of Stephen King gene that Owen and Joe both got, because gross, dude. Just gross.
Laura E. Price 