I feel like I've gone a bit AWOL.

Still neck-deep in Inception fandom. You know, in case anyone was worried about me or anything. Judy has been away this entire week and I have reveled in having the house to myself, though I've been crazy busy and not been able to properly take advantage of it.

Because of someone's prompts and knowmydark's beautifully brilliant and poignant fills, I've discovered Richard Siken's amazingly intense poetry, like you can hardly bear to stop reading once you've caught a line. I highly recommend all of her fic, but in particular her Siken-esque ones: Crush, Little Beast, and Parentheses All Clicking Shut Behind You.

I'm waiting for Siken's book to be delivered to my house... possibly today. In the meantime, someone on my flist mentioned Josh Lanyon's novels; many (or all?) of which seem to include a gay protagonist. I admit to being curious, so I downloaded a bunch of his Adrien English mysteries and have read the first two in the last two days. The mysteries aren't the most complex or interesting I've ever read, and the second one, A Dangerous Thing, reminded me in some ways of Lanyon's own (self-mocking?) comparison to a Scooby-Doo mystery. There is an element of breaking fourth wall boundaries (which I have an undeniable weakness for) in that Adrien is a mystery writer and often references older mystery series and writers which have influenced his own novels; thinking of parallels in plot and character devices even as he uses them to manipulate the reader. Though it isn't a particularly subtle or layered attempt, so I'm not sure how much a credit this is to his talent. The third book won an award, however, so I suspect he gets better as it goes on.

In any case, what I like in particular is the protagonist, and how Lanyon chooses to write him; what his personality is like, what kind of choices he makes, as a gay guy, etc. I'm sometimes uncomfortably aware that girls writing gay guys in relationships can be a bit skewed, though to some extent people are people and personalities range from everything under the sun and I've never thought one couldn't write the other gender truthfully. I can differentiate between well-written, believable characters and vehicles for porn and/or Mary Sues. Believe me, I can differentiate. Still, I was curious. The books so far have been light, quick reads, but have been quite satisfying and I'd definitely recommend them to slash fandom (though not for anyone solely looking for a difficult mystery).

And now on to something completely different.

TONIGHT. TONIGHT I GO TO ANOTHER RANGERS GAME! So excited! This is my first one in a WHOLE MONTH. (Oh... well, except for the one I went to while in Chicago. But does that count? Because it wasn't the Rangers, it was Chicago vs. St. Louis?) Jesus, you do not even know how addictive it is! For the rest of the season I'm going to two games a month every month except March (and who knows if I'll be able to resist when it comes down to the wire).

Halloween is this weekend! In stark contrast to every other year I haven't really done a whole lot for it. Most everyone is gone or maybe doing something else, there's no Nerd Avengers Halloween Party this year... which is LAME, and I fully blame Maryann and AJ because they agreed to do it, but then they decided to go the rally -- whatever, guys!

But there is the Roller Derby Championship bout on Saturday, so that's awesome! AND I EXPECT THERE TO BE LOTS OF DRINKING AFTERWARDS! \o/

However, since honeymull is visiting on Sunday and she and cathybites may end up going to the parade... I might scrounge up a super-quick costume and go along with them!

/babble

What are YOU doing this weekend?