East Coast Gazette

Why do you keep playing DANGER ZONE AT ME?  GOD.  WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU?

Last season, House and I had a somewhat rocky relationship — by which I mean, it slapped me in the face with its cock. A lot. And after a long, long time trying to get over Officer Date Anal Rape and all the associated shenaniganry therein, I was back to way totally psyched to see the new episodes.

Under the cut are the following:

(1) Spoilers for the season premiere.
(2) A bajillion images. You’ve been warned.

(more…)

House?  You win.  Seriously.  I just — win.  Lots of win.  Will be elaborated on at a later date, also known as “probably tomorrow.”  You are my emotionally and somewhat physically abusive rich husband who sleeps around a lot, but God damn do you hit me good.

Eureka?  Not as impressed, even though I could hear psychic screams re: Michael Shanks’ guest appearance all the way from New York.  You can’t let House beat you.  House beats everybody, especially its wife (read: me), so I have to like you more.  You’re the strapping, unaware and sexually alluring (yet innocent) pool boy who scoops my leaves, and who always wishes I’d leave my husband and stop drinking so much.  You think I’m pretty, and like that I read books, etc. etc.

Bones?  ILU!!!! You are my one true friend in this deathtrap, and we do pilates and talk about wanting to bang my pool boy together.  Oh, and David Boreanez is so adorable in you, and even more adorable in conjunction with Bones — so adorable that I spent most of the episode making this noise: SQUEEEEEEAK.  Also, I loved the moment where Bones finally confronts Booth about how he could have kept Zac from going and — okay okay, I’ll write it up tomorrow.  Fine.

Last but not least:

NCIS?  I really hate Jenny Sheppard.  I also feel really bad for Jean since, and I am not even joking here, for most of the latter half of season four the only bearable plotlines on the show, for me, were the ones about Tony and Jean’s relationship.  I wanted them to have unnaturally attractive children together — and okay, come on.  I loved the twist about DiNardo.  You know you didn’t see it coming, either.  In conclusion: will write big OMG treatise soon.

(Oh, and today at work?  I started to write something called “How Jane Sheppard Got Her Groove Back.”  I think it’s officially time to hate myself.)

It’s a strange thing that I’m only a voracious reader when I’m in New York — there’s something about the subway and me that synergizes into this perfect reading robot, when normally I get distracted like a fat kid with the worst case of ADHD after only a few minutes.  (Maybe it’s like that thing with babies only being able to sleep when being rocked, or something.)  Whatever it is, I’ve read more in the last three weeks than I have in almost four months.

Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, by Mary Roach has been on my reading list pretty much since I realized that such a book existed, and each curosory glance I took at the local Borders only made me want this book more.  If you’re morbid, or just fascinated, or at all scared of death or curious about the ever after (if in fact there is one), I highly recommend you read this: Roach is approachable and funny and manages, amazingly, in a book about death and what if anything lies beyond, to never at all be dour or depressing.  I burned through this book over the course of three days, and although it started to drag a bit in the middle — Roach is clearly far more fascinated with ectoplasma than anybody should be — it picks up again in the end.  She writes about the science of the afterlife, and she’s just as amused by words like derierre and nasty sex trivia as you are — it reads like a conversation with a friend, and those are my favorite nonfiction books.

A book that seemed like it was going to be awesome but clearly thought way too much of itself was Everything Bad Is Good For You, by Steven Johnson.  The thesis of the book — that pop culture is actually making us smarter, if not better people — is lucid, and well-articulated…over, and over, and over again.  For an author appealing that pop culture has made us into fast integrators of information, he writes for the lurching dinosaur.  I wanted to like it, a lot, I really really did — but I packed it in around page 74.  Thumbs down for excellent idea and bad execution.

Meanwhile, I got home 40 minutes late today because, on my way home from work, I swung past the 58th St. branch library and picked up my reserved copy of Born to Rock, by my one true love, Gordon Korman, and started to read it on the 6 train going toward Union Square.  It’s a story about a Young Republican (serious) who finds out, just as he’s about to head off to college (sort of), that  his father is a thrasher punk legend and that he was conceived in a night of alcoholic, drug-addled passion by his puzzle-working mom.  Oh, and it starts with him getting a cavity search.  I almost missed getting off at Union Square (I was at page 25 at that point); and then I did miss getting off at my stop on the L, because by the time I looked up (page 75), I was already like, in Pennsylvania or something.  And because I didn’t learn my lesson, I read it walking to the train in reverse, and managed to get on the wrong one again.  At this point (page 113), I was tired, sweaty, feeling stupid, but too gleeful over the pure, unbridled awesome that is this book to do anything but enjoy the extra time in the train to do some more reading.  Guys, I’m halfway through this book — it’s been in my possession less than three hours.  For those of you who tired of his mass market paperback action series for the last decade, I can confidently say: Korman is back.  And oh my God, is it ambrosial.

At my new roommate’s recommendation, I’m watching Six Feet Under, which, by the way, I am totally loving.  And then I got to the part where David is talking to his ex-fiancee, and she asks, “Are you happy now?” and he says, “Well.  I’m still me,” and I thought, “Oh holy fucking Jesus, I refuse to share a life with David.”  That aside, I’m totally in love with the show so far.

Oh, and anybody who knows of any good David/Keith fanfiction — please feel free to let me know.

As predicted, I felt better Wednesday morning, and then I felt even better after I watched the latest episode of Eureka (wherein my suspicion that Fargo kind of has a man-crush on Jack grows and watching Stark watch chicks fight over Carter made me make squeaky, choking noises) and then of course today, Fleshbot gave me this beautiful, beautiful thing: Kal-El, at Rentboy.com.  Somewhere out there, Lex Luthor just had an orgasm and he doesn’t even know why.

And, because I feel bad because it’s been, roughly, a geologic era since I wrote anything, snapshots from WIPs upcoming, in the following order:

• Lustrous, because you guys dig the vagina John.
• Shift, because I love SG-9
• White Wedding, because Naruto + Gaara = OTP.  Fuck Sasu-GAY anyway.  (more…)

I feel like I’m doing it all wrong, like I’m messing everything up. I’ve been going in to work at 7:30 a.m. and feeling too tired to do much but pick at my YA novel and a few stories in progress, and I feel like a shitty friend (I don’t call anybody — anybody), and a shitty writer (note how I said ‘pick at,’ not ‘write in’), and a shitty person in general (I keep feeling like I’m being a bitch to my parents; they don’t seem to notice it and it might just be paranoia). Like, I’m trying to make this job work, but I get this weird, freaked-out sense that I’m losing touch with the stuff that’s actually important to me: I haven’t been cooking, I haven’t been writing, I’m not even gossiping or saying things like, “bitch please” while on the phone with people I love, a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Oh, and also, foolishly, I looked up my so called “ideal weight” online today and it’s uh…close to 25 lbs less than I currently weigh. (Now, don’t get me wrong, I could lose 5-10 lbs, but I keep glancing in the mirror and thinking I might look weird if I lose 25.) It’s probably just Tuesday night panic. I’m sure everything will look less dire tomorrow.

So I finally caught up with all my Eureka watching — SQUEE!  I love this show, so much, so so much — and guys, I’m starting to get a little bit freaked out.  I mean, is it just me, or could a good (and growing) case be made for both Jack/Henry AND Jack/Nathan?  I’m only saying this because Jack kind of loves Henry in this wonderful, sweet way and Henry clearly loves JACK even though he’s all messed up in the head about it and then there’s NATHAN who clearly wants to slap Jack around a little bit but then kiss his bruises all better and GUYS IT IS RUINING MY LIFE OKAY?  EUREKA WAS MY NON-SHIP SHOW.

For it is almost that time again — yes, that sacred time — the time for the French rugby team to get super naked and hot for you and me.  Those are sneak peaks, first exclusives.  Please, no need to thank me for pointing this out — what is my addictive reading of Fleshbot for if not to look of naked, hot European dudes being homoerotic with each other.  (To the people who are, inevitably, going to Photoshop John and Rodney’s heads onto these guys, I say in advance: I HATE YOU.)

I read a lot.  Sometimes it’s fanfiction, other times it’s mainstream published books — nonfiction of any kind, trashy fiction of all kinds — and yesterday, I picked up a copy of Jemima J by Jane Green, which told me it was an international bestseller, and has appeared on many bookshelves owned by friends and acquaintances.  To those who own this book, I implore: Sweet Jesus WHY?

I’m on page 264, which means I’ve already read 263 appallingly-poorly written pages, and it causes me physical pain to recount the tragic love scene that was in it — winning, despite the mountains of bad slash I’ve read — the worst smut scene in the world award.  Thomas Wolf and Charlotte Simmons have nothing on this “mmmmmm goooooooood” bullshit.  I mean, for real?  Why the fuck did this book SELL?  I’m not even going to get into the wretch-horrible plot, how losing 80 lbs doesn’t just make you beautiful, it makes you mistaken for a movie star everywhere you go, with producers introducing themselves to you randomly at airports.

Look, I love trashy look stories as much as anyone, and never let it be said that I’m not a romantic: I love happy endings, I love when people are beautiful and redeemed and get to slap their enemies in the face, but OH MY GOD.  I LOVE IT EVEN MORE WHEN IT’S NOT SHITTILY WRITTEN.