The Sunday Currently #2

I am currently...

READING One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I was telling my friend Joyce that Gabo's writing has been especially appealing while I've been writing my thesis. It may be some left-over feelings from reading Love in the Time of Cholera, which was such a pleasant surprise. For years, I'd been under the impression that it was sad and I usually put off sad things. And then Gabo died. So I read it and found that it was funny and loving and epic (but not in an exhausting way). I've also taken Jane Eyre down from its place on my shelf because I keep being led back to it. So, this and that while I climb my mountain.

LISTENING to Casualties of Cool by Casualties of Cool. It's making me feel things. I'll get back to you when I figure out what they are. Also, some Pharrell Williams and Iggy Azalea. There's also been a lot of The Drums in my ears because Jonny Pierce at Wanderland 2014.

WATCHING Showtime's Penny Dreadful. I'm compelled to watch anything featuring Eva Green even if she's just too powerful and unsettling a performer that, sometimes, I want to gouge out my eyes (Episode 2, I'm looking at you). The show itself is breathtaking: gorgeous shots, wonderful actors, jaw-dropping reveals. Plus, all that sex and gore. You can't go wrong. I finished the first season of CW's Reign a couple of weeks ago. I watched it mostly for Adelaide Kane whom I wished there was more of on Teen Wolf. The background history is also very interesting, but that's out the window in this 16th century Gossip Girl. There was one episode in which an instrumental version of Royals by Lorde was playing during a ball. Yes, I know, it obviously needed to be done. Let us be comforted by their small nods to actual historical events (e.g. the wooden splinter fatally lodged in King Henry's eye).

WRITING my thesis. It occupies most of my time these days. Contrary to prevailing belief, I have a desired endpoint in mind. However, things aren't going as smoothly or as quickly as I want and/ or need. It was disconcerting to wake up this morning and realize it's already June when I originally imagined myself defending in May. I guess I'm blogging now out of nowhere to try and calm down and reassure myself that I can write a decent sentence.

THINKING about my thesis. There's a corner of my brain permanently devoted to my unfinished manuscript.

SMELLING chocolate. I just obliterated a bar of hazelnut milk schokolade. I am reminded of the scene in X-Men: First Class where Kevin Bacon's Sebastian Shaw offers some to the young Erik Lehnsherr before threatening to shoot his mother. (Hey, have you seen Days of Future Past? More McFassy, I say. Also, was it really about Mystique? Or JLaw? Haha.)

WISHING I wasn't so distractible.

WANTING to finish my thesis. To write faster. To take more photos. To save more. To read more.

HOPING I get through June without buying a book. I'm on a book-buying moratorium (again) this month to minimize expenses. It's evolved into a sort of bet with friends at work. If I cave, I have to buy them grilled burgers for lunch. If I manage to control myself for a month, they buy me, well, a book. I don't know how this is going to work, you guys. Instant Gratification is my middle name.

LOVING iOS photography apps. I recently rejoined Instagram, mostly to take pictures of books and Dog, but I've been having a blast with camera and post-editing apps. I also inherited a sweet little Lumix so we'll see how that goes. These beautiful things have been soothing in this generally trying time.

WEARING my headset. Trying to cultivate peace in my otherwise unstable headspace.

NEEDING to get my shit together.

FEELING good about this week.

The Sunday Currently is a weekly series hosted by Lauren at siddathornton. Write your own post (because lists are therapeutic) and link back at siddathornton to keep the love flowing. Have a fantastic week, wombats.

Going Green

I think Eva Green is wonderful. The woman is stunning; it's a challenge not to gape. Her large, blue eyes radiate a depth that is frightening. They can burn holes into your soul. Eva is strange and intelligent, deliciously complicated. She is indifferent to her celebrity and thinks all directors should go to drama school.


Eva has taken on a range of fearless roles, from a liberated young woman in The Dreamers to a beguiling desert princess in Kingdom of Heaven. As Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale, she makes James Bond fall in love and ruins him. In her new film Cracks, she plays a beautiful but obsessive teacher at an English boarding school for girls. In this video interview, she talks about her fascination with unbalanced people and how "it was interesting to explore the darkness." My kind of woman.

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I know I should have good reasons for having been away for a little over a month. I could say I lost my fingers to gangrene having survived a horrible refrigerator-cleaning mishap. Just so I'll look cool, I could say that my absence has been due to a pursuit of Mentat-level knowledge. Or...I could say that my mind has weathered down due to misuse and depression (which wouldn't be a very good reason at all). These reasons won't suffice...because (here, we sense a transformation) they would just be excuses. This won't be long. I prefer it to be painless. These days, I tend to get emotional if too long into something. My constitution has weakened over the past month.

Classes are fine, sure, but I have a nagging suspicion that I'm not actually growing (if I may employ such a physical word). Everyone around me seems to have left me in the dust. I look around and everyone is so purposeful. It's not like I'm not trying to do something useful. But I just can't get myself un-stuck. Call me crazy, but I suspect something magical is at play: I think we have a Procrastinator somewhere in the house.

In Terry Pratchett's Discworld, there is an order called the Monks of History. Basically, they're in the time business. They have a temple at Clay Lane in the city Ankh-Morpork. Inside are huge Procrastinators described by the monk Sweeper as "the ones that look like your granny's mangle." They take back time at the same rate it moves forward. Time, then, (kind of) stops in that general area. There can be no other explanation for my present inert state. I'm not usually this stationary.

Now, since I haven't seen anything around the house resembling anything my granny might use to press-dry her laundry, I conclude that my Procrastinator must be disguised. It could be the old Sony DVD player that won't play anything. Or the working DVD player, for that matter. It whirs too loudly for its own good. Or it could be one of the TVs. They look like they've been around for a while. Or that ancient maroon bean bag we just can't get rid off. On a side note, we think (and hope sincerely we are wrong) that a mouse has managed to infiltrate said bean bag and made it its home. Must find that Procrastinator. The cycle must be broken! O_o

I saw Casino Royale the other night and have developed an insane girl crush on Eva Green. I might say the same for Daniel Craig but I'm not sure where my girly tendencies might take me if I admit to such things. So I'll play it safe and go for Eva Green, and we can all assume I want to be her...and have that cute twitchy thing she does with her mouth when she talks. I wonder if it's because she was working an English accent in the movie. I didn't notice it in the Dreamers. She looked beautiful underwater, her hair swirling about her in a most merperson kind of way. Ethereal, Nicole said. Her appearance in the Golden Compass should be fulfilling. Her hair swirled around her a lot in the trailer too. Yey. I should also mention that we think Vorenus on Rome looks just like Daniel Craig. I think it's the pouty lips. And also, says Nicole, it should be noted that Brutus was M's personal assistant.

I have been so out of the blogging loop that when I clicked on The Philosophical Bastard, I had to register. It was very professional. There were also a lot of feeds about Malu Fernandez. In my best Dean Winchester voice "That Malu chick...whatta bitch!" The thing about communication, is that even when you say you're sorry and resign, things already said or written have already been heard or read. As usual, Poli delivered with his Havaianas-Spartan peys op. Because only Pinoys give birth to real slippers. Haha. It was also interesting to find out that a fat ginger cat moonlights for Fruity. Lei and Maika had better start writing again. I thought we were supposed to conquer the blogosphere?

Poetry, poetry. My words come out in verses and well-timed syllables. Haah. Right. Link love for poets. Check out laizo, casidhe, and frankie on deviantart.

Must go and study now. Be back soon. I hope.

P.S. If you want to see something pretty, go to a National Bookstore, head to the science fiction shelves and survey the complete set of Frank Herbert's Dune. Yeah, I said survey, because that's what I did in my impoverished state. But if you can buy them, what the hell, do it! This restocking is a heartening development. The release of Hunters of Dune has rekindled the passion for the earlier books. Let's all put on a stillsuit and go home to Dune.