DIY Loft/Platform bed

Linking this because I plan to do this if my next apartment is a studio apartment, (Link fixed! Whoops!) with some modifications (like more supports, not anchoring it to a wall, and a skirt that goes all the way around to cover the space underneath instead of boxing it in with plywood.)

Also: HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Back again (repost)

Reposting because this didn't crosspost for some reason:

The bronchitis is gone, thankfully, but I have still had sinus issues off and on. There were a few weeks that it seemed like everything was going to be okay, and then I relapsed again last week. This seems to coincide with the times when there is rain or a "cold snap" (i.e. the temperature dips below 90.) I think it is probably allergy-related. I attended a wedding in Austin, TX last Saturday, four hours from where I live.

I carpooled with three other people, and may have passed my ick along to one of them. It was overcast and rainy nearly the whole time - but my sinuses cleared the moment that the sun came out and the temperature rose again.

This happened at the wedding. Several people got a picture of it. Here's mine.



In other news, I'm still listening to David Bowie pretty much nonstop. I still can't believe he's really gone. I never finished my multi-post unpacking of my 22-year Buckaroo Banzai fandom. It would be easier to just write the fic, but there has been one thing that I posted to Tumblr last month:

As much as I love The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, I have a couple of bones to pick with the narrative. I’ve been attempting to unpack some of it over at my livejournal, but for some reason I feel like this goes here. I’ll probably end up crossposting this over there as well. I’m going to be linking like crazy to TV Tropes for examples, so, if you end up clicking and falling into a nine hour TV Tropes hole, I apologize in advance.

So, Buckaroo’s original love interest Peggy was fridged in a narrative that was touched upon in the film, but was further explored as a part of the backstory in the novelization of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension. We meet the down-on-her-luck Penny Priddy, who displays hidden depths as the story as the story progresses. The novel rather anvilliciously implies that Penny is actually a mindwiped Peggy; an arc that was explored to its logical conclusion in both the circa-1986-87 fanzine-only fanfic The Penny Paradox, by Leni Sommer and Peggy Spaulding, and Ernest Cline’s fan sequel script for Buckaroo Banzai Against The World Crime League. The film Across The Eighth Dimension sidesteps this part of the plot altogether. The novel places the responsibility for Peggy’s death (and her new existence as “Penny”) at the door of problematic Fu Manchu expy Hanoi Xan, Buckaroo’s original and ultimate archenemy.

When it was just Peggy being fridged and maybe unfridged just the one time, it was a reflection on how creepily fixated Xan was on controlling Buckaroo’s love life and personal relationships. One is reminded of this scene with the Joker and Lex Luthor from DC comics, below, in regards to Xan’s obsession with B. Banzai in general:

But the Buckaroo Banzai comics which came out circa 2006-2007 went and fridged Penny/Peggy again, turning it into something more like the Cartwright Curse. Which is a shame, considering how much detail was spent on Penny’s characterization in the novel (I know most of you didn’t read the novel, but whatever) and considering how much this kind of thing happens in popular media franchises in general. It also kind of sucks in the face of the erasure of the canon female characters from the film Buckaroo Banzai: Across The Eighth Dimension (Pecos, Big Norse, etc.)

The comics seem to suggest that Xan has a cloning operation where he just keeps churning out identical, expendable Penny/Peggy clones.

The Penny Paradox suggests that Peggy and Penny were actually twin sisters separated at a young age and adopted out to different parents, but that Penny’s actual fate is unknown - though she was presumably removed from the equation a long time ago by Xan.

The thing is, I hate this. I hate the idea of Penny just being a sad sack victim of Xan’s mechanations, and a plot device so Buckaroo has to deal with man!pain.

In the unauthorized extrapolation of The Penny Paradox that I was working on (since there was no actual film sequel, the Paradox WAS my fanon sequel for the longest time, and I can’t unsee it) the idea I was running with is that there’s a narrative we don’t know about, where Penny became this badass who sacrificed herself to save the world. Clues alluding to her heroic story would be found by scattered members of Team Banzai, (the likes of which, when assembled, could have provided fodder for a symphonic metal rock opera by the likes of Nightwish or even Dethklok.) She now exists as a guiding spirit, a vengeful angel not unlike Taarna the Taarakian.

I dunno, this is probably just a lot of Bailey’s-soaked ranting, but I really want to write this now.