Wayback Exchange

Almost a month since my last entry. So what's been going on?

Office move - my org started modernising our main building 18 months ago - they did 1st & 3rd floors. Now it's time for 2nd and 4th. We were supposed to be in our temporary space by 1 April LOOOOOOOL. Needless to say we packed all our shit, it was moved to new office space, but sign off on us occupying said space was delayed until Monday. So I'm behind with a lot of stuff as the things I needed to DO THINGS were inaccessible in the new space and then there was Easter.

Wales - I decamped to the cottage for Easter - and yes I did say to ravurian "Would-you-come-to-my-cottage-this-Easter" IYKYK. Lovely time was had - we chilled out, ate good food and visited some artists studios and bought more art which neithervof us has enough wall space to display. The solo drive up was long (traffic and road works) and took around 8 hours but the cats behaved. While away I watched Heated Rivalry (again - I'm well into double figures now in the space of 6 weeks), spent an afternoon and evening watching the EmptyNetters reaction podcasts which were delightful, especially the last live reaction pod followed by a summary. Watching 3 straight dudes talk themselves into the middle of the Kinsey scale was awesome. I read about 1 million words of fic (30,000+ Heated Rivalry fics on A03 and increasing at around 2k per week) and the quality of what I've read/am reading is astonishing. Also slept for 9 hours a night. The drive home was much better than the drive up.

Gigs and exhibition- Christian Kane was over for a con last weekend - didn't go 'cos they'd sold out of the good tix and not really convenient timing for my friends and I. But he played a gig last Thursday at the O2 Islington which was very well attended so off we went to that instead - which was a lot of fun and a reminder that I do like live music. Getting home turned into a bit of an adventure as it wasn't clear that Angel tube closed at 10pm for track repairs. Next day we met up for lunch (Wagamama in Battersea), a quick look around the Power Station development and shops and then we hit up the Rameses exhibition - which was good. Spent a couple of hours there - took loads of pics of the Egyptian jewellery. Then coffee and cake before we all headed home. Two days of socialing left me wrecked for the weekend though so all I did was nap and read.

Work - is pants - too much to do, not enough time or support so I'm pulling some very long days in the hope that it will give me some breathing space in May. Ha!

Heated Rivalry - yep still way down THAT particular rabbit hole. A lot of the fandom is happening on Threads and I'm there on two group chats (where the squee seems to live) as the people I know are either over it, not interested in the wider fandom (disappointed face) or have not seen it - though I'm working on an office colleague. I forgot how much fun it can be to be in a very active fandom with new filming on the horizon, and a new set of episodes coming and with a cast who are involved in lots of new projects too. I thought I was done with writing until last week when that muscle twitched again. Also the last 10 days have been a TIME to be in the fandom. With the leads stratospheric rise not only is there new TV to anticipate but all the other stuff. Connor's Verizon ad dropped, then Hunter's Laufrey music vid and Hunter's Peleton ad, Rachel and Jacob's panel at the bookcon, Connor's Tiffany dinner/campaign, a ridiculous amount of stunningly artistic photos of various cast members surfacing and then finally the show was announced as a Peabody winner today.

The fandom lost its mind.

The majority of posts have been a collective version of "I am ded, you have killed me", super thirsty posts about the ridiculous amount of new stuff realeased which absolutely shows smart brands and smart boys taking a massive punt at toxic masculinity and leaning knowingly hard into what they are selling, intermingled with detailed media literate analyseis of the books/TV series - so much content on Thread/Insta for that, rabid speculation about S2 and a potential S3 and what other projects are being announced. And then there's more fanfivs, edits, new fic and on and on.

Considering the rest of the world/news is depressingly fucking awful all day/every day and I seriously don't think we'll make it as a society through the next decade it's pretty much saving my sanity to get home in the evening a dive into HR and try to forget everything else for a few hours.

And on that joyful note I'm off to watch a couple of fanvids and see if either of the three huge WIPs I'm reading has dropped a new chapter!

How you are doing?