December 2021 Update: I'm Going to Make It Through This Year if it Kills Me

[kylaraingress]

December was actually pretty uneventful personally, for the most part. More under the cut.


In the health department, I had my eyes dilated as part of a couple of appointments to see if I have glaucoma. I don't, thankfully. I also got my booster shot. Kate has been having problems with her medications (bureaucracy stuff), which hasn't been fun. She did manage to get her new glasses finally, though. I ordered mine on Christmas day and will be getting them in a week or so.

Work-wise, not much to update. I had been called in for jury duty, but thankfully Los Angeles County lets you check in online and I didn't have to go in at all. Kate's been busy with the union, and had some incidents that I can't talk about that has made her very glad there IS a union for her to rely on.

In projects, we ordered (and mailed out) holiday cards. If you want to be added to my list for next year, just message me and I'll contact you to get your mailing address. I also finally cataloged all our video games into my online library (I use www.libib.com, which has been great). I now have all my books, DVDs, CDs, and games in there. All that's left is Kate's comic collection, which has to wait a bit until we get a couple of new comic boxes.

With writing, I actually was pretty busy for a change. Not only did I finally write up my article covering the Writers & Illustrators of the Future Award, I also wrote up an essay about online safe spaces and fandoms called "Bad Fandom Friend". I did another episode of my podcast, which celebrated 50 episodes and talked about rebranding – and I did. Introducing Contents May Vary, named after my blog. I also started a series of videos on my TikTok titled "FanFic Hotline", which has fun with fanfic tropes (first is 'only one bed', and the second is 'fake dating').

I also supported some local shops in December. Boston Court Pasadena had a garage sale, which got me a couple of books and a fun necklace. We also got our Doubleclicks Velociraptors (which since we got two, we named AFTER the Doubleclicks), and I supported the Crafty Geek Girls by getting a 'Bones' and 'No Bones' Noodle keychain and an AlligatorLoki. We also went by the craft fair at Geeky Teas and got a couple of other things.

I also did a Cameo call with Marc Evan Jackson as a fundraiser for his charity The Detroit Creativity Project, and I got the out of context comment "I thought about you when I went to the bathroom the other day.

Finally, we lost Ann Rice in December, and I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about that. On the one hand, she was such an influence in vampire fiction that it's hard to imagine a world without her. On the other, she also had a negative influence on fanfic (which on the positive means we sort of owe AO3 to her). And then, of course, yesterday, we lost the great Betty White, and I'm still processing that.

Media I've Been Consuming:

Speaking of fanfic, the story I won via Fandom Trumps Hate finally finished. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I didn't do much reading outside of fanfic, for better or for worse.

In television, I've continued re-watching Babylon 5, and finished up Hawkeye. (I still want to know if that's Adam Pascal 'in universe' in the "Rodgers the Musical" clip we got, or if he's 'playing' another Broadway star. <g>) We also started The Book of Boba Fett, which I'm not sure what to think about yet. We also kept up with Doctor Who, and I actually enjoyed the Flux storyline. I'll be sad to see Jodie go. I also finally got around to watching The Night Manager, which I felt was very good (Hugh Laurie is delightfully evil in it), but one of those that I have no desire to ever watch again.

I watched and re-watched a lot of movies in December. I started out with The Power of the Dog, which I've been trying to figure out how to write a review of without spoiling it. I also caught Michael Sheen in Apostle, which felt like a gender-swapped Midsommar. Sheen was obviously having a field day playing a baddie.

For holiday films, we caught 8-Bit Christmas, which was oddly sweet. I also managed to watch Sheen in Last Train to Christmas, which was very good but depressing.

In re-watches, after re-watching Gremlins for the holidays, it inspired me to find online KISS Meets the Phantom (the radio DJ is the same person in both) and BOY HOWDY I forgot how corny that movie is. But still oddly enjoyable. We also re-watched Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street now that it's on HBO. That led us to finally watch Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary, which was interesting from a fandom point of view.

In new movies, I had a chance to watch Spider-Man: No Way Home in a theatre finally, and enjoyed it thoroughly. We ended up just watching The Matrix Resurrections at home (thanks, omicron variant) and I enjoyed primarily for the meta and 4th wall breaking.

 

Finally, I girded my loins and watched Tick, Tick ... Boom!, and it wasn't nearly as depressing as I feared it would be. I LOVED the "Sunday" tribute scene. I also finally got a chance to watch Encanto, and loved (although "We Don't Talk About Bruno" is now on rotate of the earwigs stuck in my head).

Summary
December felt like a good summary of 2021 as a whole. The bad stuff was really bad, but there were little good things that kept me from completely despairing. I hope 2022 gets better.

Until next month, stay geeky!